Creative Writing Kickstart

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.
― Pearl S. Buck

This is how you do it: You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard.
— Neil Gaiman

Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought.
— Albert Einstein

Workshop #10, Creative Writing Kickstart, was presented by Richard Scarsbrook first thing in the morning on the last day of Writersfest. The nice part about it was it included a 19-page handout, like a mini-course, and I might have been tempted to pare it down to share with you here if we hadn’t done so much actual writing. In fact, I think we did more writing in this workshop than all the others put together!

The best way to get yourself writing is to actually write. So Mr. Scarsbrook presented us with a number of prompts, breaking them down into two categories – experiential, and conceptual. For the experiential prompts we were given a single word, and told to focus on what that word evoked in us – a memory or experience, a strong response or feeling. For the conceptual prompt he played us a piece of music, geared to generate a feeling about something that is not a memory. And to make it more interesting, we weren’t told what the music clip was until we were done writing.

If there had been any discussion of some of the finer points from the hand out, I didn’t take any notes about it. To be honest, I’m pretty sure we jumped right to the prompts.

Our first experiential prompt was the word Childhood:
When I was a child, we lived in a rowhouse that was used as military family housing. We lived in a center row that faced onto a common square that held a large sandbox and swings. Our milk was delivered to our door in glass bottles, our bread was delivered by a breadman. We had a white cat (they were always white cats) named Fluffy. We also had my grandfather’s canary, named Ricky. One day, Fluffy knocked over Ricky’s cage and, as cats will, killed him. My mother told the breadman not to let the cat out but the warning came too late. We never saw Fluffy again. Being only three or four at the time, I understood that Fluffy had escaped out the door, but I couldn’t understand why Ricky’s cage was empty. Finally, my sister told me that Ricky was dead, and that dad had buried him in the sand box. So I got my mother’s large serving spoon and spent the rest of the day digging in the sand box, looking for Ricky.

Conceptual prompt #1
It was a calm and peaceful evening, but the woman was not able to enjoy the serenity around her. Her heart was filled with sorrow, her face was wet with tears. Never had she felt so alone. It was an ache she could not escape, no matter how far she walked along the beach. The moonlight was wasted on her. Her steps slowed, faltered. She stood on the shore facing the water. The clouds hid the moon.
Music clip: John Barry’s Out of Africa, Flight Over Africa.

Experiential prompt #2 –Person
His name was Billy-Bob. He was a good ‘ole boy, same as his cousins Jim-Bob and Eugene. Billy-Bob was only in his early 20s, but he already had a sizable paunch from weekends spent guzzling beer with Jim-Bob and Eugene. His personal hygiene left much to be desired and he was usually found wearing dirty, ripped jeans and a tee-shirt with some sort of humorous, usually offensive, picture on it. At least that’s what he wore to the bar. When he was working at Rusty Taylor’s garage, he wore grease spattered overalls. He was moon-faced with thinning, unwashed brown hair that he kept long, pulled back into a tail.

Conceptual prompt #2
She stood in the door, letting her eyes adjust to the smokey interior. Why on earth would Tom want to meet here? A jazz club of all places. A few annoyed glances were sent her way and she stepped fully inside, letting the door shut behind her, sealing in the darkness and blocking out the light. The music was loud, but she couldn’t deny there was something about it that pulled at her. Her eyes adjusted and she glanced around, looking for Tom. She couldn’t see him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t here. A look of annoyance flashed across her face. If he was, he could damn well come to her. With determination, she made her way to the bar to sit and wait.
Didn’t catch the name of the piece of music, but it was some kind of Bosa Nova.

Experiential prompt #3 – Family
She could see the lights of the small town she grew up in twinkling below her. If she tried hard, she could probably pick out her family’s house, but she wasn’t quite ready for that. She could picture it in her mind though – Mama would be in the kitchen in her big, yellow apron with the blue roses sprinkled over it. She’d be finishing up the dinner dishes, probably alone because Sissy wouldn’t think to offer to help. Sissy would consider clearing the table to be more than enough. When Mama was done with the dishes, she’d use the crocheted dish cloth – she only used crocheted ones, never store-bought – to wipe down the counters.

Conceptual prompt #3
How bittersweet, to have found him, only to have to say goodbye to him again. She stood on the cliff top, watching the ship sail away, imagining him at the rail, watching the shore recede. Would he look up at the cliffs, know she was watching him depart? She liked to think so. Her hand rested on her stomach. He said he’d come back to her, for her. All she could do was wait and see.
Music clip: Gayane Ballet Suite from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Experimental prompt #4 – A Place
It was dark and cool. The rocks loomed up on either side of the detritus strewn path that wound its way between them. The taste of moisture and age was in the air. Earthy scents of decay, and green, and age filled the sinuses. Dark green moss and bright green ferns formed a patchwork over black, fossil-filled stone. Sunlight was filtered through a canopy of cedar, beech, and pine. The glint of water could be seen, the sun’s reflection piercing.

Conceptual prompt #4
Running. She was running, but she didn’t know why or to where. All she was conscioius of was one foot after another. There was no past, not future, only now. A chill filled her. At the top of the rise she spared a glance behind her. There, just coming over the distant rise. A line of grey – ships, robots, she didn’t know what they were, but she knew she couldn’t let them catch her. She began to run in earnest.
Music clip: One of These Days, Pink Floyd

Experiential prompt #5 – Relationship
“We’ve been together for six years,” Mavis said. “Is it really too much to ask?”
“But you’re asking for a commitment,” Roger countered. “You want a r—r—r—”
“Oh for God’s sake. You can’t even say the word. Repeat after me, re-la-tion-ship.”
“I know what the word is,” he snapped. “I just don’t understand why all of a sudden you’re so gung-ho to start one.”
“Start one, start one?!” Mavis’s voice rose. “What do you think we’ve been in for the last six years?”
“Yeah, but now you want to label it. It makes it all official-like.”
Mavis just stared at him for a few seconds. Then she turned and walked away.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time for a fifth conceptual prompt. But these prompts really showed what we were capable of in just a few minutes. And it also proved that you don’t need an elaborate prompt to kickstart your creativity, all you need is a single word, or a song.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
If I had to use one word to describe last week, that word would be mediocre. I didn’t have a lot of outside stuff going on – just a stitchery guild meeting – but I also didn’t have a lot of ambition to get things done.

The weather wasn’t quite as sunny as we were promised, but I really can’t use lack of sun as an excuse. Even when the sun was out I was feeling kind of blah. I got a lot of mundane things done – household chores, phone calls I’ve been putting off (like registering the microchips in the kittens) – but not a whole lot of extra writing.

My serial post was a few hours late . . . has anyone figured out what spell Izolda cast that drained her of all her power? I’m pretty sure I can wrap this mess of a story up in just a couple more installments. It really deviated from what it was supposed to be, but some of those deviations, like the introduction of a rusalka, make it a better story. Once it’s finished I’ll let it sit for a month or so before reading it from start to finish, and then I can decide whether it’s worth editing or not.

I took my Neo (which had a stuck X key and a missing #6 key) and my backup Neo (which was totally pooched) to the computer repair store and asked if they could take the keys from the backup one and fix the old one. The guy thought I was nuts, but lo and behold he did it and I now have a fully functional Alphasmart Neo again. Now I just have to start using it. LOL

I started doing the “morning pages”, as suggested by the instructor of one of the workshops I took at writersfest. He got the idea from the book The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. Now I just happen to own a copy of that book, so when I was struggling with then I looked them up and it turns out I was doing them exactly right. Who’d have thought?

Did some stitchery, not just at the stitchery meeting, did some reading, just didn’t do any writing outside of my blog posts, despite the fact I spent more time in my office. *sigh* But hope springs eternal. Maybe this will be the week the words return.

NEW WORDS:
2086+507+298+601=3,492
DOWN 495 – words from last week

Seriously, I do not know what’s wrong with my brain. I know the words are in there, why won’t they come out? I’ve done the morning pages 4 days in a row now, but I’m not really counting them as reportable words because they’re pretty much throw away words.

The book says it takes about three weeks for things to “click” so I’m crossing my fingers that’s the case. Which is not to say I’m going to wait three weeks for something to happen, I’ll keep trying anyway, but it’s nice to have something to look forward to (hopefully).

Goals For Next Week:
Get all my blog posts done and maybe a few extra words besides.

EDITING:
0 hours
A funny thing happened on the way to figuring the prophecy . . . Okay, maybe not. Maybe I figured I’d use one of my large, top wire bound note books to work out the prophecy on, and then just never got around to.

Have I mentioned I get distracted easily? I had cookies to bake, and cats to cuddle, and the neighbor’s plants to water (while neglecting my own). It was suggested I used my reMarkable tablet for this, but I think I need the large sized notebook for the space.

Maybe I should put it on my list.

Goal For Next Week:
Figure out the prophecy; get editing Elemental Spirit.

POETRY:
Last week’s form was a bit obscure, which is fun to do occasionally. It had a really weird syllable count to it, plus a rhyme scheme to follow, which made it a bit tricky, but I really like the way my example turned out.

And I found the poem remnants that I wrote during the Duende workshop, so that’s good. Duende isn’t exactly a poetry form, so I can’t cheat and turn them into the form of the week. The second one especially doesn’t lend itself to a form. But I’ll probably go ahead and finish them for my files – I don’t know what else to do with them.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share. Expand on the poems I started during the Duende workshop.

CRAFTING:
I’m spending way too much time checking out the work of the members of the on-line stitchery groups that show up in my Facebook feed. And while they were inspirational at first, now they’re getting to be a little depressing. I’m seeing some brilliant stitching, and it’s kind of making me feel inadequate.

Yes, I know I shouldn’t compare myself to others, but sometimes you just can’t help it. And I’m sure if I wanted to give up my writing and focus on my stitchery I could be just as brilliant, but that’s not going to happen. So I am content to be good, with flashes of brilliance. LOL

We had a presentation by one of the newer members to the stitchery guild and I came away with a severe case of education envy. She showed us the wide range of stitchery techniques she’s tried over the years, and then told us that she learned most of it at this art school I didn’t even know existed!

Considering the amount of time I spent stitching on my zentangle sampler, I would have expected to be further along, but right now I’m working on a vine with leaves and it’s taking forever!

Goal For Next Week:
Keep working on my sampler; maybe give one of the kits I got from Amazon a try.

WHAT I’M READING:
My reading has slowed right now to a crawl. I’m still reading The Book of Magic, by Alice Hoffman, but that’s about it. I think I need to add reading to my list. :-)

Goal For Next Week:
Keep reading.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

The lists are really helpful for getting things done, even if most of those things are mundane. But it does show me what areas I’m slacking off in.

I want to keep up with my morning pages. Sometimes when I run out of things to whine about in them I’ll have an image or thought creep in that makes me go “Hmmm.” So maybe getting all that angst and whining down at the beginning of the day is actually working.

I have another fairly quiet week ahead, so now’s the time to make the most of it. Maybe I can even pull my Neo out and go outdoors to write. Wouldn’t that be a treat?

The weather is supposed to continue to be a little brighter, and it’s been warm enough lately that I’ve had the window in my office open. It’s a little easier to avoid the internet distractions when I’m using my laptop in my office because the internet sucks up the battery power, so there’s another advantage of spending more time at my desk.

That track is getting closer, I just have to step on it.

Extraordinary Elements in Fiction

It's perfectly normal that extraordinary things happen to me. I'm an exceptional person. Oh, don't think I'm boasting. I mean to say that, unfortunately, I'm exceptional and that, unfortunately, I can't live by the rules. I must make my own.
― Cocteau

Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible.
― Cherie Carter-Scott

It never failed to amaze me how the most ordinary day could be catapulted into the extraordinary in the blink of an eye.
― Jodi Picoult

Workshop #7, facilitated by Dimitri Nasrallah, was about introducing extraordinary elements into our fiction. And you know you’re in for a good workshop when it starts with Godzilla. :-)

Godzilla is actually a metaphor for nuclear weapons. It was a response to the incident with the Lucky Dragon 5. The Lucky Dragon was a tuna boat with a crew of 23 who became contaminated on March 1, 1954, by nuclear fallout from the U.S. Castle Bravo thermonuclear testing on Bikini Atoll. The boat was 14 miles outside of what the U.S. considered the “danger zone” and though the ship was not affected by the blast itself, it became covered in radioactive ash.

Godzilla exists as a metaphor of the pain and destruction caused by the atomic bombs that were dropped on Nagaski and Hiroshima during World War II. In the Japanese 1954 film, Godzilla, it was explained that the monster was a prehistoric reptile of some sort who was mutated by radiation from a nuclear test conducted by the United States military in the Pacific Ocean. The large amount of radiation absorbed by the reptile caused it to grow to gigantic proportions.
- Screen Rant

Fiction writers of all genres employ the surreal, symbolic, or unfamiliar in their stories. There are several reasons for this, but unfortunately we weren’t given a lot of time to take notes so the only reason I wrote down is that it raised tension. I swear I’m going to take some kind of recording device to the next Writersfest I attend so I can transcribe the notes later!

Some of the considerations to keep in mind when using extraordinary elements are:
Motivation: what stimulates your characters to believe in the device?
Justification: How does the device fit into the fabric of reality?
Description: How is it presented and individualized – the fingerprint
Interaction: How does it move through the story, and how do your characters engage with it?
Balance: How much of this device can your world handle? How far can you push your readers’ suspension of disbelief?

We were then given a big chunk of time and the following prompt:

Write a scene that incorporates this one surreal element: A talking hand. To balance your narrative, use only people and places from everyday circumstances to fill out the rest of the story.

Here’s what I came up with:

“Talk to the hand ‘cause the face don’t care,” Grandma said with a snicker.

The hand was not impressed. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?” it asked.

“Do you have a name?” little Katie asked.

“Just Hand will do.”

“Katie,” her mother asked, slowly and carefully. “Where did you find that thing?”

The hand vibrated, fingers spread wide. “I am not a thing! I’m a hand!”

“In the Addams Family, they had a hand and they called it Thing,” Grandma said helpfully. “You any relation?”

The hand curled itself into a fist and refused to say anything further.

Earlier that day, Katie had been playing in the woods and followed the sounds of a commotion. Someone was crying for help as a big, shaggy dog was tossing something up in the air and then pouncing on it.

Katie knew that dog, it was Bruno, a well-known thief of toys. She also knew how to distract him.

“Here, Bruno,” she said, picking up a hefty piece of wood. “Look what I’ve got for you!”

She showed him the stick and tossed it as far as she could. Bruno abandoned whatever he’d been playing with and bounded after the stick. Katie crept closer and found the hand. “Thank you,” the hand said. “I was starting to feel sick from being tossed in the air.”

“You’re a hand,” Katie said in surprise.

“Bright child,” the hand said dryly.

Katie ignored its sarcasm and moved a little closer. “Are you okay?”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine, as long as that dog doesn’t come back.”

Looking down thoughtfully, Katie said, “You need a bath. Maybe you should come home with me.”

The hand drummed its fingers in the dirt as it thought about it. “All right,” it said finally. “Lead the way.”

Katie watched dubiously as it began to drag itself towards her. “Maybe it might be better if I carried you,” she suggested. “You know, in case Bruno comes back.”

The hand gave a long suffering sigh. “Very well.”

It had reached her feet by this time, and quickly crawled up Katie’s leg. Katie giggled as it reached her side and kept going until it was clutching her shoulder. Then she started for home.

“Katie,” her mother asked again. “Where did you find it?”

“I didn’t, Bruno did,” Katie said. “I rescued him.”

“Rescued him,” her mother said under her breath. “A disembodied hand.”

“Yes,” the hand said, uncurling itself. “And I’m most grateful. But I do not wish to cause discord, so I’ll just be on my way.”

“No!” Katie pleaded. “Mom, look at him. We need to help him. You said, we should always help God’s creatures. He’s one of God’s creatures, isn’t he?”

“Well, yes. But—”

“You said,” Grandma snickered.

“Please, can he stay? Please?”

The mother looked from her daughter’s hopeful face to the somewhat bedraggled hand, and back again. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “But you’re responsible for him.”

“Yay!” Katie held her hand over the talking hand and it jumped to high five her. The she rested her hand beside it so it could clamber up to her shoulder. They disappeared down the hall towards the bathroom.

“Well,” Grandma observed, “It could have been worse.”

“How so?” the mother asked.

“Those woods are full of strange things. She could have brought home something really unbelievable.”

It was a fun exercise and there was enough time left over for us to read a few of our stories out loud. There were hands that grew mouths, hands that were still attached to people but worked independently, telepathic hands, imaginary hands, disembodied hands, and mechanical hands. But to my surprise, I was the only one who wrote about a hand that had no connection to a body.

Weird, or what? LOL

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Well, the good news is that I spent more time in my office last week. The bad news is that I still didn’t get much extra writing done. My focus still isn’t what it should be, but it’s getting better too.

And no, despite all my good intentions, I still didn’t get my master to-do list or my sub to-do lists made. I have so much I’d like to be doing, and I really think those lists would help, so I need sit down tonight and just do them.

I had a bit of an epiphany about why it’s so hard for me to focus, it has to do with the sheer amount of stuff I can do, but knowing why and fixing the problem seem to be two very different things.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts
2004+712+302+675=3,693
UP – 578 words from last week

Kittens to the rescue! When in doubt for something to write about on Mondays, write about kittens. :-)

As for other words . . . I caught up my journals and jotted down a couple of ideas, but I also found a couple of new games to distract me. But I’m happy to report that I reached the saturation point with the games and I’ve deleted the links to them.

I’m finding it easier to work in my office so I spent more time in there than I have been, despite it being a busier week than I expected.

And I pulled out one of my first, as yet unfinished, novels to see where I went wrong, and I realized I don’t like my main character. I’m going to have to figure out how to change that because I’ve already written the sequel (and I like that main character) and I’ve got the bare bones of an idea for a third one (really like that main character too).

Goals For Next Week:
Get all my blog posts done and maybe a few extra words besides.

EDITING:
2 ½ hours
This time was was editing on Element Fire, and I’m thinking I’m going to have to spend some time on the back story and the historic records to keep me from getting confused about what’s going on.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep working on An Elemental Spirit.

TECH & TRAINING:
Still nothing here.

Goal For Next Week:
If I don’t come up with up with something this week then I’m deleting this item off the list, like I did marketing.

POETRY:
Last week’s form, the Snám Suad, was a little tricky so it was all the more surprising I managed to create three examples of it.

Thursday afternoon I attended a seminar on the poetic device of Duende. I’m not sure that my grasp on it was one hundred percent, but I came away from it with the rough draft of a poem and the makings of another one. So it was time well spent.

But going to the seminar used up all my peopling skills for the day, which meant I had nothing left for the poetry reading that evening. But to be honest, I’m not sure I’d have gone to the reading anyway because they tend to be crowded and I just can’t handle crowds anymore.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share and work on the poems I started.

CRAFTING:
I went to the stitch in at the library on Tuesday, and while I was there a few of us decided to check out what the art club was doing. This proved to be a mistake because it left me with the urge to pull out my art stuff and do some drawing or painting. I resisted the urge, but it did get the wheels turning.

I’m still dithering a bit on what my next project should be. I was thinking about doing a placemat and napkin set with poinsettias on it (from a kit) for the Christmas display we’re going to do late summer, but then I received this book I ordered a couple of weeks ago.

It has 120 different stitches in it, plus amazing examples on what you can use them for, and I started thinking about doing a sampler. And then I got the idea to do it like a zentangle – section off squares and then fill them with three to five different kinds of stitches in random patterns. I think it would look kind of neat.

Goal For Next Week:
Better organize my needlework crafts; decide on next project.

WHAT I’M READING:
I finished The Last Heir to Blackwood Library by Hester Fox and I started reading The Book of Magic, by Alice Hoffman.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep reading.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

I’ve got a couple of appointments this week, but they’re on the same day so I’m getting the interruptions over with all at once. Oh, except I have a poetry group meeting Wednesday night. But then I don’t usually accomplish much in the evenings anyway.

I am definitely going to give the list making another shot. I even have a special narrow, lined, notepad to make my list on. One of my problems with lists in the past is that I over-think them. So I’m going to forget the sub-lists and just do one list of everything. I can cross things off as I do them, and add more when I think of them.

I think I need an attitude change for Elemental Spirit. I need to stop thinking of it as a chore and find a way to look forward to having it done. It might be a little time-consuming, but I also think I should start by figuring out the prophecy for the Illezie and then maybe more detailed historical records. That way I can use excerpts from them for my chapter headings. And as far as TraxTime goes, there’s no reason I can’t install it on this laptop too.

I have a regular stitchery guild meeting on Tuesday, and hopefully I’ll have decided on my next stitchery project. Believe it or not, there’s another afghan I want to make, but I’m also thinking I may start the zentangle sampler. Of course there’s also the half dozen “in progress” projects I could finish up, but they’re not exactly ones that are easy to take with me to a stitch-in.

My office is starting to look better and better for me to get some serious work done, it’s just a matter of dragging myself down the hall to use it. Even though there are more distractions, as in books and papers and the view, I sit at my desk and I tend not to check social media or play games as much. Good reasons to try and use my office more.

The track is out there, I just need to get back on it.

Step Aside, Inner Critic - Part 2

The critical voices in our own heads are far more vicious than what we might hear from the outside. Our "inside critics" have intimate knowledge of us and can zero in on our weakest spots.
― Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy

Give space to your thoughts, clear the noise in your head, chit-chat with your inner critic, decide and move on.
― Cristina Imre

Our reaction to self-criticism is more important than the self-criticism itself. Paying attention to our reactions is very important because the only thing we have control over is how we react.
― Yong Kang Chan

Well . . . this will teach me not to be in such a rush. I thought I’d get a jump on my Sunday post by typing out my notes for the next workshop I was going to share, and I found a bunch of stuff I forgot to include with last week’s workshop. *sigh*

Last week the emphasis was on taking care of yourself both mentally and physically. Exercise regularly, adopt a healthy eating plan, meditate, and keep a regular sleep schedule.

As well as getting a good night’s sleep, become a morning person. Start each day with some freewriting. Get up and write for 15-25 minutes with pen and paper. Do this before doing anything else. Write whatever’s uppermost in your mind without stopping. Write in sentences, not point form. Make friends with your subconscious – you’ll find out things about yourself.

When you get used to this routine, you’ll be introduced to amazing clarity. Write these morning pages, then once a month or so, read what you’ve written. Phrases that you thought were substandard will leap out at you. Write these on a fresh page and use them as a starting place.

Keep your hand moving, lose control, don’t think. Be specific, use the senses and as much detail as you can. Don’t worry about punctuation, spelling, and grammar – go for the jugular. Use a specific notebook for these “morning pages” that is separate from your other writing.

When it comes to your regular writing, it helps to have a schedule – a specific time set aside for writing every day. But setting aside a specific time to write awakens the resistance (that we talked about last week). The Pomodoro Technique is a great way to combat this resistance.

Simply put, the Pomodoro technique is a time management method where you work for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break. Twenty-five minutes is the maximum amount of time you can work at something without your brain sending you into flight mode. Write for 25 minutes with a 5 minute break 4 times, then step away from the desk and take a half hour break.

Further Reading:
Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg
Becoming A Writer, by Dorothea Brande

We finished this workshop with five minutes of freewriting:
The inner harbour is ice-covered. The space between the wooden docks is filled with white. The seagulls and cormorants I enjoyed watching in the fall are missing. Do cormorants migrate for the winter? I’ll have to ask my bird-watching friend – she’ll know. At home the water fowl stay put because no matter how many signs are put up or fines levied, people persist in feeding the birds. The birds’ dependence on these human handouts is not always a good thing. Case in point, the trumpeter swan that died, frozen in the ice. I wonder what happen to its mate?

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Where does the time go? It seems like I’m just relaxing on Sunday evening, and then all of a sudden it’s the weekend again. Wasn’t Monday just yesterday?

I was feeling much better last week, and Monday I had an epiphany that put me in a much better head space. That’s not to say I’m suddenly all gung ho to get stuff done, but I did a wider variety of things and felt like I wasted a lot less time. Which was the big surprise, considering how crappy the weather was. And an even bigger surprise was that I spent more time in my office.

March may have come in like a lion, but it left like a screaming toddler having a temper tantrum. The temperature has been up and down, the skies have been grey and overcast, and occasionally sunny. Wednesday it wasn’t looking too bad out . . . until we got two inches of snow in under an hour. About the only thing consistent has been the wind.

Barring last Sunday’s posts, not only did I get all of my posts scheduled on time last week, I also got them written early. So no super late nights where I was up past my bed time writing, which was kind of nice for a change.

NEW WORDS:
1426+477+244+654=2,801
DOWN 417 – words from last week

I guess I just didn’t have as much to say last week. The first part of my post on the inner critic workshop for the Sunday post would have been longer if I’d turned the page in my notebook and saw the rest of the notes that I posted this week.

Frankly, I thought about skipping Monday altogether because I really didn’t have much to say. One of the disadvantages of living the quiet life, I guess. And I tried to stretch out the poetry post by writing three example poems, but the form was so simple there just wasn’t anything else to say about it.

As for my serial . . . The pacing of my on-line serial story really sucks. And I jumped the gun a couple of times when it came to the timing of key events, which is really messing me up now. It started out so slowly, but then it started picking up speed and now I feel like I’m rushing towards the end. At this point all I can do is continue on to its logical conclusion, and hope I can fix everything when I get around to editing it.

I swear, I’m not starting a new serial until I have a couple of installments of it already written. There was more I could have said in that installment, and more I probably should have said, but I was in a hurry and getting tired (was only up a little late, but it had been a long day already). So it is what it is and I’ll try to do better this week.

Goals For Next Week:
Get some words written besides my blog posts.

EDITING:
0 hours
The only editing I had the urge to do was on the serial story, which I can’t really do because it’s ongoing.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.

TECH & TRAINING:
I figured out how to use my new laminator. It was super easy, but I’m still counting it. LOL

Goal For Next Week:
Learn something new. Figure out Dropbox.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
This week’s poem was super easy, which made for a super short post, even though I did three examples. It got easier as I went along, and my examples got better.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share.

CRAFTING:
It’s done, done, done-diddily-done! The afghan is done. Completed. Finished! The crocheted monkey is off my back! AND it’s been delivered to the recipient, who even called and thanked me. Now all I have to do is figure out my next project.

Goal For Next Week:
Go through stitchery stuff and find a new project to finish.

WHAT I’M READING:
I finished reading Spellbound, by Shelley Dorey, and started reading the third in the series, Devil in the Details. I’m still pecking away at The Knockoff Eclipse by Melissa Bull, but it's slow going.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the slow and steady reading pace.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

I foresee a push to get the bulk of my writing done during the day, whether in my office or not, so that I can do craft stuff in the evenings when I’m watching TV.

I did try out the translating a story into several different languages in succession (a suggestion from the fall Writersfest), but I lost something in the translation. Literally. Somehow I cut off the beginning of my story. But I’d like to try it again, maybe this time with something shorter, like a poem.

My stitchery guild meets the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, so we met last week, but several of us decided this wasn’t enough so on the alternating weeks we’re going to have an informal stitch-in at the local library. So, stichery gathering this week.

I keep trying to tell myself that there’s no law that says I have to be at the gym right at 6 a.m., and that I’d only be a little late if I did my morning pages first. Of course that’s assuming I’m awake enough to hold a pen. But I’d like to give it a try.

I think I’ll also try getting my retreat notes typed out, just so I don’t miss any, like I did last week. Unlike previous years, though, I don’t think I’m going to copy them into my writing journal. Seems a little like overkill, to have them both places.

But there’s something I should add to my list – give a little more attention to my writing journal. Mostly what I’ve been writing in there is the odd quote or two. Maybe I’ll start writing a weekly flash prompt or something.

It’s a thought.

The Future Is . . .

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.
— Alfred Lord Tennyson

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
― Eleanor Roosevelt

You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.
― Chuck Palahniuk

The future depends on what you do today.
― Mahatma Gandhi

The future is out there.

The future is coming.

The future is now.

As you might have surmised, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future lately. Specifically, my future as it pertains to my writing.

Fifteen years ago I was working on three novels at the same time and making good progress on all of them. I didn’t have a blog schedule, per se, but I was posting more often (although they were shorter posts) and I wasn’t struggling to write them.

It was actually a little depressing really to read those early posts. There I was, doing all that writing, and I still didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. I was writing more in one day than I’m writing now in my Sunday posts (my longest one). My future was no more defined then than it is now. And that’s just sad.

But it got me thinking about being a writer and where I’m going with this.

I first dreamed of being a writer back in high school. I had all these stories in my head and I was going to write them all down and publish them. I was going to be the youngest writer to have a story published in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Swords and Sorceress series.

Vera Nazarian beat me to that, but I couldn’t even bring myself to hate her for it because she’s a wonderful writer. She’s written (and sold) many short stories since then, wrote a bunch of books, had life throw her some curve balls, and kept going.

And that, my friends, is the big difference. She kept going. She finished what she started. She persisted in following her dream. She didn’t make excuses, she just wrote. I’m sure she has a whole crap ton of books in her future, just waiting to be written.

Now don’t start thinking I’m comparing myself to Vera, I’m not. I’m just admiring her work ethic, something I’m sorely lacking. I’ve been paying a lot of lip service about writing every day, and getting organized, and the list goes on, when what I really need to do is stop talking about it and start doing it.

The reason I’m writing hasn’t changed over the years – I still have stories to tell and I’m the only one who can tell them. And every once in a while I’ll do a post like this where I get all angsty and whiny and point out that I need to do better, and sometimes I even do for a while, but it doesn’t take long to slide back into my old habits.

I don’t want another 15 years to go by and look back and see my lack of progress. I can only blame my dysthymia for so much, the rest is on me. If I want to get to that future and look back with pride then I have to be willing to change my ways. Time to start making progress instead of excuses.

Otherwise, why am I even doing this?

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

I have a confession to make. Early in the week I downloaded a hidden objects game. And then I started playing it. A lot.

I was having one of those weeks, I guess because when it got annoying that I’d have to stop when I ran out of gaming energy, I downloaded another. Then a third.

The turning point for me was when I ended up with a pinched nerve from spending such long stretches in my recliner doing nothing but playing those games. I smartened up, deleted the games, and went on to do other things.

Of course it was too late to salvage productivity for the week, but at least I didn’t fall behind on my blogging.

NEW WORDS:
2235+394+353+601=3,583
UP – 191 words from last week

Goals For Next Week:
Get some words written besides my blog posts.

EDITING:
0 pages
I guess the miracle of starting work on Elemental Spirit didn’t happen last week, maybe it’ll happen this week. *sigh*

You know, it’s not like I don’t have other stuff I could be working on instead. Maybe I should start looking at my backlog of novels and stories. This is starting to feel like Magical Mayhem all over again – look at how long it took me to finish it.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit or something else.

TECH & TRAINING:
Okay, this isn’t exactly computer or writing related, but it is using technology, so I’m counting it.

As you’ll know if you’re a Netflix user, they changed their policy recently. This means I can no longer share my daughter’s account. So, I had to get my own Netflix account, and since I already had my credit card handy, I got Paramount + as well.

Signing up was the easy part. Accessing them on my laptop – no problem. Trying to watch them on television . . .not so easy. Well, Netflix was fine, I just accessed it the same way I did before only I used my own password.

Turns out my smart TV isn’t much smarter than I am. It did not offer the Paramount + app in its app store, so I had to go through the Roku. I was able to add Paramount +, but when I tried to sign in I kept getting a message telling me my login or password was incorrect. After many fruitless attempts to sign in, I went to the Paramount site to trouble shoot.

The first suggestion was to reset the Roku itself. Which I did – I still couldn’t log in. Then it suggested I reset my password, which was a little more complicated than I expected. But when I did, suddenly I could log in.

Whew! Crises averted

Goal For Next Week:
Learn to use Dropbox properly so I can backup my files.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Last week wasn’t nearly as exciting as far as poetry went. I found a new form, one with plenty of information available about it for a change, and actually enjoyed wading through it all. I was fairly pleased with my example, too.

And when looking for my weekly form I found a bunch more forms I haven’t tried yet. With any luck, it’ll be months before I have to resort to the coded Welsh forms. :-)

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share.

CRAFTING:
The craft migration is done. All I need is a table to craft on and all will be right with my crafting world. However, I got no work done on the afghan. Not a stitch.

But when I was grocery shopping I noticed some plain dresses in the children’s section that looked similar to the one I embroidered for the granddaughter last year for Easter. I bought one in blue (blue being her favorite colour) with the intention of stitching on it for this Easter.

Goal For Next Week:
Work on the afghan. Figure out what to embroider on the dress.

WHAT I’M READING:
I re-read Sanctuary by Nora Roberts, and that was it. Just goes to show how focused I was on those stupid hidden object games.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up my good reading habits.

GOAL REVIEW:

Well, in some respects it was a good week – I had no trouble at all with my blog posts – but in other respects it wasn’t so great. I got no other writing done and I started to slide into my bad gaming habits again.

I did start thinking about what I’d be working on after Elemental Spirit. Single book or series? And then I realized I only have two “almost finished” books that aren’t part of a series, and both have the potential for a sequel.

The rest of my unfinished books all begin multi-book series. So looks like once I’m done with the elementals I be looking at another series. Unless, of course, I come up with a whole new book.

You’ll notice marketing is missing. Yeah, it’s been so long since I’ve even made an attempt at marketing that I figured it was time to let it go. And I know it was a stretch for tech, but televisions are technology too.

Crafting was pretty much non-existent last week, but for all intents and purposes my crafting migration is done at least. Will this make a difference? Only time will tell.

The big surprise last week was the reading. One book. Guess I spent a lot more time on those hidden object games than I realized.

Maybe without the distraction of gaming and excessive reading, I’ll actually get something accomplished besides blog posts this week

On Different Note . . .

Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.
— Henry Ward Beecher

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.
— Plato

Words make you think. Music makes you feel. A song makes you feel a thought.
— Yip Harburg

Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.
― Robert G. Ingersoll

Do you write to a play list, or do you prefer the silence?

I’ve read several books where the author has included a play list of the music they wrote their book to. Even my favorite author, Charles de Lint, has acknowledged the music his novels have been written under the influence of.

The last few years, especially since the pandemic started, I find I often prefer the silence. Not just when I’m writing, but in my daily life. And I’m not quite sure how it happened.

Maybe it’s because the world has become such a busy, noisy place. After I’ve had to deal with it I crave the silence for a time. And after I’ve had to deal with a lot of people, I find the silence is very soothing.

That being said, I like to listen to music in the car. Usually it’s just the radio set to a classic rock station, but sometimes I’ll remember to bring a CD or two with me. The hubby made me a driving CD one time – a mixed CD of songs about driving with songs like “Highway to Hell”, “I Don’t Drive 55”, that sort of thing. :-)

But back to the writing. Like I said, the last few years I’ve mostly been writing in silence, but it wasn’t always that way. I have a large CD collection and used to have a kickass little stereo in my office. The radio was crap, but the speakers for playing CDs were great.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, especially electronics, and the stereo died. It was replaced with a boom box that does not boast great speakers, so the sound for the CDs isn’t all that great but they work really well for the radio, which also works great.

The problem is when I’m writing I prefer my music to be instrumental music. If it’s got lyrics then I find it too distracting – I’ll spend more time listening to the lyrics or singing along than I do writing.

So . . . what kind of music do I listen to when writing, if any? For my Moonstone Chronicles I listened to a lot of Celtic music. It’s lively and put me in mind of Ireland (or what I imagine Ireland to be like, seeing as I’ve never been) which was the inspiration for the magical realm. And the lyrics are in Gaelic, as a rule, so they’re not distracting.

Two Steps From Hell is great to listen to while writing. Some of it is really inspiring for fight scenes, and some of it is just plain inspiring. I listen to a fair amount of Audiomachine too, and soundtracks are always a good bet.

The rest of my music collection is pretty eclectic. The hubby is a diehard classic rock aficionado, and when the daughter was a teenager she used to find some of the weirdest music (she still does) ever. They can both be a bit snobbish when it comes to music, but think I’m more open minded.

For me, music is like art. I either like the painting, or I don’t. I don’t care how famous the person is who painted it. With music it’s either pleasing to the ear, or it isn’t. But I’ll at least give it a try before I pass judgement.

So, while you won’t ever see me doing a playlist of popular music to write to, I’m not opposed to writing to instrumental music. Sometimes, the silence can be a little too quiet.

Maybe that’s what my writing needs – a return to music.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

The best thing I can say about this past week is that all of my posts were up on time, and I didn’t have to stay up late to do them. In fact, a couple of the posts were started a couple of days in advance.

I updated my writing journal finally, and while I was at it included a few lines for potential poems. They may not have been story idea, but I’ll take them anyway.

I might have accomplished more writing, but I got hit by a series of cluster headaches. You can’t really ignore them and there’s really not much you can do about them, just put up with them. But it does make it a little hard to focus sometimes.

NEW WORDS:
1609+638+558+540=3,345
UP – 45 words from last week

Goals For Next Week:
Get some words written besides my blog posts.

EDITING:
0 pages
I’m still trying to work up some enthusiasm for Elemental Spirit. I’m actually thinking about skipping the beginning (that needs a total rewrite) and ignoring the historical records that are supposed to head each chapter, and just go straight to editing the rest of it. There’s no law that says I have to do it in the proper order, and I’m thinking once I have the body of it done, that’ll give me the incentive to do the rest of it.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.

MARKETING:
Yeah, nothing new here.

Goal For Next Week:
Set up author page on Amazon; update book page on blog.

TECH & TRAINING:
Nope, I got nothing but thoughts about doing something.

Goal For Next Week:
Learn to use Dropbox properly so I can backup my files.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I got the informational part of my form done early, which was a good thing because the poem was a long one. I actually enjoyed the Trenta-Sei verse form, despite its length. I think I’d like to work on my example poem a bit more though – it ends a little abruptly and I’m not altogether happy with that.

It’s getting harder to find new forms to share, but if push comes to shove, I can fall back on the coded Welsh forms – there’s twenty-four of them but they’re all really hard.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share.

CRAFTING:
Well. The two bins I’d picked up for my fabric were just a little bit bigger than would fit comfortably into the closet of my new craft room, so I ended up having to buy some new ones. Three of them as a matter of fact. I divided the fabric from the giant bin in my old craft closet into them (and yes, it did take all three) and they fit nicely in their allotted space.

I used the old, opaque bin to hold donations for the thrift store and took a load up on Thursday. There is still a bin in the old craft closet that needs to be dealt with – it’s holding various knitting and crocheting projects I have on the go. I don’t have enough room in the new craft room for the bin, but I’m thinking I could use a couple of under-the-bed storage bins for them. Maybe one for knitting projects and one for crocheting. I just have to buy them first. :-)

Didn’t work on the afghan, but then that’s a project I usually do in front of the TV, and I didn’t watch much TV that was good for crafting to last week.

Goal For Next Week:
Work on the afghan. Finish craft migration.

WHAT I’M READING:
Read Midnight Bayou, and Public Secrets by Nora Roberts.

Still reading The Hungry Ghosts by Shyam Selvadurai, who ran the “Writing Vivid Characters” workshop at the fall Writersfest. It’s good, but it’s not a book I want to rush.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up my good reading habits.

GOAL REVIEW:

As I said above, I got all my posts done on time, and I didn’t even have to stay up late to do them. And I had half of my poetry post done on Monday, which was really handy when I ended up spending my allotted poetry time at a three-hour lunch on Tuesday.

No editing and no marketing, but lots of thinking about both. Now, if I can just move from the thinking stage to the doing stage I’d be cooking with gas.

I really do want to learn the ins and outs of Dropbox this week so I can back my stuff up to it. I’m getting paranoid with this computer – just this week it emptied my recycle bin without being asked to. Who knows what else it’ll do on its own?

This may not seem like a big deal, but I had a lot of stuff in my recycle bin (I have lots of space on my computer). Occasionally I’ll be looking for something from a while back and a couple of times I’d find what I was looking for in my recycle bin. It’s like getting rid of stuff out of your closet and then realizing you had a use for it after all.

I actually did my poetry post early, and I confess, while I didn’t stay up late Tuesday night, I only had three quarters of my poem done when I went to bed but managed to finish it before breakfast on Wednesday.

No work done on the afghan, but I am a step closer to finishing the craft migration. Two more bins and a work table and I should be able to call it done.

My reading is still being reasonable. Still not able to let go of Nora, but I’m not reading to the exclusion of all else, so that’s a step in the right direction.

I did not get back to my lists. Actually, I kind of forgot about them. But I looked at my day planner and didn’t like all the white space I was seeing – I’ve been using it to jot point form notes about my day for updating my journal. So I’ve been making an effort to do more with my days. If not writing, then at least something else.

So while I’ve been thinking a lot about writing, and some of the things I could be writing, the cluster headaches have been an impediment to that. If I can just get rid of them while I’m still feeling ambitious, I’ll be cooking with gas.