The Damn Is Busted

Good morning.

I have been doing some thinking about what type of writer I am here lately.  I don't think I can be put in a category as of yet.

I have a western out...that would be Nevada Free.  Then I wrote From One Diabetic To Another, which is basically a how to help yourself book while your waiting for the diabetic class.  Let me tell you that was one scary time for me, that first month, trying to find out information.  Finally, I decided I would try to make it easier on others in the same boat and share what information I had gathered.  By the way, I did so good getting my diabetes under control that I blew my Doc's mind. LOL  So if you want to give it a shot, there is the link.  

Any who, then I wrote Misplaced Legends which is hard to put in a category.  I mean its modern day, set in a fictional town in a real US state with fictional characters that are both human and fantasy creatures (dragons, gnomes, elves, witches, centaurs, etc...).  Is that considered fantasy?  What category would I put that in?  Not a hard core science fiction, I would think.  I know it would fall in the realm of humor, dark sarcastic humor at times, but humor nonetheless.

My next coming out is "The House".  It's spooky, with some sarcastic humor (I am really good at that I think...LOL), superstitions  ghosts, and I kinda spooked myself a time or two while writing it.  I guess that would fall under supernatural horror. 

My point is, I don't write just one type of book, like some of the big name authors like Stephen King.  He just writes horror or Patricia Cornwell who sticks primarily to crime.  They know what they are very good at what they do. By the way, both of them are two of my favorite authors! 

My process is I see something that catches my eye and I take a picture.  Once I have that picture, I put it on my desktop and I take a look when I need inspiration.  It might not be a picture, it may be a comment someone makes. I stick a electronic post it up on my computer and then I can be reminded of what I was going for.  Regardless, one of the two happens to start the ball rolling.

Then I just start spit balling ideas with my editor.  What direction do I want to go?  What do I want to be my end result?  What will I need researched?  All these come out in those brainstorming sessions. I take notes on Google Docs where I share them with her via computer as well as on the phone.  If something hits either one of us, we just throw it up on the notes section (she has her color of ink, I have mine!) to be checked over a few times before I actually get the ball rolling.

Finally I begin to write.  Once I start I just keep going until my eyes are crossed and my fingers are too tired to type.  Then I take a break, do the dishes, whatever I need to do, and then begin again.  During the entire writing process, just before I begin typing again, I edit the last chapter written.  I can refresh where I was, remind myself what direction I am going, correct some of my glaring mistakes and then continue.  

If I get lost, I stop check my notes, think about it and begin again. However....

However, there are times when I get stuck.  I mean major nasty stuck which leaves me drooling, pacing and zombie like for the duration.  That is when I turn to outside sources.  I may make mention of what I am writing and then listen to comments flow like water.  Sometimes a great idea slips out, I catch it, and expand the bugger until I am happy.  Sometimes, I just have to put it to bed and ignore it.  Eventually I will pick back up on my train of thought and run with it.

I have learned not to fight it.  Don't even think about forcing it.  Forcing it is like forcing a teenager to remove the phone from their ear....you need surgery, major surgery for it.  By that I mean I would have perform major surgery after I was done with that section...for me it will sound stilted, sophomoric and annoying.  Conversations won't flow, readers won't get the idea I am trying to weave around and immerse them in. I know from experience that is the worst of my worst. So what do I do?

I leave it alone.  I let it be the worm at the back of my mind.  I let it slither around, grow, let it nibble on this, that and the other.  With any luck it won't be a worm at all!  It will be a caterpillar that will transform into a butterfly!!  When that butterfly blossoms, so will the idea and then the words begin to gush like water through a busted dam!  Oh, that is the lucky day.

In the meantime while I am waiting for the dam to break, what do I do?  Oh, I read, clean house and most of all I start a new brainstorming project! It never hurts to help that dam break with a little explosives! LOL  I find just with some writing of another subject  I can help myself.

And now, I am off to work on "The House".  Happy reading.