Tag Archives: creativity

Accepting small failures, and moving on

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts, Posts of a Rant-like Nature

Or “I’ll admit I’m not some sort of superhero, even if I’m an infallible, god-like being who knows no parallels.” As a related point of interest to this sub-title: when I claim to be infallible in front of my Grandma June, she typically responds by calling me a shithead. If that doesn’t merit sharing, I don’t know what does.

This goes back to my last post a little, and by a little I mean a good bit. I’m not sorry. It’s been a long, tiring day, and my internal clock is telling me to go to bed.

My creative process is far from complex, and will probably sound fairly familiar to some of you. There are days when I’ll manage to churn out pages upon pages of material. I won’t take breaks, not even for food or sleep. Sometimes, I end those days feeling immensely proud of the work I’ve done, and other times I’ll go to bed knowing I’ll spend a good deal of the next writing session pressing down the Backspace key. Regardless, those days are full of creativity, and so they make me undeniably happy. Continue reading →

There are days I just don’t feel like writing

Posted on by under Misadventures in Non-Fiction

Or “How I’m keeping my promise to myself that I’d write every day while still something something words. I’m not feeling well, I’m tired, and I’m grumpy, damn it.”

There are days I can’t stop myself from writing. If I did stop, I know the worlds and their respective characters would build up to the point my head would break open and let those many oddities spill out. The whole thing would be a terrible mess, really, so I choose to write instead. However, and despite my best efforts, there are still days something in my brain just says how this writing just isn’t working out. At all.

This is one of those days, and it’s probably one of the biggest bothers I know. I hate it, because I could easily justify skipping sleeping, meals, and social obligations (and if you’re one of my closest friends, you’d be the sort of person who would understand and encourage such unfortunate binge-writing sessions). If I didn’t get so damned loopy after going a day without sleep, I think my choices would be obvious here.

Naturally, today’s one such day where I can’t seem to get any creative thoughts. They’re on hiatus, maybe. Or perhaps they’re waiting for later on, once I go to bed, which is not a thought I’m entirely okay with given my subconscious’ tendency to go all-out with nightmares. No, thanks.

On the plus side, and perhaps this is some misplaced optimism of a sort, I don’t feel burnt out yet. I’ve been writing, even if only just a little, every day since I made the promise to myself I would, and I’m still feeling pretty good about that. I’m not getting anywhere in terms of publishing yet, but I will.

However, I should be getting some sleep because I’m sick. Not until I pick which Hogwarts house I’d reside in, though. Priorities, people. I’ve got serious priorities.

Reviews shouldn’t be some twisted means of revenge

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts, Posts of a Rant-like Nature

Or “It took me way longer than it should have to come up with a title for this post because I’m just really pissed off.”

I think it’s safe to say that there’s at least one special someone in everyone’s life who manages to draw a certain level of rage, no matter what they do, for whatever reason. I know I have my fair share of such people. The sort of folks I make genuine efforts to avoid in public places, or make rather unkind comments about when I’m feeling particularly unkind (read as: far too often, probably). However, despite my ever-questionable moral compass, I have some limitations. For example: I would never, ever do something to deliberately harm another person, no matter how angry I am. I use the term harm in this case, because it encompasses so many different things one person can do to something else (another person, an animal, inanimate objects; whatever). Continue reading →

My conundrum of wanting to write versus being able to write

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts

Or “I promised myself I would do a little writing every day, and I refuse to break that promise” with a dash of “I resigned myself to not being productive tonight, so I had to prove myself wrong somehow or another.”

I need to write. It’s a compulsion, bordering on a requirement for my very survival (careful, I’m already getting all dramatic about writing and it’s only one line in, because the sub-title doesn’t actually count). If I don’t give my worlds a stage, or my characters the proper chance to have voices, who will? I mean, yes, you could argue that there are only so many, or so few, actual stories, and everything just reworks them to some degree or another, and I would agree to some extent. It’s all in the presentation, I say in such a powerful statement of the obvious that people pointing out how the sky is blue seem to have discovered a brave, new world full of awe-inspiring truths. That sentence was probably a lot more fun to write than it is to read, I imagine. Continue reading →

Why whimsy in my writing?

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts, Posts of a Rant-like Nature

Or “Sorry that I’m not sorry for getting up on my soapbox about writing, because this is my blog about writing (which is something, or so I’m told, I’m relatively good at.” Also, this may end up being on long-ass post. I’m still not sorry. Lastly: confetti and shit! This is totally my hundredth post on Misadventures in Fiction, and that’s really damn exciting for me.

I may have woken up with a touch of a hangover, and a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. My sister, her boyfriend, another friend of hers, and I went to Butcher and the Rye (a restaurant/whiskey bar in Pittsburgh, that was rather nice) last night, and I enjoyed three interesting mixed drinks. I swear this detail is relevant, and it’s not just a small reminder to myself on the matter of being more cautious with what liquors I mix (their blood and sand is delightful, by the way). Stepping back after finishing this post, I can honestly say it was just a framing device with the bitter taste, and a not entirely necessary mention of how I’ve grown fond of scotch in the past year. Hindsight and so on.

Moving along. I have been writing a good deal of fantasy since the start of this year, and I’ve recently returned to writing science fiction (with a humorous slant, of course, because I can’t take myself too seriously, and I expect not many other people can either). One result of this (ignoring the rather horrifying page counts I’ve produced) is I’ve found myself thinking back to a comment made in regards to my writing a while back. It obviously struck a nerve to some extent, and I’m sure that a few people who have heard me rant about this before will be wagging their fingers in my general direction later on (should they read this) for letting it gnaw at me now and again. I’ve mentioned it in other posts. The comment in question was part of a rejection, passed along by word of mouth, about how the piece I submitted was well-written. It was rejected because fantasy and science fiction are such antiquated genres. Continue reading →

The what-to-do-now of the waiting game

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates

My brain is still processing that the first complete draft of Joshua’s Nightmares is finished. That the little red notebook of world-building has grown into a two-hundred-and-ninety-three page behemoth. I’m still really geeking out over all that, actually. In terms of page count, it’s four times as long as the story I wrote for my Thesis Seminar at Edinboro University.

And now what? I’ve sent off copies to friends I know will really dig for anything that could use fixing, and I find myself floating in a sort of limbo. I would go so far as to say this feels like I just sent my only child off to college, and I’m being that awful parent who started sobbing before I’d even gotten off the campus after saying goodbye.

My question to you, fellow writerly-folks, is how do you cope with that sudden absence of something where there was once a big project?

I could, theoretically, get started on Book 2 while the characters are fresh in my mind, but is that the best possible way to go?

All things considered, I am very happy with how the first draft turned out. It grew from a couple paragraphs that got stuck back last year, before I moved, to what it is now. There was something very energizing about getting back to writing regularly, and feeling good about what I was creating, so now I’m just wondering where I’ll channel some of that wild and crazy energy until the time for the bulk of the editing starts.

Updates, excitement, and justifying laziness

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “I finally fixed my description for Joshua’s Nightmares, I have big writing news, and figured out a way to explain some of the laziness in my writing that makes sense.”

Over the course of the past month or so, I’ve written over fifty-thousand new words in my first draft of Joshua’s Nightmares. That’s a NaNoWriMo’s worth of words. Almost a metric shit-ton, or perhaps more than a metric- shit-ton (I honestly don’t know how to properly quantify that much, but I know it’s a lot). It’s been an extraordinary adventure, and I still have a fair bit to go before it’s over. Again, I want to apologize to, as well as thank, all of the people who have to endure me talking at great lengths about this project. I almost apologized to my journal a couple nights ago because I keep writing about writing this, and that’s when I realized I need to calm down and just enjoy every little bit of the writing process as this idea gradually grows into its end stages. It’s the longest piece of writing I’ve ever worked on, and it’s the most excited I’ve been to work on anything in quite some time (since before Thesis Seminar at Edinboro, which was certainly a thing that happened). It’s fifteen pages shy of hitting the 200 page mark, and that seems pretty amazing to me. Continue reading →

Reimagining the Bogeyman

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “How I unintentionally transformed a villain whose sole purpose was to act as a plot device to something I think turned out pretty cool.”

Sometimes, and by sometimes I mean more often than I probably should, I create characters out of need to move the plot forward. Don’t give me that side-eyes look, now, because I’m sure it’s not an even remotely uncommon practice. I’m also, after a bit of fun personal experience, certain it can result in some pretty fun ideas. Continue reading →

Progress report on Joshua’s Nightmares

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “I’m pretty damn excited because I’ve been writing all weekend, and this is the most I’ve enjoyed working on a project in a long, long time.”

Tonight, mere moments ago, Joshua’s Nightmares broke the 30,000 words mark. It’s on it’s forty-sixth page, and still has a ways to go before it’s completed. Most importantly, I’m loving every second of it.

I’d also like to extend my thanks to all of my followers. WordPress tells me I hit one hundred followers, and that’s also pretty amazing news. Thank you to everyone who has stuck around and kept reading. You’re all fantastic.

This post feels a bit naked without my standard, rambling prose, and so I’ll end it with this beautiful piece of music from the game Puppeteer (a game truly worth purchasing for its compelling narrative, beautiful art style, and amazing music).

Check out this awesome talent

Posted on by under Shameless Shilling

I recently asked Paul Kaspick, a college friend of mine who happens to be an extremely talented artist, if he would be willing to do some character sketches of some of the characters in Joshua’s Nightmares. It’s important to note that I have no drawing skills whatsoever, which is why I feel slightly guilty when I’m finnicky about that sort of thing. Which brings me to my point here.

Paul’s art is phenomenal. I feel like, in my moment of smugness, he could not only do my character justice, but he could exceed my expectations of how they would be drawn.

However, I suck at doing his work justice, and so I would like to direct you, dear readers, to his online portfolio/web site.

http://artvarkanimations.com/index.html

Check out his work. Contact him if you’d like. Send him large bags of money. In case you need additional persuasion, here’s one of the animations he’s worked on.