Tag Archives: writing resources

Editing, trying to read, and being lazy.

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I’ve been editing the book I wrote in the spring and really enjoying it.

I’ve been trying to read but I’m book hopping right now and it’s driving me nuts.

I have to be reading horror to write it and nothing is really enjoyable.

I’m fidgety. I can’t think straight when I am reading and I’m having a hard time with it.

I’ve spent a lot of time playing video games lately when I should be reading. That’s helping but I would like to read something and not feel bored.

When I don’t read I feel lazy. I’m getting the editing done but I’m not writing anything new. That’s been and adjustment but I think it’s working for me to edit and move to the next project after I’m done.

I have story ideas, they’re just sitting and stewing.

I hate that I have to read a genre when I’m writing that genre.

It confuses my brain when I don’t and I need less of that as it is.

I’ll be done with the edits on the draft by September. Then I’ll start a new project/

I’ll be querying it the end of October.

But I’ve taken enough time with my meandering through this post.

I nearly forgot about it and stayed up to write it at the last minute.

But I’m getting things done. Hit a personal best at the gym and I’m ready to kill it this fall.

Finding darkness, embracing it, and keeping going.

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I fell down a rabbit hole recently.

It wasn’t too deep but it got me to thinking about darkness and how I deal with it, hell, how any of us deal with it.

Let’s start earlier.

Since I was a little kid I’ve always liked scary things. I was a vampire almost every Halloween as a kid. When I wasn’t, I was a werewolf.

As I grew up, I watched a lot of horror movies.

I saw Halloween when I was eight, Children of the Corn at about the same age.

Then my sister introduced me to Hellraiser.

Those movies are my go to for anyone who wants to understand me.

Watch the first three and you’ll understand me a bit better. Read Barker’s book, “The Hellbound Heart” and you’ll understand me more.

That erotic, bloody, torturous movie and it’s sequels helped me to find myself.

Now that I’m 43, I think about what type of horror drives me.

It’s visceral. Dark. Dirty.

Sometimes it makes me take a step back. That’s when I know I have something good.

When what I put on the page scares me. Then I have something good.

Pushing the boundaries is what we do. Especially horror writers.

I remember an interview with Stephen King about Pet Semetery. He said that’s one of the books he thought he went too far in.

But can you imagine that book changed? It would mess it up. That book scared the hell out me.

There are so many books where I thought a writer went too far but I can’t imagine the story without those scenes.

I strive to be a good horror writer because I love the dark. I’ve always loved it. Watching a horror movie gives me more joy than almost anything except my wife and kids, though the goods ones eclipse them too.

Reading horror is new to me.

Growing up, my father restricted me to certain types of books. I’ve mentioned this before.

But I would still pick up a copy of Fangoria at the bookstore.

I could watch horror movies when I was a kid, but the books were off limits.

In the last few years I’ve tried catching up on some of the classics. There are a lot of them and I’ve had to be picky.

But a good horror book or movie will always be my favorite. I’d rather watch or read those than anything else.

It makes sense for me to write that stuff.

I love it and it will always be what keeps me going.

When writing things click.

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A while ago, like ten years or something my cousins who is published traditionally, and who publishes independently gave me a book.

It’s John Truby’s Anatomy of Story.

At that point I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand how to use the book, didn’t think I needed the book, and was determined to do it on my own.

Here’s a tip, when someone gets you something and they’re trying to help you, use it. Do whatever it takes to understand it .

If you don’t get it, ask for help. It’s really okay to ask for help.

Go to Reddit and ask. The people on R/writing are awesome.

But use whatever is at your disposal.

I never asked. I was stubborn and borderline asshole.

The belief that we can do something ourselves and ignore what people tell us is stupid.

You need help, ask.

Now that I’m trying to figure this out(ten years later)I’m struggling to do so.

I should’ve listened to her. Paid attention and not just read the book and not understood it. I should have done a lot of things differently.

Now that I am doing things different, I understand she was trying to help me.

She was trying to get me to understand writing on a different level.

It’s taken me a while but I’m getting there.

Patience is the greatest virtue.

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This week has been one of the most difficult as a writer.

This rethinking how to write with an outline is not only trying my patience but also my wife’s

I’ve ran things by her numerous times and like the trooper she’s always been, she makes suggestions. I hear the little hint of frustration in her voice as I ask for suggestions, but it’s a new thing for me to use an outline for a project, and it going along better than I thought it would.

I’m learning to diagnose issues with the story I have in my head and analyze where things went wrong, where I could change them and how to do so.

It feels like I’m learning to write all over again. I know it will improve the story, but damn it’s hard.

I’ve been writing as a discovery writer for over 10 years. I have to teach my mind that what I’d done before didn’t work and this is the new way we’re doing things.

Needless to say, there’s been pushback.

I’m using K.M. Weiland’s outlining workbook to do this. The reasoning is she knows what she’s doing and I’m only guessing on how to do this.

I see things in the story that could go another way, and other things that I’ll do away with all together.

There are things I’m changing I never would have if I’d rewritten the entire book.

I see the scope of it growing and with it the number of words I’ll have to write in order to fit everything from the outline within the book when I begin drafting.

The drafting part will be interesting. I don’t know how that will go. It’s going to be a while before I get there, a month or longer, but I’ll get there with a blueprint for the book I should have written the first time.

It’s awfully frightening to realize that you should have done something a certain way, but your mind said, “it’s fine. If King, George R.R. Martin, and Patrick Rothfuss can do it this way, so can you.”

The problem is, I’m not them. My brain obviously doesn’t work that way.

I’ve never really planned things out. Now that I am, I’m seeing more clearly.

I’ll keep updates going, but for now I’m just happy to get this going. I’m happy I’ve found a better path but I wish I would’ve done it years ago.

Now that I understand how to outline, I’ll do it for every project.

Have a good weekend and happy writing.

Frustration, Anxiety, and Writing.

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There are few things that ruffle my feathers more than trying to figure out my writing.

But hey, that’s where I’m at.

I have a book in the cosmos being queried, another with problems I’m trying to solve and I’m wondering if I’m doing this wrong.

Did I do something wrong in the writing and it’s frying circuits? Is there some magically gibbon or deity I’m not praying to?

I doubt any of that but I also know when it comes time to edit, I get really fucking nervous. I get severe anxiety from editing and revising.

It’s bad enough that right now my hands are shaking and my brain feels like it could explode out of my head. Left to float in the ether for all time.

I know those thoughts are bad and my wife tells me I have to get through them. I can’t keep rewriting the stories. That doesn’t solve the issues with the story it only prolongs those issues and at some point I’ll have to deal with them. But I really don’t want to.

I’m a discovery writer and I’ve written all but 1 of 9 books without a beat sheet or outline. I’m wondering if I may have to deal with that, bite the metaphorical bullet and do an outline for every project.

I see other writers take a few months to do an outline. For me, taking two months away from writing to work on an outline for a story I could be writing freaks me out.

I’m frustrated. I don’t know what to do so I’m throwing this out there even if I look at it a couple of months down the road when I’ve figured this shit out and laugh.

But I honestly feel stuck, frustrated, and bewildered by the lack of traction I’m getting.

I’ve thought about shutting down the blog for a while but it’s felt like an online confessional lately.

I guess I need that.

I’m trying to figure this shit out but damn, right now I don’t know.

I’ve thought about quitting a lot lately. More that I have in a long time.

I feel like it’s not going anywhere and I don’t know why.

I like the jazzed feeling of writing but right now I don’t know what to do.

Anyway, happy Monday. Kick some ass, take some names, and get shit done.