Here's An Idea . . .

The irritating question they ask us -- us being writers -- is: "Where do you get your ideas?" And the answer is: Confluence. Things come together. The right ingredients and suddenly: Abracadabra!
― Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions

I always had plenty of ideas. I didn’t exactly have them. They grew—little by little, a half an idea at a time. First, part of a phrase and then a person to go with it. After a person, then a little corner of a place for the person to be in.
― Carol Emshwiller

I know it’s early yet, but with the weather starting to cool off my thoughts have been drifting towards November and NaNoWriMo. Normally I wait until closer to the start before I begin to waffle – should I/shouldn’t I – but I decided to skip that part this year. We all know I’m going to do it, if only because I don’t want to break my winning streak.

So . . . wanting to be prepared I started considering what to work on. Only the idea well seems to have run dry. I don’t really want to do a sequel to one of the books I’ve already done (or started and didn’t finish), but when I started thinking about something new my mind was a dust bowl. We’re talking complete with tumbleweeds.

I briefly considered doing a 1667 word flash a day thing, but I’m not sure I could keep up the momentum. Then I considered the idea I had a couple of years ago for a themed anthology, there’s enough time to do the research that put me off before, but again, I’d need to do a story a day to complete it.

Then I started kicking around a themed anthology idea revolving around flowers . . . That might be doable. I could get my research done ahead of time, maybe even jot down an idea or two about each story. The stories could be as long or as short as I like. Hmm. That might be doable.

Or I might just write the beginning story of Kiranthus (from The Moonstone Chronicles). Lord knows I have enough notes about him. And I know the story pretty well. When I first conceived the idea for the Chronicles, there were going to be 9 books in total – three about Kiranthus, three about Jessica, and the final three about what came after. I don’t think Kiranthus needs three whole books, and I’m wrapping this up nicely in Blood Ties so there’s not going to be much to add afterwards. So a book about Kiranthus just might fly.

It’s nice to know there's still a trickle of water at the bottom of the well. :-)

Unfortunately, I’m still not getting much writing done, other than my blog posts. I didn’t even dabble in poetry last week, although I did make a few entries in my writing journal. But I did make myself a handy dandy chart to keep track of my weekly words. You know, when I actually have some.

I didn’t get much editing on Blood Ties either. I don’t really know where my week went – it’s not like I had anything special going on. I did start doing a free course on “show, don’t tell” that I found on-line to try and encourage me to do other writing but so far although I’m learning stuff, I don’t feel any more motivated to getting back at the writing.

Reading wise I’m still reading The Coyote Road, by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve been alternating it with a couple of writing books, again, to encourage me to actually write. So far I’m still resisting.

The Week Ahead . . .

While last week’s episode of my non-fiction series wasn’t any easier to write, it wasn’t as stressful because I started it earlier. I need to keep doing that.

I really need to quite dicking around and get back to the edits on Blood Ties. Which I’m renaming again – Blood Ties is now going to be Magical Mayhem. It makes better sense and it ties in with the first book in the series.

I’m also determined to start writing every day – a one word prompt, a flash prompt, the scene I need to finish the book I’m taking with me to the retreat, it doesn’t matter as long as I write something.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Writers Tears

In my little corner of Canada things are slowly starting to re-open, but I seem to be more closed off than ever. If there’s a reason for it then it’s doing a pretty good job of eluding me. The writing still isn’t coming and there doesn’t seem to be a reason for that, either.

It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that it’s June (yeah, I know, brilliant deduction) and that means the year is half over.

Seriously?

On a whim I pulled out some of my old writing journals to have a look at my progress over the last several years, and what I saw wasn’t good. Naturally there have been ups and downs, but gradually the downs started out-numbering the ups until pretty much all I’m seeing are the downs.

Occasional prompt stories aside, this hasn’t been much of a year, creatively speaking. Despite my plan of my fortune-telling series being a repeat of a non-fiction series I did ten years ago, I found myself up-dating and in most cases re-writing the posts, especially the wrap-up. But while it was definitely “writing” I don’t really consider it “creative” writing. Just the facts, ma’am.

And I realized I never did set any goals for 2020, other than “write more,” which I haven’t been doing. So then I thought maybe I should set some goals, but that involves making lists and the problem with making lists is that I forget to check them.

AND THEN I happened to see a blog post by author Patti O'Shea where she was talking about something called a kanban board. Being unfamiliar with this term, I looked it up and discovered it’s a project management tool that (to me) looks like a list, only on a board instead of just a piece of paper.

So I’m looking at it and I’m thinking this would be so much better than a list. I could use a piece of bristol board and stick it up on the wall of my office and use stick notes to keep track of everything I want/need to do, and maybe shame myself into doing some of it. AND, as an added bonus, it would give me an excuse to buy more stick notes.

We’ll just have to wait and see if it works or not (doesn’t it seem like I say that a lot?). One way or another, I want to feel worthy when I crack open that bottle of Writers Tears. :-D

P.S.

Also, I think I might be due for a schedule change. I'd still like to do my progress updates on Sunday, but for now I think I keep it strictly to that – a progress report, no prompt stories. I’m going to move my non-fiction posts to Wednesday, making it a Wildcard Wednesday instead. And my prompt stories (if I do any) will move to Friday for a Fiction Friday thing.

At least if you’re looking for something specific you know which day to check back. Or you can just “like” my page on Facebook because I usually post links there.