*insert something witty here*

I meant to do a post today. I meant to be productive. Really. Honest.

*looks angelic and innocent*

It was not my fault I've done nothing but watch episodes of Night Gallery. The DVDs possessed my computer!

Okay, okay, I admit it. They didn't possess my computer. They addicted me.

I started last night. Two discs (roughly four hours each) and a day later I'm only stopping because I work in the morning...

And just in case you have never seen this (people! go! watch! now!), it is unadulterated awesome. B-)

I'll get back to writing something postful. You know, soon as I finish this entire collection. O:)

~Merc

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What does "regularly" mean?

Clearly my aim to post more than once a week has failed with spectacularness and fireworks.

I have yet to figure out a good way to poke myself into posting on a regular basis. All you guys that blog every day impress me, you really do. :P I'm not nearly that motivated.

But I feel neglectful of my poor fiery, zombie-infested blog when I let it list in limbo for days at a time.

So this week, I'm trying for a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday (with a possibility of something on Sundays) posting--we'll see if I can get into that habit for awhile.

For those who blog every day... how do you do it? Do you come up with topics in advance? When do you usually write your posts, and how do you stay on track?

~Merc

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Fun is a full-loaded flamethrower and lots of flamable targets

It's important to take time out of your busy schedule to randomly set something on fire (zombies are always good and flammable) now and then. And equally important to let ourselves have fun when writing.

"But," you may say, "isn't writing fun already?"

Ha. Ha. Ha. Not always, no.

It's work. Yes, it can be fun, but more often it makes you set your hair on fire (or someone else's), scream in frustration, etc. Yes, it can be enjoyable, and there are days you wonder if feed the manuscript to the pet zombie goldfish would be a more productive use of paper and ink. Often we get wrapped up in a serious project (yes, comedy counts) and it starts becoming a chore. We sit down, bang out words (or try to, if you have severe perfectionitis), growl curses at the keyboard, and wonder why this dreck is going nowhere.

Yeah, and there are days we plain get stuck, blocked, caught in a rut, and nothing is interesting, exciting, worth working on. These bouts can last for a lot longer than a few days, too. It's annoying as hell and sucks.

(Those of you who never have bad days or bouts of project-hate, you had better start running now. *hefts flamethrowers*)

There are 736,352 reasons (I omited the decimle points out of laziness) why you might have isucktis, writer's block, be stuck in a rut, have no enthusasim for your work, et cetera.

You may be burned out. It happens. Don't panic. Take a break and recharge. Read for pleasure, relax, do something else for awhile why your brain recharges. I find I get burned out after finishing any novel, several shorts in a row, or some insane amount of words in a short time. Now if I can just train my brain to accept the fact burnout happens so it stops begrudging me breaks...

You may be blocked. Some people don't believe in writer's block. Of course it's a pyschological aspect, unless you have plaque built up in your brain, in which case I'd recomend a doctor and not a writing manual. Changing gears, writing randomness or taking a break can help. I don't recomend open skull surgery to scrub the plaque off with a toothbrush, though. I hear it's not quite sanitary. (No, I don't know why either.)

You may be too focused on seriously advancing your career/body of work and putting way too much pressure on yourself to the point where you hate everything and feel not only blocked, burned out, and sulky, but also inclined to shoot every story idea on sight.
First drafts are crap. It's a reality. I know it sucks, but so does the fact there's a lack of zombie goldfish in mainstream fiction.

When this happens, you need to step back and have some fun. Yes, you can reevaluate and reconsider and whatever else. You can take a break (usually a good idea), but if after that you're still convinced that everything must Mean Something, be good, if every idea must have a unique spin, if every story must succum to internal story logic, if no draft can have plot holes or flat characters or lack of setting or emotional impact or deep meaning and theme, if it all must change the world... then seriously, dude, you need to lighten up, step back, and have some fun.

If you suck all the joy and pleasure out of writing, it's going to show. You're going to feel it in your mood and lack of interest in working on anything real.

Yes, I'm serious. You need to have fun.

Sometimes this can be as hard to do as working on a real project if you don't lighten up; I understand it can be difficult to loosen up and work on a "just for fun" project that means nothing, will never see the light of day, and is flawed in every way imaginable.

However you define what is "fun" for you, or "just for fun", it can help break you out of the trap listed above.

Merc's steps to having fun (sans setting anything on fire in the case of fire marshal rules where you live):

1.) Relax. Take a hot bubble bath, curl up with a book, whatever. Before you do anything do something physically relaxing and mentally un-stressing.

2.) Either tattoo on your forehead, hang a sign over the computer, or otherwise impress on your muse, brain and creativity that THIS PROJECT IS JUST FOR FUN. It can be as cliched, as cheesy, as bad and terrible and drafty as you please. They key ingredient is that it should entertain you. No one else is important.

When you get to a point you're putting too much pressure on yourself to make sure the drafts come out good (or even workable and fixable), it can build to the point you freeze up and can't produce anything.

Do you secretly like sappy vampire/werewolf romance set on a desert island where everyone wears pink sneakers, but realize the vampire/werewolf market is swamped and people tell you it's cliche and you shouldn't waste your time? Write that story. Make as B-movie as you like. Go for all the cliches! Turn off the spell-check. Name your female main character Bellaroo if you want. Feel free to rip off your favorite novel or movie shamelessly.

The point here is to give into your guilty pleasures, the random crap that comes into your brain but has no place in your more "serious" and "real" projects, anything at all, and dump it all in the JFF. Logic does not apply. Think of it as a free-write if you want.

If you like pages of scenic description and melodramatic mood swings but know they have no place in your urban fantasy thriller, write five pages about how brooding the clouds are over the moors. You don't have to do a mad dahs like in NaNoWriMo. You can take your time if you want, but...

3.) The moment it starts feeling like work, stop.

This is not work, this is play. It's for fun. No one elese ever has to see it. You can add all the random smut or furit-juice drinking vampires you like. It doesn't have to fit into a genre or nook. It doesn't have to fit conventions or age ranges or vocabulary standards.

It doesn't matter how bad, silly, insane, random, cliched, weird, unlogical, holey, flat, off the wall or infused with killer goldfish it is. I'm serious. It. Does. Not. Matter.

If you want to journal or rant, go ahead. I chose a fictional outlet since I didn't want to stop writing completely, but couldn't focus on anything I might consider adding to my portfolio.

This is a brain-dump exercise to take the pressure off you. Give yourself permission to be bad and indulge yourself. Think of it like eating that quart of chocolate-swirl caramel delight ice cream in the freezer. (Or your favorite flavor. Personally I like frozen strawberry yogurt.) Maybe you shouldn't, maybe it's not good for you, but it sure as hell is fun to do and savor that moment of indulgence.

The same with writing. Indulge yourself. You don't even have to look at the scale in the morning and feel guilty about it. Cool, huh?

And to wrap it up...
You don't have to finish the JFF. It does not need plot, conclusion, or denoument. Change direction and stop whenever you like.

If you feel refreshed, happy, and eager to get back to a real project, go ahead. That's the whole point of de-stressing yourself and letting your brain dump. Once you feel better about your other writing, the stuff you want to show people and see succeed, you may very well be able to proceed.

There's no time limit on the JFF. It'll be there (or spawn siblings for you when you need them) when you need to let out some steam and don't want to risk ruining your current project. If you need a break, take one. Have fun, in whatever way you decide to do it. Remember why you enjoy this thing called writing.

Enjoy! And remember, roses often smell better when you set them on fire.

~Merc

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Reevaluating

That word looks so weird, and I don't know why. It always makes me think of valves and how to make a flamethrower with a gas pipe and lighter, a la The A-Team.

Go ahead, laugh. I'm still the one with the flamethrower. %-)

Anyway.

Last week I took an imposed break from writing "real" short stories. It was okay. Not sure how much it really helped, but less pressure on myself was nice.

For a couple days now, I've been letting the notion of doing a major reevaluation of my short stories (and to some degree, writing in general--but I'm heartlessly ignoring the novels right now) percolate when I'm not using the percolator for coffee. I've decided I need to stop thinking and actually do it.

I have a handful (and growing) of blog post ideas I would love to get written and posted here... but first I need to sort out the shorts, which continue to monopolize my brainpower. (Zombies go for the actual brain, not the brainpower. Lucky me.)

So.

While I'm not all that regular with posting to begin with, I figure if I take a week to sort out some stuff I can concentrate better and will work on some shiny posts/topics. (They keep poking me! With sharp pointy objects! Grr.) If it gets done sooner, the better. Otherwise, while the fires never quite burn down around here, it may be quiet.

What? I can pretend I'm more active than I really am on here if I bloody want... *grumbles*

How often do you step away from your writing/work and evaluate or reevaluate it? What kind of measures do you use and how do you judge what's working, what isn't, and what you want to change to improve and grow?

~Merc

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Minotaurs and the Apocalypse: January Recap

There were fewer zombies created in January, and I blame the schizo temperatures all month.

Writing wise the month mostly sucked, for a lot of personal reasons, but on the brighter side, I remembered to track what I did and didn't accomplish.

GOALS SET IN JANUARY
- write, finish, polish, and have ready to market one new short story.
(I tried. I did a flash fic...)

- research what I need for Time is Hell
(Er... what is this thing known as research?)

- finish writing my novel Riven
(Ha. Ha. Ha.)

- keep randomly working on Necromancer Fallen, my dark fantasy novel (because, as we know, Merc can not work exclusively on one thing at a time)
(I think I looked at it twice.)

- blog a bit more regularly
(Did I?)


WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
Novels
While I didn't touch Riven, I did write two scenes for NF. Rounded it up to about 2,700 words of bugging the hell out of my main character (always fun).

I managed to edit the first chapter of TIH, which luckily does not involve more research than what sub-zero temps in a basement feel like. I live in MN. I have Experience. :P

Nothing else really novelish happened. I got burned out, sick of them all, and shoved them in a corner to sulk while I (tried to) focused on shorts.

Short stories
Wrote a total of three new stories that got finished. It was wonderfully balanced in three genres: a flash fiction SF, a horror short roughly 4k, and a fantasy one that clocked in around 8k. (The fantasy one involved minotaurs. In case, you know, you were wondering where the hell my post title came from.)

I'm actually pleased with how all three turned out. (Which is definitely a first.)

Two post-apocalyptic shorts poked a few random sentences through my brain. I dutifully jotted them down and set the stories on fire for mocking me with a lack of plot for most of the month. They burned gloriously and at last offered up plotness, and now lurk at the back of my mind waiting for me to work on them again.


Other writing stuff
Near the end of the month, I finally got too stressed to work on anything real, so I took a "break" and worked on only non-stories. That was fairly productive, in a non-real way.

A zombie fight scene, non-story (The Historical Escapades of Mr. Dinonysus Block); a myth about why the grim reaper is a skelaton (that was fun); and finally I started a JFF (just for fun) story about a boy who gets a hex drawn on his arm and it brings about Armageddon--wrote about 7k on that and while it's random, weird, and utterly unclassifable, it keeps me entertained. ;)

Random trend(s) of the month
First person and zombies.

Now, I write in both first and third person; I have no preference between one and the other, and it all depends on the story I'm working on. (I admit I'm more likely to use third in novels, quite often beucase I have multiple POVs.)

But this month was unusual in that almost everything was in first person. All three completed shorts; the JFF; the zombie fight scene; one of the post-appocylptic partials. (The novels are already in third person, so they don't count.)

My biggest problem is getting the voices right and keeping them different (keep an eye out for an actual post on the subject of character voice). Still. I'm pondering where this trend came from.

Surely no one need to know why zombies are a trend? O:) (Besides "Mr. Dionysus Block", the JFF includes zombies raiding the cookie jar.)

OVERALL

Total word count (including revisions of shorts/chapters): 33,000 rounded off.
Satisfaction level: moderate to miserable.

Like I said, the month sucked. But I'm not too worried. January usually does for me. ;)

So, anyone else notice random trends in their writing lately?

~Merc

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