I find the biggest struggle with creating a lot is the burden of research and the rabbit hole it leads you down. You start off looking for whether or not a certain prescription would make someone sleepy, and by the end you are studying into what Ulcerative colitis is and suspected causes.
Many writers joke about the rabbit hole of research, but it is a real thing. It is important though. Checking into whether or not a car has a feature, or a medication can have certain side effects is opening up a world of possibilities. Your may find that one of your characters suddenly has a disease or dependency that makes sense. You might discover a creature that fits with another novel or short story idea you had.
I've also been learning to make different doughs from scratch so I can try to make my money go farther. Again it's a matter of research and finding more recipes to move outside of your comfort zone.
So while I may not have created anything yesterday, that time was invested in future creations. Finding recipes and techniques for doing pot stickers, pretzel buns, and other treats I want to make myself. When you can reduce a loaf of bread from 2 dollars to about 75 cents it is a good motivator.
Yesterday I didn't create, but I fueled the tank for more creation in the future.
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Creating for Creation Sakes
Yesterday was the beginning of the new year. Like most people who haven't given up hope that they can create meaningful change in their life, I've decided that I wanted to make a resolution. The problem I find with resolutions is that the people I talk to don't allow themselves any leeway in what they are trying to do. Most of them aren't even willing to consider the a resolution and have written the chance of change off as an instant failure.
(You're not a failure, I believe in most of you)
"I will go on a diet, and work out every day, and clean my house," they say. Then by day five they're ready to kill someone because they gave themselves no wiggle room. They try to fill all of the time they typically use for decompressing into these new goals. The new year along with other major milestones (birthdays, engagements, etc) aren't the time to make all sorts of life changing goals. Start small. Baby steps.
So what kind of resolution did I make? I resolve to TRY to create something everyday. There is room to miss a day or three. Sickness happens. Life happens. Sometimes there is no way you can do something meaningful due to obligations. I'm allowing myself little failures and a chance to get back on the horse. No reason to lose everything because of one or two missed days.
Today is January 2nd and my goal for today is to revive my blog. I thought about creating an entirely new blog. I don't know whether this will be more author stuff. I don't know if this will be about me getting on a soapbox and decrying the cost of a loaf of bread or delicious cheese.
What is the overall goal then? My goal is to flex my creative muscles. My goal is to get outside of my comfort zone and try new things. A few weeks ago I started making my own bread. I've branched into homemade pizza dough now as well. There will probably be pictures on here in the near future of my bread.
(This is a warning so you can cover your keyboards with a napkin due to all the drool. I imagine there will be rivers.)
I may throw down some short stories. I see that there are still stories up here if you haven't read them in the past. I'm going to consider writing the story of Nurse Summers. I spent a lot of time thinking about the concept of those vampires and would love to see more. Perhaps I should read over it to review my own memory.
I tried at one point to keep my blog to specifically my writing related stuff. I learned the hard way you can't pigeon hole creativity. I've burned out on the blog. I've burned out on writing in the past. I've let life get away from me. Yet when I create stuff I'm happy. This left me feeling like a failure because I didn't succeed in something as simple as letting people glimpse into my life.
That's okay. My goal is to try, and some of my experiments will be put on here for successes or failure. After all, if worse comes to worse the blog will go away again. For now though I'll see about breathing some life into it.
*ignores the sudden urge to create a Frankenstein type set for no reason*
Perhaps someone will even read my words.
(You're not a failure, I believe in most of you)
"I will go on a diet, and work out every day, and clean my house," they say. Then by day five they're ready to kill someone because they gave themselves no wiggle room. They try to fill all of the time they typically use for decompressing into these new goals. The new year along with other major milestones (birthdays, engagements, etc) aren't the time to make all sorts of life changing goals. Start small. Baby steps.
So what kind of resolution did I make? I resolve to TRY to create something everyday. There is room to miss a day or three. Sickness happens. Life happens. Sometimes there is no way you can do something meaningful due to obligations. I'm allowing myself little failures and a chance to get back on the horse. No reason to lose everything because of one or two missed days.
Today is January 2nd and my goal for today is to revive my blog. I thought about creating an entirely new blog. I don't know whether this will be more author stuff. I don't know if this will be about me getting on a soapbox and decrying the cost of a loaf of bread or delicious cheese.
What is the overall goal then? My goal is to flex my creative muscles. My goal is to get outside of my comfort zone and try new things. A few weeks ago I started making my own bread. I've branched into homemade pizza dough now as well. There will probably be pictures on here in the near future of my bread.
(This is a warning so you can cover your keyboards with a napkin due to all the drool. I imagine there will be rivers.)
I may throw down some short stories. I see that there are still stories up here if you haven't read them in the past. I'm going to consider writing the story of Nurse Summers. I spent a lot of time thinking about the concept of those vampires and would love to see more. Perhaps I should read over it to review my own memory.
I tried at one point to keep my blog to specifically my writing related stuff. I learned the hard way you can't pigeon hole creativity. I've burned out on the blog. I've burned out on writing in the past. I've let life get away from me. Yet when I create stuff I'm happy. This left me feeling like a failure because I didn't succeed in something as simple as letting people glimpse into my life.
That's okay. My goal is to try, and some of my experiments will be put on here for successes or failure. After all, if worse comes to worse the blog will go away again. For now though I'll see about breathing some life into it.
*ignores the sudden urge to create a Frankenstein type set for no reason*
Perhaps someone will even read my words.
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Antibiotics and Camp
I'm doing an update to say a few different things. The first is that nothing kills my will to live more than a regimen of antibiotics. They kill live, oh how they kill life. Every so often I smell something completely rancid that no one else can smell. My appetite is down to nothing, and that is saying a lot. When I don't find food, any food, appealing then there is certainly something wrong with my life.
It isn't so bad as it sounds, I'm in the process of getting better. This time though I'm ten days into a thirty day treatment cycle. From that point we hope everything is going well, otherwise... Well, let's not get to otherwise.
So what have I done to stem the tide of non-caring? I've decided to jump into CampNanowrimo for July. The goal is simple, like the goal I discussed in my last update. Alright, it is the goal from my last update. 600 words a day for one month. 18,600 words to freedom and productivity. It doesn't seem like much, but it's a start.
Also, if any of you are doing Camp I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to comment, or to blow my goal out of the water. The goal isn't to compete against others, it's to compete against your life.
It isn't so bad as it sounds, I'm in the process of getting better. This time though I'm ten days into a thirty day treatment cycle. From that point we hope everything is going well, otherwise... Well, let's not get to otherwise.
So what have I done to stem the tide of non-caring? I've decided to jump into CampNanowrimo for July. The goal is simple, like the goal I discussed in my last update. Alright, it is the goal from my last update. 600 words a day for one month. 18,600 words to freedom and productivity. It doesn't seem like much, but it's a start.
Also, if any of you are doing Camp I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to comment, or to blow my goal out of the water. The goal isn't to compete against others, it's to compete against your life.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
600 Words
I set a goal last week to begin writing 600 words a night. This was to break the dry spell of not writing for a few weeks. It doesn't seem like that many words at all. I imagine the reaction to that goal going something like this.
"Six hundred? Why not a thousand? Two thousand? Surely if you're planning on writing novels, short stories, and keeping people entertained you can put together more words than that?"
When I think like that I can understand why authors like George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss get annoyed at their fans at times. I'm not saying that I am in any way comparable to those men, but I happen to enjoy their works. I love Kvothe, and I think the television series is going to ruin the books for George R. R. Martin. What I'm saying is that writing is more difficult than most people give them credit for.
Putting together one thousand words and making sure they work takes time. Making sure your plots that you establish early in the book deliver on the foreshadowing is a pain. If that wasn't bad enough there are days where something is wrong in the story, but when you're up to your elbows in plots it's hard to see what is wrong. If you've never tried to write long stories, then here is your challenge.
I challenge the casual readers, the people who are out there looking for something more exciting to do than waiting on their favorite authors next book to drop, to write a 600 word story. It doesn't seem so bad does it? It's not like I'm asking you to write an eighty thousand word book like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone. In fact there are children's books which have less than one hundred words. An example is I'll teach my Dog a lot of words by Micheal K. Firth. The book is one hundred words, and it tells a story.
The reason I'm recommending this is because I gained a new appreciation for the books that I read once I started writing. Seeing the way they used their words, weaving plot, killing characters, twisting and turning details to keep me guessing, became more satisfying. I looked at the works of other authors as study guides to improve my own writing. Questions came to my mind: How does R.A. Salvatore plot a fight scene? How does Stephen King plan one of his "Powder Keg" books like Needful Things or Under the Dome? How much research did Orson Scott Card do before he wrote Ender's Game or did he research? Does Brandon Sanderson plot a single book or an entire series at one time?
If you don't want to try the challenge, that's okay. I'm going to keep chipping away at the projects that I have. I am working on two short stories for different anthologies that I'm hoping to get a spot in. I have a novel I'm rewriting because after two years I've finally realized what is causing the problems in the story. Then I have the serial update, each of which take 4-5 days at 600 words a day.
Also, if you're counting words this post is 550 words. Seems like I need a few more for tonight.
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Learning about other Authors
I love to learn about other authors. I love to listen to them explain where their ideas come from, their methods, and how they bring their books to light. There is a certain amount of curiosity that comes from trying to figure out where the best selling authors get their ideas, how they plan things, as well as a time table they work on. I'd like to share a few examples.
This is an interview on CBS where they discuss where Stephen King got the idea for some of his novels. They mention Cujo, and his new trilogy: Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of the Watch. I really recommend the watch because if you enjoy his work it is fun to see his ideas.
http://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs_this_morning/video/rn6dnT4WIYQ7pm411nZ02EVxbyOczGTT/stephen-king-on-inspiration-behind-end-of-watch-2016-politics/
There are other books where you can learn from other authors about their methods. In "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" Orson Scott Card discusses that his ideas come from maps which he likes to doodle. Others, like the battle room from Ender's Game, came from living during the Vietnam war and wondering how battles in the future might be trained for and fought. (I paraphrased this one and know it's only part of the idea. If you want to know more read the book, it's only about 100 pages.)
Both of these are great books and show how versatile the mind of an author is. Ideas are everywhere, the idea for my character Patch from my novella, A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing, came from my reflections on what happened to Frankenstein's monster. There was also a twist of Sci-fi in my thoughts as I tried to figure out what might happen to someone who lives past the normal old age, someone who begins to see normal peoples lives passing like the seasons while he continues. There is more to that, and I have more stories involving him in the future for you.
For now know that I'm still working as well as I can. I'm dealing with some health stuff that makes it hard to sit in front of a computer all day, (which is what I do at work anyway), so coming home I need to move a bit more or deal with discomfort. Until then if you want more books that shed light on the workings of authors I'll recommend the following, they all have some great insight and thought on writing, as well as showing the differences that exist between three bestselling authors.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card
Million Dollar Outlines by David Farland.
This is an interview on CBS where they discuss where Stephen King got the idea for some of his novels. They mention Cujo, and his new trilogy: Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of the Watch. I really recommend the watch because if you enjoy his work it is fun to see his ideas.
http://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs_this_morning/video/rn6dnT4WIYQ7pm411nZ02EVxbyOczGTT/stephen-king-on-inspiration-behind-end-of-watch-2016-politics/
There are other books where you can learn from other authors about their methods. In "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" Orson Scott Card discusses that his ideas come from maps which he likes to doodle. Others, like the battle room from Ender's Game, came from living during the Vietnam war and wondering how battles in the future might be trained for and fought. (I paraphrased this one and know it's only part of the idea. If you want to know more read the book, it's only about 100 pages.)
Both of these are great books and show how versatile the mind of an author is. Ideas are everywhere, the idea for my character Patch from my novella, A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing, came from my reflections on what happened to Frankenstein's monster. There was also a twist of Sci-fi in my thoughts as I tried to figure out what might happen to someone who lives past the normal old age, someone who begins to see normal peoples lives passing like the seasons while he continues. There is more to that, and I have more stories involving him in the future for you.
For now know that I'm still working as well as I can. I'm dealing with some health stuff that makes it hard to sit in front of a computer all day, (which is what I do at work anyway), so coming home I need to move a bit more or deal with discomfort. Until then if you want more books that shed light on the workings of authors I'll recommend the following, they all have some great insight and thought on writing, as well as showing the differences that exist between three bestselling authors.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card
Million Dollar Outlines by David Farland.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Out of Gas
I'm sorry for the lack of updates in the last month. Unfortunately I've had some health problems come up and it has siphoned the last of the gas from my tank. I've tried to sit and write, but for the last few weeks nothing is coming.
I've taken time to do some reading, some plotting, and realized that I may have to rewrite a 100k word novel first draft from scratch. The thought of doing this brings dread to my heart and makes me want to cry just a little bit. It isn't what I want to do, but life is all about doing things which you don't want to do. The best example of this is dishes, no one likes to wash dishes but every loves to use them.
Understand the next chapter on the serial is coming. Check out Goodreads if you want some reviews or book recommendations for what I've read lately. A friend of mine is also offering his debut novel free for this week on Kindle so check it out. I'll post a link below. While I may not have anything new for you I'll still try to make sure you have plenty of things to read if I'm not providing it.
https://www.amazon.com/Cry-Down-Dark-T-Tranchell/dp/1940247241/
I've taken time to do some reading, some plotting, and realized that I may have to rewrite a 100k word novel first draft from scratch. The thought of doing this brings dread to my heart and makes me want to cry just a little bit. It isn't what I want to do, but life is all about doing things which you don't want to do. The best example of this is dishes, no one likes to wash dishes but every loves to use them.
Understand the next chapter on the serial is coming. Check out Goodreads if you want some reviews or book recommendations for what I've read lately. A friend of mine is also offering his debut novel free for this week on Kindle so check it out. I'll post a link below. While I may not have anything new for you I'll still try to make sure you have plenty of things to read if I'm not providing it.
https://www.amazon.com/Cry-Down-Dark-T-Tranchell/dp/1940247241/
Friday, May 6, 2016
Milestones!
This week marks a Milestone. As of this morning I've discovered we're over the 2k Views mark. That may not seem like a lot to you, but it is a ton for me. Because of this I've decided to make the books I have on Amazon free for this weekend (May 7th and 8th).
You can get a copy of my first serial, which is now up on Amazon in e-book format, or the short story collection I did with some friends. Follow the links below or search the titles on your Kindle/e-book reader.
A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing
https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Patchwork-Clothing-History-Book-ebook/dp/B01CHNZ6TM
Escaping Sanity
https://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Sanity-Travis-Coleman-ebook/dp/B00SJF5YHW/
You can get a copy of my first serial, which is now up on Amazon in e-book format, or the short story collection I did with some friends. Follow the links below or search the titles on your Kindle/e-book reader.
A Wolf in Patchwork Clothing
https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Patchwork-Clothing-History-Book-ebook/dp/B01CHNZ6TM
Escaping Sanity
https://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Sanity-Travis-Coleman-ebook/dp/B00SJF5YHW/
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