..:: Written .:. Off ::..

I had an idea for yet another novel yesterday. It’s an old idea that I finally let boil long enough to be excited about. I have a vast repository of half ideas in my head. Every once in a while, I can join them together into something usable. The bad part is that I don’t have an actual story. This happens to be a lot. I have a situation but no story. What’s the difference? A situation would be something like this:

A man from earth is transported into another world where he ends up being the smartest being on the planet.

An okay place to start, but it’s not a story, just a situation. I come up with a lot of these situations. Unfortunately, you can’t get away with just a situation. There has to be some substance. In the example above, you could probably write several chapters leading up to the main characters arrival in the strange new world, but then what happens? That’s where the story should fit in. A situation can’t really sustain a whole novel.

When I come up with ideas, I tend to come up with characters first and story later.  I rarely ever have the story first, then have to go back and make up the characters.

So now, I have this great idea (not the example listed above, I stole that from a movie) but no story. The challenge now is to come up with a story that does justice to the situation.

How do you tend to write? Do you have a story first and characters later? Or do you start with characters or a situation?

If I’m making sense, it’s very early and I can still taste the toothpaste.

I put up a few new posts in the forum section of Flash-Fiction.net.

One post deals with writing tips for surviving National Novel Writing Month and the other is a story about a good promotion technique used by another author. If you have time, check them out.

Deborah Woerh is posting a detailed series on publishing your book through Lulu. She is still writing it but you may want to check it out, since it’s highly informative.

Every year around this time, the forum over at Nanowrimo.Org stars to light up with activity. That’s because thousands of writers across the world know that November 1st is arriving, which is the day that kicks off National Novel Writing Month or Nanawrimo. The challenge of Nanowrimo is to attempt to write a 50,000 page book in one month. This boils down to 1,666 words a day, every day. “Even Sundays?” you ask. Yes, especially Sundays.

While 1,666 words may not seem like a lot (I probably go over that a day just in blog posts and comments) it starts to add up if you miss a day…or…god forbid…if you miss two days.

I always start off strong out of the gate. I can usually do a week or so without missing a day. Then something will come up and next thing that I know, I’ve missed two days and now I’m 4,998 words in the whole (that’s 3,332 for the missing days + 1666 for the current day). You can see how missing a day here and there can really screw you up. Missing too many days will cause you to feel like you have a rock chained to your ankle that grows larger everyday.

The best that I ever did at Nanowrimo was 22,000 words before I was crushed by the weight of the evergrowing missed word count.

Last year, I was disgusted. I couldn’t get into the swing of it and quit early on. I raised my fist in the air (not really) and swore that I would never participate again.

I spent most of this last year disavowing Nanowrimo. I told anyone that I could that I would not be participating this year. No F’n way! Not this guy.

But something strange started happening. Things are falling into place that would allow me to participate. I’m supposed to be laid off my job by November. Actually October 1st was supposed to be my last day, but I was extended yet again. Either way, I would still have the time to participate. Still, I told myself, “No F’n Way.”

Something even stranger happened today. Did you ever find yourself doing something that reminded you a of a fond memory? Well, this morning I was walking to work, drinking a cup of coffee with Napalm Death blaring in my ears and it reminded me of a happy time. I only drink coffee when I’m tired and the coffee/Napalm Death combo only rears it’s head when I’m really tired. This combo triggered a fond memory. The fond memory was my participation in Nanowrimo, which was probably the last time I drank coffee and listened to intense music to keep me awake.

Damn.

To the Writing Gods, I say: 

We’ll, it won’t be that easy to pull me back into Nanowrimo. I need a third sign! Do you hear me? Two signs just don’t do it for me.

I’m waiting…

I’ve always been into extremes, it’s just my personality. I was in the mood to write the other day and I had an idea sparked by a comment left by a user at Flashes Speculation. I wanted to write a horror story using minimal words. I ended up writing a two sentence story. The bloggers who run Flashes of Speculation were kind enough to post my super short story. Check it out and let me know what you think. I’m curious to know if you think this even qualifies as a story. One thing I guaruntee; it will take you less than 15 seconds to read.

Read it here:

Flashes of Speculation

3rd Eye Writers

While you’re there, check out some of the other quality stories posted at these sites.

Have a story that you want to get out there? Check out these Fiction Markets.

I swear, writers turn up everywhere. I take the train everyday into the city and often notice people writing into their Moleskine journals or notebooks. I always wonder what these people are writing. I write on the train sometimes and I can feel the eyes of those around me trying to figure out what I’m jotting into my notebook as I try to keep if covered.

I had to go to a funeral today, so I took the train into the city and hoped into the nearest cab. The cabbie was a very old man with thick glasses and balding hair. He reminded me of a kindly grinning skeleton. The guy liked to talk and I tend to be the quiet type. The first thing he said to me was how he was glad that we were going into the city, since he would be able to get some coffee at Dunkin Donuts before his next stop. He asked me what I did for a living. Since I’m being laid off next week (the suits call this a Reduction in Workforce to make it sound nice) I was caught a bit off guard.  After stammering for a bit I told him that I was in computers.

He looked up at me through the rearview mirror and said, “I’m a different kind of animal”. I though this was a strange thing to say until he added, “I don’t really know how to use a computer, so I do all of my writing on legal pads. I’m writing a trilogy.” My ears perked up and this so I ventured the question, “What are you writing?”  To which he replied, “Who-Dunits”. How old school is that?

The man went on to say that he has a nice young lady who helps him by transcribing what he writes from the legal pads to a computer file. His son is getting him a computer soon. Soon after that we arrived at my stop and I gave him a good tip since I felt like I should look out for my own.

I can imagine that this guy drives his cab all day, chatting to people about different things while silently piecing together what he’s going to write about at night.

I relate. Mentally.

You may have taken note that at no point did I mention that I was a writer. This is my grand failing as a salesman. I can’t sell myself. Whenever oppurtunities crop up in conversation for me to talk about my writing, I never mention it. When my wife tells people that I’m writing a book, the most I can get out is “It’s a science-fiction”.

I’m not sure what my issue is when it comes to talking about writing in my daily life. It’s almost embarrassed about it. I think it has to do with me not liking to be the center of attention. I have friends who love to be the center of conversation and can talk about themselves all day. I, can not.

So here I am, with my computer, blog, flash-fiction site, scores of writing books and a lot of bytes worth of writing and can’t even promote myself to a cabbie, who, has none of this stuff and yet can talk freely and proudly about his work to complete stranger.

I may have to hire him as my publicist.

While, I’m still putting up content at www.flash-fiction.net, the forums are open. Thanks to Storymask for giving me some ideas on different boards to create.

I posted a few polls and items in the forums to start some discussions. For those non-writers, I posted a question in the music board regarding favorite lyricists. There are also general forums to discuss movies, music or whatever you are interested in.

If you have time, please stop by!

http://www.flash-fiction.net/forum

Melly at All Kinds of Writing asks, “What is your biggest obstacle when writing a novel”. My answer to this question was simple and required no thought at all on my part. My biggest obstacle is me. I know I should write, but I don’t. You would think that after 6 years of writing, I would have a routine by now, but I don’t.

I think a lot of writers out there suffer from these same bouts of procrastination. We all know we should get to it but we just don’t do it.

I find that lately, I write in spurts. I will go on a tear and write for days and days and then, the weekend will roll around and I will write nothing.

My writing of late has been strange. Since I’ve finished my novel, I’ve been writing aimlessly. When I was writing the novel, I wrote chapter after chapter, sequentially. Now, a lot of my writing is done directly into a note book with a pen. I’ve been writing scenes instead of actual stories.

The idea of committing to a new novel is unappealing at this point. Maybe when the right idea comes along, I will commit. Until then, I will just continue to write aimlessly.

I read an interesting article today about a self-published author and how he goes about selling his books. He hands out flyers, sells his books by hand and tells everyone he can about his book. You can read the article here.

In the last year, I took a break from learning about the business and marketing side of publication since the one thing I needed to do was finish my book. Now that it’s finished, I’ve been going back and doing research on publication and self-promotion. The more I read, the more I’m finding out that whether you sell your book to a major publishing house or self-publish, much of the promotion for your book will fall into your lap. Most majors will do publicity for you until the book hits the self, after that, it’s mainly up to the author to get the word out about your book.

Being a salesman and a shameless self-promoter are things that most writers don’t think they will have to become. I always assumed that the writer concentrated on writing while advertising and promotion was handled by someone else. It seems these days, that the writer has know how to promote his/her book. With all of the tools that technology has made availible, I tend to become overwhelmed.

I accidentilly created a time machine this morning. I was sitting on the train, listening to my iPod and reading when I was instantly transported back to 1985. How did this happen? Well I wasn’t physically transported back into time, but my mind went back.  I was listening to Iron Maiden and reading the Dragonlance Chronicles. I realized that if you went back 21 years and found me, I was probably doing the same thing, listening to Iron Maiden and reading the Dragonlance Chronicles. The thought brought a smile to my face and made me think the old days in the 80s when all I had to worry about was going to school and making sure that I was prepared for the next Dungeons and Dragons game. My biggest dilemma was deciding which albums to spend my money on.

21 years! It’s amazing how fast time goes by. So much has happened to me in those years but it still doesn’t feel like a that much time has really passed.

Hopefully, my future self is sitting somewhere, preferably under a tree on a nice day, listening to Iron Maiden and reading the