by Sarah | Aug 22, 2011 | Writing, writing tips
I’m always late to the party.
This time it was getting into a twitter writing community.
I’ve taken part in forums. In a couple of email groups.
They all worked in their own way for a time.
They’ve all faded or disappeared completely.
Then one night I was going through some links on friends sites to see where they led, and stumbled upon a link to #amwriting. Being a twitter enthusiast I was definitely curious.
Since then I’ve had more meaningful (and sometimes not so meaningful) real author/writing chats and interactions then it feels like I ever have.
It now has a permanent place on my tweetdeck.
When I write I have to turn it off or I’ll never actually work…but otherwise it’s there.
If you need to vent, get inspiration, find other writers (and their blogs)…join the twitter stream. It’s made me laugh and given me inspiration on a regular basis since I joined last week.
by Sarah | Aug 20, 2011 | Broken Windows, Writing
Today I was fortunate to have one of those moments.
Weeks ago I got an idea for a story. The story was persistent enough that I made a cover for it.
I had a main character. I knew her name. I knew her backstory.
I even had written the opening lines.
All I had was a vague sense of plot. A “well I think it has something to do with…”
I managed to write a page of it before I froze.
I didn’t have a story. I had two or three characters. It was in a genre I’ve never written before. Written in a form I’ve never used before. It was virgin territory for me.
The story persisted though.
Finally today while talking it out, out loud, with my writing buddy I had a mini breakthrough. A plot device, a key few moments to move the story along.
I love light bulb moments.
That’s when the story really starts to take shape. Even if no words are being written. My brain is moving. Rolling over ideas, showing me images of scenes.
That means soon I’ll be writing again full force.
While it means I’ll be leaving old friends behind (as that story is officially done…even though I’m still tinkering w/ edits & rereading just for fun)…it means I get to meet a few new ones.
And I’m starting to like them.
by Sarah | Aug 17, 2011 | Challenge, Writing
While cruising around the ‘net the other day I found a new challenge to take part in. Since I’m trying to stretch my writing muscles back into shape after an unscheduled break of 3 months (Turns out I was still writing in May 😉 )…I thought this would be fun.
Kathy (Plant This Garden) has started posting “Seed Words”. She posts 5-10 words that she’s found around her home town (usually have a theme) and you need to use all of them in some form. Anything from Flash Fiction, to poetry to whatever floats your happy little boat. Sooo…I’ve decided to start with her third Seed Words set of suggestions and go from there.
This piece is one that I may actually use for a novel I’m just getting ready to start. It’s rough, unedited and created just to fit the words for the week. I’m posting the seed words in italics 😀 Enjoy.
Seed Words 3
Ascent, Summit, Concessions, Lift, Brightness, Oxygen, Stowage, Gates, Terminal
I have the same dream every night.
The brightness blinds me until spots form before my eyes, the air gets thinner, robbing me of oxygen. Just when I think I’ll pass out, a jolt passes through me and I find myself on a sky lift. The ascent is steep, and the summit is far.
Snowflakes drift down, whispering soft confessions of the future I’m doomed to face. Of each death I’m forced to witness. Each snowflake takes an ungranted concession to become stowage on my coat until I’m weighted down with the knowledge they whisper.
At the end of this ride I will find her, if I can make it. I know there will be no pearly gates. No joyous choruses.
But I will see her.
Be able to ask why.
If I can reach the end.
The weight of the future, the weight of death held in each snowflake drags me down. Pulling through the bars.
My fingers are too cold. I can’t hold on.
I slip.
Terminal velocity.
Then I wake in a cold sweat.
I never get to see her.
by Sarah | Aug 14, 2011 | Changing Tracks, Writing
For six months I’ve managed to delay the inevitable.
This post is yet another excuse to delay. Seeing as I haven’t posted in the six months that I’ve been dawdling I figured it was a good first step.
My series is almost complete. I have to finish two chapters and an epilogue – no big deal. After all, I’ve written the ending already in my (exceptionally) rough draft. I know that maybe some day down the line I have more stories for these characters.
But it’s so hard to say goodbye.
To put them away and let the new characters that are making themselves known take the lead.
For two years Jane and Cole have been in my head. Their love and laughter. Their smartass comments, wit, inteligence, fortitude…the secondary characters that are sometimes even more fun in their best moments.
They’re a part of me, and saying goodbye isn’t easy. I stall and delay for as long as I can.
By the end of this week this storyline will be complete. While Changing Tracks has been done for a year and making the agent circuit (I am currently waiting on an agent that has my full…and aching more with each passing day)…but the subsequent two novels – Derailed and Dark Territory – demanded to be finished before I moved on. Yes I should have let it go and move on – but like I said, Jane and Cole have been in my head and they are very demanding characters. Either way, this week I’ll write the final words of Dark Territory. I’ll leave them unedited. I’ll move on to Broken Windows or Train to Nowhere and let new characters take the lead for a while.
The time for dawdling is past. I’ve lingered too long trying to keep them alive. With a heavy heart I’ll say goodbye.
At least until I get a chance to visit again in editing.
by Sarah | Mar 22, 2011 | All About Me, Crap, Writing
Feel no pain, but my life ain’t easy,
I know I’m my best friend.
~”Escape” by Metallica
I’ve never understood it.
Why I am like I am.
I know my parents didn’t understand, but they tried.
I remember visits to the psychologist at UB-Amherst.
I remember the embarrassment I felt about those visits.
I remember keeping my truth hidden.
The truth I feel inside.
It was blamed on teenage depression (though no meds were used – not that I’d have taken them). A reaction to the teasing and bullying I was subjected to.
It was an acceptable explanation. Reasonable. Everything made perfect sense to them.
It didn’t make sense to me. I’d felt it so long before the teasing started. The disconnect. The sense of being…different.
While I would play with the other kids, race around outside, laugh, swim in the lake, in pools, dance in a group or solo, lived life like any normal child…
I felt like an outsider. Looking in on these events.
There was only two places I felt complete.
The first was on the stage. Expressing myself in dance and movement. I knew there was an audience, but I couldn’t see them. It was me and the energy on that stage, wrapped in lights and confidence I felt nowhere else.
The other…oh, the other was such a cause for turmoil.
It was in my head.
In my room, buried in books. Buried in worlds that weren’t here. Weren’t pressing on me. Weren’t all around. They were safe, in my head. Oh, there were dangers, adventures, worlds unlike any other…but there I was in control. There I wasn’t the odd duck in a sea of normal people.
It wasn’t until high school that I truly found the release of creating my own escape instead of reading the escapes created by others.
When I am in these other worlds, creating them, reading about them, my brain stills.
In every day life the pressures, the chaos, the thoughts in my head swirl and turn until there is no escape. The smile I wear is genuine, I’m not completely lost to the chaos. When I am in life I am happy.
I can’t call it depression because that isn’t what I feel – it’s just a never ending chaos. It always has been. For as far back as I can remember it seemed as if my mind never stopped. When others could sit quiet and relaxed, my brain was still turning over possibilities of life, problems needing answered, questions needing asked. There is no true being still for me. My mind is not happy with ‘still’.
There are times when we are all sitting as a family, but my head is millions of miles away. I get called on it by my husband. Wondering where I am because I am not “here”. It can go on for days sometimes I get so lost. So far gone.
It frustrates my husband. Even when he knows I always “come back”.
I feel so bad for that.
That when I am here…writing…reading…focused and intent…I am lost.
Lost to him.
Lost to my kids.
Lost to this real world that is so chaotic.
Because here is where it is still.
The thoughts stop.
I am in control. Focused on making the lives created under my fingers into something worthwhile. Fleshing them into real people I could never be. Worlds I could never live in. Adventures I would never see otherwise. The chaos there is planned, expected, created by me.
Some days it is hard to pull away from the peace.
And that is wrong.
Real life should be more appealing.
But my ‘daydream’ moments pull far too often.
I’ve never been able to stop it – just ask my parents. I was often chastised for escaping to my room and my books. My Dad feared that it would lead me to a life of addiction like he lived through.
And it has.
Addiction to writing. To the internet.
To the “other”.
I’ve never understood why I am so different. Why it seems like the way my thoughts function is so different from everyone else. Why my social anxieties seem so extreme. Why they only go away at the theater (I’m the life of the party at auditions) or online. Why I turn into a blazing ass trying to be nice and “fit in” with the cool kids when I meet others in person.
I don’t know how to change it. To live in the real world. To form “real” friends that I communicate with face to face instead of keyboard to keyboard.
Effort has been made.
But it’s painful. Frightening. Anxiety inducing. Being face to face.
I don’t know how to find an acceptable balance.
But I know that I need to.
by Sarah | Mar 3, 2011 | All About Me, Crap, Cystic Fibrosis, Random, Special Needs, Writing
Dear Mother Nature:
I love you. With all my soul I do.
I beg of you. PLEASE stop with the wet, wet, wet springs (and it’s not even spring yet this year!!). Our poor crawlspace was so happy and dry until you get all deluge rain-storm happy the past few years.
I’ll gladly take more summers like last years incredibly hot one if it means we get a dry(ish) spring.
Thanks much.
XO
Me.
****
Dear Anthem,
You blow.
Denying Cystic Fibrosis meds is NOT COOL.
Eat shit.
Me.
*****
Dear Indiana,
I was so mean to you. I still am sometimes.
It’s not your fault, I suppose. You just happen to house a great deal of redneck twits. Though, per capita, not the greatest percentage of places I’ve lived.
Still, I apologize. You are a saving grace in this insurance Hell. Because of you, our Angel has what regular insurance seems to think she doesn’t need. So thank you and your CSHCS.
I love you a little more every day.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Me.
******
Dear Pandora,
I get it. Advertising is important.
That being said, I’m married. Showing me a BIG flash page of singles…not so much.
They weren’t even cute…
Except that bottom one…he’s pretty cute…one little problem…
Oh, Pandora. I KNOW him. He’s married. Cute. But very married. Where did this advertisment come from anyway?
Hugs…but you don’t get kisses,
Me.
****
Dear Top Chef,
LOVE the All Stars season.
Bring it back.
But this time make it fan favorites. And give me Kenny. I loved Kenny and he was gone FAR too fast.
XOXO,
Me.
*****
Dear Angel & Riley,
You two are driving your mama nuts.
Stop beating the living crap out of each other.
XO,
Your very tired mama.
***
Dear Characters,
I love you all.
To my two MC’s:
Keep running me ragged. But please leave room for the new ones. They aren’t as strong willed as you, they are far less developed. But I have to get to know them if I can ever tell their tale.
I promise, if you let me get to know them I’ll give you many long baths together while I’m busy writing the story of the new guys. Not like you need a tub. You’re happy with a crowd nearby…you and the thrill of getting caught.
Behave.
On second thought, don’t…you’re both far more fun misbehaving…
XOXOXOXOXO,
Me.
