Sometimes we have happy hour,
and sometimes (apparently at 9pm especially) we have sad hour.
We all have to work, in some capacity, to feed ourselves
but I’m reminded by my son that every once in a while we just have to stop
and smell the flowers.
(Preferably the ones without bees.)
The words buzz around in my head. I see an object, or I glimpse an expression on a face and I feel like I could base an entire novel on that very subject. The words – I can see them – twitching out from my fingertips on to the blank page. I imagine them there before I type them, and then my muscles obey, my digits stretching to reach this key, that letter. Suddenly, there they are. Right there before my eyes where I can read them. Do they make sense? Are they in the right order?
I inspect them. I skim them: sometimes I read them out loud. They are never good enough the first time around.
Inspiration is like having a balloon inside my head. It grows, it expands, until I can no longer contain it – until it either gets out or I go mad. And I do, sometimes. I’m sure my family knows when I get to the point where I MUST write. It’s almost like a disease, like an addiction. I suppose it is, in a way. I ignore my family, my housework, my social life suffers, I do nothing else in my leisure time. I haven’t watched TV in over a year.
And I can’t live without it.
I suppose, as with almost anything, if you do it enough and you’re lucky, you develop at least an aptitude for it. And if you’re really lucky, you find you have a talent for it. In the case of writing, if you have a vocabulary and an adequate imagination, all you need is a knowledge of grammar and you should be good to go. And yet, when I read those who are very talented – those who make it look easy – I realise I have a long road ahead of me still.
So, I write. The compulsion to put into writing the thoughts in my head is undeniable. As long as I have this driving will, this vast, open plain of ideas, and the means to make my hands work the magic that pulls rabbits out of hats in my noggin’, my addiction will be a part of me.
Day 15 Prompt – Write about a stranger you see. Either their back-story or what they are thinking in the moment you see them.
Day 12 Prompt – Find 10 random words and create your own definitions.
Day 11 Prompt – Write A story where the characters go without power for a day.
You never know what you’ve got until you lose it. It’s a saying we hear all the time; sometimes in moments of profound loss, sometimes it’s trivial. In my case, in many ways it’s the latter.
There’s no summer camp for my youngest son this week. I used to think it was a luxury to have the time to write. Now, however, my luxuries include sitting for more than two minutes at the table to eat a meal without being interrupted, showering, and going to the washroom.
The latter of these I believe, falls into the profound category.
So if you see a woman walking around the grocery store buying finger foods, with stringy hair and smudges of dirt on her face and with eyes bulging out of her sockets and her legs crossed, try not to point and laugh. It’s probably just a woman who’s missing summer camp.
Day 9 Prompt – Write a Story in 250 words or less about your favourite City
It all started with my romance writing course. The course was a requisite to acquiring the college certificate I’m after and I thought it would be fun to do anyway. Just to get a feel for the genre I went in search of novels to read that would cost me little or no money. Enter the freebies on my e-reader. Out of the ten or so I downloaded, two were well written – the rest, not so much. But I read them anyway. It was the general feeling I was going after, not the quality of writing.
At the same time I was finishing up the rough draft of my novel. That done, I started the editing process. In the meantime, the romance course finished and I went back to reading what I normally read. Well. I tell you.
After reading Stephen King (who, no matter whether you enjoy his stories or not, you must admit is a master of the craft of writing) I realised that my novel was right on par with the free romance crap I had been reading! Granted, I’m taking a grammar course now, so I’m finding mistakes I didn’t know were mistakes. But I still want to rewrite my entire manuscript.
I was amazed at how much influence what I read had on what I wrote. The time I spent describing things in minute detail instead of simply relating how my characters were reacting to things; the extra word count that came from blathering on about things that don’t matter is astounding.
I still have to cut down my word count by about 40,000 words in order for it to fit into even the most generous publisher’s limits, but I’m hoping with Stephen King’s influence I’ll be able to accomplish that. And from now on I must remember to keep away from authors I’m not interested in emulating whilst I write.
The new novel by Charles E. Yallowitz is out now! Buy it today!
The day has come, everyone! Legends of Windemere: Prodigy of Rainbow Tower is live on Amazon.com! See the adventure that Luke Callindor and his friends have found themselves in now. Meet the hot-tempered, magic-hurling Nyx and her cunning rival Trinity the Chaos Elf Queen. Filled with more humor, action, drama, and adventure than Legends of Windemere: Beginning of a Hero, this book is already being praised on Goodreads.
Anyone that received preview copies, feel free to write up reviews for the Amazon and Goodreads site.
For the month of August, Legends of Windemere: Prodigy of Rainbow Towerwill be .99 cents. After that, it goes up to $2.99.
Thank you to everyone that has helped me and supported me. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you and a big thank you post is coming soon.
lindaghill.com 