My Highlight

You would think that the Super Bowl would be the highlight of my day yesterday, and that half time show was pretty brilliant. Loved the fun and simple aesthetic and did anyone else think that Beyonce and Bruno Mars kind of looked like modern superheroes? Yeah #ubernerd, no shame!

ANYHOW that wasn’t it. I was going to say that it was the dogs again because Oberon was SUCH a pain in the butt! My morning started off with lovemaking—or it WOULD have if a certain big baby hadn’t positioned himself right beside us and started crying for not being aloud up. Kiss. Whine. Kiss. That will be a change I’m looking forward to when we eventually move out. Doors. That in and of itself would have been enough except that later I’m reading in my armchair, my bride comes by and bends down to kiss me, and that same stupid dog shoves his face right into the mix, cold nose bumping our cheeks and his whining in our ears. And as if that wasn’t enough, when we finally settle down after homework, writing, and business, to watch the sunset over the pond from the back porch, he became so exuberant to be between us that he sent my bride’s beer bottle careening and I had to play a quick game of 52 card pickup—if those cards were unknown in quantity, transparent, and razor sharp.  

If this dog was one of Snow White’s dwarves his name would be NEEDY! Excuse me, sir, but I ordered an aloof and independent canine companion, not one incapable of surviving five minutes outside of the center of attention. This dog is spoiled rotten. SPOILED. ROTTEN. His dinner came straight from the table (or at least a huge appetizer) courtesy of my bride during the football game.

But the highlight, THE HIGHLIGHT, was my wife working on her novel. Some of her subject material is hard stuff to deal with and it makes me admire her more for all that she has done. This woman is beyond remarkable and her book is going to be far more powerful than anything I have ever written. Maybe ever will write. And for all that she has poured into it I will be beyond ecstatic. I love that my bride is so compassionate, so driven, and so intelligent and all of that is abundantly clear when she writes. That’s how we met actually, through writing.

What a great touchstone to start from, yeah?

Starting Your Novel: Writer’s Block

The enemy of every writer out there, more than critics, editors, or well-meaning family members who just don’t get what you’re doing, is yourself. Writers block is what happens when you get in your own way. If you’ve been following my “Starting Your Novel” series, then you’ll recall my previous post about writing every day and sometimes needing to force it. Writers block is something you have to push through.

This is not a popular idea among, mostly because IT’S HARD. Or it can be. Sometimes it is as simple as overcoming a single hurtle and making yourself start your daily writing. Other times it can be a long and drawn out resistance that you simply have to work through all day. Regardless of how difficult it is, you cannot let it when. Remember, writers are like sharks. We must write to breathe and not sink.

A simple trick to overcoming this internal block is this...

1. Get into position to write. Wherever your workstation is, be at it. 
2. Take a deep, relaxing breath.
3. Tell the internal editor inside of you that it is okay, that nobody will read this until you are ready and that you will be coming back to revise it after your first draft is complete. It is okay to write poorly.  
4. Just write. Start. Go. Do not spend too much time on step 3, but come back to repeat it as often as you need. Just so long as you write, you are not letting blockage win.

Bonus Tip:

                Bullet point on a piece of paper what you want to write about. Not in any huge amount of detail, but a sort of line of progression. A trail of breadcrumbs if you will. This can be a tremendous help promoting creativity and helping keep you on track. 

Starting Your Novel: The Muse

Some writers refer to their inspiration and creativity as a third party, a being separate from themselves. The ancient Greeks called this the muse or the genius, holding to the idea that great works were not the creations of the artists, but rather that the artists were possessed by a spirit of creation. This is a romantic notion, but it is not altogether accurate. Your muse is not a separate entity or voice in the back of your head, rather, it is a creative muscle.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, make the mistake of thinking that your muse is not a part of you or has a mind of its own. It is capricious on occasion and sometimes stubborn, but that is not because it is willful. You simply haven’t trained it. This is the reason why so many writers have odd quirks and rituals for their writing process which seem almost arcane to those who do not write themselves. Find out what motivates your creativity. Do you write better alone? Surrounded by people but with headphones on? With pen and paper or at a computer? At a certain time of day?

Once you've determined the factors that are most conducive to your writing, reward and punish your muse - and by that I mean yourself - accordingly. Take pleasure in each small victory with an appropriately small reward. For example, give yourself an extra treat at dinner or let yourself go see that movie in theaters everyone is buzzing about. Bigger rewards for bigger successes and the same for failure and punishments. Now when I say punishment I do not mean you should hurt yourself. But if you don’t meet your goals, don’t let yourself have dessert or make yourself take an extra lap when you go out to jog. Something that your unconscious will associate with a negative consequence.

Write often and find the patterns that encourage your creativity.

Starting Your Novel: Don't Wait

The first rule for those of you wanting to start writing your novel is this…DO NOT WAIT FOR INSPIRATION. Being inspired is a fine thing—and it feels FANTASTIC when you are!—but it despite all the mysticism surrounding inspiration, it is actually a very small part of the writing process. In fact inspiration in and of itself is utterly meaningless. What is far more important is your dedication to your writing, whether or not you are feeling inspired.

Every professional athlete has mornings where they’d rather not get up and go work out, the same is true of writers and writing. I once wrote for a guest post that writers are like sharks. Sharks cannot breathe under their own power, they have to keep swimming so that fresh water can pass through their gills and oxygenate their blood. If they stop swimming then they begin to sink and suffocate. Writers suffer this same problem. A writer who is not writing is sinking and will find it harder to consistently write again when they pick up their pen or sit down at the keyboard to work on an extended project.

I’ve heard a number of people say “If you don’t feel it then don’t force it” in countless variations. This is dangerous advice for the writer who isn’t limiting themselves to shorter works and, more importantly, intends to COMPLETE a larger body of work. A novel is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and novelists must strap themselves in for the long haul and write daily, whether or not they feel like it. If you don’t, then FORCE IT. It will hurt, but when you look back, more likely than not you won’t be able to tell the difference between it and your “inspired” writing. If you can then this is what revision is for anyways. Muscle through it and meet your goal.  

In short, if you want to start writing a novel, then start writing a novel!

Skies of Grey

I’ve never written anything quite like Skies of Grey. I did a stint with some embarrassing ghost writing when I first graduated from UTD, and I’ve written gross and scary stories before, but nothing nearly this dark. It’s interesting the things that influence you.

My grandmother passed away a few years ago and during that time I couldn’t write worth a damn. I had several much lighter toned works in progress, even if they didn’t all have traditional good guys. But for about two months nothing worth reading came out. And then I wrote the first chapter of Skies.

I was experimenting with different voices, different characters, and I had all of these horrible scenarios running through my head. Nothing I tried made them stop and they kept getting in the way whenever I tried to write my normal stuff. Or at least “normal” for me. T-bird and Mortimer came first.

Mortimer was supposed to be a main character, but the more I tried to write him as anything other than a sniveling weasel the more it didn’t work. Somehow, and I’m still not sure how, T-bird beat down the doors of my imagination and stormed in with chapter one and stayed consistent ever since. I liked writing T-bird. She was violent and in control and dang did I ever want to be those things. Winter and Reem came later, followed by Fleshchild and Primo.

I know they say that characters are some sort of reflection of the author’s mind and if so, then mine were born of my grief and anger and everything vile that twisted around in my gut. I’m pretty sure Mimi, who loved legal thrillers and Nora Roberts, would have been appalled. But also very proud. She was an incredible woman, and our family gatherings and holidays still have a hole she used to fill. We’re moving on—because that’s what life makes you do—and writing this was instrumental for me doing that.

I hope that your reading experience is as enjoyable for you as the writing was cathartic for me.

First Day Back in School

And so begins my first day back in class. Tonight is American Literature: 1920-Present. We’ll be starting off with Hemmingway. I’m both nervous and excited, a state which I seem to perpetually be in lately. My veins feel full of lightning. There are some intimidating names on this reading list and one heck of a project on the syllabus. Of my academic career this semester, this class will likely pose the biggest obstacle to my goal of 12 titles in 2015.

It’s a lot of reading and a lot of writing, none of which can be put to use towards my work, which is the greatest benefit of my Creative Writing class. I am beyond thrilled to start that on Monday. We won’t be working in a classroom but at the Wynne Home Art Center. Talk about scenic. The place is steeped with so much creativity you can practically feel it oozing from the walls.

I’m hoping to expand the critique circles I started last semester to 2 evenings a week instead of just one, as much to keep me on target and working as to make the sessions available to a wider audience. The biggest complaint last semester was schedule conflicts with classes. I’m hoping that by putting the circles back to back on a Tuesday-Wednesday schedule that I’ll be able to counter that and draw in more writers. There’s a surprising amount on campus just waiting to be discovered and I’ve been privileged to read some pretty amazing stuff.

And none of this takes into account my assistantship. I’m going to be one busy guy this semester. But you know what? I think it’s going to be so worth it.

Check out my website and be sure to subscribe to my newsletter!

12 Months of Publishing

New Year’s Resolutions. We tend to dread these, don’t we? Or set things with the best of intentions and never follow through. It’s expected. Dread or discard. Here goes mine.

I want to release one new title every month through 2015.

That’s 12 new titles. I feel like I should sing a modified rendition of a popular Christmas tune. This particular goal is daunting, more for the fear that sits in my gut every time I get ready to release that at the prospect of all the writing. Heck, the writing is the most enticing part. All the revising, the editing, that part’s more intimidating than the process of creating new material. Especially after my first release.

My first novella of the year was published on January 9 and dedicated to my Father. And I dropped the ball. I either didn’t edit heavily enough or I had the wrong draft converted for publication. Either way, the opening paragraphs were a wreck (thankfully that’s been fixed) and the rest is riddled with typos. The rest should be rectified shortly, but it burns that they were there at all. It’s embarrassing. It’s a sign to everyone who picks up their kindle and opens Hawkridge that I got cocky.

But I’m not giving up and I’m learning from my mistake. My next book, and the first of the Skies of Grey series, will be up for preorder in the next few days. This time I intend to get things right. Meaning I probably won’t, and I got to say, that scares me. But I won’t let it stop me.  I’ll probably drop the ball a lot over the course of my career. All I can do is learn, grow, and do better.

Two Semesters Down and Goals Set

Feeling really accomplished right about now. I'm setting goals and can actually see the fruits of my labor as I work toward them. I'm 21 hours into my MFA, on the verge of publishing my first novella, and have a game plan for publishing much more over 2015. Still have a lot of work to do, though I suspect that's going to be the case no matter how much I actually accomplish over this semester. Even so, it feels really good to have a game plan in place. It feels as if I'm actually making progress.

Right now, I've got not one, but two novellas about to be published. The first should be out in January and the second in February, with more to come providing everything goes according to plan. I'm incredibly nervous about releasing the full details at this point, just because I don't know what the next semester is going to hold. First round in I made the mistake of taking double a regular workload, but I managed okay. Last semester I took an average load, but dang if my classes didn't make me work.

That, coupled with my tendency to procrastinate and my dislike of writing things into a formula or structure--like say a synopsis or a press release--are the main things holding me back right now. I need to get over it. Once the press release is out, I'll see about sharing it on the blog and making all my big announcements then. See what I mean about procrastinating? I'm so practical about it.

Anyways. Multiple novels and novellas ready for publication. Lots of revision and editing done, and continuing to be done. Game plan set for writing, and therefore business. More news to come in the future. 

Meanwhile, Happy New Year!

First Semester Down!

So that's the first semester of grad school done! My "barndominium" now has fully functioning electricity (had to dig a trench over spring break for the wires), air conditioning, and internet. I even have a working television with more channels than anyone really knows what to do with, let alone me. We have some long horn cows who had a couple of calves while I was up here, added a couple of horses to the mix, and my dog Oberon is finally learning to mind and not go tearing off after the much larger animals. To quote Ferrol Sams, "He's a good boy, he minds well. I just can't think of enough things to tell him not to do." Two of the horses are paints, already mentioned the cows were longhorns, and Oberon...we know he's half Rhodesian ridgeback and now strongly suspect the other half is Newfoundland. 

And it turns out what I thought was easing myself into the program was actually taking double the average workload of my peers, so OOPS! That was a wake up call. A few big things happened this semester....

We had the National Book Awards on campus and I was privileged to meet Tea Obreht and Gene Yang, authors of the novel "The Tiger's Wife" and graphic novels "Boxers" and "Saints," respectively. 

Tea gave a speech about her writing process and was absolutely hilarious in person, I half suspect she was as nervous about us as we were of meeting her. Gene was incredibly cool, we talked everything from Avatar to Star Wars, and I purchased a boxed set of his graphic novels. He was kind enough to autograph both of them. 

I tell you that story to tell you this one. While attending the National Book Awards, I met the terrific individuals hosting the event, all members of Sigma Tau Delta, AKA the International English Honors Society. Guess who's now technically a frat boy? I've even talked to our professorial sponsor and she's asked me to come on as an officer in autumn. 

 

My other piece of big news has very little to do with school. I attended this year's Houston Writers Guild's annual conference. I met so many wonderful people, both new friends and old. Pamela Fagan Hutchins is doing an absolutely AMAZING job with the organization. I attended several great workshops and met with three agents. One of whom has said the work I presented him with failed to resonate with him, the other I have yet to hear back from, but the third...The third I sent the first 25 pages of two separate manuscripts to, then after speaking on the phone for around three hours one afternoon was asked to send in both complete manuscripts and three synopsis for other books. At the risk of being a cliche, I cannot put into words how thrilled I am! I'm only hoping I got them to her soon enough--finals hit me almost as soon as we got off the phone and I now know exactly why my fellow grad students take half as many hours as I did. 

So say a prayer, wish me luck, do whatever superstitious thing you do! As my sports buddies say, it's only weird if it doesn't work. 

And in still other news, this summer semester I'll be working as a TA and come autumn I'll be a tutor at the campus Writing Center! I'll have gainful employment! Am I using to many exclamation points!? Yeah, cutting that out now, but still, very exciting. 

I'm also in the process of revising a novella I wrote for Nanowrimo (arguably a short novel at 50K words) and am about half way through its sequel. The intention is to self-publish the first this summer and the second soon thereafter. Maybe come autumn? I guess it's going to depend on how my submissions go over with Jessica Kirkland, the incredibly nice--insert list of positive actives here--literary agent I met through the HWG. 

Very exciting times right now. It's hard to believe how things have changed from this time last year. 

Writers Roulette! New Bag and New Story Sample

Naturally now that I'm putting by Roulette baggies to more work, my genre bag went missing and I had to toss together a new one. I actually think I like this one better. Unfortunately it was made in a pell-mell rush in between morning errands and day plans. I'll be sitting down to edit my latest novel as soon as I finish this post up and was actually supposed to be on that an hour ago. Today's getting away from me! I'll see if I can't list out all the genres I've got collected in my bag to draw from so that you can copy it for your own usage tomorrow. Call it my Christmas gift to you!

Today's combination...

Genres

Heroic Fantasy

Slasher

Story Elements/Themes/Tropes

Unseen Forces

Temptation of Power

Transformation

Tell me that combination doesn't almost write itself! My first thought went to vampires, but don't know for sure that that's the direction I want to take this. Unfortunately it looks like this particular piece demands a lot of buildup, but I challenge anyone who reads it to write for themselves what happens next...

____________________

Miggins stabbed the pitchfork into the hay and hurled it over his shoulder. The visiting nobles horses wouldn’t feed themselves. Stab. Toss. Stab. Toss. Same as any other day. Only it really wasn’t.

The barn was filled with strange horses, clearly thoroughbreds but not any he’d ever heard of. Striped horses. Who’d ever heard of such a thing? He couldn’t tell one way or the other whether they were white with black stripes or white with black. And they bit. His forearm was wrapped with bandages beneath his heavy winter tunic where one had taken great delight in ripping away a chunk of his flesh. At least warhorses understood who it was that fed them.

And the riders were just as strange as their mounts. Tall and fair skinned, with red hair that sprung from their scalps like the flames of torches. In the whole village, he was the only one with hair like theirs. If it weren’t for all the freckles that had colored his face, it would be easy to confuse them for his kin. At least so long as one didn’t look too closely at how they carried themselves.

Nobles always walked like the ground was privileged for their footstep. Stab. Toss. Stab. Toss. One had even stopped to look at him with reptilian eyes as they entered the inn. Some inns had names, he understood, in other towns where there might be call for more than one. But not here, in Elmstock. Here there was only the inn, and the closest thing to nobility was the mayor.

Now there were six nobles inside where it was warm by the fire, away from snow and cold hay and biting black and white horses. Who came riding into town two full hours after the sun went down? And at this time of year, when the snow was almost knee deep? They didn’t even look like the cold bothered them, dressed in flowing silks. They’re clothes had seemed to move and wave like water as they moved, almost as if the cloth was alive. If the cold didn’t bother them, then they should be willing to take care of their own bloody horses out here in the cold. He bet none of them had ever been sent off to perform last minute chores after thinking they were about to settle down to a hot, well-earned dinner.

Stab. Toss. Stab. Toss. The frustration burned like an ember in his chest and he held onto it, deliberately letting his thoughts coax it into something hotter than it should be. Anger could keep a man warm. It certainly beat being numb.  

Stab. Toss. A skull glared out of the hay at him, empty eye sockets blazing with a crimson light. Blood ran over the grinning mouth, painting the teeth yellow teeth orange against the brown-black rotten bone.

Miggins screamed and staggered away, slipped on the droppings one of the striped horses had left on the barn floor, and toppled over into the hay. He came up in a flurry of straw, wide eyed and gasping for breath. There was no sign of the skull. Only the disturbed hay and fallen pitchfork belied that anything at all had happened.

Miggins blinked his eyes and wiped the sweat from his brow. He tried to swallow but found his mouth too dry. That’s what he got for thinking angry thoughts. He was seeing things. Unwholesome things. He signed himself with the mark of the Hearth Master and rose to his feet. Finish working, he thought, feed the horses and get inside.

Not feeding them wasn’t an option. Not if he wanted to keep his job and home, which he very much did. Although if another skull popped out of the hay he might reconsider. He might anyways, but in the morning, after a good night’s rest and breaking his fast. After the nobles left to continue their journey.

He readied the pitchfork for another stab into the stray when a scream rent the air. A woman’s scream, shrill and full of an icy terror that extinguished what little warmth remained inside of him and set the animals to agitation. Blood dripped from the end of his pitchfork.

He screamed and dropped it. One of the striped horses reared and bellowed, lashing his hooves in challenge. Another scream from the inn, and Miggins took off. Everything in him told him he was going the wrong direction, but the inn was his home. Whatever was attacking their guests would have to go through him. He said silent prayer to the Hearth Master as he ran that

….

Ran out of time here. Please keep in mind that this is a RAW and UNEDITED FIRST DRAFT (and as such is bound to be riddled with more flaws than I can shake an over used metaphorical stick at) when you comment. Eager to hear your thoughts and ideas! Please comment below or share your own Roulette Stories :)

Making Imagination Happen: The Hazardous Road of the Creative

What a journey...



As a writer who enjoys spending time with other writers, I've known a few people who've suffered accidents, either a computer was stolen with the last half of their manuscript or was infiltrated by a virus that corrupted every file on the device. Like Janet Echelman when she lost her art, they got back up and went right back to creating. My own computer once even MELTED on me...still not entirely sure how that happened but it literally cooked itself.

And like Janet Echelman and my other writer friends, I'm still creating. None of us were the first, nor will we be the last to suffer setbacks like this. But every single artist, writer, or *insert profession of choice here* who loses everything they've worked on, picks themselves up and keeps on going is beyond amazing in my book.

Tell me about your stories, what obstacles have you overcome to give your imagination life and how has it shaped your creativity?

Writer’s Roulette

This is an exercise I invented for a retreat I hosted over the summer and I found it incredibly fun and helpful. If nothing else, anyone who needs a writing prompt to kick off the week should find this useful. I’ve printed out two pages, one with a bunch of genres and another with a bunch of thematic elements, tropes and the like. Each page was cut up and tossed into a baggy.

I draw two from the genre baggy and three from the thematic elements baggy, put them together and write for 25 minutes. It’s an incredibly refreshing process, simply cutting back and taking off down a loosely defined path, a great blending of direction and creative freedom. 

Here’s the results from today’s exercise, completely raw and unedited—straight from Microsoft Word to the blog. I’ll be putting something like this up weekly (just the start to something larger) with a new prompt and story results. Give this exercise a shot for yourself, either do your own random process or use the results below. Just write!

2 Genres

Post Apocalypse

Contemporary Fantasy

3 Themes/Tropes/Whatever

Man vs God

Urban Setting

Love Triangle

Add in 25 minutes and...enjoy!

Juniper Joy ran weeping across the parking lot, dodging the overripe blackberry bushes growing up from the skeletons of Volkswagen beetles. Glossy silvers, blues and greens peeked through foliage and rust, winking at her as she ran, tattered skirt whipping behind her like a banner, mirroring her tangled mane of chestnut. Not that she’d ever seen a chestnut. They were long extinct. Like cellphones and cellophane.

                “Juney!” Maverick called from behind her.

               

His dad had owned the lot before, back when the beetles did more than just sat like colorful rocks. They didn’t look extinct but she supposed they were, too.

               

“Juney!”

                The world blurred, colors blurring behind the tears to blend into a solid myriad. She kept running. Rings weren’t supposed to go extinct. That’s why they were circles, ‘cause they went on forever. But nothing lasted forever.

                The hem of her skirt caught on a blackberry bush and she left behind another patch of fabric, fluttering like a broken bird.

                Rings and forever weren’t for her. They couldn’t be.

                She fled the parking lot, running into a building that had once been called a bank. Maverick wouldn’t follow her onto unholy ground. Paper had brought about the end of the golden era he liked to say, but she didn’t see how. She didn’t need to; she wasn’t lined up to be the next holy man.

                Broken glass littered the tile floor, crunching under her boot like gravel as she flew past. She couldn’t stay here. Being alone was good, but the empty vault in the back wasn’t good to be around when anyone was like this. Whatever this was. Was she still crying?

                She wiped her eyes, leaping through the brass frame of a door that was meant to be full of glass and spin in place like a top so people could go through. Why the folks that used this place for their foul rituals needed such a fancy door instead of a normal one was just as mysterious as the empty vault. It cried sometimes at night. Nobody but Maverick believed her, but she’d heard it.

                Juniper took to alleys and kept running until her sides hurt. Breathing hurt. And her reflection in the remaining grimy windows of the dead buildings was red-faced and sweaty. Definitely not someone for rings. What would she do if her face turned red for eternity?

                “You look lost,” said a voice behind her.

                She jumped, then caught sight of the speaker’s reflection in the dirty window.

“Avarice McCoy,” she snarled as she spun around. “I am not in the mood for your foolishness.”

His lips found hers, capturing them in a dance of flesh on flesh. Calloused hands cupped her cheeks, fingertips brushing the edges of the tangled mess she called her hair. They were cool against her flushed face and she found herself leaning into them for a moment, for that reason alone. It had nothing to do with the way the kiss poured into her like liquid fire, filling her belly with a yearning for more.

She jerked away and cut loose with a slap that left her palm and fingers stinging. Avarice’s face was just as dirty as the windows, blonde hair turned bronze from too long in the downtown ruins. A red handprint glowed beneath the grime, distorted by his cheeks lifting as he grinned.

“You keep coming back here, makes me wonder which of us is really foolish.”

“Maverick proposed.”

Blue eyes froze, hardening like the top of pond in winter. “Oh.”

“I can’t get married,” she said. “The garden’s not ready.”

“And that’s all you care about, isn’t it?” Avarice said. “Those mushrooms aren’t as magic as you think they are.”

 

She ignored his words and pushed past his hard body. Whatever intelligent creator had seen fit to make Avarice McCoy’s arms harder than stone had to have it out for her, there weren’t another explanation. Maverick was trouble. Avarice was more trouble.

“Just a little bit more and I can leave on a caravan,” Juniper said, stomping down another alley. “Trade them along the coast. Those I don’t use for the caravan anyhow.”

“Future’s not something that should be looked into, Juniper,” Avarice said and his footfalls sounded on the artificially hard ground, following her.

                “You sound like Maverick.” She made a face at him over her shoulder. “Thought scroungers were less superstitious than holy men.”

                “He’s not a holy man, yet,” Avarice said. “And it’s not superstition. It’s good old common sense. You know anyone who ever ate them mushrooms and didn’t go mad?”