Turning Stumbling Blocks Into Stepping Stones

Thanks to a friend for suggesting that I go back in time and review old writing to spark something new! As I perused my old works, I noticed that I had 3 things that kept me going.

• Writing Partners to keep me going on a series and throw in new ideas and twists. Having a writing buddy to take your characters into new settings, genres, even meeting new villains broadens your horizons.
• Muses who were usually humans that encouraged me and whom I thought about a lot. In thinking of them, I found I created stories about characters loosely based on my perception of who they were.
• Unrequited Love/Emotional Baggage and regrets/trials and tribulations that I just couldn't let go of. With time and hard work, that kind of baggage falls away. Life changes. 

I am currently lacking in these 3 things. I feel very out-of-whack, akimbo, in limbo, and indecisive. Projects unrelated to writing are taking the forefront.

In order to get back, I need to find ways to make these 3 things return.

1. Find New Writing Buddies! Working on ficly dot com, many of the same writers still visit. I need to work on meeting new writers to fill the voids left behind by those that have moved on or visit less often. I could also go back to other sites and find new buddies there as well; Protagonize, Dark Media City, even a group on Critique Circle.
2. Search for my Muse. One of these new people could become a new muse. I could also look for inspiration in other places like people watching, jotting down things my children say, or journaling memories and random thoughts. When I find it, I need to write it down before I lose it.
3. Consider my stressors. While emotional baggage is a bad thing, stress can be good if it fuels creative fire. I have had a lot of stress this school year, and I did write about it twice. I always have to preserve confidentiality when it comes to work related stories and that does put a kink in the process. I don't want to simply change names or places because too many descriptive words will give away the characters to those that know them. I don't want to get in trouble. (Yeah, I'm afraid of trouble.)

What helps you write? What keeps the creative juices flowing? Who are your muses? What fuels your creative fire?

Don't be afraid to tell me in the comments..I won't get you in trouble!

Just Sit Down and Write!

Summer has finally torn the shackles of work and college classes from my wrists! Encouraged by my friend for whom I have promised to edit a manuscript and jumping back onto ficly.com (my love), I have returned to the writing world.

I feel like I have lost more than the 10 months I was 'gone'. Everything moves so fast in the technological age. I don't even know where to begin again.

Tips for essentially a newbie? I was using Smashwords, Createspace, Ficly, Protagonize (rarely), Bookrix (rarely) and Red Room (very rarely). I can always begin there.

First I feel like I need to get in my own space, in my own Word Document and just write. Really, it all begins there, doesn't it? When I am ready to show my work to the world, I have options.


I might inspire someone else. If I do this, others may follow me, be in awe of me, and tell me that they admire me.

But it’s not fame or admiration I want. That is not motivation enough. If I do this, I have to do it for me.

Fear is such a terrible enemy. I am stronger than fear. If I bust through this wall, there is no telling how much farther I will go.

Stop listening to the voice inside. Take a deep breath and swallow the pride, fear, and simply feel the rush of exhilaration.

Just do it. Go. Now.

Written Feb 13, 2013 on ficly.com by me. Just Do It

Sci-Fi

I don't venture into Sci-Fi very often. I'm a dabbler in it. Recently I wrote something a bit Sci-Fi and since it is a rare thing, I thought I'd share.

Let me preface this by saying I sequeled a story where the Main Character created a time machine and supposedly an error in calculation left them 10,000 years in the future instead of 100.

After months of walking, surviving, fighting off beasts, eating only things I saw other creatures eating, and building a hut and a fire, I have given up hope that humankind survived.

Putting together a rough signal transmitter from the parts in my time machine, I wait here, the latitude and longitude beeping out endlessly into the sky above. I wrote a message with rocks ten feet wide on the top of a plateau. I am building myself a wall.

I could travel farther, keep looking for clues, but it seems this land of forest and wild things has recovered from some terrible shock. The trees here are too young, the vegetation fast growing, I assume it has only been the last 50 years that this area has bloomed.

What did we do to the Earth?

I began to dig just last week. I was looking for trash they said would never decay. I found a layer of dark rock, the kind made by intense heat and quick cooling. I can’t get past that without advanced tools.

I am sure my ancient race lies below it.

The neat part is, a person sequeled me and took my new looking land and turned the mathematical error BACKWARDS, thus creating the existence of homo-sapiens.

:D

Behold the power of collaboration!

Update: I found another Sci-fi piece I wrote recently and still am collaborating on. Here's my earliest contribution.

They were watching her. A myriad of screens lit up their faces with a blue glow. Tiny cameras were everywhere, undetectable, always watching. Dakota couldn’t get the image out of her head. Somewhere safe, those sick bastards were refusing to help her, watching like she was the animal on some documentary that is hunted by a lion.

Stealthily she crouched, laser pen her only weapon, walking with knees bent so her shoes wouldn’t squeak. She measured her breathing and tried not to sweat too much because there was only one beast that could smash a steel lab table and break through the wire enmeshed glass, and it was blind. It hunted by smell and sound. Tiny polyps along its frilled neck sprayed a paralytic on its victims so they wouldn’t run as it pounced on them. Its venom smelled of cucumbers. The lab reeked of cucumbers.

This could be why her team did not come for her.

Or the people behind the cameras could have set this all up. An exercise, a test, to see what she could do.

Well, she could live.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Writing This Week

I started the week off being sick in my intestines. I had this same thing two weeks ago, actually 10 days before this round started. It's not fun. So I spent a lot of time sitting, and I should have been writing, right? Right.

Well, I am blogging for 30 days, and I kept that up.

In addition, I worked on two stories on ficly.com.

The Final Days of Herb Tulliver: A pyromaniac fireman has a heartattack and a mission; to kill for revenge.

An Angry Guilt: A girl laments falling in love with the wrong guy, or is he?

Then, there are the websites. I always end up with tabs and tabs open, all interesting writing related websites. I've decided to share my findings here, not only so you can enjoy them (how sweet of me) but so I don't lose them!

Writing Contests:

Kids@Random - Submissions should consist of a book-length manuscript with a contemporary setting that will be suitable for readers ages 12 to 18.

Glass Woman Prize- a work of short fiction or creative non-fiction (prose) written by a woman.  Length: between 50 and 5,000 words. (Bring your A+ game, ladies!)

Writers of the Future - Sci-fi or fantasy works of prose, up to 17,000 words in length.

And a publishing goal:

Wild Child Publishing

I also joined Critique Circle and Fanstory, two websites where you can submit for reader critiques. I prefer Critique Circle, because it is easier and quicker to earn 'points' to post your own story for feedback.

And that's all for today! Tune in next week for round 2! (I know I will have more links.)