Saturday, July 6, 2013

Chill Day

Yesterday was an amazing day. Why? Well for one, there wasn't anything to do but relax and have fun. I completely cleared my schedule. No writing, no e-mails, no social media, no anything. This isn't to say that I don't enjoy those particular things but the fact is sometimes you need to distance yourself from those things and just enjoy life. I'm sure everyone knows how those things can sometimes be stressful ;)

The boyfriend, two sisters, and our friend Daniel went to Mitsuwa Marketplace. For those who don't know, it's this lovely Japanese supermarket with tons of imported goods. Not to mention the delicious food...who doesn't love Asian cuisine? Crazy people.

It was nice just spending the day with loved ones. There is nothing at all like the joy of being with those who make you happy. The feeling of being loved and wanted is one of the greatest feelings in the world.

Tomorrow (or rather, today) I have a huge workload ahead of me. I still have four or five short stories to write, as well as finish the sequel to The Descending Darkness and my novella.

Wish me luck!


P.S: I'll be posting some free short stories on either this blog, goodreads, or another website. I honestly haven't decided yet. So yeah, that's something to be happy about.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Pieces

Today was an interesting day.

Our house was the location for a little party that we threw together last minute. We had a few friends over and a lot of alcohol and pizza. We also played Apples to Apples which is a very fun game. If you haven't played it before, go out and get it! It's a lot of fun.

Anyway, at some point during the night I had a sort of personal reflection moment. In that moment I was thinking about your past and the affect that it can have on you. I realized that things that negative occurrences in your past don't necessarily define you, but they do contribute to who you are as a person now. What I mean by that, is that even if you were a bank robber or something...that doesn't mean you'll always be a bank robber. If bank robbing was in your past and you've learned something from it and made a positive change in your life, then a negative contributed to a positive.

Another thing I learned is that people from your past are probably in your past (and not your present) for a reason. Some people are meant to stay with us forever and others are just meant to teach us things along the way.

My main point is that all of these things are just pieces of a puzzle. And that puzzle is who you are.

After my party I finished my vampire themed short story. I'm going to submit it tomorrow after I have a chance to edit it and comb for errors. I hope it gets picked. If not, it will be a nice free read for my followers, won't it? :)

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Shut Up and Listen

For a couple of days I've been working on a short story that I'm going to submit as part of a vampire-themed anthology to Sekhmet Press. I found out about their call for submission recently and given the fact that their due-date is the fifth...needless to say, time is of the essence.

I had a story in mind that I've been wanting to write for awhile so I thought, why not? And I started to write it down. About six or seven hundred words in, the muse begins to act up. And when the muse acts up, frustration ensues. Now in my experience, there are about four things you can do when your muse is acting up.

(1) Pray
(2) Cry
(3) Consume chocolate
(4) take a break

So what did I do? All four. Sadly, this time none of them worked. I had to think long and hard about why my usual methods of soothing the muse weren't working and still, nothing came up. I took a piece of paper and began to write down what I wanted to write and see if I could brainstorm my way through it.

I remember thinking back to when I was working on The Descending Darkness that I didn't have this problem. The story came out exactly as I had originally envisioned it without any issues. Then I realized that I was wrong. There had been a few occasions in which I was stuck in a rut and I needed to go a different route in order to continue.

BAM! That's when it hit me.

My problem was that I wasn't listening to my muse. I've heard tons of writers talking about this and I always thought that I got what they meant. I didn't...but now I do. I actually listened to my muse and characters and figured out where the story was taking me. It wasn't where I had originally planned, but it was just as good-if not better.

So the point of this whole blog post is that sometimes as a writer you just need to shut up and listen to the voices inside your head. Not your own voice, but the voices of your characters. They know where they need to go and they won't steer you wrong.

So say it with me. When your muse is speaking:

SHUT UP AND LISTEN!