Freedom To Let Your Creative Mind Flow / Happenings In The Outhouse 23-Feb-2024

I had an interesting conversation with my youngest daughter last week.  She's in speech competition and was in the process of writing her creative speech.  But she kept hitting a roadblock and didn't know how to finish it.  She reached out to a few others for help, but in fact got more roadblocks.  An English teacher told her to use some formulaic path to writing the story, and this only frustrated her more.

Once I heard her out, I told her to throw away all of the advice she had given.  Her eyes grew wide, then I told her to brainstorm as many ideas as she could.

"The first few ideas will be easy but you won't want to use them," I said.  "By the time you get eight, ten, twelve ideas down, that's where the great ideas will be.  The ones that will spark the direction your story will go."

When seeking advice from others, please be aware that not all advice is good.  In fact, no offense to the others, but they aren't a creative like my daughter and myself.  I knew how to speak the language of a creative.

When you feel stuck on a project, sit alone and just brainstorm.  Let your mind go.  Let it be free.  You will be amazed at what you can accomplish.

Now, on a side note, there is nothing wrong with the advice regarding formulas to writing.  There are a variety of methods, but I knew for her it would just confuse her.  So I kept it simple.  And guess what?  She finished it!

Keep Practicing / Happenings In The Outhouse 16-Feb-2024

I realized the problem I have been having lately.  I have been doing too much thinking with a critical mind instead of just putting my creative foot forward and doing the work.

For me, writing is fun.  And the more I do it, the better I will become.  Not all stories will work.  That much I know, but I need to keep at it, keep writing.

Life happens.  It happens to us all.  At this point, I had a quarterly goal of a certain number of short stories to be written.  Right now I am no where near that point . . . even though the quarterly is roughly halfway complete.

Even if I don't make it, I still made progress.

Troublesome Story Finished / Happenings In The Outhouse 09-Feb-2024

My latest short story is completed.  I finished it Monday morning, and have been doing some small editing this week.  Along with a new title.  I didn't like the original title, as my original vision for the story has changed (as happens often for me).

I will be submitting it to a contest, so once it's away then I'm on to the next story.

Stay tuned . . .

Still Overthinking / Happenings In The Outhouse 02-Feb-2024

Overthinking.

Yup, I'm still doing it.

Some authors call it the critical brain getting in the way of your thinking.  I agree, that's what is happening to me.

I've been working on a short story for a number of weeks now, tweaking here and there, and I've hit a point where I don't know where to go.  When I looked at it from a larger picture, I realized that I was overthinking.

In the past, I've had no troubles working through a story (for the most part).  If I hit a troublesome spot, I'd brainstorm about it.

So, that's what I did.  I should have it done shortly.