Visiting the Realms of Fantasy

I was trying to organize my thoughts and in the process realized there was a character that suddenly appeared – no name, no face, no history – and he would change everything. Suddenly, yet slowly, he formed into a force to be reckoned...

The problem that I ran into was that I tried to write Magical Stilettos by the seat of my pants. I wanted to see how far I could take it if I just wrote and allowed it to develop as I wrote.

This is possible, but not with this story.

I need an outline. I need direction.

As I started to jot down ideas, it seemed clear that I was creating a mythology. The idea of working with prototypes became both interesting and more than a little intimidating. Of course, any work of fiction operates within its own mythology. But I am also dabbling in world building. It's getting complicated now!

I want to immerse myself in the creative process but I find too many distractions – worries and insecurities, the weight of this brutal winter taking its toll on my state of being, an unfocused mind, shiny objects – keep me from dedicating myself as I should.

A visit to the realms of fantasy is what is needed here. I have not been there in some time, but I remember enough to imagine a guided tour until I can dive in with unabashed abandon. 

I haven't written a chapter in weeks but I have notes that promise a good payoff when I do get started again.

The one problematic thing was one particular note, written in a sort of shorthand and with which I intended to release a character that screamed to be part of the story (and she has not even been hinted at yet). A couple of weeks later, I looked at the note and it stared back at me. “Prototype of happiness in gloom...”

It did three things:

1. it filled me with excitement
2. it filled me with dread
3. it focused me enough to solve the puzzle at hand.

It was exciting because it clearly opened some possibilities in character development and plot that I had not considered before. It filled me with dread because half of it made no sense. I had no idea what part of my own note meant!

Once I decided I needed to get back this moment and bring meaning to it, it wasn't so much a matter of reliving the moment when I wrote it as it was adding everything I had and surmising where all these loose ends were headed to conclude what I meant.

It may sound a little silly, but being able to focus – even if for short spurts – means the world because there will be more distractions coming up and I need to know I can work around them.

Right now, I want a full outline and at least two full characters before I start jury duty. I want to write as much as I can fit into the proceedings. It will be my life affirming act of defiance.

It seems to me that as justice is part of the story, it might be conducive to writing. Also, perhaps the criminal element might suggest an end game. I still don't know how the story ends. 

Still, progress is progress and I will take any bit that moves me forward. 

Magic is Back

Photo by Pedro J. Perez, used under Creative Commons license

It is so easy to fall behind when you are involved in creative projects. This is like a bad habit and should never be encouraged!

Magic Stilettos is a challenge because I allowed the silly notion that I could just write based on a flimsy idea and let the story come to me. That works sometimes, especially with short form fiction. But that is not always true.

Without direction, you always run the risk of getting lost and running into creative walls.

It's a good exercise to just write, but not if you have a specific end game. In fact, I may take part in a NaNoWriMo hangout this weekend where we simply write, long hand as an exercise.

The idea is to adhere to Natalie Goldberg's rules of writing practice. The Rules are relatively simple and something that I tend to do instinctively.

First you write by hand. Pen or pencil in hand, you keep the hand moving. It is a different experience than writing attached to a keyboard, it helps you access and exercise your brain differently.

You do not edit. You write. If you run out of things to write, you write, “OMG! I have run out of things to write,” until that sparks an internal dialog or a feeling, a setting, a distant memory and you write that.

You don't get to censor yourself or your writing, so the internal censor can go on vacation. If it wants to scream and holler, you tune it out like commercials during your favorite show. By extension, you are allowed to write the worst schlock in history. Quality is not the point, writing – the act of writing – is all that matters.

It is not important whether you may use any of the material produced during this exercise. That is not the point. I can tell you from experience that seeds of ideas can be born from the process, so don't discount it as New Age quackery.

I go into my exercise with the germ of an idea that came to me in that stage between sleep and waking, and it will be incorporated into the outline that I have already begun putting together to move the story forward. It is not at all what I intended when I began this project so it is a little scary and also incredibly exciting.

And that is why I write because it offers me a creative outlet and it opens this magnificent well of emotions to draw from and renew my soul! Plus it includes sexy demons. Sexy demons are always fun.

A New Year

Happy New Year!

It has been quite some time since I have updated the blog and this is one of the things I resolve to change in 2014.

I've been writing -- though admittedly in dribs -- to advance the story of The Magic Stilettos. But after a couple of bloated chapters, I realized that I'd taken a really bad turn and I need to rethink the direction it will all take. The good news is that I imagined a new, and exciting, conflict that I had not considered before.

The time has come to plan out my calendar for the coming year and start rolling out titles.

I have lots of reading and writing to do! I wish you all the same.

Whispers

At the end of June, I embarked in an adventure to pursue two professional certifications (CompTIA's A+ and Network+). I succeeded at both and am now a fully certified PC technician and networking information technology expert. So, if you need help in that area, feel free to contact me through the Amapola Press site.

In that time, I knew I would have to put my writing aside because my whole focus needed to be on studying and capturing these certifications.

My Muse understood my need to set her aside. She never feels abandoned, she asserts herself and while I commuted daily from Brooklyn to the South Bronx, it gave me glimpses of what was to come. And I dutifully took notes on my iPod so that I could document these ideas – I am no fool!

I saw scenes play out in my sleep deprived mind. I saw character faces develop and smile back at me. I heard their voices. I even heard opening lines to chapters that simply demanded to be heard because they were so perfect they willed themselves into existence!

It wasn't all motherboards and routers and operating systems. Sure, all that enveloped me, but underneath that frantic search for knowledge there was love and happiness and friendship and unconditional moral support and sexy, soothing voice in the distance that reminded me, “You are still a writer...”

So here we are, hours rather than days (in Protocol Data Unit parlance were are bits rather than frames away) from NaNoWriMo. A decision must be made. Do I participate this year? I am in deep job-search mode at the moment, but that does not exclude my creative drive. So yes! Yes, I will participate.

But how do I go? Do I write my story about life in the space station that uses the Bronx as inspiration for part of it (and it would be a fitting and poetic way to close out my experience)? Or do I succumb to the silliness, and a much needed mental break, of the magic stilettos?

I have almost two days to decide. Ah, but the excitement . . . it mounts! And I hear my Muse gently singing and calling me over. It's sexy and alluring. It's a whisper and nothing but an ethereal glimpse in sound and taste and smell and joy of falling in love and surrender.

I am back and I surrender to the whispers. I am writer. 

“Once upon a time...”

(In the midst of that decision, I review unfinished projects that need my attention as well, and I love rediscovering these stories and these characters as they welcome me back into their world.)

Calliope will Always Find a Way

I am about to embark on a wonderful adventure. For fifteen weeks, I will be deeply immersed in technical training that will result in at least two professional certifications. I put myself through all sort of fun hurdles to get into this training program because I truly believe at that the end of the process, I will benefit greatly, not only in terms of knowledge but in terms of a day job.

But this blog isn’t about my day job and you wonder why I bother to allow Real Life to intrude here… I’ll tell you why.

As I got deeper into the process to get into the training program, I became hypersensitive to my environment -- partly because my opinion of the Bronx has been tarnished since my last foray into the borough decades ago.

Of course, I am vigilant of my environs whenever I find myself in places I do not know well. You should always have an idea what is happening around you, in case you have to make a quick getaway!

What I saw inspired what has become a series of notes on my iPod to supplement the back story of Love and the Android.

I have a character back story. I have a setting on earth. I have the motivation for my heroine to ascend to the heavens and live there…

And despite the very real, very contemporary setting, I saw the vestiges of it with a futuristic city built upon it – not masking a broken past, but solidifying what was strong about it and taking it to a whole new level.

In short, the Bronx, in a scant few days, has become another character in what will be the Act I of my novella.

A place that inspires the level of euphoric creativity that I have experienced in the last week needs to be reconsidered and forgiven for its past sins.

The reason I bring up Real Life here is because the Muse found a way to squeeze past all the vicissitudes and create fiction that sticks to the page.

This is exactly the point I had been trying to make earlier. Don’t despair when the Muse falls silent for a moment, she is looking out for you. Relax and let her do her thing. When she is refueled, Calliope will whisper the most wonderful things in your inner ear.

Writer's Block Isn't

Somehow I have been extremely lucky in the last two years and any time I found myself stuck in park and unable to propel a story forward, others manifested themselves and I was in a perpetual state of creative fusion and fission.

This is what allowed me to put together a back catalogue.

I allowed the writing to come to a halt because my priorities had to change as Real Life needed to take precedence for a bit.

For whatever reason, I’ve picked up my mechanical pencil and started writing during breaks. I never regretted putting May You Grow Old and Fat aside because I understand that trying to force a story never works.

When you try to manipulate output for no other purpose than to be done, only horrific things can happen… For one thing, your characters lose their voice and the narrative thread unravels.

But when a character drives the action forward and you hear their voice, you must answer by documenting what they are telling you. Right now, a scene I was not anticipating has opened up before me and added an additional dimension I had not planned. A character whom I thought was central to the story has taken a journey that surprised me. Shocked me even! A character I thought of simply as an accessory has suddenly turned into a catalyst for change.

At the same time, a few days ago as I walked to the train station a funny story insinuated itself into my psyche and by the time I was downstairs in the subway, I’d drafted a synopsis that I believe will be the next NaNoWriMo project. I have two choices now: the android story that explores sexuality and artificial intelligence in space or the story of a woman possessed by a pair of stilettos bought at a thrift store that present her with superpowers and an interesting set of problems. One is humorous. Maybe they both are . . . I don’t know yet.

The fact is I need more laughs because there has been too much drama and too many tears shed lately. But ultimately what I wanted to say was this:

1. Never rush creativity, trust your inner voice to find its way in and out of story.
2. Be patient because this small virtue will reward you with magnificent surprises that spring forth even more creativity.
3. Do not despair when the voices of your characters are muted because you must focus on priorities – this will make you stronger and it will show in your writing when you return to it.
4. Never, ever, assume the Muse has left you. Even a Muse needs to rest sometimes. She’ll come back, you just have to be alert and recognize her when she comes back to you.

This experiment has not disappointed me yet and it keeps getting more and more interesting. I can’t wait to see where it takes me next!

Writer's block often isn't, it's just a necessary break to gather impulse.

Touch of Reality

One of the advantages of self-publishing is that you get to call your own production schedule. You decide when and how to market and promote and how often to release titles.

I seem to be stuck on park and this creative car is not going anywhere at the moment.

This doesn’t mean that because I have not been writing that I am been completely idle. I have been gathering research materials for one project and slowly working towards a translation of another.

Of course, it occurred to me as I gently evoked a scene I’d witnessed – that must become a scene of something, a short or a larger work that is as yet undefined – that being stuck in a rut depends on the living situation. I am living in limbo, surrounded by uncertainty, and that is what fuels creativity (the living, I mean).

I walked about a mile last Friday, something I have not done in quite some time. In that stroll I caught smells and sights and three weather changes that made me hyper-vigilant of the details that framed the experience.

When I sat at the crack of dawn, with iPod in hand, and dictated the story, it occurred to me that only in this specific time would it be possible to carry an enormous library in a device that weights less than a pound, including audiobooks, my own works and now files for new works – I can research in this tiny thing and even edit as I wish.

But there was another realization made a week ago as I interviewed for a very interesting job: if I have to rearrange my priorities because my schedule changes, it just means that the next project that gets released may well be the Latin American cookbook! (Especially because the job is physically just blocks from Little Brazil and I’m eagerly awaiting the opportunity to research that cuisine… Oh, the things I am willing to do for my art!)

There is no lose feature to this, it’s all win-win.

Self-publishing makes me a better person because it allows me to look at any situation, reach a compromise or a new commitment that always opens the door to the silver lining in every opportunity that presents itself.

 Life is a tool for creativity. So is the iPod Touch!