Category: Writing

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21 Days of Posts – Day 8 – Character Development is Hard

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This is day eight of twenty-one days of posts between January 10th and January 30th of 2021. Hello again to those who read previous days, and hello to those of you who may have stumbled across this post “out of order”. You should go back and read from Day 1, for a few reasons. It explains why I am doing this. It is the first one, and I may make reference to something in it in this post or a later one. It also has a list with each day’s post (once they are available) and you can jump to whatever topic you are interested in. Thanks for reading!

Creating characters for my books is hard. That is obvious to anyone who has tried, but even if you have never tried to write a book, you have an idea of the difficulty of this process. We are all characters in development. We grow and change based on our experiences, our environment, and our interaction with others. How we change may be strongly dictated by traits we were born with, passed on to us from our parents.

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21 Days of Posts – Day 5 – Worldbuilding is Hard!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This is day five of twenty-one days of posts between January 10th and January 30th of 2021. Hello again to those who read previous days, and hello to those of you who may have stumbled across this post “out of order”. You should go back and read from Day 1, for a few reasons. It explains why I am doing this. It is the first one, and I may make reference to something in it in this post or a later one. It also has a list with each day’s post (once they are available) and you can jump to whatever topic you are interested in. Thanks for reading!

I mentioned back on Day 2 of this series that I was currently working on my fantasy novel and how I was a bit overwhelmed by the freedom to worldbuild for it. I talked a little about what other authors had done as far as worldbuilding and how it contributed to their stories.

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21 Days of Posts – Day 2 – My Current Writing Project

Reading Time: 4 minutes

This is day two of twenty-one days of posts between January 10th and January 30th of 2021. Hello again to those who read Day 1, and hello to those of you who may have stumbled across this post “out of order”. You should go back and read from Day 1, for a few reasons. It explains why I am doing this. It is the first one, and I may make reference to something in it in this post or a later one. It also has a list with each day’s post (once they are available) and you can jump to whatever topic you are interested in. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to day two! Today’s topic is under the main topic of writing, but specifically about my active project, my fantasy novel.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month happens every year in November, and I participated again this year. I decided to be a NaNoWriMo rebel this year and continue to write on an existing work in progress. I picked my fantasy novel, which had a solid 50,000 words already from two years ago. After adding another 50,000 words to it this past November, I realize it will take yet another 50,000, minimum, to finish it.

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21 Days of Posts – Day 1 – Give Me Patience…Now!

Reading Time: 4 minutes

I’m serious. I want patience now.

Now!

Alright, I won’t get patience now, I get it. Before I discuss that, let me welcome you to 21 days of posts, 2021 edition. I did this last year in January as part of my annual fast. The experience was good, so I decided to do it again this year, with a couple of twists.

I covered a variety of topics last year, from faith discussions to my favorite bands. This year, I am limiting my main topics to these three – faith, writing, and music. Under these main topics, I will have seven subtopics each for a total of twenty-one topics, one for each of the twenty-one days. I’ll rotate through the topics, starting with faith, then writing, then music, then back to faith, and so on.

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It Starts Tomorrow…

Reading Time: 2 minutesTomorrow begins 21 consecutive days of posts on my blog. This endeavor is part of my annual fast. I was successful in this last year, so I hope I will be again. I have determined all of the topics I am going to write on, but not the order.

I am limiting my main topics to three items this year – faith, music, and writing. I will rotate through these topics, starting with faith on day one, then moving to writing on day two, then music on day three, then back to faith on day four until the 21 days are ended. In addition, I am also attempting to journal every day for 21 days during this time, which will be private and not available for public consumption, unless my journal entry wanders across one of my planned post topics. I hope to do 300-500 words for each journal entry, but I am going to be flexible on this, as I am more concerned with the blog posts.

Other items of my fast include refraining from visiting news sites, social media, and similar websites that tend to take up a lot of my time. I hope the time I gain from avoiding these sites is adequate to give me enough time to write my post every day and make an entry in my journal. I am using Notion to write my journal, and sometime after the fast is over, I will write an article on my experience using it. (Note to self – put this on my publication calendar)

Abstaining from the sites mentioned above will leave me somewhat ignorant of current events, which at this point is probably a good thing. The world, our country, and many other aspects of life are in a total mess right now anyway. I know I won’t totally avoid some information and events, but the more I can leave out of my daily thoughts, the better.

Following this course over the next 21 days will leave little time for writing in my fantasy novel, but I hope the time away will help me move forward once I start back at it. I have some daunting tasks ahead of me, including continuing to world build, develop characters, tie together my narrative and make sure that the story moves along and makes sense. I have 100,000 words written in my first draft and I expect to do at least 50,000 more to come close to completing the book. I hope and pray that I can stick with this project starting in February. I really need to finish a book.

I encourage you to drop by the for next 21 days as I post each day. Each entry will be written, edited and posted on the corresponding day, so they may post late in the evening, but I hope to always finish before midnight, so that each day has a post. It will be challenging, fun and interesting for me, and I hope it is for you also, dear reader.

 

Featured Image: Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash

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Here We Go Again…

Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s October 30th as I begin to write this and if you’ve read many of the articles here on my site, you know what is coming next…National Novel Writing Month otherwise known as NaNoWriMo.

Yes, the mad dash by thousands of people to put 50,000 words into a book in 30 days is back!

I was VERY hesitant to participate this year. I was the Municipal Liaison for two years for my area and I was seriously considering not even writing, much less taking on ML responsibilities in this time of COVID-19. I had long let the opportunity to ML pass me by back in late spring. I didn’t even start to consider writing until this week. It’s all the result of a NaNoWriMo email, so I completely blame them for this.

I saw the email.  I thought about what it took to write those 50,000 words every November. It was hard work. It was early mornings, which I hate. It was late nights, which make me hate the mornings even more. It was weekends planted in front of the computer making up for the words I didn’t write during the week. It was writer’s block at the worst time. It was working around (and in addition to) everything else I’m supposed to care about in these crazy times. Masks. Social distancing. Washing hands. Disinfecting. Presidential elections. Violent riots. Peaceful protests. Disinformation. Blatant lies. Social bubbles. Zoom meetings. The list could go on forever.

I considered what I could write about in the midst of all this. I didn’t want to do any kind of contemporary action thriller novel, as I felt compelled to consider this stupid virus as a contributing factor in the narrative. I’m so DONE with this virus. I’m in a vulnerable population and I’m to the point that I can barely care about it. So anything contemporary was out.

Science fiction was an option, but my head is currently filled with too many conflicting storylines. I took advantage of a trial for the Peacock streaming service to watch their rendition of Brave New World. Good stuff. Nothing like the book past a couple of characters, settings and plot devices, but really good stuff. I may do a reaction (NOT a review) post later…after November.

I also dug into the vaults of my TV series collection and I’m rewatching Revolution from back in 2012 and PaInkiller Jane from even further back in 2007.  Both of these series were cut way too short. Not as bad as Firefly which I also watched again recently, but still, too short. Revolution was one of the most well-written, interconnected storylines EVER. Just sayin’, connecting all the dots on this show was akin to figuring out Lost, which I don’t think was ever accomplished, even by its own writers…

The thought of writing about people with hidden, “super” abilities caught my attention (and my fascination, thankfully) and I finally decided to try and complete my 2017 NaNoWriMo project Apocalypse. Fifty thousand words is just scratching the surface of this story. I may do another 50,000 this November and still not be close to done. I have a glimmer of understanding as to why George R. R. Martin has such a hard time finishing his fantasy books. There’s so much story to tell. Nothing can be assumed. These are totally different realms from our world and the ideas clamor to escape the mind of the author. I get it, in my own limited way.

So, here I go again, trekking toward 50,000 words in a mere 30 days. My project is officially/unofficially named Apocalypse Part 2 and I will post my word count updates, my highs, and my lows here as the month progresses.

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Finally, A New Post…

Reading Time: 3 minutesI haven’t posted to this site since January of this year. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve spent hours reworking the look and feel of the site, adding images and better navigation, but I haven’t written anything, aside from a new landing page.

So here is a post.

You would think that I would have so much stuff to write about that I couldn’t keep up. The year 2020 started out fairly normal, but between ridiculous impeachment farces, murder hornets, the “novel” coronavirus that is anything but novel, senseless violence and riots across the nation, the rise of petty tyrants in state and local governments, and this being an election year, there was indeed no shortage of things to write about. I just didn’t want to.

Every time I would start to write, the words invariably became harsh, angry, and unpleasant to read. Everything went into the digital dustbin, the zeros and ones scrambled to randomness. My mood since March when everything really started to get rolling with “the virus” and I was one of the lucky ones who could do their job remotely, has either been one of deleterious detachment, certain uncertainty, or simmering discontent. I should have felt immense gratitude that I could still work, still earn a paycheck, and not be wondering whether I could pay my mortgage or put food on my table.

I had every reason to be grateful, feel blessed, and thank my God that I was in the situation I was in. But…I didn’t. I said the words. I agreed with my friends who were in the same situation, as most of them were very grateful and said as much in our Zoom conversations. But…I wasn’t. I can’t explain why, anymore than I can explain calculus to a toddler (or anyone else, for that matter). It just wasn’t in me.

After committing to, and succeeding in writing and posting to this site for twenty-one consecutive days in January, I just stopped. The year had not yet even got rolling down the tracks toward the crazy train. I just remember that I was happy that I had written those twenty-one days and I was out of ideas. So began my slow, but inexorable slide into…my current state.

I’m trying to pull out of the slide.

Case in point, I’ve acquired a new hobby – woodworking. I’ve collected and organized a fairly good set of tools, completed my first big project (my workbench), am working on my second big project ( a new desk for my home office), and continue to be fascinated by the amount and quality of information available on the Internet. Between YouTube and other sites, I’ve learned a LOT about how to measure, cut and reconnect wood pieces together so they make things which are useful and attractive (still working on the attractive part).

Woodworking helps fill some of the void in my mood. I am awed by the output of the people on YouTube and other sites, sometimes by the absolute beauty of the work, and other times by the perfection in function. I try not to be discouraged by their success and keep reminding myself that I have just started taking baby steps in this hobby, so I have a long way to go.

Some of you who have read my blog before know that I write books, also. Well…I write parts of books. I can’t yet say I’ve written an entire book, much less had one published. Will I ever finish one? I have over ten in progress, everything from sci-fi and fantasy, to action thrillers, and even a romance. I don’t know the answer to that question. I hope so, if only for the satisfaction of completing something. 

If I am able to make myself continue posting here, expect a post about woodworking, possibly after I finish my current project, at least one post on this weirdest of election years, maybe another with an excerpt or a character sketch from one of my (incomplete) books, and maybe another “random thoughts” post like this one where I can attempt to unravel my current state of mind, or if things go well, report that I am once again mentally and emotionally in better health.

Not that anyone actually reads this blog…posting here is about the same as writing on my basement wall – no one will see it unless I specifically ask them to take a look.

Who knows? Anything could happen. If over-reaction to the virus doesn’t bankrupt us all, or we aren’t all overcome by murder hornets or assaulted by rioters, things could eventually turn around and 2020 end like any other year…but I’m not holding my breath.

 

Photo by boris misevic on Unsplash

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21 Days of Posts – Day 21 – The Christian Life – Learning and Pruning

Reading Time: 3 minutesWelcome to the last day all you who decided to follow along as I posted for 21 days straight as part of our church fast. For those of you just jumping in, each entry is numbered as a particular day, so if you are reading this and the title above doesn’t say Day 1 (which it does not), then you should stop now and go read from Day 1, or take a peek at Day 2 and pick a topic you are interested in. Thanks to those who were brave enough to join me.

Day 21!

Wow!

I did it!

I’ve posted every day for 21 days straight. Yay, me! Now for this last post…

One of the main points of this fast we do every year is to devote more time to study and prayer, or even just contemplation. When we deny ourselves things we normally do not go without, we tend to notice other things, especially if we are giving up items of food. But even if we are just staying off social media, or not continuing a bad habit, or some other act of relinquishing, we hopefully go through the thought process of “what do I do now?”.

What do we do? What do we notice as we stay away from comfortable, familiar things? If we truly take the time to study and pray more, we probably learn things. Devoting more time to the Word of God is never a waste, nor does it fail to eventually reap benefits. Did you add a devotion to your quiet time? Did you read a book or two of the Bible, or dive into a Christian learning book? These weren’t required, of course, but they could have significantly contributed to your relationship with God.

Did you give up a bad habit? Quit eating an unhealthy food? Quit doing something that you knew you shouldn’t be doing, but just didn’t care enough or feel like you had the will or strength to quit? Are you dying to do that thing or eat that food, or has the desire ebbed and now, you could take it or leave it? A fast is a great way for us to prune things out of our life that aren’t good for us. If you did desist from a habit or food, I hope that you are able to toss it away for good, if that was your goal.

We as humans don’t like to be uncomfortable. We generally like familiar things, creature comforts, and unregimented use of our time. When we fast, we purposefully make ourselves uncomfortable. It is in the discomfort that we should look for an anchor, and I can think of no better anchor than our God. He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, so he will be able to help you, knows exactly what you need, and will never leave you. What more could we ask for in a time of discomfort, whether purposeful, as in a fast, or when the unexpected happens, as when tragedy strikes?

As Christians, we should constantly be going through cycles of learning and pruning, as we strive to be closer to God and to develop those connections mentioned in yesterday’s post. Those connections are critical, as is our learning and pruning process. The more we do to take full advantage of these cycles, the closer our relationship with God will be, and the more fulfilling our life will be, even if it has been stripped of our comforts and familiarity.

Thank you so much for reading to (the very) end! It has been very gratifying to post for 21 consecutive days, even if no one reads any of it.

I will be posting more regularly in the future, at least once a week, so if you are interested, come back by and check out what is in my head. If I have time tomorrow, I will post a conclusion and summary of my takeaway of these past 21 days, maybe in the evening after the celebratory worship service.

 

Photo Credit – Photo by Kamil Szumotalski on Unsplash

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21 Days of Posts – Day 20 – Connections Between People

Reading Time: 3 minutesHello to all who have decided to follow along as I post for 21 days straight as part of our church fast. As you can see, each entry is numbered as a particular day, so if you are reading this and the title above doesn’t say Day 1, then you should stop now and go read from Day 1, or take a peek at Day 2 and pick a topic you are interested in. Thanks for being brave enough to join me.

Welcome to Day 20! In this post I want to talk about connections, mostly connections between people.

Most humans crave connection to other humans. I say most, not all, because there are people out there who would rather connect with their dog, or cat, or pet python than deal with the chaos of connecting to other people. Connecting to other people can be messy and complicated, as everyone brings their own baggage into a relationship, any kind of relationship. It doesn’t always have to be messy, but more times than not, messy is the operative description.

We crave connection with other people for a variety of reasons. Security. Looking for a kindred spirit. Someone to share experiences with. Love. Some things in life are just better shared with other people. Food. Music. Excitement. Laughter. Pain. Sorrow. Heartache. All of these are generally better when shared with other people.

But how do we make these connections in the first place? I could copy and paste both previous lists right here and be mostly right again. Shared likes, shared dislikes, pain, trauma-all are ways that we connect. Some experiences are more binding than others. If all we ever did with our friends was go out to eat or to a concert, we would develop connections with them, but not as deeply as if we were to experience intense joy or deep sorrow with them. Intensity of experience factors in heavily when we discuss the strength of our connections with others.

Another key component of making strong connections is dealing with unexpected circumstances. This can be as joyous as playing a new game for the first time with a group of friends, or as tragic as losing a loved one, family or friend. When unexpected things happen, bonds are formed that are tough to break. Ask anyone who goes through a traumatic experience with a group. Ask a military veteran how deep the bonds with his or her unit are, especially if they’ve seen combat.

Connections between people make the world go ’round. The saying “it’s not what you know, but who you know” is so true in so many circumstances. We find that unfair at times, but just as “luck favors the prepared”, so too can we say “luck favors the connected”. People get jobs and find opportunities all the time because of who they know.

High-dollar, luxury item salesmen know the power of connection all too well. If they can make a connection with a potential customer, that customer is more likely to decide they really do need that giant TV, extravagant boat, higher-priced car, or totally useless memorabilia item. Not making a  connection will tend to result in no sale unless the customer had decided what they wanted before they walked into the store.

Not every connection we make is going to be life-changing or even cause us to think twice, but there are three connections we all should make that WILL make a difference in our lives. You know what they are…connection to God, connection to people, and connection to purpose. Sound familiar? I hope so. How are your three connections doing? What do you need to do today, tomorrow, next week, or next month to make those connections stronger?

Thanks for reading to the end! Only one more blog post to go! Join me tomorrow for one last post in this series, then please follow me as I continue to post throughout my journey to complete a book. That series will most likely be weekly, not daily, and will be interspersed with other posts on various topics. More details to follow!

 

Photo Credit – Photo by Mario Purisic on Unsplash

 

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21 Days of Posts – Day 19 – Why I Write About Broken Characters

Reading Time: 3 minutesHello to all who have decided to follow along as I post for 21 days straight as part of our church fast. As you can see, each entry is numbered as a particular day, so if you are reading this and the title above doesn’t say Day 1, then you should stop now and go read from Day 1, or take a peek at Day 2 and pick a topic you are interested in. Thanks for being brave enough to join me.

Day 19 and I’m writing about writing again. Specifically, I’m writing about why I include broken characters in my works of fiction. It doesn’t matter if the character is a good guy or a bad guy in my stories, they can be broken.

Again, duh! That’s why we love our favorite stories, to see our broken characters overcome their brokenness or, conversely, see how broken the bad guy can be. Sure, that’s true. We love the antiheroes, the down-on-their-lucks, the once-was-bad-but-now-see-the-light conversions. It’s what makes many stories work. It’s the bread and butter of so many action movies, love stories, sports chronicles, and crime dramas. There are entire TV networks that wouldn’t have any programming if not for the shows about really pretty, but broken characters.

The real question is-why? Why do we love these characters? Many of them are violently altered, psychologically damaged, or are just the unluckiest people (characters) alive. Because we love it when things get fixed. We love it when characters mend. We’re tickled by serial character arcs where the good guys become the bad guys, then return to goodness again, or not.

I generally rip things away from my characters “off screen”. I introduce my characters already broken and sometimes let the reader get a glimpse of how they were before. Not that I don’t rip things away from them during the events of the story, but they generally start out missing something. Whether that something is the entire point of the story, or I put them back together as a bonus for completing whatever quest I send them on will vary from story to story.

Their brokenness will invariably be based on things that I gravely fear – the loss of a spouse, severe bodily damage, the loss of a job or livelihood, and more, are on my list of “things I never want to experience”. So I write about them. I don’t know exactly why, but I suspect it is an attempt to comprehend the tragedy without actually experiencing it. With my characters, I can write their reaction, then if I feel it isn’t right, I can rewrite it. You can’t do that in real life, at least not easily.

It’s a challenge to realistically show the development and healing of a character. It forces me to really dive into a character, to ask that character dozens of questions, about their likes, dislikes, family, temperament, and all manner of other probing questions. The nice thing is they can never get angry, or clam up, or change the subject. If so, I would have to ask myself why this character, who owes their existence to me, is acting up…

It’s simple really. Characters drive stories, and whether we can relate to their tragedy or simply be glad we haven’t experienced it, broken characters have the ability to pull us into a story, make us feel the emotions and reactions and cause us to take an interest in what happens to each of them, even the bad ones.

Thanks for reading to the end! Only two more days left!

 

Photo Credit – Photo by Aimee Vogelsang on Unsplash