creative writing – Page 10

NaNoWriDon’t

November 2, 2021 Autumn

I’m going to go ahead and say this again: I don’t NaNoWriMo.

This is the wrong time of year to put the pressure on.

You see, I’m one of those weirdos who has a family.

I’m currently designing children’s clothing and shopping for fabric, I’ve got Thanksgiving to plan out and execute, which will be shortly followed by preparing for Christmas … and Animal Crossing is a mere 3 days away from a major update. I don’t have the time or energy to write 50,000 words this month. Or next month.

Instead of trying to write a novel as fast as possible, I’m a huge advocate for creating sustainable writing habits all year long. It’s important to have the space to live and breathe as a person, as well as the time for ideas to fully mature before they’re set down into words.

Frankly, NaNoWriMo is another aspect of a Fast-Food culture where everyone wants instant gratification at the cost of quality. Let’s face it: people are going to churn out something derivative this month, then spend the next year flogging it to death on social media to extract out as much money as possible from mindless consumers. Rinse and repeat.

So go ahead and spend the next four weeks furiously rewriting someone else’s ideas — I’m perfectly aware that nothing is going to stop you.

Quotes, The Scion Suit

TSS – Restaurant

October 30, 2021October 29, 2021 Autumn

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

😉

About Me

Rambling

October 14, 2021 Autumn

I sat down and read an entire book in two days.

It’s something that I haven’t done in years, but I like that I still have it in me to pull it off. I usually bounce from activity to activity, fulfilling an obligation here, stealing ten minutes there, trying to make the most of my day. I haven’t spent so much time on one activity in ages.

The funny thing is, as soon as I finished, I launched into an analysis of the author’s psychological problems. I couldn’t resist — the romance was so badly tacked on, it just screamed to be probed and dissected.

At some point, I decided to experience novels beyond what was written on the page. I try to see the authors behind the words, and can get a pretty good idea of what they’re like before I go searching for the bio. Unsurprisingly, the above author turned out to be divorced, and currently lives alone with two cats — which is probably why she failed at portraying romance effectively.

But otherwise, the story was very enjoyable. After all, I finished the book in two days.

That’s also why it can be so hard to share my writing with others, because it feels like I’m exposing huge portions of my insides to anyone who bothers to look. Guess why there’s a reoccurring theme about social outcasts? Obviously it’s because I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by a group of BFFs who love and support me. /sarcasm

As serious as I am about the craft of writing, I’m a flake about marketing. Big time flake. Heck, I worry that developing that part of my brain would hurt my artistic integrity, so it’s easy to shrug it off. My goal isn’t to become an entrepreneur.

Actually, there isn’t any real point to this post. I’m rambling.

Before 2020, I had been planning on some real-world marketing strategies to get my name out there as an author. Obviously when people started wearing gloves and hitting the hand sanitizer hard, I put those plans on the back burner. It still doesn’t feel like the time is right to engage with the real world yet, and I don’t want to fuss over stats on social media.

I don’t mind biding my time.

It’s nice to take a couple of days off for an indulgence, just because I felt like it.

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

About Writing

Why Readers Interpret Stories Differently

October 9, 2021April 17, 2025 Autumn

There’s some famous micro-story that goes something like, “Baby shoes for sale. Never used.”

As a mom, my immediate thought was that the parents forgot about getting the shoes because they were sleep-deprived, and the shoes ended up buried at the bottom of a drawer during the week the baby was the right size to fit into them — I have all sorts of baby items that were never used for that very reason. Heck, I was rather shocked when I realized that most people were so morbidly eager to mentally kill the baby based on so little. Ya sickos.

Writers cannot control what the readers imagine and assume while they read. They can appeal to the mainstream and draw on the experiences that people try to conform themselves to, but there’s always going to be someone who takes away something different.

I recently watched a movie, where some guy was wondering whether or not he was engaged to the right woman. Some other man decided to chip in, and talked about how he had been married for over 20 years, then went on to tell about how long ago he had met the most perfect woman ever and fell madly in love right there and then, but then was separated from her a couple of days later. The first guy was like, “So how did you find your wife again?” and the second guy replied, “I didn’t. That woman isn’t my wife, but I always think about her.” Cue sentimental music.

And I was like, “Wow. You are a horrible person for forcing your wife to live in the shadow of a fantasy for over twenty years, instead of appreciating her.” I definitely didn’t take away the message that I was supposed to.

I read reviews for books, and often see wildly different reactions to the same story. Where some people see virtue, others see emotional blackmail. Where some see strength and empowerment, others see discrimination and marginalization.

For me, that’s part of the magic of writing: everyone experiences the same story differently.

I think that it’s something writers should embrace.

Instead of seeking singular control over everyone.