Idealand

Inspiration can come from the strangest places, and ideas generally follow.  This weekend I had time for a lot of both, since I’m not doing a lot of writing, and this free time has my brain in “creativity mode” for the most part, so strange things come of these things.

I spent a lot of time designing a house.  Not just any house . . . this was something I did for my Annie, my friend and–well, it’s complicated, as they way on The Book of Faces.  (That could be a title for an episode of Game of Thrones, where The Imp looks about for the leather-bound document that is a list of all the whores he’s bedded . . .)  We talked about things past, and I mentioned that I could using one of my new programs to create an image of a place that is one of her favorites.  Since I was going to do this anyway, I didn’t wait for her to say “Yes”, and just started in on my work.

As with anything creative, it took time.  But by yesterday afternoon I was finished, and she was happy with the outcome.  It was then we started discussing our own characters, and how they would fit into a story, and how . . . well, we’ve had this conversation before, and the problem always comes down to taking characters that were created for one world, and putting them in another.  How is this done, and more importantly:  how do you keep them interesting.

Answer:  nothing is easy.  Trust me, I’ve done this.  It’s not easy.

Of course, Annie is tenacious.  She pushes, she rocks, she roles.  She knows if she can get me to thinkin’ enough, I’ll come up with something.  And it was while this “Something” was going on that I hit a Eureka! moment.  So I told her, “I gotta go grill, but I’ll be thinking,” and with that I was off to the back yard to start cookin’ and get thinking.

See, something crept into my head when we were talking–something that I’d thought of a few weeks back when I was working on an old story idea.  I’d imagined some organization that is sort of one part Illuminati and three parts Crazy Secrets of the World investigators.  And what if . . . what if they know about things that only one in half a billion people can do, and when they find one of these people they do what they can to get them trained before . . .

Never mind the before.  I had a kernel of world building growing, and I didn’t want it to go stale.

Needless to say, when I told Annie what I had, she was happy, but she also had questions; apparently she didn’t realize that building a new world doesn’t happen while you’re trying to keep your Italian sausage from burning.  But I have something here.  I have an outline in my head.  And I even . . .

I have a map starting.

Oh, yeah.  It’s that sort of days.

It would be a lot better day if work wasn’t making me do things–

Comfort in Numbers

The Formatting of Part Two has commenced.  I opened up the file and started in on it, and just as I was getting ready to head off to bed, I was through with the chapter.  The next awaits me tonight, and I’m going to try and burn through three or four this weekend.  My intention is to get through as much of Part Two before next Monday, then get into Part Three next week, and try and finish up as much of Her Demonic Majesty before the end of the month.

No promises, but if all goes well, I could have the final version heading up through Smashword’s Meat Grinder on 4 May–and not because of any “The Forth Be With You” shite, because that is shite, but but because that would be the first Saturday where I’ll have time to send it up after I finish with the formatting.  If there are issues during the upload, I’ll have the opportunity to fix the problems and send it up again.  And again, if necessary.  But if I get up to Smashwords okay, then I can upload to Amazon as well the same day.

So the first weekend in May is my target publication date.  If it slips–hey, stuff happens.  Oh, and just so you know–I have a second cover!  Just look over to the right and you’ll see it . . .  So the plan now is to use one on Smashwords/Barns, and the other on Amazon, and then after a few months switch them.  Or, maybe not.  Maybe I’ll do like Marvel, and offer variant covers, so if you want them you have to buy everything.  Before you know it, I’m offering the equivalent of the copies of Firestarter with the asbestos covers that once sold for $250.  Not sure how that’s gonna work with ebooks, though . . . maybe that’s where I get the hard copies of the books printed . . .

There is a strange sense here, watching it all come together so quickly.  A month back I was in the doldrums, feeling as if I was getting nowhere fast.  I’d been on Suggestive Amusements since the end of December, and the novel was crawling to an end–or so it felt to me.  I was speaking with a friend the other night, and in discussing my publishing plans this year, I said something along the lines of, “I don’t feel I’m writing now as much as I did last year.”  They asked about what I’d done, and I replied, “I did that novel, that’s about seventy-two thousand words; and I’ve done about seventy thousand words in the blog . . . add a couple of articles, and I’ve written about a hundred and fifty thousand words since the start of last December.”

There was a slight pause, and then came their reply:  ”What?  You think you’re not writing anything?  Are you kidding?”

Being so close to the center of the storm, you lose track of what’s going on around you.  Yeah, I know there are some who say blogging isn’t writing, but then, what is it?  Nose picking?  Here’s what it is:  it’s a continuation of the habit that is writing every day.  You need an idea, you need to get it down, you are writing.  And then novel–enough said.  It’s figuring out characters and creating a story and making sure your plot doesn’t fall apart on you.  It’s work.  It’s a lot of work.

And even when you think you’re slacking, you’re probably just kicking yourself for no reason.  As I’ve said, writers are their own worst critics, and this is the pudding full of proof.

So keep on keeping, I say.  Set your goals and work them.  And when you think you’re falling behind–check your data first.

You’ll likely be surprised.

Paloma Dreamtime

It seems the yesterday’s post touched more than a few people in ways I hadn’t suspected.  About a year ago I had someone start following the blog, only to send me the following comment two days later:  ”This isn’t just about writing, is it?”  He stopped following me the next day because, yes, I don’t always talk about writing, and this upset him greatly.  Probably had something to do with him being a nutso control freak, which manifested in a couple of online writer groups I was in, but that’s another story.

While I write about writing, I also write about how I feel about writing, and how it makes me feel.  It’s not always good, and it’s not always pleasant  but it’s usually honest.  As a writer we have to be honest with ourselves, at least that’s what I think.  You can spend all your time writing stories that involve having sex with your step-kids, but at some point you have to be honest and say, “This is really sort of crappy.”  If you aren’t saying that, well . . . you’re not me.  Which probably isn’t that bad a thing, come to think of it.

I try to pay attention on everything these days.  As Johnny Cash said, ”You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”  That’s me these days:  I look ahead, but remember what has already come before.  Because I do know what it’s like to be pinned down by your past, and how it can gnaw at you until you can’t move forward any longer.  It sucks hard, and I don’t need that negative energy in my life these days.

So what is this about Paloma, you say?  A dream, I say.  After editing two chapters last night–editing and formatting, I should say–it was off to bed, because it’s not like anything else is happening in my life.  It was raining lightly last night, and I love to hear soft rains, so I was off to sleep pretty fast . . .

That’s when the strange stuff happened.

Whatever I was dreaming, I was in world burning mode last night.  It seemed as if things were really crappy, that things weren’t nearly as good as they are today, and yet, it wasn’t entirely a crapsack world.  Tre Funky, yes.  But I still had a car and internet, so it wasn’t a total hole.

For some reason I was trying to move a bunch of kids from my part of the country to a new job in . . . Paloma, California.  For some reason I thought this was a great idea, because I’d have a fantastic job and I’d be able to take care of everyone, and so forth and on.  It stuck with me so much that after I got onto the computer this morning I did a quick map look for Paloma, California . . .

And was duly unimpressed.

It’s a small collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere east of Stockton.  There’s a church, some roads going elsewhere, and that’s it.  A couple of nice houses, but no business that would make me willing to pack up a bunch of kids and haul them a few thousand miles.

Why did this happen?  Maybe there’s a story there.  Maybe not.

I’ll keep my eyes open, though–just in case.

Preparation Great

Oh, my my my, was Sunday a fun day for a writing day.  Got my blogging, got my article, got my editing, got my ideas–

What’s that?  Ideas?  What are you talking about?

As I said, I had writing to do.  I knocked off an eighteen hundred word article on the wonders of powered armor, which is probably being edited as I write this–or not, who knows, because I know it’ll get done and get posted, and I’ll be allowed to work on what is pretty much part two of the same article.

Then there was some editing for Replacements, which involved a lot of cutting of words so issues wouldn’t arise between what I’d once written, and what had been newly written.  It was therefore necessary to do some cutting and adding, to rearrange words and make sentences whole, where once that didn’t exist.  I’d worried that I would somehow screw things up, but some thirteen hundred words later–no problems.  Handled it the way it was meant to be handled:  like a pro.  Or, semi-pro, if we want to get technical.

I thought I was finished for the night, but it was eight-thirty, and I didn’t feel as if I needed to laze about doing nothing, so I looked at the next chapter, thought, “I can do this,” and jumped in.  It wasn’t difficult, it wasn’t trying, and with the focus I still had, I was able to find some obvious mistakes and rewrite some clumsy sentences.  It’s all part of the editing game, where you learn to read your material, and find the stuff that either doesn’t make sense, or is flat-out wrong.

But what’s this about ideas, hum?  Not a problem:  sit down and let me tell ya . . .

During a lull in all the thing that were going on, I decided to take a look at my ideas file.  I have my ideas set up in Scrivener  so when I need something, I made a new folder, give it the meta idea name (like “Orion Story”, which tells me the basic idea), and then set up a text file with a little more information as needed.  For a few of my ideas I already had notes written, so I copied them into the various folders where they can set until I need them.

One idea that I’ve worked on in the past has to do with my Indonesian horror tales.  Kuntilanak is the first, and during NaNo 2012 I wrote Kolor Ijo, the second.  When I was close to finishing Kolor Ijo, I started wondering if there were more stories that could be writing about the horror that is supernatural Indonesia.  The answer was, “Hell yeah”.

I already had some idea about these other stories, and some idea about where they would take place, so . . . all that remained would be to give them a title and some time frame, no?

So I copied out some cards, added titles, gave a time frame, and there I was with four more stories . . . really, four more novels, perhaps three hundred thousand words to work on–

No problem, right?

This is what I get when I say I don’t have ideas.  They come after me until I write them down.

It’s when they make me want to do something more that I get into trouble . . .

Up the Escalator to Madness

A very quick conversation this morning opened a little window into that thing I call “My Life”, such as it is.  I wasn’t saying much, just what I did last night, and what I’ll do today.  Those things I spoke of?  Writing.  So for yesterday I blogged, wrote a couple of theme descriptions for Windows 8, edited some three thousand words, and wrote nine hundred word of an article before going to bed.  What will I do today?  Blog, edit a couple of thousand words, write a couple of Windows 8 theme descriptions, and finish my article.

Sounds like fun, no?

I made the joke, “When am I getting paid for this?” but I know that will come in time–so I hope.  I’m heading in the right direction, and eventually, maybe with this next novel I’ll get noticed, picked up, contacted, rich, buy an abandoned mansion, and become a Bond villainess, because if there’s one thing Bond needs it’s bad girls who screw him.  Got the cover coming, the editing and formatting is coming, and in a month or so the novel will be a reality.

(By the way, a friend turned me on to a rant by the same person who gets into fights with her fictional characters and loses, and said that she can’t self publish because she’s not rich.  Ummm, last time I checked you didn’t need to be rich to self-publish, you just had to be able to write, edit, work with someone who’ll give you honest criticism, maybe get a friend who’ll make you a cover for cheep, and then set up an account, format your book, then upload and wait.  But then, this person is one of those vampires who lives to suck the life out of you, so the moral of the story is laugh at these people, kiddies:  they deserve it all.)

There is the fear that I don’t have an idea ready for when all this is done.  The mind seems to have shut down with the ideas while I concentrate on getting stories ready.  I suppose that’s the way thing go; you concentrate on one thing, and the mind files everything down in the back until you need them.

There is the fear, however:  what if the new ideas never come?  What if I’m stuck writing lots of stuff I already have imagined out, and nothing else ever comes to mind.  Not that I don’t have a lot of stories to tell:  you’d have to see some of my time lines to know this.  Still, it does bother me a bit–

Which means I’m driving myself crazy with things I need not drive.  I’m on the up escalator to the crazy house, worried that I’m never gonna have a new idea in my entire life.  I already know this is bull, because my ideas have left me with a whole lot of material, and my other fear is I’ll never write it all before I shuck this mortal coil.

You think this keeps George R. R. Martin up at night?

 

Fast Lane to the Hinterland

There nothing like driving into Chicago at six-thirty in the morning with a cloudless sky above you, a lot of tall building before you, traffic filled with crazy people around you, and an old Japanese anime soundtrack blasting from your stereo.  It puts you in a certain frame of mine–unfortunately, for me, it was sort of the, “Why the hell am I doing this shit?” frame, and please don’t tell me it’s to pay the bills.

Still, there was a certain feeling while I was on the road.  I do love driving, if for no other reason that I can be alone with my thoughts, even if I’m accompanied by loud music.  When I used to make the weekly trek from and to The Undisclosed Location, I had two and a half hours to drive at 80 MPH, yell at drivers that wouldn’t get out of my way, and think out plot lines, scenes, and character development.

I thought a little about what I’m working on right now, which is editing and formatting Replacements so I can publish the work.  I’m getting this out of the way so when my covers arrive–that’s right, I was told I’m getting three covers for the low price of $200, and I can keep them or do some swapping, maybe using one of Smashwords and another on Amazon–I can then see about getting a cover for Replacements while I do a final edit and format on Her Demonic Majesty so I can get it online where it can take its place next to werewolf porn and a series about an eighteen year-old virgin who gets laid in about thirty stories–which means she must have regenerative abilities.

This morning I spoke with a friend about a story I’d submitted to a publishing house last May, and have heard nothing in return after they requested, and received, the full manuscript.  I’d mentioned that I’d sent two follow ups to the publishing house requesting an update on my novel, with none forthcoming from their end.  My friend’s comment was short and to the point:  ”Fuck ‘em, publish it yourself.”  This has pretty much been my attitude as well, since I’m getting antsy to find out what’s going on with that particular story.  If you want it, fine:  if you don’t want it, fine as well.  Just let me know, ‘kay?

This seems to be a common occurrence these days, where people send things out and sometimes never hear a thing back.  Or maybe it’s jut me:  maybe I’m stuck on this one with a lost in the aether and constantly waiting for it to return from the hinterlands.  Though I’m coming up on a year with it being out, so it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what I’m going to do with the story–

I’ll fix it up and I’ll publish it.

There’s no guaranty I’ll make any sales if I do this, but then there was no guaranty I’d make any sales by selling it, either.  Just as once I pay a couple of hundred scoots for a book cover there’s no guaranty I’ll get any sales from Her Demonic Majesty.  I do know this, however:

It will be out–and, with the right cover, it will be noticed.

The question then becomes:  by whom?

Hot Chocolate and Mountain Stars

One project ends, another begins; it’s how you do it, really.  Suggestive Amusements is in the can–or on the hard drive, as this case may be–and my information for a book cover for Her Demonic Majesty is off to a friend for her appraisal.  What is left to do?

Edit, what else?

Replacements is under the literary knife again.  I’m giving it another polish in, preparing it for it’s own publication date.  That will mean getting a cover for it as well, and prepping the manuscript for ebooks, but that’s easy.  Well, the formatting is:  not sure on the cover yet.  But it’s all coming together.  If anything, as I edit, I can format.  I did Chapter One last night; I’ll likely edit Chapter Two tonight, then start doing a format on Chapter One–which is a small chapters–to get back into the swing of getting an ebook ready.

Even with all this, there are always things going on in my mind.  Are those story ideas you’re talking about, Cassie?  Why, yes:  yes, they are.

There is a set of stories that I’ve developed of a particular set of characters.  As of this moment I have three stories written about them that amount to three long novels, one short novel, and a novella.  I’m so tied into these characters, in fact, that I have a time line of their lives figured out, and that the stories that revolve around those lives.

Last week I was thinking about one of those stories, one that takes place further along in their lives, and it’s an event that, as they say in the business, changes them forever.  It really does, because it’s needed for later in their lives, and for the stories that follow.  As I want to do, I thought out things from a meta standpoint, with the intention of figuring out things later.  As for the meta, it goes into a file, or my head, both of which are pretty good for that sort of thing.

Here is the kicker, though:  the night before, I had a dream that revolved around what I’d been thinking about, as well as some of the research I’d done, because I’m all about the research . . .

I know it was about a place I’d researched for this story, because I just did.  It was in the mountains; it was night and the air was crisp, with fall approaching.  I was sitting alongside someone, both of us wearing thick sweaters against the mountain chill.  There was wine, just a small glass each, because you want to enjoy the alcohol-infused warmth that comes from sitting a sweet white wine.

Then, after the lateness of the hour became apparent, inside we go to sit before a fire, stretching out upon an overstuffed sofa–

Which is where my dream ended.  But the writer in me–ah, I see thing going beyond that.  Because the overstuffed sofa reminds me of two people in a very different place, with their own sofa, their over comforters, their own fire . . . and plenty of pumpkin juice, hot chocolate, and cheese banitsas.  All the things meant to keep a couple warm . . .

All the things they’d need to remind them of their love.

In the Glen of Semi-active Awareness

Oh, such is the aftermath of sleeping with the Luna Moth.  I make it through the night without waking at some ridiculous time of the morning, but the next day forces you to deal with the hangover for many, many hours.  It’s never fun; in fact, it can be a dangerous thing when you’re out on the highway surrounded by idiots–as I’ll be this afternoon.

At the moment I’m trying to analyze business intelligence software–always a fun thing–and write this.  I’m sort of failing at both ends, because my body is revolting against me, saying, “No, you can’t make your fingers move that way, because it feels funny to us.”  Also, these companies don’t want to give me a quote on their software:  the want me to try it first.  I don’t want to try it, I just want to know how much of my money you’re going to take.  There is no “try”, there is only, “How much, Bunky?”

Since I didn’t write anything last night–I was on Skype with my therapist, and by the time that was through I was inching into ten PM territory–I did polish up an old game review and sent it off to the guy who’d asked me about them the other night.  Yes, I found some errors; yes, I did rewrite part of it because it felt very clumsy in some areas.  Mostly I rewrote things because I know how now to tell the same tell better, and I want to see things looking nice and shiny before I send them out into the Interwebs again.

One of the things I’ve seen over the years is how good some of the stuff I wrote three, four, five years back is today.  It’s not perfect, but it’s readable in a good way.  I still get ideas across; I still manage to make the right points; I still manage to let what passes for “my humor” present itself upon the page.

What I’m saying it the writing was good, and it was something of which I am proud.

In fact, I was just looking over another review I did in 2011, and while there are a few issues here and there, I have no problems with it.  Sure, a clean up is in order, and I might have to correct something were I to republish it because a few things have changed since the original publication, but it’s not as if I need to perform massive triage to get it presentable.  It is . . . good.

If the two reviews I sent in are deemed worthy, them I’m probably going to send a few of these other things that I penned.  I’m also looking and publishing some–wait for it–new articles, because I’d once made the promise to do so, and I should follow through, should I not?  I was even looking at some research material because that’s what I do, even if I don’t want to write.  But since I likely will, the reading came in handy.

The plan is to finish Suggestive Amusements this weekend or early next week–but that doesn’t mean I won’t write something else in the meantime.

After, every little bit helps.

Nights of Sorrow and Confession

One of the themes I tend to follow in my stories that is no one is perfect.  It doesn’t matter if you’re human, non-human, or something a little special:  every now and then you’re gonna screw up.  If you’re human and you mess up, you might be out of some time and a few hundred bucks.  If you something non-human, your screw up might cost someone their life.

Such as it is with my muse, Erin.  She did something bad, and now her charge is paying for that screw up.  At least she feels bad about what happened.

The novel is moving into some dark territory before it climbs out into the light.  It’s night time, Erin is upset, and she’s got a senior goddess breathing down her neck.  Are there senior goddesses?  Of course there are:  someone’s gotta run those people.  You even find out that Erin has a boss, and it’s probably not who you think it is, because these guys don’t hang out with their own mythological neighbors.  No, these people have the run of whatever world they run, and they don’t give a shit about the ethic lines that worshiped them.

Unlike the last few chapters, where I struggled to get my feeling out on the page, time time I’m kinda zoomin’ the chapter.  I’ve written nearly twenty-five hundred words in the last two days, and were it not for an important Skype meeting tonight, I might have actually finished the chapter.  I’ll still get in some words tonight, but it looks as if the finishing of the chapter comes tomorrow–and the finishing of the story may happen on Sunday.  Maybe Monday, Tuesday at the outside.  But I see the end coming, it’s just around the bend.

Maybe this chapter is going so well because I’m feeling the sorrow these days, just like Erin.  Things are happening around me, a little to me, a little to people I know, and it’s weighing on my mind.  That’s probably why I was up at four AM again today, with my brain playing its little games of, “Hey, listen!” and keeping me up when I should be catching the snooze instead.  It has done this to me for the better part of a week now, and the early morning chicanery is getting old.  I need sleep, and I need it soon, because the drive home is killing me.

It also doesn’t help with the creative process.  The ideas seem slow these days, as if all the befuddlement I’m feeling from getting up so early every day is whacking my imaginative juices.  I will say this about hanging at The Undisclosed Location:  I always seemed to have something bouncing about in my brain.  These days, I seem to have . . . emptiness.  Or, at the least, a bit of fogginess, because things never seem as clear as they once were.

It’s time to get past these blocks.  Perhaps after I do my next edit the brain will open up.  Or maybe that’ll happen after I get some sleep.  Though I ended up not getting a lot of sleep last year–

And writing wise, that didn’t turn out all that bad.

Office Gatherings for the Fictionally Inclined

Today is not the sort of day one wants to wake up for.  It’s cold, and we’re expecting a winter storm tomorrow.  My right ear seems to have become infected, and it’s bad enough that I can’t put my earbud in since the canal appears to have swollen.  The room is cold, and my cold, while nearly gone, is forcing me to clear out whatever I have in my lungs on a pretty regular schedule.

Another day in the sunshine–who doesn’t live for that?

So here I am, Little Miss Hellspawn, thinking about what I’m going to write, the people whose lives I’m going to destroy, the souls I’m going to drag screaming off to my realm . . . just kidding about those last two, because, as I said, I’m total pussycat.  Look at those pretty eyes:  are those the eyes of someone who’d run you through with one of her shoulder spikes?

I was playing with making pictures like the one at right, while chatting with a friend.  I felt a bit uninspired for writing, in part because I’m finding it hard to type for long periods of time when I’m coughing up a hurricane, but in part because I know what I have to write, and my mind is saying, “You need to be in a good place when you write this next scene.”

Suggestive Amusements has reached a point where things will begin going sideways, where events that people didn’t know could happy will, and some of what’s coming isn’t going to be good.  I’m starting with that now, and while the first couple of thousand words came pretty easy, I’m feeling the hesitation to begin writing what’s next because those same events are a little to close to my own experiences . . .

I’ve been in situations at work where I’ve had to sit in an office and hear about how I’ve been . . . lacking.  Where I’ve been told I don’t handle interaction with users well.  Where I’ve been told–well, that my services were no longer required.  It’s never a good feeling, and after twenty-five plus years of dealing with that crap, it’s something I’d like to put behind me.

Except you never really put these things behind you, right?  You remember ever slight from every person you ever worked with, particularly if they occupied a position high enough up the hierarchy that their action, no matter how misinformed or idiotic, will not only affect your position, but possibly your life.

I’ve found myself in the position of being surprised by a change that I never saw coming, and this hasn’t been a one time event:  I can name at least three times when it’s happened.  It’s never been good, and one time pretty much changed me in ways I can’t get into without writing a story about it.

Which, in a way, is what I’m doing with Suggestive Amusements.  Some of what is happening to Keith has happened to me, and his reactions . . . okay, so he’ll handle things a little differently then I did, but that’s why one takes their experience and sometimes writes it into a story.

Then again, I am making everything up.  Aren’t I?

Charting the Personal Timeline

Today is a busy day.  Not it’s going to be a busy day, but it’s busy.  I heard there is snow and ice on my route home, so tonight could be a little trick as I return to the wilds of northwest Indiana.  No big deal.  I’ll get home.

I’ll also be on the web speaking to my therapist, because I miss her and we have things to say to each other.  It’s been three months since I was on the couch, and our time together was some good stuff, and I’m looking to get back into a routine because, why not?  We all need a little routine in our lives.

Writing is a routine.  I didn’t get much done on Saturday, but Sunday I finished Chapter Five, got two of my main characters, Keith and Elektra (yeah, that’s really her name) together, and saw my muse vanish for the time being.  I ended up writing about twelve hundred and fifty words, and I have officially passed into the Country of Novella, where all the officials are corrupt, and are just looking for the right moment to throw your ass under the jail—usually after you don’t make your word count.

So all my players are upon the stage, with only a couple of bit players remaining to show up now and then to move the story along.  I’m happy with the progression, even if I’m seeing a fifty day time line for writing the first draft, with fourteen days behind me.  It’s better than saying it’s going to take sixty days to write it, which may have been more real at the beginning when I had no idea how big the story would become—and with my counts down and analyzed, right now I’m on the cusp of a sixty-three thousand word story that could, realistically, end up being sixty-five to seventy thousand words.

I almost always set goals for myself when I’m writing.  A thousand words a day; sixty-five thousand words for a novel; four stories published in 2013.  I do the same thing in stories; there are always things that are going to happen, and they will happen when they happen, so I never worry if something doesn’t happen, because it happens in its own good time.

When I was laying out my timelines on Saturday, the notion hit me that I probably have more to write than I can ever write.  If I write a novel every ninety days, and spend another ninety days editing it while working on another novel or novella, then I could publish two to three novels a year—assuming I did it all the self-publishing route.  I know that, for one series, I could likely do twenty stories, and when you do the math, that’s almost seven years of steady work to get those all published.  Which means I’d be in my early sixties before that work is finished—

If I start now.

Oh, this is what is known as job security, right?  The fact that I have a ton of work, and maybe twenty years to get it done.

Muse Gone Wild

The cold is on the wane, but only in the same sense that it’s January, and that means spring will be here in two months.  I’m sick, but not as sick as yesterday.  Maybe seventy percent better, but that’s almost a hundred percent more than I was Tuesday.

The night found the time of writing had come about, and I started.  I had a bit of a spinney head, and there was a beverage by my side—if you know your Dude, you know what I mean—but that wasn’t going to stop me from getting the word out onto the computer.

Not when I had something very particular to say.

See, in my story the muse is trying to bring something out in her charge, and the only way to do this is through example.  Without going into detail, she’s a naughty girl, and she’s trying to do naughty things with her charge while he’s at work.  Don’t worry about her being seen:  she’s a preternatural creature, capable of standing next to you without your notice, which means she can do just about anything and not worry about drawing an audience.

So she’s doing something with her character in the lunch room, giving him a show and asking him to tell.  It’s a thought exercise with living picture, and she’s drawing upon his imagination to paint a picture that he can later turn into a story.

Which means I’m painting a picture with words so I can tell the tale of this particular story.

I’ve never actually worked on a story that had a writer as one of the main characters.  Well, I have another character that has done some writing, but this is a writer and his muse, and the focus is on them, and what she’s doing to get him out of his creative shell.

As I said, though, she’s a bit of a naughty girl, and some of the things she’s going to do are what one might call “non-standard”.  Like what she’s doing in her charge’s lunch room:  it’s not the sort of thing one would expect a muse to have you do in order to get some experience writing a story.

Maybe she’s into method acting?

Whatever it was, as she drew words out of my main character, she was also drawing words out of me.  Before I knew it I was a thousand and fifty words closer to the end, thought Chapter Four is still not finished.  That will change tonight, because I’ll complete the scene I’m working on in maybe three, four hundred words, then get into Chapter Five and bring another character onto the stage.

And if you think my muse is naughty . . .

The interesting thing that happened to me last night was how I wrote.  I’d do some writing, then check.  Oh, three hundred words.  Well, I didn’t feel great, but that seemed low for an evening word count, so I wrote some more.  Checked, and I was around six hundred words.  Still seemed low to me, so I started writing again, and writing, and writing . . .

That’s how you get your words for the night.  You listen to your muse.