Finished? Yeah, I Guess So

Once again, I wrote this and forgot to post it...  Sorry it's late.

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Last night, I finished Untitled Fantasy.  At the time, I wasn't sure I was finished.  In fact, I said something on FB about it being finished unless my brain said otherwise while I was trying to fall asleep.  But my brain was quiet.  Well, other than starting the next book.  That didn't last long, though.  I told my brain to shut up and it did for a change.  Best night's sleep I've had in weeks.

Now I need to let the book marinate for a while.  A week.  Maybe two.  Maybe less.  The story will tell me when it's ready to be edited.  

I guess I really need to find a title for the damn thing.  Everything I think of sounds lame at this point.  No biggie.  Rumor Has It was 'Duke Noble 1' until it was time to make the cover.

From here, I need to wade into the book and decorate.  It needs paint and furniture.  Or frosting and fondant.  Whatever metaphor suits you.  

Anyway, now I can relax a bit.  This story I started in 2011 is finally done.  I'm pleased with it overall.  It ain't perfect, but its imperfections can be sanded away and polished up.  Yay for edits.

Oh, here's another song for you.  This one really speaks to the muse for me.  Bottom of the River by Delta Rae.  Watch the video.  It's totally cool.  I think she's supposed to be a witch being dragged out of her house in the middle of the night and taken to the river.  But she gets them in the end.  Hehe.  Fun.

Music and Words

Recently, I created a station on Jango specifically for this book, which is as close to a playlist as I'll ever get for my books.  I started out with the band Of Monsters and Men then added in The Lumineers and Phillip Phillips and then Delta Rae.  All artists that, for me, say 'fantasy'.

It has totally helped me get in the mood for writing.  Even when I don't feel like writing, once I throw this on, I can sit down and at least knock out a few hundred words.  And this is totally awesome, considering I've had a tough time these past couple years getting the words out.

Last night, I was in the process of knocking out way more than a few words when a song came on that was totally not in line with the mood I was going for.  Oh, it was in line with the general theme of the station, so I wasn't going to give it a thumbs down and have it removed permanently from the playlist.  I was just going to click next and move on.  But by the time I had made the necessary move from Word to browser, I was already hooked on the song.  Then I went to my search engine and looked for the video of it and listened not only to the song, but to the lead-in where the songwriter talks about writing the song and why he wrote it.  (The song was No Piece in Quiet by Delta Rae, btw.  It's pretty and kinda sad.)  

By the time that was finished, I was derailed.  Pretty and sad is fine, but it definitely didn't put me in a place where I could write the next BIG SCENE.  I mean, if the next scene had been a pretty and sad scene it would've been great inspiration, but the next scene is fraught with tension and action.  I need zippier music for that.

In the end, getting derailed was okay because it was after 8 anyway and I did already have over 1700 words.  The song probably derailed me because I was already getting tired.  My writing stamina ain't what it used to be.  I let it atrophy.  Still, I really should've just clicked past this song and kept writing.  Worked on rebuilding the stamina and all that.

What about you?  Does music help or hurt your writing?  If you don't write, does it help or hurt your focus on other things?  Do you ever just get derailed by a song?  

A Long and Wandering Post

I wrote this post and Tuesday's posts on Sunday morning, and then I DID something.  Starting with boxing up the negative voices and shoving them in a corner.  Still, I thought I should leave this post as a reminder to others not to give up.

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It's early Sunday morning and the house is quiet, other than the cat snoring and my computer humming.  Hubs went back to bed a while ago.  Me?  I'm just sitting here in front of the computer, trying to convince myself to write something.  Or edit something.  Or DO something.  Anything.

Earlier, I saw on Facebook what I think was the breakdown of a human being.  When I first got on, I saw a long post that basically amounted to 'I hate myself and everything I've ever done and I'm so so sorry to anyone I may have hurt'. Then as I scrolled through my feed, I saw he'd made post after post of really depressing-ass songs.  Not a writer.  Just a dude who had sent me a friend request a month or so ago, who has until now seemed like a really cool and stable individual.  At first, I thought he'd been hacked, but the songs...  Well, after a bit, I decided that perhaps it was him after all.  Which is really depressing.

But I get it.  Been there, done that.  Listened to the same songs.

Anyway, it all got me to thinking.  And sitting here staring at my computer trying to force myself to DO something, lest I write a similar post of my own and thrown down a cavalcade of similarly depressing-ass songs.

You know, I think the songs actually make things worse.  Scratch that.  I know they make things worse.  For godsakes, do not listen to Counting Crows.  If you aren't depressed when you start, you will be by the time you're done.  Suck the joy right out of you, they will.  I used to wrap myself up in them, thinking they knew how I was feeling, but in the end, it turned out they were actually feeding my depression rather than empathizing with it.  And once I realized that, I got those damn CDs right the hell out of my life.

Now, when I'm feeling blue, I put on my HAPPY mix and try to use that to lift myself out of it.  Or I listen to Rachmaninoff.  Hard to feel down listening to that.

My problem right now isn't so much that life is getting me down, it's that I don't feel like a writer.  I don't feel like I even know how to write anymore.  Not fiction anyway.  I feel like when I sit down and start typing, all I'll produce is crap.  I feel like the whole beginning of Cinder Ugly needs to be scrapped and I don't have the first idea on how to start it over.  And I have no clue how to start anything else.  It's all "'Crap?  We love crap.  Crap crap crap.  Crap crap.  Crap.  Crap"*.

Yeah, I know... I'm the first one to tell you 'give yourself permission to write crap'.  'It's all fixable.'  'You can't fix a blank page.'  Somehow that advice isn't helping today... err, for the past few months.  The caveat to that advice, one I didn't realize was there until now, is that it's okay to write crap as long as you have some hope it'll be fixable later.  And I don't have any faith this crap will be fixable.  It's not fertilizer from which a rose will grow.  It's toxic sludge from which nothing will ever grow.

Yes, I know what I have already written is not crap.  It's what's coming out of my hands now that's crap.  Or, at least, that's the thinking that's got me stuck.

Not sure how I'll muddle through this.  I will.  I think the first thing I need to do is kick all the negative voices out of my head.  Or at least shove them all into a big box and then shove the box into a corner where I can ignore it.  I'm working on it at least.  I haven't given up.  Nor will I.

The FB guy?  I hope his outpouring of depression yesterday helps get his mind right.  Sometimes you've got to pour it all out so you can fill up with something better.  And sometimes, if you let it, it just fills up with more of the same.  I really hope he finds some good and positive things to fill up on. 

And now, finally, there's the first glimmerings of sunrise.  A new day.  Let's make this a good one, eh?  Let's DO something. 

* Norman Fell in the movie 'Transylvania 6-5000'. 

A Little Inspiration

(In case the embed doesn't work, watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPXIgEAGe4U)

I love this song.  Hadn't seen the video until this morning, but it's pretty cool.  (I wouldn't share it if it wasn't.)

Just a snip of the lyrics:

Had to have high, high hopes for a living
Shooting for the stars when I couldn't make a killing
Didn't have a dime but I always had a vision
Always had high, high hopes
Had to have high, high hopes for a living
Didn't know how but I always had a feeling
I was gonna be that one in a million
Always had high, high hopes

Some days, it feels like all we have are high hopes for a livin', but we'll get there.  And we'll climb over whatever gets in our way to do it.  ;o)