Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is inspiration. What other media inspires us: fandom, music, photography, paintings?
For me, the answer is pretty much yes.
Yes to all of it. Books, poetry, news articles, music, visual arts of all kinds - it all feeds into a stewpot of inspiration for me. For today's post, however, I'll stick with visual arts, particularly paintings and drawings.
The above is a giclee by Diana Stetson called Raven Watching. My mom bought it for me a couple of weeks ago from a gallery in Santa Fe. It's an early birthday present, since the odds of us being together for my actual birthday aren't great. I love the sense of depth to this piece, and how the raven seems to be watching with a keen and knowing gaze. It looks exactly like the desert ravens around our house, too, so that's a lovely echo to bring indoors.
It's fitting, too, that my mom bought this gift for me, as she's the one who taught me to love art--largely by dragging me in and out of Santa Fe galleries on family vacations.
When I first began transitioning from being a scientist to a writer, I studied a great deal about being creative, especially the creative subconscious. One thing I gleaned was to surround myself with visual images that fed my subconscious. I read a quote from Anna Pavlova - which I inevitably can't find now - about the Imperial Ballet Academy where she studied. She said everywhere at the academy, they were surrounded by beauty - so that they would soak that in and bring it out again in their dance.
I took that to heart and surround myself with art that makes me feel reverence for the world. Sometimes I can point to specific inspirations. Other times... well, I hope that it's soaked in, ready to spring forth in new forms.
Sunday, July 19, 2020
Feeding the Creative Subconscious with Beauty
Labels:
Anna Pavlova,
art,
beauty,
creative subconscious,
Diana Stetson,
inspiration,
Jeffe Kennedy,
raven,
subconscious creative self
Jeffe Kennedy is a multi-award-winning and best-selling author of romantic fantasy. She is the current President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and is a member of Novelists, Inc. (NINC). She is best known for her RITA® Award-winning novel, The Pages of the Mind, the recent trilogy, The Forgotten Empires, and the wildly popular, Dark Wizard. Jeffe lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
Saturday, July 18, 2020
Notes for Stories Collect Dust While I Write Other Books
DepositPhoto |
Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is all about Ideas. How
do you write down or remember those great ideas that you get
mid-shower/dream/car drive? If you lose them, how do you get them back?
As an author, I have wisps of ideas and plots running around
in my mind all the time (I’m good at multitasking!). Sometimes I’ll read an
article that inspires a plot idea or occasionally one will come to me out of
the blue. I usually write myself a one sentence note with the gist of the idea
and then I have a folder stuffed full of these. The thing is, I almost never
refer back to them.
I’m always working on a book and I’m always thinking about
the next two books to come, even if they aren’t in the same series or even the
same universe. I keep a constantly simmering ‘pot of stew’ going in my head
with ideas for these books and will rarely allow myself to get distracted by
anything newer or shinier. These three books – the one I’m writing, the next
one I’ll write and then the most likely one after that – ARE the shiny for me.
So for example, right now I’m writing a Star Cruise story set on my
interstellar space liner, which is for the Pets in Space® 5 anthology, due out
in the Fall. The next book will most likely be either JAMOKAN or TRATUS, which
are both in my Badari Warriors science fiction romance series. I’m debating between
the two of them as to what’s up first. The third book in my mind’s queue at the
moment is either one set in my fantasy world of Claddare, or maybe an Egyptian…or
one of these could be my fourth in line, if I write Jamokan and then Tratus.
BUT, this week I’ve become enamored of one of my older ideas
and am severely tempted to write it after Jamokan. I have to go where the Muse
has the energy to be in order to write my best books and to have the creative
flow. I’ve learned my own process pretty well over the years! This particular
plot is one I’ve been mulling for years, off and on, but it never bubbled up to
the top of the list for whatever reason. The same thing happened with COLONY
UNDER SIEGE: INTERSTELLAR PLAGUE, which I released in June. I’d had it in mind
to do forever but then the pandemic made it the only thing I was in the mood to
write and so I did.
This portion of the writing year is a bit under constraint
because I can’t release a scifi romance in the same time as Pets In Space (we don’t
compete with ourselves), but I do have to keep paying the rent and the bills,
so I need to keep my releases coming on a more or less regular schedule. So,
the fantasy or the Egyptian might come next after JAMOKAN purely due to scheduling concerns. Luckily I
love writing in both worlds but my fan base is smaller than for the SFR.
If a random idea really strikes a chord with me, I won’t forget
it. I may take years to actually use it in a book, but it’ll always be there,
in the Muse’s list of ingredients.
My first "woke up in the morning, gotta write it" title and my first really BIG seller! |
On really rare occasions I might wake up in the morning with
an entire book in my head (well, as completely as I ever plot in advance – the beginning,
the ending, the hero and heroine and a few major scenes) and I know I have to
set aside everything else and just write this
book. Those plots are a gift not to be squandered and they kind of write
themselves. This is where it’s helpful to be independently published as I don’t
owe anyone anything under a contract with a hard date. Pets in Space is an
exception.
The other thing I have to be careful of is not thinking
through an idea too much before writing it. I used to have a two hour commute
that could become three hours or more on the Southern California freeways. I
also used to get anxiety attacks after a really bad 1982 accident (long story,
on a freeway offramp, locked the brakes, rolled the car three times, ended
upside down after knocking over a tree, broke three ribs..). One day I was
stuck in traffic, on the way to work, anxiety giving me hell…so I told myself a
story. You can safely do that if your car isn’t moving or only inching forward
in occasional bursts. It was a scifi ghost story, set in space on an abandoned
colony. I seriously gave myself goose
bumps because it was so darn scary. And then the traffic eventually opened
up, I got to work and was late for meetings that day, etc., so I never wrote
any of it down. It was one of those shining magic stories that I should have
dropped everything to actually write but at the old day job that certainly wasn’t
a possibility. Bosses paying you to work don’t exactly resonate with you
shutting your door and writing a novel on their time.
Will I ever write it? I haven’t forgotten the essentials and
at one point I did write maybe the first 1000 words but the magic of it was
gone. The Muse felt we’d been there and done that and weren’t going back. If I
think about a story too much, I can’t write it, and on that commute from hell,
I’d let myself develop the entire story, like a movie, down to the details so I
wouldn’t have a major anxiety attack and pass out in the (allegedly) fast lane.
Soooo, I kinda doubt it but never say never. If I got a new wrinkle or twist to
add, then maybe. But for now the few notes and words there are on it reside in
that bulging, never opened “Note for Stories” folder in the old beige file
cabinet.
Labels:
Veronica Scott
Best Selling Science Fiction & Paranormal Romance author and “SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happily Ever After blog, Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything.
Friday, July 17, 2020
Idea Recall
Just a flower about to burst into bloom on the lanai. I was told it was a form of orchid. To be sure, it's an epiphyte, but I'm not so sure about the orchid thing. It's a Medinilla magnifica.
I'm using this photo here because I want to make the point that ideas are as numerous as the clusters of flowers on this plant. You either enjoy them when they bloom or you lose them when they drop, which happens frequently. Like so many tropical and subtropical plants, the flowers don't all come out at once. They emerge in waves and they drop in waves. No sooner have you swept up one mess of rose grapes, which these are also called, and another set are falling.
There's my idea metaphor.
Gather ye the buds of ideas while ye may. Cause sure as you sleep on 'em, they'll be gone like ghosts in the rising sun. Waking life ideas are easy. Say you're in the shower. You get an idea followed by another and another. Those ideas are related or they wouldn't have triggered one another. NUMBER THEM in your head. Assign each a single key word. REPEAT THEM. Then finish your shower asap, GTFO, and find paper. Or whatever recording device you need. Your phone has a recorder on it. Record the idea. There's a notes app. Use that if you have to. I prefer either paper or just getting an idea to a computer. The whole strategy for me is to find just that one single key word that opens out the entire idea when I repeat it.
But. As I said. The One Thing Guaranteed to Fail: lying to yourself about remembering that idea that comes to you in twilight sleep - in that moment between waking and dropping into slumber. You don't want to rouse yourself. So you number the ideas. You key word them. You repeat them. And when your alarm goes off, all you'll remember is that you had ideas and now, they're gone. The only solution here is a pad of paper beside the bed and a book light. I used to use sharpie and write on my palm when I got ideas in the middle of the night. That gets really, really hard to read when you write over something you've already written, so seriously, don't do that. A little note book and an unobtrusive light source will make you much happier and you won't hate yourself in the morning.
Thursday, July 16, 2020
How to not lose your ideas!
You walk into the room, flip on the light switch, and stare…wondering why you came in here to begin with. Memory can be tricky. And if you’re a writer you’ve undoubtedly lost ideas. So, ‘How do you write down or remember those great ideas that you get mid-shower/dream/car ride?’?
My chronic disease sometimes pals along with brain fog. If you don’t know what that is, consider yourself blessed. If you read my description below and it resonates with you, my heart goes out to you, let me know if you need an electronic hug.
Brain Fog: symptoms of mental fatigue. Sometimes involving memory, mental clarity, mental fatigue, loss of concentration, not feeling like yourself…similar to mentally wading through thick fog.
So the question remains, how do I remember those lightening-bolt book ideas when they strike? Maybe it really depends on what kind of lightening you get.
Book concept ideas. The big ones that undoubtedly have rolling thunder follow. When these hit I prefer to ruminate on them for a while. I read a post by John Scalzi, likely the same one Jeffe referred to on Sunday, in which he talked about his story selection process and if his idea still sounds good after a year he figures that it’s worth writing. Trust me, the good ones stick around.
Writing ideas. Cloud to cloud lightening. Plot fixes, characters, world building, magic, transitions…etc. It never fails, these kinds of ideas hit at the least convenient of times. In the shower, driving, cooking, weeding the garden. Basically anytime I’m far away from my computer and can’t immediately start writing out the genius idea. And too many times I’ve been struck, but couldn’t get to my computer or find some paper to write down the perfect fix…and then forgotten it.
I’m pretty terrible at recalling those perfect fixes, sucky brain fog. But I do have a secret weapon. He’s been with me longer than I’ve been without him, we’ve grown up together, he’s always got my back, he’s more important to me today than he was in the beginning, and today we’ve officially been married for 15 years! (I wish we were back in Ten Sleep WY) Technically we’ve been together for 21 years and it’s safe to say he knows how my brain works and how it’s going to work. Which is why he bought me…this is where I divulge my insider tip:
I have mini notebooks, everywhere. Along with a pen.
My handsome man bought me a handful of mini moleskine notebooks for my birthday a few years back and I keep one in each of our vehicles, always one or two in my purse, one in my nightstand and one in the kitchen. Always within reach and always on hand.
I couldn’t keep track of my writing ideas with out my notebooks and I couldn’t make it through life without him. So, thanks for the moleskines, Jon, and thanks for these past amazing years. I’m looking forward to the next 15, happy anniversary.
Labels:
Alexia Chantel,
anniversary,
book concept ideas,
book ideas,
brain fog,
moleskine
I'm a reader, writer, blogger, musher who pens Sci-Fi as A.C. Anderson and Fantasy as Alexia Chantel. Chronic Disease can't hold me down.
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Flight of the elusive story idea
You know how butterflies can't seem to fly in a straight line and never go where you expect them to go? It's really hard to capture them, even with a huge net. I don't even try. I just watch them fly and appreciate their beauty and attempt to imprint it on my memory.
Butterflies are like story ideas.
They wander into view unexpectedly, a flash of distracting gorgeousness exactly when I don't expect them and, frankly, don't have time for them. (Usually when I'm driving, exercising, or doing dishes.) The best I can do is attempt to see every part of them, run them through the challenge course of my brain, and attempt to imprint their essence there so I can retrieve them later, when I have the time.
Okay, yes, I have tried fishtailing onto a side street, skidding to a stop, grabbing my handy-dandy notebook, and furiously writing the thing down. Usually it's a dialogue snippet of such startling brilliance I find myself amazed... until I read it back later and am like, what? I almost got myself rear-ended for this crud?
Same thing with dreams: I'll wake up, certain I've got a complete and glorious story or scene ready-made from dreamland, and I'll scribble it down in a rush, only to find out later that it wasn't so great and actually was probably just a dream-mangled episode of Doctor Who or quest from Dragon Age.
Mostly I find that these brilliant butterfly ideas are only beautiful in the moment. If I write them exactly as they are, it's like capturing a critter in a net, and folks, that's not where a butterfly is supposed to be. A butterfly, like an idea, is only actually beautiful if it's wild.
So I started making myself step back and letting my ideas fly, and turns out they don't always fly away. Sometimes the linger, thread themselves in and out of whatever other task I'm doing, and then later, when I sit down to write, I find that all that aimless flitting has evolved into a discernible pattern and has sort of magically fitted itself into my work-in-progress. I guess, my brain being what it is, it's not the act of recognizing an idea that's useful: it's allowing that idea to process.
So maybe the idea is more caterpillar than butterfly, honestly. It's better if it has time to develop.
Butterflies are like story ideas.
They wander into view unexpectedly, a flash of distracting gorgeousness exactly when I don't expect them and, frankly, don't have time for them. (Usually when I'm driving, exercising, or doing dishes.) The best I can do is attempt to see every part of them, run them through the challenge course of my brain, and attempt to imprint their essence there so I can retrieve them later, when I have the time.
Okay, yes, I have tried fishtailing onto a side street, skidding to a stop, grabbing my handy-dandy notebook, and furiously writing the thing down. Usually it's a dialogue snippet of such startling brilliance I find myself amazed... until I read it back later and am like, what? I almost got myself rear-ended for this crud?
Same thing with dreams: I'll wake up, certain I've got a complete and glorious story or scene ready-made from dreamland, and I'll scribble it down in a rush, only to find out later that it wasn't so great and actually was probably just a dream-mangled episode of Doctor Who or quest from Dragon Age.
Mostly I find that these brilliant butterfly ideas are only beautiful in the moment. If I write them exactly as they are, it's like capturing a critter in a net, and folks, that's not where a butterfly is supposed to be. A butterfly, like an idea, is only actually beautiful if it's wild.
So I started making myself step back and letting my ideas fly, and turns out they don't always fly away. Sometimes the linger, thread themselves in and out of whatever other task I'm doing, and then later, when I sit down to write, I find that all that aimless flitting has evolved into a discernible pattern and has sort of magically fitted itself into my work-in-progress. I guess, my brain being what it is, it's not the act of recognizing an idea that's useful: it's allowing that idea to process.
So maybe the idea is more caterpillar than butterfly, honestly. It's better if it has time to develop.
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
New SciFi Romance Release: IVOKK by Veronica Scott
Our Saturday blogger and publishing powerhouse Veronica Scott released the latest in her Badari Warriors SciFi Romance series this weekend, so for those of you building your payday book list, be sure to add IVOKK to your cart and savor the Happily Ever After!
Proud enforcer of the Badari South Seas pack, Ivokk undertakes a secret mission back to their former home, in search of a cure for a mysterious illness affecting his soldiers, now in exile in the north. He’s ready to make any sacrifice to find the answer and help his pack brothers stay strong. He’s even willing to accept responsibility for the human woman assigned to the mission, although she’s a headstrong civilian, difficult and rumored to dislike his kind.
Sandara DiFerria was once a three-star chef in the Sectors, but that was before the alien enemy kidnapped the entire adult population of her colony to use for experimentation. Rescued from the labs by the Badari, she does her part to support the rebellion now by running the vast commissary operation in Sanctuary Valley. All she asks is to be left alone until she can get back to the Sectors and pick up her old life again. Her one previous romantic brush with a Badari soldier turned out badly, ending in public humiliation. Add to that post-traumatic stress from her life before moving to the colony and she’s the last person to pick for a top-secret mission. Or so she believes.
The Alpha running the pack disagrees and sends her to do the job under Ivokk’s watchful eye. Thrown together by the nature of the task they must undertake, the undeniable attraction they both feel grows. Will the dark secrets of Sandara’s hidden past create an insurmountable barrier between them? Can Ivokk and the tempestuous human chef find the answer to the Badari illness in time? Or will the elements and the enemy bring disaster?
A Badari Warriors SciFi Romance Novel
Proud enforcer of the Badari South Seas pack, Ivokk undertakes a secret mission back to their former home, in search of a cure for a mysterious illness affecting his soldiers, now in exile in the north. He’s ready to make any sacrifice to find the answer and help his pack brothers stay strong. He’s even willing to accept responsibility for the human woman assigned to the mission, although she’s a headstrong civilian, difficult and rumored to dislike his kind.
Sandara DiFerria was once a three-star chef in the Sectors, but that was before the alien enemy kidnapped the entire adult population of her colony to use for experimentation. Rescued from the labs by the Badari, she does her part to support the rebellion now by running the vast commissary operation in Sanctuary Valley. All she asks is to be left alone until she can get back to the Sectors and pick up her old life again. Her one previous romantic brush with a Badari soldier turned out badly, ending in public humiliation. Add to that post-traumatic stress from her life before moving to the colony and she’s the last person to pick for a top-secret mission. Or so she believes.
The Alpha running the pack disagrees and sends her to do the job under Ivokk’s watchful eye. Thrown together by the nature of the task they must undertake, the undeniable attraction they both feel grows. Will the dark secrets of Sandara’s hidden past create an insurmountable barrier between them? Can Ivokk and the tempestuous human chef find the answer to the Badari illness in time? Or will the elements and the enemy bring disaster?
Labels:
Badari,
New release,
scifi romance,
Veronica
Fantasy Author.
The Immortal Spy Series & LARCOUT now available in eBook and Paperback.
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The Immortal Spy Series & LARCOUT now available in eBook and Paperback.
Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when I release a new book.
Monday, July 13, 2020
How do you save ideas
This week the topic of conversation is how to save those ideas that come to you at the strangest times. OIn the shower and a notion pops up, driving down the road or having a conversation and an idea for a tale hits you?
I don't save them. I kind of fih=gure if it's a good enough thought, it'll come tome again. Like all of the goodies boiling in a pot of stew. If it's good enough, it'll come back to the surface. I'll see it when it does.
On an unrelated note: along with my co-editor Christopher Golden, I have won the Shirley Jckon Award for 2019, in the category of anthologies. Chris put it better than I could have, so I'm stealing his words:
"I'm absolutely thrilled to learn that The Twisted Book of Shadows has won the Shirley Jackson Award. It means the world to me that this book, and these authors, has received this honor. While I'm extremely grateful to publisher John M. McIlveen, co-editor James A. Moore, coordinator Matt Bechtel, and editorial committee including Linda D Addison, Rachel Autumn Deering, Lee Thomas, Nadia Bulkin, and KL Pereira (as well as to every person who supported our gofundme with a donation), I want to point your attention to the contributors. We sifted through 700 stories to find extraordinary stories. I'm so damned proud to be associated with the authors and the stories in this book, so congratulations to the authors. If you haven't read the stories yet, you owe it to yourselves to do so.
Angelmutter by David Surface
At Least the Chickens are All Right by Trisha Wooldridge
Beneath Her Skin by KT Wagner
Brother Mine by Rohit Sawant
Cake by MM DeVoe
Coyote by Jason A. Wyckoff
Elegy by Sarah L. Johnson
For Every Sin an Absolution by Kristi DeMeester
Groomed by Liam Hogan
Liza by Jeffrey B. Burton
Lydia by Cindy O'Quinn
Midnight Sun by Andrew Bourelle
Mirror, Mirror by PD Cacek
Records of the Dead by John Linwood Grant
Smeared Star in Your Hands by Sara Tantlinger
The Birthing Pool by Eoin Murphy
The Pale Mouth by Melissa Swensen
Underground by George Murray
Unto the Next by Amanda Helms"
At Least the Chickens are All Right by Trisha Wooldridge
Beneath Her Skin by KT Wagner
Brother Mine by Rohit Sawant
Cake by MM DeVoe
Coyote by Jason A. Wyckoff
Elegy by Sarah L. Johnson
For Every Sin an Absolution by Kristi DeMeester
Groomed by Liam Hogan
Liza by Jeffrey B. Burton
Lydia by Cindy O'Quinn
Midnight Sun by Andrew Bourelle
Mirror, Mirror by PD Cacek
Records of the Dead by John Linwood Grant
Smeared Star in Your Hands by Sara Tantlinger
The Birthing Pool by Eoin Murphy
The Pale Mouth by Melissa Swensen
Underground by George Murray
Unto the Next by Amanda Helms"
I write fiction, a little of everything and a lot of horror. I've written novels, comic books, roleplaying game supplements, short stories, novellas and oodles of essays on whatever strikes my fancy. That might change depending on my mood and the publishing industry. Things are getting stranger and stranger in the wonderful world of publishing and that means I get to have fun sorting through the chaos (with all the other writer-types). I have a website. This isn't it. This is where you can likely expect me to talk about upcoming projects and occasionally expect a rant or two. Not too many rants. Those take a lot of energy. In addition to writing I work as a barista, because I still haven't decided to quit my day job. Opinions are always welcome.
Sunday, July 12, 2020
Grabbing Those Great Ideas
Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is all about Ideas. How do you write down or remember those great ideas that you get mid-shower/dream/car drive? If you lose them, how do you get them back?
It's funny this came up now because I talked about this very thing on my podcast, First Cup of Coffee, just recently - and even commented that I liked what I'd talked through so much that I should transcribe it. So this gave me the impetus to do that - and edit the transcription, which is the time-consuming part.
If you prefer to listen, you can listen here. Or, read on for the transcription! I included the whole thing, but set off the relevant section in bold, in case you don't care for a faithful reproduction of my conversational rambling.
******
It's funny this came up now because I talked about this very thing on my podcast, First Cup of Coffee, just recently - and even commented that I liked what I'd talked through so much that I should transcribe it. So this gave me the impetus to do that - and edit the transcription, which is the time-consuming part.
If you prefer to listen, you can listen here. Or, read on for the transcription! I included the whole thing, but set off the relevant section in bold, in case you don't care for a faithful reproduction of my conversational rambling.
******
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy. I'm here with
my first cup of coffee. It's Thursday, July 2, and I am back in my grape arbor
and my folks are on the road this morning. So the staycation is over. I'm
getting back to work today.
It's good to have a little bit of fallow time. But now I am ready
to get after it. I have not yet gotten edits back from editor Jennie on The
Promised Queen. She said she thought maybe week of June 29. But seeing is how
it's Thursday. It might be next week. Which I told her whenever is fine, and
that's really true. So that means that I can start in on one of my other
projects today, because Lost Princess released on Monday, and thank you all for
the wonderful reception for that book.
I can't tell you how happy it makes me to have the book earn
out on release day, or a little before, as some of that's before because when
you guys buy through my website, I get that money right away. But to go ahead
and recoup all of my costs on that first day of release is wonderful, because
then after that I can consider it all income. And that's, that's just
incredibly useful. So thank you all. And I'm glad that you're happy with the
book. And so far, nobody seems to feel cheated.
I won't spoil or anything but there was something I had
hoped I'd be able to do with that book. And I just couldn't figure out a way to
make make it happen. Although I've received suggestions from several people.
Spoiler: cover your ears for just a second if you haven't read it yet. I've
received suggestions from several people on how to actually get elephants to
Dasnaria. It could happen We'll see. Okay, now you can all come back.
So, yeah, I'm feeling rested, tanned, rested and ready. It's
an old joke. Uh, yeah, it's um, it's actually a, like a Nixon joke, I think. Which
tells you something. It also tells you something when our political climate is
such that we long for the simplicity of Nixon who simply resigned in disgrace
and flew off of this helicopter. Ah, the good old days. Right.
So, I will get back into the groove now.
The projects I'm thinking about working on are: going back
to Dark Wizard which, I think I told you all, that Grace Draven wants me to
just call it Dark Wizard. We're arguing about this. She says, I should just
title it Dark Wizard. I'm like, you can't just name a book Dark Wizard. And so
then I've started playing with variations on that, you know, a little bit of
gamesmanship with wordplay, etymology, you know, sort of like Darth Vader, you
know, it could be like Darth. Of course, I can't use Darth because that it
immediately evokes Star Wars. But the working title is definitely Dark Wizard.
And then I also got another great idea for a story that I don't know what my
working title for it should be. But I think it's a really good idea. You know,
like one of those ones that zings. Oh no, I started to mention it when I drove
in for writer coffee last Thursday, I talked about it some and then I decided
that there was too much noise on the podcast and I didn't put it up.
That's one thing about taking some time off and letting the
well refill is that sometimes you just get these ideas that pop into your head.
And this is one that comes a little bit out of my mentoring session too at
SFWA's Nebula conference.
So, I think it's really good idea. I'm tempted to try again.
I mean, I know my 3000 words a day is sustainable. I'm definitely going to try
to do 3000 words a day. I'll get back into the groove on Dark Wizard - and I'm
thinking about trying for more words again later in the day on this new story,
on the new shiny. I don't know how that would work. I definitely can't do it
right off. And there's probably nothing wrong with letting the idea percolate.
Kelly Robson said something about that when I told her I had a new idea. You
know, the really good writer friends are the ones who, when you tell them that
you have a great new idea, they don't ask you what it is. Because they know
better. They know that you're still sort of sitting on the egg as it were. And
I do think that there's a possibility of sitting on an egg so long that it goes
bad, you know that it's a dud. But I think that if that -
Okay, so here we're going to extend the analogy.
If you're sitting on an egg so long that nothing happens and
it's a dud, then I think it was always a dud.
The really good ideas, if you sit on them for a long time,
eventually, they're going to start picking their way out of the, the shell. And
by that you will know. Different writers are different ways about those things.
And you know how I'm always talking about, own your process. Discover what your
process is, own it. Keep refining it.
And I feel like this is a lifelong process for all of us. I
kind of gave my I finished teaching my class on Identifying and Breaking Bad
writing habits. In my rousing goodbye screed, I talked about this, that as much
as we would like - and I'll tell you what I am so this person: I want to buy
thing and then have it for the rest of my life. I want to be able to learn
something and then know it. I want to build a habit, and then have it. And I
don't get to have that.
This is not how the universe works, to my great
consternation. And with all of these things, it's because building habits and
refining your creative process are our processes. And they are iterative. So
this means that you keep going back over and over and you keep checking and
rechecking to see how they're doing. See how you are doing. Are you still being
productive? Is that thing that worked before still working? How can you tweak
How can you maximize? How can you maximize in terms of not increasing output,
but improving output, which I think is a different thing. You know, like Leslye
Penelope, she's been talking about that she just took a break, that she took a
couple of weeks off and she's been reading and enjoying herself, that crop
rotation idea of letting the fields lie follow. Deanna Rayburn talks about
that, that she took like a couple of years off writing, and only read. And I
think that those things are very important as part of discovering your process,
and refining all of these things.
Every round is different. So it's very tempting to listen to
other writers and say, Okay, here's how you do the thing. Like, you know, I had
one of the students in my class ask saying, Well, when I do a really detailed
outline, I find I lose interest in the story and I struggled to finish it. You
know that's a question that we get all the time. This comes up all the time.
And it's, it's so funny, because the obvious answer is, then don't do a
detailed outline. Your process does not involve doing a detailed outline beforehand.
But people get so wrapped up in the idea that that is how you do the thing,
that you do this thing by making a detailed outline. And they think that the
problem is is is somehow in how they're executing. And it's like, No, no, this
is not your creative process.
Figure out what your creative process is.
Own it.
Don't let other people tell you how you should be doing the
thing.
So along with this idea of like sitting on, on new ideas,
John Scalzi has a very interesting approach. He said that he gets an idea. And
he thinks about it a little bit, and then he puts it away. And then if it's
still there in the morning, he gives a little bit more thought and then puts it
away. And then if it's still there a week later, he gives a little bit more
thought and puts it away. And he'll do this for months or a year.
And I thought, well, that's a that's an interesting
approach.
Some people I know, like my friend Darynda, she gets ideas,
and she has to go ahead and write out a pretty detailed outline of the idea
before it'll leave her alone. I don't know if she's still doing that. I should
ask her if she's still doing that. We haven't done an interview with her in a
couple of years, we should get her back on here. Because these things change,
right? That's the most important thing is that these things change over the
course of our writing career as we refine our process. You know, so the upshot
was is that Darynda has something like 60 plus book outlines on her hard drive,
which even she acknowledges is not super productive, because she won't have
time to write all of them. But that's it's part of how ideas seize her and how
she deals with them. So it would be very interesting to ask her if she's still
doing it that way. I will try to remember to make a note poke her and see if
she wants to do an interview. I haven't seen her in so long . When was the last
time I saw Darynda? January, I guess? Yeah. So it'd be nice to have a nice a
good long conversation. And you guys might as well listen in.
I usually the jot down a few notes on the idea, because I
will forget it. And that's where Scalzi
would say, well, then it deserves to be forgotten. And I'm not sure I believe
that's true. Because sometimes I will go back to my spreadsheet of ideas. And
I'll think, oh, that is a great idea. And I'll write down just enough words to
make it come alive for me again, and I think I would lose those and I'm not sure
that they should be lost.
So then Elizabeth Gilbert talked about - I'll see if I can
find the link to this podcast. I think it was like two years ago that I was
reading her, maybe just a year. I know, I was doing a podcast on listening to
her audio book, which I can't think of the name of now. It's the one on that's
kind of like about creativity and magical thinking. (BIG MAGIC) But anyway, she
has this idea that that ideas come to you and kind of lurk and wait. And if you
don't pay attention to them - she thinks of them as like living things - that
if you don't pay attention to them, then they leave and they go find someone
else. That was it: she had said that Ann Patchett ended up writing her idea
because she didn't get to it, and that it was uncannily close to her own idea.
It makes for a fascinating story.
I'm not sure I believe that, but I kind of like my egg
analogy. Part of what I'm thinking about now is okay, I'm working to this idea
is like, does it hurt to write down a few thousand words to get the story
started and then poke at it every once in a while. I know writers who do this,
but I'm thinking back to one concept I had that I did that on, and it did kind
of die and lose impetus. So maybe it'd be better to keep it fully in the egg.
Maybe this is part of it. It's like, once it starts, once you crack that egg,
you know, it's okay to let the idea incubate in the egg. But once you crack
that egg, then you either have to feed your little baby bird regularly, insects
all the time, like my bluebirds ferry insects to their babies.
Or it'll die. You have to.
That's an interesting concept. So I like the idea of keeping
the idea eggs. So thanks guys! You just helped me solve this problem. And, for
your information, in case you didn't know, this is exactly how all of my
conversations with my friends go: where I ask them questions and they say
things and then I arrive at the answer and and thank them and they're like I
just sat here and listened to you talk. So you guys are all doing this for me.
All right, I won't try to do more than 3000 words a day, because that really
does work best for me. It's very sustainable, and it's good. And even though I
didn't get that much written the last couple weeks of June. I still am way
ahead of last year. So I've been doing much better And on that note, I think I
will go get to work today. I need to, I want to get 3000 words on Dark Wizard
if I can. And because there's always the ramp up factor, you know, it's just as
yesterday morning, I ran on the treadmill again for the first time and today I
lifted weights and my body is feeling a little creaky because I've mostly been
like, shopping and going out to eat and drinking wine. So, physically and
creatively, I am waking up those creaky muscles and getting back to it. So all right:
I am getting back to work.
I'll remind you that first cup of coffee is part of the
Frolic Media Podcast Network, and you can find more podcasts you'll love at
frolic.media/podcasts and I will talk to you all tomorrow. Promise. Okay, take
care. Bye bye.
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transcription
Jeffe Kennedy is a multi-award-winning and best-selling author of romantic fantasy. She is the current President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and is a member of Novelists, Inc. (NINC). She is best known for her RITA® Award-winning novel, The Pages of the Mind, the recent trilogy, The Forgotten Empires, and the wildly popular, Dark Wizard. Jeffe lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
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