Category Archives: Inspiration

Last month

Ok, so last month was pretty shitty when it came to output, compared to June.  June I wrote consistently in my journal and on 800 Words, a lot.

July I put out 8000 words on 800 words, compared to June when it was just over 10K.  Being that I can do a novel in a month, I know that I can do better than this.

So, a new month, and as punishment, I’m not getting a fresh notebook, but using June’s.  I haven’t even got halfway through it, so nah-nah, you’re not getting a new one.

A new month, and I need, NEED to write 800 words a day.  How hard is it?

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I read Stephen King’s short story in Esquire.  It was short.  In my opinion, it was a character exploration, not unlike what I do on 800 Words when it comes to writing up a new character.  Hell, he went into things that I didn’t care about with this character, and the end – he just dropped him at the curb.  Literally.

Call me old fashioned, but I was waiting for the end.  Something happened to change the man’s life, and he did nothing.  Where’s the story there?  What am I missing?

Of course, this is Stephen King, the man with the golden, bloody pen, and anything the man writes is considered pearls of heaven (or hell, as the case may be).  In my mind, he’s getting lazy.  His books still sell, his name still causes people to swoon, but if this is the best he can do, then God help me, even I can do better.

That’s always been the fire in my belly, “I can do better than you, published idiot.”  Same thing with the last book I read, Daywalker.  What a horrid book.  But I kept reading it because I said, “It can’t get any worse – oh, yes it did.  No, it can’t be any worse – oh, no, it is.”  The writer is local.  I’d love to go to his house and say, “Dude.  Dude, this book sucked.  But the world you created…man, it’s awesome.”

I might do some fan fiction.  Hee hee.  Take his Railwalkers and work it up a few notches.

I’m rewriting Grim, and it’s going so far off the beaten path that I’m not sure what I’m doing anymore.  It’s not staying in lane.  It’s like I’m writing it from scratch again, and it’s irritating the piss out of me, because I’m never going to get it done.  It’s a YA with swear words, and maybe sex once I get him together with someone.  Can I get away with that?

Just write the thing and pigeonhole it later.

Well, there goes my break.  I’m going to write more.  Somebody hold my feet to the fire.

I can’t write garbage.

Vacation.

I look at my characters, and I want to write stories on each one of them.  However I also want to write fan fiction of the novel I’m reading (it’s pretty badly written, to tell you the truth, but I like the world it takes place in).  So, you know what I hate?  Badly written stories when I know I can write better than that, so why the hell is my book not among the ones that are put out for sale by Amazon?  I will admit Grim’s story needed polishing and consolidating.  Still does.

I want to write, the muse is there, but I can’t think of things.  I have the car running and full of gas, but no destination.  I don’t like going ambling when it comes to writing.  I have fans.  People who read this for a reason.

I can’t write garbage.

I can’t write stories about people that nobody cares about.

I can’t write stories with no conflict.

Who am I kidding?  I should just write it, preface it with “So this is what the characters that I’m not playing are doing…”

Yeah.  Maybe I’ll do that.

The Marathon

Fourth of July.  Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

My plan: I’ll do about 8 hours’ of work during those 3 days, and then…I’m going to write.

I’m going to write my 3 pages required per day.  I’ll work 4 hours a day.  Then the other 4-6 hours, my plan is to write.

I’m going to tackle Grim’s rewrite again.  Tam I’m going to put aside.  I read a couple of books and got a couple of good ideas for Tam, but I’m not going to use them just yet.

Grim is more my speed – it’s a linear story, not introducing side stories in between.

We’ll see if I can go 10K words this weekend.

 

Partnerships

The great thing about writing in tandem with other people is that you can bounce ideas off of each other, and give each other ideas to work with.

I love the three guys I’m RPG’ing with.  They’re all fans of my page of work, and they read the stories there.  I try to keep close to their characters, and they feel honored, I think, when they see their characters being used in a story of mine.  I know I felt that way when I read one of the guys who used Grim in his stories.

But, alas, he no longer writes.  I hardly see him play, too.  Because of that, my character has limited action with his character because I don’t know his character well enough and I don’t think I could portray his voice correctly.

However, the other characters’ storylines…epic.  Truly epic stuff.

I really want to write out Mal and Knight’s story because that is truly romantic and epic at the same time.  Their stuff could go on for years, and many books.

Grim, of course, is dear to my heart, and his interactions with Scott are priceless.

Tamerlane is a single character.  He’s on his own right now and told in the first person.  Maybe that’ll change.

1574 words yesterday.  I cheated.  I did a lot of it at work.

One second of your life

Could one second a day change your life? Here’s how!
via Time to Write by j4london@aol.com (Jurgen Wolff) on 12/10/12

…

Or, the idea I like best:

* At the end of each day, write one or two sentences about the most interesting thing you did that day, or the most interesting thought you had, or the most interesting thing you heard or read.

For writers, this could become a great source of ideas as well, and it means you’ll write at least a line or two even on days that you don’t have time for a proper writing session.

I suggest you get a nice notebook or datebook or even a calendar to use.

 

I did this last year, and found it to be not just a great way of keeping a diary, but also a place to put ideas and quick notations on the day.  I found that a full page-a-day was too large, and instead got a weekly/monthly calendar, and that was perfect.

All it takes if a few seconds a day to sum up your day, or something that you saw, or the germ of a story idea, and write it down.  You can also put it in your smartphone’s calendar.

I can do better than that!

I have just finished listening to a book, and if it wasn’t on Audible I would have thrown it across the room.  It was horrible!  When I finished, I knew that I could write better than this guy.  And I actually have written a better novel than this one, set in the same time period with the same idea…but I know I did it a lot better.

Many times, that is my inspiration: the knowledge that I could do better than the published author.  It really is more luck than skill these days.  I could write a perfect 25 pages, stupendous cover letter, believable characters and story and everything grammatically correct – except it hits the wrong editor, time after time after time.

I’ve sent Grim out to four agents thus far, and gotten rejections.  I’m assuming I’m hitting the wrong agent.

I am tempted to pull Grim off Kindle, change it to a more adult-oriented story (not gay EroRom) and sell it to that group instead of making it a YA coming-of-age story.  It does need a good reader, and I do need someone to read it through once and get feedback.

I believe I will take the piece I started writing on Literotica and create an EroRom book for it.  The muse has given me many ideas for Tamerlane and Roger, how they work together to solve oddball crimes.  However not every scene has hot and heavy sex in it.

In the meantime, I am working on the first draft of Grim 3, the last in the trilogy, though debating on whether or not to have a happy ending.  I am also still revising Book 2; my date to have it out is September 9, 2012.

Inspiration

I hope to write a blog every week, for Saturday or Monday consumption, about what I think about writing, the writing life, or even, very simply, a writing prompt or an opinion on what are important items every writer should have.

This week I was away for vacation, and amazingly enough, the muses were quiet.  No story ideas.  No need to write anything.  Because I was in a place that stimulated me constantly, and did not let up.  In fact, this place gave me no chance, no room to breathe.

I was fed, constantly, with creativity, creative minds, so called Imagineers (now you know where I went) – and I was overwhelmed.  My muses were overwhelmed as well.

This made me realize that I write best when I’m bored.  When I have little to no stimulation, my mind goes wild, and stories just happen.  The most creative things I did was photography and updates on my status page on my personal page on Facebook.

When do you write best?  When you’re stimulated visually or when you’re bored – or when you’re poked and prodded?