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Tag: writing

Et tu, Muse?

Hello friends. Have you ever gotten near to the end of a project, and all of a sudden every other project is super interesting? Or, in the case of my current brain, all of a sudden, there are new ideas everywhere. I’ve written more new things into my idea file in the last week than probably the last six months combined. Why do we do this? (Or maybe it’s just me?) While I’m close to the end of my revision (we’re firmly in Act 3 now) I still probably have at least a month more, maybe two. And that’s only going to get longer if I get distracted by every shiny thing my brain finds for me. And, holy cow, my brain is actively searching for shiny things. They’re everywhere. And you know that if I gave in and actually switched to one of these new projects, my brain would also give up on that one, or try to redirect me to something else, or decide now is an excellent time for a fanfiction hyperfixation. (oh no, I’m giving myself ideas.) Is this normal? I know other writing friends have this happen, but arguably no writer is normal, so this is a terrible litmus. If you too get distracted in the home stretch or find that you’re actively sabotaging yourself, what do you do to counteract it? My current technique is to tell myself that as soon as I finish my revision I’ll dedicate a month to chaos, where we…

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Standing Up for Myself

Apparently, scientists are finding that too much sitting is as bad for you as smoking. That’s pretty scary! Especially considering I spend much of my work day on the computer, then come home and spend a lot of my evening trying to write books (or on the computer avoiding writing books. Don’t judge.) I’ve been watching the studies, and if anything they’ve become more convinced of this. And, oddly enough, I do like to stand up to type–it’s unexpected, but I do it sometimes, because i just don’t want to sit anymore, or I want to dance, or whatever. I do it. Until my back hurts from bending over the desk, anyway, and then I sit down, because what choice do I have? Well, now I have a choice. After literal years of watching the price for an adjustable desk go from $500 to $350 to $275–I found a highly-rated one on great sale for about $150. And I pounced. Unfortunately, I don’t have room for two desks. So. Pour one out for my old friend. I’ve written a couple books at this desk, and edited more. But. I want to stand up sometimes. It’ll be good for me, and also fun, since I have a balance board. I even caught a good simultaneous sale on an under-the-desk treadmill! So. Time for some furniture assembly. As I told my family (with a lot of swear words) –if you have a choice, never try to put something together with the garbage…

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2024 is Coming

To piggyback off Kit’s post (because I have no creativity whatsoever this week), I’ve been doing some noodling about 2024 and what I want to accomplish. This year has been a bit of a mixed bag writing-wise, some good, some not-so-good, and I’d like to ramp it up a bit, assuming there are no horrific crises or emergencies or general ongoing unpleasantness that makes things, well, unpleasant. So let’s talk about how things went this year first, shall we? I had a few goals. They were: To publish an erotic contemporary romance novella on Radish (similar to Kindle Vella), which was a pivot/experiment to see how readers would respond to my writing in a different genre. Result: The novella, BAV, as I am calling it, is about 1/3rd done. It’s on hold a bit while I figure some stuff out. It ended up being a bit deeper than I’d intended, delving into subjects like parental control, religious cults, and BDSM. Sooo I am deciding if I want to go all in, or if I want to rein it in some. To finish my anthology story. Result: I rewrote it twice, and started yet another rewrite which I believe will be the last. It just wasn’t working the first two times. It’s about 5,000 words now. Again, on hold, but I have full intentions of finishing. This antho has had a floating deadline, so I’ve been sort of waiting for the muse to get back on board with this one. To…

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The Nano That Wasn’t

So last month, I talked about participating in NanoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) with two books, alternating or working on whatever book I felt like working on. And at the time, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable, doable plan. Especially since I wasn’t planning on trying to make the usual 50,000-word goal. And then November actually hit. For the first half of the month, I had a lot going on with work, which is fine — I never complain about money coming in — and I figured, okay, this first half is a wash. Maybe I can just do Nano for the second half then. I’m chuckling to myself because it’s the 21st, 9 days from the end of the month, and I have yet to write a single word. I haven’t even written a poem. Nada. Nothing. So what the heck happened? Life happened. Life. Life stress. Health stress — nothing serious, but just enough to cause some…fun motivation issues. Chronic extreme fatigue being one. I’m still battling that. The holidays are approaching, which are their own unique brand of stress. Things are imploding. The thought is there, but every time I think about actually, you know, actually writing, my muse side-eyes me and says, Seriously? In the middle of this freaking mess? Have you lost it? And I sigh and set the thought aside yet again. It’s pretty awful, because my main way of dealing with stress is…you guessed it…writing. And I haven’t consistently written for years now.…

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To Nano or Not to Nano, That is the Question

It’s seven days till the big day — the first day of National Novel Writing Month, which is basically Christmas for a lot of us writers who love to participate every year (like me), and I am wibbling on what to do, like my fellow Turtleducker Kit Campbell talked about in her blog recently. Normally, because of work, I’d say no way, or sign up and attempt it and maybe write a few hundred or thousand words and call it “a valiant effort,” and feel like I tried, but damn, the experience was lost, again, because I couldn’t fully participate like I wanted to. It’s been this way for a long time. I can tell you already that I have an editing job hitting at the end of November. Not too bad, but…I have an ongoing job that got put off a bit due to some extenuating circumstances that needs to get done, preferably before this one hits. I have assorted author assistant things happening that are the usual things, but they take time too. It’s all part of my work, which I love, so this isn’t a complaint by any stretch. It’s just…I’m still trying to carve out the time to write more consistently. I can’t seem to manage it. I am hoping I hit upon the sweet spot, that method that’s been eluding me for literal years since I started my business…so I can maybe do something this Nano. It won’t be 50k like it used to be…

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A Rustling in the Bushes

Well, here we are again. I had honestly begun to think it wouldn’t happen any more. It’s so easy to tell other writers that their muses haven’t abandoned them. It’s just a dry patch. You’ve got a lot going on in your life. It’s tough times for everyone. We’ve been through hell the last few years. The creativity will come back! Telling yourself that, though–no, that’s easy too. But believing it? Now that’s hard. Once upon a time, story ideas tackled me frequently. The kind of ideas that would grab me by the shoulders, or maybe the neck, and shake, demanding to be written. It hasn’t happened in a long time. Like, a really long time. Oh, I’ve had ideas, like maybe once or twice a year. And sometimes I even wrote them. But they weren’t the kind that pounced me like Tigger or Hobbes would do. Maybe the ideas that jump me like that aren’t better–in fact they probably aren’t better than something I’ve really thought through–but dammit, they are fun. And it’s happened. A great loud song I’ve heard a hundred times collided with a picture of a smartass redhead (have you noticed I have a thing for smartass redheads? Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention.) and an unrelated news story in my head, and BAM! KD is flat on the floor under a very self-satisfied tiger. via GIPHY Looks like I’m in for some fun coming up, and I’m quite excited about it. I’m poking writer friends…

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Another Update on the Bad Poetry Project

I didn’t want to update on this so soon, but I just have to give you all my news…. I have FOUR poems accepted for publication. Three for Naked Cat Literary and one for Free Verse Revolution. I am very, very honored, proud, and excited. I knew that someday I’d get there, but the question was when…and lo and behold, both acceptances came in my email the same day. How’s that for wild? I’m still on Cloud Nine. Today I just submitted another poem to Naked Cat Literary (love that name!), the one that accepted the three poems. Interesting story about this acceptance. I sent my poems in. I didn’t hear anything, and they had mentioned in their Twitter (X?) feed that they were starting to send replies, but didn’t indicate that they’d sent all of them yet. So I sat tight, waiting, on pins and needles. During this time, I had a weird prescient feeling that they would be the first ones to accept my poetry. Why, I couldn’t tell you. It just was. So then a week or so later, they tweeted that they were working on their next publication. And I wondered, were they done sending replies? And I hadn’t gotten anything? Not even in my spam mail? Hmmm. Time to politely — very politely — nudge. So I did that, via Twitter, and overnight they’d tweeted me back that they’d look into it (they were very apologetic, which I appreciate) and when I got up the…

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When the Muse Wakes Up

So it’s been a month and four days since Hailey’s passing, and we’re still grieving. We’re adjusting, little by little. I’ve been working a lot and trying to write, as I always do when I’m coping with something I’m hurting over. But this time…it’s like my muse suddenly woke up from a long slumber. Or, I just got tired of not writing. One of those two. Or both. And there is so much I am trying to do now, it’s not even funny: ~Poetry submissions to contests and literary magazines (online), often requiring revisions to existing poems or writing new ones, as they usually don’t accept poems published on social media (and most of my newer stuff is on Instagram). ~My short story for the TDP anthology, theoretically due next month, on its third rewrite. I scrapped what I was doing, rethought it, pulled Tarot cards on some things, and wrote 3,000 words on it already. Most I’ve written on one project all year. What?! It also spawned a SERIES IDEA which I am contemplating. ~Thinking about my poetry chapbook, Eterne (Esperanto for “Eternally”) — I wasn’t planning on publishing any more chapbooks, buuuuut I have so many new poems that it just makes sense. Already bought a premade cover. Just need to, write more, organize it, all that stuff. ~My Radish erotic contemporary romance — experiment to see how that goes (it’s a serial website similar to Kindle Vella) and how writing contemporary romance works for me. I’m about…

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Writer’s Block Sucks

Man, I haven’t been this blocked in years. Usually, it’s when I’ve taken a bad turn in the plot somewhere, and I need to start over from that point and figure out what happened and how to fix it. Usually, I’ll use a few different methods such as Tarot cards, freewriting, brainstorming, and even playing various writerly “games” to get at my subconscious and the answer—or, at least the beginning of the answer and over the hump so I can start writing again and in the right direction. (The writerly “games” are courtesy of Holly Lisle’s Create a Plot Clinic – an amazing book that I highly recommend — and I do not make any money from this; I am just a huge fan of her fiction and nonfiction). However, I’ve had a fair amount of upheaval in the past few years. We’ve got the pandemic, of course. My ongoing sleep issues, which are getting better, but aren’t perfect yet. We’ve got my usual chronic illness stuff. My business, which is thriving, but also takes a lot of time and energy. I’m still working on that part. I think a lot of this is effecting my creativity. I wrote 6,000 words in 2021. Abysmal, but things were crap that year. Last year was much better at 20,000 words. Yay! I’d said at least double 6,000, and I’d made that and a bit more. This year? I’m at about 2,000. Granted, we’re only into April, so there’s time. And I’ve been…

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Doing Great!

As evidenced by this post being three days late. How are you, friend? Anyway, I’m in the midst of an experiment, and I shall tell you about it because it involves you too. So, every so often, we here at TDP sit down and look at what we’re doing, and whether or not what we’re doing is successful, and what we could potentially do to be more successful, etc., etc., et al. One of the things we looked at recently involved our free shorts here on the website. We’ve been doing free shorts since we launched in 2010, to middling usefulness. So we looked at the shorts and how they were doing, and the data says that serial parts have, almost across the board, performed better than the stand alone shorts. So we’re trying a move to just serials, and no more stand alones. We decided that instead of mixing and matching serials, we’d have one person who would be the serial person for the year, and they’d write and then release a serial over however months were necessary for the story. So that leads me to here. (I volunteered to be the guinea pig.) No, this ain’t my first serial rodeo. But I did decide that, this time, I’d write the whole story at once. This is new. Every serial I’ve ever written I write the needed part as necessary. I’ve never done the whole thing before parts started going live. The thing about writing a serial as you…

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