So I'm back!

Well I have finished grad school and I passed my last term with all A's.
So I am going to get back to writing more than just book reviews. By September I want to have a short story that I started writing about a year and a half ago. Then I am going to give it to my spouse to beta read it. Then I need to start rereading his first novel to help edit. Wish me luck everyone! I hope that my self control is greater than my desire to be lazy. Or better yet the reason that I was having trouble writing was because I was so stressed and busy with grad school that now I am free everything will just come together.

What I have been writing

So it has been awhile since I have posted here. Up-date I am writing but nothing that I am going to publish either here or anywhere. Writing is more than just a dream or job with me. It is a way that I handle things. I have had some really good things happen to me in life like only two more classes until I graduate with my master degree and soon I hope to getting a job in my field. My writings for the past few weeks have been personal and helping me handle all of emotions from the past few weeks. Normally writing is used to help process negative emotions but I have to get all my feelings out be they good or bad. It is part of the Lupus I have to express myself or the Lupus will react. The body handles all emotions in the same way so when I have bad things like the deaths of some of dearest friends I write about. When I have something overwhelming good happen I write it out. In dealing with the deaths of my friends I wrote a ten page poem and I have things that I want to do with it. With good thing that happened this past week I write a four pages essay about it. So writing is my answer to all of my feelings good and bad. So sorry for no fun new stories for the past few weeks. I hope to have time and the desire to write some of the plot lines that I have running through my head for about the past two months. I will let you know as I get started with that. Thanks for reading!

Standalones and flash fiction

Today I am going to be doing more than just one thing. I am going to give what I think about standalone novels and then I am going to be give some flash fiction. I have not been writing anything but stuff for my graduate classes, this blog, and my book review blog. I know that looks like a lot but I am annoyed with myself about not writing anything else for so long. So I am going to be taking a prompt from ‘from my write side’ http://frommywriteside.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/master-class-2013/?blogsub=confirming#blog_subscription-2 and writing a quick flash fiction piece about it.

Standalone novels are the pillars of literary novels. All great novels from the previous centuries are standalones. I think that standalones are both harder and easier to write. For the easier; there are no plot threads that the writer has to worry about, no long narratives, no worry about the forgotten love interest. Just one story and just one book (after editing and rewrites I get that.). Downside about standalones; the writer may not have the time or the space to tell the full story, there may be forgotten plot points or characters that were important just dropped from the narrative leaving the reader confused. I know that there is more to say about both series and standalones but for now I think that I am finished with both. If you think of anything else that you believe that I should talk about please just leave me a comment and I will address them.

My prompt is One of the biggest complaints of motherhood is the lack of training.

One of the biggest complaints of motherhood is the lack of training Ona thought as she watched her eldest son walk away with the dust from the coming wind storm following in his wake. The red light from the thick atmosphere of Jupiter tinted his black hair red and the anger in his stride made it a darker red. She was the favorite concubine of the headman but her son, his son too, was not good enough to be the next leader of their people. Ona cursed under her breath about the ancient laws that stopped her son’s ambition. He was going away now. He was going to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, to be a success there. His father was yelling at his back but her son did not turn, did not response to him at all. Her son, her Cal, was going to where she would never see him again. In vain did Ona beg his father for mercy or understanding or anything that would stop Cal from leaving. His father would not listen to her or to anyone but the old laws. The space shuttle that would carry Cal to his new life was lifting off and in a shower of dust and flame he was gone. Ona turned her back to the landing site and walked behind Cal’s father back to his home. In her heart of hearts Ona knew that she would never forgive him for taking Cal away from her or Cal for leaving.

As always thanks for reading and see you next week.

Series

Series are what I would like to talk about today. Series, love them or hate them, are everywhere. They have not always been. In fact before the beginning of the 1900 century series were seen as something only weak readers would read. Series were seen by librarians as something that should be used get young children to read but then they must weaned off of series so that they could read ‘real’ books. I learned this in a course about the history of books in grad school and it floored me. Series are just something that are so ingrained into our reading habits at this point that the very thought that they were or are less than real books just does not compute.

Now I both love and hate series at the same time. I love a good series with interesting characters that grow over the course of the book, I love to see the complex threads of a plotline come together, to see the stray threads just waiting to be picked up and explored in a later book. A series can be one of the most wonderful things in the reading world that you can read or write. A series gives both the writer and the reader a stable world to work and read from. It helps the writer because they do not have to be building new worlds with every book but can learn all about the world, they can know what color the shadows are. There is just something comforting about a known world.

But series can be boring. Because the writer does not have to be doing something all the time, some writers cannot do it. A standalone novel can be a wonderful experience. It can take you to new different places, can make us examine ideas that we have never encountered before, to go to strange new worlds, and seek out the human in them. New worlds are where we learn the most about ourselves and all literature in the end is about what it means to be human. What is human is the eternal question and literature is just one of the ways that we try to answer it.

So go write a series and a standalone novel. Go see where you best answer the eternal question of being human. You should be writing.

Be brave!

One of things that I have been complaining about for months now is graduate school. But it has given some things. It will (hopefully) get me a degree then a job in a library somewhere, it has given me a lot of self-knowledge, and it has given me some good friends; who I really need to call and get lunch with sometime. Other thing that it has given me it exposure to many different writing styles in the forms of all the papers and articles that I have read in the past two years. In doing that I have learned something very important; that is I am so tired of reading things written by smart people who are trying to prove to me that they are smart.

Allow me to explain that. In the world of academia there is this need to make sure that everyone knows that you are smart enough to be writing for the academic journals or a textbook. I would love to tell them is- If you are writing for an academic journal then I believe that you are smart. I do not think that you have your degrees by accident; I believe that you are someone important enough to be listened to. I know that this something that is not just in academic writing. I have read books that just scream ‘I am a good book! Look at me! Read me!’ If you can get your book published then I believe that you are a good writer and that you can write a good book. You do not have to prove to me that you are, I am willing to go on faith with you about it. I understand wanting to make your sale or your brand or whatever you are working so hard to get to. I know that you are working very hard to get there and if I believe that if you work hard, put your all into something, you will get everything back. You will get the book deal, you will get the readers, and you will be successful. But do not spend that time yelling through your writing about it. Just trust in yourself and in your work.

Self-knowledge is the best way to do this. Know where your strengths are and do not be afraid to see your weaknesses. The only time that weakness can hurt you is if you ignore it. There are so many people out there who can and will help you. Know where you can go for help, be that emotional help when you are hitting your head on the wall or someone who will read your work with honesty. Be brave and write on, readers!

Personal Inspiration Part Two

I am going to continue last week topic of personal inspiration this week. Last week I talked about how video games have inspired my writing and gave you an example. I hope that it was enjoyed because I have heard nothing back. So in lieu of having bad things said about it, I will think good things about my piece. Another was of inspiring, not just me, is music. Every artist and writer I know has some piece of music that when they listen to it they are moved and the muse just flows. Now that changes from person to person. For example my spouse finds old school heavy metal very inspiring, bands like Type O Negative and Cradle of Flight. I do not find either very inspiring except for maybe a headache but that is just me. For me there is no one sound that just lights my muse; it depends on what I am writing. If I am writing something very personal like my poetry then I like to listen to music that is going to help me get my emotions. But when I am writing in my genre Science Fiction and Fantasy then I really mix things up.

When I was writing my high fantasy (which I really need to get back to… Bad Lynn) I like to listen to vocals from different bands. My go-to band is always Franz Ferdinand; a great, GREAT British rock band. Also Adele, and Duffy, and The Tings (are you seeing a common theme? If not get thee to Google and you will). I like the vocals because the songs can help the characters voices in my head and get into the page. Sometimes I like instrumental but that is more for my Sci-Fi; but it mostly a scene to scene thing. Sometimes I like to have the pulse pounding of Korn or maybe I need to have Moonlight Sonata. Do not afraid to go where the music takes you.

For my Sci-Fi I am currently loving the Dear Esther soundtrack. It is very lovely instrumental soundtrack for a cool little surreal game. It in and of itself is not Sci-Fi in anyway but it works for me. I would give an example of what I write when listening to it but the last thing I wrote listening to Dear Esther was an 18 page pathfinder for my law libraries class and I do not think that you want that. I do not want that and I had to write it. The music made it so much easier I can promise. Just an FYI a pathfinder is a very detailed research assignment for library grad students to basically prove that you can do research and you know how to make it for other people to be able to read it. Sounds like fun, right? Not so much.

In the end the only person who can tell what music moves you creatively is you. But you knew that. So do not be afraid to try new things, do not let anyone tell you that you cannot be inspired by Korn or video games or anything else. The world is inspiring and you just have to find the things that most inspire you. Go forth and be creative! Until next week, thanks for reading and be well.

Personal Inspiration Part 1

In a previous post I talked in general about inspiration and in this week’s post I would like to talk about what in particular I find inspiring. I personally find video games very inspiring and I do not think that I am alone in that. Video games are the artistic work of dozens of people from the storyline writers to the guys who write the code. Everyone working together for one common goal. To get this out of the way, yes I know that people make video games to make money. I know that everyone who works on a game is doing so with the end goal of paying the rent but the same can be said for all kinds of artists, in fact the same can be said for everyone on the planet. We are all just trying to make ends meet. So that does not bother me that all the music and stories that I love are made to make the rent. If I could I would too. So with that bit of nastiness out of the way I am going to tell you about the last thing that really inspired me.
In my house we have two PlayStation3’s. Both are loved because my spouse and I both love video games. On the PSN the online store for PS3 there is a wonderful little game called ‘Journey’. There is no real story just a basic outline of a traveler on a journey. You have your characters and sometimes if other people are playing the game too you can see other travelers. The first five minutes of watching him play this game build a fire in my brain. I had to write the story that was just bursting through me. It is flash fiction and I wrote in about 15 minutes. It is 593 words long (for now :-D) . Here is it.

The wanderer

The sand stretched endless before the wanderer. It stretched endless behind too. Nothing was here but sand, sun and the journey. No one made journey’s anymore they were the things of legend and lore. Only to be spoken of during the long winter’s nights in the place that the wanderer came from. The wanderer was clothed head to foot in a traveling cloak red as the sun that burned down on her. Under the hood some thought she was beautiful but in her small village she had the madness. It was a madness like they had not seen in four hundred years but was so bad that it was still talked of also on those long winter nights. The last one who had was also a woman, beautiful too but her beauty was nothing when seen with her madness. She wanted to see what was on the other side of the mountains. She wanted to know why the sun rose and what happened when it fell. She was wise and beautiful and untouchable because of the questions that poisoned her mind. Those questions were only for teachers to know and she was no teacher. The teachers had not come to the village in more years than could be recorded. But that was long ago and not the story of this wanderer, just the last one. The wanderer had not always been different but she learned it in small ways. When a traveling teacher had come and then stayed for the winter that was when the village elders noticed it. Boys and girls were taught whatever the teacher knew and that was as it should be. A little learning is good for the soul but it stayed in the wanderer’s mind like mud on a pair of boots. She wanted more. The teacher soon taught her everything he knew and it was not enough. Soon she knew more than he did reading every book he had with him and then she scoured the village for any books that she had never seen before. At first it was smiled at because the village needed someone who loved to learn all things but then it was frowned on because she was not doing anything but reading and talking with those who had read whatever book she had in her hand at the time. People began to talk about her behind her back then to her face. Soon her village was no home for her anymore. So she did what she had learned and went on a journey. She dressed in the robes of a wanderer and shook off her name as all wanderers’ do. She walked from sun up to sundown alone. No one bothered her because of her wanderers’ robes. All knew that only those with the madness began to leave where they were born, against how it should be, she was untouchable now to the greater beyond her small village because of her robes. She learned new things like loneliness and hunger and thirst but nothing could stop the thoughts and questions in her mind. Those were the only things that really mattered anymore to the wanderer. Slowly, like the first bub of spring, she learned how to feed herself from what was around her and what water was safest to drink in the burning sands. She learned how the stars danced in the sky and what dawn looked like on the ocean. But now she walking in the desert alone but not lonely. She had learned to be company to herself.

I personally love it but please tell me what you think. Until next week be well.

Atmosphere

Today I really did not know what to write so I asked my spouse and he suggested atmosphere. Not setting or the atmosphere in a story but what atmosphere does someone write in? That is a very personal question that changes from writer to writer. For me I like to write in my library with some music going in my ears. The music that I listen changes from story to story that I write and even from scene to scene. I mostly like to have instrumental pieces going but not always. Now other writers like to have different things when they write. John Ringo has to have total silence and at home. I, personally, cannot write at home. Too many things that I could be doing like my yoga or something for grad school or just playing a video game. I need to be somewhere else. Something about it focuses me like nothing else.

I think that atmosphere is something that does play into the writing in of your book, poems, or music. If you need to put more action in a scene maybe you should change your scene. One thing that I have learned with all my years of writing and trying and everything else that all artists understand is that sometimes it is not the art that is the problem. Sometimes it is you. Now that does not mean stop or that you have made a mistake or anything like that. But maybe you should stop for a moment. Walk away with your thoughts and change your atmosphere. If you normally work in a loud, busy place go somewhere quiet and just feel. The same thing is true if for a quiet place. Being aware of your personal setting is just as important knowing your fictional one.

When is the best time for you to work? That is something personal again. If you do not know when the best time already is then you should try the following. Try working at different times of the day for about a week. For example work in the morning for a week and see if that works well and even if it does you should move the time by a few hours the next week. When you do get a time that you work better in then you should notice something really cool. Your body and your brain will become used to working at this time and you will see an improvement in your productivity. It is an amazing thing but it is true. Something about doing the same thing every day or so and habits do work. I need to do it again for myself if I ever want to get this writing thing as more than just fantasy. The last time I did it was for evening work but with times changing in my grad school I need to make a writing change too. I think that I should try and shoot for afternoon work. But at the moment I do not know when I will be writing again.

Dreams and goals

Today’s post is about me coming clean. I am lazy. I have not written anything but what I have had to write for Grad school for the past few months. I am not telling you this to get sympathy from any of my readers. I think it is time for me to be honest about it. I do not really know why I have had so much trouble writing these past months. I have had plenty of free time; I have not been pulling into a video game or an MMO like I have before. I think that it all comes down to self-discipline. Every successful writer that I know of has great amounts of self-discipline. They make the writing a top priority in their lives. I have talked with authors and other writers; and they all have pretty much the same story. In order to be a successful writer they make time, they make the writing everything for themselves, but that leaves me with the question. How?

How do I do that same thing in my life? So far I have not found a how. I think about writing, I think about what stories I want to get done but I have done nothing towards getting them written, editing, or anything towards being published. I am beginning to think that I like the dream of being a writer but for some reason I am not willing to anything to making less than a dream and more of a goal. The difference between a dream and a goal is a plan and I have no plan for becoming a published author. Especially sense I want to be a ‘mainstream’ author. I have problems with that word because I am a Science Fiction and Fantasy dreamer and ‘mainstream’ look down on us dreamers. I written about how Science Fiction and mainstream interact but in one of my grad school classes I wrote about Science Fiction and Society. The word ‘mainstream’ is not even in the language until 1964, by in the language I mean it was not in the Oxford English Dictionary until then. Science Fiction as a literary concept is over 100 years old. I have the position that Science Fiction has an important role in and for society.

But that is not what this post is about. This post is about how I have no real drive to make my dreams into reality. I do not know if I am just scared because to have dream be real mean that they change. Reality is never like a dream, reality is hard and scary, and things do not always work out; either for the best or for you. In the past year I have done a lot of research about publishing, publishers, copyright laws, author’s rights, and just getting published. I know that it is hard, I know that there are so many very talented people all trying for the same thing and maybe that is just it. Growing up I was told that no matter how good at something I was there will always be someone who is better at it. Maybe I just have not worked that out. The reason I think that is my problem is that I have a lot of self-discipline in so many other areas of life. I am in graduate school, I take care of myself( and I have Lupus and fibromyalgia so that is not easy at times), I am married and have been with the same guy for ten years now, and I have two blogs that I post for on a weekly basis. I have self-discipline or I would not have all the really good things in my life. I think that I am just afraid. Now I just do not know what to do with it. I know that this post has to resolution but it is honest. Thanks for reading always and see you next week.

Inspiration

Well I have not written anything other stuff for class, this blog, and my book review blog, all term. Part of the problem is lack of time. What with grad school, the internship, job hunting(because I do not have one), and dealing with lupus, real life is a little busy. But I think that the bigger issue is that I have not been inspired to write in so long. It makes me feel so bad because I think that 'real' artists or writers or whatever you want to call them do not need to have outside inspiration. Now I say that but every artist I know does work better with inspiration. But I have a voice in the back of my head that says if I was a 'real' writer(whatever that is) I would not need to be inspired to write. I could just sat at the my keyboard and go. What makes this worse for me is that I do not think this about other people. When the other artists in my life feel like that they are uninspired I do not think less of them. I think that they are just having a hard time of it. I would like to know it is a big deal for me but not for others.

Now for what inspires me. I think that I am like all other artists in that everything inspires me. Art, other writing, tv shows, music, and just about everything else in the world. I have watched the sunset and had a beautiful story born in my mind. The strongest inspiration for me is emotions. This week had some bad news, nothing that is going to end my life but bad nonetheless, and suddenly I had so much to write about. I had words and feelings and plot coming out of my ears. I had forgotten what it felt like to be inspired. I missed that feeling. Because of life I was not able to write at that time. I am okay with that because I want to try an experiment. I want to see if I can pull up my inspiration by thinking about those feelings later. But not anytime soon. I have three major projects that I need to finish first. So much work and never enough time.