Hey Gang!!

To all my readers(followers of my blog) I am apologetic to you guys. I haven't been written on my blog in quite awhile! You know how life gets! Anyways; alot of people tend to get overwhelmed with writing their first novel. Yes, Yes you sit there and say to yourself "Is this good enough?" "Am I in need of medication?" I would advise you this Ignore those thoughts, you can't worry about everything. Pay attention to your writing and listen to your play list.


Yes of course you need an agent... Yes you need a publisher... Yes you need a book cover. But bottom line none of these things will make sense to have if you don't write.


Distractions of life do occur but remember if you don't pay attention to your goals you wont achieve those goals simple as that. Criticism that you hear from friends, family on your writing should be taken none emotionally and always remember that if people took to heart something someone else said to them some of the achievements not just in writing but in science and technology would never had occurred. Remember these words: "You can only throw yourself under the bus. No one else can do it for you." 

Another area I have discussed recently with an fellow author was real life considerations on their writing. In other words should they allow influences from their everyday life to hijack their creativism. I responded to this with: How else are you to write, we are influenced both consciously and unconsciously in our everyday life by things and people around us. The trick is to find something creative within our surroundings and interactions. I also gave an example when Stephen King was asked how he came up with the screenplay for the movie The Myst he answered simply "I went and brought groceries and as I was paying for them I noticed the big windows in the front of the store and Bam the basic idea for The Myst took shape." He then rushed home and got to work. See if he can have an creative brain "Bam" then you can as well. You most likely won't even recognize its occurring when it does. So my advice to all of your authors and inspiring authors is to pay attention to the world around you!!


That's it for this week guys! And I promise to add more to my blog in the future!!

Missing inspiration part 2

As I was saying earlier TV is a good inspiration tool along with ya blu ray, VCR, DVD player. However let's go old school for a moment shall we?


Let's say your looking to create an action scene in your book and are lacking for concept ideas. Well one habit I've picked up is using the newspaper  heres an example from my local paper.


A 28-year-old woman was arrested Dec. 1 after allegedly taking an acquaintance’s pickup truck without his consent. The owner of the truck phoned Greater Sudbury Police around 10 p.m., complaining the suspect had taken his vehicle from the parking lot at a sports bar on Second Avenue, almost running him over in the process. Greater Sudbury Police spotted the woman driving the vehicle “erratically” northbound on Elgin Street. Officers had to take evasive action to avoid a collision. They stopped the vehicle at the intersection of Elgin and Elm Streets. They broke the driver's side window to get the woman out of the vehicle. The suspect has been charged with taking a motor vehicle without consent, assault with a weapon, dangerous driving and impaired driving. She is due to appear in bail court Dec. 2.


Now as you can see from the story its small in length, information very direct, etc. Here's a way you can take creative licence with this story.


My sisters and I watched the news which flashed on our earlier adventures. Luckily to the general public nothing supernatural had occurred, the news flash simply said a woman had been arrested for taking her friends vehicle at 10 o'clock at night and nothing was said about the Fire Gremlin that had possessed her other than that she was driving erratically going northbound on Elginus Avenue and that the cops had to avoid a collision by taking evasive action.  They momentarily talked about her upcoming court date, the three of us snickered loudly if they only knew....


This is only an example and you notice that I took creative licence with the street name. You the writer can take as much creative licence as you wish for not matter the length just remember to follow the 5W rule and setting rule. Now go read or watch the news and see what fun you can have creatively...

Writing... some concepts to inspire you

When I need inspiration the top foremost rule of thumb I use is READ! even if its a simple thing like reading the newspaper or rereading a favorite author; one would be amazed at what inspiring concepts one can come up with by reading. Another concept which takes a bit more thought is watch one of your favorite movies or TV shows. The reason I say that this takes more thought is because you don't just watch the movie or show you try to put yourself or better think of how your own characters would react to a what the series or movie characters situations are. The other night I watched an episode of The Walking Dead its not a series I watch regularly but I thought I would give it a try. Those of you who are familiar with the show know that its based primary on a world where the dead have returned to life the ancient genre of zombies however the show isn't lets escape the downtown mall concept it pays attention more to the none zombie characters.
Another concept I sometimes use is multiplayer games on the PC such as Rift. Now this I wont recommend to the novice writer because its so easy to be distracted from the writing. What I do is take the creative character aspect one step further I visualize character behavior patterns while I'm playing.


While I sometimes do use music play lists for inspiration I find that music lists are distracting for my own personal use. However a music list does enable me to "drown out" the world around me and stop both visual and hearing distractions. Surprisingly even with music cranked this effect is the same. 


Believe me there are days when finding inspiration to write is like beating my head against the wall. On the worst days the most I write is 20 words then throw my hands up in the air and swear at the Muses! But DON'T let these days trump your creative spirits, keep trucking at the manuscript no matter what! 

My first Book Signing

Well Gang! I had my first book signing.... It was at a local craft show in the city of sudbury (for those that don't know where that is it's in a northern town in the Canadian Province of Ontario). I of course invited my whole Facebook friends list, yes I know some aren't in the same province let alone same country but in this modern world of people being mobile with their face-books to their smart phones I figured what the hell one never knows if one is passing through city I'm in. Yes I got Manna to take afew photos on her camera and will post those to Facebook asap.

Now; onto my feelings on the book signing. First of all I signed and sold one book. I learnt abit about it in the aspect that got to talk to people and before the next one I goto I plan on getting some business cards done up so much neater and more professional than hand writing scraps of paper. I discussed the novel I'm working on and that seemed to perk interest. Now I wasn't surprised however that local friends of mine didn't come out to show their support for my work... it's almost an unwritten rule in this city not to carry through... however maybe next time they will appear it could of been a whole bundle of realistic reasons why they didn't.

Book signings to me seemed to be an whole different image that what I had in my mind's eye. loads to learn still... so I'll leave ya guys with this: Expect the unexpected!!

OK need an opinion!

Alright Gang, I have a book signing coming up for my poem books. I finally got myself a box of them for the signing and made a basic little poster. I'm curious to see what if any are people's opinion of my homemade poster is. I Did this with it seeing its not in picture format (Wordpad) I put the covers at the top and put author book signing and the quote "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." Hypatia of Alexandria below that 


In other news I finally got my neck tattoo; All done in one sitting. It's in the healing process now its the picture for  my profile without the word judgement on it.

So it's been awhile

So as the title says its been awhile, I've been busy what can I say. Now you'r probability wondering busy with what exactly? 2 Things Writing and doing the start of some leg work for the poetry books, I went and got a mini loan and brought some of my own books got a craft show coming up November and/or December thou I still haven't heard back from the originizer of the show on weather I have a table or not which irrates me to high heaven. I hate waiting on others to check their Facebook messages or email or msn.


In other news; finally got ahold of my publisher not the agent themselves, it appears they shifting my "case agent" to an entire new city and didn't tell me (neither she nor the company) they said they will be assigning me a new one. The whole thing puts them in breach of contract because everytime a case agent is changed they are to communicate with me via either phone or email and that has never happened. Gota love companies that don't go by their own standardized contract.


I'm thinking its about time that I revised my poem books thou I am still debating in what direction to do so. Not just the main cover but the poems themselves and weather to do a picture with each poem? hmmm the choices.... 


Well back to writing as usual. I will get sorted as I always do.....

Using TV Shows and Movies for Writing Inspiration!

We all have those moments of inspiration difficulty which can fall easy into a form of writer's block that isn't really writers block but more a form of what to do next within a chapter.  So I thought I will share some advice on this manner.


First off when I write i do so in "Scenes" within a chapter. To explain that in simplified format I visually see in my head a character within a setting doing something then plot out what their actions do to affect both environment and other characters within that scene.


So let's go the simplest route for this example I will use something well known. I'm pretty sure your all familiar with the three Underworld movies, now here's a suggestion; Take the opening scene in Underworld (the Death Dealers following the Lycans who are following the Human Dr into the subway) NOW STOP TAPE!


While this first scene in the film introduces the movie characters in a very basic way it has little interaction intil the characters actually get into the subway. Now remember visual format makes it easier to tell the story. BUT think in these terms How would you write the scene from Selene being on top of the building to her entering the Subway? How would her actions affect things etc.


Also remember you can do this several times with a notebook while watching a movie or TV series. Now remember to use pure creativity! DON'T ALLOW your own characters to become too much like the characters you are viewing within a TV Series or Movie. For example; Selene has personality traits that might be similar to your own main characters traits BUT REMEMBER don't turn your character into Selene!  


Remember you are in charge of the creative process with your writing! Also its an authors taboo plus a legal one to steal whole hearty or in part a copy written character from any series or movie. Yes you can use the name Selene in creative process but you can't use the Death Dealer concept of that story.

Another Rant Cant Resist!

So a friend and I she also has a blog on this site where hunting through the help links for page set up etc. Why is it that when someone makes a set up like this blog site that they have to confuse the dam issue go here go there and its not even in logical step by step! Finally after much hair pulling and wanting to sacrifice another living being and living being we both figured out how to sort out comments and comment moderation. SO GANG YOU CAN ALL POST COMMENTS AND PLEASE DO SO AT YOUR WILL! those who spam me will just have their spams deleted and if they become just a hassle I'll delete off the followers section. I also moved the "Follow" to top as well it's in two spaces please follow. NOW does anyone know a LOGICAL and SIMPLE format to get search out other people's blogs who are doing similar to you I.E other authors. so that one can invite them to follow your blog? Let me know please!! 


OK that's it for ranting!