Living the Fictional Dream

I go back and forth on how effective writing prompts really are. Most of the time, I’m not that into them. I have enough ideas floating around in my head — I tend to feel that I don’t need anyone else’s inspiration. However, sometimes they totally work out!

I’m sure I’ve discussed my writing group’s monthly prompts contest here before. Some of the stories I’ve had published this year were the result of prompts from the contest, so that in and of itself illustrates the value of using them.

I think, possibly, the best thing about the prompts contest is that it can get me writing when I might be stuck on something else (a or story-in-progress). And like anything of the sort (prompts, the group’s story every day contest, etc.), there can be good and bad results. Some of the prompts I attempt come out extremely crappy, and others are either good or at least good enough that they can be retooled into something I can submit.

The other good thing about prompts is that they challenge creativity and allow me to stretch myself. It’s harder to write about something that I didn’t choose myself. Prompts created by someone else make me work for the story, but in a good way. I think it’s helpful to get out of one’s comfort zone (genre of choice, POV of choice, etc.) and write something else on occasion.

And, sometimes, I use the prompts provided by my group’s monthly contest to expand one of my already-created fictional worlds. I’ve written many a prompt (and short story) for the group set in the fantasy world of my first novel, and each one helps me to know that world just a little better. Whenever I get back to revising that novel, it will be the richer for that extra work.

The danger of exercises like prompts, writing a story every day, and other such things is that they can take you away from the things that you really need to focus on. It can be so seductive to focus on something other than that novel or short story I’ve been struggling with.

I don’t know that I like prompts enough that I would seek them out on my own, but as long as Writer’s Ink has the monthly contest, I will occasionally delve into that madness.

Lots of writing exercises going on in my writing group write now, and I’ve promised myself that September is the month that I’m going to make the most of them. Jens is running our prompt contest this month, and I have my eyes on the $10 prize. His prompts were quite challenging, I must say, but I have several ideas already. And I already turned in one, so go me.

We’re also doing a world-building exercise. It’s really fun! Six of us claimed land on a map that Virginia made, and now we’re coming up with the common elements of the world at large and the unique elements of our countries. Alex actually posted about this last week and included a lot of cool world-building links.

World-building can be scary some times, and yet it is also fun. The first time I built a world, it took me years to get it all fleshed out. This time, I’m starting with the world first, so hopefully the stories I eventually write set there will be well grounded in their unique fantasy world. Maybe it’s because I have experience creating a world before, but this time it seems more fun and less stressful. Maybe because I know that I can do it if I take the time. It also helps to be doing it with a group of friends.

If only I were better at making up words/names for things. That has always been a struggle for me, because I always think the made up words sound so stupid when I make them up (but I don’t think that when other people do… must be that hyper inner critic of mine!).

When I was a copy editor (before my tech writing days), my team used to say that only a fool copy edited his/her own work. Our little copy editing joke based on that saying about how a lawyer defending himself has a fool for a client. I claim no knowledge of anything related to the law, but it boggles my mind how hard it can be to see the errors in something I’ve written myself — especially right after I’ve finished writing it!

I think that the writing portion of the brain is totally separate from the part of the brain that knows grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. The creative side of the brain likes to see the piece as you meant it to be, not how it actually is (hence missing words — the kind of thing that happens when your muse talks faster than you can type!). As a whole, creativity is a different mindset from the logic of copy editing.

Now, I think I’ve discovered a new part of the writer’s brain — let’s call it the poet’s corner!

I took a poetry workshop in graduate school. The professor had his own poetry published and, for a time, was the head of the creative writing portion of the department. Most of the students in that particular class were people seeking their masters or their PHD in poetry. I and two of my classmates were prose people who’d taken the poetry workshop for the experience. Next to all the others, we were rank amateurs.

As far as classroom critiques went, that poetry workshop was the hardest of my whole graduate school career. Graduate school crits are far and away more difficult than working with my writing group today. Partly because you’re students thrown together by chance instead of friends, and partly because, since the critiques were part of our grade, a lot of students hunted for things to dislike about your work (I guess they thought it would impress the professor) and never worried about telling you if they liked anything. They also weren’t sticklers for constructive criticism, and didn’t care if they crushed your muse. But those crits gave me a thick skin when it comes to criticism and rejections, and they made me really appreciate the supportive, yet constructively critical, writing group I have today.

One of the poems I wrote in that poetry workshop was about something I’d seen in real life. I’d been driving to campus one day, when I saw, on the side of the Interstate, the burned out husk of a car that had been in an accident. But what struck me was that, in the trunk of that car was a dozen red roses. The flowers had a shocking beauty when compared with the soot-streaked metal of the car, and it made me sad to think about the person who probably died in the crash and the person who loved them enough to bring the roses.

I took the poem to class, and no one liked it. No one. The comment I will always remember was from this girl who seldom had anything good to say about anyone’s poem. She said I shouldn’t have used roses because they were too cliche. It was her only comment at all on my poem.

That moment nearly turned me off to poetry entirely! I was so angry… One of the things I like about writing is being able to use inspiration taken from the real world. Sure, not always and sometimes you change it, but other times the real world inspiration is important. And that image that I tried to recreate in that poem would have been totally different if the flowers had been violets or calla lilies or irises! The roses spoke of love, and the color red spoke of passion. It had to be red roses!

After that, I decided to tackle the poems I had to write for that class in a different way. Instead of trying to tell a story that meant something to me, I focused on the language to the exclusion of nearly everything else. I called it word-smushing — I tried to put together words and phrases that sounded cool without caring what they meant. The weird thing? My professor ate up this new style, and I ended up with an A in the course, even after such a stilted beginning.

With the opening of Every Day Poets for submissions, I decided to dust off some of my old poetry and give submitting it a try. The first poem I sent them was one that I’d written based on an actual event. I’d gone out to the country one night to watch a meteor shower, and when I got out of the car, a hamburger wrapper blew by and smeared ketchup on my leg. The poem was my imagining of how that wrapper came to be on that deserted stretch of road. But EDP rejected it. So, I pulled out a poem that I’d written in my word-smushing days , and it’s been accepted. Woo-hoo! I’m excited about it.

Let me be clear, I’m not dissing either EDP or poetry in general. Not at all. It’s been eye opening to have my poetry reacted to the same way as it was in graduate school (though, I much appreciate the EDF editors for being positive and constructive in their rejections, as opposed to the snootiness of some of my former classmates).

Now that I have more distance from that poetry workshop, the more I think maybe the reason my “real life” poetry isn’t successful is my own mindset and the writing style that mindset evokes. I’m a prose person. Poetry is hard for me, and when I’m writing poetry about something real, I think maybe I’m too literal about it. I use too many conjunctions and articles, when every word needs to have a certain kind of importance. The word-smushing somehow gave me access to the poet’s corner of my mind. Using something less personal as the subject helped me get away from telling the story and really explore the poetic nuances of language.

I’m proud of the poem that EDP accepted. I had fun writing it back then (despite my issues with that workshop class), and some of the wording and imagery I used has stuck with me, even eight years later. And the poem is actually about something — it’s just not about a real life event or image; it’s about something more ephemeral than that (the title of the poem is “Inspiration,” if that gives you an idea). I’m really excited for the poem to appear in EDP, whenever that comes to pass.

I don’t know that I will ever pursue poetry in the long-term. It’s a challenge for me to get into that mode, apparently. I wonder if there is such a term as “prose-bound”?

The thing I admire the most about poets is how they can take so few words and make a piece of writing where every single word is important and pulls its own weight. To do that and to tell a story at the same time… that’s impressive! 

I’m glad EDP has come along. This poetry submission process has helped me to re-examine some of my misconceptions from that grad school workshop, and I think I’m a better writer for it. And, who knows… maybe a few trips to the poet’s corner are in my future. We’ll see what my muse has to say!

The Every Day Fiction table of contents for September came out today, and my story, “A Castle in the Clouds,” is on it. Very exciting! Look for it there on September 14 (I’ll remind y’all here when it’s live).

You can also mark your calendars for September 26, when the story by my writing group mate Jens will be live. An adventurous good time, that one.

It looks like a great lineup for the month. There are a lot of familiar names (authors who always deliver), and some new names, as well. K.C. Ball’s “I Must to the Barber’s Chair” is out today, and you should definitely pop over and read it, because it’s great.

Can you believe today is the last day of the three day weekend already? Where did the time go? At least I can say that I made good progress on my writing goals for the weekend. I’ve revised one story, thus far, and sent it out. I sent another story that I just got the rights back to out to a podcast (**crosses fingers**). And I’ve read through/made final revisions to another story. I hope to finish that one up today sometime and sent it on its first foray out into the world (it’s over 8K, though, so it will be tougher to place).

If only I had made as much progress on my work out and house cleaning goals… Ah well… we must make sacrifices for our writing, yeah?

I want to write a sequel to “The Widow and the Stranger” (Allegory e-zine, May 2008 issue). I love Sarah Kirby, and I want to write about another of her adventures. I like that she’s reserved and old fashioned, but at the same time she’s a liberated feminist.

When my writing group did the Story Every Day contest back in June, I actually wrote a sequel to tWatS, but it was too much of a sequel. It relied heavily on background that someone would only know if they read the first one. One of Jadon’s enemies tried to steal the amulet that he made for Sarah in an attempt to find him.

Sadly, while that might be interesting if I ever wrote a novel about Sarah and her Atlantians, it wasn’t going to work for a short story. Maybe if the same e-zine published it, but you can’t count on that. And even still, in the short story game, each story really needs to stand on its own. The characters can have more adventures, but they shouldn’t have continuing adventures (unless you’re lucky enough to have the chance to publish a short story collection like Mercedes Lackey’s Tarma and Kethry stories or perhaps if you have a market that’s committed to publishing them all).

Recently, I wrote a few paragraphs of the next Sarah Kirby story. The title popped into my head fully formed, and I actually kind of like it — “The Widow and the Lord” — it stands on it’s own, and yet it still harkens back to the predecessor for those “in the know.”

Sadly, that’s as far as it’s gone. I have a good setting and a new character for Sarah to interact with (and bring her common sense business acumen to), but I have no plot! Don’t you hate that? Great concept/idea/character, and no plot. I know that romance is the wrong way to go — Sarah had enough of that last time, and she’s not a woman who opens herself up that easily. So, I need a plot with a speculative twist to involve Sarah in the life of this lord. I want her to somehow save the day this time in a decisive way. But… how? Nothing is coming to mind.

Ah well… I guess I will just have to let “The Widow and the Lord” linger for a while. Perhaps one day, out of the blue, the plot will come to me like the title did. It’s strange, though. Usually I suffer through the title creation process. I never start with a title! Weirdness!

Yesterday, I got the proofs for my story, “Bridge Club,” that will come out in the October issue of A Thousand Faces. I spent a few minutes reading the story all over again. It was actually more enjoyable reading it with a little distance between myself and it. A little like reading something new.

A lot of times, after a write a story, I grow to hate it. I guess it depends on how much time has passed since the writing, but after a while, I just can’t stand those old stories any more. Maybe it’s because of my growth as a writer, or maybe it’s just my hyper inner critic (I notice a lot of writers have one of those!), but it tends to happen. But “Bridge Club,” I still really like. (The same with “The Widow and the Stranger” — I don’t get tired of that one, as far as my own stories go.)

Anyway, back to my original topic, I love getting the proofs for a story that’s been accepted. It turns a nebulous acceptance into something real and concrete, like the story is actually going to happen. I’ve had around a dozen stories accepted now, and it never gets to be old hat. Maybe it’s not quite as earthshattering as it was the first couple of times, but I still get that “squee” feeling when the acceptance comes in the in-box. It’s not why I write, but it is why I send stuff out on submission — well, that and the “squee” that comes when I talk to other people who’ve actually read the stories.

I currently have three stories coming out this fall and a fourth slated to come out next March, so that should be a nice line-up of sqeeage for the upcoming months. As always, you can read about it here when they are available for public consumption!

Before I wind things up, I just want to shout out a quick congratulations to my writing group mate, Jens, who just had a story accepted by Every Day Fiction, too. It’s a quirky little piece staring his 19th century steampunk adventuring duo Blankenship and Dawes called “Chrono-Conundrum.” I’ll definitely link to that one here when it’s available.

Happy Friday, all! Here’s hoping we all get some good writing done over this holiday weekend!

Today is a dreary Monday in Texas — humid and raining. On the up-side, at least the overcast skies mean it isn’t 100+ degrees outside!

Days like this are perfect for sitting at home curled up in one’s jammies, and the best activities for those times are reading a good book or writing a story. Sadly, I haven’t been able to do either today. Too much work to do! My company’s busy season gears up around August and lasts through November or so. If my updates around here are less frequent in the next few months, that’s the reason why. Never fear, though! There will still be updates.

I don’t have any particular writing news to impart at the moment. I have several stories in the revision queue and several stories for others in my crit queue, just waiting for me to find the time to work on them between all this work-work. I was out of town this weekend. Spending time with old friends is relaxing and refreshing.

If you’d like to read an actual blog on a writing-related topic, check out this post on Jen’s blog. It’s my guest blog spot — a column about young adult fiction. Sadly, the HTML tags that I handily put in the file for him so he didn’t have to worry about things like linking and italics, do not appear to have worked like they do on my blog, and have come across as text instead of as links or formatting. So, the column looks a little wonky, but hopefully it will be enjoyable just the same.

Have a great Monday, everyone, and if it’s raining where you are, try not to get too damp!

June was a hotbed of writing goodness for me. Acceptances and published stories all over the place. Since then, things have been pretty slow. Molassas, even. Though, as always, the rejections trickle in.

I’m waiting to hear about another semi-related gig, as well. No details on that right now, but if it pans out, you’ll be sure to hear about it here!

I don’t know where the summer has gone! I can’t believe it’s August already. I swear I just blinked at it was June! Of course, my day job as a technical writer has been overwhelming lately, so that is the reason behind some of that. And it looks like things at work will stay hectic throughout the fall (as fall is our traditional “busy season”).

But, I shall perservere and find time to write. On Monday, I finally wrote that new superhero story that I’d been ruminating on for a while. It’s about a girl with the power to change her appearance (face and body type). It turned into a nice little flash piece, if I do say so myself. We’ll see how it does at the market to which I sent it.

I don’t know that I should call the girl a superhero, specifically — at least not with all the baggage that term implies (Alex wrote a really interesting post about that recently… read it!). It’s more that she happens to have this amazing power — the term superhero seems to suggest that she is all about using her power for the forces of good and justice, and I’m not sure this character has such pure motivations.

Of course, characters who fall into the shades of gray are inherently more interesting than those who are black and white, in my opinion.

All right, that is enough babble from me today. I hope you all have an awesome Thursday!

Part 1 of a sci-fi novella by my writing group mate Jens is live on SpaceWesterns.com. It’s called “Corazon,” and it’s action packed. I know… I critted it! Dixie O’Dell is a kick-butt lady, too, which is always great. Check it out–you’ll be glad you did!

If you’re in the mood for a little fantasy flash, check out my story in the new issue of AlienSkin e-zine. It’s called “The Mad King.”

I love the graphic of the king that they used. He’s so snooty!

I wrote this story back in February. My writing group runs a monthly prompts contest, and I wrote enough prompts that month to win the prize. This was one of the stories that I wrote. Though, it was edited. I actually took out all but one of the words required for the prompt in the final version. But, that’s the way prompts are sometimes. They get your mind going in a good way, but the actual mechanics (must-use words, starter sentences, etc.) aren’t the best choices in the final version.

So, enjoy, and if you like it, leave me a comment!