Author Archives: Brian B Baker

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About Brian B Baker

I write horror stories, review books, and talk about depression, and how I get through all of it.

Writing the First Draft: Fast and Frenetic

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Our first draft is always furious and frenetic. It comes out like storm gathering on a plateau and when it’s ready, it pours out of us like a massive supercell destroying what we thought we were capable of and making us think twice about why we write, but in a good way.

We’re sometimes not prepared for the strength pouring from our fingers and it can frazzle our minds and make us drink more coffee or maybe something stronger.

The best part of writing is the first draft, the pace seems impossible to sustain, the breadth of the story amazes us and the characters and their lives remind us why we love to write.

Pacing of the story isn’t our worry in a first draft or spelling, grammar or whether we get the characters names correct, it’s all about the discovery.

Each story happens this way and we keep writing because we love how much our beautiful stories fascinate us.

From the opening sentence to The End, we’re mesmerized by the story.

Finding ourselves wrapped up in the writing, ignoring everything but discovering who these characters are and why they’ve been in our head is the best part of the first draft.

We never have a greater time than the frenetic courtship of the first draft.

Are you chasing the White Rabbit?

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I don’t like the idea that I’m not in control of my life. ~ Neo

In life we’re the controller of our destiny; regardless of your feelings on fate.

Each one of us decides to wake up, go to work or school and go through our day, oblivious to what goes on around us.

Last week I talked about the time we have left, the minutes ticking away our lives.

It’s what we’re doing with the minutes we have left that matter. The used minutes are like hanging up the phone, you just talked to the person, but there’s no longer the conversation, it’s just dead air.

Your used minutes are like the phone call, used minutes. They’re in the past, they don’t matter.

The minutes you have left are the future phone calls or text message you have yet to send.

The idea of fate tells us that what we’re doing is meant to be, but if you believe that why are there so many people not doing what they’re capable of?

The fear that fate is real stops people from doing other things. It stops the potential of so many artists because they think, “I’m living the life I should be.”

But what if you do as Neo does, jump down the rabbit hole and see where it goes?

Your motivation should be doing what you want,  not what you believe fate has thrown at you. Fate is the same thing as fear.

IF you believe you’re living the life you should be, then you’ve found your calling, but if there’s that slightest bit of hesitation that you could live better, do something meaningful, then you should tumble down the rabbit hole.

The hesitation in your thoughts marks a change in what you believe you should be doing. It is that little voice saying, “No, you’ve tried this, and it’s not working.”

That voice is one you should listen to; it’s your creative side trying to get out.

It’s the same voice my 9 year old hears when he makes something new with his Legos or my 4 year when she creates a new story for her toys.

It just takes some tapping into before we know it’s there.

Are you chasing the White Rabbit? Answer in the comments.

What are you doing with the Minutes you have left?

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This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time. – Narrator from Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

I’ve seen Fight Club over a dozen times, read the book twice and still I never thought, really thought about the above quote.

This changed recently, mostly because my focus has switched from doing nothing, to writing a lot more. I’ve changed my daily schedule, rearranged things to get more writing time.

As I was figuring out my new schedule this quote came up on Social Media.

After reading it a few times I realized what the quote meant to me, because quotes are meant to be analyzed for personal use, yeah…okay.

If our lives are ending one minute at a time, what are we doing with the minutes we have left?

If there were a clock in your mind of how long you have left, would you try harder, do something worth being remembered for or would you just keep doing what you’re doing?

Life does have an expiration date, each of us are dying. Eventually we’ll be gone, leaving whatever we’ve done in this life for humanity to digest.

Why don’t we do something that makes our life worth talking about. Make the minutes left on the clock, only that?

If we’re going to live our life the way we want, why do we let others run our lives. Tell us what we can do and even tell us what we can eat, read, watch or the places we can visit.

There’s a clock ticking away the minutes of our lives and most of us are resigned to go through life not caring whether we’re doing something with our lives.

Our clock is ticking, some of the minutes go by fast, others more slowly, but living those minutes we have left to the fullest of our abilities is what we should be doing.

Living for the sake of enjoying our lives is why we should be doing it.

There’s nothing more important than being who we want to be, doing what we want  and following our own path.

Our clock is ticking. Our life is ending one minute at a time and we have to discover what we want from it.

Discovery will make us stronger, weaker and oftentimes will make us crazy, but finding what we’re meant to do with our lives will give us purpose, a goal to live for and help us through the rough times.

We control how our lives end, but it will end. The clock will strike midnight, the ball will be over and we move on. It’s what we do with the minutes we have left that matters.

What are you doing with minutes you have left? Answer in the comments.

The Importance of what you do.

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A few days ago my daughter lost her favorite stuffed animal, well, I guess it was more me not noticing it had left her hand than her losing it.

We found the dog later, but that dog has been the most important thing to her since she could walk. She takes it everywhere. People ask his name and wonder where she got him, but he’s the most important part of who she is. Without her dog she’s lost, sad and not my same little girl.

Watching her emotions move from extreme sadness at losing her dog for only a few hours, then getting him back and being exceedingly jubilant holding him in her arms made me think:

“Is there anything that important to who I am?”

My only thought was, “How many people go through life wondering this?”

It goes back to what the narrator in Fight Club says, ““If you died right now, how would you feel about your life?”

The importance of your life isn’t one that you should take lightly. Every life is important, but not every life means what you believe it to.

Discovering your purpose through writing, art or anything creative can be trying, but doing it can be more rewarding than anything you’ll ever do.

Through being creative you can write a story that could bring people together, or paint a picture that will give a person hope in their worst times.

It’s only through being a creative that the importance of who you are, what you are and the direction of where you’re going doesn’t matter, it only matters that you create.

Creating is the lifeblood of society.

Creatives are the backbone of anything a society does. Where would the world be without the person who invented the steam engine or the person who wrote that one book that inspires a generation.

The creatives fuel economies, without them there would be no scientists, astronomers, or inventors and without each of those there wouldn’t be societies.

What you’re doing with your life is important, but what you create for those who follow you is more important.

Are you creating that which is most important to you? Answer in the comments.

Having Greater Life Expectations

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In modern time we see our life as a series of pictures our birth: birthdays, school, college, marriage, kids and we see the way its gone.

What about the expectations we had for our life when we started?

Where have the things gone we wanted to do, the life we wanted to live, the books we wanted to write?

Having expectations for our life is something which makes us who we are. We have dreams, goals and desires.

Each expectation is a bigger deal than the last.

We’re expected to do what our parents want us to do with our lives, but what if we want to do other things, what if we want to be a creative, be a writer, artist or actor?

Where does being a creative fit into the grand scheme of what society wants for us, regardless of our wants?

I hated college, I went only because it was my way out of a bad situation and in hindsight, I wish I wouldn’t have gone to college, I’d rather have spent my time, and my dad’s money writing, but I’m not sure he and my step-mother would have gone along with that idea.

I’ve always wanted more for myself than I felt my parents did.

I didn’t want to go to college, I wanted to be a Marine, when that fell through, I had nothing to fall back on.

I thought about traveling the world, working jobs to keep myself alive, there are times I wish I would have lived up to my own great expectations of who I wanted to be, but I lived life safely. I didn’t want to upset the relationships I’d built with my parents, I wish I’d been more like the person I am now, more willing to adventure than to do what I was told.

Now I’m more willing to take chances and risks. I’ve always felt I wasn’t allowed to be who I wanted; that there were restrictions, that I couldn’t be this that or the other. One of the things I felt my dad looked down on was creativity. Which, sorry to say, has always been my strong suit.

Twenty years ago I was afraid to be myself, afraid to take what I wanted to do and turn it into something else, something more like the life I wanted for myself.

I don’t regret my life or the choices I’ve made. Those choices are what led me to be a dad, husband and the experiences have made me a better writer.

We each have great expectations of what we want our lives to be.

Is your life what you wanted it to be when you were a kid, teenager or in your twenties?

Answer in the comments.