What energizes your writing?

How do you get energized to write?  Especially a novel?

I seem not to be the only one struggling with that recently.

But I have begun to wonder how much of it was I got so confused by putting the story out for looking at before it was ready, that I lost the voice of the story.


So what do you do to energize you to write?

And to energize your writing.

Are they different?  Or the same thing?


Anybody else have the writing blahs?    So what are you doing to try to get yourself out?

When you feel the dark pit of writing despair dragging at your heels, grasping at your ankles, sliding you toward the sharp edge of the hole where no words live, while your nails scrape at the brittle shapes of scenes and sentences.... what do you do?
How do you get beyond?

Without the added 'pounds' [Both kinds!] of copious amounts of chocolate?

Any ideas?  Help?   Anyone?????

Tiny things that are so influential

I got an email recently that reminded me of the fragility of this life.  And the impact of little things, whether we realize it or not.

I realized in some way has been a thread through a lot of my somewhat sparse blog posts.  And I was reminded of a comment the Very accomplished and successful writer/artist/musician Maggie Stiefvater made to a post I did in February this year. 

And along with that comes to mind book I read recently about how much the little things matter, for good, and bad.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

I think Everyone should read this book!

Even though it’s considered a Young Adult book, hopefully it will make Everyone a little more conscious of actions and the little things…. for as Maggie commented to my blog post, it’s amazing the tiny little things that can be so influential.

m_stiefvater wrote:

Feb. 15th, 2009 05:17 pm (UTC)

This is such a good point -- I was just telling someone else on another LJ that we never know how one of our good gestures is going to change someone's life. I know so many people who came into my life for just a brief moment, did something that maybe didn't even mean that much to him, and it changed my life forever, be it the teacher that took the time to read my first terrible novel when I was 13, the guy in the music industry who told me my demo tape was great, the folk musician who told me I had a real talent for soundtracks, the professor who gave me a B plus for a perfectly good paper because he said he KNEW I could do better. 

Little tiny things, but they were really influential to me.

 

May all of our tiny little things we do be done with care.

 

We all carry within us the seed of other worlds

The touch of other people’s dreams and aspirations

May we all carry that touch carefully and respectfully

With as much care as we do our own.

[sgchris 2009 ©]

Maggie's new book Shiver and ARCs gone awry

okay so it's like this I'm traveling, I don't sleep well when traveling so I'm probably not very coherent.  

So I'll make this short.  For this entry you'll have to go here and read -  http://sgchris.livejournal.com/

Best you're going to get here today.    Probably.

Maggie says

Uh, no, my name's not Maggie, and you've not wandered into her site by accident.  Although you Should if you are any type of creative person at all - an artist of Any kind, Writer, Painter, etc.....etc....
She's done a great post on keeping on keeping on.  [That sounds so much better in my head than it looks typed out here!]

She talks about artistic endeavors aren't for the faint of heart.  And you must believe in yourself first and always - and eventually someone else will believe in you also.
But even if you don't think you see anyone doing that, don't give up, keep believing in yourself and what you are creating.   You are the only you around to do it.  To say it the way you need to say it, maybe even the way it needs to be said.  To give it the uniqueness of your voice.  No matter what the creative thing is that you do.

Okay so Maggie says it differently.  ;)    That's what I mean about everyone having their own unique voice and ways.  
And you should go and read hers.
Especially her unique interesting way she looked at the rejections.   I like that more positive spin she put on it.

Oh, and here's the link - whatcha waiting for?    And be sure to come back here and tell me what your unique take on it is!

http://m-stiefvater.livejournal.com/104582.html

Believe in yourself and your own unique qualities and abilities -- but also share them when you have the chance.

Visiting La-La Land????

With allergy season flat out pollenating us to-all-get-out, as southerners would say, icky cars, icky sinuses, I'm getting annoyed at a lot of things.  And a lot quicker.

I'm annoyed at Word because it does weird formatting things to my writing.  Sometimes as I am writing!    It is Soooo different from 'old' Word.  I liked 'old' Word.  Well, best I recall.  Since as my mother used to say, and my writing group often hears, when not remembering something, "I've slept since then."     Although that annoys me these days too, with all the pollen and all that goes along with it, I'm not getting the sleep/rest that helps me not to be tired and annoyed by everything.

I get annoyed at Vista.  To be fair there are Some things I like about it, but not sure on the whole they out-do the annoyances, at times anyway.

Like being able to put a computer to sleep rather than just shutting it down.  Nice at times, at times too much like a hyperactive child that just won’t stay asleep.  Annoying to put it to sleep and having barely reached the couch to relax, or worse, settled upon said restful furniture piece in exhaustive disarray, and you hear the pesky 'footsteps' of said ‘child’ awake again.

This time after checking traffic and heading downstairs ready to head out the door I heard the whoosh up.  In annoyed parent mode I traipsed upstairs ready to wrestle it to bed, or just shut the durn thing down.  But it was oblivious to all my attempts to have control over it, just sitting there with its blue light glaring at me while resisting any efforts to bring it to the screen where I could wrest the reigns again.  And assert my control - like any ineffective parent knows about.

With time ticking away, as well as my patience, and not having time to dredge up my past computer background, I broke down and called my computer engineer husband.  Unsurprised, he told me, yeah, it goes to la-la land sometimes.

I realized as I was driving to my appointment I was in resentful mode.  I was resenting the computer.  How dare it go to la-la land when I was stuck in reality-land.  I haven’t even been to never-land, let alone la-la land.  I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.  But I still resent my computer going there.

Recommend book

Okay, so I know Everyone has different tastes in clothes, music, and books.

I'm no different. ;)

Being a reader and a writer I read a Lot of books, and I am writing, well, let's just say the file is pretty big and leave it at that, shall we.  

I also have a Lot of books in various stages of completion, both as a reader and a writer.    Hey, at least as a writer I'll wait until I can fix a sucky ending!

But if any of you have read this blog much, I don't often recommend books.  Mainly because I realize people are so different in their tastes.

But I have mentioned some of the books I've read that something about them touched me in some way and caused me to think.

Different than the books I'll just pick up to have a quick lark with.

And different than ones that I would take a chance on recommending.   Like Melina Marchetta's books 'Saving Francesca.' 

And now a local Richmond, Virginia writer, Gigi Amateau.  Her book 'Claiming Georgia Tate' is good, disturbing at some points, but good.  Has great characters.  

But her book 'Chancey of the Maury River" is a book to definitely pick up and read.  

And I'm sure Gigi would appreciate if you bought them of course, but I say you should definitely pick up and read 'Chancey' - it is definitely a 'chancy' book in more ways than one but I think Gigi pulls it off great.  And her writing is almost lyrical at times in it.

Gigi has become a great asset to the James River Writers here in Richmond.

I hadn't really talked to her, or read her books before....always thought of her as rather unassuming, quiet-like.  But she's rather a dynamo - but sort of a quiet seeming one. ;)

  And her books are like that.  I've not seen a lot of talk about them but they sort of quietly weave their way around your thoughts after you read them.  And they sort of keep themselves known there.  It's a bit hard to put into words, even for a writer!  But do check out her books, both of them, but especially 'Chancey' - I think you'll be glad you did.   And after it's woven it's way around your thoughts, come back and share.

You'll be glad you did. ;-D

Facebook?

Criminy, I've gotten pressured into having a Facebook ...thingy...

 Well, at least I resisted longer than my husband, Mike, did!

Someone that Hates - HATES - to see pictures of herself - is on somewhere called Face book.

Okay so I like the book part, I Like books.   Altho' I'm not sure I should admit it, but much like Wildcat's and the Dragon Queen's crazy dragon Waffles [yes that's the name!] that goes around saying Waffles all the time, I most likely go around at least Thinking Books!

But the Face part - I don't want to see my face out there!   But I might have to do that also! { hey, was that a shriek? ! }   I know, I know, I Really Really don't want to - but then again have you seen that blank icon thingy?  It's worse than this one here!   Really, it's true!  At least here it sort of looks non-descript, could be male or female?  But the Facebook one looks like a guy!  I'm serious!

And a creepy sort of blank guy at that!  Or is that just me?     Sigh.    First I succumb to pressure to have a blog, then another blog, now a Facebook.  What's next - Twitter? 

I better go attend to the mountains of laundry before that happens!

Great Now I have Facebook Trauma!!!!