Any writer will tell you that there’s no shortage of ideas out there. Book ideas lurk around every corner, waiting to pounce. Short story ideas hide under your bed, ready to grab you by the ankle. There is no avoiding them. However, sometimes you are approached for something specific, and while you may have more ideas than you know what to with, you may not have anything ready to go.
Tomorrow is my birthday. I won’t tell you how old I’m going to be, as I think that’s against the International Law of Women, and you don’t want to cross them. Suffice it to say that I will be under 30, at least for a little bit longer.
Yesterday, my husband and I attended the local Scottish Festival and Highland Games. This was a third – twice, out in California, we attended the big one at Pleasanton. We both have Clan Campbell shirts – everyone in California had a clan shirt (in comparison, we were the only ones who had them here, and had several people ask where we’d gotten them). While on the bus, I had a woman sit in front of me, take one look at my shirt, and say “Oh no, I’ve got my back to a Campbell!”
The economy sucks and the middle class is steadily disappearing. Inflation is soaring and it’s enough to make you wonder if anyone actually understands economics at all.
So, I have done an awful lot of drinking this weekend. Not necessarily the best sentence to start a post with, but here we are anyway.
I had the good fortune to attend the Pike’s Peak Writers’ Conference the weekend of April 28th through May 1st. I’ve never been to one before, but Ian expressed interest in attending one, and as he picked one that happened to be in my home state, I tagged along.
I find myself in an interesting position now, and I suspect my Turtleduck compatriots are feeling much the same. Never before have I really thought about where a story will end up while I’m still in the planning or writing stages of a project. It’s always been “I’ll write this, and worry about what I’m going to do with it later.”
They lurk, unseen, waiting for you. They can be anywhere. You can be sitting on the couch when one strikes. You can be walking down the street, at the store, in the shower, even in your own bed. Then, they strike.
I think we, as people and as writers, are a reflection of everything we’re exposed to in life. Not just how we were raised and our experiences, but what we read, what we watch.
Why do people let me near the blog? They should have patted me on the head and then taken away my keyboard. Do you like the logo? I drew it and then gave it to more talented people than me to make it pretty. Anyway.