If you have writer's block, the best cure I have found is a shower.
Not because you smell of despair.
I think that shampoo companies have inserted a creativity juice that comes when you massage your head. Spend the whole shower thinking about your book. Think about what you want to happen next. Think about what your characters would do in the shower. Do they sing? Do they wash from the head down, or the feet up? Would they prefer a bath? Or don't they bathe? Is there mold in their shower, or is it pristine?
Sometimes thinking about things like that leads to other inspiration, or simply working over a few different possibilities for certain scenes helps give you juice to dry off and write. Or you could skip drying off, if you need.
The best thing about shower-plotting is that there are no distractions. No one coming to interrupt you, no phone calls, no internet beckoning. Now if you'll excuse me, my wet hair is in a towel, and I still have a few hundred more words to write.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Dreams
One of my good friends is a theater major, and we talked for awhile about doing a video promotion for Corruption. I've been thinking about that quite a bit lately, about what I would want to showcase the book.
Of course, the first thing that comes to anyone's mind would be something like a Hollywood movie preview. Quick bits of information, flashes of characters, funny lines, explosions, and then the title and release date. Good for an hour to two-hour experience, crunched into thirty seconds. But I couldn't do something like that for Corruption. There is too much depth for a few shots of the action scenes, a shot of the sex scenes, a few quirky lines and a hyped-up version of the plot. It would do it a severe injustice. Most of the time I feel the summary I typed up for queries to be an injustice.
So movie preview is out. What to put in its place? Especially since we'd be on a budget of very little, and the resources of almost nonexistent. Just a camera on me talking about the book is certainly not what I want. For one thing, I don't like being on camera, or having photos taken of me, unless I'm in costume. Weird, isn't it? But showcasing costumes that we've spent hours making is not really photos of me--it's of the work. Who's going to be looking at me in this when there are so many details of the outfits to take in? And anyway, I'm sure it wouldn't be interesting to watch me in a chair toot my own horn.
What I've been thinking of is letting Israel speak. The book is shown a lot through his perspective, so why not let him speak? Making the Corruption uniform wouldn't be too difficult, and I could get one of my male friends to take him on for a time. Let him talk about the world he lives in, and the changes about to come. It would certainly be more powerful than anything I could say myself.
There is one problem with that, too. Letting someone else become my character, even for thirty seconds, is a little nerve-wracking. It's the same worry that I get when someone else reads my book for the first time. Will they understand how I want him to be? What I'm trying to get across? What if they think he's selfish, or stereotypical, or anything that I didn't mean for him to be? What if the actor portrays that and I don't know how to tell him to fix it?
More than that, what if the actor gets it right? What if it's perfect, and the video comes out wonderful, and then no one watches it? Certainly not the end of the world--I haven't gotten a lot of sales off of Corruption, but I don't have a lot of advertising outlets, either. That's alright, I know this book wasn't going to let me quit my two jobs and let me live off the sales. But I do hate for all of our work to go unnoticed, the same as any artist, I expect.
All of this is really in the very early stages, and a part of me wonders why I'm even contemplating it. I have so many other things I should be working on. I'm trying to buy a second car so my roommate and I can get to our four jobs easier. I'm writing for NaNoWriMo this month. I'm editing All the Good Gods Are Dead. We have crafting and costuming projects to work on.
The long and short answer is that dreams are important, especially for writers, and really for all artists. Even when you can't focus on your art because of life, because of money, because of time, you never stop dreaming. In the shower, you think about what comes next in your book, on your drawing, in your play. When you lay in bed about to fall asleep, you dream of what your characters may dream, of what steps you will take in that next dance, of what colors to add to your painting. Big or small, you dream constantly. It's our prerogative as artists to dream.
Be glad of that. Not everyone is able to do so freely. Don't pity them for it--let them dream through your art, instead.
Of course, the first thing that comes to anyone's mind would be something like a Hollywood movie preview. Quick bits of information, flashes of characters, funny lines, explosions, and then the title and release date. Good for an hour to two-hour experience, crunched into thirty seconds. But I couldn't do something like that for Corruption. There is too much depth for a few shots of the action scenes, a shot of the sex scenes, a few quirky lines and a hyped-up version of the plot. It would do it a severe injustice. Most of the time I feel the summary I typed up for queries to be an injustice.
So movie preview is out. What to put in its place? Especially since we'd be on a budget of very little, and the resources of almost nonexistent. Just a camera on me talking about the book is certainly not what I want. For one thing, I don't like being on camera, or having photos taken of me, unless I'm in costume. Weird, isn't it? But showcasing costumes that we've spent hours making is not really photos of me--it's of the work. Who's going to be looking at me in this when there are so many details of the outfits to take in? And anyway, I'm sure it wouldn't be interesting to watch me in a chair toot my own horn.
What I've been thinking of is letting Israel speak. The book is shown a lot through his perspective, so why not let him speak? Making the Corruption uniform wouldn't be too difficult, and I could get one of my male friends to take him on for a time. Let him talk about the world he lives in, and the changes about to come. It would certainly be more powerful than anything I could say myself.
There is one problem with that, too. Letting someone else become my character, even for thirty seconds, is a little nerve-wracking. It's the same worry that I get when someone else reads my book for the first time. Will they understand how I want him to be? What I'm trying to get across? What if they think he's selfish, or stereotypical, or anything that I didn't mean for him to be? What if the actor portrays that and I don't know how to tell him to fix it?
More than that, what if the actor gets it right? What if it's perfect, and the video comes out wonderful, and then no one watches it? Certainly not the end of the world--I haven't gotten a lot of sales off of Corruption, but I don't have a lot of advertising outlets, either. That's alright, I know this book wasn't going to let me quit my two jobs and let me live off the sales. But I do hate for all of our work to go unnoticed, the same as any artist, I expect.
All of this is really in the very early stages, and a part of me wonders why I'm even contemplating it. I have so many other things I should be working on. I'm trying to buy a second car so my roommate and I can get to our four jobs easier. I'm writing for NaNoWriMo this month. I'm editing All the Good Gods Are Dead. We have crafting and costuming projects to work on.
The long and short answer is that dreams are important, especially for writers, and really for all artists. Even when you can't focus on your art because of life, because of money, because of time, you never stop dreaming. In the shower, you think about what comes next in your book, on your drawing, in your play. When you lay in bed about to fall asleep, you dream of what your characters may dream, of what steps you will take in that next dance, of what colors to add to your painting. Big or small, you dream constantly. It's our prerogative as artists to dream.
Be glad of that. Not everyone is able to do so freely. Don't pity them for it--let them dream through your art, instead.
Friday, November 18, 2011
A few changes
So, I've been thinking about this poor neglected thing. I had visions of followers and book promotions fueling my initiative to write here, which of course was rather silly. You can't go from known to unknown just through a blog.
That doesn't mean I'm going to abandon it, but there are some changes in order. Not such a bad thing!
I've been on twitter a lot lately for National Novel Writing Month, using the word sprints to help get me through writing. I've started to enjoy and use twitter more than I thought I would. I've gotten a few more followers, and had a bit of fun. So, why am I not doing that here?
Instead of just being about the book and promotion, it's time to use this to talk about the novelist (gasp, shock, and amazement) and writing in a world that's not reading as much as it used to.
Aside from writing another novel for NaNoWriMo, I've been editing another novel, called All the Good Gods Are Dead. (I think the title needs work. I love it, but it's so long.) That one I plan to publish as a webnovel, kind like a webcomic but with mostly words and a few pictures splashed at the top. It's one of those stories I feel needs a few visual cues, but I don't want it to be overwhelmed with pictures, because the descriptions and inner dialogue is too important. So, I'm going to be trying something new. More on that later. Right now, the pages are full of red ink (I'll snap a picture of that at some point), and scribbles on the back of the pages. I will say that editing is kind of enjoyable, more than I thought when I first started editing like I did for Corruption.
All the Good Gods is another NaNo novel, and as such the writing is usually a little rough. But the story is so solid, and there are a few lines that when I read, I stopped and read them again because I just loved the word play.
That's what writing really is to me, playing with words. Changing words, changing the way sentences should be to convey a certain message. I like challenging the way readers think, giving them images they've never thought of before, much less see daily. This urge to play with words and make people think unfortunately seems to lead me to plots that are less than mainstream. I think that is part of my problem. I'm not into what's popular in the world of reading. I like complexities and putting my characters into situations that make people uncomfortable. I could never write a book like Twilight, and if I do, I want one of you readers to come find me and whack me with the Lord of the Rings, one of the versions where it's consolidated into one massive tome. I don't like writing romance for the sake of romance. It's not engaging to me, and I've never understood the appeal. I don't mind romance within a novel, especially if it develops over the course of the entire book. But when I see a cover of a book with a man whose muscles glisten in the sun and a woman pressed against his side, leg raised and hair flying back in the wind, I gag.
I actually worry sometimes that I make my main characters too appealing. I try to keep them real, but like your children, they become perfect to me in their imperfections. When you adore them, even when they look like some sort of child's nightmare, I fear they sometimes come across as being too perfect. Not that anyone sane would look at Fetish and go "Oh, he's so handsome! I want to take him home and show him to my daughter, she could use an attractive fellow like that." That, by the way, is the MC from All the Good Gods. His nickname (using the term loosely) is butterfly. Interested yet?
And then there's Axsis, who had the misfortune of being transformed into some sort of monster, and hates himself. He's also gone rather crazy. His is another novel that's finished, but needs a lot of edits. I would never send my future daughters to prom with him. But he's one of my favorite characters, maybe because he's quite literally gone insane from captivity, and the entire story is told from his perspective. It's interesting thinking about my life when I wrote Axsis' A Spider's Tale. It's a very dark book, and a friend of mine described reading it as "walking through barbed wire, but in a good way." I consider it a high compliment. I don't think reading a book should be easy, and I'm not talking about language. If I don't finish a book with at least a "Huh. Interesting." then I don't think it was worth the read.
Of course, I know a lot of other people don't think the same way. They want light "summer reading," whatever that means. I want to be challenged. I hope you, dear readers, want to be challenged, too. So here goes, the start of the rebirth of the blog. Thoughts from an overworked writer. I don't know how consistent updates will be, because at the moment I am working two part-time jobs and writing to make ends meet. My roommate is also working two jobs, one part-time and one full-time, and selling her crafts and costumes on the side in our desperate attempt to pay for a second car (one car and four jobs is hell), and an apartment. Welcome to the modern era.
Until next time, dear readers.
That doesn't mean I'm going to abandon it, but there are some changes in order. Not such a bad thing!
I've been on twitter a lot lately for National Novel Writing Month, using the word sprints to help get me through writing. I've started to enjoy and use twitter more than I thought I would. I've gotten a few more followers, and had a bit of fun. So, why am I not doing that here?
Instead of just being about the book and promotion, it's time to use this to talk about the novelist (gasp, shock, and amazement) and writing in a world that's not reading as much as it used to.
Aside from writing another novel for NaNoWriMo, I've been editing another novel, called All the Good Gods Are Dead. (I think the title needs work. I love it, but it's so long.) That one I plan to publish as a webnovel, kind like a webcomic but with mostly words and a few pictures splashed at the top. It's one of those stories I feel needs a few visual cues, but I don't want it to be overwhelmed with pictures, because the descriptions and inner dialogue is too important. So, I'm going to be trying something new. More on that later. Right now, the pages are full of red ink (I'll snap a picture of that at some point), and scribbles on the back of the pages. I will say that editing is kind of enjoyable, more than I thought when I first started editing like I did for Corruption.
All the Good Gods is another NaNo novel, and as such the writing is usually a little rough. But the story is so solid, and there are a few lines that when I read, I stopped and read them again because I just loved the word play.
That's what writing really is to me, playing with words. Changing words, changing the way sentences should be to convey a certain message. I like challenging the way readers think, giving them images they've never thought of before, much less see daily. This urge to play with words and make people think unfortunately seems to lead me to plots that are less than mainstream. I think that is part of my problem. I'm not into what's popular in the world of reading. I like complexities and putting my characters into situations that make people uncomfortable. I could never write a book like Twilight, and if I do, I want one of you readers to come find me and whack me with the Lord of the Rings, one of the versions where it's consolidated into one massive tome. I don't like writing romance for the sake of romance. It's not engaging to me, and I've never understood the appeal. I don't mind romance within a novel, especially if it develops over the course of the entire book. But when I see a cover of a book with a man whose muscles glisten in the sun and a woman pressed against his side, leg raised and hair flying back in the wind, I gag.
I actually worry sometimes that I make my main characters too appealing. I try to keep them real, but like your children, they become perfect to me in their imperfections. When you adore them, even when they look like some sort of child's nightmare, I fear they sometimes come across as being too perfect. Not that anyone sane would look at Fetish and go "Oh, he's so handsome! I want to take him home and show him to my daughter, she could use an attractive fellow like that." That, by the way, is the MC from All the Good Gods. His nickname (using the term loosely) is butterfly. Interested yet?
And then there's Axsis, who had the misfortune of being transformed into some sort of monster, and hates himself. He's also gone rather crazy. His is another novel that's finished, but needs a lot of edits. I would never send my future daughters to prom with him. But he's one of my favorite characters, maybe because he's quite literally gone insane from captivity, and the entire story is told from his perspective. It's interesting thinking about my life when I wrote Axsis' A Spider's Tale. It's a very dark book, and a friend of mine described reading it as "walking through barbed wire, but in a good way." I consider it a high compliment. I don't think reading a book should be easy, and I'm not talking about language. If I don't finish a book with at least a "Huh. Interesting." then I don't think it was worth the read.
Of course, I know a lot of other people don't think the same way. They want light "summer reading," whatever that means. I want to be challenged. I hope you, dear readers, want to be challenged, too. So here goes, the start of the rebirth of the blog. Thoughts from an overworked writer. I don't know how consistent updates will be, because at the moment I am working two part-time jobs and writing to make ends meet. My roommate is also working two jobs, one part-time and one full-time, and selling her crafts and costumes on the side in our desperate attempt to pay for a second car (one car and four jobs is hell), and an apartment. Welcome to the modern era.
Until next time, dear readers.
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