Tag Archives: focus

Figuring Out The Writing Things

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This story making business is difficult to navigate and sometimes it feels like the shore itself is never close.

The world you’re trying to create may never come to fruition on the page or in a bookstore, online, or anywhere else books find their places.

The shores of stories are built within the framework of everything else.

There must be a way to create them(writing), there must be a way to get them right(editing), and there must be a way for the world to see them(agent, publisher, online, or whatever the means may be).

The difficult part for some of us it getting it on the page. This is either because we don’t understand what that entails or we think it’s easy. Both of these are easily fixed.

The first part is the easier of the two. We reach moments where it’s hard to get words on the page. We reach them and call it writer’s block. We’re not blocked. Our minds didn’t just shut down. There is a reason we can’t write another word and the answer is within the story itself. What happened in the story to cause us to blank? Find that and fix the problem and the “block”.

Now comes the part we loath. Those who haven’t written a book think it’s easy. Those who haven’t written a short story think the same thing.

If you haven’t written a book or short story through all of the editing, it’s damn hard.

I hate editing for a reason. I would rather be writing a new story, but I have to edit. It’s an imperative to edit.

This year my goal is go through the promising stories I wrote in the last couple of years. There are quite a few of them. When I’d finish a book, I’d write a group of short stories that weren’t in the genre of the previous story, or if they were it was different section of that genre.

Horror has many sub-genres. If I wrote haunted house book, I’d do something with cults, witches, demons, possession. Also vice-versa.

I had to give my mind a break.

I wrote at least fifty short stories. I’ll be going through all of them and submitting them. Most of them are horror, though a couple are not.

But I will go through all of them in order to fix them.

I can’t not write, but I have to look at editing as writing and that has always been my problem.

I’ve talked enough about my editing issues on here to fill a few chapbooks. I’ll get it done this year.

Oh, and that story I talked about the 25,000 missing words, I finished that story. So, I’ll be writing some short stories for a while too.

Have a good week and get some things done.

The effort to move past fear…

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The title may be wrong in wording for some, but today, for me, it’s correct.

I’ve been having difficulty parsing my brain with writing, editing, depression, and sobriety.

A couple of those go hand-in-hand(Sobriety and Depression).

But the writing, I don’t know how to deal with it.

I’ve always felt that I must write something new every day. Something on a new project must be written daily.

That’s been my go to for as long as I’ve been writing and maybe that’s part of the problem.

I wonder if the idea that something new has to be written daily destroys my confidence, absconds with my positivity and may actually be pushing my farther into a depression.

The feeling that if I’m not writing something new I’m doing this wrong has permeated my brain since I wrote my first book over ten years ago.

But it hasn’t changed. I continue to feel like something new has to come out of my brain or I’m failing at this writing thing, which is what some people have described it as.

My wife has told me that I need to work for myself. Not for what she expects of me and certainly not what other family members expect.

That last part is another issue which I’ve been dealing with, but won’t get into.

The writing usually makes me feel good. It gives me that needed energy boost, which is why I fall into a depression when I’m not actively writing.

I have over 50 short stories to edit, two novels, but it never feels right when I’m editing. It always feel different.

Let me explain:

Writing isn’t something that I do just for shits and giggles. I’m working to improve daily, but reading fiction, reading books on writing, and my attempting to edit.

But it never feels like other things.

When I quit drinking last fall I buried myself in working out. It was an outlet that I’d always used to cope. It’s always there in the periphery. But I’ve never thrown myself into my writing the way I do with exercise and I don’t understand why.

I can throw myself into a video game, exercise, alcohol, but when it comes to writing, I’ve not been able to accomplish such a thing and its maddening.

I don’t understand why my brain won’t do that.

Maybe it’s fear, possibly its the fear that if I write something really good I won’t be able to deal with the pressure that would come with it. This is a fear I have.

I’m also aware that I have my wife and kids and they’ve been my rock when the landscape is barren.

That my wife and kids are her with me and they back me regardless helps me get through the rough patches, though the patches have been continents lately.

Now I will undertake what I felt was impossible. I will put the effort of other efforts into writing because I can’t live in fear of this anymore.

Some things have to be conquered by straight of grit and determination. The fear that I have for writing and failing is causing me to descend into a depression that could sink me.

I will put forth and effort in my writing which I’m afraid to. I will commit to writing, editing, and improving in whatever way is possible and I will do it to the utmost of my ability as a writer and human.

Back into it

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Last week was Sundance and I worked my ass off.

Late shifts and tired mornings caused my writing to falter. I was too tired to work.

My last event was Saturday night and I returned home at 4:30 in the morning. I spent most of that day in bed, as well as a lot of yesterday as well.

One thing I learned from last week is that I need to get in better shape. Doing floor after floor of stairs in one particular venue was rough. My knees paid the price for that event.

There were other things I learned, but most of all I understand I must write, but I also must take care of myself. That goes for mentally and physically.

I haven’t worked out in the last few months because of depression and that’s why I started drinking again. Alcohol is the best thing for me when I want to abandon the world and say fuck it.

It is a long road back from that depression and I apparently worried a few people over it.

Today I’m taking a break for myself, going to the movies and pondering the next phase. But I’m thinking more clearly and more introspective of my work and thought processes.

I’m thinking a lot the last few days about how hard I work and whether its hard enough to achieve my goals.

Whether I publish or not this year is in my hands, and though I have a queries out with agents and short stories out with magazines, I’ll continue working. There is not stop except the peak of one mountain. After that peak, there’s always another mountain to climb.

I will continue to take a break when needed, but today I’m going to think about where life is going and what I’m doing.

Have a good day and I’ll post something tomorrow.

Much love.

Trying to get through…

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I’ve become stuck on my recent project. I don’t know where it broke. What happened or how to fix it.

The one thing that I did different from the previous project is I didn’t think this on through.

I didn’t plan. I didn’t plot. I didn’t create a pathway to get where I need to be; where the story needs to be.

I’ve been writing a dozen short stories over the holiday break, and maybe that’s why I thought I could wing it with a longer form story.

It hasn’t worked and I can’t go back to writing multiple drafts again.

I have the story I finished before Thanksgiving and I’ll work on improving that one.

It’s strange how you write one way for so long, then you start a new way and it’s like finding the holy grail.

I’ve written 10 novels and eight of those were written by pantsing. The other two I either wrote a beat sheet or did an outline and it’s those latter ones that I feel are my best work.

They have a better flow through, a better story, character development, but after using and outline and beat sheet, I’ve gone back to a few of those and discovered what went wrong and fixed it.

I’m querying one of them right now. It’s out with three agents.

This year I want to push what scares me and that leads into a conversation I had with my wife the other day about the current slate of horror. But I’ll talk about that on Wednesday.

Enjoy the first full week of the new year.

One thing after another…

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So, I intended to take a break from social media, the blog, and a few other things and work on the current project.

After much debate with myself over the project, snags(laptop battery issues, what feels like constant OS updates, numerous random glitches)I’m putting the story away for now.

It feels like something doesn’t want me to write this story.

I’ve written two version, almost three, and though I love the story and there’s some scary shit in it, I feel it’s time after too many starts and stops that it needs to be put away.

I hate having to do this with a story that I really enjoy writing, but sometimes there are signs a story won’t go further, I’ve seen numerous signs.

But I’m not just quitting. NaNoWriMo starts on Friday, so I’ll be brainstorming for the next day or so over writing something. If nothing comes, that’s fine too. But I need to get something done. I haven’t finished a long form story since May.

I’ve done a few shorts, and maybe I’ll tinker with them. I also have a contest that I need to write a story for. That one needs to be done by the end of January.

It sucks when a story doesn’t come together the way you want. Especially after putting months of outlines, weeks of writing, and frustration into it.

I’m not sure where I’ll be going, but I will keep working.

I hate not working. It’s one of the reasons we left Las Vegas and I feel that if I’m not writing I’m failing my family in some way.

My wife has told me that’s not true, but it feels that way.

Either way, the very cool project I’d been working on for the last few months is being shelved.

I learned a lot from writing parts of it and there is some great writing in it but sometimes that’s not enough and I’ll step away from it to work on something else.

Happy writing and have a Happy Halloween!