Tag Archives: (I Should Be) Writing

The First Syllable in “November” is “No”

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I kind of hate November.

First of all, Movember?  A very worthwhile cause, but moustaches are creepy.

And the end of Daylight Savings Time?  I despise Daylight Savings Time, both the start of it and the end of it, for I find mucking with the time twice a year very jarring to my circadian rhythm.

My birthday is in November, on the Scorpio-Sagittarius cusp.  I quite like my birthday  but resent having my birthday month tainted by icky ‘staches and disruptions to my sleep.

And then there’s NaNoWriMo….

Unlike my fully realized feelings on Movember, DST, and my birthday, I’ve yet to work out how I feel about National Novel Writing Month.

For one thing, I’ve never done it.  Nor am I doing it this year.  Nor am I even sure I want to someday.

Let me re-phrase that last thought: I feel like I do want to do it someday, but I’m not sure if that’s because I relish the challenge it offers or because I feel like I should want to since it’s such a renowned event in the writing community.

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What’s Good About Twilight: Observations from a non-Twihard with a head-cold

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Every time I get really sick, I end up watching something I otherwise would have avoided.

This tendency is born of a desire for easily-digestible entertainment in my physically diminished state.

Last time I was sick, I watched the entire first season of the cartoon Transformers: Prime (and later went follow the show obsessively to its conclusion two seasons later, but that’s a topic for another blog post).

This time, it was the last three movies of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga that I’d yet to see: Eclipse, Breaking Dawn pt. 1, and Breaking Dawn pt. 2.

I’d previously watched the first two films – Twilight and New Moon – years ago at the behest of Twihard friends, and swore I’d never watch another.  After all, there was just so much to dislike:

  • Edward’s behaviour toward Bella was stalker-ish and controlling
  • Bella, as a character, was dull as a spoon, possessing no interesting qualities nor being an active (as opposed to passive) participant in her own story
  • Edward was way too old to be in a romantic relationship with Bella
  • Neither Bella’s mother nor Edward’s had jobs (unlike both of their fathers)
  • As a whole, the story glamourized unhealthy romance for its target audience of impressionable young girls.

And yet….

Maybe it was the Advil Cold + Sinus at play, but as I watched the final three movies, I found they weren’t all bad.  Indeed, there were a number of elements of the Twilight Saga that found quite enjoyable, both as a consumer of stories and a creator of them:

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Writing While On Vacation: A (Semi-Humorous) How-To

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 So, my attempt to maintain my writing schedule while on vacation didn’t go so well.

This isn’t to say I did absolute NO writing.  For I did; I wrote five times.  In three weeks.

But two of those times were while on airplanes – that’s a huge step outside of my normal creative environment and my comfort zone.  I even wrote a sex scene while on a plane.  While sitting in the aisle seat no less.  That’s got to count for something!

Right?

It’s not the end of the world that I barely wrote while away.  It’s not like a wagered money on it or anything.

(Maybe I should have wagered money on it; maybe that would have been just the motivator I needed, for I despise spending money needlessly.)

I even learned a few useful tips to follow the next time I go away for an extended period of time.

And so, for those who were duped by my original Writing While On Vacation post, searching in vain for advice from someone who hadn’t a sweet clue how to do so herself, I now offer you the benefit of my newly-acquired wisdom:

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The Last Five Days & The First Five Things That Fill Them

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Today marks my final full week of summer holiday.

Due to a combination of me hoarding my vacation days throughout the year, overtime rolled over from last year, and the fact that my vacation both began and will end with a long weekend, I’ve been able to take off most of the month of August.

I had good intentions to try to maintain my writing schedule over the course of my travels, but – well, we all know what they say about good intentions.

I’ll discuss what I was busy doing while I should have been writing in a future post.  In the meantime, with eight days remaining until I return to work, I’m thinking ahead to three days from now – to the last five days of my vacation, when I leave Ontario and go back home to Vancouver.

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Writing While On Vacation

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If you came here looking for advice on how to do as the title indicates, I’m sorry to disappoint.

I don’t know how to do it either.

Indeed, not once in at least the last three years I’ve been writing have I successfully maintained my writing schedule while on holiday.

I’ve tried.

In the beginning, my efforts used to be quite fervent.  More recently, I’ve not even bothered to make the attempt, instead consciously choosing to take a short break from writing and resume my regular schedule upon returning home.

That won’t work this time.

Because I’m on holiday for the entire month of August.

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Taking Over Me: On writing, obsession, and the search for artistic balance

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Singer Amy Lee of the alternative rock/metal band Evanescence, from whose song the title for this week’s post is borrowed. There’s something about the grammatical weirdness of the song’s name – the fact that, in ending with the subject “me”, it serves to emphasizes it – that really resonates with my experiences in this subject.

Amy Lee of the alt rock/metal band Evanescence, whose song I borrowed for the title of this post.

When a writer becomes utterly fixated on his/her WIP, is that a sign of artistic revelation or that s/he has become a less well-rounded person?

I’ve twice had it happen where writing has taken over my life, the first time being back in 2004 when I was writing my first (incomplete, shelved) novel, and the second in 2005 when I wrote the first volume of my two-volume historical fiction WIP.

In 2005 especially, I fully gave myself over to my writing.

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Write a Novel to Change People, to Change Yourself and the World, for the Better

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(A/N: This post is in honour of the victims, the emergency staff, and those in mourning in Boston)

I was on the treadmill, running, as the devastating events surrounding the Boston Marathon were unfolding.

Because of the time difference between Boston and Vancouver, BC, it was my lunch hour, which, as usual, saw me in the gym located beneath my office.

I was enjoying my run that day, which is by no means a guaranteed occurrence.  Afterward, to commemorate, I took to Twitter to convey my delight in how just the right song coming up on one’s iTunes shuffle at just the right time (such as during the final five-minute sprint) can transform an otherwise good run into one that’s AWESOME and KICKASS and makes you feel able to CONQUER THE WORLD!

It was then that I took a closer look at the content of all those #Boston tweets filling my Twitter stream….

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No One Would Make a Coconut Fluoride Rinse: A writer’s frustration with finding the right words

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A Distractions & Subtractions post

So, I have this sort of condition….

It’s nothing overly serious – nothing requiring medical treatment or that’s even been officially diagnosed.  More than anything, it makes for something of an odd party trick in response to yet another game folks may play at a party.

The blindfolded, guess-what-food-I’ve-just-put-in-your-mouth game.

Yes, this does, indeed, relate to writing.  Everything does with me, dontcha know?

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Writing in the (and What You) Know

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(Or, How to Write With Confidence When You’re Not a Subject Matter Expert)

A Distractions & Subtractions post for Rarasaur

The most irritating piece of writing I’ve ever heard first came to me in my youth:

Write what you know.

I was probably about ten years old.

Perhaps you can see the dilemma: what ten-year-old actually knows anything?

The only thing I knew was that I wanted to write, I wanted to write the sort of story I liked to read, and that the sort of stories I liked reading concerned matters that were in no way similar to my unremarkable, ten-year-old life.

My now being 34 years old hasn’t really changed this fact.

And yet, “What what you know” remains one of the most fundamental (and incidentally, fundamentally misunderstood) pieces of writing advice out there.  It can often paralyze writers with doubt that their work lacks credibility, authenticity, and truth.

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