Hope?

Well, we are on the edge of Spring Break. That means writing time... I hope. It's funny, when I have no time, the urge hits, when I have nothing but time... eh. This writing thing is mercurial at best. To be fair... I haven't exactly pushed myself to write either.

Funny how that happens. I'll write, write, write... ignoring everyone and everything and then... POOF! I'm engrossed in reading something and the urge to write slips to the back. Then it flips back. Perhaps this is part of the creative process for me? I am pretty sure that I've heard or read somewhere that the good writers are also voracious readers.

So what am I reading? One of my favorite authors, Jacquline Carey.

Anyway, Spring Breaks have traditionally been productive times for me. The foundation for Soul of Evil was done over a Spring Break for instance. So I'll cross my fingers and hope that this one will be as well.

Frustrating!

Gah! It's one of Those sorts of days.. where all I want to do is stay in my fuzzy bathrobe and write like a fiend! Instead, I have to force myself to get dressed and actually go out and... work! :::gasp:::

I never know when this will happen... but I do know it rarely happens on say.. a weekend. Noooo.. it hits during the week! So, here I sit, happily writing this, glancing at the clock and wishing I could just call out and stay home and write. Mind you, I'm no sure what exactly I want to write... the Muse is rarely specific... but I am definately feeling the strong urgings.

Do I need the money? Yes and at the same time, not really. I mean.. money is always delightful and it's not like I'm raking in big bucks from my humble writings so far, but at the same time, my income isn't the only one and frankly... my car insurance is paid for the month and the kitties have food. Gas money... there's the rub!!

Seven minutes to make a decision. Did I mention I am not keen on deadlines?

What to do with...

I like St. Patrick's Day.. I do. I'd like it bunches more if I hadn't one something kinda silly this year. Along time ago... in a fictional tavern a young man met a young woman and they fell in love.

Cliche I know... but it happened, and I wrote part of it along with many friends. See, here I go getting all sad and stuff. Okay, so unlike so many stories that start that way, this take ended with the woman dying and the man going off to go quietly insane for a period of time. Yeah... So I actually re-read some of that stuff yesterday, including (I know, I know.. dumb ass..) the scene where the woman died.

Now I can hear the thoughts... they're just fictional characters, so what. Because, those events were written by real people and were a shadowed cover for real life events. No I didn't go insane.. sheesh...  however, the sadness still lingers a bit.

So where was I going with this again? Oh yeah... so I have all this stuff drifting through my brain as I'm trying to have fun and laugh and what all. I have no idea what the heck to do with it!!! I want to... write more on it... or publish parts... something. I can't in good conscious publish a lot of it because I haven't been able to talk it over with the original author (she just had a baby! Congrats to her!).. I don't have a lot of the files to just go on with it... and as sure as there are little green apples I'm NOT writing out the death scene!

So where does that leave me? Not a damn clue. Some days the Muse sucks!

When life happens

Life does happen even to the most dedicated of writers. Things like taxes, relationships, births, deaths etc ... The trick is to find a way to not get so lost in them the we can't find our way back to writing. Sometimes it takes a while, but some times... sometimes it's the very act of writing that gets us through those times. For those that the act helps, it doesn't matter what you write, as long as you write.

I'm a weird hybrid of both. There are some life events that writing gets me through the pain and helps to heal (where do you think Tales of Bedlam came from?), and then there are other events that are so painful that the mind just shuts down to process them. For me of late, well... I've poked at the current project and made some progress I guess... but I'm not on a deadline, so I can allow myself the time to just slink through the greiving process and write as the Muse dictates. I'm good with that.

Weather, distractions and other ramblings

It's snowing. A week till spring and it's snowing! It's just too bizarre.  It's also horribly distracting. I keep telling myself to get to work on the latest project, but all that runs through my head is that it's snowing. Well, maybe not All... but mostly. The rest is pondering how assorted characters would react.

I do that a lot. Look at things or events in my life and wonder what or how any of my characters would react or handle them. If I'm very lucky a small grain of those thoughts stays with me long enough for me to jot it down and start to build on it. I have  so many little snippets of thoughts written down it's a bit disturbing actually. Many of them with dialog.

Speaking of which, for some reason people that have read my stuff are impressed with the naturalness of my dialog. I'm still not sure why. What is so hard about writing dialog? For me it's like breathing. I'm siting some place with the characters and listening to them talk. Doesn't everyone do that? No? Huh... Maybe it's that my characters stem from deep in me and I'm close to them.

That's one explanation I suppose... Well, I should wander back to hanging out with a few old friends and see what they have to say.

And so it begins...

The perception that publishing your writing as an eBook is easy needs to be erased! Until recently I though formatting my writing to be printed was a tedious process, but with this last round of adjustments and re-formatting I am changing my mind.
It probably wouldn't have taken as long, but the stupid phone keeps ringing. Okay, the first call was personal family stuff. Necessary and I wasn't about the run them off. The second call though... I am grateful to my friends who sort of understand that I sometimes just need for them to shut up and go away.
So, this round of edits is done and now we wait with baited breath and crossed fingers. I'll deal with the other ebook later.

In the begining...

I'm not much on this blogging thing. I just get so wrapped up in life and stuff I guess that I forget. Therefore, if my posts are sporadic and rambling, well... yeah. My hope here is to share some of my creative process and perceptions. Only time will tell if there is any interest in that huh? Maybe I can find some sort of daily prompt to write about?