A Non-Post.

Every few weeks this blog reminds me it wants an update. It did this morning, and so a few hours ago I sat down to write a post. I stared at the screen for a few minutes before I wrote a few lines, deleted them, wrote a few more, deleted them, and tried once more before turning the machine off.

Some days are like that. Either the idea you have doesn't pan out, or you've forgotten the brilliant idea you had last night, or the inspiration you so hoped for as you stare at the screen simply chooses not to arrive. I'd rather not force it when nothing immediately pops into my brain, but later in the day that itching returned. I then sat down and tried again, so here we are - writing about how I have nothing to write about.

Fiction writing can be like that too. Nothing for a long time, then recently, suddenly, a moment of inspiration. Sat down and wrote 600 words in a single session. I shaped them, teased them, tweaked them, and juggled them into words I really liked. And then a couple of days later when I returned to them, they were gone. I'd saved them, and I was able to recover the file, but it had been written over and so the words were not recoverable. I'd accidentally deleted it somehow.

Now I have to work out how to recapture that writing. I was really happy with those words, and now I'm worried I won't get near them again. I just need to overcome that concern and just go for it - new, better words, I hope.

After all, they are just words.

Openings And Scraps.

The weekend was hot. 36c both days. Fortunately for me I was down the coast with my wife.

The foreshore was lovely. Crowded later, but we went out before it got too warm while there weren't too many people on the sands. The weekend was brilliant. I drank cold beer, ate prawn pasta, nachos, read a lot and generally just relaxed. Then to finish it all off, breakfast this morning was amazing.

So I was playing some music as we drove down there. My wife made some comments about the song, and bam - I wrote the opening to a story in my head.

An idea is not a story. Nor is an opening. And I had nothing more.  But I started playing with what I'd written, wrote a few more lines before I needed to know where I was going next. I opened a few files, a few unfinished scraps I'd written in the past, things I thought I might use one day, or simple writing exercises I'd done for fun. One of these leaped out at me, and as soon as I collided it with my new opening, I knew they would work together.

Within the hour I had the entire story outlined and started writing it.

I have 2,000 words of this beast done. I have a good feeling about it. I'm excited by it.

A productive weekend, a relaxing weekend. I like those.

The Mystery Of Writing.

Nothing we do is as mysterious as we like to pretend.

I'm paraphrasing, because I can't remember the exact words. But it's close enough to something Amy Espeseth said at a writers' workshop I recently attended. It struck a chord with me because it's something I'd recently been thinking about anyway.

There are a number of writers who seem to play up the apparent spirituality of writing, speaking of muses who won't leave them be, words that seem to have been received from some ethereal place beyond our physical universe. Writers as alchemists, turning the 26 letters on a keyboard into something much more. And I suppose non-writers may see writing that way. "Where do you get your ideas?" is an extremely common question.

Of course I get ideas and inspiration, and I make notes as soon as I can. And if they won't leave my mind, then I push them forward in the queue and start work on them.

Dean Wesley Smith offers a different approach. They're just ideas, just words, and he has hundreds of them. No pataphysical explanations, just a mind at work. I guess this is how I see it as well. When I don't have enough ideas for a particuler story, I make them. I create them. Over the past few years I've learned some exercises that help me do this.

But there are those times when I'm writing, when I'm in the 'zone' and the words just seem to pour out, and I wonder. Maybe, just maybe there is a muse watching out for me.

I'm Late.

I post every Sunday and Wednesday, and mostly I've managed to keep to this schedule. Occasionally, for some reason or another, I miss a post. This time it was simply because I was at Continuum and I didn't really have internet access (or time).

But I'm home now from yet another fabulous weekend.  Great panels, great people and a lot of fun.

I don't really have time at the moment to delve further into the convention - perhaps I'll lash something together by Wednesday. Or maybe not.

But if I were to sum up the weekend for me in a single sentence?  I'm re-invigorated and re-inspired.

Thanks, Continuum.