Updates

Well, I guess the regular update thing isn't working yet. I'll get back to it, I swear. I've had a bad couple weeks. That funk that I mentioned a post or two ago slid into depression when I wasn't paying attention to it. Not just about writing, but about my life and everything. I guess that's why I'm up at 6:00 on a Saturday morning, and have been since about 4:00. I'll snap out of it soon and be back on here regularly. I hope.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I've got a little over 13000 words in Stranded, and that's just from what I rewrote from Draft #2. It grew by about 4000 words.

WHAT INSPIRED ME TODAY:
I've been watching the X-Files on DVD lately. I'm on Season 5 now I think, and I just saw an amazing episode called "The Post-Modern Prometheus." It's their version of Frankenstein. It was filmed in black and white and even came equipped with a mob of villagers with torches. It was funny and cool at the same time.

New Quote

As part of my retooling efforts on the old blog here, I found a new quote to go with my new sub-theme of inspiration. "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." - Jack London (1876 - 1916). I think that fits perfectly. Inspiration is a necessity, but you can't just wait on it. You have to make it happen. You have to keep your senses alert. Be ready to receive whatever it may be that will inspire your next writing.



Of course, if you plan ahead, you may not have to track it down and beat it with that club London mentions. If I get inspired by a snatch of conversation I overhear in a restaurant, I try to either write down the actual conversation, or the idea that it gave me. I carry a small notebook with me, nothing fancy. I write one idea per page, adn I number each idea. Sometimes, I may realize that two of my ideas will work together, and I give them both the same number, that way, when I go back through looking at my little idea file, I'll know to work those two or three or four things together.

If you write down all your little inspirations, when you go to start a new project, you won't have to wait for new inspiration ot hit you, and you won't have to go chasing any down with a club, either. You'll already have your inspiration and your ideas.

I find I can't write something unless I'm really inspired by the idea of it, or something that I'm looking forward to in it. Get inspired, and work to make sure it happens.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
Apparently the blog is good for my writing. I've been working on my "Stranded by the Devil" idea more since I posted here the other day. I previously had 12 or 13 chapters written, but I couldn't go forward with it as it was (at that point, I was already rewriting a shorter first draft). So now I'm Draft #3, and I've almost gotten through all the material I had written in Draft #2. I currently ahve about 8500 words, with another 2-3,000 to rewrite. I'm enjoying it more, and looking forward to where it's going.

I hesitate to compare it to anything, especially what I am about to compare it to, but I can't stop myself. If I had to compare "Stranded by the Devil" to anything, it woudl probably be "lost boy lost girl" by Peter Straub, but don't get the wrong idea. I didn't like that book at all, and I'm not sure why. It's not the style to Straub that's similar, and it's not the content or story. I'm not sure what it is. It may be that "lost boy lost girl" is kind of open-ended, as mine may end up being.

(For the record, "Stranded by the Devil" is just a working title that I probably can't make work for the book. In Drafts #1 and 2, "Stranded by the Devil" was the name of the blog kept by the main character Kennedy. If I keep the blog in Draft #3 at all, it won't be prominent, and I can't use that for the name. But I liek it, so it'll stay my work-in-progress name.)

MY INSPIRATION TODAY:
This may sound ridiculous, but it was the movie "Planet Terror." Robert Rodriguez is a film genius. The Grindhouse movies he worked on with Quentin Tarrantino are made to look like old-school horror movies. I didn't care for Tarrantino's contribution, but Planet Terror was really cool. I loved all the effects making it look old. In his 10 Minute Film School on the Bonus Features disc, Rodriguez talks about how he used the aging effects mostly in scenes where tension was building, and then through the following fights. It worked great.

How does it inspire me? Not with a specific idea. I think the zombie genre is getting a little crowded for me, probably not something I want to do. OK, I've tried, but I don't think I can write using a monster someone else has used -- including vampires and werewolves. I think there's too much lore involved with all of them and I can't bring myself to disregard it, and then I don't want to mess with it. No, Planet Terror didn't inspire me to write a zombie novel. But I think I would like to write a good old-fashioned monster book, someday. Like 1940's or 50's pulp style. A classic horror story. It'd be a lot of fun, and be a tribute at the same time. Sounds like fun, right?

Back

Well, if you remember correctly, when last I posted, I said I'd be gone for exactly 4 months and 7 days. Well, the time has elapsed and I'm back now and ready to go!

Okay. You got me. I didn't really predict how long it would be before I would blog again. Not in writing, anyway.

I've been in kind of a funk. Writing isn't coming easily to me, when I even have time for it. My computer was crazy for a long time, but my father-in-law gave us a new one for Christmas, which should have been when I tried ot get back into a groove. There's really no excuse for me, I just haven't been feeling it.

I also wasn't happy with my blog before. I don't think too many people really care that I need to buy stamps. Or a lot of the other stuff I would write about.

I am going to try to be focusing my blog from here on out. It won't be as much "today I wrote 300 words," although that will still be included. When I started this blog, it was with the idea that it would keep me accountable. And for as long as I regulary blogged, I also regularly wrote. So that is still a big part of it.

I'm going to be focusing on writing and its various aspects, and probably a lot of the idea-generating process, how we as writers can get inspired by various things. This of course leaves my topics wide open, because just about anything can inspire you. A scene from a movie, a line in a book, a news article, a picture, a song--practically anything.

So, there will be some changes going on with the blog, with the layout and what I have on it. Maybe the title. I need to make things fresh, like a new beginning. So stick around, I might not be too regular here for a week or two, but I'll be getting things in order.

WRITING UPDATES:
What am I working on right now? Too much, and too little. All novel projects are temporarily on hold. I think I have three that I currently have around 10000 words for. Probably my favorite is "Stranded by the Devil," a story about three kids who find a haunted house at a place in Michigan called Devil's Lake (actual place). It's different from my typical writing, in that it's not so much about plot. It's more just a story about the three kids. I'm hoping the finished product will be closer to literary fiction than horror.

I've written a couple short stories, so far they're all being very well rejected.

My only other focus is a new company I work for, Intelligent Design Media (website forthcoming). We design websites, and I am the head creative writer, although I have no one to lead yet. My duties include writing content and editing and proofreading pieces that other people write for themselves. IDM is actually just a few friends and I, and so far all I've wroked on is my old high school's website. However, in the next week or so, I'll be working on my old church as well, another high school, and a rehab group. So far all work has been by donation only, but we do have a couple contracts for small businesses that will be paying, so hopefully things will be taking off. Only drawback is that my friend, the lead designer and the guy whose company it really is, is incollege still, and in ROTC, and has a lot to do.

No other projects in the works right now that I can think of.