The Ready Writer

Get ready folks, this is gonna be kind of a long one. Also, for those who only prefer to read about my writing and not so much my political and spiritual life, scroll down.  I'll get there eventually. So I've been thinking a lot about water lately.  My dreams have been full of it, I've been drinking a lot of it, and since it's January in Oregon, there's just a lot of it around. Water has a lot of symbolism. America's new President was sworn in earlier this week and as it was happening, it started to rain.  Many people thought it was a sign from God.  A positive thing.  Of course the reason behind this wasn't something divine.  It has to do with precipitation and clouds, I remember at least that much from public school science class (I also did an interpretive dance about the water cycle in Outdoor School when I was in 6th grade). But even so, the first thought I had was a divine one.  I thought about John 11:35: "Jesus Wept." Counter th...

I can't believe it is time for another writing update! I hate to say, but I've been in sort of a slump.  I haven't worked on my main project in a few weeks, and I've been writing sporadically on a short story in 50-100 word chunks. Part of it is because I'm working a lot, so I just write when I can squeeze in a few moments, and its easier for me to work on my short story in tiny chunks than my main project. But another part of it is because I'm just...tired. Between my 2 jobs I've been working full time, and when you work one job that you hate, and another job that you feel stuck in, it feels like a LOT more than 40 hours, and all of that leads to writing resistance. At the beginning of the year, I did a tarot card spread for myself and it told me that the one thing that will make this year successful for me is moderation.  For me, this doesn't necessarily mean cutting out things that I want to do, but rather it means allowing myself to not do ...

It's a new year! While there were a lot of bad things about 2016, I made some pretty big strides in figuring out who I am as a writer and what I want to write about. I finally accepted the fact that I write horror, and while some people may not think that it is "real" literature, I do.  And that is all that matters. I finally accepted that I also like to write Junior and YA fiction, and they too are valid, and that they can handle scary stories too. So, with these revelations in mind, I made some 2017 writer goals: Finish my main project Draft 1 Write 6 short stories and have them polished to final draft quality. Revamp my website.  It is in MUCH need of a makeover. Keep working on my side project during the 3 Nanos throughout the year (November, April, and July).  I have been having a lot of fun with that project, and it is a nice break in between my bigger projects. I have A LOT to keep me busy this year.  What are some of your goals and resolut...

Hello Readers! Just a quick update to let you all know that I am taking a hiatus for the rest of 2016.  Right now I am working on a short story and spending holiday time with loved whens during the times that I am not swamped with the extra hours I picked up at both of my jobs. I have some plans for the blog in 2017.  Writing updates and horror history will continue.  But what do you all think of some sort of book reviews? Not on any sort of regular schedule, just as I finish reading books? Just a thought. Anyway, have a Merry Holiday, a Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2017!

Hello Readers! Sorry I have been away.  Last week was sort of...well...not great.  But I did get a little bit of work done. I am in the process of typing up Act I.  I have typed up chapter one so far.  As I type up Act I, I have some goals I want to hit: Delete all of the other POVs except for one of them.  I was attempting to do a multiple POV thing, and I didn't like it, and so I have decided to do it from a single POV.  I know this means that I am going to be deleting like, half of what I have hand written, but that's how writing goes sometimes.  And overall, I think it will help my book be better. Change one of my characters from a mystical/fantasy type character to more of a mortal psychic character.  My character needs to be "gifted" but she was feeling a little too deus ex machina for my taste, so I'm tweaking her a bit. This doesn't seem like a tremendous amount of work, but I'm not quite ready to do big edits yet.  I'm j...

So its the last day of NaNoWriMo and while I am nowhere close to 50,000 words, I am proud to have written close to 4,500. Why? Well, I started working on my main project in July,  and I finished the first Act in October at AROUND 8,000 words. I have written over half of what I wrote in 3 months, in just one. That's because I am working that writing muscle. It isn't a surprise that writing everyday is the best thing to do if you want to be a writer. But as someone with 2 jobs and somewhat of a social life, that can be hard. So I try to write as often as I can.  I used the fun frantic energy of NaNoWriMo to test myself, and to see if I could still squeeze writing in at any possible moment I could even if that meant just taking 5 minutes to write 50 words as opposed to sitting down for an hour and seeing how much I could write. And it helped! I find that I am getting better at getting focused faster, words come a little better, and my writing chunks are getting a litt...

So on Election Day (or the day after, rather), I expressed the thought that I may have to scrap my main project because of my villain. I have since decided against that. I think now more than ever, I need to write this story. I am going to make some pretty big changes to the story.  I'm taking out some of the fantastical, making it less traditional apocalyptic horror and more occult horror.  My villain will be less of a political ruler, and more of a religious one, that was able to take over the government, and instead of doing it from multiple points of view, I'm picking one character to tell the story from. However, I still think that this story will be an important one.  I'm separating it from my original idea, because honestly I don't know if I can write it.  It's not that I don't want to, or am too scared to create a political rift, but I just don't think I'm strong enough.  This election is a very emotional one for me, and I'm already har...