Tag Archives: creativity

The good, the bad, and the ugly of down-time

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts, Misadventures in Fiction, Misadventures in Non-Fiction, One Hundred Days of Blogging

Well-known fact: I have poor time-management skills for someone who works a 40+ hour a week job but also wants to become a relatively well-known writer. Or maybe it’s a little-known fact for some of you, in which case I’ll take a moment and appreciate my good fortune that not all of my readers readily identify me as a terrible, lazy slacker.

Let me ruin that for you. I came home from my first day back at work and napped, off and on, for about two hours. My body doesn’t always appreciate naps, but it seemed like a particularly necessary evil tonight for some reason. Probably because not being at work for eleven days and then returning after a day of furniture shopping makes for a rather tired person who can’t stop thinking “I need a vacation”. During my vacation, which had been filled with plans of creative time while Jason worked and potentially drunken shenanigans while we hung out, I accomplished far less than I had hoped to during my plotting of said vacation. My world-building for the still-unnamed novel project found some good points here and there, and a couple characters were really fleshed out more than I could have hoped. However, this was not nearly what I envisioned myself getting done.

I’m only somewhat okay with calling this more of a success than a failure, if only because failure seems to indicate there was absolutely no movement towards my goals (which included writing multiple short stories, sending them off for consideration, and accomplishing a great deal towards the page count of the previously mentioned novel project). I can’t, even in my magnificent self-loathing, call last week a complete failure, anyway.  Continue reading →

Post-travel, pre-travel lull

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction, Misadventures in Non-Fiction, One Hundred Days of Blogging

I’m back in Carnegie after having a fantastic weekend at Intervention, and I’ve got enough down-time to prepare myself for the trip to Chicago. Sort of. I’m still screaming like Hell on the inside, as I’ve never driven that far before. Ever.

I consider it a great adventure, but I also know it’s probably going to be pretty taxing. What I do know is I have an abundance of hope for my time in Chicago in terms of how much creative stuff I’ll get accomplished. We’ll see how much I accomplish versus how much more self-loathing I’ve banked by the end of the week. Continue reading →

Why Intervention matters

Posted on by under Misadventures in Non-Fiction, One Hundred Days of Blogging
My Enabler t-shirt, which states I'm partially to blame for this (this being Intervention 2014).

My Enabler t-shirt, which states I’m partially to blame for this (this being Intervention 2014).

It’s certainly proving to be a rainy, dreary Saturday in Rockville, but that doesn’t seem to be doing anything to dampen Intervention-goer spirits. This is my fourth year attending Intervention, The Premiere Showcase of Online Creativity, out of its five years running, but it still feels like something very new and refreshing experience.

This morning, I attended Onezumi’s panel on marketing. I’m very bad at marketing, and have come to grips with that (and for anyone who needs evidence of these claims, I invite you to look at my inability to really use hashtags all that well). Like with many of the events at Intervention, I feel as though I got a lot more out of it than the short blurb provided in the events program.
Continue reading →

Failure and rejection aren’t always that bad

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction, Misadventures in Non-Fiction

Oh, hey. A second post today, and it’s not even Christmas. Conversely, I think this is a topic I’ve touched on in the past. It just won’t stop nagging me, so I wanted to give it some time anyway. It ties in with the earlier post, which you should definitely check out if you’ve not seen it. Possibly one of my best ones yet.

Before I dreamed of becoming a published writer, but after wanting to become a mad scientist and take over the world (yes, that was a thing that actually happened), I wanted to be an actor. That’s a bit of an understatement. I dreamed of being the next go-to actor for all of the best, most terrifying villains. Surprise. I wanted to play the role of the evil guy for a living, which was a step down from actually taking over the world and being a proper evil genius.

However, I had no idea where to start. How would I become the next big villain in the next big movie? Who would I have to contact to make this happen? I knew there would have to be a lot of blood, sweat, and tears shed, but I felt like had the necessary potential to make this dream a reality. Continue reading →

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day 42

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction, One Hundred Days of Blogging

I’m starting my morning off by enjoying a bowl of cereal while I read through the Spam comments that Phil’s Misadventures in Fiction has accrued recently. It’s oddly entertaining, although the spammers certainly do have nice things to say about my posts. Even if some of those kind words don’t really make a lot of sense from a grammatical standpoint.

Speaking of kind words: the professor I sent Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King off to got back to me with his critique today. It’s not something I feel should be shared in its entirety on here, but I do have to say seeing the phrases “I thoroughly enjoyed it” and “you have great characters” really put a stupid grin on my face.

Meowiarty is hanging out with me while I type this, as he sat at my bedroom door and meowed until I let him in. He may be a touch spoiled, I’m willing to concede, but he behaves like a dog enough and I miss having dogs around…so by that reasoning it should be okay that he’s in here. Probably. I’ll remind myself of that when I’m cleaning cat hair out of my PC’s tower.

Naturally, today’s post will involve 42 in a way. Hopefully not too predictable a way, but we’ll see. Continue reading →

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Forty-One

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging

This is my two-hundredth post on this WordPress. Let’s ignore that I took several month-long hiatuses, and that my posting is spotty at best, and focus on how awesome this sort of milestone is. The only major disappointment I have is that this isn’t also day forty-two of my One Hundred Days of Blogging. Oh well. I’ll just have to celebrate like a hitchhiker traveling the galaxy in tomorrow’s post.

Now I could very easily talk numbers about Misadventures In Fiction, but that would be a pretty short and sad post. And it would interfere with my vacation prep week posts. Can’t very well let that happen. Mostly because my viewing figures are actually on the same level as some reality TV shows, and that’s a little soul-deadening.

Quick update to the intro before I continue (I have methods to my madness and I don’t like deviating from them) – Apparently, as part of the contract I won through Cary Press, I’ll be having a book release party? So that’s mind-blowingly exciting stuff. I have no idea how to react right now other than “Oh wow, holy shit”. Probably the appropriate reaction, right? More details on this, and Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King‘s release, as possible. So exciting! Continue reading →

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Thirty-Eightish

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging

My focus is more on the little red notebook, and still slightly directed towards the oh-shit possibility of a bat getting in. Again. More importantly, I feel I should bow out from last night’s topic idea, if only because I don’t think I could handle it in a way that would read well. The short version, simply put, is there is nothing wrong with seeking help. Life will take you on magnificent journeys, but sometimes you may end up in dark places. Those are the times seeking outside aid shows true strength.

I’m happy to report I’ve added a good bit of detail to my new unnamed novel project, which has its own notebook…and is the newish topic of tonight’s post. Continue reading →

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Thirty-Five

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging

I’m tired, my stomach hurts, and I have a thirteen-hour day ahead of me. Let’s get started (an appropriate statement).

Day Thirty-Five – The best (and worst) beginnings 

Update on 8/13/14 – This failed to post yesterday, despite WordPress saying it had been posted. Suffice it to say I am royally pissed off. Technically it was written yesterday, so I’m not restarting. God damn it.

Tonight has been a dark and stormy night, which makes for an exciting summer evening of wondering where all the flashlights and candles are. It also makes for a terribly cliched, overdone opening scene. Why not start with a bright, sunny day? Or maybe a slightly cloudy afternoon? There are very obvious answers to those questions, of course, and a lot of them point to “the weather is a framing device for some bad event, stupid”.

I have a hell of a time coming up with solid beginning scenes in my work, and far more often than I care to admit. Here are my biggest fears, and how I work to avoid them.

What if this turns into an info-dump?

Exposition happens. Sometimes it’s necessary, but more often than not it can be avoided with better descriptions, stronger characters, and a host of other tricks. When I’m in the moment, working to get that first scene set up, my focus is more on getting words on the page than it is what words are happening. Probably not the best approach, but it certainly helps get writing done. I avoid really thinking about the scene itself, and if it’s an info-dump set-up versus a beginning with merit, until I go back for the first rereading. Or one of my lovely beta-readers catches it. So long as the first page doesn’t read like the rolling opening credits in Star Wars, things are off to an okay start.

Once upon a time? No, wait…

What’s in a first line? A whole lot of hoping to hook readers. A first line, and this is some powerful stating of the obvious here, can make or break if a reader even bothers to continue with a story. While it’s silly, it’s the reason why “Once upon a time” and “It was a dark and stormy night” have become such endearing beginnings. I wouldn’t exactly recommend using them in a work unless you’re going for a very specific tone, though. Getting that perfect first line is something that just happens, I think. All the planning in the world can’t quite prepare for the eureka moment of when the perfect opening sentence happens in your brain.

Let me tell you all about the main character

This falls back into the info-dump, sort of, but it’s its own special sort of pitfall. It’s really tempting to provide an immediate image of the main character. That way the story can move along to the important bits, like the hero saving the day and the villain dying a horrible death. Those sorts of things. But It feels forced. It always feels forced. It’s much more organic, I’ve found, to gradually introduce traits. I’m actually somewhat guilty of giving minimal character descriptions and letting readers fill in details for themselves. It just happens that way.

Start here! No, here! What about here?

In longer stories, novels, and the first book in a series (god help me, I don’t think I could tackle the last one there), it’s hard to choose exactly where to start laying things out for readers. Especially in novels, and probably far more than I can fathom when embarking on the start of a series. I still haven’t figured out exactly how to approach this, as I’ve deleted far too many first pages for my own tastes. Whatever feels most organic isn’t always the best, and so it’s good to depend on outside perspectives here. The best choice will set the stage for the story’s events, providing a logical flow from Point A to Point Z, without jumbling Points B through Y too badly.

 

These are all pretty simplified, but it should give 1) some insight into how I handle starting a new story, 2) a few of the many issues I have starting new projects, and 3) how I can take complex topics and ruin them by cutting them down to minimal detail.

In any event, I need to drag my sorry ass to bed and hope I survive tomorrow.

Sixty-five days remaining.

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Thirty

Posted on by under One Hundred Days of Blogging

Remember back when One Hundred Days had only just turned twenty-one. Its whole life was ahead of it, full of promise and potential (and alcohol). And then it hit thirty, which is practically over-the-hill by today’s standards. New technology frightens it. Younger blog posts just don’t seem to make sense, and One Hundred Days doesn’t quite get their strange choice in language.

That’s why I’m a night-blogger, people. Because I’m usually awake enough to filter shit like that out. Even though other, just-as-ridiculous things take the place of passages like the one above. Just observe the strange behavior from afar and appreciate knowing you probably aren’t one of the unlucky people who has to spend family dinners with me.

I’m writing this post early on for two reasons. Reason number one is that I have to work mid-shift today, thanks to my own scheduling, and so I won’t want to do much of anything by the time I get home. Reason two is that even in the event I did want to do anything once I get home, I’ve decided tonight will be spent enjoying a little World of Warcraft. My Shaman needs some attention, and I have to get ready for the excitement Blizzard promised with its 10th Anniversary business. The level of enthusiasm I still feel for this game disgusts me a little. Tomorrow, though my day off, will be spent resurrecting Thanatos into Wheatley, which means transferring several hundred gigs of data from my external hard drive, and writing. Continue reading →