The Excuser

You have been reading. And learning from reading. That is good. But now you need to sit down and write. You have been ignoring your problem and instead have taken to walking down the path admiring other people's roses. That's well, for a while, but when you do that:

1) the writer in you loses focus
2) the creator in you starts dozing
3) the story in you wanders away
4) the doubter in you begins doing that horrible disgusting self-emolliation thing that makes me want to kick your backside. Hard.

What's your current writing block like?

You complained today that you feel like your creativity is like a washing machine in use--rinse, spin, repeat. Laundry is so easy to do--here is the machine, hit the button. Why are you complaining? Is it because I don't make you handwash like your mom used to? Use those arm muscles to wring the tears of creativity out of the big towels? Come on. If writing is like being in a washing machine, then life is good, my dear.

Any other complaints out there? Let Auntie Muse fix it with a good old-fashion talking to.

The Inner Mind Is A Freezer

Rules to feed the Muse:

1) You have to write something creative everyday. I thrive on your imagination. If you don't use it, I have nothing to say. And the more you don't use it, the more I freeze.

2) You have to read the newspapers or a good magazine. Watching the news is not analytical and it stimulates your other senses. I need you to work that muscle that enjoy the written word. It slows down the "here and now" factor and makes you pause. Images are powerful, but you're a writer. You have to create life with words. Therefore, you need to absorb words too.

3) Travel alone if you can. A short trip is fine, but you must be alone. No family or lover. Let me be your sole companion. Yes, I am a possessive friend.

4) Think of your belief system. Religion--be in Christian, Judaism, Buddhism, anything-ism--is always good for internal conflict. It also provides you with soul food. A belief system helps shape your writing and bring out your voice.

5) Laugh. It's good to see humor in life. I thrive on your fun and joy. It's not fun to write everyday when there's nothing to smile about. Everything tastes like freezer-burned ice-cream when there's no humor. I don't like that. It makes me think about killing your characters because life is so damn bleak when ice-cream tastes like that. (See, I made you smile.)

6) Feed me with your pain and use me as an outlet. I'll find a way to give you comfort. Your private loss will be shown to you in secret through your writing, and it'll be universally shared. It is the writer's right to bare her soul.

7) I'm not a wedding cake. Do not freeze me and wait for some special anniversary. Don't wait. Write now. Create now.

A Mental Breakthrough

Today I spoke to you through your agent. Did you hear me?

Let's review:

1. It's Just Jed.

2. He isn't the work of your life.

3. It's. Just. Jed.

4. Don't let him block you. He's a bastard. He's trying to keep you from all your other heroes. He's jealous of being replaced. He wants to be JUST JED. See? Different emphasis, Gennita.

I speak through different ways, different people, because sometimes you don't listen to me. And I hope, by using unexpected voices, there will be a revelation to unblock your fear.

Listen to your agent. She is right. Make that poster and put it in front of you.

It's Just Jed.

To my readers, listen carefully. Sometimes, the most unexpected voice is your Muse's in disguise.

Thank you, Gennita's agent. You got her attention!

Open and Shut

I kind of like the term eyes wide shut. No, not the Kubrick film, although all those elaborate masks were pretty. I'm referring to your resistance to sleepwalk with me. I'm sorry, I can't guide you when your mind is on things out there in your "real" world.

Remember all those years you were busy roofing and couldn't write even when you felt the urge? Too tired, I think, was your excuse. Lack of creative juice, I remember, was your diagnosis.

No. Your eyes were not wide shut when you looked at me. It really hurt my feelings because I was standing right in front of you.

Yet you kept your journals, pouring out words, and I thought, there's hope yet. If only you would stop trying so hard.

Remember how you overcame your problem? You sat down one night and gave yourself over to me. And suddenly, you saw the slew of Vikings descending down the hill, with your long-haired slave riding in the middle. And your knight-hero watching the enemy coming down, with blood lust and battle cries in the air.

Oh, that was an awful, awful story you wrote. The terrible knights who talked like SEAL boys; the Viking berserker who was into mind control; the horrid, horrid 'nays' and 'sirrahs,' the heroine who was six foot tall and kickass like kungfu goddess Chieng Pei Pei in her prime. Hahahahahahahaha.

But that moment freed me from my imprisonment. The words flowed, I had a great time watching you rummage in that treasure box, looking at pieces of your lost soul.

Ah.

These days I feel you looking for them again. Where have you hidden them this time, writer? Are your eyes wide shut?

Writing Demons

Today I found a very appropriate picture and I named it Writing Demons:

Which is your demon hanging onto you, Writer?

1) Doubt

2) Procrastination

3) Fear

4) Daily Chores (yes, bills, included)

5) Family

6) FEAR (there is a capital-lettered one different from #3)

7) Blockage

8) Over-Analysis

9) Bloatedness

10) False Friends

11) Dependence

12) Critics and Fear of Criticism

13) Desire, or lack of

14) Dreams and Fantasies

15) Weak Will

There are more, but let's stop here before you scare yourself too much. Or maybe, you can tell me what is it exactly that's freezing your brain these days? I am a good listener.

Imploration

There's a darkness in a writer's soul that even my light cannot shine for you. I know how cold it is there; I have seen you shiver when you tread into that cavern. Don't stay in there too long. Whatever you're seeking in there might harm you. I do not know; I have never been there. I only know that it stops you from writing. Stops you from creating. Stops you from being.

You have gone in there too long this time. The frost is not good for you. Do not keep grieving.

Grief can freeze a writer's soul.

Come back. Create.

*****************

You out there: what is stopping you today? Because there are places Gennita's Muse advises you to avoid.

Risky Bithnez

Two plot interruptus examples from the previous post:

1) 101 ways to harpoon a whale inserted in the middle of an angsty whale hunting/soul searching metaphor?

2) the ten pages of how the bomb was built while the hero looks at the device?

You have done your research. You want to share your knowledge. You want your readers to see the complicated details involved, and how much legwork you have done. So, in the middle of hunting for the mighty elusive whale, in the middle of cleaning whale gut and showing life on the sea, you insert a chapter of the different kinds of whales and the use of its massive body parts. You give, in excruciating detail, the width, the length, the depth of each of the dead whale's lips and ballocks. I die from the pain of laughter and resigned bemusement. And I'm just the Muse. Imagine your reader's reaction.

Truly, the wonders of whaling, the bloody battle, the incredible size, and the minuteau of fish filleting, would capture the attention, if rightly done. However, like an overchewed bubblegum that sometimes one just gnaw at even though one's jaw is hurting from the work, I think an author can be guilty of pounding the reader over and over with a wordy anvil until the reader gets a headache and starts skipping pages.

Just like describing the building and workings of a bomb in the middle of your explosive scene. You're killing your own suspense when the urge comes over you to impart your scientific research. Can we say, researchdump? Yes, we can.

I see your eagerness to show how terrible this device is, how much damage it could do with a few wires. Can I shout something in your ear? SHOW IT! By telling and telling and telling, you're losing the impact. Either explode the plane and rain pieces of human debris all over the landscape or pull it back, give one of your characters the sobering thought of himself as so many pieces of human debris. An image is worth a thousand scientific explanations, dear writer mine.

But I see your obstacles to clear storytelling. It's not easy to avoid scientificdump, especially if you're writing a techno-thriller, is it? After all, a techno-thriller deals with technology and its characters throws out phrases that could sound like a bad Star Trek fanfic. That first book nearly killed you, didn't it? All that research. All that information. So much to impart in a Book One.

This is what I mean with the daily battle with words you encounter as a writer. I can only show you so much because you're the attacking front to my strategizing. You're fighting with yourself because you know your readers don't want the scientificdump, so you keep holding back, and blocking your own flow.

It is an ambitious war you've chosen. Let's break it down:

1) You want to write a continual romantic thriller series because it's not out there.
2) You want to explore a continual romantic entanglement between two people.
3) You want to explore the cloak-and-dagger world with really cloak-and-dagger subjects that most people do not understand--the use of virtual reality and remote viewing, in the true-est sense, with scientific items and biological know-how to explain the phenomenon.
4) You want to write it all in one neat little package, meaning you risk alienating the readers who want the romance and find the science parts too scifi and the readers who are intrigued with the new type of techno parts and find the sex way too sexy.
5) To top it all, you want the male protagonist who will provoke nothing but the strongest response from your readers. Why? Because his idea of sex is closer to the kind depicted in erotic romance than romantic thrillers.

Can I shout again? ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?

But we pushed on. And you tasted your first battle in this epic from the heroine's perspective. It has left you bloody. Now you want it from HIS erotic perspective.

Can I?...ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?

But we're talking of poop interruptus, aren't we? Not a problem. Next time, on to the next couple of examples from the previous post. That doesn't mean I won't explore the outcome of the risks you took with your battle decisions. Because you won some, and you lost some. Was it worth it?

Who won the battle? The alligator or the snake?

A Plot Rendered Unusable

Could it be the

101 ways to harpoon a whale inserted in the middle of an angsty whale hunting/soul searching metaphor?

the ten pages of how the bomb was built while the hero looks at the device?

500 characters who have a say in what goes on in the story?

the three dozen times your heroine sabotages the plot with her stupidity?

the plodding description of every room in the house and everyone's clothes?

the joylessness of five thousand sexual positions in one night?

the cute child who has a wise saying/observation every five pages?

We can discuss each of these, if you like, to see why they can kill a plot for a reader. Can you come up with a writing block that stopped your interest?

I call this block Plot Poop Interruptus. It's curable.

Plot: Think Sideways

Plot is so boring. Consider these words instead:

Journey (as in Gabaldon's long saga of Jaime and Claire)

Adventure (as in The Bros of the Black Dagger)

Battle (as in the Dark Hunter books)

Flirtation (as in Pride and Prejudice)

Quest (as in the Feehan Carpathian books)

Game (as in Nikita Black's Cajun Hot)

Mission (as in LKH's Merry Gentry series)

Vision (as in Buffy)

Soul Searching (as in Facing Fear)

Remake (as in Into Danger)

Rebirth (as in Wuthering Heights)

Blooming (as in Linda Howard's Shades of Twilight)

Do you see? Can you think of a few more interesting words other than PLOT?

What They Call Plot

I come to you in dreams, in visions, in strange phrases, and from them you pull out plot, character, conflict, and those other things that give your story structure. Sometimes you overdo it, worrying about structure. You lose your story. You set the rules; I have none, you see.

Let's start with how you learn your first word, your first visual, your first phrase.

A is for apple.

And so your plot can be the simplest of them all, a story with an apple. And this fruit is given to you the writer to make bigger than life, to lovingly build your story around. Too many details and the apple loses significance. So the first step to plot is control.

A is for apple. What comes to mind? Let me unveil examples of perfect control in plot development.

The Forbidden Apple
as in Adam's and Eve's story (it started with A, huh?)

The Poisoned Apple, variation of the Forbidden Apple
as in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The Golden Apple
as in the one that brought forth the Fall of Troy in Homer's Illiad (oi, but that was a mighty finely intricate tale, indeed)

The Apple of Challenge
as in William Tell shooting the apple on his son's head

You see? One simple fruit, four diverse stories. All I had to do was show you an apple. And you weave your magic. So don't talk to me about building plots and charting chapters. Let me tempt you with this apple, apprentice.

What kind of apple do you see? It's a story in disguise.

And So It Begins

Words are coming. Don't waste them on worrying about what you can't control. Keep going, keep going. The words will flow soon, like that imaginary Milky Way. The beautiful shiny one in the sky, hungry one.