Tag Archives: inspiration

Ignoring the shiny.

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We writers, we have a problem.

There is this thing, it’s called “The Shiny“.

It comes when we least expect it, but it screams its damn head off when it appears.

We’ll be working on a story, and it doesn’t matter the length of the story, and BAM, The Shiny appears.

It could be a new thought on the current story, something that we didn’t anticipate or worse, it could be a new story, yelling, ‘look at me, look at me. I won’t let you get stuck, but if I do at least you’ll be writing five-thousand words while you wait’. 

The more we’re blocked, the louder the damn thing screams, but we have to ignore it, we must. There’s a part of us that knows we have to keep going on the current story, because, no matter how blocked we get, we still have more words on the current story than The Shiny.

We want to stop because we’ll get The Shiny to be quiet, then we have the damn things popping up to yell at us. It will happen when we’re going to sleep, taking our kids to school, reading a book. That last one, that’s the most frustrating.

The only thing we can do, write down the idea, put it somewhere we can see it and work on it later after we’re done with the current story.

Don’t give in to The Shiny.

Finding Courage…

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Courage is in short supply…

We write, and early one we may be afraid to write the words that scare us and chase us into a hole.

We lack the courage to confront the stories we’ve lived, the nightmares we’ve lived through and that confrontation comes when we’re at a latter stage of our writing development.

Instead, we may write stories of a wholly less personal, but relevant nature.

These stories confront the world, not our own nightmares.

Our nightmares, the ones we keep within our darkest thoughts, our darkest corners, they come out when we’re writing for ourselves

They’ll come when we least expect them too because we lack the courage to write them.

They’re too familiar, they’re unstable as possibly we once were and like a chemical reaction, we’re not ready for the world’s reaction to the personal stories we keep to ourselves.

Once we’re no longer afraid of the world and our courage comes through, we move to a higher place in our writing.

We advance to a plane that writers who don’t care about the world’s thoughts exist.

That is when freedom comes. That is when good writing happens.

The Marionnette in the Writer’s Toolbox.

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We often wonder what it would be like to be published.

We steal glances at the recently published books at our local bookstore, stare at the copies of paperbacks at the grocery store, all the while we ignore the little voice in our head asking, “Why the fuck aren’t you published yet?”

This voice stands up like a broken marionette, one string is torn as though it was never attached, but we keeping hearing the damn voice, calling to use in our dreams.

“Write asshole, why aren’t you writing, you’re sleeping and you should be writing, why aren’t you writing?”

The marionette is a clever disguise for our lack of faith in our writing or that we often, without understanding it, try to destabilize ourselves by worrying about the most recently published writer we’re friends with on social media.

Then we pick up their book and think, I’m better than this.

We continue our slog, staring at the paperbacks when we’re buying beer or another box of Cap’n Crunch.

We write, ignoring that damn marionette and keep going for one reason, we love to write. We love it like we love our kids, spouse, mom, and dog.

Stop staring publisher’s weekly, their emails will just drive you mad.

 

The Fight…

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I’ve been circling the pit lately.

I hear the voices from within its muddy walls and the world stops.

I get those panicked breaths and I wonder what’s brought it on.

Staring down from my cliff, waiting for the tendrils to pull me in I wait on the rim.

I wait for something worse to happen, I wait for a lost job, a tragedy to befall my loved ones where the tendrils pull me back.

I feel the pillow over my face suffocating that smothers the life I want and takes away the life I have.

I stand at the rim looking in, hoping for something to bring me back.

But as the tendrils reach I put words on the page, for that’s my only solace.

The words count at the end of the day and the fight back the monsters.

The words push me away from the rim, away from the tendrils as their claws rip at the muddy precipice of the pit.

What we must do in the next four years.

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It’s been a week since the election of the incoming administration, and in that time there’s been more racial violence than after 9/11.

If we’re to thrive in the next four years, here is what we must do:

  1. If a Muslim, Jew, have brown skin, black skin, LGBTQ or cisgender and you see them being hurt, stand up to the person hurting them. If you can’t (because of your size)find someone who will.
  2. There are going to be a lot of frightened people out there in the communities I mentioned above, do something to help them.
  3. If the administration does something you don’t agree with, say something. Call your congressperson or senator.
  4. Protect each other and don’t let anyone feel like they’re alone.
  5. Don’t normalize the hate that will be coming from the administration. Normalizing hate is never okay.
  6. Speak up!

These are what I’ve come up with over the last week. If you can add something, reply in the comments and I’ll add it to the list.

My daughter’s friends are Latina and I know they’re scared. I know there are a lot of kids that are scared, but remember their parents are trying to put on a good face and make light of it, help them if they need help.

Don’t normalize hate.