Tag: writer

About Writing

Summer update schedule

Autumn

As much fun as it is to blog every single day, I’ve been finding myself with considerably less mental energy for my other hobbies, and they have tapered off until they became no more. The cumulative effect is that I’ve been feeling more unbalanced and less grounded, since I utilize those fiddly hand motions with sewing or crochet to focus my mind and clear my thoughts. It’s meditative, and I need it.

That, in addition with all the summertime activities that I want to indulge in (we need to go to the pool often enough to justify the price of the membership), has led me to decide that I will update on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and continue with my weekend Inspiration posts as already established. While you probably assumed that the Inspiration posts were just filler (ha!), my hope is that they will help with ‘like meeting like’ in a way that blogging itself can’t accomplish — my main goal is to find others who are like me.

Since I’m going to be updating significantly less, I will make more of an effort to write longer posts with plenty of rambling about nothing in particular, to help you feel like I’m not jipping you out of my wonderful presence. I am reminded of that one time, when the weather was noteworthy is some mundane sort of way that I’m truthfully just flat-out making up because heck if I can actually recollect, when I did something that’s vaguely relevant but also mostly made up, to make you think that I live an interesting yet peaceful sort of life full of adventure and zen, magically balanced in a way that no real person could ever manage to pull off. Ah yes, those were the days. Don’t you just love anecdotes?

Okay, okay, reality is that the CRAZY is always thrashing at the bars of its carefully guarded cage, snapping at any fingers that venture too close, and waiting for the chance to escape. Sometimes it’s fun to let the CRAZY loose and run around screaming, but othertimes I need to put away the clean laundry before the cats rub their fur all over it. That’s the real balancing act.

Remember: Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’m off to the pool.

About Writing

The Chosen One

Autumn

A trope that I see every now and then that drives me absolutely batty goes something like this:

Congratulations hero! You are the CHOSEN ONE! You have special powers that no one else does!

The intro is all about letting the audience know how super awesome this character is, being the Chosen One and all, and you think that you’re in for some impressive ass-kicking all around, literally and/or figuratively.

Then, as the story progresses, it turns out that the character isn’t that awesome after all, because:

  • They don’t want to be the Chosen One.
  • A dozen other characters are introduced who also have special abilities.
  • Their power turns out to not be anywhere near as cool as it sounds.

Any one of those three would put my teeth on edge, but for whatever reason I usually see all three of these together. I used to try to finish stories that pulled this trope, but experience has taught me that the ending never gets better.

So, let’s break down my bullet points:

  • They don’t want to be the Chosen One

I suspect that the writer is trying to be subversive with this one, but societal context has changed to the point that aspiring to be a mediocre nobody is par for the course — you can even decorate your home with quotes about how you will never do, say, or think anything unique or special. Personally, I have been heavily criticized every time I’ve taken on a new responsibility, often because others treat it as some sort of enslavement.

You have four kids? How on Earth are you ever supposed to do anything?

Oh, I don’t know. Occasionally the kids take off the shackles and I’m allowed a bit of sunshine; just enough to keep me going. So tell me, what do you do with your freedom? Work all day, then veg out on the internet?

Anyway, it would be far more refreshing to see a character who actually wants to be the Chosen One and takes the responsibility seriously.

  • A dozen other characters are introduced who also have special abilities.

I wish I could say that this is due to a lack of imagination, but I can’t shake the suspicion that it’s wish fulfillment on the part of the writer. Usually, the main character is no longer set apart, instead belonging to a tight-knit group where everyone knows everyone else’s pain, and never has to face the possibility of loneliness.

After the cadre has been formed, the enemies start popping up with even stronger powers to justify it all, and the hero is looking less and less unique and interesting. But at least the writer vicariously has imaginary friends!

  • Their power turns out to not be anywhere near as cool as it sounds.

This is the natural consequence of the previous bullet points. Even if someone is uncertain at first, they’ll naturally be drawn into enjoying ULTIMATE POWER when they realize what they can do with it, so in order to keep up with the mediocre aspiration, the ULTIMATE POWER can’t actually be all that seductive or useful. You also can’t make your friends feel bad by being obviously better than them, and the battles need more suspense by dangling the question of whether or not the entire group has what it takes to defeat the single bad guy. Working alone. Against all of you.

Wait, who was supposed to be the Chosen One again?

It’s a terrible trope, which unfortunately plagues the fantasy genre, so I keep coming across it. Le sigh.

Maybe we could try something new?

About Me

Conformity

Autumn

In the past, I used to try to socialize more. My oldest is very outgoing, and when she was 4-years-old, I felt guilty about being such a retiring introvert. Unfortunately, at that age, her social circle was my social circle, so I decided to put myself out there and see about those mom groups. The neighbor who was heavily involved in them seemed to be an okay person (I found out later that she was duplicitous AF), so I thought it would be a safe bet with at least one other “friend” already there.

At 22, I had danced naked in a forest during a thunderstorm (there was no chance of anyone else being around to see me), and I had felt magnificently connected to all of the elements of the Earth. I can still vividly remember the dark clouds overhead, the pink flash of lightning, the prickle of goosebumps in the cold rain, and the elation of nature and magic. I felt that I could never be struck down.

At 28, I was shrinking into myself, feeling hopelessly like an outsider around my peers, small and insignificant in their eyes. In turn, I found them to be boring, controlling, and generally unpleasant, and I was miserable around them. I hated being there. Hated being the only mom who carried my baby in my arms instead of hauling around a car seat, and the defensive reactions I got when I simply commented that it was because I thought car seats were cumbersome. Seemingly, everything about me was not only wrong, but actively offensive.

As much as I admire the stereotype of the self-sacrificing mother, there’s a huge difference between sharing my last bite of brownie and selling my soul to fit in. I have my limits.

Shortly after I quit, it filtered back to me that they had all been calling me a “doormat” behind my back. Um, what? I’m supposed to prove that I’m not a doormat by . . . abandoning my natural personality to become what someone else thinks I should be instead? No thank you, I’d much rather be a doormat; there’s more dignity in it.

No matter how others try to cajole or criticize me, I stubbornly stick to what I am. Why? Because I remember how it felt to dance with the wind and rain as the thunder kept the beat. Because I actually look at my peers, dressed in unflattering leggings with their hair tied on the very top of their heads like Teletubbies, and I know that I could never in a million years take myself seriously if I looked like that. Because my Jupiter is in Aries, so I need to be an uncompromising individualist in everything I do. Because I know what makes me happy, and what doesn’t.

As for my oldest, I adore the way she naturally is, and I don’t want her to learn to sacrifice her personality to have fake friends. It would break my heart if I lost her like that.

As a writer, experiences like that always get filed away in the back of my mind, along with all of the emotion and aftermath, to reappear as overarching themes in my stories.

About Writing

Realistic romance

Autumn

I read a couple of creative writing articles on “how to write realistic romance” that essentially boiled down to knocking “insta-romances.”

As a hopeless romantic myself, I’m a firm believer in love-at-first-sight. I knew that I had found forever the moment I met my husband (told him so, too), we eloped shortly afterward, and ten years later the passion is still going strong. So, don’t lecture me on what doesn’t count as realistic!

Love is like magic: it has to be believed in and practiced in order to have an effect.

My number one source of knowledge for the romance in my stories comes from my own experiences, and I can’t imagine getting any more realistic than real life. That includes love-at-first-sight, which just so happens to be my favorite.

Just because I’m outside of the majority doesn’t mean that my life and marriage are impossible or doomed to fail, and I don’t write stories to express the norms that I don’t belong to.

And given that the marriage rate is at a record low, I don’t believe that people know as much about romance as they think they do.

So I’m going to do what I’ve always done, and ignore what everyone else says about romance, even if I earn criticism for it.

About Writing

My current WIP

Autumn

I’ve been working on the rough draft of my WIP for about ten months now. I started it when my youngest was still a newborn, so progress was very slow in the beginning. I even lamented that my main characters had been on their first date for weeks, and I was ready for it to hurry up and be over with.

For the past three months, I’ve been working on it every day. My realistic goal is a mere 400 words, though occasionally everything works out nicely and I get down about 1000. Progress is progress.

This is also the longest I’ve ever spent on a rough draft.

I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit. I like the extra time I’ve spent conversing with my characters, and the months spent day dreaming about their lives while washing dishes or folding laundry. I’ve grown very fond of these characters, and I haven’t become the slightest bit bored with the story yet. That’s a good sign.

I’m confident that the rewrite will go smoothly. Whenever I get to it. Ha ha.

About Writing

Dvorak

Autumn

If you don’t know what keyboard maps are, then you’re using QWERTY. The name comes from the top row of letters above your left hand.

QWERTY was originally designed in the late 1800s, and became the popular choice for typewriters. Its popularity was carried over into the computer era, and it’s now the default for literally everything.

The thing is, QWERTY was designed for typewriters. Typing too fast on a mechanical typewriter can jam the machine, so one of the design features of QWERTY is that it intentionally slows down how fast most people can get their fingers flying. Computers, on the other hand (snerk), don’t care.

Writing involves a lot of typing as an unavoidable part of the process, so in addition to typing speed, problems like carpal tunnel deserve some concern for writers. QWERTY is not the best option for heavy typing.

There are several options out there that were designed specifically for computers with the goal of increasing speed while decreasing fatigue. Personally, I use Dvorak.

It takes some getting used to, but once you learn a new keyboard map like Dvorak, it’s much easier to type faster with fewer typos. The first thing that I noticed is that my hands don’t have to move all around the keyboard just to have a mundane conversation. Occasionally, if a typo does slip through, it confuses others how I managed to hit ‘p’ instead of the ‘y’. I can also recognize other Dvorak users through their typos.

Yes, I know this is boring, dry, computer nerd territory, but I happen to think this is an important topic for writers. Go ahead and give it a shot. At the very least, no one else will be able to use your laptop.

About Writing

Sex Scenes

Autumn

Because I write romance, they’re inevitable.

As a reader, I tend to skip over sex scenes in books. Truth be told, I find them boring. Society has been so over-saturated with sex, that whenever another scene pops up, I can’t help but think of the quote from Yugioh Abridged, “Sex isn’t sexy anymore.” Most of the time, I’m not sure how those scenes contribute to the plot, and skipping them has no negative effects on my experience of the novel.

As a writer, my current WIP has a fair amount of sex in it, because marriage and babies are a huge part of the story.

I prefer to take an abstract view, and focus on the emotional aspect of it. Strangers meet on Tinder all the time, but deeply in love soulmates melding into one; now that’s something different. I don’t want to make my readers horny, but to fill them with butterflies and giggles; there are already more than enough resources for the latter.

Society has done a lot to divorce love from sex, to the point where a lot of people believe that the two not only have nothing to do with each other, but can be detrimental to each other as well.  I hope to illustrate that the two can be beautifully intertwined.

About Me

The practicality of popularity

Autumn

While mega popularity is a fun daydream, in practicality, I don’t think that I’d enjoy it at all.  Having people read my books just because everyone else is reading them feels rather antithetical to who I am as a person. It’d be a great way to be completely erased.

Then, of course, there are always the ones who feel obligated to create entire websites devoted to tearing apart your novels and proving that you are a bad writer after all. The harshest part is, those websites are usually right, too.

I’ve dedicated a lot of time to practice and research with my writing, and I try very hard to produce quality; but ultimately, I chose to be a wife and mother first. I still have plenty of sensitive feelings, and stumbling across the wrong criticism at the wrong time could hurt deeply. I’m just doing my thing to express my soul, and I just want to live my life with my husband and kids.

Obscurity is safe and comfortable.

About Me

Sameness in ideas

Autumn

Like most writers, I have several ideas on the back burner in my mind, but if I reduce them all to a one-sentence summary, I start to wonder if I really have just one idea in different clothes.

On one hand, readers like to know what to expect from an author. Sometimes, we really want the same core concept dressed up in different colors. There are plenty of professionals who churn out a gazillion books that are all fundamentally the same, and they make a good living doing it.

But am *I* like that?

I care about free creative expression, first and foremost for myself. Is the evolution of my mind destined toward sameness forever and ever? Do I even make any sense?

Will I eventually grow bored of Mr. Perfect marrying Ms. Beautiful? Or am I too enamored with the simplicity of love and family to ever grow tired of it?

I’ve had a fairly tumultuous life, so enjoying stability feels a bit weird to me. Perhaps I was meant to land in this wonderful place, or perhaps I still have more stormy weather to endure while I continue to evolve further.

About Writing

On Real People

Autumn

I don’t base any of my characters off of real people, because, frankly, everyone I know is either so normal that it isn’t worth it, or so out there that I wouldn’t know how.

The thing about normal is that once you’ve met one, you’ve met them all. I already know what normal people think about every subject, because they all think and do the same things (quite deliberately, too). Hence, the whole normal part. If I write a normal character, he’s going to be based on the conglomerate of normal behaviors, rather than any specific individual.

Then there are the weirdos, who have wild anecdotes and even wilder beliefs. These are the people who are fun to talk to, because I don’t know what they’ll say or do next. That unpredictable element also makes them impossible to write, because I don’t know what they’ll say or do next. Can’t write what I don’t know.

All of my fictional characters are just that: fictional. I draw heavily from my personal study of psychology, but I never have any specific people in mind.

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