Chasing Inspiration (July IWSG)

I left a comment on a blog a month or two ago that went something like this:

I've come to the conclusion that inspiration cannot be chased and caught. It's an elusive little bugger. But when you least expect it, it can whack you upside the head with brilliance. Just don't duck. ;-)

My reasoning behind the comment was that we writers cannot sit at our desks, don a tin foil cap sprouting antennae and expect to intercept brilliant inspiration as though it were radio waves. We can't just throw on our baseball caps, lace up our cleats and hold out our gloves to catch inspiration as it falls from the sky.

Click here to join this supportive community

It doesn't work that way. At least not for me.

More times than one, I've waited at my desk, hoping, yearning, pleading for a visit from my muse. I've gone walking and driving, knowing that she usually drops by at inconvenient hours and places. All to no avail.

While I believe that inspiration cannot be chased and caught, I also believe it frequently answers active invitations. The key word there is active.

An active invitation requires movement: fingers typing, hands scribbling or eyes reading. Rarely am I inspired while watching movies or television. Such activity leaves my imagination dormant. It sits there, content to watch what someone else has already created.

It is, in my opinion, the act of creating that invites the muse. We may end up tossing every single word we write while waiting, but the waiting will often not be in vain.

So the next time you're finding inspiration elusive, chase it by actively inviting it. You may just catch it.

Sunday Surfing

WRiTE CLUB 2013 - Submissions Open

Checklist For Adding Suspence & Intrigue

Publishing Spotlight: Interview with John Pitts

Why Are We Stepping On Each Other's Toes?

Backup, Version Control, and Comparing Your Work

Gryphonwood Press: Open Submissions during June 2013

10 Things Your Opening Chapter Should Do: A Check-List for Self-Editing

Elizabeth Seckman's June IWSG post (query/response) is worth the read. Rejecting the Bible...An IWSG Post

50 Essential Epic Fantases (1-25) and 50 Essential Epic Fantasies (26-50)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Trailer Premieres!

Several of you are already aware, but we bade Sally Sue a final farewell last weekend. She will be missed. Thirteen years in our home. Forever in our hearts.

Sally Sue 2000-2013

Biting the Bullet - June IWSG

There comes a time in every writer's life when he must simply bite the bullet. In this context, bite the bullet means submit, whether it be a manuscript, short story, article or anything else. If it's something that must be reviewed, judged or accepted, then it must be submitted.

Click here to join this supportive community

I recently realized that it has now been a full year since I completed the initial draft of The Bonding. It's gone through three intense revisions and some hefty edits. The last two edits have focused almost exclusively on word count reduction.

It's not that easy for me. Some people have trouble shedding pounds. I have trouble shedding words. I know my nemesis.

Wordiness is the bane of my writing.

So I trimmed the fat. I whacked and whittled, cut and chopped like a lumberjack on steroids. I now wonder if there's enough fat left to flavor the meat.

But this post is about biting the bullet of submitting, not my struggles with word count reduction. Or are they one in the same? Perhaps wrestling with word count has become my way of avoiding the bullet of submitting. I tell myself it's a valid excuse. But is it just an excuse?

No matter! This is the month that Jeff bites that bullet. I've given my knightly oath to dragon and spouse alike. (And I dare not provoke either!) This is the month that I begin to seek publication in deed and not just in word.

Wish me well?

Go Ahead, Aim For the Stars

During last month's A-to-Z Challenge, I highlighted a number of authors that have inspired me over the years. Many of these authors broke new ground, tried new things and were often met with lukewarm receptions.

Edgar Rice Burroughs began writing about John Carter traveling to Mars in 1912. He described large flying ships, planetary atmospheric processing plants and Tharks, the six-limbed and not so little green Martians. When was he inducted into the EMP Museum's Science Fiction Hall of Fame? 2003. Talk about patience!

Click here to join this supportive community

And let us not forget the great Jules Gabriel Verne. In the 1860s & 1870s he was taking readers 20,000 leagues under the sea, around the world in eighty days, to the moon and even to the earth's very center. Verne had to wait until 1999 for his induction to the Hall of Fame. He was often perceived as a children's or (gasp!) genre author.

Isaac Asimov's robots with positronic brains showed up in his short stories as early as 1939. (Who knew Lt. Commander Data was so dated?) They appeared in his novels by the 1950s. Keep in mind that we didn't even have pocket calculators until the 1970s.

In the 1930s and 1940s we had C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and the rest of the Inklings discussing literature and creating hobbits, ringwraiths and vistas like Narnia, among so much more.

These writers were visionaries. They were in many ways ahead of their time. Much of what they accomplished wasn't always appreciated until years later. And they were but a few who dared to write what none had written before.

The take-away? Possibilities are limitless. Let yourself dream and break new ground.

Go ahead, aim for the stars!

C is for Computers

I Love Sci-Fi/Fantasy Because...

 ...of computers.  What would science fiction be without them?

They inform.  They serve.  Some, like Star Trek's holodeck, entertain.  But sometimes, they turn on us like the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica or SkyNet of the not-too-distant future.

My Favorite Computer

But usually, they just do what they're told, good or bad, like the Terminator or the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And then we have computers that we learn to love.  Like Lt. Commander Data of Star Trek or David from A. I. Artificial Intellegence.

Who doesn't love a little A. I.?

Computers come in almost every size and shape imaginable.  They have been a part of my life--and my job--for many years.  And they're yet another reason why I love science fiction and fantasy.

And for my brief IWSG portion of today's post, an encouragement:

If I hear you ask, "Can I?" then my answer is, "Yes! You can!"

There are at least three-hundred-sixty-five days in every year. Few of them come to pass without us questioning ourselves in some capacity.

Will I ever be a good writer?  A successful one?  Do I have what it takes?

I've come to believe that questioning ourselves is prudent, even healthy. A little doubt can balance a swollen ego.  But doubt--like ego--is good only in smaller doses.

You can write.  You can learn, improve. And with a fair amount of effort, you can succeed.

The only sure way to fail is to never try. 

Seek to Critique - March IWSG

I'm a big fan of critiques.  I like receiving them.  And I like giving them.

The benefits of receiving them are obvious.  The benefits of giving them, however, are varied and not always immediately evident.

I gave my first critique less than two years ago.  A dozen different insecurities flooded my mind as I did so.

• Who am I to recommend that this be changed?
• What if my suggestion ends up being the worst suggestion in the history of critiquing?
• How can I make sure my feedback will be received in the spirit intended?
• Did I word this comment so that its meaning won't be misinterpreted?
• Am I sure the writer's intent didn't just fly over my head?
• Maybe that section really is perfect and I'm just too dense to recognize it??

And on and on the doubts came and set up residence in my mind.  But had I never sent the critique, that residency would have become permanent.

As with anything we do in life, we improve with practice.  We grow more confident and strengthen our skills, both in analyzing another's words and in conveying ours.

But I've found that I'm the one who benefits most from the critiques I give.  I learn or reinforce grammar lessons.  I see the importance of word choice, sentence and story structure.  I discover new terms, new techniques, and get a feel for what works and what doesn't.  I find myself flagging a writer for something that I still do myself, and promptly make a note to change it in my own manuscript.

Critiquing enables a writer to view his own writing from different perspectives, making possible a more objective assessment of his own skills and tendencies.

Providing a good critique takes a fair bit of time if done well.  And when handled properly, the results will encourage as well as enlighten the writer who wrote the words under your microscope.

Almost two-thirds of my time reading over the past year has been for critiques.  And I do not regret it one bit.  I can only hope those who have received critiques from me have benefited from them as much as I did.

While receiving a critique benefits the receiver, giving a critique benefits everyone. So do everyone a favor. Seek to critique and learn from the experience.

(My apologies if this publishes as new again. I somehow managed to "unpublish" it.)

Authors Reviewing Authors - Feb IWSG Post

I see it all the time: authors requesting reviews of their books from other authors.  It's understandable.  There are many benefits to having a decent number of well-written reviews.  Authors (as well as readers) do deserve reviews.  And most writers really do want to help.

So why do I have such a problem obliging these requests?

I believe that, for me at least, it's largely due to the potential for a conflict of interest.  It's a valid concern because the conflict can be quite real. I worry too much about the oddest of things.

Should my reviews overlook or forgive shortcomings simply because I know the person and their efforts to overcome the insurmountable?  Am I to hold a gifted high school student to the same standard that I'd use for a Robert Jordan review?  What about the struggling single mom who dropped out of school and now self-publishes paranormal romances?  Would my five-star for her be a three-star if Nora Roberts had written it?

The conflict of interest could also be nothing more than someone's erroneous assumption or perception.

Does anyone take seriously one author's review of another author's book?  Do they assume that a favorable review means that the reviewing author is a friend of the reviewed?  Or that they're soliciting a favorable review in return?  Or if both authors are published under the same imprint that their publisher is requiring them to promote each other?

Doesn't everyone with a Kindle view the self-published masses as a unified armada that would never sabotage another indie with a bad review?  Wouldn't the indie armada consider that nothing short of treason and punishable by the heretic's excommunication? (Please forgive my hyperbole; I'm merely showing how my mind makes mountains of molehills.)

And what about the negative reviews written by authors?  Do people perceive them as the author's attempt to eliminate competition? Retribution for some slight? Ego run amok?

How can anyone dismiss these doubts with any degree of confidence?  Isn't a buyer supposed to rely (at least to some extent) on ratings and reviews?  Must readers research the reviewer to determine if that glowing or scathing review was warranted or habitual?

It doesn't really matter if I do my dead-level best to review everything fairly and honestly.  How can I compensate for biases I'm not even aware I have?  Or different standards?  Should I even try?  A review is, after all, essentially little more than an opinion.

I have no problem critiquing--even reviewing--an author's book.  My hesitation is in making that review public.  Besides, I will tell an author something privately that I would never write in a public review. And until that changes, I just don't think I'll be comfortable writing public reviews.

And all other things being equal, I may still be a little insecure about how much weight my personal opinion should carry, whether I ever publish my own novels or not. :-)

How about you?  Do you have the same reservations?  Have you overcome them?  Please share!

My First IWSG Post

Today, I join the ranks of a mighty force.  A force of brave souls who stand with those who have chosen to face their fears and insecurities.  It's a force hundreds strong.  A valiant force of helping hands, encouraging words and cheering peers.

Today, I join the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

For my first post as part of this ever-growing group, I've chosen to reveal an insecurity I've had for some time. The insecurity is the name I selected for my blog.

As with most of us, I began this blog because that's what we aspiring authors are supposed to do.  Build a presence.  Become known.  Engage potential readers.  Establish relationships with fellow writers.  And that's exactly what I did.

When I decided to create this blog, I wrestled with the immense task of choosing its name.  For about thirty seconds.  I thought it was a no-brainer.  I intended to write an epic fantasy series.  The series title was Strands of Pattern.  And thus was born the title of my blog.

In retrospect, I wonder if I should simply have used my name instead.

"You'll most likely write more than just that one series," I've been told.  "People will search for you by your name, possibly by a book title.  The name of your series may, at best, be third in their search criteria sequence," I hear.  "Your name is your brand."  I read these things frequently.

And they're all true.

But changing the name of my blog at this point in time, I fear, is impractical.  Launching a second blog is an alternative I find none too appealing.  A website with my author name as title and URL is a possible alternative, I suppose.

So what do you guys think?  Are there viable options I haven't considered.  Oddly enough, I'm even insecure about revealing my insecurities.  Perhaps I needed to participate in this worthwhile group a long time before now.  I guess I was just, well, a little insecure.

AlexFest

What does Alex look like?
No corporeal description applies to Alex. He's the disembodied spirit of aid and support.

Who could play Alex in a documentary?
Cross Leonard Nimoy and Sean Connery for a start.

Who does Alex remind you of?
Speedy Gonzales with the stamina of the Energizer Bunny.

For my Flash:
Captain Vickers laughed at the yeoman. "Who ever heard tell of a ninja playing a guitar while flying a Cosbolt? That's some imagination you got there, Jones."

The petty officer kept his voice level. "I have, sir."

"You have, have you? Who?"

"Captain Cavanaugh, sir."

"Cavanaugh's a myth, boy. Ain't a soul ever seen him."

"That's why they call him the Ninja, sir."

Captain Vickers chuckled. "What the devil they been feeding you in the galley? You lookin' for a section 8, boy?"

Yeoman Jones lifted his chin. "He leads the IWSG."

Vickers' chuckle became a glare. "What do you know about IWSG?"

"Everybody knows about the Interstellar Wing's Stealth Guard, sir."

"Talk like that will land you in the brig. Best you attend your duties. And turn your mouth off when your imagination's on.  Got that?"

Yeoman Jones snapped to attention.  "Aye sir."  Jones went about his business, but turned and added, "Sir, I hear he's married.  His wife should know how much we appreciate everything he does."

"Dismissed, yeoman."

Jones nodded.  He knew Cavanaugh was real and out there protecting us.  Somewhere.


Hosted by Mark Koopmans, Morgan Shamy, David Powers King and Stephen Tremp, the BlogFest runs from December 10 - 12.

Join me in thanking Alex for being abundantly more supportive than anyone could have asked. It's our pleasure--and duty--to make sure those invisible cheeks redden... at least a little.





The Linky is here and will be open until Dec. 12, 2012.