RSS

The distance from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers is 39 inches, or just over 3 feet. Now I'm sure you're wondering why this is important and more so why I have the crazy inclination to measure random distances on my body.

Well, it seems to be that an idea I create in my head can't seem to find it's way the full 4 feet to my fingers to be typed out onto the page. I have these wonderful images, conversations, and ideas swirling around my brain all day but for some reason they never quite translate how I want them.

The dialogue isn't as witty. The imagery is never as colorful. It's like that telephone game you play when you're in kindergarten where the message doesn't end the same way it started. And it's been infuriating.

I've found myself struggling with my current WIP because it's not materializing the way I had envisioned it. I struggle. I get stuck. I plod along at a geriatric snail's pace, all to have pages that I'm not 100% sold on. But it's a first draft I keep reminding myself. First drafts are just that -- the first of many.  

Hopefully I will write those two final words soon so I can edit my story into the fantasy I have always dreamed it would be.

How do you move forward when your writing isn't living up to your mind's hype?

Read

Hello all! I hope that everyone has had a great start to 2015. I haven't been blogging much as I have been busy getting words on the page, but today I decided to crawl out from under my rock. 

 

Today I really needed a jolt of something. I've been plodding along on my novel Keeper of Shadows and the honeymoon stage is clearly over. The real hard work has begun and sometimes it's harder to get my brain moving when I'm stuck. Then I came along a blog post called OF WRITING AND A FEAR OF FAILURE at https://livelovereadya.wordpress.com 

 

The post asked it's readers about what inspires them. It really made me think about why I do what I do. Why I push through the doldrums of a novel with no guarantee that it will be readable once I get through to the other side. I thought about it and this is what I said:

 

I write because I don’t know what I would do without it. It’s like the first time I got a cellphone. At first it was this cool thing I used once in a while, but after about a month I would attack someone with a butter knife on a dime if they even joked about taking it away from me. Writing is the one thing that I do that is just for me. I can take it anywhere. I can write anything. I can hit the delete key and start over and make my historical romance into a sci-fi horror space opera then break it down and build it back up again. I can make the voices in my head (character voices, nothing clinical – I hope) into real people with feelings and wants and needs. I can let them win or make them cry in the fetal position in a distant corner of hell. So … I guess you can say my writing inspiration comes from the thought that anything is possible as long as I’m willing to pick up a pen.


After I clicked publish my comment gave me the push I needed to keep moving. At least for now.


So now I'm asking all of you the same question. What inspires you? Maybe remembering will inspire someone else. 

Read