Picture this if you will:  I’ve been working to build a compelling synopsis for my first book.  I’ve written it and rewritten it several times.  But I still don’t like it.  Several different people have suggested that I let it sit for a week.  Come back to it with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective.  Great advice, except, the darn thing never leaves my thoughts. Am I the only one with this problem?  The only writer in the entire world who can’t seem to let it go?  I know I have a tendancy to focus (with a laser-like, frightening intensity) on the project at hand.  It becomes virtually impossible to think about anything else. Sometimes that’s a good thing.  Take Nanowrimo […]

Have you ever had a scene in your head that just won’t go away?  It’s kind of like having that annoying tune running through your head that you can’t get rid of (usually something like Barney singing “I love you, you love me…)… oh dammit, not again! What about if it’s well into your story and you’re not ready to write it yet?  I’ve read interviews from several professional writers who say that they don’t write their stories in sequence.  They do things kind of like film directors; everything with a certain setting or group of characters gets done at the same time regardless of where it fits into the actual story.  For them, writing out of order is natural (so […]

It’s a miracle that no one’s been hit and injured yet, what with the whole flinging of the gauntlet that has been going on around here the past couple weeks.  Funny how a small thing like holidays arrive and everyone is suddenly into challenging those around them.  Good thing none of us are duelests (at least none that I know of). Still, I’m never one to shy away from a thrown gauntlet.  Heck, you never know if it’ll fit.  So here I stand, trying on the various gloves, gauntlets and mittens to see what might fit.  Odd though, none are quite right.  I feel like Goldilocks standing in the three bears’ house saying “Now what?”. I guess there’s nothing for it.  […]

Wow!  We actually got snow, and just in time for New Years… who’d a thunk it?  I know my kids really wanted to go tobogganning at Christmas, but a decided lack of snow prevented it… until now, that is.  And, in a sense, isn’t snow much like inspiration?  It’s never there when you want it.  Take Nanowrimo, for instance.  There was many a night where I logged onto our local IRC instance to see how everyone in region was doing.  Often the reply was:  “I just can’t seem to get anything down.  Nothing is flowing.  I don’t know what to write.”, etc. etc. etc.  Usually someone on the IRC would throw out an idea that everyone had to include in the […]