Plotting vs Discovery: Oh the pain

Okay so I’ve been on extended leave here lately, from the blog, writing, hell, the world!  As we often do, I’ve had a lot on my plate and my mind and I’ve come to the realization that I THINK TOO MUCH!  This applies to so many aspects of my life, which I won’t go into here, but I will talk about how it has applied to my writing.

Though a proud Scorpio am I, I’m very Gemini when it comes to storytelling.  Part of me is a plotter, that can map out a story from start to finish, tying up all the seemingly loose ends into neat little bows of satisfying resolution that speaks to my utter genius and are the best, not only, reason to believe I tower above mere mortals!  Ahem…  Sorry, had moment of megalomania.  The other side of this dueling personality disorder (I think I just invented said disorder but I likes it.  It’s mine, unless I didn’t then, good on ya PHD-type who did) is the discovery writer.  This is the personality that wrote the Muse series and is really the strength of my writing.  In this mode, I am truly happiest as a writer.  The work flows and writing, which many of you know can be very hard at times, becomes the easiest thing in the world.  It’s as easy as talking.

And these personalities really do duel it out.  My discovery writer likes to take a wazz on the plotter’s outlines and lead the characters off to the corner where they all take hits of acid while painting graffiti which depicts the plotter in an unnatural union with a well endowed donkey who, for some reason, looks a lot like Jimmy Carter with a big, “raping you in the ass” grin.  Fuckin’ acid man.  The plotter then throws his hands up in the air and decides to grab all the inspiration which he puts in a jar that is wrapped in duct tape and held prisoner in a dank cellar where he forces it to watch hours of Family, Adult Swim and porn with him.  Strange that the plotter is the creepy one here, right?

So, lately, I’ve kicked the plotter in the nuts and locked him in the basement, with NO Family Guy or Adult Swim, though I would never fully deprive him of porn.  He is a guy after all and I’m not so cruel.  In his absence I’ve let the discovery writer take over again.  It’s been like masturbation in the first few weeks after a break up.  “Just you and me again buddy, like the old days.  We don’t need anyone else.”  Yeah I get that there is a general theme here which may or may not be related to those unspoken aspects of my personal life I vaguely alluded to earlier.

Okay now, even if I make no more masturbation references, everything I way will be tainted for you and, I do apologize for that. 

I will say that letting the discover writer take off has been interesting.  I’ve revisited some old short stories and polished them up.  And I’ve done some very satisfying work on a zombie short story which might turn into a series of shorts in the genre.  What is funny is that I keep catching the discovery writer sneaking down to the basement to confer with the plotter.  I only suspected this at first but then I heard the distinctive sound of duct tape being ripped off his mouth followed by a string of curses that would make Dice Clay take notes.  Such a potty mouth on that plotter.  I won’t say that I’ve found any kind of balance and I really don’t care.  I’m writing again and it feels good, like it used to. 

I tend to start plotting when I worry that the story won’t be resolved.  I doubt myself.  The truth is, my best resolutions have been eureka moments in discovery mode where I found some loose random thread that was only added for color or theme earlier in the story that now ties back into the story in a way that creates a seamless circle of even greater genius than I ever thought I had. 

And instead of megalomania, I’m somehow humbled.  These moments are why I write.  It’s a high that no drug could give and I’m truly in awe of having tapped into a magic far greater than me.  And my muse smiles and caresses my cheek as only she may, her eyes full of pride and love.  This is what she wants for me and she will torture me and trick me to get me on the right path to find these moment of purest Zen. 

And on that note, no more blog series for awhile.  I’ll be writing about whatever is floating atop froth in the churning waters of my imagination.  You’ve been warned.  Oh, and there will be more masturbation jokes.  Sorry.

Listening to: My Chemical Romance- Heaven Help Us

Liebster blog nominations

I was nominated for this Liebster dealy by Siobhan @cocktailplease (http://cocktailplease.tumblr.com/) as well as by my darling naughty writing dear, Penelope Prose @Penelope_Prose (http://thepenelopejones.wordpress.com/)

About Liebster:

The Liebster Blog Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. “Liebster” is German for “Beloved, Dearest or Favorite”.

The Rules:

When one receives the award, one posts 11 random facts about oneself and answers the 11 questions asked by the person who nominated you.Pass the award onto 11 other blogs (while making sure one notifies the blogger that one nominated them!). One writes up 11 NEW questions directed towards YOUR nominees. One is not allowed to nominate the blog who nominated one’s own blog! One pastes the award picture into ones blog. (You can Google the image, there are plenty of them!).

11 Facts About Me:

1. I’m not only a writer but an artist, musician and maker of various instruments of war. 

2. I spend far more time playing Mr. Mom than should be legal, which has cut into my writing time.  This makes for more of a Mr. Mommy Dearest by the time the weekend rolls around.

3. I make an extremely ugly woman.  You already know too much.

4. As a general rule, I hate old people in consumer settings. You’ve been doing this longer than I’ve been alive so leaving your cart in the middle of the fucking aisle while you look at something is a choice.  It’s the asshole choice and you know it’s wrong.  And I hate you. 

5. Personal observation: Confidence in men seems to attract the ladies, but give me a cute shy girl and I drool. 

6. Personal observation: cute shy girls that seem innocent are the freakiest freaks in bed.  Words to live by.

7. I used to have long silky hair that women loved to touch and was my only vanity.  Apparently I’ve been punished for my beauty.

8. Truth about #7 is that I had a teacher in High School that was bald.  He told me and a group of friends that he was cursed for making fun of a bald man, and that the same would happen to us for making fun of him.  18 years later his words ring true, because I’m bald, and they are all dead.

9. My words of advice for those thinking of becoming writers: Write for the love of storytelling.  Research the craft and the industry.  Talk to other writers but recognize the haters before the damage is done.  They stand out most of the time cuz they are nasty and negative and leave an oozing slime trail wherever they go.  Write, write and write some more.  Even if its garbage, you’re probably writing WAY more than me!

10. My words of advice for established writers: Don’t be hatin’!

11. Okay, the moment of truth.  This is the big one.  I mean, this is huge.  Massive.  Earth shattering even.  Okay.  Shooooo, this is harder than I thought.  Okay.  I…  That is, well.  Geesh… Okay, here goes, for real this time.  I sometimes like to eat Chef Boyardee ravioli cold, right out of the can.  There, I said it.  Don’t get me wrong.  I mean, it HAS to be Chef Boyardee, none of that generic stuff.  That would just be gross.

My Answers to Siobhan’s Questions

1. What is your favorite movie?

Fight Club.  I love a lot of movies but Fight Club is a writer’s movie.  It’s filled to the brim with amazingly simple snippets of working stiff philosophy, great dark humor, sex, self destruction and a view of the world is both frightening and appealing. 

2. If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?

I’d have finished college and got my masters.  I can trace every lost dream back to the moment I decided to let someone else discourage me from following my dreams.

3. Do you have any phobias?

Dolls. Porcelain dolls to be specific.  I helped my dad remodel a house in high school and the scary, inbred old lady that lived there had dozes in every room.  They lined the baseboards along all her hallways and I had to work with them watching me.  I also can’t stand to see anyone dislocate anything.  I go into full body convulsions of disgust and discomfort.

4. If you could choose one fictional character to go on a date with, who would it be and why?

Jessica Rabbit, baby.  Why?  Have you seen her?  Boing!

5. What was the best piece of advice you ever received?

Don’t get married.  It’s a trap.

6. If you could be one of the first people to colonize Mars but you could never return to earth, would you go?

Ummmmm, no.

7.Right now in this moment, what are you most grateful for?

My son.  He is my world.  He changed everything for me and made me realize it was time to quit lying to myself about being a man, because before him, I was still just a stupid kid.

8. Do you prefer to give advice or take advice?

Both stink.  No one ever really seems to listen to the problem before giving advice and NO ONE ever takes advice.  Typically most people aren’t really looking for advice.  They are hoping you will agree with them when they decide to do the selfish, childish, easy thing.

9. Are you currently following the career path you thought you would when you were in high school?

Yes. I had no clue what I was going to do in high school and my “career path” really shows it.

10. What is your favorite place you’ve ever visited?

Charleston, SC.  Such a gorgeous southern city.  Real cobblestone streets, wrought iron everything and ghosts peaking around every corner.  My kind of town.  Minus the hurricane threat, I would gladly live there.

11. If you could be famous for doing anything, what would it be?

I would be a famous storyteller.  That’s the path I’ve tried to set for myself as a writer.  My style is very visual in nature so I would love to go into animation and film.

Answers to Penelope’s questions:

1. What is your favorite color and why?

Alizarin Crimson.  When painting I always get this odd giddy feeling when I first thin a bit of it with some linseed oil.  It must be the vampire in me because it looks like blood then.

2. If you could do one dare-devil move, knowing you would live through it, what would it be and why?

Jumping the Grand Canyon on a unicycle.  No risk so I figure go ridiculous.

3. Have you had a one night stand?

Nope.

4. Did you know his/or her’s name?

NA

5. Name a quality in yourself you love?

Creativity.

6. Name a quality in yourself you don’t love?

Laziness.

7. If you could be a flavor of skittles, which one would you be and why?

Red so that everyone could just eat me!  Yeah I went there.

8. Name one thing about your partner you love, or your dream partner would have?

Total submission in the bedroom.

9. If you could only have sex in one place forever, where would it be and why?

Does Earth count? No?  Bah.  Gonna be boring but I’m going with my bed.  Just more convenient and sometimes you can’t beat the classics.

10. How many times did you change your answer to question 9?

0 if you don’t count the Earth thing.

11. How many of you think Bad Penny’s always to blame?

I don’t think she is.  I know she is and, well, I named her as such.

My 11 Nominees:

1. http://diane-newauthor.blogspot.com/
2. http://doingthewritething.wordpress.com/
3. http://jadevarden.blogspot.com/
4. http://marialoves2write.blogspot.com/
5. http://violetserotica.blogspot.com/
6. http://thenightlifeseries.blogspot.com/
7. http://stephllaws.blogspot.com/
8. http://ardenaoide.blogspot.com/
9. http://scifimagpie.blogspot.com/
10. http://www.obsidianpoet.blogspot.com/
11. http://jennifermartinauthor.wordpress.com/

My 11 Questions:

1. What are you currently working on?
2. Where does your writing inspiration most come from?
3. If any of your fictional works were made into a movie, who would play the protagonist and why?
4. Is there one book that made you decide to become a writer and how/why?
5. If you had one super power, what would it be?
6. What is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in public?
7. If you found a million dollars and there was a $1000 reward for finding it, or you could keep it for yourself with no one ever being the wiser, what would you do?
8. How old were you when you realized that mom and/or dad was not the source of all knowledge in the world, which is to say, she and/or he was just a dumbass like everyone else, and what was the situation?
9. What is your favorite meal to prepare?
10. Where were you when you heard that Hostess was going out of business and how will this affect your life as a productive member of society?
11. What is the one place in the world that you most long to visit or live?

Art of Storytelling: POV and Head Hopping

POV and Head Hopping

Point of View is very important in any story and can be a deal breaker for some readers based on preference.  You’ll see my own POV quirks below.  I do stress though that you write whatever fashion feels best to you and it most applicable to the story.  I know I’m revisiting English Lit 101 but let’s review the different forms of POV.

• First Person
• Second Person
• Third Person Limited
• Third Person Omniscient

Note: Tense and POV kinda go hand in hand but I will address Tense more in another post.

First Person is a very common storytelling method and one that newer writers seem to gravitate towards because it seems so natural and comfortable.  There are very many established authors that use first person as well.  The entire Twilight Series, as far as I know, is from Bella’s POV as the narrator.   First Person narrators are not always reliable.  Some are just wrong about what they thought was going on which can set up a good surprise ending.  Some are even liars or are biased by their own personal agendas and character flaws.  You never know what you’re really getting with a First Person narrator, often, until the end of the story.

I feel that the problem with first person is that there is a tendency for the narrator to fall into endless internal musings that can stall forward movement in a story.  While these asides can be very on topic for what is going on in the story and can give great insight into the true nature of this character, they can overburden the story and bore the reader.  Also, they just eat up pages and often lead a story that could have been wrapped up in 50k-80k words to be 100k-200k.  Storytelling needs to be tight and flowing.  First Person is a Telling trap, when a good storyteller will Show at every opportunity.

I’m a picky reader.  If I pick up a book that is First Person Present, I will immediately put it back down.  I just can’t get into a narrative that is happening right now.  “I am walking down the street and I see her again.  She’s hailing a cab.  I hate writing like this.   Please kill me.”

Second Person is rarely used in modern storytelling.  It addresses the reader directly at every turn.  I really don’t have an example of this because I would put down any book this POV as well.  Like I said, picky.  When I think of Second Person I think of roleplaying as the Storytelling, GM, DM, whatever you want to call it.  For anyone who has never roleplayed in a table top setting (yeah I’m geek level, Expert), you have one person who tells the story.  The other players are characters of their own creation.  As the GM (game master in some gaming systems), you have a setting and overall plot in which the characters take part.  Their actions shape the game and the GM tries to direct the story and characters where he wants them to go while constantly describing the setting and the actions and attitudes of the Non-Player Characters. 

Chad is a player character.  He tells the GM, “Okay I’m going to rush through the door with both guns drawn.”

“Alright. As you come through the door you see several tables and chairs turned over.  On the bar is Carl motionless, his head twisted around in an odd angle.  You see Shelly and Luanne slumped in a corner, both appear to have been shot in the head.”

Third Person Limited  This style of storytelling tells the story from the perspective of one character but the writer is the narrator.  This is my preferred method of writing and is just a personal choice.  Most YA that is not first person (and most of it is) is written in this style.  Third person limited is from the POV of one character and all knowledge about the world and the other characters is limited to what that character knows. 

This is great in fantasy and sci-fi when you have a whole knew world to introduce to a reader.  I always think of Harry Potter when I think of this POV style as Harry is a boy from the human world suddenly dropped into the Wizarding world.  As he learns about Diagon Alley and Hogwarts so do we.  We share his sense of wonder and amazement.  It’s a great way to draw a reader in when writing genre fiction but it works for any other style.

Third Person Omniscient  In this style of storytelling and POV, the writer is the narrator and knows everything about everyone.  We all probably should know everything about every character in our story but the difference between this and Limited is that it is not fettered by the personality, knowledge and experiences of one character. 

This style can get very unwieldy and confusing for a lot of readers.  Writers tend to Head Hop within the same chapter a lot.  I personally feel that it is harder to connect to the main character/s because I don’t get to really immerse myself into that one mind.  Head Hopping should be kept to a minimum if at all possible  A good rule to avoid it is to stay in the head of which ever character has the most interesting thing to say.

There’s a man being tortured on a table on one side of the room.  His wife is tied to a chair on the other side and forced to watch.  The torturer is present and goes about his task in a very clinically detached fashion while casually talking the wife the entire time.  

Who has the most interesting point of view?  Well that will vary depending on the greater context of the story and all three could have very interesting insight on the scene.  Hopping from one to the next to the next would negate the emotional impact of all three. 

My first thought was that the wife would have the most compelling story to tell.  Watching a loved one tortured would be torture and she could give an emotionally charged account of how they got there or perhaps this is all her fault and she is frantically trying to find a way out of it.

I immediately think of the husband as being too fraught with agony to be able to think coherently, though disjointed narrative could be effective if used right.  Maybe he’s trained to deal with torture and we get to find out why. 

Maybe we’re trying to tell the story of the torturer though.  What does he think about while he is doing these gruesome things?  Does he think about the man that taught him to do this?  Maybe he was tortured and underneath it all he is a boiling cauldron of emotions and believes that what he is doing is for some greater cause.

On Third Person Omniscient I would also warn about changing perspective in the same paragraph.  Just don’t do it.  If you change perspective start a new paragraph.  It’s like dialog.  No two people should speak in the same paragraph.

There is a hybrid of Third Person Limited and Omniscient in which the story is told from multiple perspectives but each character gets that chapter or those several pages to his or her self.  When perspectives change within the chapter, there is usually two hard returns  or a   ***  to let the reader know that the perspective has changed.  Sometimes you simply have to have many POV characters.  Stephen King does this a lot and I find that I do it in my WIP (work in progress). 

King’s “‘Salems Lot”, a personal favorite of mine, is told in this style.  He is showing how the plague of vampirism spreads through out this small town, infecting it like a cancer.  We the readers need to see what is going on in various parts of the town.  One character, the hunchback that lives and works in the junkyard, isn’t even introduced until the second half of the book, if memory serves.

Another favorite novel of mine, Roger Zelazny’s, “The Lord of Light”, a classic sci-fi masterpiece, is written in this fashion.  In a world in which reincarnation has become scientifically possible and those who have had thousands of lives not only gain powers but take on the aspects of the Hindu gods, one of their fallen brothers takes on the mantel of Siddhartha, the Buddha, and starts a society changing revolution against the gods.  This story is told from the perspective of Siddhartha, his followers and various gods, demons and mortals. 

My WIP takes place in one city but the fate of that city is in the balance so I have to tell the story from multiple POVs in Freaktown.  Here I even find that all the perseptives can be confusing so I know that I not only have to write another 30k-60k words but there will be a lot of work to tighten it all up and try to bring some clarity to the overall narrative.

Listening to Funeral for a Friend: The Sweetest Wave

Art of Storytelling: Beginnings

Where Should I Begin?

Okay this seems like a pretty basic concept but I’ve read too many stories where this just failed.

First off, I’m really talking about novels or novellas here, and not necessarily short stories, though you still need to know where to start those too.

So why should it matter where you start?  Well your number one job is… drum roll please…  getting people to read your book!  Surely you jest, sir!?  If you don’t hook your reader from the beginning of the story, you’re likely to lose them.  There’s tons of material out there on first paragraphs and every writer should look into it but there is a bigger picture here. 

A lot of times we think of our stories as having a beginning and end.  That’s wrong.  Your book must have a beginning and end of some sort but the story is like life.  Time passed before the point where the books starts and time will continue to pass after the book ends.  You’ve created a world and that world has both history and future even if you never think about it. 

If we can think of our books as sections of a timeline, that forces us to consider back story.  Maybe you write romance or literary fiction which is set in our day to day world.  That’s great!  But your characters have history.  They have parents and grandparents and ancestors.  Maybe that stuff will never make it into the book but, often, knowing that kind of history can really give you insight into their motivations, morals, or view of the world.

So the best place to start that characters story is where it becomes the most interesting.  Louis jokes about this at he beginning of Interview With the Vampire with a reference to David Copperfield, and his story does give some of his life history before meeting Lestat, but Rice’s book starts in the present, with the boy sitting down with his tape recorder at a moment in Louis’ life where he has finally decided to share his tragedies and the existence of vampires with the world.  The bulk of the book is about those tragedies but this is a critical point, not only in Louis’ life but the boy’s life and the Rice’s world.  And it’s just a cool hook.  If you could sit down with a real vampire, what would you ask him or her and would you be prepared for what they said?

A friend of mine, the one who inspired the Heart of Story series, messed around with writing a few times.  He never had the drive to write more than 5 or 10 pages but I so wanted him to because of the opening line below. 

Moonlight shining through the bullet hole in the wall painted a slow trail across the unconscious man’s face where he bleeding on the floor.

I read this and fireworks went off in my head.  Maybe the language could have been a little tighter but that sentence says so much.  It paints a picture.  It creates an air of mystery and intrigue.  Who is the man but, more importantly, why is there a bullet hole in the wall and why is he unconscious?  You get the feeling he’s been shot.  Why?  Where? By whom?

My dear friend Penelope Jones was recently reading my WIP and pointed out that I needed to start with action.  It surprised me because everything else I’ve ever written did start with action.  It made me rethink the whole scene but then I decided that I wrote that scene (3 years ago) to bring character setting and conflict together in one shot and it does end with tons of action.  When I finish I may need to revisit that and may decide she’s right in this case.

But, in most cases, she is absolutely right.  Action is dramatic.  Action is eye opening and creates an emotional response.  Fight Club starts with the protagonist being held with a gun in his mouth at the top of a skyscraper packed with high explosives about to be detonated.  This is just a promise of action, potential energy, a guarantee of violence, and it is so powerful.  Okay, Chuck Palahniuk, now that you’ve got my attention, please, take me back to the beginning and tell me how Jack got into this mess.

What happens if you start in the wrong place?  The worst possible thing could be your reader becomes a non-reader and puts your book down.  They get bored.  They decide that spending $.99 on a book is not too big of an investment to pull out early.  No that’s not a joke for my erotica fans!

Remember that there must be a hook of some sort and there are many ways to do that.  So here’s some pointers for beginnings. 

• Think of your story as a section of a much larger time line.
• Start at the most interesting part of the timeline for the world and, more importantly the character/s.
• For greater effect it must rely heavily on character and the major conflict while telling the reader something about the setting.  None of this has to be in great detail and it's not the time to info dumping.  There will be more on info dumping in another post but it’s basically back story vomit, or worse, diarrhea.
• Must have some or all of the below qualities
• Action
• Drama
• High emotional impact
• Memorability 
• Your writing must be perfect here.  No mistakes, grammatical errors or misspellings and it must be very clear.  This should be true of the whole book but if you’ve earned someone’s faith with a great beginning and characters they care about, they may forgive a misstep in the meat of the book.  If it’s in the beginning, you’re sunk.  You’re just another indie writer who can’t write, in the minds of many readers.

The best thing about beginnings, they can be written, rewritten and re-rewritten until you get them right.

Listening to: Billy Idol- White Wedding   How I miss those 80's videos.

Art of Storytelling: A new blog series

I've just randomly decided to talk about storytelling today.  I covered what I consider the key elements of good stories in the Heat of Story series but storytelling itself is an art form that is rarely taught.  Yes there are creative writing courses and even a BFA in Creative Writing offered in some universities and countless books on the craft but most of us learn through emulation. 

For me it started with Saturday morning cartoons in those distant pre-Cartoon Network days when getting up early on a Saturday was this exciting ritual.  Later it was those amazingly corny 80's TV series. Dukes of Hazard, Night Rider, Greatest American Hero.  And of course, I fell in love with movies from an early age.  I didn't really start reading much until I was 12 or 13.  Then it was The Destoyer series which was a serial that had something around 200-300 editions.  I ate these up.  Somehow that lead to comic books after novels.  I still love all these methods of storytelling and have gotten really heavy into anime in the last few years. 

The need to tell my own stories developed somewhere in the middle of that garbage stew and, just like my natural ear for grammar (I don't know the rules I just know what sounds right), I learned how to tell a story.  I learned where to start and how to not choke it with info-dumptruck loads of back story. I just started writing and when I was coming to the end of my first novel I decided I'd better figure out what to do with it once I finished.  What I found was that I knew nothing about writing a book which is probably why I had had been able to get so much done in so short a time frame.  Ignorance if bliss.  I soon found out that the end of my first novel was going to have to be the middle of it if I wanted to make it long enough to publish the traditional route, which was really the only option at the time.  I'm getting off topic here.

What I also realized at this point was that I needed to make sure I was doing it right.  A great deal of what I was doing was correct.  I had 3-dimensional, flawed characters.  Everything was based on conflict that moved the story.  My protagonist had the crucial moment of change in order to overcome the greatest conflict of the story.  Understanding the whys of storytelling was so empowering but it also robbed me of something.  You see, I was no longer blissfully adrift in the rivers of creation, but held fast in a vessel designed to navigate those waters. The muse hates structure.  But I grew as much in this time as a writer as I had in the first half of my novel.  And then it took me 3 more years to finish that novel and I grew even more.  That's when I really began to court my muse and understand what I needed to finish it.

And I've completed nothing since.  I've become hyper critical of myself and it's stifling.  I talked about this in the last blog.  But one thing that has come out of it is the ability to recognize good storytelling when I see it and to identify its major flaws.  I can see that makes it good when it works too.  I think we writer's forget that we are carrying on the ancient tradition of storytelling based in those fireside oral stories passed down over generations before writing was used.  

So, for the next few weeks I'll be talking about storytelling and some of the things I notice in new writers and this is really for my fellow indie writers because we dont get the benefit of an editor usually to point out these things.  We are all trapped in our own heads and the things we write sound great to us so we usually don't even recognize that we are making any mistakes.   I'd like to hit on some of the things that I think make readers put your book down and make a conscious decision to never pick it up again and those things that can hook them and keep them.

While doing this, an old, nearly forgotten novel crawled its way through my self doubt and depression to take up residence as my muse's favorite fucking thing in the world, so I'll be working on that as well.  I've posted an excerpt below just because I like to share more than my pompous ranting.

-From "Freaktown, VA" Urban fantasy set in the fictional city of Freetown, Virginia, known as Freaktown to many in the area. Vampire, Sorcerers and ghosts... Thought I was gonna say OH MY? Uh, no.

The old man, prostrate on the stone floor, continued his work as if Gray’s boot steps echoed only in his own ears.  He walked around the edge of the large circle, careful not to trespass on the countless runes carved into the stone.  Thousands of hours of work, all wrought by Darius’s hand.  

Gray kneeled at the far end of the circle opposite the entrance with is back to the old seer.
   
“One hundred years and more for you to learn patience, Nathaniel.  You had only to lose your humanity to gain discipline.  You honor me.”
   
“I have a strange problem, Master.”
   
Darius continued his work, undeterred.  The hammer and chisel chipped away at the rock, inscribing the markings that would serve whatever great work the old seer had pursued these many decades. 
   
“You only call strange that which you already understand but resist accepting as truth.  You come to me to confirm truth or to relieve fears?
   
“Both.  There’s a killer loose in Freetown.
   
“Many, I would assume.”
   
“This one is different.  He is like Priest.”
   
The hammer taps ceased.  Darius was motionless for several moments.  “This isn’t a conclusion you would come to lightly.  Are you certain?”
   
Gray stood up and turned.  “Germaine Litchfield is dead.  He’s the second bloodletter this week.  The first was a fang near Tremble Park.  Holes in their chests, no heart, almost no blood.”
   
“You have a collector then, a warlock.  Priest was not the first, you know.”
   
“But he was the last.  That black art was dead when he found it.  I’ve traveled the world destroying the tomes of that evil sect.  How is this possible?”
   
Darius struggled to his feet.  The hems of his robes were dirty and tattered from so often dragging the rough stone floor.  He was skeletally thin, his eyes rheumy with age but still saw far more than any other could.  A bald pate, crowned with long gray hair that blended into an even longer beard, shown with a mixture of sweat and dust from his labors.
   
“You must consider the strength of one able to commit such horrors and decide how best to handle the situation.  If he grows as powerful as Priest there may be no stopping him.”
   
“You have envisioned this?”
   
“I have.  I have seen this and what will become of the city.  This one brings war with him and death for practitioner, bloodletter and human alike.”
   
“What should I do?”
   
Darius hobbled over to stand before the enforcer.  Gray knelt before him, still able to dwarf the old man even on his knees.  Darius laid a dust coated hand on the other’s shoulder.  “You will do what you have always done my friend.”
   
“Will I prevail?”
   
“Many will die before this one is stopped.”  He took a deep breath.  “I see no future for Nathanial Gray.”  The old man’s twisted fingers squeezed Gray’s shoulder with a trembling strength that belied a strange harmony of frailty and power.
   
Darius turned and sought his hammer and chisel again.
   
The tunnel was darker when Gray left.  




Listening to: Amanda Palmer- Polly  I love Amanda Palmer as I did the Dresden Dolls. This Nirvana cover is unique and haunting.  The video tells a very interesting and disturbing story and it worth the watch.

  

Self Doubt - Muse Repellant

Self Doubt - Muse Repellant

I’m so busy and always tired.  I know it’s mostly stress.  I work a fulltime job, like so many of us.  I raise three kids, mostly by myself.  I’m working on multiple projects and advance marketing and I really only get an hour, maybe two, a day to myself.  When I sit down and put on the headphones, sometimes there’s just no gas left in the tank or I have just enough fumes to stumble to the bed and start it all over again.

It’s these times, when I’m just too tired to write, the muse grows silent.  I feel her sadness from afar but it’s just not enough to guilt me into fulfilling our contract.  And when I’m alone, doubt creeps in.  How can I call myself a writer when I can’t even make myself sit down to pound out a 1000 words?  I’m no artist.  I have no ambition.  Winners never quit and it feels like quitting when I crawl off to sleep without having written a word.

I’ve been in a real funk lately.  I mocked the muse by attempted to describe her here in these pages.  Now my goddess is making me pay, I think. 

We creatives are tested over and over.  If I just wrote for my own pleasure there would be no pressure, but I don’t.  I want to do something with it.  I want to achieve something.  And so I created this blog, and my public persona, in order to announce to the universe that I will fucking do something with this cursed talent and I will find some measure of success, if only to rub the noses of everyone who said I couldn’t do it in the stank of accomplishment.  These public declarations are a way to keep me accountable to my destiny.

So how do you deal with self doubt?  Well there’s something I’ve found that works for me but it’s a gamble.  I read my older stuff.  Something I wrote and maybe didn’t finish usually.  I always seem to find something that actually surprises me.  I typically walk away feeling good about my writing. 

I hear a lyrical, tittering laugh.  She stands back watching me fondly.  She’s proud of me in those moments and, after I’ve closed the old file, I turn to see her smiling.  She beams, then waggles a finger at me.  The gesture says, “Silly child.  You shouldn’t have doubted either of us.” 

My muse embraces me then, her lips on mine, my heart falling into a symbiotic rhythm with hers.  All my doubt seems silly now.  This is what I’m meant for.  This is where I belong.

Listening to: The Dresden Dolls – Good Day Live

Chosen by the Muse

Her voice a song.  Her smile the rays of the rising sun.  Chosen her charge from my early days, she has shaped and guided my life.  Chosen.  Exalted by her grace.  Gifted.  Granted command over a thousand worlds and a trillion lives.  I am her servant and her master.

My dad was an artist.  I say was because he shunned the muse, or she he, long ago.  My earliest memories of are of watching my dad paint.  I never had a reason to doubt that the hand of man could create wondrous things.  I grew up in the presence of artistic genius and, even though my dad left all that behind to lament the limits of his reach in this world, I was introduced to my Muse before I could even walk.

How strange is our relationship.  She was mother and teacher.  Friend and lover as I grew older.  Ally, adversary, enemy.  Wanton, wicked, willing, witch.  Stubborn, still, stagnant, stygian.  Fertile, fantastic, fabulous, fruitful.  Unnecessary and vital at once.

How are we artists different from others?  You feel it, don’t you?  You are set apart from so many others by your talents.  You sometimes stand above them because of your ambition.  Some will love you for this.  Others will hate you.  So many want to see you fail.  There are those who have flirted with the muse though.  There are those who haven’t the talent to create but they are inspired by the worlds and works of the creative.

Life is hard, harsh and cruel.  We have so many responsibilities and obligations and so rarely is life what we hoped it would be.  Humans need diversion.  We need the things that speak to the soul, to uplift, to allow us to relate to one another.  Music, literature, art--those things that make use passionate.  Sports, holidays, festivals.  The muse is at the heart of all these things. 

And we?  The creatives?  We are chosen to continually create those things that help people to keep on living.  Is it that dramatic?  Yes, I think so.  People talk about politics and religion with stress and fear.  They talk about a new movie with smiles and a light heart.  Songs bring people together without a word spoken just to move their bodies in celebration of that shared experience that touches and connects their souls.  They talk about the book that changed their life forever and when they find someone else that fell in love with that character, as they did, they are thrilled on a level that few things could touch.

We are chosen by the muse, gifted with talent and the ability to acquire skills that will change the lives of others.  Be proud of what you are and wear that like a badge of honor.  And never forget, my friend, my brother or sister of the pen, that with your talent comes a responsibility to use it.  It might take you years to complete that novel.  It may seem like an uphill struggle but some day, your words will impact someone in a way that you’ve yet to imagine.  And perhaps they will hear the voice of the Muse through your work and awaken to this amazing world in which we chosen walk and breathe.

Listening to: Eva Cassidy- Time After Time

Language of the Muse

Language of the Muse

My muse, a creature of lilting tongue and sinuous body, speaks to me in many ways.  The chief among them is through music.  Through song I send her my request which is based on emotion and tone, via the music I select. 

Currently my go to source for music is Spotify Internet Radio  where I can listen to just about any band I can think of, all or most of their albums and I don’t have to rely on it to pic “similar song and artists” like Pandora.   If I want to listen to Billy freakin Idol and nothing else for days and weeks at a time, I can do that. Though I only like 3 songs of his.  The only downside to Spotify is having to listen to 1 commercial every 20 minutes or so.  Not bad considering, and no they aren’t paying me for this.  On mobile you do have to pay for the playlists, and that’s really the only reason to have it.

Music does several things for me.  First and foremost, it allows me to created a wall between me and the world around me.  I have 3 kids between 4 and 14.  When you walk into my house it’s sorta like when Eddie Valiant goes back into Toon Town in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. 

The only way I can block that madness out is to put in my headphones and summon the muse.  I do this when I’m alone as well and it has to be head phones.  It’s like I’m pouring the music directly into my brain.  It washes over my soul as tribute to my pagan goddess; my Muse.  A door opens and she dances through it, undulating and slithering, part veiled dancer for the Sultan and part serpent.  She entrances me.  He beguiles me.  She beckons me into her arms.  We move with the spirit of the music and, through the melody, tone, lyrics and beat, I am transported.

I must cycle my music ever couple months though.  She constantly requires a new influx of great tunage.  I have to discover new bands or rediscover bands I had left behind long ago.

My muse is my own.  For others the muse may be contacted in other ways.  Sometimes I can be inspired by reading a really great novel or watching a surprisingly good movie (most movies and television shows are utter failures with me though some make the grade).  Just talking to other writers about their process, their stories, their ambitions, I often hear her jealous sigh and she begins to beckon me away with her, into the chilly night where I belong to her alone. 

The language of the muse is different for all of us but it is important for any creative, writer or other, to learn how to communicate with their muse.  Because the muse is fickle.  She comes and goes at will and cares not for our suffering.  Knowing how to contact her is one of the best cures for writer’s block that I know.  We’ve all been there.  We know we need to write but the ideas aren’t coming, we get stuck on some ridiculous part of the story that we know we should be able to get past or, worst of all for me, we simply lose the motivation and forward momentum. 

This is why I keep playlists by mood.  Most of the time, when I write its upbeat, rock or metal with some pop thrown in here and there.  Sometimes I need something emotionally colored for sad and emotionally charged parts.  Other times I need something even faster for fight and battle scenes.  And there are times that I need to pull out the song or album I was listening to when I first had the idea for the story. 

So here’s how I use music.

I need to be comfortable, usually in my recliner, my desk chair or sitting on my bed, almost always with my laptop in front of me.  Sometimes I will lay down if I’m really digging for something or really needing to open my mind wider. 

Next, I tilt my head back and close my eyes.  For some reason my face must be upturned.  I hate to say this but it’s almost like I’m praying but that’s really not what I’m doing.  I like to have my face toward the sky because in all my best childhood fantasies I was able to fly and that’s part of what I do. 

With my eyes closed I then allow the music to drift into me, to fill me and to stir emotions.  I’m going first for emotions.  The emotions will then work with the music to conjure images.  Maybe they have nothing to do with the story I’m working on, or I may be doing this because I have no story at all.  The purpose is to set my mind free. 

The first time I remember doing this was when I was listening to so a song by Kansas called

Magnum Opus (below).  There is a bit of a carnival sound going on in the middle of this thing but for the first half, I was transported to a battle field on a desolate alien world.  Two sides squaring off for battle as wind blew dust across a bone strewn land where countless thousands had lost their lives with violent ends.  I could see the villain and his army topping a mound of ashen earth, his red eyes glowing in the clouds of powdered bone kicked up by his armored footfalls.  I saw through his eyes as the hero and his men became visible on the field of ruin as the dust momentarily cleared.  I saw from above as they charged, their battle cries not unlike those of their slaughtered predecessors or the wraiths that even then stalked the battle ground ready to prey upon the newly dislodged souls of the fallen.

How do you contact your muse?  How do you summon the power to create and destroy worlds?  Every artist must learn this and I don’t think any of us will have created anything of worth if we hadn’t stumbled upon this at one time.  When you’re stuck or need motivation, retrace those steps.  What brought you to the key board the first time?  Maybe it was all pen and paper.  Go back to that, even if its just to free write and get the wheels turning.

Listening to lots of things. Right now: Filter: Hey Man Nice Shot  The urban legend is that this song was written about Kurt Cobain committing suicide.  It’s really about Budd Dwyer who committed suicide during a live press conference in 1987.  Though the connection to Cobain probably added to the popularity of the song (Filter never did anything else worth spitting on), the song is a true masterpiece of dark industrial rock that still maintains its musical relevance 13 years later.  The baseline alone is enough to get my Muse humping my leg like a puppy on Viagra.

Bucking the Muse: Introduction

Bucking the Muse: Introduction

I can’t speak for other creatives but I can speak to the problems that face me as a storyteller and artist.  I am a slave to inspiration, to the muses that pull the strings of my creative outlets.  I think that’s how it is for so many of us.  Be your artistry writing, poetry, music, dance or fine art, the muse is the embodiment of that which inspires creation and for so many of us, she walks away when we need her the most.

Greek and Roman tradition would have us see the muse as the source of all creation and knowledge.  The origin and evolution of the muses is pretty interesting stuff if you ever research it.  Here, I’ll refer to “The Muse” as a singular entity that embodies inspiration and the spark of genius that is the writer’s source of power. 

Communing with the daughters of Zeus

There are many ways that the Muse affects us.  She gifts us with creative energy, which is that feeling you get when you MUST create something.  Without a germ or seed of something to plant in this perfect time, for me this creative energy can turn into something painfully disruptive and manic, like an addiction that cannot be salved, an itch in the bone where I cannot scratch.  

Sometimes she gives us the very creative seed that we need.  For me it is something that springs from another idea that catches in my spongy gray matter like a burr in a wool sweater.  It digs in its barbs and refuses to budge and so I must examine it more closely.  And as I look at it, it germinates and produces a shoot or various shoots.  If the Creative Energy is there, one or two shoots take root and then blossom into my brain, instead of without.  

If my mind is clear and my thoughts are flowing the Muse allows me to access a cocktail of knowledge and talent with which to cultivate these blossoms which are the beginning of a story.  The Muse allows me to travel inside my head where I find that the strongest of the blossoms has consumed its weaker brothers and sisters to become a story. Here it is now developing into a new Garden of Eden in which a world is born and its inhabitants are taking their first shaky steps.

The Muse takes me into this world where we fly high above it seeing the lands being born through the cataclysms where thoughts and feeling clash.  She shows me eons in minutes and epochs in seconds.  And so we fly lower to see the flora and fauna.  We find creatures living here and we already understand how their existence will affect the future as time has no meaning, we only order it to better understand and alter it where needed.

We land in a small tribal community to observe primitive people and walk among them as unseen gods.  We affect their lives with the blink of an eye.  By sharing of the air that we breathe we set them above all other inhabitants of this world.  And we step back to see this primitive camp turn into a settlement, a town, a city, a sprawling metropolis.  We look at the things the decedents of those primitive men and women have made as we directed and are thrilled to see that they have somehow even managed to surpass our original ideas.

And then, she takes me to a door, like so many others but I feel that behind this door something important exists and so I knock, hesitantly at first and then throw it open with reckless abandon as my Muse fills me with giddy, childlike excitement and there I find that person.  The one.  The hero or heroin and I fall instantly in love. 

Now the story begins…

This is my Muse and I love her for all that she does for me.  And then she’s gone.  My goddess disappears.  She’s given me all this great responsibility for a world that I created with my own hands and these people that I know and love and then she forsakes me.  I know the story of this world and the great destiny of my hero and suddenly it feels like too much.  Without her I feel the back bending weight of it all which causes my knees to ache and my weariness to overwhelm.

But I’m and artist and I soldier on.  I try despite my weariness.  I find another source of strength and I find a way to keep going without her.  I don’t need her.  She’s abandoned me and I can create my own inspiration!

And then she comes back.  Despite my blustering, in spite of my anger and hurt, I’m so happy to see her, to hold her in my arms and to feel that creative energy again.  And as we embrace, she whispers into my ear, her sultry lips caressing that sensitive flesh.  She says, “I did not come back for this world in which you slave.  I bring you a new gift.  Come with me.”

And this is the idea behind Bucking the Muse.  She is willful and untamable.  She is a force of nature but she can also be a siren, a sultry vixen that tempts and taunts.  We creatives must learn to make her work for us and how to buck her off when she would climb on our backs like a demonic imp pulling us away from our labors of love.

More to come on Bucking the Muse.

Listening to Muse: Uprising  Anyone ever notice that the synthesizer bit in the beginning of this is the Dr. Who theme?