When I started writing my current book, I had no intention of killing someone off. Nor did I have the intent for it to take the turn that it has. I have found it difficult to convey the feelings and emotions my characters are experiencing but the story must come out like it has. It is not that I am having difficulty coming up with the circumstance, but I scare myself when the words begin to flow. I assume that is how it is supposed to be. If the author can invoke emotion by simply rereading and tweaking the paragraph, the first successful step has happened. Or is it something else?
I find that I have pieced this together haphazardly and can only hope that the finished product (for this part of the story at least) conveys the amount of terror and fear that I intend to convey. I am by no means a horror writer but I have found that I hate this character just as much as the character that is committing this brutal act. I am not saying the person doing the killing is right or wrong or evil or not. I will leave that for you to decide when the time comes to publish. I just scare myself sometimes. It also has become an all encompassing thing in my thoughts. I dream about it, I eat it, I breathe it, it is in the far reaches of my brain and I feel I can only get over it when it is finally on paper.
Therein lies the difficulty.
I am by no means a monster but I have created one. It bothers me. Just like seeing someone hurt someone else in real life or on a Facebook video bothers me. It keeps me awake at night and I just know if I can get this damn thing done, I will be ok. It would be different were it someone real I could base my vengeance on and do what the general public believes authors to do. You know, piss me off and I will kill you in my book. That is a terrible connection. What if the writer has always been one who writes in the horror genre? I have a hard time believing that writers like Stephen King and (in other genres) Dean Koontz or eve Louis L'amour had that many people piss them off in their lives. Come on people, be realistic (hehe, get it? Realistic in a fiction author's mind? Ah, I digress.)
This is the first time I have tried my hand at a fiction novel. I have done short stories and paragraphs before and this thing is making me sick. Not in the sense that I hate it but in the sense that if I don't get it out of me soon, I will explode! I used to wonder why people took so long to write books. Some authors will put into their forewords or introductions how long they worked at a piece. I now understand.
Just. Wow. I get it peeps. I get it. For those of you who write, what is the most difficult piece you have ever done?
What do YOU think?
Reader suggested posts. Other blogs I write and prompts from my readers.
Showing posts with label writing process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing process. Show all posts
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Day 11: Writers constipation.
I have been working on the latest novel for almost 2 years no. I know sometimes it takes time but I am ready to move on to the next story. I assume that is why I am hyperfocused on blogging. That is ok because it allows me to write about a variety of things and take a break from the sick and twisted minds of Jake and Anastasia. I must say that their story has taken a turn down a different road and it has evolved into something entirely different. I am sad because a lot of the stuff I jotted down in the beginning will not be used and it was pretty brilliant. (In my mind it was, anyway. Not that it would see the light of day in my lifetime.) However, I am happy because it takes the story from something mainstream to a darker topic. I have always wanted to try my hand at the (OMG! Exactly why I am writing this! I will be on a roll and then when I get to a certain point, I space out and stare at the blinking cursor for about 5 minutes. You know, sort of like walking into a room and trying in vain to understand why in the HELL you came in there to start with! I JUST did that chit. RIGHT NOW! Ah, I digress....I remember now. Haha, Yes, my brain walked back to where it came from and figured it out, we walk back into that room for the thing.) darker aspect of the human way of thinking and I believe this is the way it is going now. Ya, I know, Not giving you much am I?
Right now, the few things that people know about this writing is that the main characters are Jake and Anastasia, I am currently writing about killing someone off, AND I believe I have my book cover. I have some tweaking to do on the cover but when it is done, I think the daughter will kill me. Ironic huh?
I am at an impasse at the moment. Not that my family knows the habit yet, but when I am carrying around whatever it is I am writing my current story on nearly everywhere. There is something that needs to be written but it is..stuck. Sort of like being constipates. Only, for a writer, it hurts much more than the physical discomforts of not being able to take a crap. I take my writing pad into every single room in the event that inspiration strikes or I get that moment of....freeflowingthoughtwhichmy writinginstrumentcannotkeepupwith. It has yet to happen. I cannot sleep right, (right....not well...different things here) I cannot eat without thinking about how to put it into words and I cannot do anything without that blue tablet calling to me. Its almost obsessive.
So here I sit. Waiting. Waiting for the plumbing to get backed up so I can get it all out and Oh. My. Gawd. Will it feel good. This book has been a long time coming and I have promised a 2015 publish date since I did not put one out last year. I hope this is one that will be liked and I hope to overcome a lot of the errors I made with my first book. For now, the tablet sits upon my desk taunting me. Asking me to add the....OOPS! I almost gave it away! BAD Micaa!
Until then, what kinds of things do you do to relieve the writers constipation (or for those of you politically correct lovelies-writers block.?)
What do YOU think?
Right now, the few things that people know about this writing is that the main characters are Jake and Anastasia, I am currently writing about killing someone off, AND I believe I have my book cover. I have some tweaking to do on the cover but when it is done, I think the daughter will kill me. Ironic huh?
I am at an impasse at the moment. Not that my family knows the habit yet, but when I am carrying around whatever it is I am writing my current story on nearly everywhere. There is something that needs to be written but it is..stuck. Sort of like being constipates. Only, for a writer, it hurts much more than the physical discomforts of not being able to take a crap. I take my writing pad into every single room in the event that inspiration strikes or I get that moment of....freeflowingthoughtwhichmy writinginstrumentcannotkeepupwith. It has yet to happen. I cannot sleep right, (right....not well...different things here) I cannot eat without thinking about how to put it into words and I cannot do anything without that blue tablet calling to me. Its almost obsessive.
So here I sit. Waiting. Waiting for the plumbing to get backed up so I can get it all out and Oh. My. Gawd. Will it feel good. This book has been a long time coming and I have promised a 2015 publish date since I did not put one out last year. I hope this is one that will be liked and I hope to overcome a lot of the errors I made with my first book. For now, the tablet sits upon my desk taunting me. Asking me to add the....OOPS! I almost gave it away! BAD Micaa!
Until then, what kinds of things do you do to relieve the writers constipation (or for those of you politically correct lovelies-writers block.?)
What do YOU think?
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Will there ever be a reprieve?
This is my attempt to get some variety between my channels. Most of the time, I will just copy and paste a post from WordPress to Blogger to author page. This morning, it just hit me to try something different. Besides, the more I write, the less "inflated" I feel. I am finding this post to be a little more difficult as there is usually a thought process involved before I actually sit down and write something.
This one, in the attempt to be different, is just random chit floating through my head and was intended to be a thing about money and morphed into something else just after I wrote the title. I know, I should always write the content then find a fitting title. Some say it's easier but you know me and shock value. While it is not shocking to anyone else, it is still a writer's eccentric habit and that is shocking to other writers.
I have always written or kept a journal since I was a kid. While my writing has evolved and life circumstances dictate that I write differently, the need is the same. Its like breathing. A writer is not healthy without writing SOMETHING. For me, there are things that I come across during the day that I think "that would be awesome to put out there with my skewed line of thinking." Others never see the light of day either because I forget or it is just not there anymore by the time I get near my computer. Yea, I need to get a laptop again. I avoid my office like the plague when I am not working. Too bad I don't make enough to work ONLY on my writing. I am certain there would be a lot more accomplished there. But that is the digression here and yes, a topic for another day.
The reprieve I am asking for here is because, sometimes, my fingers just are too tired from working or writing other things to type out what I have bouncing around in my head. You see, it starts off as a random thought floating into the room. That thought begins to replicate itself and then bounce around in my head until it is all encompassing and I have to "get it out."
This one, in the attempt to be different, is just random chit floating through my head and was intended to be a thing about money and morphed into something else just after I wrote the title. I know, I should always write the content then find a fitting title. Some say it's easier but you know me and shock value. While it is not shocking to anyone else, it is still a writer's eccentric habit and that is shocking to other writers.
I have always written or kept a journal since I was a kid. While my writing has evolved and life circumstances dictate that I write differently, the need is the same. Its like breathing. A writer is not healthy without writing SOMETHING. For me, there are things that I come across during the day that I think "that would be awesome to put out there with my skewed line of thinking." Others never see the light of day either because I forget or it is just not there anymore by the time I get near my computer. Yea, I need to get a laptop again. I avoid my office like the plague when I am not working. Too bad I don't make enough to work ONLY on my writing. I am certain there would be a lot more accomplished there. But that is the digression here and yes, a topic for another day.
The reprieve I am asking for here is because, sometimes, my fingers just are too tired from working or writing other things to type out what I have bouncing around in my head. You see, it starts off as a random thought floating into the room. That thought begins to replicate itself and then bounce around in my head until it is all encompassing and I have to "get it out."
This is why a writer HAS to write. My curiosity is this: How much CAN a writer write before they are satisfied that they are done? Even if only for one day. I write and get my quarter machine bouncy balls out of my brain. However, once the room is clear...here comes another. Is there a way to shut the door they happily bounce from? If there is, do I WANT to have that door shut?
THAT, my friends, I do not have the answer to.
What do YOU think?
Friday, April 25, 2014
Using real life to change fiction
It never ceases to amaze me how a messed up situation in real life can change the pace of a fiction story one is composing.
Currently I am in the middle of the lives of Jack and Anastasia and they have now found that they have evil neighbors in their desert. Hrmm. Wonder where that came from? Well, I certainly love my neighbors. Even the evil ones that have no idea how being nice really works. As a writer, it amazes me how things can take a turn in a story that you are writing and you don't even intend for it to go down that path.
What happens is this:
You are walking along, minding your own business. Listening to your footsteps as you travel down this storybook road ( your footsteps are sounding like your fingers hacking away a the keys-keep your pinkies up while typing!) and you see this little less travelled path along the side of the road. Oh, you note it alright but you keep walking. Only, your stride slows down as you think about that path. You think. You stew. You think and you stew. You think until you come to a stop and look around you. There is nothing but untouched field and warm sunshine all around you and you stand there.
Brooding.
That paths presence simply will not leave the back of your mind. At some point, as if hypnotized, you do an about face and you find yourself standing at the top of the path...wondering. Should you take it? Should you keep going? You know if you keep going in the direction you were, you will always wonder. You wonder this as you stand before said path and turn your face to the setting sun. This is the same direction you were heading in the first place. Hmm. The setting sun. Interesting. Maybe something is trying to give you a message. That path leads to an ending that your mind knows so well. The plan you had laid out for this story to travel. The path that you know how it is going to be. However.
However, you are at this new, unexpected thing. This crossroads and you have to take it. You ask for opinions of others and they all say...go for it! What makes it even more interesting is that you once wrote a small blurb when you were experiencing a writing prompt and you had requests to finish it. While you had no full story to go with that blurb, that one situation that led to this interruption of the field you are waking by and the path that so raptly has your attention now has a place in your story. That blurb and where this path leads go hand in hand and make perfect sense for the direction you know the story could go.
Do you take it? Life is about taking chances. While us writers are not ones to go out and do parkour or ride a skateboard off a ramp some 500 feet in the air, these are the chances we take. Is this the making of a great story? In my mind it may be.
It makes me wonder how many paths are along the stories that I read. I now understand where "the Wind Through the Keyhole" by Stephen King came from. When I first discovered that story I was in pure bliss to find another book to the whole Gunslinger collection. When I read the intro, I thought it strange for the author to label it as Gunslinger 4.5. However, it fit right in between books 4 and 5 of that story. Funny how paths are created and how they come into existence.
Have you ever come across a less beaten path? Did you take it? Where did it lead you?
What do YOU think?
DISCLAIMER: This post is used by its author on several social media sites and cannot be reproduced otherwise.
Currently I am in the middle of the lives of Jack and Anastasia and they have now found that they have evil neighbors in their desert. Hrmm. Wonder where that came from? Well, I certainly love my neighbors. Even the evil ones that have no idea how being nice really works. As a writer, it amazes me how things can take a turn in a story that you are writing and you don't even intend for it to go down that path.
What happens is this:
You are walking along, minding your own business. Listening to your footsteps as you travel down this storybook road ( your footsteps are sounding like your fingers hacking away a the keys-keep your pinkies up while typing!) and you see this little less travelled path along the side of the road. Oh, you note it alright but you keep walking. Only, your stride slows down as you think about that path. You think. You stew. You think and you stew. You think until you come to a stop and look around you. There is nothing but untouched field and warm sunshine all around you and you stand there.
Brooding.
That paths presence simply will not leave the back of your mind. At some point, as if hypnotized, you do an about face and you find yourself standing at the top of the path...wondering. Should you take it? Should you keep going? You know if you keep going in the direction you were, you will always wonder. You wonder this as you stand before said path and turn your face to the setting sun. This is the same direction you were heading in the first place. Hmm. The setting sun. Interesting. Maybe something is trying to give you a message. That path leads to an ending that your mind knows so well. The plan you had laid out for this story to travel. The path that you know how it is going to be. However.
However, you are at this new, unexpected thing. This crossroads and you have to take it. You ask for opinions of others and they all say...go for it! What makes it even more interesting is that you once wrote a small blurb when you were experiencing a writing prompt and you had requests to finish it. While you had no full story to go with that blurb, that one situation that led to this interruption of the field you are waking by and the path that so raptly has your attention now has a place in your story. That blurb and where this path leads go hand in hand and make perfect sense for the direction you know the story could go.
Do you take it? Life is about taking chances. While us writers are not ones to go out and do parkour or ride a skateboard off a ramp some 500 feet in the air, these are the chances we take. Is this the making of a great story? In my mind it may be.
It makes me wonder how many paths are along the stories that I read. I now understand where "the Wind Through the Keyhole" by Stephen King came from. When I first discovered that story I was in pure bliss to find another book to the whole Gunslinger collection. When I read the intro, I thought it strange for the author to label it as Gunslinger 4.5. However, it fit right in between books 4 and 5 of that story. Funny how paths are created and how they come into existence.
Have you ever come across a less beaten path? Did you take it? Where did it lead you?
What do YOU think?
DISCLAIMER: This post is used by its author on several social media sites and cannot be reproduced otherwise.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)