Life in progress

Tag Archives: writers


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS March 8/14

Hello to my Stream of Consciousness Saturday friends and to all who wish to join in the fun this week!

As well as a reminder for tomorrow’s event, I’d like to share a minor update. As it turns out, I’m not able to automatically approve pingbacks in my comments, so if I’m not at the computer when you ping your post, it won’t show up. Consequently I’ve added to the rules, suggesting that after you post your SoCS article, you comment here: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/socs-stream-of-consiousness-saturday-the-rules/ with a link to your Saturday post, so others can see it right away – otherwise it could be hours before anyone comes to visit and sees how awesome your post is. Note that I’ve set up my comments so the most recent is on top, so you won’t have to scroll down too far to visit other contributors posts for the current week. If you have any questions, or if this is as crazy confusing as I think it might be, please leave any questions you have below.

Here is this week’s prompt: In your first sentence, include a quantity. Any number from one to a gazillion, or any conceptual number, i.e. “many,” “few,” “a lot,” or even “once” will do.

Have a once-over of the rules by clicking on the link above if you’d like, and then off you go. I’m looking forward to reading all your contributions!

Edit: It’s been brought to my attention that if you link your Saturday post back to the Friday prompt (i.e. this post) then everyone will be together in each individual week. We’ll try that this week and see how it goes. So tomorrow, when you post, add this link to your article: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-814/

Hopefully we’ll get this ironed out before the month is up! Thanks for your patience. 🙂


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The Very Best Blog Post Ever

Have you ever felt so full of inspiration and ideas that you thought if you could just have a moment of peace and quiet you could write the best blog post that’s ever been written? Just five hundred words which beams of sunshine would radiate upon, and people all over the world would stand up, with their arms raised and exclaim YES! Choirs of children would sing and violins and harps would play and bears and fish would hold hands and never would there be a moment of strife in the universe ever again!

Yep, me too.

Facebook photo

Facebook photo


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I’m Not Procrastinating, I’m Keeping My Mind Gently ‘Round the Subject

“…keep your mind gently ’round the subject you’re pondering.”  ~ John Cleese.

This quote is profound, in my opinion, because it’s something I can wholeheartedly relate to. I spent more time playing Candy Crush on Facebook while I was writing my last NaNoWriMo project than perhaps I spent writing. I stopped to play every time I ran out of words, and each time I came to a wall in my story. The real beauty of Candy Crush is that, once I ran out of lives, I had to wait up to thirty minutes before I could play again. I used this forced break in the game to make myself go back to my story.  Yet I couldn’t decide why exactly I needed the game. Mr. Cleese, in the video I posted yesterday, explains it.

He says, (and I paraphrase) that when you ponder a problem, allowing your mind to “rest[ing] against the subject, in a friendly but persistent manner,” your sub-conscious will reward you with a creative solution.

If you listen to music when you write; if you find yourself wandering to the fridge, or doing housework – anything that you consider procrastinating, is this not what you’re doing? How many times have you been performing some mundane task when the perfect solution came to you from out of the blue? It’s that “aha” moment which Oprah went on about, way back when, and what it is, is creativity hard at work when you least expect it.

The video I posted yesterday here: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/creativity/ is thirty-six minutes that you won’t regret taking the time to watch, whether you’re a writer of fiction, poetry or blogs. If you can’t watch it right away, I strongly suggest you bookmark it.


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Creativity

How can we all be more creative? How can we be inspired?

I came across this really great Youtube video today. It’s John Cleese, talking about where our creativity comes from and, not surprisingly, humour.

I can’t stress how fantastic this video is. If you’ve ever been stuck on what to write and how to go about finding the tools within yourself to spark your creativity, you MUST watch this.


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Does Size Really Matter?

Right now it’s about 4 inches — which is way too big. I might be okay with three, but I know it’s not what they want. They want two. Two inches maximum. What am I to do? Cutting it is painful, to say the least. Torturous even. At best it just doesn’t feel right. Hell, if I had my way it would be five inches if not more!

I’m of course talking about the thickness of my printed manuscript.

I’ve been working on fixing it, line by line, one word at a time and while it’s true that I’m managing to reduce my word count, I’m finding it very costly. What is the cost, you ask? I feel like I’m deleting my own voice from it. I’m trading word count for style. That can’t be good, right?

I’d like to put a question out to all my published author friends. If I decide to e-publish I can keep my inches and be happy with my manuscript. Size only matters to a publishing house. Am I correct?

For all the readers out there, how do you feel about buying a thicker-than-usual book? Do you give it a chance or do you pass it over? Of course if it’s an e-book, you won’t necessarily even know how long it is until after you buy it–I never do, since the size isn’t in direct relation to the cost.

Does size matter to you?


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I Don’t Want to Intimidate You, but…

Do you remember how you felt when you started on WordPress? If you’re fairly new here, I would imagine it’s pretty fresh in your mind. Even I consider myself a bit of a newb, but after just a little more than a year I’ve come to feel comfortable here; I’ve found a great community, some wonderful friends, and plenty of people who I can joke around with.

What stands out most in my mind from when I started, however, is how intimidated I felt when I stumbled across a popular blog and I wanted to comment. Should I? They seem like such a tight bunch of people, bantering about things they’ve learned about one another…

So I was considering this, and I wondered if people who are just starting out feel that way when they stop by to read my blog.

In light of my pondering, I decided to change my comment box prompt from “Leave a comment” to what it is now.

How do you make newcomers feel welcome? How do you encourage them to join in the discussion?


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How Are Chickens Like Days Off?

I’m within an hour of the end of two days off. Yesterday I got a fair bit of work done on my manuscript – almost fifteen pages edited, which for me is flying through. I managed to take the evening off from everything and just watch an episode of “Breaking Bad.” I’ve only watched two so far – still wondering what all the hype’s about.

Then today I was woken up early with a phone call – Chris was sick at school and they couldn’t reach his dad. So I texted my ex, got up, delivered the papers, had a piece of toast and lay on the couch … and proceeded to sleep most of the day away. No editing accomplished.

How are chickens like days off?

Don’t count them before they’re hatched.

I need a week off.


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Of All the Things to Whine About

I’m content. Basically, I am happy with my life, and yes, I’m whining about it. Let me tell you why.

The tortured soul can write poems of epic proportions. In times of loneliness, of pain, of near breakdown, a writer can bleed upon the page. But when this writer has nothing to cause her grief, there is nothing but fluff. Lint, even.

Is it strange to wish I longed for something? To pass my finger quickly through a flame doesn’t hurt. But the flame sparkles, enticingly.

Shall I burn for the sake of my art?

flame


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Missing the Magical Switch

Greater, more successful writers than myself (not a stretch) state that in order to be a writer one must dedicate one’s effort into writing: a writer must write. Here lies my conundrum.

I have no qualms over calling myself a writer. It’s what I do constantly – if I’m not physically typing on a keyboard or writing little notes, I’m composing something in my head with hopes that I’ll remember it.

But being a single mom, 80% responsible for two kids (meaning that I get to sleep 15% of the time and the other 5% is when their dad takes care of them) and having to be always within calling distance of my own mother, I don’t have time to write. What might take me three months more of full-time editing on my novel to render it publishable is, at the rate I’m going, bound to take me three years. Frustrated doesn’t begin to describe it.

I imagine there is, somewhere in the universe, a switch that can be flicked which could cause me to be able to stop merely calling myself a writer and become one. I realize that I cannot expect to ever take on a full-time job; my life is with my children, and taking care of them is apparently my job and mine alone. Would I want it any other way? Absolutely not.

Yet writing is also my life. I don’t live for my children – anyone who says they do, in my opinion, is in for a huge let-down when their kids leave home for good. I live for myself and I am a writer. I have a story that I feel needs to be told, of a world where I hope one day people will be able to escape, as I have. It’s inside me, it’s on my screen and it’s on paper, and all it wants is to be polished to a bright, shiny tale that many will love.

If only the magical switch to make it all come true wasn’t so far out of my reach.


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Stream of Consciousness Saturday Fe15/14

Whilst searching for inspiration for this post today I decided to check out Freshly Pressed. I thought, before opening the page that I would write about the first tag that came up. Surely I have an opinion on just about any subject there could possibly be to write about, don’t I?

The first tag was “Books.” What a broad subject, eh?

I could write about the state of out-of-date textbooks in schools, or the price of the one I had to buy (used) when I took my short story course. It was the size of something I wouldn’t pay more than $20 for in a book store, and yet it cost me almost $100 because it was compiled by a bunch of professors.

I’ve written a few times on the importance of editing work in these days of anyone being able to become a published author, and I’ve written about books I’ve liked and not. Right now I’m reading A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling and, while it was a bit difficult to get into because of the sheer number of characters, I’m about half-way through and enjoying it. It took me a good 33% of the book to retain the information that went with all the characters’ names, however.

You know what I hate? Not being able to put a page number on anything anymore. It’s all percentages when you’re reading an e-book. I think that’s what I miss most about reading a physical book. Knowing where the bookmark goes without a digital device advising me.

So that’s my stream of consciousness post for this week. My experience with books of late. Why do I have to put everything in a box? I blame it on WordPress and the damned tags. 😛