WIP Wednesday: The Black Hole of Suck

That's where I'm at right now.

My ideas suck. My writing sucks. The weather, while sunny, is cold as a well-digger's ass (or as my brother used to say: "a witches *** in an iron bra"--couldn't bring myself to type that three letter word for some reason).

My kids have been sick. I've been sick. My wife has been sick.

I've had a deluge of short-listed "no thanks" rejections this week. Ouch. Ouch! OUCH, already!

One would think I could channel this suck into a good story, right? My brain it seems, has decided to switch into "stop writing" mode. I had a number of delicious ideas for the pending novel last weekend...then *poof*

Okay, enough whining. This is the plan: write chapter one of The New Book^TM; share the first part of "The Hustle" on Friday (A rather pulpy story which was orphaned when From the Asylum went belly-up.I don't have the desire to seek a new home for it...my loss = your gain).

I can do this.

Thanks for listening.

A Picture is Worth at Least a Few Hundred Words

Writer's block? Need inspiration?

Try a random assortment of pictures from the last seven days at Flickr to inspire your writing.

"Baba Yaga" from designer and folder Victoria Serova

More on Morgus

Thanks to all for the lovely Dickinson comments and thoughts on the blahs. All great ideas--read a good book (always a motivator), watch classic movies, music, etc.

What pulled me from the blahs yesterday? On the way to pick Owen up after school, a story idea that had been germinating for a while started popping into place without much conscious solicitation. I cranked out the first half after the kids went to bed. It's a historical piece based on something I learned at the natural history museum: honeybees will carry sick drones outside of the hive to die. What if you were the only healthy bee? Would that make you sick?

By the way, Morgus was a TV personality from the late 50s-80s that hosted late night horror/sci-fi films. You can read more on the Interweb^TM at the official Morgus website.

Tomorrow: to celebrate the release of Monstrous, I list my top ten giant creature films.

Writer's Blahs

I'm not going to call it writer's block, because I don't feel blocked. I feel unmotivated.

Look, I even burned some precious writing time creating a new title banner for the blog. The font is Morgus the Magnificent, the quote "I'm nobody...who are you?" is from an Emily Dickinson poem.

You read that correctly: Emily Dickinson.

I'm just as scared as you are.

Now, how to fight the blahs?

Free Stuff Friday: Writer's Block

One of the methods I use to fight writer's block (or just plain lack of writing ideas), is to steal from my experience as a drama coach. Yeah, in addition to teaching high school English, I coach competitive speech and drama. I'm that big of a geek.

Anyway...one of the most popular events is improvised duet acting (IDA). In this event, a pair draws three characters, three situations, and three settings. They then choose two characters, one situation, and one setting, and plan/deliver a four to seven minute scene. You can see where this is going...

Sometimes, when I'm really "blocked", I draw. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.

Today's freebie: a list of 300+ character types (download the PDF). The IDA rules dictate no characters under trademark or copyright. Most of the characters on the list are general types, but if you cut 'em up and draw randomly, you can land some fun combos. Let your writer's-blocked brain sort that out.