writing in the middle of the night

I would like to know why, exactly and explicitly, characters want to talk in the middle of the night.  Don't they sleep?  Ok, if they are my creations, there is no need for them to sleep, but shouldn't they respect my need for sleep?

Then again, the call of the muse, or the flute player, comes when it comes.  It plays the tune it chooses and hopes it reaches the ears of the intended.

Until I can better tame Kokopelli, the humpbacked, flue playing, fertility god, and evidently my muse likes his songs, I will answer and type when he dictates.  I won't necessarily type what he dictates.

updated progress for 11/28 ... 9263 so far

I love to hate deadlines.

But that's the good news and the bad news.

The muse has been fired - no more playing Mr. Nice Guy - so to speak.

I've enlisted Santa's snoozing and underemployed elves.  

Each one is required to give me 500 words on his or her favorite subject in the next 72 hours.

No idea how that's going because things are picking up at the Pole.

So far today, I've gotten 7366 words out of them ... only 21070 ish to go ...

Classroom full of elves.

Strange Love ... maybe

Raul, he's in charge by the way, decided that not only did he want a steady of the NNNM (nearly naked and naughty men) but he wanted names, dates, and places.

Unfortunately for him, I have been haunted by old family photographs.  And I do mean OLD.  Think 1920s to 1940s ... small town, big Catholic family, and lots of people with unusual names.

Specifically the last name of Strange.

True enough.

I don't know which of my great aunts married a Strange, but one did and she had multiple children. (It could have been Agnes or Gertrude, I'm fuzzy on which one it was.)  I don't recall ever having met the aunts or those cousins, though I am sure that we were inflicted on them at one time.




The point?

More to the point, do I have a point?

Raul is HAPPY!  Very, very happy and he is insisting that writing commence - he'd prefer the pitter patter of fingers on the keyboard, but he says more when it is long hand.

Take a woman, put her in an unusual job, give her the strange last name, and see what happens.  Especially if she were proud of the last name and it was part of the name of the business.

Add someone who is Manny-esque ... insert a fear of commitment (been there and done that), a pair of dogs who don't belong together ... shake (or stir) and see what comes out.

Why am I so happy to be related to a family of Stranges?

It feeds the muse and the imagination.

PLUS everyone talks a lot about a platform and a tagline.

A family of Stranges does lend itself (themselves?) to all kinds of tagline possibilities.

Written? Kitten! - aka the new muse on the block

The muse is an illusive thing.  'We' blame her (or him) for not showing up to work on time and not assisting in finding the next big story inspiration.

Looking into the briefly recorded history of the muse, I was able to find the one who abandons me most often.  Thalia, the Roman muse of idyllic poetry and comedy.  It must be she who makes my straight lines go crooked.  She should also take credit for making me forget punchlines and not getting setups exactly right (or is that 'write')?  And yes, this is a picture of her according to the internet.

I had hired out my own muse a couple of years ago.  A male muse.  It was great. Only one of us retained water and got cranky once a month.  He didn't get into the chocolate when I wasn't home and he never left his beer bottles around the house for me to trip over on junkets to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  Plus we had a similar sense of humor.  He didn't like to sleep at night and that was when i felt inspired.  It was a match made in my own mythology.  He'd whisper sweet nothings into my ear and I'd get the premise for something that was great, at least to me, and I'd run with the ball.

We had a falling out when he found out that I think really pretty men should probably never be allowed to speak.  Sometimes the fantasy is so much better before they open their mouths.  Well since he somewhat resembled those types of men he became sullen.  Sadly, he went into retirement after I poked fun at him one time too often; he just didn't see himself wearing Richard Simmons's tank tops and short shorts.  He claimed he had to wash his hair and he's been in the tub so long I think his important bits have shrunk.

So now the lovely people who are attached to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) have a new muse for those of us who have been left alone and lonely. Written? Kitten! might just be my way out of the woods!  Every one hundred words and the author is rewarded with a new kitty.  I've not tried it out, but have seen a lovely sample of it.  For more information click on this  Huffington Post Article.

Maybe next year they'll do one with puppies.  In the mean time, I think I'll go look for a ball of yarn.

Who needs a plot bunny when there is a Plot Moose?

NaNoWriMo is coming and soon.  NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) is every November.  I have only been celebrating it for three years.

The goal is for writers to complete 50,000 words in one calendar month.  No worrying about grammar, punctuation, plot holes, or concern about which Point of View is used.

So much for not planning ahead?  Huh?

I did it last year.  I mean I actually wrote 50,000 disjointed words.  All of them were the misguided openings for the next mediocre American novel.  It was kind of like getting to be Thomas Edison, so many problems getting things off of the ground hoping for that (forgive the phrase) lightbulb moment.

Because I have always collected people who are smarter than me, I have chosen to listen to their greater minds this year.  (If it works, I'll listen to them next year, too.)  I'm not waiting for the Great Pumpkin to show up in my front yard and deliver the Plot Bunny and his evil twists on a story.  I'm not waiting for inspiration in the form of a divine idea to come by way of paper airplane from above.

The plot moose crash landed last year.

Nope.  I'm taking the advice of a friend and several others who say you don't need to be creative.  Just do.  She is creative every day for very specific hours and has said the idea of the Muse is over rated.  It is fun to think about them and blame a lack of production on the muse who didn't show up (or in this case, the Plot Moose).  Put your nose to the grind stone and do the work.

Makes me think of the phrase attributed to Yoda in one of the first Star Wars Movies:  There is no try, there is only do.  

This year I have a much better idea of what it will take to do the challenge and to succeed at it.  It is a long and rocky path, Moose or no Moose, I will overcome!

I just need to keep my nose to the grind stone (or in this case, matate)!

Back to the Future with Writing Teachers

Stumbling through a thrift store last weekend, I discovered a cache of writing books.  Most were geared to high school research papers, but there was one that was spectacular.   If You Want To Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland has changed everything for me and just when I needed it.

She was a writing teacher who spent her time inspiring her students not criticizing them. 

Her theory?

If you can tell a story to a child (and if you can tell a really big whopper), you can write.

The importance of the whopper?  When I tell a whopper, the details are bigger, more intense, and clearer. For example:

I met Cupid's youngest son the other day in a parking lot outside of a Chinese restaurant.  He was dressed like a peacock, sort of.  His hair would have passed for feathers there were so many spikes that were independently colored. The shirt was about three sizes too large for the boy and was decorated in Hula dancers and surf boards.  At a distance, I could only count eight or nine piercings on his face and ears; he probably had several covered by his clothing. 

He crossed the parking lot in about three steps and propped his hip against the dirty door of my mini van.

"Are you Louise?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Cool.  I'm Aaron.  You're my first assignment. I don't like labels or restrictions, I hope you're good with that."

So this is my opening whopper ... not edited and not restrained, just like Ms. Ueland recommended.  It gets the muse working, the imagination flowing, and joy back in the fingers.

Who knows?  Maybe this will become something.

I thought I needed a 'new' writing teacher.  Turns out I found one in an old book.  Not bad.

29 days of giving... day 29 - the gift of the muse

The internet is an amazing place.  You can meet and converse with people from all walks of life in any corner of the world.  It can be easy to find commonality.  Communities can form over small but significant things.  (I am sure there is a community of soda fountain fans out there somewhere, but I'm not sure when I'll go looking for them.)

I began this project with less than a sincere heart.  I knew I needed to change several things in my life, self absorption the least of my sins.

Challenges, obstacles, bumps in the road exist for us all.

This current 29 day cycle made me realize it isn't the challenge that is important, it is the attitude with which they are faced.  Not saying I am a warrior of any kind, but that sometimes a smile or a wave can do wonders.  Looking for the good can truly change everything - even if you are the one who has to go on the journey.

I have several fabulous internet friends, and they all know who they are, who are very supportive of my writing.  They are also supportive of my storytelling (this skill my grandmother wished I had not honed - I told incredible whoppers). But it is all a journey and you never know what you will find when you embark.

Inspiration is everywhere and so are plot bunnies.  For me it has been a matter of actually wearing my glasses and ensuring the lenses have been clean and not overly scratched.

The muse doesn't really sleep.  At least mine doesn't.  He has grown complacent, sullen and lazy.  He likes to be front and center with all of the accolades and none of the criticism.  (Yes the typos and punctuation errors are all mine, and he points that out on a regular basis.)

In addition to changing my outlook, this project has forced Raul (the muse) out of his slumber.  Made him realize there is more than one type of story to write.  More than one place to look for inspiration.

Will I do this again?

Maybe.

Will I blog about it again?

Probably not ... we'll see.

 
Hey, now that I've done something for 29 days, maybe, just maybe, I can follow one of those 90 days to a better life program.  Or, I could just have liposuction from the nose down and be done with it.

I guess the keys to my outlook are all up to me.

29 days of giving challenge - celebrating someone else's muse ... day 8

Nothing makes a writer happier than knowing that his/her work has brought something to the reader.  [Ok, so I was going to say joy but if the writer did something angsty, that's just not right.]

I have several friends who write, most do it for pleasure.

Sometimes I'm lucky and I get to pre-read a sample of something and offer input.  Other times, I an lucky and I get to read the finished product.

Today I had the gift from two such friends.  The pieces were great, made me think, and offered details and perspectives I wouldn't have come up with.

My gift to them?  Easy.  I told them what I thought.  It isn't much, I mean, that and $10 will buy you a fancy coffee drink (or maybe two). But, and there is a but, isn't there always, sharing my ideas and reflections on their wok feeds their muses and mine.

Besides, who doesn't like a pat on the back once in a while?