Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Take Advantage of the TTB #99cents sale…
Folks, right now, Twilight Times Books has a ninety-nine cents sale going on. Books included in this sale are my own AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, Jason Cordova’s CORRUPTOR, Chris Nuttall’s SCHOOLED IN MAGIC, Loren Jones’ STORIES OF THE CONFEDERATED STAR SYSTEMS, and much, much more.
If you ever want to see what’s going on with Twilight Times Books, here’s a link to the Amazon page: http://amzn.to/eYYy6s Once you get to this page, click the box that says, “Price low to high,” and you’ll see all sorts of great books available for only ninety-nine cents.
Because this is my page, though, I’m going to tell you a little more about my own offering that’s on sale right now, AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE. This is the first half of the Elfy duology (the second half being A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE, available right now for $2.99). Bruno the Elfy is taken out of his own culture and place, the Elfy Realm, and is brought to our Earth. He doesn’t entirely know why he’s here. He doesn’t know why a strange family from Northern California has kidnapped him. But he does know that the young daughter of that family, Sarah, intrigues him. Both are treated horribly, and both decide they’re going to leave…contacting Bruno’s mentor, Roberto the Wise, they attempt to get out of there, with Roberto ending up trapped in Bruno’s place instead. As Bruno and Sarah attempt to gather allies, they find out more about each other than they’d ever believed possible…and that much of what they thought they knew about themselves was flat wrong.
I’m proud of writing AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, and I hope you will enjoy reading it. As it’s on sale right now, there’s no better time to dip your toe into the water of the Elfyverse than right now…and since the second half of the Elfy duology, A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE, is only $2.99, you can have a great, multi-day reading experience for less than the price of a tall latte at Starbucks.
What more could you possibly want?
(Oh, yes…and there’s a lot of humor here. Which might help divert you, and can’t we all use a diversion right now?)
A Sunday Thought…and a Thought
Folks, when I woke up earlier today, I thought hard about life. About what my place in the world is (nay, bigger than that — the entire universe!), and whether or not what I’m doing is my best course of action.
Then I snorted, sat up, and started laughing in near-hysteria.
I’m a writer. An editor. A musician. A scholar of arcane disciplines, and a student of history. Also a daughter, a friend, a colleague…
And, of course, the widow of Michael B. Caffrey.
This last is my most precious joy, not because of the widow part — far, far from it! — but because Michael was the most amazing person I have ever had the privilege to behold. He was funny, smart, self-educated, gifted at many things, and a person of remarkable wit and consequence. Michael mattered so very much; what had formed him, what had shaped him, into the man I feel in my heart was firmly destined to be my husband and other half of my soul interested me greatly.
Because we didn’t have that much time together, there are some things I will never know from his perspective. (I have picked up on some additional things since his untimely passing from his sister, his nieces, a few of his friends, and his ex-wife, who was possibly his very best friend in all the world besides myself.) But one thing I do know…Michael was special, and important, and being with him was worth every last bit of pain I’ve suffered since his untimely passing.
Much less the pain I endured before I ever met him, as I’d been previously — and quite unhappily — married before I had the privilege to meet him.
I mention all of that because it’s important to me. Important enough that I’m willing to put it out there, for all to see, in a format that will last as long as the Internet does…and perhaps longer.
But perhaps that seems obvious to you. If you’ve been here before, you know this about me by now; I have suffered, but I have learned, and I have been deeply loved. These things cannot help but mark a person. And in this case, I hope they have made me a better person.
That said, I can’t help but reflect on how life, all in all, marks us. We are all the sum total of our experiences. If we are wise, and learn from our mistakes — and celebrate our joys, no matter how brief and evanescent they may be — we may become our best selves, and worthy of the highest love our species can bestow.
This Sunday, I want you to consider your own highest gifts and blessings. From where did they spring? What are you doing with them, now, and what will you do with them in the future?
Now, as for the additional thought…this was my original post on the subject at Facebook, a few short minutes ago (if you want to read my public posts at Facebook, go here):
One of my best friends just pointed out that everything in life, good and bad, is a learning experience. As a writer, I tend to observe much, even when I don’t seem to be taking it in…the hope is that it gives my stories more weight, as I can’t help but do it anyway.
That said, as I’m in the month of June — my wedding anniversary rapidly approaches, the 14th (and 12th without my beloved husband by my side), I marvel at the changes life has brought. Some have been horrible. Some have been remarkably good.
But to get to Michael, to be with him, to hear him laugh and to create works with him was my most precious joy. I’d not change any of that for the world.
Thus are today’s Sunday thoughts.
Any questions?
Writing: When Done Well, it Only Seems Effortless…
Folks, haven’t you ever wondered just how much work goes into your favorite books?
I’ve been pondering this lately, and here’s my best answer: a whole lot of effort goes into what later seems to be effortless prose…in other words, a writer works hard for what seems effortless, in the end.
We writers often castigate ourselves because our writing isn’t coming easily enough, or quickly enough, or (fill-in-the-blank) enough. Yet, later on, when you re-read your efforts, you barely remember, “Oh, didn’t I have the flu then?” or “My goodness, how did I write that while under so much stress?”
Of course, some writers use their writing as a way to GAFIAte — that is, get away from it all. To those writers, anything they do with their stories is like a mini-vacation; it’s still work, mind you, but it’s work done with a will and a smile on their faces.
For the rest of us (including yours truly), that type of writing — the GAFIAting I just discussed — is elusive, at best. Most of the time, writing takes planning; hard work; effort. It still gives you, the writer, a feeling of satisfaction in the end…but it doesn’t feel like a mini-vacation at all.
Nope.
Instead, it feels like the hard work that it is. Worthwhile work, granted. Work we’ve chosen to do in this life…work that we see, so we must do it, and tell the stories we have inside to their best advantage, in the hope that someone else will find some worth in it, or maybe get a chuckle out of it and get through their day a little better, or perhaps even come back to your words time after time and find renewed meaning and purpose if we’ve done our jobs particularly well.
Those who aren’t writers may not understand how much work and effort there is in what you do. (I can’t speak for them, so I don’t know.) But one thing is clear: those of us who are writers know full well how much goes into our stories. How much of ourselves, and our drive, and our will, and our care, and everything that we are — our souls, maybe, for all I know — are reflected in our books, if we’ve done them just right.
So. For today, writers, try to do this one thing — just write. Don’t expect it to be effortless, ’cause that is beyond absurd. But do expect it to be from your heart, from your spirit, from your soul, even if you’re fighting with verb tenses and spelling and your story doesn’t seem to make much sense.
Because down the line, what you’re doing will be worth it. Trust me.
Introducing…”Kaitlin’s Tale” by Christine Amsden
KAITLIN’S TALE is the latest urban fantasy novel by award-winning author Christine Amsden. It features Kaitlin, a strong-willed heroine with a self-deprecating sense of humor…just my type of woman! She’s a young mother who’s made some bad choices, and now is on the run from some vampires — including her baby’s father, Jason. She meets up with a powerful, telepathic magician, Matthew Blair…and sparks fly in every possible sense.
Can these two basically good, but deeply flawed people find a way to make common cause against the vampires? And will they ever realize that they were made for each other?
KAITLIN’S TALE has my highest possible recommendation, folks…I edited it, and I know it’s an excellent novel that made me tear up in spots. Kaitlin is definitely one heroine who deserves her happy ending, most especially because she doesn’t seem to realize exactly that. And her son, Jay, is one cute little guy, too…all the way around, I loved KAITLIN’S TALE, and I hope you will give it — and Christine Amsden’s work as a whole — a try. (Read the first three chapters for free, here.)
Now, on to what Christine wanted to say about why she wrote Kaitlin’s story!
Christine Amsden says:
Who is Kaitlin?
I love Kaitlin. As I wrote the book, I sometimes thought to myself that I loved her more from the outside! She’s nothing like me. My inspiration for Kaitlin came from an experience I had as a sophomore in high school, shortly after one of those school-wide assemblies about sex and sexual abuse. They told me that one in three people had been sexually abused. I couldn’t believe it! One in three? I looked at the two friends I’d come with, wondering which one of them it had been since it wasn’t me (thankfully). To my surprise, I got the answer as we were leaving. She told me and she made me swear I wouldn’t tell a soul.
I didn’t, and it is the single biggest regret of my life. At the time I mistakenly believed that a real friend would keep a confidence. My only excuse is that I was fifteen and had precious few friends. Now I know that a true friend would have risked the friendship to do the right thing and get her friend help.
Over twenty years later, I give you Kaitlin, and I get her help. Not the sort you’re likely to get in real life (telepaths being vanishingly rare), but I wrote it for my friend, who I haven’t seen since high school, and for anyone else out there who knows what it’s like. Though I cannot truly know your pain, I have imagined it in this book.
If you do know the pain, and if you’ve never faced it, I urge you to seek help because there are no telepaths in real life. But there are people who understand.
Catching Up
Folks, I know I’ve not blogged very much in the past week or two. I’ve been working on a big project, and now that it’s out I can talk about it.
That project is Chris Nuttall’s newest novel in his Schooled in Magic series, INFINITE REGRESS. In it, his heroine, Emily, must deal with a new headmaster, romantic complications with her long-term boyfriend Caleb, her own, burgeoning magic, and some hints of a long dormant, malevolent power underneath her school, Whitehall.
Now, if you’re unaware of this series, you’re in for a treat. Emily, you see, is an American girl who was brought to a magical realm by a necromancer. She won free of the necromancer, made an alliance with an enigmatic sorcerer, Void, and ever since has run into a variety of circumstances that have tested her, her power, and her other abilities at every turn. Because of her practical knowledge, garnered from our Earth, she’s become a wealthy woman; she’s even been named a Baroness by another kingdom, Zangaria, though for the moment she’s set that duty down. (She never plans to go back there, in fact, but that’s for another book.) Emily is smart, resourceful, and would seem to have all the advantages…if you didn’t know she’s also autistic, and must deal with things in a slightly different way than others.
I edited INFINITE REGRESS, and am happy to recommend it to all lovers of fantasy.
Aside from that, I’ve done a little bit of writing and a whole lot of thinking about CHANGING FACES, which is still — still! — in progress. (Here I finally have people talking about my books, and waiting for one, and I am still fighting it out with same. Par for the course, I suppose.)
As far as everything else — the living situation is exactly the same as last reported. (No improvement, but no worse, either.) I don’t know what will happen there, and that unsettled feeling doesn’t help much when it comes to writing. (I can put it aside more easily as an editor, for whatever reason.) Much of this story isn’t mine to tell, so all I can say is this…I’m still trying, I still hope for better, and I haven’t given up.
But yes, it’s frustrating, not knowing where I’m going to be from day to day.
Anyway, that’s about all I can say right now. Do look for a new blog over the weekend, where I’ll be talking about Christine Amsden’s newest, KAITLIN’S TALE (yes, I edited that, too — why did you ask?), and will have a bit from the author herself about why she wrote it.
Blog Exchange, Day 2: Janet L. Walters Talks Writing, Books, and More!
Folks, it’s Day 2 of my blog exchange with author Janet L. Walters. (My guest blog at Janet’s site is available here: https://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/2016/05/saturdays-blurbs-featuring-books-by.html) I hope you’ll enjoy her thoughts on writing her latest book series…here we go!
When I began the series At First Sight, it meant rewriting a number of older stories and fixing the problems and updating the information. These are spicy romances, all contemporaries, and the first four concern the love lives of two sisters and two brothers. Somehow, a pair of their friends and colleagues slipped into the mix and there could be more people coming aboard when I have time to dream up more situations.
The first book involves Allie who edits a magazine for a family-held magazine, Good Cookin’. Her story involves a Chef, Greg who owns and heads a restaurant called Five Cuisines. Allie sets out the gain the interview and her father forbids this. He owns the magazines. Allie isn’t one to sit back. Greg is told by his mother not to let any Blakefield near the restaurant. This is how the fun begins.
In the second book, Meg Blakefield is dragooned to pick up the magazine group’s photographer at the airport. She has had a crush on him since the day he began work but she has also managed to anger him. Steve likes to tease Meg. He loves to see her blush. On his last photo shoot he had an accident resulting in a broken leg and a lot of bruises and scrapes. He would like to have Meg in his bed. When she learns there is no one to stay with him, she volunteers and adds rules to her already Rules of Life. The meeting sets off some fireworks. Her magazine is Good Lookin’ and she has a real love of silk and underwear.
The third book finds Mark Blakefield viewing a picture one of the writers from Good Travelin‘ has taken on a trip to Vermont. He sees a picture of a boy who could have been him at the same age. He also recognizes the child’s mother as the one who got away. They had a hot and heavy college romance but she vanished before the semester ended. He has looked for Christa Parsons. When he lands at the inn, he learns her name is and always has been Christa Sommers. He wants her and he wants his son. Can their love be rekindled?
The fourth book finds Matt Blakefield running from Mark’s wedding with the words “You’re next.” He thinks no way and takes off on his motorcycle. A rainstorm has him barely able to see and finding no place to stay. He runs into a pine tree outside a cabin. He discovers Cassie is the girl he insulted and made fun of in high school. Someone he has never forgotten. Cassie is hiding at the cabin trying to come to grips with her fiancé’s desertion and marriage to another woman weeks before their wedding. The notification came via an email. She recognizes Matt and decides a night with him is something she just might enjoy. He leaves the next day without an exchange of numbers. Then he discovers she has something he wants and he needs to find her.
The fifth book belongs to their friend and attorney Tony Carlin. The death of his brother and being named as one of the guardians for his infant nephew brings him in touch with Lauren. Lauren is the child’s aunt and has also been named as guardian. They met four years before at the wedding of his brother and her sister. Lauren was at the end of her runaway period. His first impression of her wasn’t great but still he thought about sex. He is still thinking about this and he also feels she’s not a good guardian for the little boy. He makes assumptions and you all know what that means.
The sixth book finds Jules Grayson trying to convince Grace to sign a contract to have her cupcake bakery featured in Good Cookin’. She’s reluctant and he takes a trip he’d rather not take. After his father’s conviction for a Ponzi scheme and his mother’s suicide, he ended in a group home. The home was next door to where Grace landed after her mother overdosed. Grace is the only girl who ever turned Jules down when he tried for a hookup. Seeing her again brings up the desire to accomplish what he never had. Grace is choosy about the men in her life. She has no desire to be like her mother. Jules falls in love with her cupcakes and desires her in his bed.
Website: http://janetlanewalters.com/home
Blog: http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JanetL717
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/janet.l.walters.3
So…there you have it! Janet has an interesting series, and I do hope you will check it out forthwith.
Special Guest Blog 2-Day Event, Part 1: An Interview of Author Janet L. Walters
Folks, author Janet L. Walters and I are exchanging guest blogs today and tomorrow…I hope you’ll enjoy her insights! (My Day 1 guest blog for Janet can be found here: http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/2016/05/friday-who-she-was-before-featurning.html)
Do you write a single genre or do your fingers flow over the keys creating tales in many forms? Does your reading choices reflect your writing choices? Are there genres you wouldn’t attempt?
I bill myself as the eclectic writer but lately I’ve realized most of my stories are romances but they fit into subgenres of romance. Except for some of the YA stories but even there, there are boy/girl relationships that can be developing. Even my mysteries hold a bit of romance for the heroine that takes five books to lead to her marriage. Some of my romances are contemporary, some paranormal, fantasy, historical and suspense. They range in heat level from sweet to spicy.
My reading choices are just as different. I read most everything but not all books are enjoyed as much as others. With the number of books floating through the internet and my Kindle handy, I read a lot. I do not read horror.
As to what I wouldn’t attempt to write. Anything with hard science. I know nothing about technology and while I admire people who do I’m not going to try. I don’t see a horror book in my future. Though sometimes I can write dark horror is beyond dark to me.
Heroes, Heroines, Villains. Which are your favorite to write? Does one of these come easy and why?
There are days and days. Sometimes I have difficulty reining each of the three into form. I’m usually more able to identify with the heroine and her emotions. The heros often give me trouble, especially when they speak. They don’t always come across as male but a sort of neuter kind of person. Now villains usually come easy because that allows me to let some of my evil nature escape.
Heroes. How do you find them? Do pictures, real life or plain imagination create the man you want every reader to love? Do they come before the plot or after you have the idea for the story?
I turn to Astrology to develop my hero. After the idea for a plot comes into my head, I begin to look at what kind of hero I need. Turning to my many Astrology books, I find a sun sign which will show my character’s inner nature. This may be different from the face he shows the world. For that I look for an Ascendant that fits what the character is becoming in my head. For the emotional quality, I look at his Moon Sign. This usually gives me how his emotions differ from the two other elements. This makes for a complex character. And often tells me what his interior conflict will be. The outer conflict can also be found in the three elements of his character. Once this is in place, I develop the other characters, though one or both of them may have entered my imaginary world before.
Heroines. How do you find them? Do pictures, real life or imagination create the woman you want the reader to root for? Do they appear before the plot or after you have the idea for the story?
For my heroines I also use the same process as I do the hero. There are times when the heroine appears before the plot and I must find a hero and a story for her. Using the what if can bring a heroine to life. Many of my heroines are nurses or have other skills that are somehow medical. Here I can pull things from women I knew when I worked as a nurse. Something will remind me of a trait or a worry one of these former colleagues displayed. Also in my heroines, there is a little of myself. Not myself as I am but myself as I wish I was.
Villains or villainesses or an antagonist, since they don’t always have to be the bad guy or girl. They can be a person opposed to the hero’s or heroine’s obtaining their goal. How do you choose one? How do you make them human?
Villains for me are the easiest to write and they aren’t necessarily the bad guy. In my latest release in both paper and electronically, the female lead begins as a villain. To make her human meant she needed lessons to be learned. She did love her land and her parents but she performs an act that makes her seem not to be a good person. Through the first four stories in this collection, she remains unknowing of what she must do. She needs to learn how to love. Each story gives her a small hint about love and the final two stories show what lessons she has learned.
The trick with making villains is giving them traits that make them human. This is easy with the opposing character who isn’t a true villain but one who has his own ideas about the lives of the hero and or heroine. This person can have good reasons for their feelings and can be made while not likeable at least interesting. The character who is truly evil is harder to find a reason to make them seem less that evil. The trick here might be to develop their degree of evilness in increments through the story. At least that’s the way it works for me.
What is your latest release? Who is the hero, heroine and or the villain?
By the time this interview goes live at least four of my latest series will be released. This one is Seducing the Doctor. The hero is Matt Blakefield, a man who doesn’t want to fall the victim of the Blakefield curse. He doesn’t believe he has ever fallen in love but there is a girl he can’t forget from his high school days. He believes he remembers her because he hurt her by saying words he really didn’t believe because of a prank by the school’s cheerleaders.
What are you working on now?
Currently I am re-writing the final two books in the At First Sight series. Seducing the Attorney and Seducing the Baker. The first book involves a couple who met four years ago at the wedding of his brother to her sister. Now they have become the guardians for their nephew. The second book involves a reluctant hero who vets new employees for a publishing company and who locates lost people and the only girl who ever turned him down when he was a bad boy teenager. She now owns a cupcake bakery one of the magazines he works for wants to do a feature article about. She is reluctant.
How can people find you?
Website: http://janetlanewalters.com/home
Blog: http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JanetL717
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/janet.l.walters.3
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Come back tomorrow for another post from Janet…you don’t want to miss out!
Why I Wrote “Bringer of Chaos: The Origin of Pietas” — a Guest Blog by Kayelle Allen
Folks, do I have a treat for you today!
A few months ago, I edited Kayelle Allen’s BRINGER OF CHAOS: The Origin of Pietas, and couldn’t wait to tell you all about it. Pietas is a strong character, someone who starts out dark, forbidding, and almost impossible to like…but somehow, with Kayelle’s insight, Pietas becomes much more than that. BRINGER OF CHAOS is a science fiction novel of cultural clashes, personal growth, friendship, sacrifice, and much, much more. It’s beautifully written, in some spots deeply moving, and a book I hope everyone will check out right away.
Now, on to Kayelle’s excellent guest blog, already in progress…
When I wrote Bringer of Chaos: the Origin of Pietas, I was creating the background and origin story for the most notorious villain in my scifi universe. In a series of books based in the Tarthian Empire, I had gone to great lengths to instill a sense of awe and fear in readers regarding the immortal king. Honestly, Pietas scared me, and I created him! I knew the depth of his cruelty because I’d created him to be the baddie all the other baddies feared. In the universe of those stories, he was known by many names: Impaler, Hammer of God, Marauder, Soul Ripper, Destroyer of Worlds, Slayer of Innocents, Hound of Hell, and more famously, the Bringer of Chaos. To reveal the reason he became such a terrifying person, I needed to delve into his head and get to know him better. *Gulp.*
I mentioned to my friend, author Houston Havens, that I didn’t know how to write an emotionless sociopath. First she laughed, then she took me to passages in my own books and showed me the emotions Pietas had displayed. Houston was right. Pietas was far from emotionless. Sociopath was as far from his reality as moonlight is from sunlight. One is cool and pale; the other hot and vibrant. I was trying to write him as a moon. Pietas was a sun.
Houston suggested that we “interview” him. She and I talk almost every day on Skype, so that was easy. I would “be” Pietas and answer on Skype as him. It would be an exercise in free association, and we would record it so I would have reference. Once we got started, it was surprisingly easy to get into his head. She asked him questions that were simple at first. Then she asked about his father, which made me delve into my own past as a child and parent. Mine was innocent and filled with love. My villainous hero, however, had a different bent.
When I was a child, the parent-child bond set my life on a certain path, and I believe no matter how old I get, I will always be the way I was molded to be from childhood. Pietas is immortal, and apparently, so is his love/hate-mostly-hate relationship with his father. Delving into that in detail will take more than one book. In fact, I’ve gone from wondering how I could possibly write a whole book about Pietas to planning another four.
Pietas now fascinates me. Getting to know this character helped me break past an episode of writer’s block that had lasted seven years. I had written, but was producing only non-fiction (Tarthian Empire Companion) and books about the characters (An Immortal’s Guide to Tarth). With Bringer of Chaos out of the way, I’m back where I belong — in the world of the Tarthian Empire. The galaxy of stories beyond that is, as Pietas would say, “ripe for the plucking.”
About Kayelle Allen
Kayelle Allen is a best selling American author. Her unstoppable heroes and heroines include contemporary every day folk, role-playing immortal gamers, futuristic covert agents, and warriors who purr.
Homeworld/Blog https://kayelleallen.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/kayelleallen
Facebook https://facebook.com/kayelleallen.author
About the Book
Bringer of Chaos: the Origin of Pietas
Author: Kayelle Allen
Publisher: Romance Lives Forever Books
Editor: Barb Caffrey
Heat level: PG13
Genre: YA (older young adult), action adventure, science fiction, space opera, military science fiction, space marine, genetic engineering
Wordcount: 52,492
Pages: 186
Two enemy warriors: one human, one immortal. Different in belief, alike in spirit, marooned together on an alien world.
Imprisoned and in isolation over a year without food or water, the immortal Pietas survives. Though broken in body, his intellect and will are intact, thanks to Six, the special ops warrior who captured him, but kept him sane. The warrior had no hand in his deprivation and, like Pietas, was betrayed by his own kind. When Pietas is abandoned on an alien world with nothing but his honor–and Six–he must find and rejoin other immortal exiles. After centuries of war, Pietas detests humans and kills them on sight, but he is too damaged to continue on his own. Though he despises needing help, he allows Six to nurture and restore him to full strength, and then accompany him. As they cross the planet together on foot, the immortal begins to wonder if he has found his first human friend, or if Six is loyal only because Pietas could keep the others from tearing him to shreds. This human will either be his closest living friend, or the one whose betrayal will trigger all-out vengeance by the most powerful immortal ever born.
Immortal. Warrior. Outcasts. Traitors took everything. Except their honor.
Read the first chapter https://kayelleallen.com/chaos-origin/
Amazon http://amzn.to/1R8DAbb
Amazon print http://amzn.to/1SSmueB
CreateSpace http://bit.ly/boc-origin-csp
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So, now that you’ve read all this, what are you waiting for? Go get Kayelle’s excellent novel right now. You will not regret it.
How to Keep Writing when the World Seems Against You
Folks, it’s no secret that the last few weeks for me have been difficult, complex, and frustrating.
In other words, they’ve been a long slog.
How are you supposed to keep writing when the world seems against you? When life circumstances jump up, and impede your work, and derail your progress…how can you keep going anyway?
Today’s blog is about how to get through one of these fallow periods, as a writer. (Or at least what I try to do to keep my head in the game, even when most of the rest of me can’t do much.)
What I try to do, with my writing, is to make prose notes. If nothing else, I usually can write one-sentence ideas, and that allows me to continue making a small amount of progress.
See, every day you have to make a little progress, if you can. It may be tiny. It may even be infinitesimal. But if you make that small amount of progress — even during difficult times — it gives you the confidence to keep trying.
Sometimes, I think creativity is all about confidence. Or at least all about the thought that if you try, if you think hard, if you are able to continue, then you can create with a whole heart.
It’s not easy to find time to write when you’re in the crux of a crisis, mind. But take a few minutes here, a few minutes there — I like using the minutes before going to bed, personally, but my late husband was a morning person; whatever works for you — and keep writing.
In other words…the only way through a long slog is forward.
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As for me? I’m still hanging in there…but I still don’t have a clue where I’ll end up. I’ll keep you posted. (If you want to help me, see this post and act accordingly.)
New Guest Blog Is Up…and Other Writing Stuff
Folks, before I forget, I wrote a new guest blog for the Opinionated Man (who’s doing some book promotion for me; I like him, and his audience, and so far it seems to be a good situation). It’s called “Why I Wrote the Elfy Duology,” and if you’re interested in more thoughts about why I do what I do (or at least some of what I’ve done), please go take a look at it.
I appreciate getting a chance to write about my favorite characters Bruno and Sarah. I want them to have more adventures. But I have to know that someone out there likes what I’m doing…and wants maybe to see more of it?
That is the hope for all writers, of course. We write our stories because we need to tell them. We hope that others will enjoy what we do, and maybe tell more people — it’s like a nicer version of a pyramid scheme, except everybody wins.
Right now, I’m still stuck in the weeds of CHANGING FACES, trying to figure out how to give Allen and Elaine the happy ending they deserve. As most of you probably know (especially if you’ve been following my blog for any length of time), my book is due soon, and yet there’s something that is eluding me. And when I feel like I can’t get at whatever it is that I need to get at, I’m like anyone else.
In other words, I get frustrated. I think a lot about what I’m doing. I try to write other stories, when possible…but right now, my attention is riveted by CHANGING FACES on the one hand and my Elfyverse on the other as I’ve had a long-simmering situation going on there, too. (I have both a prequel and a sequel set up — the sequel will have to be split into three parts, while the prequel can go as one book.)
What I’d tell anyone else, in this situation, is simple: Relax. Take a breath. Take two. And I’d tell them that the story will come to them.
I know all this. But I’m still having trouble believing it, at the moment.
Anyway, wish me luck with this, will you?
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Also…I intend to talk a little baseball soon, if possible. I’ve had some questions about what Vinny Rottino’s doing (that one’s easy; he’s in AAA for the Chicago White Sox, and is currently on the disabled list, poor man), and about what I think about the Milwaukee Brewers season thus far, and whether or not I think the Chicago Cubs will win it all.
So, look for that in the not-so-distant future, along with a book review or two over at Shiny Book Review (SBR).
Barb Caffrey's Blog 