Category: Uncategorized

Well I’m not telling just yet, but here’s a little concept art for you (Note: not all characters are as they seem)

Not this blog, but my apartment. Until the repairs get finished, there won’t likely be as many posts here.

I’m still plugging along with the charity project and just received the first feedback on the short story I’m writing for the submission. I also asked for advice on a problem I’m having with my novel and got a lot of good ideas for fixing it.

Once things have slowed down I might give you all some sneak peaks into one or more of my works in progress. 😉

So after writing approximately 1200 words of a brand new short story to submit, I decided that I had a better one partially written that would fit better with the submission guidelines. The only problem? It was about 150 words.

I got a considerable amount done yesterday, though, and even caught up with the brand new story.

I’ve got quite a bit more to write, but the story is going along nicely and hopefully tonight after work I’ll get to the end of the draft.

Now off to my real work.

I’ll admit it. I had a touch of WBADD this morning. It’s much worse than simple Attention Deficit Artistic Disorder. It’s Writer’s Block Artistic Distraction Disorder. Basically I d*cked around doing sculpting and painting to distract myself from the words that refused to write themselves. Bastards.

On the plus side, I did get a really good painting done.

I give you: Blood Storm.

After fighting with WBADD most of the morning, I’m now thankfully back on track. It’s a slow train, but I’ll eventually get there

I had an epiphany today, and it’s a frustrating one: I progress the plot in my stories too quickly. I over-foreshadow and get to certain plot point entirely too soon.

I wonder how to fix this. I’ve tried stretching things out by removing some of the foreshadowing and adding description, but it doesn’t seem to help much. Such is the life of a writer who is too stubborn to take creative writing classes (or even read books on how to improve your writing). Not that I think my writing is bad, per se, but it does need some improvement.

My solution for now? Keep writing. I may not write every day, but I try to write at least a few times a week on various different projects. I’ve currently put my novel and my poetry projects on hold to focus more on the short story submission that’s due by the end of the month. If I can get that done, even if it gets rejected, it will be one more accomplishment I can add to my slowly growing list. Publish something? Check. Publish something else? In progress. Submit something of my own for traditional publishing? Depending on what happens after my submission is sent in, sooner or later I will. Get paid for something I published? Check. Get paid for something traditionally published? One of these days.

Notice that I didn’t put a “possibly” or “maybe” or “hopefully” for any of those. I’m not hoping. I’m going to do all these. It just takes time.

I think that should be a thing. Some days I can’t make up my mind as to what artistic endeavour I want to work on.

Drawing. Painting. Sewing. Writing. Sculpting. There are so many choices!

It seems like any single-medium artist has the opinion that if you don’t spend at least a little time every day in whichever art you do, you’re not dedicated enough.

Why can’t people be dedicated to multiple arts? I don’t consider my sculpting any less important to me than my writing. It’s just that some days I want to sculpt, and some days I want to write. Or draw. Or paint.

If I dedicated the same amount of time to each every day, I would have no time for anything else. Would I be more practiced at one art if I cut out the others? Of course. Would I be any happier? No.

Don’t let anyone shame you into feeling that you’re not dedicated enough to what you do. Even if you only have one passion, don’t feel guilty for allowing yourself to have a “day off” from what you do. Personal time is important to your mental and physical health. Take care of yourself, and don’t ever feel wrong for doing so.

I’ve been clued in to a very interesting writing opportunity, and I think it might just be the thing to spark up that fire under me to continue with my novel.

Since I’m a tad superstitious about certain things I won’t say what the project is, other than to say I have the potential to earn money if my short story is accepted. Wish me luck!

Sometime in the hopefully near future, I want to write and publish another poetry collection, this time about not fitting in and learning to accept yourself.

I have a friend whose daughter is an amazingly wise and mature soul, but the girl hasn’t fully realized it yet. It baffles me that kids are mean to her when I think she’s super cool. Cool kids aren’t supposed to be picked on.

That spawned the idea for a book of poetry (and maybe short stories or anecdotes about my own life) to help teenagers and other kids realize that being themselves is more important than fitting in to whatever cookie-cutter mold is currently in style.

I’ll have to really polish my writing and make it the best I can do, because I think this needs a traditional publisher for wider distribution.

They put me in a cell by myself today
Apparently they frown
On killing cellmates
There is no window
Only a small slot
Through which they place meals
And “fan mail”
These “fans” make me sick
Talking about things like
“I wish I had the guts
To do what you had done
To my cheating boyfriend”
When I write back with
“You have the guts, meatling,
You merely have to slice yourself open
To see them”
They stop writing back
I know my mail is being read
Checked to see
If I am plotting something
But there is nothing to plot
In this six-by-eight cell
I am now taken to court
In both arm and leg shackles
With four armed guards
Taking me back and forth
My lawyer is nervous
I can tell
He leans away from me
He turns white
As each photo is shown
I reluctantly agreed
To an insanity defense
Though I clearly am not insane
My thoughts, my actions
Written in this journal
Should alone prove my sanity
I smile
As I pat the spiral notebook before me
Once this is read
They will see the true me
Once this is read
I will surely be a free woman

The most often heard advice about writer’s block (at least from my inexperience) are quite contradictory.

One stance is to keep writing, even if it’s crap, and eventually the block will break. The other stance is to take a break from the work and either work on a different piece or find some other project to give yourself time to breathe and work out the problem in your head.

After a measly 100 words of progress yesterday, I think I’m going to take the latter advice. I don’t like writing crap, even if it’s supposedly to help the good stuff flow better.

So today it’s on to either drawing or some poetry projects I have in the works.