Ah, Screw It

 

UPDATE: Very little progress on the series. At the moment I’m more focused on finishing the side project, which is almost at the end. This morning I killed an important character. I’ve known for weeks this was coming and I still cried over it. Luckily that scene is followed by a happier one which I’ll be writing later so I can put myself in a better mood. Then it’ll be done and I’ll have no choice but to work on the series. Or find (or create) another excuse not to. The drama continues…

***

I’ve been trying to write this blog over almost a week now. The problem was my chosen topic: character diversity in writing. It’s a touchy subject…so ultimately I’ve decided not to touch it.

Here’s the deal: when I conceived the series several years ago, I made the conscious decision that my heroes would all be straight white men. I had my reasons. In the current political climate, that right there is enough to get me cancelled. I recall there was a flurry of condemnation over the Throne of Glass series, where Sarah J. Maas neatly paired up all her major characters in traditional boy-girl relationships. Even the one who proclaimed on the page he was bisexual. Even the one a segment of the readership insisted should have been a lesbian, regardless of how Maas, the writer and creator of the character, saw her. (Upon reflection, she probably should have been a lesbian, or at least bi. Maybe even asexual. Their scenes together were awkward, to say the least. Those two had no chemistry at all.) Readers blasted Maas for promoting “the het agenda.”

Welp, too bad. She’s the author. That’s how she wanted to write it. Apparently the readership was good with it too, because Maas became and continues to be a best-selling author. Maybe not to a vocal minority of fandom, but you can’t please everybody. These days it seems like you can’t please anybody.

So I’m not going to try. I’m going to go ahead and write my books the way I want to, the way the story tells me it wants to go. Anyway, just because characters start out white and/or straight doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. I thought the side project’s cast would be solid Caucasian. Boy, was I wrong. Turns out one character was African-American, which changed the ethnicity of two others, all of them playing vital roles in the story. That’s the way diversity is supposed to work. I feel my book is better now. They added to the tale.  If having diverse characters makes no overall difference, if you’re putting (insert ethnicity/gender identity here) into your story just to check off a box, it’s tokenism and you’re short-changing everybody—you, your story, the readers, and the characters. It’s just as bad as exclusionism. And you’re going to get lambasted anyway no matter what you do, because there are always going to be people who scream just to hear themselves make noise. Please yourself. If your work has merit, it will find an audience.

***

Here’s how you don’t do diversity right. (Disclaimer: the following rant is based on rumors that may or may not prove to be true. Only time will tell. Given the players involved, I’m inclined to believe the worst. The rant is also personal opinion. I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong, but…)

If you’re a Marvel Comics fan and/or a fan of Disney’s MCU, you’re probably one of the hordes excited at the news that the X-Men will finally, officially be joining (rejoining?) the Marvel Universe. Years back, before Marvel started making their own movies, they sold off film rights to their heavy hitters to other studios—Spider-Man to Sony, X-Men and Fantastic Four to Fox. Then Marvel Studios opened for business, and built an empire on their B-, C-, and D-listers like Iron Man, Ant-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Then Disney bought Marvel. And then they bought Fox. They couldn’t pry Spidey away from Sony, but they were able to do a crossover deal to get Spidey on Disney-owned screens. And now, thanks to Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, it looks like we’ll soon get the true Marvel versions of X-Men and the FF, now that they’re back where they belong.

Wellllllll….maybe not so much.

Over the past few days I’ve been seeing articles and videos pop up regarding Disney’s plans for the X-Men. According to rumor and alleged leaks, Disney wants to race-swap several if not all of the X-Men because…well, reasons weren’t actually given. Which made me and several commenters wonder if they were going to make Storm white. Imagine the shit-show that would kick up.

I mean, why? Sure, the originals from the ‘60s were WASPs, but after the team went international in the ‘70s reboot that wasn’t an issue any more. As the cast continued to grow, so did representation. At one point Storm, the African woman, was leading the team. The X-Men have been diverse for years. Hell, Nightcrawler’s blue. What more do you want?

Apparently, what Disney doesn’t want is straight white men. It gets worse: according to the leaks and rumors, the plan is to deliberately lure fans in with the white versions we’ve already seen in the Fox movies (like Patrick Stewart’s cameo in MoM) then ease those versions out in favor of more racially-diverse ones. Why Bishop—who’s been black in the comics from Day 1—continues to be absent from the roster I can’t say, and it seems that neither can Disney. Do we really need a black Rogue (already hinted at)? Or an Asian Cyclops? Iceman’s already gay; maybe they’ll leave him alone. But what’s the point?

Here’s my theory, my personal opinion based on these unfounded rumors: it’s not about inclusion, or story, or upgrading characters to reflect the modern era. It’s about money.

For decades comic book writers and artists were work-for-hire. They freelanced for the companies. The characters they drew and the stories they wrote became property of the company. This was true for Marvel and DC, at any rate. I assume it was true for Harvey, Charleton, Fawcett, and the other companies. That was the industry. Comics were cheap, disposable entertainment for kids. The idea that some dweeb in tights would bring moviegoers into theaters worldwide to the tune of billions of dollars was undreamed of.

Enter Superman: The Movie and Tim Burton’s take on Batman. There was movie gold in them thar capes. The writers and artists who’d written those stories and designed those capes, costumes and characters naturally wanted a piece of the action. The companies said no, they owned the rights, they were entitled to reap the financial rewards.

Legal battles sprang up. You may have noticed the dearth of new, original characters from the Big Two over the years, and the growing number of independent publishers. Nobody wants to pour their efforts, let alone their heart and soul, into a character that could end up earning millions not just from movies or TV but from merchandising, for some corporate suit while the creators are scraping by on mac ‘n’ cheese. Things have gotten better over time, with more creators getting screen credit and therefore additional checks. But corporations run things now, and there are ways around doing what’s right.

Which is why I believe Disney is planning to race-swap, maybe even gender-swap, the white characters out of the picture. Those are the ones created by those hard-working writers and artists all those years ago. The people now demanding their fair share. But wait. Thor’s a woman now. That’s not who you created. This is a different character, derivative of yours but not your creation and therefore you don’t get any money. Sorry, writer/artist person, looks like you’re SOL. (Google Gerry Conway, Alan Brennert or Paul Dini with the key word royalties and let me know what you find. Or Jim Starlin, creator of Thanos, to find out where the real money in movies is for comics creators.)

And that’s why we now have a gay Superman (who’s not Clark Kent), a black Batman (who’s not Bruce Wayne) and why we’re liable to have a black Prof. X in the future. Because corporations are greedy and cheap. They’ve got 50 years’ worth of stories and characters to mine for gold, and they don’t want to share even a penny with the prospectors who discovered the mine. At least, that’s my take. When I sell the film rights of my series, I’m going to include a clause in the contract that they can’t race- or gender-swap any of my characters without permission. The series is erotic romance, with threesomes and foursomes and people doing it with vampires and werewolves, so I’d think race would be the least of their concerns. Stay tuned…    

 

 

Secret Origins

 

Challenge update: no real progress since my last entry. Hopefully, that’s about to change. The paid work went out last week, the side project’s almost done, and bad weather has forced mowing the lawn to the back burner. I’ve still got the procrastination issues, but have a better handle on what’s causing them. Dealing with and conquering them is a whole other problem. For example, I’m writing this blog instead of writing the book. Still, it’s not playing computer card games, so it’s a step in the right direction. Once this is done and posted, I’ll see about typing up some longhand. Or go take a shower. When it comes to self-improvement, still a work in progress here.

***

Today we return to the topic of, “Where do you get your ideas?” As we learned a couple weeks ago, the side project came out of two unrelated flash scenes that my brain decided went together like peanut butter and chocolate. Or chocolate and peanut butter. Either way, that Reese’s Cup of a book is very nearly done, so clearly Brain had its neurons together on that one.

The series, on the other hand, grew out of another problem of mine, a case of advanced sequelitis. More often than not, something I write sparks ideas for sequels, continuations, spinoffs and updates. This particular one falls under the subheading “spinoff.” To understand its origins, we need to go back to 2011 and the not-quite-a-trilogy that gave birth to my latest literary headache.

I’ve always read in a number of genres—mystery, romance, some mainstream, Stephen King (he’s in a class by himself)—but my main fix was science fiction/fantasy. Up until the early 2000s, I considered myself a writer of that last, though every now and then I considered writing a romance, mostly for a few extra bucks. I know of at least two (female) SFF writers who churned out the occasional gothic back in the ‘60s to help put food on the table. Probably some guys, too. Category romances were short, straightforward, and could be whipped up in a couple of weeks if you put your mind to it and didn’t stop to do housework. Then, as now, earning a living as a writer wasn’t easy.

But it wasn’t until the erotica ebook explosion that I seriously got into the game. A publisher advertised for stories for a paranormal anthology. Fantasy romance. Only half out of my wheelhouse. I sent in a story and got rejected. I sent the story to a second publisher and this time got a contract—and, eventually, royalty checks. I was on my way!

I kept to the fantasy/paranormal subgenre in my next couple books (write what you know). Then one night I scribbled a flash scene involving a reporter interviewing a human who’d been raised by vampires. Interesting premise, but not enough to hang a book on. It needed something else. That turned out to be me answering a question never raised in vampire romances: “How to the guys, um, function if they’re technically dead?” The answer was, by overeating. A vampire who takes in too much blood at once gets horny to the point he or she needs to have sex or they die. My nascent romance dealt with a human woman working in a brothel that catered to paranormal creatures, and the vampire client she falls in love with.

And then the plot took a major swerve when I became obsessed with the TV show Supernatural. My prostitute suddenly switched to male, and I became a writer of paranormal M/M. If you’ve ever read my book Belonging (hint), take a close look at my description of Jeremy. I got into the show because of Castiel, but writing that book turned me into a Sam girl. Cas had a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it cameo as the slayer who attacks Jeremy’s vampire family. There were other minor jokes scattered in there as well, including the one that eventually led to me struggling to write an eight-book series. I’m leading up to that.

(Disclaimer: I want it known that I’d already finished the book and was about to sub it to the publisher when they aired the episode where Dean was turned into a vampire. I was not ripping them off. It was sheer coincidence. Though to me that scene where Dean cleans out the vampire nest will always be Wally’s assault on the brothel. More coincidence. Must have been something in the air. I can’t explain that line in the later episode where the girl says to Sam, “Maybe you’re a hooker.” Or the one a couple seasons later, where Crowley referred to Sam and Dean as “the Scarecrow and the Tin Man.” No one ever took me to court for plagiarism or copyright infringement. Maybe I’d better shut up while I’m ahead.)

Anyway. A year after that (my procrastination issues go way back) I wrote a sequel, Legacy, to answer the question, “Can the undead have children?” where Wallace and Jeremy add a woman to their growing flock. There was more of Cas, AKA the Preacher, in this one. Two side characters, Gus and Annie Stanton, also had larger roles. Annie was that joke I mentioned earlier. She was originally Anna from season 4, which is where she got her long red hair, but when I started writing her dialogue I heard a Texas accent, more fitting to an Annie than an Anna. She and her husband Gus were old friends of Wally’s, from their days as a slayer team, until the two got married and left the slayer biz. At this point they were in their 50s, having aged like normal humans, unlike vampire Wallace. I got a few nudges to complete their story, in a future where the orphaned girl they adopted grows up, but nothing ever came of it.

Nothing ever came of my intended sequel either, which would have told Preacher’s story. I tried, but couldn’t quite make it work and eventually abandoned it. However, there was one scene where the love interest, a vampire/human hybrid woman (introduced in Legacy) is researching slayers on the internet. She comes across a mention of the Colts, a family of Texas cowboys who double as vampire slayers. I chose “Colt” as a nod to the Winchesters, and made them Texans because Jared and Jensen are both Texas boys. My obsession with the show had begun to fade by then, but the in-jokes didn’t have to.

Wait. Whoa. Hold on thar, pardner. Wasn’t Annie, my retired slayer, from Texas? Stanton was her married name. What if she’d been born a Colt?

And just like that, I had a premise for a series. Long ago, in the wake of the Civil War, vampires invaded Texas and were turned back by the Colts. A century later (1960s) the suckers tried again, and were repelled again, this time with a teenaged Annie as part of the defense. Afterward Annie left Texas, became a slayer, married Gus and retired from monster hunting. But now, in yet another century, the bats are back again. Now widowed, with her children grown and nothing to look forward to but a retirement home, Annie returns to Texas to help her kinfolk fight off this latest attack. Because that’s what the Colts are all about.

Naturally, procrastinating me only fiddled with this and didn’t get around to any actual writing until around last year. Why now? Because I could use a couple of extra bucks, and the publisher likes series books with lots’a hot sex and multiple partners. Sure, I can do that. Also because the books that gave rise to this idea have a clause in their contracts, giving the publisher right of first refusal on any book I write that shares characters, locales, themes or concepts with books they’ve published. Since Annie appears in the series, I’m under contractual obligation to offer it to them first. I have no problem with that. I don’t mind having all related books under one publisher’s banner. Now I don’t have to spring for editing or covers. Those get expensive, and like I said, making a living as a writer isn’t easy.

I’ve got the plot; I’ve got the characters; I’ve got ideas. I’ve got the time. All I need to do is write the thing. Which brings us back to my procrastination issues, which I’m still struggling with. Yeah well. No one ever said life was easy.

Chipping Away at the Wall

 

Where we left off last week: Having run into issues on my year-long personal writing challenge—an inability to successfully launch after two weeks being the biggest obstacle—I decided to regroup and approach it from another angle. This time when procrastination hit, I’d ask myself why I couldn’t get this thing off the ground, and figure out ways to trick my pesky subconscious into getting out of the way so I could accomplish a long-held dream of not only writing, but making some money at it. I’ve been published several times over the years, but never been able to stick with it long enough to build any kind of real success. Something always got in the way, like having a job. Or having to look for a job after a layoff so I could have a home and regular meals. Starvation really puts a crimp in creativity.

Now I’ve got a home-based job with flexible hours and enough income to survive on, so the outside issues are dealt with. That leaves the inner problems, which is what the challenge is now all about: identifying the little psychological bastards so I can ice them and get on with the job of telling stories for fun and profit. More for fun at this point. One step at a time.

For the writing itself, I set up a schedule: morning for my own writing, afternoon for any paid assignments, evenings to either do a bit of extra work or just unwind and read or something. Housework, yard work and grocery shopping to be shoehorned in during fallow periods. I marked the calendar to commence bright and early Monday morning.

Dr. Phil: “How’s that working for ya?”

Ehhhh…writing-wise, it didn’t. Somehow I kept blowing off the morning hours. Not as far as the side project was concerned, though. That continued, but my progress slowed to a trickle. It’s nearing its end and I can feel myself dragging my heels. The series fared even worse. I’d sit at the laptop completely unable to write. Unplugging the WiFi didn’t help, so I’d plug in and check my email and usual sites and that was pretty much it until noon. I didn’t touch the series at all last week. The paid work didn’t fare much better. I’d do a little bit, then goof off. Or leave the house entirely to get groceries or pay bills. Next thing you know, it’s dinner time. My work-brain tends to shut down around 4 anyway, so very little ever gets done in the evening, unless I’m forced by a looming deadline.

Then there was the day I spent the entire time playing computer games and didn’t touch the writing or the paid work. Except for the side project, which isn’t on the computer. The less said about this day, the better.

I did discover I have no problem working if I tie up the WiFi playing background music. Back in the days of vinyl I always had the stereo on while typing, so music plus work is ingrained. And I may have caught a glimpse of what could be going on in my head that’s keeping me from higher achievement.

Yes, fear of success and/or failure and just plain laziness haven’t been ruled out yet. But it’s possible my current biggest problem is an inability to multitask.

I’ve tried in the past to work on more than one thing at a time. It’s never been successful. Once I’m caught up in a project, I want to see it through nonstop to the end. I can’t seem to balance writing and working a job at the same time. Especially if that job consists of lots of reading. My brain wants to concentrate on one or the other. I can’t give up the job because I still need the income, but when the assignment’s done I can’t write because I’ve lost my momentum with the story. Or at least that’s my excuse. Like I said, I had no trouble working on the longhand side project every day. In fact, there were days I used that as my excuse not to work on the paid stuff until later in the day, endangering the deadline and often forcing me to put off writing so I could get the work out and get paid. You see how insidious this becomes after a while?

And I wanted to throw the series into this toxic mix? What the hell was I thinking? Of course that wasn’t going to work. For starters, once I’ve done a longhand session, Brain decides I’ve done my writing for the day and shuts that portion down. What? You want to do more? Why? Brain is a lazy beast. So I turn to the paid work, but now I’m bored and resentful. So I go play games or watch YouTube. And that’s how I end up stressed and panicking as the Dreaded Deadline Doom approaches and I need to do an all-day slog so I can keep paying for the WiFi that’s distracting me. It’s a vicious cycle, all self-inflicted.

One of my many self-help books calls this “avoidance behavior.” You’re faced with two or more choices, none of which really appeal to you, so you respond by choosing “none of the above.” This is how I ended up playing games that one whole day last week. I had plenty of time in the morning to work on the series. I could have gotten a couple of hours in, taken a break, then worked on the paid stuff. Instead I decided, “Just one game and then I’ll get to work.” One game became roughly five hours of accomplishing absolutely nothing. I didn’t even top my high score. But I successfully avoided both writing and work, which I’m sure was Brain’s intention. I’d already written something in the morning, so that made everything okay.

No, it doesn’t. Brain, I’m calling shenanigans.

I’ve also identified another bad action that sly little dick has pulled on me. Part of the reason I can’t get going is because this time around I chose to write the series in sequence. Last time I was writing the books out of order because I couldn’t get Book 1, the all-important (and therefore intimidating) series opener, to work. And I still can’t. The whole thing is logjammed now  because Brain doesn’t want to write Book 1 or work on the paid stuff. Brain has thrown in the towel. That’s not helping anybody, so I’m going to have to step up and take charge.

This week, I’m going back to the schedule, but with a changeup: I’m returning to writing the series out of order. Books 2 and 7 were working, so I’ll go back to them. Once I’m done with the side project, Book 1 will become the new side project, to be written longhand away from the laptop and all its distractions. I’m not going to worry about importance or perfectionism or any of that shit. I’m just going to scrawl on the page until I’ve got a story, which is pretty much how I wrote the other side project. Just get something down on paper that I can work with. Part of the problem is Book 1’s tone is different from the other volumes; I realize now the others are part action, part romcom, while Book 1 was slower paced, like a horror story. I also have a better grasp of the characters in the other books than I do of the people in Book 1. Book 1’s cast is going to reappear in Book 5, where something truly horrible happens to one of the heroes. That may also be a source of stress. However, another source of stress will be removed shortly, since my deadline for the paid work is this Friday and nothing else is on the schedule yet. I may get a week off from “work” to establish better writing habits. And clean the house and stock up on groceries so I won’t have to go out during work hours.

Can I pull this off? I think so, but given my past behavior I’m going to have to say, “This may take a while.” That’s fine. I give myself permission to fail until I finally succeed. Another behavior I started last week was paying attention to my posture. I’ve been walking around the house with my back straight and head up, and it really does make me feel better. More energetic. So “Fake it till you make it” is actually a thing. Though all this will need to start tomorrow because I just ate up my morning session writing this blog. I hope somebody will find this helpful. Especially me. Happy writing!

Excuses, Whines and a Bit of Positivity

 

WHINE ALERT: This opening segment lists my excuses for not (re)starting the series yet. If you’d like to skip it, drop down to the line break below; that’s where the “positivity” in the title begins. Just because I like to suffer doesn’t mean everybody has to.

So here we are. A little over two weeks into the challenge and I’ve barely done a thing on Book #1. I’ve been reading over what I typed—at least a year ago, if not longer—and I’ve done some editing and gotten some new ideas. Mostly, however, I sit down at the laptop and either watch videos or play games. I tried unplugging the WiFi only to discover that didn’t work. The urge to log on was too strong. I tried logging on and getting my Internet business out of the way first, then getting to work. Those were the days I never got to work. What did work was going onto a music site and running background music while I worked. That did the trick. I’ve got a chase scene coming up with my heroes being attacked by vampires, and I know just the cut from the Aliens soundtrack I’m going to run in the background. Assuming I ever get there. I’ve got over a decade of bad habits that have become firmly entrenched, and when I try to fight or replace them they just dig in and get worse. I’ll keep experimenting and let you know how it turns out.

On the upside, the side project is still going great guns. But then, that’s longhand. No Internet distractions. Once I go to type the second draft into the system, bet these problems will pop up again. Unless I figure out a way to defeat or at least deflect them. The series and I are both works in progress, and it’s far too early to give up on either. Next week I’m getting a new paid assignment, so the pressure will be on for that as well. Stay tuned.

****

Now for the positive stuff. Since the side project’s doing well, I’m going to talk about that. Today’s topic will be the lesson: “No writing ever goes to waste.”

I try to write something every day. I haven’t missed a day in fifteen years, not even when I was in the hospital for the hernia operation. It’s not always much, and it’s not always part of a work in progress. Even a sentence is better than nothing. Don’t let the blank page win!

On the days when I don’t have a WIP, or I didn’t work on the WIP (see whines, above), I write flash scenes. Dialogue mostly, but sometimes a vignette or a snippet or random words of something that may or may not ever develop into a story or book. I’ve had tossed-off flash scenes mutate into stories and sometimes into entire novels. Case in point: my current side project. Here’s its origin story.

This first scene was written in July of 2021. It was inspired by the news Gold Eagle Books was closing up shop. They published pulp stuff, men’s adventure, in spite of being a subsidiary of Harlequin, the romance publisher, of all people. Remember The Executioner, or those Death Lands books on the shelves at Kmart? That was them. I needed to write something and I needed a topic, so this is what came out:

$$$

So…it’s gone. A&A Books. That’s Action and Adventure, to those not in the know. It wasn’t a biggie, like Random House or whoever’s publishing Stephen King these days. It was just some little mom and pop publisher that put out cheap paperbacks, like the kind you can sometimes find on racks in a drug store or at a truck stop. They handled all the pulpy tropes: jungle heroes, cowboys, one man armies against the mob, plucky survivors wandering post-apocalyptic landscapes. It was all in good fun, and you could while away a rainy afternoon with an easy read about macho heroes, evil villains, and half-naked women in chainmail bikinis. You didn’t even need to worry about grammar, or proper punctuation. They were the kind of books where more thought went into the weapons and landscape descriptions than the characters or the plot.

But all good things do come to an end. So do bad and indifferent things. Readers had gotten pretty indifferent to A&A Publishing, especially with the rise of video games. If you had an XBox, you could be a barbarian or a zombie fighter or a lone ex-Marine mowing down Mafia baddies. In full color, with realistic graphics. No more struggling with syntax and picturing the action in your head. Xbox must have been a godsend to dyslexic kids.

So A&A rode off into the sunset, sailed off the edge of the world, packed up the assault rifle, found the radiation-free Eden, etc., etc. I reread my collection for a time, until I realized how repetitive the plots were, and the fact the heroes remained unchanged for over twenty years. Physically and psychologically. The characters couldn’t grow or change; it would screw with the formula. Then there was Elder Breen, the zombie hunter, still out there a-shootin’ and a-knifin’ away, with kids nearing 40 and him still 52. Yeah, time to pack it in.

Eventually I loaded my collection of A&A books into a box and dropped them off at the library’s  donation bin. Maybe some kid would find them, and enjoy them as much as I used to before puberty set in. I didn’t even shed a tear as I walked away. I was done with those characters, those worlds.

What I didn’t realize at the time was, they weren’t done with me. Or with any of us.

$$$

Exactly one week later, I wrote this scene:

$$$

 “So…are you human or aren’t you?”

“Uhhh…it’s complicated.”

“In simple terms, please.”

“My mother was a character in a Bigfoot porn novel.”

“Excuse me?”

“You wanted simple terms. That’s a simple as I can make it.”

“How can your mother be a character in a book? How could she have—” The Inquisitor poked him in the arm. “Produced solid, living offspring?”

“Beats me. You’ll have to ask her that. I was just a kid.”

“Where is she now?”

“She went into hiding when you Puritan pussies came to power. Try the Nancy Drew series. Or Lord of the Rings. She always had a weakness for elves.”

The Inquisitor hissed. “Do you think I’m a fool?”

“You betcha. Also a dick, a douche, a motherfucking tinpot dictator, and a—”

“Do you honestly think I’d be foolish enough to believe your mother was an actual fictional character?”

“Don’t take my word for it. Check with the author.”

“This ‘author’s’ name?”

“M. T. Condom. I think it’s a pseudonym.”

“I’m sure. Where were you born?”

“In book six of the Babs and Bigfoot Chronicles, Sequoia Fever. Page 27. Only two paragraphs. It was a difficult pregnancy, so M. T. had to summarize. The good news is, I was 10 years old by the end of the chapter. Transitions are the greatest thing ever.”

“Such nonsense. I’ll not stand for—”

“You know what sucks? Retcons. Or when the writer gets ‘inspired’ and starts adding background. I’ll be at work, or on the can, or with a chick, and all of a sudden I get hit with memories I never had before because my ‘creator’ decided to give me a childhood. Or a broken heart. Or siblings. I had a sister who was born and killed off in the space of a page and then I had to deal with it. Really, what the hell? What’s even the point?”

“That’s enough,” the Inquisitor said. “Enough of this farce. You will tell me the truth. Who are you?”

“My name is Itrigo. My father was Bigfoot and my mother was a grad student named Babs Moorecock. I was born in an erotic romance novel. My parents were fictional characters.”

The Inquisitor slapped him across the face, drawing blood from his lip. “My time is not unlimited, and I don’t appreciate wasting it. You will—” He stared at his fingers, and the dark, sticky liquid smeared on them. “What is this?”

Itrigo chuckled. Darkness seeped from his lip. “It’s ink. What else did you expect?”

$$$

And there you go. Two unrelated flash scenes written a week apart. Yes, Bigfoot porn is a thing. You can find it on Amazon, but only if you’re 18 or older. Amazon’s got all kinds of fun stuff, but only if you know which keywords to type into Search. Happy hunting, fetish freaks.

Anyway. Like I said, two unrelated flash scenes. Unless, of course, you’re a writer. Writers’ brains like to play mashup, which is what mine did. I wasn’t writing anything in particular at the time, so Brain chose to toss me a bone. One night I sat down to write flash, and what poured out of my pen was the tale of a private investigator who’s hired by a cavemannish person to find his “creator.” The caveman (not Bigfoot; I wanted to keep this story clean) claimed to be a fictional character created for a publisher’s book series, and he wanted to find his author. Trouble is, the books were written under a house name, so the author could have been one person or several, with a name different from the title on the cover. Hence the need for professional aid. To prove his story, the caveman uses the PI’s letter opener and cuts into his arm. Black ink wells to the surface. See how it all ties together?

I didn’t have a plot at that point, but that wasn’t an issue. I’m a pantser; lack of a plot doesn’t stop us. You just forge ahead and see what happens. Plus the name “Elder Breen,” tossed off in the flash scene, intrigued me. He became one of the story’s bad guys. Heroes, bad guys, mystery. I was off and running.

This is why writers are always taking notes and jotting everything down. A lot of it ends up being trash, but sometimes you strike gold. Plus it makes an easily-justifiable excuse not to work on your stated project while still legitimately claiming you did write today. We artsy types are such weasels. Enjoy your day!

 

 

If She Be Worthy

 

“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor”

--inscription on Mjolnir (or Jonathan, if you believe Paul Rudd)

Okay then. It’s been over a week since I announced my year-long challenge to myself to write a paranormal romance series (eight books) in a year. In order, not hopping around piecemeal like I have been. Since the challenge’s inception (September 20) to today (October 1) my progress has been…

Pretty much zilch.

I think I maybe looked at the typed-up beginning of Book #1 once. Did some minor spot edits. That was it. The side project, on the other hand, has been chugging along at a steady pace. That one’s wrapping up, though, and may be finished in another two weeks if I really put my mind to it.

That’s the thing. Had I “really put my mind to it” two-three years ago, when I first decided to write the series, it would be done, out on the market and (hopefully) selling by now, and maybe I’d have the money to re-floor the bathroom and not have to worry about possibly needing to pay for updated eyeglasses in November. Or a new couch, after the old one shoved out a nail that caught me in the leg one night. Trips to the emergency room for stitches and a tetanus shot ain’t cheap.

So, in addition to wanting to tell the story, I’m heavy financially motivated to get this written and out. I’ve got the overall story arc, general plots and characters for all eight books. I know how the story begins and ends. I’ve even got a handful of standalone sequels waiting in the wings with bated pages. All I have to do is write the thing.

So why can’t I?

I’ve tried. Several times. Book #3 is done. That one was easy. That one also wasn’t supposed to exist, but I just loved the characters. I started Book #1. It stalled. I jumped to Book #2. Most of that’s written, but in longhand. I went to type it up and it stalled. Book #4 ran into plot and character problems and will need to be revamped and re-started. Book #7 was going great guns for a while but…yeah.

I put it aside while I focused on the side project, which gave me no trouble at all. Maybe because it had no sex scenes in it. I have trouble writing sex scenes and tend to skip them in first draft. But sooner or later they have to be written, because that’s really what sells the books. Maybe I shouldn’t be writing erotic romance. These days I don’t seem to want to write anything.

What did I do over the past week? Not much. I had a paid assignment that needed to get out. I had plenty of time to do that too. I’d have had it done early if I hadn’t blown off several hours a day playing video games. That’s another problem that’s cropped up over the years. I sit down at the laptop to write or to work and instead hop over to a game site and start playing. Or hang out on YouTube and watch videos. Or get up and watch TV. Or take a nap. It used to be just to avoid writing, but now the procrastination is encroaching on the paid work, and that’s the part that scares me. If I lose this job without some kind of backup, I’m going to be in deep doodoo.

It’s not lack of time, or a dearth of ideas, or even a flooded market. I know the series has a guaranteed home waiting for it. Not to mention there’s always self-publishing, so deadline pressures are non-existent. So is rejection, for that matter.

And yet, something’s keeping me from simply sitting down and writing, or working, and it’s getting stronger. It kept me from writing this blog for three days. It had me playing games until midnight last night. It appears to be triggered by sitting at the laptop because I have no trouble writing longhand. Unfortunately everything’s digital now, so the laptop’s a necessary evil. So is WiFi, which is where YouTube, the games, and all the other pretty shiny distracting things are. I used to be limited in WiFi access by the library’s hours, but Covid shut everything down and forced me to get home WiFi so I could keep getting work and keep getting paid. Thanks for nothing, pandemic.

I’ve already figured out the general procrastination is just a symptom of an underlying problem. Something lurking in my subconscious hears me proclaim I’m going to do something in league with my lifelong dreams, like write a book or lose weight or even mow the lawn and it says, “Oh no you ain’t,” and throws the urge to do literally anything else in my way. Anything that will waste time better spent being productive, that is. And more often than not, I go for it. I abandon the road to success in favor of the easy path of work avoidance. Three to eight to sometimes ten hours later I get up, berate myself and call it a day. Another wasted day.

Having a dream is commendable. But it doesn’t happen on its own. You have to make it happen. You need to do whatever it takes to achieve the goals that will make your dream come true. If you don’t, if all you do is talk and then instead of working go play games or watch TV or something equally time-sucking, maybe you should reassess your dreams. It may turn out you want something else, something you will be willing to work for.

Or it could be a lack of confidence. Maybe you don’t think you deserve a life of success and financial freedom. You may have been told that by others or simply told it to yourself, often enough that you come to believe it. Especially if you’ve got your heart set on a non-traditional vocation, like something in the arts. Skill can take you only so far; the rest relies on luck and talent. Have you truly got what it takes? Are you truly worthy of your dreams?

The only way to find that out is if you take your shot. Tell those voices, real and inner, to go take a flying leap and then get to work. The games can wait. You can’t. Every day that passes is another day lost forever, and their number is always dwindling.

It won’t be easy. That inner voice especially can be malicious. You’ll need to work extra hard to shut that fucker up. There are plenty of tricks and tips for avoiding the procrastination traps your subconscious will try to set for you. Here’s where the Internet actually proves its worth: a Google search will help you find a ton of them and you can experiment until you find the one(s) that work for you. As long as you don’t use researching procrastination and its causes and cures as an excuse to procrastinate. That’s obviously counterproductive.

Bottom line, it’s action that ultimately wins the day. You may need to work on yourself before you find you can work on hitting your goals. Prove to yourself that you’re worthy of the life that you imagine.

Which is why I’m altering the goals of the challenge a bit. I’m still going to work on the series, but writing it for publication (and money) is no longer the end I’m aiming for. I’ll be doing this to try to figure out what’s been holding me back all these years, so I can finally deal with it and stop being such an underachiever. Show myself, if no one else, that I am indeed worthy to wield this talent I’ve been given, and that I can reap monetary benefits from it. Will I succeed? Haven’t a clue. We’ll know by next September.

Here’s a trick to get us both started. My first two laptops came with games on the hard drive and no way to remove or block them, so I was pretty much up the creek. This latest laptop doesn’t, but the Internet does, and I’ve now got 24/7 Internet access. That’s easy enough to get around, though: just unplug the WiFi. Problem solved. The writing and the work files are on the hard drive and unaffected. When I do need Internet while I’m working (for email and fact-checking) I go to YouTube or Spotify and run background music, which ties up the system and keeps me from getting bored with work and jumping over to the games. If I need to fact check, I write myself a note and come back to it when I’m done, then shut off the laptop before I can get distracted by anything else. Then go write longhand. Or read a book. Or get out of the house and take a walk. Staying healthy gives you more energy and lessens the negativity that leads to procrastination. Two birds, one stone. Happy writing!

 

The Year of Writing Dangerously

 

Okay, let’s do this one last time (props if you can identify that quote):

Whoa. Has it really been a year since I was here last? Time we fixed that, don’t you think?

I thought so. The last year has been spent mostly working, dealing with (possible) depression and procrastination issues, and writing a book longhand so I wouldn’t get distracted by all the shiny objects on the Intranetz. That book, by the way, wasn’t one of the ones I had planned for that paranormal romance series I’ve been talking about since, oh, around the dawn of time. After I started three different books in the same series and found myself blocked on all three, I switched gears, picked up a pen and notebook and wrote something completely off the wall in an entirely different genre. I figured I needed a break.

Jump ahead to the past weekend. The side project is wrapping up, and even though it’s got a ton of work to go before it’s market-ready, I’m damn proud of it. I started dipping my toes in the series water again, this time going back to Book #1. (I’d already completed Book #3 about two years ago. Books #1, 2, 4 and 7 got started but petered out on me.) With one project wrapping up, I’ve got a decision to make: take another stab at the series, or go on to something else? Or both? Or neither?

Or finally quit the futzing around, knock off the procrastination BS, and commit to being a writer. It’s been my dream, I’ve got the time, I’ve got the income, I’ve got ideas, and it’s not like I’m getting any younger.

And so was born my own personal challenge: over the next year, from September 20, 2022 to September 20, 2023, I’m going to kick the excuses to the curb and actually sit down and write, with publication as my endgame. The main goal will be the completion of the paranormal romance series, all eight volumes of it. With an average book length of 35K-40K words, eight books in twelve months is doable. And expected, if you want to make it in e-book publishing. I picked the series because I know it has a home waiting, so I don’t have to stress about queries and agents and stuff. Those issues I’ll save for the side project, which will be entering the market cold, possibly under a brand-new pen name. I also have a couple other possible side projects waiting in the wings, aimed at the YA market. Just in case I need a break to keep me fresh and productive.

This blog will be my journal of this year-long attempt at writing success, providing an ongoing kick in the pants to make sure I stay on target. This is how I’m going to hold myself accountable. Writing is hard, and the world is not supportive. The world doesn’t care what you do. You have to make the world care, by caring about your dreams and goals and not giving up for anything. That means planting the butt at the keyboard and committing stories to screen instead of playing Spider Solitaire all afternoon. If you want your dreams to become your reality, sacrifices must be made.

I also want to talk about the side project: its origins, its evolution, how it surprised me and re-energized me and helped me to stretch and grow as a writer. (I think I can identify themes now. Yay!) I’m going to need frequent reminders that there will be bad days, sleepless nights, highs balanced out by lows (and vice versa), ups and downs and monotonous flatlands, writer’s blocks and manic stretches, and plenty of darkness before the light of dawn. Any and all positive solutions I find to the negatives, I’ll record here. If someone else can learn from my ignorant stumbles, so much the better.

I can’t promise how often I’ll post. I’m aiming for weekly. We’ll play it by ear. I’ll try to keep topics writing-related, but any subject is fair game. Who knows? Some off-the-wall topic could spark an idea for a story. That’s how the side project happened. Maybe I’ll talk about that next. See you soon, and happy writing!