I’ll be taking time away from the blog to make a dent in the new project.
I’ve started drafting and don’t want to take away from that.
I will post little short posts like this one. Just to give you a heads up on what’s going on.
Happy writing.
When I started writing I felt lost.
I didn’t know how to do this thing.
For years I wrote like my favorite authors. I thought if they can do it by the seat of their pants, why can’t I?
What I really learned is that you have to be honest with yourself about the craft.
Are you getting rejections because of how you write?
I hadn’t thought about this until after I wrote nine books.
I believed that my writing as it was should be good enough to get published. That wasn’t the case.
The truth is, the story meandered through each chapter never finding a true foothold(even after subsequent drafts).
It was only after I thought of quitting that I started to really think about outlining.
When you’re at the bottom and you feel lost, you have to try something different.
I was fearful of outlining because I’d tried it before. It was when I was new to having the time to write and I wanted to get it on the page as fast as possible.
I only wanted to see words on the page.
It hurt to have to take a step back and reevaluate what I wrote, how I wrote, and why I wrote.
All of this was difficult and hard on my ego but I want to be published more than anything.
When you want something bad enough and what you’re doing isn’t working you have to fix it.
I fixed it!
The hardest things are always the most difficult, but also the most rewarding in the end.
As I wrote on Monday, I’ve learned to understand the process.
Like every kind of relationship, when you get to the right one, you understand why the others never worked.
That’s how I’ve felt over the last week and half.
I built the foundation of the relationship, found common ground, and constructed a blueprint for how to move forward.
I wouldn’t say my process was broken before it just wasn’t the process I needed for my writing.
Now I’m on the real work of the outline.
I’ve created scenes, learned about characters, and quite a bit about myself.
Throughout, I’ve begun to understand the flaws in my other books and why they just weren’t there. It wasn’t that they weren’t good stories, it’s that I didn’t understand how to create the blueprint for them.
Today I’ll spend my time with the outline. Creating things and finding out what is the best use of each set piece, each section of foreshadowing and how to do it properly.
I’m moving forward and that a good thing. I’m still planning on starting the drafting process in October. It will be a Halloween gift to myself.
Happy writing and always keep writing.
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.
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.
Brian B Baker, Writer 