Outhouse Happenings

I'm probably like most people who battle the war against procrastination.  It's an ugly beast I work hard to defeat day-in and day-out.  This past weekend--a long weekend with the Memorial Day holiday thrown in for good measure--the only writing I accomplished were my blogs.

I did start reading two nonfiction books, however: the first is titled Willow in a Storm: A Memoir by James and Kathleen Taylor.  This book was published by Scarletta Press, and the publisher, Ian Graham Leask, actually visited our little library 2 years ago.  Oddly enough, the book resulted from a bank robbery that occurred in 1955 in a town about 20 miles from where I live, in Thief River Falls, MN.  It's a very good book, chronicling the life of Mr. Taylor and how he turned to a life of crime late in life.  Some chapters are a bit long and detailed but there are plenty of injustices done to Taylor that make you just shake your head at our justice system.  The second book is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.  This one deals with those inner demons that us artists face everyday--he calls it Resistance.  Procrastination is my Resistance.

And it is one I fight with all the time--sometimes I win, sometimes the demons win.

Chapters 25 is on its final leg of editing, as well as the short chapters 26-27.  By next week, these three will be done.

Wednesday night was our writers' group meeting.  Even though there were only two of us, the conversation was very inspiring.  I read chapters 12-13 of Beholder's Eye.  Evelyn read one of her pieces she is inquiring about publishing.

The mystery of getting ideas

At the genesis of what I call my writing career, which started some time when I was in college, a flood of story ideas hit me.  Were all of them good?  Perish the thought.  But I wrote them down, to keep track of what my ideas were like.

I either carry around a little notebook or use the notepad featue on my cell phone to jot down ideas.  Story ideas are far and few between now, simply because I've recognized what good ideas look like.  If one sparks my interest, I'll mull it over and over around in my mind until I've got the formation of a decent story.  At this point, I'll devote a notebook page and scratch out a few ideas.  One may call this outlining.  I do not.  For me, just getting it down on paper helps to release my conscious mind from holding onto it, making room for new ideas.

Before college, the thought of writing short stories never entered my mind.  I wrote novels, even in high school.  Then, when I read a biography of Stephen King and knew he started out with short stories, I allowed myself to find ideas that fit within the short story structure . . . and the floodgates opened widely, just like the tidal wave of blood in The Shining.

During this time, I worked for my uncle Rod, who's a contractor.  Many times, the jobs he had required me to travel at least 20-30 minutes out into the country.  I loved these times, and almost every single day, I'd come up with a new story idea.  95% of them were crap, when I look back on them now (oh, who am I kidding, it's probably 98-99%) but I was getting myself used to the idea of generating story ideas.

Late last year, I had two short story ideas that just wouldn't go away, no matter how much I was working on something else.  Both were along the fringes of science fiction, which is odd because most of my ideas were horror, fantasy, or thrillers.  One of these days, I'll post them for you.  I like them, and they were fun to write.

To me, I love the entire writing process, from idea generation to writing first drafts to editing.  But I think my absolute favorite is getting the ideas and churning them over and over as if I were churning milk into creamy butter.

Writing Prompt Wednesday - Episode #25

You go into a convenience store to get a newspaper.  You're so engrossed by the front page that when you go back outside, you climb into someone else's vehicle.

Happy writing!

P.S. Write!

Earlier this month, Dan Miller had an interesting blog post titled: My spouse rejects my ideas - what do I do?

Dan requested audience participation on this one, along with awarding a prize for the top 2 responses.  I dutifully responded and not only received feedback from a guy named Trevor Lund (AKA RevTrev), I also got a response from Dan Miller himself--very exciting!  I didn't win one of his top prizes, but what came out of it profounded me and prompted me to write this blog.

My wife, as well as I, love our lists.  She knows if she puts a list of household chores together, I'll stick to it.  Most of the time she even sends me to the store, list in hand, because she knows I'll "just get what's on the list and that's it."

Even from the beginning of our marriage (going on almost 15 years now!), she always puts at the end of her lists:

P. S. Write!

My wife has never wavered in her support of my writing dreams.  Oddly enough, she's read very little of what I write, simply because she's not interested in thrillers or fantasy epics or horror tales--although she does love the Harry Potter stories, and I'll bet money that if she started reading mine, she'd be hooked.

In my initial response to Dan's blog, which was centered on a gentleman who asked Dan what he should do if his wife rejects all of his ideas, I said that I couldn't help but think of Proverbs 31: "Whoever can find a virtuous wife, for her worth is far above rubies."  Sure, I've had some hair-brained ideas over the years and I've listened to my wife's advice and not done them.  But when it comes to my writing, she's always been supportive.

Why?

This is a valid question, since I've only had an ebook published so far, and that was less than 2 months ago.  If you were to ask her, she knows that publishing is a long process.  But also, here's the key: she sees me working on it.  She sees me writing, either on the computer or on the hard copy pages.  Whenever she calls me on my lunch or breaks at work, she asks me what I'm doing.

"I'm writing, honey," I tell her.

And she believes me.  Because it's true.

I also don't spend nights away from home, at the bars or at my buddies' homes.  I'm at home, when the kids are in bed, and I'm writing.  Now, I'm really writing stories.  I'm not writing mindless BS, which brings to mind this frightening scene from Stephen King's movie The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick:

If you have a spouse who doesn't support your dreams, ask them why.  Don't get defensive.  Listen.  It's possible you're spending too much time working "on your dream" and your family is suffering.  I admit, there is a fair amount of time that needs to be devoted to writing, but don't forget about the beneficiaries of your dreams when they become a reality.

There's more I want to write on this topic, it seems.  I'll have to wait for future posts to continue this discussion.

Why I write in the present tense

As you've seen in my two posted chapters of Beholder's Eye as well as many of my writing examples, I write in present tense.

Not many books are written in the present tense, and here's the weird part: I've always written in the present tense, it seems, with rare exception.  In the seventh grade, I started work on a ninja trilogy--ninjas and the martial arts were all the rage when I was growing up, thanks to actors like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal.  When I wrote it, I might've started writing in past tense but soon the present tense emerged from somewhere without my knowing.

When I started writing my deer hunting horror story back at Bemidji State University, I was using a Brother word processor.  The word processor had a printwheel on it (with a standard font, probably Times Roman) for when I printed out pages, and if I wanted to change the font, I needed a different printwheel.  Here was my dilemma: because I needed to tell the reader on my flashbacks that they were indeed flashbacks (not sure why I needed to explain it, but I'm sure it was my naivete in the writing realm), the only way I could do it without changing fonts was to put it in a different tense (i.e. the flashbacks were in past tense and the rest in present tense).

The main reason why I love present tense so much is because it gives a feeling that I'm taking someone on a journey.  Past tense, in my opinion, is the equivilent to someone saying, "Let's sit here by the fire while I tell you a story."  There's nothing wrong with it.  I just love the feeling of grabbing someone by the shirt collar and saying, "Let's go on a journey, you and I."

Besides, I recently read John Grisham's Calico Joe, where he switches from past to present tense.  I don't see much present tense written, and Grisham's was especially refreshing and powerful to witness firsthand.

Future of book signings in this new e-publishing world

While in Rochester last week, running to get my wife something to eat while she waited to get her blood taken--her next appointment was looming close on the horizon at that point, and we didn't want to risk missing it on account of filling our bellies--a thought occurred to me (as sometimes thoughts do when I'm not in a convenient place to write it down): with the advent of e-publishing, how will author book signings be affected?

I thought this as I was driving up to the Apache Mall, with the Barnes & Noble store right along the front, next to the food court.  A Minnesota author, Amanda Hocking (who ironically lives not far from Rochester), had a book signing in the B&N store a few months prior.  I was in Rochester the week prior and was unable to attend the signing.  Anyway, when I thought of this and mixed it in with my thoughts on the ever-changing world of e-publishing, how would book signings be handled?

An author can't really sign an ebook, can he/she?

This, of course, when I'm also thinking of my own ebook 99 Ways To Have A Memorable Wedding On A Shoestring Budget.

Not sure if I have any answers at this point.  I might have to inquire with Seth Godin for some always-insightful wisdom.

Happenings in the Outhouse

This week has been a productive one, despite my having taken a quick two-day trip to Rochester for my wife's appointments for her AML.

I finished editing chapter 24 early on in the week, bringing my percentage done to 59%.

As I have already been re-hashing chapter 25, I've refined it even more and should be close to getting it completed.

Chapters 26-27 are two very short chapters: 26 is a total of 2 pages and 27 is three.  Way too short, for my likes, and I'm working on beefing it up.