NaNoWriMo Update,Take Two

Tags

author, fantasy, Loving Red, must read, NaNoWriMo, paranormal, works in progress, writer's block, writing

So, here I am, traveling again, and wouldn’t you guess it, I’ve written diddly squat.

This means I need a plan.

And that is early morning writing sprints. Before the real commitments of my day smack the creativity from my life, I need to plant it and write.

I know. I know. That’s what I said last week, but you know what it’s like to visit with family. Plans and people become the priority. Well, writing needs to shift back up there, and do it will, even if I have to wake up extra early to get it there.

So, bear and little red, I’m coming for you.

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Tell me about your struggles and triumphs, and I’d love to hear about your WIP, regardless of the stage you’re in.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Week One Update

Tags

Behind Schedule, Loving Red, NaNoWriMo, Project Completion, project planning, Travel Writing, WIP, writer's block, writing goals

Hey, lovelies.

I’m almost a week into Camp NaNoWriMo, and I’m already behind. 

This isn’t much of a surprise, however, as I worked a one-day show with my mother for July 4th, which meant two days to drive, set up, open, close, break down, and drive back. Disassembling the tent was a bit of a rush with the thunder and lightning threatening us the entire hour (it takes us two or more to pack up, usually).

So, I’m behind two days. Fortunately, that only means 1,300 words to make up, which I can more than do by the end of the month—and maybe even the week.

Thankfully, I pushed past a mild block to hit a bit more than my word count.

Now, with a nine-year-old over for the night, five other project vying for my attention, and another big two-day travel coming next week, I’m sure I’ll have a few more bumps. 

The only thing I can and will do is sit with the intention to write as often as possible, so that’s my plan.

How is your WIP? Let me know in the comments below.

Linda G. Hill, a Featured Spotlight

Tags

book research, character development, good read, gothic, must read, Mystery, paranormal romance, stage magic, WIP, writer's block, writing motivation

If you haven’t heard of the On Fire anthology, this mini-interview and excerpt series will showcase the amazing authors I get to work with and their writing. Meet Linda.

What motivates you to write?

People motivate me to write. Human behavior fascinates me endlessly: I can spend hours writing scenarios in which characters react to their surroundings and one another, just to work through what makes them tick.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

I deal with writer’s block by having a shower. I’m always amazed by how many other authors say they find inspiration there. Must have something to do with not having anything to look at but tiles…that’s my best guess anyway.

What interesting thing did you learn while writing your last story?

My current WIP, the third novel in my paranormal romance series, “The Great Dagmaru,” takes place, in part, in Ottawa, at the National Arts Centre. I was lucky enough to discover that they had an open house of sorts, where they allowed the general public access to the stage, the dressing rooms, the prop rooms and rehearsal halls – basically the entire building. During my self-guided tour, I had the opportunity to meet the stage manager and discuss a scene in my novel where my main character, a stage magician, has horses on stage. I was able to obtain the logistics of getting the animals into the building, and I had the chance to see the loading docks for reference. I found out they had an elephant on stage there once, so the horses weren’t as much of an issue as I imagined they’d be when I wrote the scene.

 

From “The Flame on Lick’s Island” by Linda G. Hill:

I wasn’t confident walking into Penny’s shop. Of the four ladies standing behind customers, talking to them in the mirrors, three were barely into their twenties. White-haired, Penny’s former beauty radiated past her wrinkles when she smiled at her client. At the jangling of my entrance, she dropped her comb, pausing on me a beat too long before she bent to pick it up and sink it into her jar of Barbicide.

“Can I help you?” She plucked another comb and ran it under the tap.

“I’m just here for a cut,” I said.

One of the other girls did my hair, but Penny’s attention made me uncomfortable. Before leaving, I asked for a word. I was surprised when she suggested a cup of coffee.

We sat in the familiar diner.

The staff eyed us.

“I heard Lick’s was passed on as an inheritance. Was Kristie a close relative?”

My turn to gawp. “We weren’t related at all. Hubert was my husband’s uncle.”

“You’re joking. You’re the spitting image.”

Unnerved, I twisted a napkin in my lap. “It must be a coincidence.”

Penny shook her head. “I’m guessing you want to know about her.”

“How did you know?”

“Because Kristie is still out there, on the island.”

My shoulders jarred against the metal seatback.

“I’m right, aren’t I? People like Kristie don’t just go away when they die. And after what Hubert did… He must have loved her, though.”

“What did he do?”

“Hubert had an affair. When Kristie found out, she had her third miscarriage. Nobody even knew she was pregnant that time. She lost all of them out on the island. Hubert took care of her body, but her mind…that was a different matter.”

“I understand you used to go out and do her hair.”

“Yeah. And she’d talk to me when I did. Then one day, I had an appointment. I got out of the boat on their dock—it was a hot day, just like this one.” Penny sipped of her coffee.

Out the window, the traffic stopped and started at the corner.

“She’d cut it all off. That wasn’t the worst of it. I can’t talk about the last time I saw her.”

I had the diary; I’d find out myself.

“It was a long time before I went out there again. Years.” She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “When I did, Hubert told me she was gone. I was the first in town to find out.”

“He didn’t hold a service or anything?” I asked.

“She had no family, and I was the closest thing she had to a friend. People asked the doc about her occasionally, but she kept to herself, so no one pried.”

That poor woman.

“So that’s it.” She looked me in the eye, her voice suddenly cold. “Was there anything else specific you wanted to know?”

“What do you know about the candles? Kristie seemed to like them. I keep finding puddles of dried wax everywhere.”

“She made them. The last time I was there, one was in the window by the front door of the house. Hubert had it lit like he was waiting for her to come home. Poor asshole.”

“Do you think she had anything to do with the fire in the apartment, here in town?”

The look in Penny’s eye made the temperature drop a degree, chilling my bones. “I have no idea.”

She paid for our coffees and left.

 

Linda G. Hill is a stay-at-home mom of three boys and the guardian of one beagle and two kitties. She concocts tales in her head 24/7 and blogs almost daily at lindaghill.com. Linda’s newest release, The Magician’s Curse, is the first in a series of Gothic paranormal romances. Also available on Amazon and Kobo is her romantic comedy novelette, All Good Stories. She lives in Southern Ontario, Canada.

ON FIRE is available now: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and the Transmundane Press store.

Kevin Holton, a Featured Spotlight

Tags

burned at the stake, horror, paranormal investigation, publishing, science fiction, witch trials, witch-hunt, writer community, writer's block, writing advice

If you haven’t heard of the On Fire anthology, this mini-interview and excerpt series will showcase the amazing authors I get to work with and their writing. Meet Kevin Holton.

How long have you been writing?

Oh, man, what counts as writing? I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was eight or nine. I joined an online community at fourteen and started putting things up for the web to see, winning little awards and contests along the way. I didn’t get actually published until nineteen. So… a couple years? Ten? Keep that in mind, kiddos—I just got my first novel picked up, ten years after I started writing.

What are the genre(s) of the stories you write and why?

Generally, horror and science-fiction. I just can’t get behind normal literary fiction. Books like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at least hold my interest because it’s about mental illness, but The Great Gatsby? The Catcher in the Rye? Maybe I’m a bad English major, but I couldn’t stand those books. If you’re going to moan about a lost love for two-hundred pages, at least tell me you’re a cyborg, or that she’s a demon, or something.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

I might be weird for this, but I sometimes feel like writer’s block is your subconscious saying, Hey, buddy, the story doesn’t go this way. Usually, I’ll take a step back and realize a particular person is acting way out of character, or an event doesn’t make sense, then I revise and continue.

 

From “The One Who Burns” by Kevin Holton:

The way light fell across the decaying furniture made me uneasy. Or the fact that such a huge place now stood empty gave me the chills, since it clearly used to hold a lot of people at once. Either way, I backed up and unlocked the door, opening it for Celine. The locks were rusty, but nothing a little force couldn’t fix.

“Woah, look at this place.” Captivated, her voice took on the same distant, dreaming tone it always did, the already soft timber of her voice could’ve been mistaken for a cloud, and her looks matched. Sky-blue eyes and smooth, curving features that hid her cheekbones despite her relatively active lifestyle gave her an appearance years younger than most would’ve guessed. You’d think wandering around dark, abandoned places in search of ghosts might give her a haunted look, with gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes, but if anything, our adventures in the night made her shine.

“Yeah, it’s got one of those crazy staircases.” I pointed, and she followed my finger as we traced it up. There was a spiral part on both sides, leading up to the third floor. Overhead, a balcony allowed people to look down at the rest of the room.

She took out two high-powered flashlights and clicked them on, handing me one. The art on the walls showed people farming. In the center, on the floor, was a tile mosaic of the sun.

“Think they got it backwards,” I laughed. “Sun’s supposed to be overhead, you know?”

Celine shrugged. “The Cavanaughs were supposedly one of the founders of this town. Helped build the area up from nothing to a huge farming community, then into millwork and smithing and other production.”

“Supposedly?” I probed, mostly for our viewers’ benefit.

Taking the cue, she said, “There’s no record of them in the town’s founding charters, but other people clearly knew them. Some scattered letters suggest the last in the Cavanaugh line was Alexia, who took over all her family’s businesses when they all succumbed to disease. But, she was a woman in charge, who’d claimed her power through her family’s untimely death. The Salem Witch Trials were going on around that time…so you can probably guess what happened.”

“Stake through the heart?” I was never one for history. Ivy’s Path was only twenty miles from Salem, but I didn’t know jack shit about the trials.

“No, that’s vampires. She was burned at the stake. Alive. But legend says she didn’t scream, or shout, or plead for mercy. Alexia looked out at her accusers and said, ‘My family saved you all! We scorched away the forests to make way for fields. We provided kindling for your hearths to cook your meals and warm your bones. We lit the flames in your forges. We have created and destroyed, in equal measure, to provide for you, and yet, this is how you repay the last of our line? Burning me for being a witch? Carry on, then! I am fire. I will always burn.’ Then she smiled as the fire consumed her.”

“Badass.”

 

 

Kevin Holton‘s short fiction and poetry have been published with The Literary Hatchet, HellBound Books, Thunderdome Press, Radiant Crown Publishing, Mighty Quill Books, and many others. A short film he co-wrote, Human Report, is under production, and his novels The Nightmare King and At the Hands of Madness are being published by Siren’s Call Publications and Severed Press, respectively. When not writing, he’s an actor, athlete, and professor who can probably be found drinking coffee or talking about comic books.

ON FIRE is available now: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and our press store.

Phoebe Tsang, a Featured Spotlight

Tags

coyote, enlightenment, good reads, india, love and loss, must read, the spiritual centre of the world, writer's block

If you haven’t heard of the On Fire anthology, this mini-interview and excerpt series will showcase the amazing authors I get to work with and their writing. Meet Phoebe Tsang.

What audience are your stories intended for?

Anyone who knows love, loss, and the ache of longing.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Fall in love – and stay in love! – that solves most of life’s problems.

What advice do you have for beginning authors?

Live first, write later.

 

From “Setting Fire to Water” by Phoebe Tsang:

The websites called India “the spiritual centre of the world,” as if India was not a country but an essential, hidden organ without which no other country could exist. A purplish, pulpy spleen or belaboured heart, distended and riddled with veins. The world flocked to India to discharge its ills and be recharged by life-giving forces not found in the staple North American diet: the zeal of devotion, the taxation of ritual, the rapture of sacrifice. Surfing the web late into the night, Coyote pieced together a vision of a hitherto unimaginable way of life; a life which, if it had previously, incongruously been presented to him among the glossy pages of the Condé Nast Traveler, would have horrified him. He would perform the rites of penance until his hair grew past his shoulders. He would backpack through the desert until his sandals were shreds. He would learn to live without money. He would sleep naked under a sky where the sun and moon coexisted peacefully, as in some prehistoric, mythical age when there was no such thing as death.

Coyote would vanish, leaving no trace except perhaps the memory of love—self-conscious, precarious and half-baked, but love nonetheless.

The stack of spent matches at Coyote’s feet resembled a miniature pyre. He crushed the empty matchbox and dropped it on the heap.

“Umm…does anyone have a lighter?”

The propeller churned. The audience was slow to react. A rustling of parkas, of crackling static as they groped in their pockets, fumbled amongst bottles of mineral water, sunblock, Advil, granola bars, mosquito repellent. Between them, they were well-prepared for a multitude of small calamities. These people could not imagine other, more critical emergencies involving the need to swim, or failing to swim, or sinking like a stone in the opaque water.

Take the craft that bore them, a vessel doomed to fail a safety inspection at any respectable marina back home. Where were the lifejackets, the distress flares, the spare drain plugs? Coyote searched for the capacity plate—wasn’t the boat listing alarmingly to starboard on account of one passenger whose girth was the equal of two persons at least?—with a familiar, if indistinct, sensation: a potent cocktail of dread and curiosity.

One morning, unprepossessing as all the others at first, Coyote accelerated the speed of his treadmill, by increments, beyond the spectrum of the humanly possible. His feet flew faster and faster until he seemed to glide for effortless moments above the black rubber conveyor belt, furiously spinning. Approaching the speed of light. Coyote spread his arms in the gesture of a marathoner at the finish line, his body transcending the possible as if crossing the shimmering threshold between dreamer and dream. Primed for flight, the machine betrayed his trust, his next step skewed inward, his ankle painfully angled by the sudden torque, flinging him off-course into the handrail while the belt torque blithely continued to run. A fellow early bird hurried over with a timid: “Are you all right?”—as if all right was any plausible description for this tumble out of sublime weightlessness into winded mortality. Coyote bowed his head, gripping the handrail, his breaths harsh and irregular.

The Samaritan retreated.

The Americans rummaged through their drugstore supplies, seeking some sort of fire-starting device and finding none, and the stirrings of a reluctant foreboding returned to Coyote. Without intending to, he searched his own pockets even though he had smoked less than a handful of cigarettes in his life, all of them in some poorly-lit bar after an inadvisable amount of alcohol, in the aching, ever-restless company of Emmeline, whose presence was at this moment more palpable than when she was within reach.

 

Phoebe Tsang is British-Canadian poet, short-story writer, librettist, and violinist. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection Contents of a Mermaid’s Purse (Tightrope Books), and her poetry and fiction has been published in anthologies and journals including the Asia Literary Review and the Literary Review of Canada. Her short fiction was long-listed for the 2014 Bristol Short Story Prize, and short-listed for the Matrix Lit POP Awards in 2016, rained, and, her chapbook of collaborative visual poems with artist John Riegert, was published in Spring 2017 by Puddles of Sky Press. She is currently completing her first solo album of poetry, music and song, through a grant from the Jack Straw Cultural Center (Seattle, WA).

ON FIRE is available now: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and our press store.

Shaun Avery, a Featured Spotlight

Tags

bubba-joe, good reads, horror, Music, must read, satan, satire, the conception artist, writer's block, writing motivation

If you haven’t heard of the On Fire anthology, this mini-interview and excerpt series will showcase the amazing authors I get to work with and their writing. Meet Shaun.

What are the genre(s) of the stories you write and why?

Horror and satire – because they’re the things I love the most.  Plus, the more TV I see, the more it seems there is to satirise, so, you know…that urge never goes away.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Just keep stubborn and keep on writing – even if you’re doing something just for fun that you know is never going to see the light of day, it’s still writing.  And sometimes you find gold there, even if it takes a while to see it.

What motivates you to write?

As a satirist at heart, normally something I see in the paper or on TV that irritates me.  Like this time, I read that some ‘celebrities’ were hiring themselves out for the day to turn up at people’s weddings.  What’s the only thing more ridiculous than that?  The idea of hiring them to come to your funeral.  Which became a pretty fun story I wrote called “Grave Diggers.”

 

From “The Conception Artist” by Shaun Avery:

I back away from the main room, unable to believe what I am seeing.

The music plays.

Still Mike Magnusson.

And amazingly, Satan and this man—this Bubba-Joe character—close their eyes and nod and sing along to the music.

I go to turn away, convinced I must be going mad.

That’s when Satan opens an eye. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Then a clammy hand grips my ankle.

I scream.

Dean’s hand grabbing me.

His face still purple from the throttling.

“Brad,” he says. “Hi.”

I pull away from his grasp, and that’s when someone licks my ear.

“No going back, lover.” Sheryl pushes me back into the room. “Only forward.”

“Yeah. I told you to sit.” Bubba-Joe’s eyes meet mine, peering out beneath an unruly fringe. “Brother.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” I reluctantly take the seat across from him. “I’ve never even met you before.”

“Sort of true.” Satan stands behind him still. “Sort of not. Hey, can we turn this up?”

“Sure thing.” Bubba-Joe heads off to do just that.

It’s not my high-tech, state-of-the-art stereo propelling the music into the room. Rather, some shitty, retro 80’s thing, one of those huge ghetto blasters people in urban areas used to sit with. And just like my unwanted visitor Bubba-Joe’s face, it is covered in blood.

“Guy on the street wouldn’t give it up. Had to get a little…physical with him.” He does a little jig to the music, saying, “Hey, Moonlight Smooch. Love this one.”

I’m in the presence of psychos here, and one of them might just be me.

And what the hell is Satan doing, listening to this schmaltz?

So much for heavy metal being the devil’s music.

“Look,” I say to them both, “can you please just tell me why you’re here?”

But by the time they do…

I wish I’d never asked.

 

Shaun Avery writes horror and crime fiction in a number of mediums, often with a satirical approach to fame and media obsession.  He thinks his cynicism is healthy.  Though perhaps “The Conception Artist” takes it to extremes.

ON FIRE is available now: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and our press store.

J. Lee Strickland, a Featured Spotlight

Tags

Death, good read, Googling self, losing a loved one, loss, magic, on fire, Sabbatical, the Changing, writer's block

If you haven’t heard of my new project, the On Fire anthology over at Transmundane Press, this mini-interview and excerpt series will showcase the amazing authors I get to work with and their writing. Meet J. Lee Strickland.

 

Do you Google yourself?

After I Googled myself a few times, I realized there were too many Jim Stricklands in the world. A few years back, I started marketing my fiction writing using my first initial and my middle name, J. Lee Strickland. That change has made all the difference in cyberspace. I’m pleased to see that a search for Jim Strickland still returns some of my older, non-fiction pieces among the politicians, baseball players, and felons.

What is the title of your next story and what will it be about?

Sabbatical, the story of a poet who takes a sabbatical from her teaching job at a California university for a poet-in-residence position at the home of a famous, deceased poet in a run-down, rust belt town in the eastern United States. Culture, esthetics and moral values all come in to play when she befriends a young woman working in a grocery store and plunges into the gritty authenticity of the city’s underclass while juggling a long-distance relationship with her husband and waning enthusiasm for the sterile, self-absorbed poetry of her past.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

I always have several projects in progress at the same time. This is not a strategy. It happens because my imagination never lets me rest, but if I get stuck on one story, I can move over to another story and keep writing. Sometimes, I shut down completely. Then I go split firewood.

 

From “Fire Night” by J. Lee Strickland

I’ll go now to the well. That’s next, like every day. Water no less wet that William’s gone, and drinking no less necessary that no pleasure gives. That plate there on the sideboard needs a rinse and, too, the spoon, like every day.

Tiarella takes the two oak buckets and their yoke from the low shelf beside the door. They seem so heavy, although they hold no water yet. Not quite like every day. The forest canopy is thinner with loss of leaves. The still, brown autumn air, “like stale bread,” William would say, his favorite snack an old crust dipped in beer.

“Tee-yah.” Above the trees a circling hawk cries out. “Tee-yah.” Almost like William’s voice calling her name, charged with excitement at some novel find.

She searches for signs of him. The axe rests where he left it beside the splitting stump. His heavy leather gloves hang like some dark animal on the post, the woodshed unfilled. All as it’s been for several days.

A small gray bird patrols the pile of logs.

Unbroken stillness everywhere but there.

The vesper marks the Changing. After sundown, the far hills will bloom with great fires as folks there match the coming cold and dark with light and heat. In past years, she and William climbed to where the rocky outcrop cleared the western trees to watch the far-off flickering display, fire heaped upon fire on hill heaped upon hill. Folks say it is a time when between this world and the other…

Is that where William is…? The other? A sudden gorge of sorrow clamps her throat as if a claw gripped her there.

She leans against the lichen-matted stones circling the well and squints against a tear. They first spoke at her mother’s well, William there to leave a tool he’d fixed.

What tool? She can’t recall more than a vague, long shape in deep-veined hands.

The words were nothing, ordinary things: she, offering a drink; he, grateful, praising Mother’s cherished well. But even then, she knew that he’d return, and she’d be there to greet him. So, they were, like water mixed with water, until now.

 

J. Lee Strickland is a freelance writer living in upstate New York. In addition to fiction, he has written on the subjects of rural living, modern homesteading, and voluntary simplicity. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sixfold, Atticus Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, Workers Write!, Pure Slush, Mad Scientist Journal, Newfound Journal, Jenny, and others. He is a member of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild and served as a judge for the 2015 and 2016 storySouth Million Writers Awards. He is at work on a collection of connected short stories vaguely similar in format to the long-defunct American television series Naked City but without the salacious title.

ON FIRE is available now: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and the Transmundane Press store.

Sean Padraic McCarthy, a Featured Spotlight

Tags

character development, dysfunctional family, mental health, On Fire anthology, twins, witchcraft, writer's block, writing, zombies

If you haven’t heard of my new project, the On Fire anthology over at Transmundane Press, this mini-interview and excerpt series will showcase the amazing authors I get to work with and their writing. Meet Sean Padraic McCarthy.

 

Are you a full-time author? If you have another job, what is it and would you like to become a full-time author if you could?

I’m not a full time author. I work in the mental health field as a human service coordinator. And yes, if I could support myself from writing, I would; although I would like to teach part time.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

I’m always working on at least a few stories—and usually a novel—at the same time, so if one stalls, I just jump to another. I also find that writer’s block is much more torturous when thinking about writing; once you go into your writer’s mind—with either pen on paper or fingers on the keyboard—the answers are usually more accessible.

Who is your favorite character in your current story and why?

Both Sophie and Kinsley.  I love Sophie’s heart and innocence, and I love Kinsley’s alertness, practicality and wisdom, and I love the way the two of them look out for each other.

 

From “A Solstice Memory” by Sean McCarthy

Inside the house the twins stood waiting for me. They’re not identical, but they look alike. Sophie has darker hair, a slightly lazy eye, and freckles on her nose. A little taller. Kinsley is more compact, and more assured. An athlete.

“Dad,” she said.

“Yeah?’

“That wasn’t a dead cat you were burying this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

She beckoned for me to follow her, and slid open the door onto the back covered deck. Cheryl has always kept the back deck looking nice. A bar, and our grill, a teak dining table. More hanging plants, and potted herbs. And on the side wall of the house hangs a collections of faces. Masks. One, wooden, is a tree spirit, a bearded face in the bark. One is Pan, painted dark green, leaves in his hair. One is a gray stone cherub. And one is from Haiti. A tear drop shaped, with a bone through the nose, eyes in panic, and the mouth locked open in scream. Wild strands of hair, standing on end. My brother-in-law, a sociologist, game me that one. He told me it is very old, and one of kind, probably worth a lot of money, so we probably shouldn’t hang it out here, free to steal, but Cheryl insisted we do, insisted we hang it with the others, so she didn’t have to look at it every day.

Kinsley was already down on the lawn. “Come on.”

I looked at Sophie.

“I’m not going down there,” she said. “Not again.”

Kinsley stopped some twenty feet from the shed, from the pet cemetery.

I caught up.

“Look.” She pointed.

But she didn’t have to.

The hand stuck up from the earth. Rotten and gray. The yellow finger nails clawed at the soil.

“He wants out, Dad,” Kinsley said.

“Well, let’s see if we can stop that.”

“You can’t be burying dead guys in the yard. Mom’s gonna get really mad.”

 

Sean Padraic McCarthy’s short stories have been published or are forthcoming in Glimmer Train, The Hopkins Review, The Indianola Review, South Dakota Review, The Sewanee Review, 2 Bridges Review, Prole, Water~Stone Review,  Hayden’s Ferry Review, Shadowgraph Magazine, Fifth Wednesday Journal, and South Dakota Review among others. His story “Better Man”–originally published in december magazine—was  listed as a “Distinguished Story”  in The Best American Short Stories 2015, he was recently named a finalist for the Gertrude Stein Award in Fiction, and he is a 2016 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Artist Fellowship in Fiction Award. 

Follow our Amazon page for On Fire’s release this December 1st!

The Pickaxe to the Wall Called Writer’s Block!

Tags

process, writer's block, writing

What do you do when you find yourself hitting the proverbial wall?  The one that bans you from reaching your characters, hearing or seeing or touching them, let alone the darkness in which you sit because, let’s face it, nothing is coming to you.  Well, the answer to that is simple.  You Write!

Seems impossible, right?  Well, the problem, for me at least, is that I am trying to push my character in a direction that he or she does not want to go, or I have stepped away from that narrator for too long.  Both problems are common reasons for writer’s block.  So how can writing help you and me break down that wall that keeps us from out masterpieces?

First off, pushing the character to do something he or she is not likely to do, usually keeps a character from talking and pulls you into a screeching stop.  It happens to the best of us.  Now, you need to write! In the same direction or not, write something. Put words down on paper that may not be so comfortable feeling.  But keep doing it! The more words you come across, the closer you get to hitting the material you needed to begin with. Delve and write that shitty first draft.  That’s what the first draft is for. To figure out what it is you are writing exactly.

It’s when you go back and hone your craft, pare away what doesn’t fit.  The drafting process is exactly that, a process of inventing, deleting, reorganizing, introducing and taking away. It’s cyclical.  There are no stops, no true beginning and end. But that’s another post.

Sometimes it takes writing in your character’s point of view for a while, even if it has nothing to do with the plot of your current piece, to get them to speak to you again.  So introduce them to another person’s world, give them somewhere new to go, someone new to talk to. Role Playing is excellent for this. You can meet all sorts of characters with their own worlds and stories to bounce your character off of.  This will generate material because you’re writing.  The same is true for simply, opening a blank page and a favorite book and trying your character’s hand at reacting to a beloved published character.  There are many options for thrusting your character into a new world.

Really, what the point is, is to read, re-read your material, read others’ material, and write. WRITE!  That is the one and only step to being a writer. Write.