Something new

Excitement, fun and adventure. Currently, I began my new WIP. I am only 1,000 words into it and the feeling is superb.
I decided to make myself more accountable. Writing at least 200 words a day. It's hard in the summer when the kids are home and life flies by like bats out of hell, but in the last few days I have written enough to get to 1000 words.
I am hoping in a few weeks I will have enough on paper that I will go back to my last story and start layering. I need new eyes on that one.
A fellow writer wrote how writing is her choice of drugs. I completely understand. If I don't write I feel bogged down, but when I do write it feels like I can fly.

Writing is like a big whole in the ceiling.

Recently, we have had plumbing problems. Ok, I can still see the 8 foot x 4 foot hole in the TV room's ceiling. The plumber put a patch on the leaking pipe last week and we have been waiting for him since to replace the pipe. He finally called, he is to come tonight!
For the what feels like a eon, I have been writing this story that has me flip flopping around the cavernous whole of my imagination. I am finally at the end of it and I feel like I am waiting for the emperor of my imagination to come in to save the day. The last bit of the story is the hardest, I feel. How to wrap it up so everyone in happy. I know I have to simply get it down on paper, I can go back and make the scenes right later with a plot line.
Being, a sit of her pants writer, answering the questions what, when, why, how and where as I go, sometimes makes me nervous. It is part the excitement and part the insanity that drives me to write. So maybe, just maybe after the plumber comes life will get someone back to normal, then I can have an audience with the emperor. Let my imagination run wild and finish the story.

When Do you Write?

Last week, at the Creative Writing Workshop through Barnes and Nobles in Greece, one question that popped up through out the night was 'when do you write?'. The group is from all genres and writing levels. One was getting back into writing after a twenty year break while others were just finding their groove.
Some say in the morning after cleaning, going to Barnes and Nobles three times a week, or in the car while driving... it comes down to when we all have time throughout our busy day. Personally, I used to write before bed, but life has put a stop to that, now I am trying a new routine.
Stephen King wrote contracted work in the morning and for fun in the afternoon. It was the fun piece that he first sold well. So if you can commit yourself to writing all day long, do it. Find your groove.
If you have to buy a package of white paper napkins for paper, hide yourself in a single lite room with a table and typewriter, or upside down on a lounge chair by the pool just do it. The sky's the limit as long as we write. Because you never know what you have until you read it on paper, or a computer screen.

Learning

Several years ago, I wrote two manuscripts that have everything plus the kitchen sink shoved into it's pretty pages. Last year I decided to get up from my chair and hit some writer's group to see if I have something worth continuing.
Well, well, well... I have found a new world of trade. And learnt so much that my head is now spinning. Now I know I am not really a plotter, more a pantser. And to top it off, I have to write to get to the answer why? The characters demand surprise.
In the last year, I have started four stories and all are in varies stages of completion. The problem is in my head I have already figured out why it has happen and the stories hold no appeal to me now. This is the frustrating part of writing. When you learn just enough to question your every word, and lose what you were wanting to write.
Now, I am working on a balance. My new approach is to let it rip and then pick up the pieces when it's over. Maybe then I could complete something and have my ahhhh moment.

You've got to be kidding me?

We've all said the phrase at least once in our life, and never really thought of it, the inflection behind it or the expression we use. You've got to be kidding me, right.
The other day, I was driving my five year old to soccer practice in the pouring rain. Now a little back story, he didn't want to go to practice because, of course he was so tired and by the time we were half way there he noticed the rain.
Out of the blue he says over the rain, over the radio... "You've got to be kidding me, they're going to make us play in this." He throw he hands over his shaking head, his lips were pressed together in frustration and he watched me for some hope that it wasn't true.

Other than the smile that spread on my face as he waited for my response it took me a few minutes to come up with the right thing to say. Perhaps it was the first time the phrase really hit me, but it made me think of all the times I've said it. To the computer when I was frustrated on a piece of work, to the refrigerator when I forgot something or to the dog when she is... well being a dog in the wrong moment.

All this comes down to being expressive starts young, imitating life around them, and when we grow older we still do it without noticing. His reaction got me thinking of the little things in my writing that I have left out, especially in my characters. It seems I have forgotten that they too mimic life, and need to be expressive. I think it's the little things that make a story great. It's those little things that have me throwing my hands in the air saying, "You're got to be kidding me, why didn't I see it before."

Writing as always gone hand to hand with art for me. Years ago as I was drawing, my medium when I was young was charcoal, years and years of working with black fingers. But when I wanted a break I would write a story. I still remember the basis of that first story when I was in middle school, it was a Phoenix rising story surrounding these three friends. Good vs Evil and all. In High School it was all about how to embarrass my teachers. Now I find myself writing romance and my medium is photography. At times I blend the two, I find inspiration from the photos I take. It still astonishes me how trends in our life start from a young age and define who who and what we become.

Sometimes

Photography has always been a joy for me, but lately I have fallen into the just taking pictures of the kids and occasions. Funny, how this has been how writing has been for me as well. I had fallen into just looking over my own work without much inspiration. The feeling is similar to the lost and not yet found emotion. But I think I am on the track now, for the past week I have given into a thought that has excited me. I'm not ready to tell the world about it, but I am encouraged by the new world opening in my head. And the scenes of places in which I dream of capturing on film. Perhaps this is due to the feelings of spring or just enough sleep or the prospect of needing an outlet with the kids are home from school all summer long. What ever the case may be, I am trilled.