Writing – Page 27 – Blue Ink Alchemy

Category: Writing (page 27 of 81)

Writer Report: Struggle Within

I’m still not back to 100% on my regimens. The gym gets skipped or skimped on from time to time, finances continue to present challenges, I’m behind on getting Magic decks together, and oh yeah, I need to make more time to write.

At least my brain has been active. The very nature of Godslayer has changed. As eager as I am to move forward with it, I know that Cold Streets needs to be completed first. It’s been almost a year since I started writing it, and it should be done by now. In the weeks to come I will be redoubling my efforts to get a draft finished and out to test readers.

There really isn’t much else I should be devoting much time to, after all. I don’t participate in MMOs as of now, play by post games are not urgent, single player games can always wait, and Hangouts are more sources of relaxation and support than they are distractions. It may take some conscious effort to reassert my focus at home, but I know I can do it if I just take the time to stop and breathe before making a decision.

And of course, there will be more flash fiction, reviews, after-action reports, pontifications on writing and support for good causes here, so stay tuned.

From the Vault: Writing as Mortar

May 23, 2013 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

I don’t have a clever lead-in for this, I have a lot coming up this weekend and in the near future, so here’s something from the vault as I work to catch up on things and get a little ahead if I can.

Pop quiz, hotshot.

You’re not ready to be a professional writer. You want to keep a steady paycheck, which means a steady job, which means no solid blocks of writing for you. You’ve checked Chuck’s list and felt the crushing weight of reality telling you that being a professional writer just isn’t going to happen. But the need is still there. That thing that makes you want to put words on paper for people to read for no other reason than they make sense, possibly to entertain, and definitely because nobody else in the world writes exactly the way you do.

What do you do? What do you do?

You find a way to keep writing.

Writing as a skill, especially one aimed at earning a living, is like any other. It takes practice, experimentation, practice, failure and even more practice. Training your ability to write is like training a muscle group in your body. You pick up the weights and repeatedly use the muscles to lift them, or you run in a circle or bike the same route over and over again. The more you do it, the easier it becomes and the more you can do at one time. However, if you have somewhere else to be or something more urgent to do, you can work in a quick burst here and there.

It’s the same with writing. Even if you’re not doing it to earn a living (yet), you can find ways to keep that intellectual muscle in shape. Lunch breaks, mass transit commutes, commercials during a favorite show, loading screens – that’s just a few examples off the top of my head. During any of these snippets of time, you can write. It doesn’t have to be anything earth-shattering or the next bestseller, but it might lead to something earth-shattering or the next bestseller. You won’t know till you try.

Anybody who works out can tell you that having a regimen or a trainer is the best way to stay on track with your goals and remain motivated. For the writer, that means feedback. There are quick, dirty ways to get that, too. Find a forum in your field or genre and see if they allow sample or snippet posting for peer review. Facebook notes are good for this, especially if you have friends following you willing to tell you when something stinks to high heaven. If you’re feeling up to it, start a blog.

Just like when the trainer yells at you to keep you motivated, a peer giving you feedback probably isn’t looking to erode your self-esteem. The abuse is for your benefit. It might sting and you might resent them in the moment for it, but when the end result turns out looking much better than your initial effort, you’ll be thankful for the harsh words. Try not to take things too personally, unless the critic actually starts attacking your person. Remember, friends don’t let friends publish crappy writing.

Most of us can’t become professional writers right out of the box, and some of us just aren’t ready to make that leap yet. We need to lay bricks instead of writing to make a living. However, there’s no reason we can’t work our art into the mortar between those bricks. If you look at a building held together by mortar, some of the gaps between the bricks or stone are larger than others. It adds character to the building. Again, so it is with writing. Some of our stretches of writing between shifts, tasks and days will be longer than others, and some will be far too short. But the overall effect will be a richer life and one that gives us more motivation, as we seek the next gap between bricks to fill with our mortar of words.

The most important thing is to write, and to not stop writing.

The Power – And Scarcity – Of New Ideas

May 22, 2013 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

One of the chief complaints I have about Star Trek Into Darkness is the way it treads old ground. It was a fear I had going into the movie that turned out to be justified, and while I still enjoyed watching the film, the overarching problems I have with the very core of the narrative continue to bother me. It’s an endemic issue I have with a lot of genre films, and I think it’s not limited to those, so let me get right into it.

Sequels. Reboots. Prequels. We see more and more of these cropping up throughout Hollywood, from mindless iteration of the most basic, lowbrow, idiotic comedies to what was once high-concept science fiction. There are some that do it right – Nolan knocked it out of the part with his Dark Knight trilogy and I have higher hope than I thought I would for Man of Steel – but for the most part, there’s at least part of this storytelling that feels lazy. I may be inclined to like Marvel and its superheroes, but they’ve been around for decades, and as much as their big-screen realization continues to satisfy, and while I’m curious to see what’s next for them, I’m not as thoroughly intrigued by them as I am by other titles coming our way this summer.

Consider Elysium and Pacific Rim. Both are coming from writer/directors that have been described as visionaries, and rightly so. Neill Blomkamp of Elysium gave us the fantastic District 9, and Guillermo del Toro not only brought Hellboy to the big screen, he also crafted the haunting original vision of Pan’s Labyrinth. Not only are these films powerful stories with excellent execution, their ideas are practically brand new. On top of the fact that neither is a derivative work, they come from different cultural perspectives – Blomkamp is South African and del Toro is Mexican – which color the nature of their ideas differently than those that come from Hollywood’s old and somewhat creaky idea machines.

These story ideas are best described as breaths of fresh air. I have to wonder, however, if their novelty is actually enhanced by the amount of derivative drek that permeates the media. I consider it a shame that new ideas are so scarce, but at the same time, their rarity may lend them even more weight and power. This may be a paradox intrinsic to the entertainment industry: as much as there’s nothing new under the sun, there’s only so many ideas that can be shifted or reborn in new ways to really capture the attention of the audience.

What do you think? Are new ideas more powerful for their rarity? Or would they be just as welcome if every idea was brand new?

Write Whenever, Right Now

May 14, 2013 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

Writing, as a creative endeavor, has a lot of advantages. You don’t need special equipment to write – at the bare minimum you just need something to write with, and something to write on. You can write about literally anything you want – fiction or non-fiction, on any subject or in any style, you can even write about writing itself! And you can write just about any time you like.

This is, however, the biggest potential problem writers might encounter. Delayed writing is writing that suffers. It’s better to write right now.

Chuck recommends writing in the morning. In fact, he recommends a lot of things that writers should pay attention to. But one point he hammers home like ten-penny nails your skull didn’t know it needs is Writers must be writing. And the sooner you write, the better.

Unless you completely shun human contact and seal yourself into some kind of bubble, things are going to come to your attention that interrupt your writing time. Spouse. Children. Chores. Tumblr. Any number of items that you are compelled to contend with vie for your attention, and you will not always be able or willing to resist their call. And you know what? That’s okay.

What matters is, you learn what works and what doesn’t, and you refine what works until you’re pounding out the words as immediately and completely as possible.

If you need to get up earlier in the morning, do that. Gotta rearrange your schedule? Do that too. Discuss new divisions of chores with the other humans you live with (if you live with any). Stock up on things that motivate and energize you – coffee, Clif bars, Oreos, booze, whatever. Make yourself a plan to write more, and do everything you can to stick to it.

Because, let’s face it – we’re at war.

Time wages a ceaseless battle against us. Every day you’re vertical is an act of defiance in the face of inevitability, even moreso if you write. Which means, to me, that every day you don’t write is losing ground to the enemy. You can fight to get that ground back, but it feels like running uphill. It’s more trouble than it should be. You do much better if you simply write right now.

So stop reading blogs on the Internet, and go do that.

Writer Report: Let’s Get Personal

May 10, 2013 / BlueInkAlchemist / 1 Comment

Before you read the following, if you haven’t already, you should read this, the return of Hyperbole and a Half and her description of the last eighteen months or so of her life. I know this may seem a bit like I’m riding on her coattails, but after I carefully read her post, I found myself ruminating a great deal on my own feelings, facing some personal demons, and in no real mood to discuss supernatural detective yarns or floating cities or star-spanning empires.

I know I need to talk about these things, and I want to do so in a way that doesn’t come off as whining or seeking attention or making myself out to be a victim or a martyr. In fact, that’s why I rarely talk about these things at all, out loud, with people near me: a few words in and the eye-rolling will start. And I wouldn’t blame them. My sister had a saying: “Suck it up, and deal with it.”

Some days I’m better at that than others.

What really got to me about the aforementioned post was her description of the empty wasteland. It’s the one an individual drags themselves through day after day when depression is the only emotional sustenance on the menu; it’s a drab, flavorless, foully-textured gruel that takes the place of more tangible, weighty, and intricate emotions. And as true as it is that it gets better, it’s just as true that the wasteland never really goes away. All you can really do is build a sturdier wall around yourself, shore up the doors, and pray you don’t wander out into it again.

That’s really the only way I can describe it. Lately I’ve felt I’ve been walking the walls of my psyche, looking out into that wasteland, knowing I’m just a step or two away from falling into it. There are times when this realization makes me downright livid – like, how dare I even consider feeling depressed or succumbing to pressure – and I do my utmost to kick my own ass into not being such a downer. At times this puts me into a more manic state of mind, and I try to do more or spend more or what have you. I’m much more fun for other people to be around when I’m not thinking about how much everything sucks, after all.

But that’s the thing about mood swings. Your mood will always swing back. If you’ve ever encountered a tetherball in your life, it’s kind of like that. It swings in one direction, and while you can definitely punch it to go in the other direction, if you aren’t careful it’ll just swing back around to smack you in the face. I thank my lucky stars that this has only been a daily occurrence of late (if that), and not an hourly one.

I was weaned off of medication some time ago. I even was told by my therapist that, mindful as I’ve become, I don’t need to see her on a regular basis. And it’s true, I no longer have borderline anxiety attacks or suffer from hallucinations or any of the other hallmarks that, several years ago, caused some people close to me to help me seek the care of a mental ward. But I know the wasteland is still there. It’s waiting for me. And every time I see or hear or experience something that feels or sounds offhandedly cruel or wantonly destructive or callously indifferent, I feel its gravity and I actively resist. Because I am not going back to that place again, not without a fight.

There are days where it’s a struggle simply to remain positive. I remind myself that I still have a lot of future ahead of me, and it can be full of better things, and that change is difficult and takes sacrifice and I just have to be honest and work hard to get where I want to be. I’m doing my best to correct my mistakes, improve who I am, and not hurt anybody else in the process. I try to be mindful, respectful, courteous, and kind, and put the needs of others before my own if I can help it. But I can’t always do that. I’m going to choose me over them now and again. I’m going to make selfish decisions. And I’m going to fuck up. I’m a human being. It’s going to happen.

I just don’t want to be one of those sources of cruelty or destruction or indifference, towards myself or anybody else. That’s easy stuff. The hard thing is not giving in to cynicism and doubt and ennui. The hard thing is picking yourself up and continuing to follow that dream. A limp is better than no movement at all.

I’ve probably rambled too much. And I’m saying all of this on a Friday. Hopefully, your weekend is a good one.

And if you want to talk about anything like this, my metaphorical door is always open.

Category: Writing (page 27 of 81)

Writer Report: Struggle Within

From the Vault: Writing as Mortar

The Power – And Scarcity – Of New Ideas

Write Whenever, Right Now

Writer Report: Let’s Get Personal

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