Kindling

So, if you are a fellow writer reading this, I know that you know the feeling when ideas are flowing and the world just seems rich and full of life and color. Everything is working, your story is just running out of your fingertips. Sure, it's going to need some editing down the road but it is like your brain sprung a leak and its splashing all over the page and filling my chapters up. But then...a new idea comes into your head. What do you do? Well, I have decided to embrace it. My current WIP, or shall will say WIP #1, is moving along swimmingly. So, I'm going to step aside from it momentarily to poke this idea, let's call it WIP #2. I figure that I can get my ideas down, flesh it out, maybe even lay out an outline and some character descriptions. When I was younger I used to participate in online RPs. For those of you that are not aware, online roleplaying is not as scandalous as you might imagine. It is more like writing a novel as a group. One person lays out t...

Do you believe in fate? I don't. It feels like a convenient lie made up to comfort one's self. 'Don't worry. If its meant to be..', ' I guess it wasn't meant to be.', or 'Fate has a funny way of working things out.' All nice neat little platitudes to soothe the ache of disappointment. However, have you ever had a run of good luck? Maybe I'm so pessimistic and masochistic that I want to believe that my troubles are all my fault but then attribute my good things to an all-powerful, supernatural entity. But I have had some good luck recently. Eleven years ago I was in college. Long story short: sickness, medical leave of absence, car wreck, life flight, broken back, happy to be alive, had baby, charged thousands for unfinished semester, unable to return until I paid it back. Well, last year, spring of 2018, I finally paid it all off. Now, I was a bit paralyzed by the thought of returning to school. Can I really afford MORE college lo...

Does anyone out there have life figured out? Is there anyone reading this that is sitting easy without worry and anxiety gnawing at the back of their brain? When we write, we don't want our characters to belabor a point of concern. After the third time they mention something we are like, 'We get it! Shut up!' But in reality all I do is circle around the same point over and over and over again, each time my hair a little wilder and my eyes a little more frantic. By this point I look like 'Bellatrix Lestrange, the Azkaban Years'. When we craft a story, we have a final goal that we know our characters are working towards, and then we throw a few roadblocks in their way to make the story. The goal is always present in their minds. The eventually achieve it, or die for the betterment of another or somewhere in between. I would love that kind of clarity in my life. I feel like the author of my life is just throwing everything at me and laughing like a loon. I am imm...

Am I the only one whose New Years Resolutions feel like old friends? I almost laugh out loud when people ask about them. As if we don't all have the same resolutions every year. Some year I'm going to make an easy one, just so I know what it feels like to accomplish one of those things. No, its another year and I am once again resolved to: Work on my writing. Obvs. Still falling victim to time and distractions. Work on my journal. You know, that book that I wrote in three times last January and then forgot. In a way my journals are like time capsules of Januaries past. Work on my booty. Time to get my sweat on. I do have a new one for this year to add to the list. I want to work on and expand my audiobook recording. It is something that I just started this fall and I now have two books recorded (the last is out for quality check at the moment, but the first one is on the marketplace and selling). I want to build up my social media, create a website and do more for sel...

Wondering through the woods I was blinded by wonder. The forest floor was swift beneath my feet. I was making good time and enchanted by the journey. The emerald canopy blinded my upturned eyes as the birdsong deafened me. I never saw the hole coming. So, as many writer's do, hit a bump. My computer died. It was only one year old. So young. We are still unclear as to the cause of death. Was it a virus? Malware? Did my cat tapdance across it one night and perform programming magic? In any case, it was gone. However, as a smart writer, all of my work was saved in my Google Docs and all of my notes are handwritten in my journal. Good to go, right? Not so much. What I didn't realize was that bump I hit was the lip of an abyss and I was tumbling helplessly. I was floundering. With my shiny new computer, which I had only a week after my older one crashed, I wanted to dig back in. However, in that one week I had developed new night habits.  I was reading a new book. It wouldn...

So, Camp Nanowrimo has begun! Officially this past Saturday was the start and I was so excited for the beginning. In fact, I had plans to stay up until midnight on Friday night to start writing at the first first minute that I could. However, I came home from work and the moment I walked in the door, a massive headache split my brain in two and made a home in the middle. After pain meds and water, I was feeling better by midnight but weariness had laid claim on me. I went to bed and told myself that the official start day was Saturday, so I would get to my writing in the morning. Saturday morning. Rising with energy, I neatened up my desk while the coffee brewed, put on comfy slippers and sat in front of my laptop with vigor and energy. Two sentences. I was two sentences in and there was a knock on my door. I had arranged for both of the guys who occasionally work as farm hands for me to be here to assist my father, who brought his backhoe, to clean trees and branches out of the cr...