The Inconvenience of Inspiration.

            If there’s one thing I’ve learned about writing, it’s that inspiration is a fickle creature.  You cannot force it without consequences (usually detrimental).  You can beg, plead, and try every manner of trick to get it going, only for it to blatantly ignore you.  Then, at the most possibly inconvenient moment, it slams into you like a Mack truck—you won’t have a pen and paper or computer ready, you won’t have the time…

            It’s quite possibly the most frustrating thing about being a writer.  That or a very close second to listening to all your characters argue and squabble in your head.  I haven’t decided which.

            Case in point: I’ll give you a play-by-play of my latest run-in with my temperamental muse, which took place yesterday.

            Mondays are my barn-cleaning days at my job.  I muck stalls, pick the arena, rake the aisle and breezeway, sweep the walkways, pick up stuff left out: lead lines, muck boots, helmets, trash, and grooming supplies.  This is all on top of my usual feeding and turn-out.  It takes quite a while.  I’m usually left alone with the normal barn noises and my thoughts, which makes it feel a lot longer.  I used to take my iPod with me, but all winter it was too cold since I needed my ear warmer and can’t fit my headphones under it (I don’t use earbuds; they don’t fit and they’re uncomfortable; I have a pair of ear-only ones that fasten over my ear with glasses-like earpieces; they look silly, but the sound is much better and they’re comfortable).  Monday was the first day I’d remembered to bring my headphones with me—I listen to my iPod through my car stereo all the time, but the headphones had disappeared for about two months.

            I didn’t start listening to the music until I got feeding and turn-out done, so I could distract myself while mucking.  Raking up horse manure is probably one of the most inconvenient places for inspiration to strike.  There’s nowhere you can go (no place clean and/or dry, anyway), and usually I’ve forgotten to keep a pen and notepad in the car; they’re usually at home where I took them in the last time to transfer my handwritten work into the computer.  I don’t take breaks often, anyway.  Work comes first.

            So there I was, cleaning out the arena, listening to my iPod on shuffle, thinking about one of the scenes I’ve been wanting to write out for a while now.  It’s the new scene of how Dix Osis winds up with Wolfsong’s Warriors—he stows away on the ship and is discovered by the youngest pilot Wolfsong hires: Paul.  I got some images and dialogue as to how the scene would work, as well as multiple battle stands among the Immortal (of which my infamous Kett is part) thanks mostly to the fact that I listen to a lot of military-beat-esque music from movie and game scores.

            I figured when I got home I’d sit down and work on the Dix scene.  I sat down at about 3:30, having wrapped work up sooner than anticipated, and wound up staring at a blank Word document for hours.  I did a little work for my Cicada Creek Stables stories, but nothing I was happy with.  I felt depressed and frustrated and tired.

            I talked to Dan online for a while, but he was multitasking and not very chatty, so we said goodnight.  I went upstairs and took a shower, then figured the shower had woken me up enough (it was now about midnight) that I’d read for a little bit.

            My mistake was listening to the iPod again.  I got no enthusiasm to read, and I didn’t want to go back downstairs and turn my computer on again, so I got out a notebook and one of my favorite gel pens and sat down at the “art desk” my sister built this winter (I’m still housesitting).

            Nothing.  I couldn’t even get a start down for the Dix scene with the music.  So I thought I’d give it up for the night.  I’d listen to the iPod a while to help me relax enough to sleep.

            I walked into the guest bedroom where I’m staying and was hit over the head with images and dialogue for the ending of Brink, the story I began thanks to National Novel Writing Month.

            So I wound up sitting on the floor at the doorway to the closet on a pillow, my Brink binder on my lap as a makeshift desk, scrabbling to write as fast as I could to get the scenes out.  The reason for the location?  I’d taken the tall lamp and the desk lamp out for more lighting in the “art room” at night, so there was no light except in the closet.

            My handwriting is far slower than my typing, but I was writing fast for that.  I cannibalized three or four short scenes I’d started to write for other stories and added new elements to suit Brink.  When I heard the clock downstairs again, it was two am.  And here I sat, wide awake, racing to get everything I’d seen and heard in my head down on paper, despite the early morning feeding to come.

            I finally made myself put it down and go to bed, knowing I’d have to get up in a few hours to get out to the barn.

            Why doesn’t inspiration ever come when it’s convenient?!

Know How You Think. Know What You Like. Use Them.

            As a writer, it’s important to understand how you think.  If you know your thought process and what stimulates your creativity, the easier it is to harness inspiration and generate ideas.  That’s why it’s also good to know what you like in general.  Sometimes the smallest thing you like can be used, whether as something in your story, or as the start of inspiration for it.

            Since this has been a very rough week for me (in more ways than one), I tried over the last couple of days to rediscover little things I like and trace my way back over the way I think; I won’t spend time on my thought process because it’s different for everyone and, as a pessimistic introvert, mine’s really different from most.

            As for the little things…

            Perfume bottles have made an appearance in my stories.  Favorite foods, favorite places (such as Big Sur and Grand Tetons), even favorite books—such as Treasure Island—have made it in, whether altered slightly so the feel of a location is there, to having the book on a coffee table in a scene.  My white-and-black cat, Cassiopeia, made a cameo.  I like plants—especially orchids—animals—especially horses, cats, and dragons—and semiprecious stones like hematite, tiger’s eye, seraphenite, and moss agate.  I like gel pens in multiple colors, and to use a variety of fonts in a variety of colors on a variety of colored backgrounds, depending on the story I’m writing and the mood I’m in.  I like the delicate detail of dollhouses and their furniture.  I love the contained, fragile world aquariums contain.  I love the smell of old books, the feel of them.

            I like the feel of the solid presence of a cat snuggled up against or on me when I sleep or read.  I like the feel of the wind in my hair and the freedom—the outright euphoria—I can only experience when I canter or gallop a horse across open pasture, something I haven’t done in far too long.  I like the weight and balance of holding a blade in my hand, or the tension drawing my bow.  I like the feel of embroidered Chinese silk, the color with which it glows in the sunlight—colors that can’t be duplicated by any other fabric.

            I love the smell of a forest in summer—the cool of its depths surrounded by a radiating warmth from the sun mixed with the dappled shadows.

            Each of these things can be utilized in my writing.  As I’ve said before, I try to incorporate real things from my own life as a way for people to know me better, if they know what to look for.  It’s like my secret code to people I know and love, saying: this is who I am…can you see me?  Can you understand?  Can you accept?

When in doubt, interested, or curious, research!

            I’ve neglected my blog a little in the last couple of weeks due to being ill.  What I find amazing about that span of time—and a bit creepy—is the wild trails my mind went on while I was sick.  I got a clogged ear and sinuses, and that seemed to spur my brain to contemplate things I don’t normally.

            These included a lot of aging thoughts, such as marriage, pregnancy, kids, balancing job and home life, retirement, and the health issues that run in my family along with older age.  The older we get, the more potential issues show up.

            As I’m nearing 30, there are a lot of things changing.  Most people I know my age are engaged, getting married, or considering/having kids.  The younger siblings of the friends I grew up with are in late high school or college.  Since I’m getting older, my chances of marriage and kids narrows; after 30, apparently, the chances of having a child without birth defects grows, as does risk of complication.  I’m starting to feel old.

            Granted, the unlike-me contemplations provide  good opportunity for writing research.  Sometimes a glimpse at mortality, too, will do that.  In the last two weeks, I had to watch one of the horses I’ve known for years be humanely euthanized due to old age and colic.  Daddy turns 60 this year.  I had a strange “interview” by an insurance agency wanting to recruit me to tell its services to senior citizens, and some of the information they gave us about the aging populace was a bit…intimidating.

            So, as with many things that pique my interest, I spent a good deal of time researching them.  Marriage and kids are two things that are a possibility in the future, and growing older definitely is.  I’ve dealt with animals and breeding, and taken physical health classes in school, so though reproduction isn’t foreign to me, there are still little things everyone is expected to know but no one really talks about.  Guess that’s one good thing about the internet.  It makes “uncomfortable” subjects accessible.

            One of the reasons I looked into the topic of pregnancy, too, is the fact that one of my main science-fiction characters was born due to a one-night between Kett and her mother.  I was curious how good the chances for this were, given it seems like a lot of people who want kids can’t have them, and others who don’t want them have them.

            This brings me to the tip of this entry—when in doubt, research!  If you’re interested in something and want to use the topic in your writing, research!  I’ve read many authors who didn’t research something in their work that had parallels in real-life, such as the author who thought the horse colors bay, chestnut, roan, and dun were the same.  Granted, some authors love to show just how much they know and researched, which leads to information overload on a reader.  You don’t have to put all the stuff you know on a topic into your work, just enough that it fits the story and if people look it up for themselves, they can see you’re correct.

Books Read in 2011: February

            G.I. Joe: Origins, volume 4

                        (by IDW Publishing; graphic novel)

            Transformers: Drift

                        (by IDW Publishing; graphic novel)

            20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

                        (by Jules Verne; Kindle)

            Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 24

                        (by Hiromu Arakawa; manga)

            Halo: Evolutions volume I

                        (anthology; novel)

            Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne

                        (David Gaider; novel)

            Dragon Age: The Calling

                        (David Gaider; novel)

            Transformers: Bumblebee

                        (by IDW Publishing; graphic novel)

Evil Editor.

            There is something a writer must do that I both love and dread.  That is: unleash the evil editor.  I love this part of my writing because it allows me to strengthen my work and enhance its impact.  It lets me evaluate the quality, adjust where I need to, and often get a fresh perspective and new ideas for other scenes.

            I hate it because oftentimes I can’t seem to get anything further done in a piece.  I edit the heck out of things and get depressed over how worthless I’ve made myself feel by hacking into a beloved work, or—as is the case with most of my older stuff—I don’t know where to begin to edit to give it the best facelift.  There are many older scenes in things I dearly love and want to keep, but they feel…silly…either because of the structure or dialogue or some other minor something I’d be embarrassed to show the world.  I’m always anxious about sharing my work publicly, because I don’t know what people will think—of it, or me for writing it.  I already know many people think I’m crazy since I talk to my characters.

            My best friend of nearly 20 years, Ian, told me a few months ago he wants to read Brink.  The man doesn’t have a computer or internet so I can’t easily get it to him, but what he said while we were talking on the phone reminds me of my biggest anxiety—and of how well he knows me.  He told me he wanted to read Brink in part because my writing always has a bit of me in it: something I’ve experienced, something I’m currently going through, people I know in alter-ego form, stuff I’m struggling to cope with, animals I know, something that has “me” in it.  He said growing up he could always tell what I was dealing with, how people or life were treating me, and my outlook on things simply by reading.  Of everyone I know (yes, boyfriend included), Ian possibly understands me the best.  And I think his determination and willingness to read my work has a great deal to do with it.

            That may be why my “evil editor” side is so fierce.  I keep going back over things to try to hide the stuff that, if someone knew me, would stand out as obvious truth about me.  Unintentionally, a lot of my writing turned out to be subliminal therapy.  I grew up hearing from teachers “write what you know.”  I did, and incorporated it into a bit of everything I wrote.

            Because of my tight connections to my work, I hate cutting things out.  But it must be done for the good of the entire piece.  Few people (and I can’t actually think of any off the top of my head) enjoy rambling piece of work.  They want to escape, or be entertained, or both.  To do that, you have to let the editor out.

            I’ve been editing pretty much as long as I’ve been writing.  I do most of it in my head before I ever write anything down; even in college writing classes I rarely went back and changed things once it was put down on paper.  I mulled it over, adjusted it, readjusted, scrapped, spliced, and tweaked everything over and over and over until I was satisfied it was good enough to be written out.  In high school, friends would actually give me their creative writing papers to edit before they were handed in to the teacher for critique.  I was nominated head editor of the book my Novel Writing class published in college, and actually copy edited an international veterinary magazine published by the vet school at Purdue during that time as well.  For me, editing doesn’t take a lot of thought; I literally do it in my sleep with my own stories.  I’m good at it.  I enjoy it.

            Problem is, I’m so hard on my own work I don’t get very far very fast.  I have a lot of partially-done stuff I’m frustrated with because the evil editor side won’t leave well enough alone.

            Enter Brink.  Participating in National Novel Writing Month in November forced me to write and forced me to lock the evil editor in its cage for the span of thirty days (actually, about twenty-eight, in my case; I finished early).  There was so little time to write I couldn’t afford to waste it on editing.  It averaged about seventeen hundred words a day, approximately 6 pages.  I had to do that every day or fall behind.  Fortunately for me, I’m paranoid and a perfectionist, so I averaged about thirty-four hundred a day four or five days a week and took weekends off.  I was overwhelmed by the amount of work I did, and, above that, the quality.  It wasn’t the best I think I can do, but it was far, far above the worst.

            Now that I have a set of goals laid out, the evil editor has reared its head again.  I desperately love my Kavalren story, A New Breed of Warrior, but, given its age, the quality is well below my current ability.  After a good deal of deliberation, I’ve decided I’m scrapping at least one large section in favor of starting over with a stronger point of view.  I like the way it’s going.  The overall storyline will not change, but a lot of other things will to bring it up to preferred quality.  This puts a lot of strain on my one-year goal for it, but there’s still ten months left so it could happen.  It would certainly be rewarding.

A little late for New Year's resolutions, but goals just the same.

Writing Goals:

          Next year (2011):

Finish rework on written parts of A New Breed of Warrior.

Get outline written up for the remainder of A New Breed of Warrior.

Get second part of Brink written.

Participate in National Novel Writing Month, preferably with completion.

Get at least one chapter further written in Sunfall.

          Next two years (2011 and 2012):

                        Finish Brink.

Finish rework on written parts of Kett and Nayisa’s story Immortal: Legends (Immortal Born, Immortal Beginnings, Immortal Blood).

Plot out remaining sections of Immortal: Legends.

Participate in and complete National Novel Writing Month 2011 and 2012.

          Next five years (end of 2015):

                        Finish Immortal: Legends for publication.

Finish A New Breed of Warrior for publication.

Finish Brink for publication.

Finish Sunfall.

Complete 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 National Novel Writing Month challenges (successfully).

Complete some more sections of various other stories (namely Jemspur among the Dragonsword Saga).

Finish off the 100words list.

            They say (whoever “they” are…) that you should try to have short-term and long-term goals.  I sat down today after much thought (I do far too much thinking when I work at the barn and brainstorm while trying to write or convince sleep to come) and wrote out 1, 2, and 5 year goals.  They really look almost overambitious at this point, but I have to start somewhere.

Thought Processes of a Writer.

            For a bit of a change I thought I’d give you a little play-by-play of how my thought process works while brainstorming for inspiration.  This is due to a rather productive—and unexpected—train of thought last night.

            I haven’t written anything story-related in at least two weeks (January 25^th).  Given this is what I’ve always wanted to have as my career, this is very frustrating and depressing.  I either couldn’t come up with anything to write, or made excuses not to write.

            I was thinking the excuses and lack of inspiration over last night after some personal devotions and prayer (another New Year’s resolution was to get that back on track), talking to my boyfriend over IMer, and watching a Halo walkthrough trying to garner some sort of inspiration, but it was about 1am and I was getting tired from anticipation of having to get up this morning and work at the barn in the cold and mud.  I turned off the lights and shut my computer down after saying goodnight to Dan, threw my cat out (new record for wanting out: less than a second after lights-out), and burrowed into my nest of bedding (including my warm electric blanket).

            What I do as a general habit is, while I try to drift off to sleep (given I’m an insomniac this takes a long time, so I can get a lot of “work” in) is turn my imagination loose and try to envision ongoing scenes to stimulate new pieces of story.  I’ve been doing this since I was little.  Sometimes it results in dreams that become scenes in a particular story I’m trying to write.  Lately, it hasn’t been working.

            Since none of the usual stories I think back over were generating any ideas, my mind began to mull over some of my work I hadn’t touched in a while, and stories I’ve written of very little.  I especially tried to get Kett to talk to me, as I get a lot of my best work from him, but he’s still off somewhere mad about something—I’ve no idea what has him ticked off now.

            Inevitably, when my sci-fi stories don’t generate anything useful, I turn to my fantasy.  Fantasy is easier for me to envision.  It doesn’t feel so restrained by technical or mechanical issues (meaning ship or weapons specs, that sort of thing).  And, as frequently happens, my thoughts went to my Jemspur stories in my Dragonsword Saga work.  I’ve gotten a lot of good stuff from the characters in Jemspur: Firstborn, the story of the Jemspur leader’s firstborn son, Avalan, Mirinia Dragon-Child, and her mercenaries (including Andur).  Andur seems to enjoy talking to me, but even he was quiet last night.  Since Avalan is firstborn, that should clue you into the fact that he has siblings.  He actually has twelve younger brothers and sisters (over the span of at least 100 years; the Creator granted the Jemspur immortality to guard the old fortress Mil’vaac from the Dark One’s attempts at reoccupation after the first war).  Of these, the only other sibling I’ve written any separate story about is his second-born brother, Diomel, also called the Wolfbrother for his affinity with the animals.  And, being a sibling myself (although I’m the elder), I felt a little twinge of guilt that I’ve done less with him than Avalan.  I knew I wanted to redo his story.

            And to do that, I needed to decide where to start.  It was all a matter of choosing just how far back to begin the thing.

            As I’ve mentioned a couple of times before, Diomel is in the same story as my Minotaur and the half-elf orphan girl raised by them: Danthia.  What came to mind as I lay there feeling guilty about the neglect and puzzling over how to rectify it was a deep forest scene where old, partially arthritic Berun of the Minotaur comes across an abandoned baby.  Berun let me feel his emotions shift from surprise, to befuddlement, to outright puzzlement over what to do about a definitely-not-Minotaur infant.  Then I got his determination and resignation as he accepted responsibility and guardianship of her.  He also gave me another, later scene of her as a young child asking him questions, since she’s obviously not Minotaur and is being raised by one.  I was just puzzling out what to make her clothes of when she became adolescent and started to mature, since I don’t think cow-leather would be particularly popular among Berun’s kind.  I didn’t finish that musing.  I fell asleep.

            So as part of my goals today, I’m going to try to get down those scenes (they are actually the prologue), crammed in on top of job search, cleaning my fish tank, finishing up my room, and polishing off the last bit of Halo: Evolutions I so I can start on another book.