Better Write than Never

Lately I have been thinking about the magic of the creative process. A really good book to read on this subject is Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic. In it, she explains this:       And while the paths and outcomes of creative living will vary wildly from person to person, I can guarentee you this: a creative life is an amplified life. It's a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner - continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you - is  a fine art, in and of itself.      Because creative living is where Big Magic will always abide.  Wow, sign me up! Sign us all up to ride that creative living, big magical train. Who doesn't want that? But wait...what is it that I feel holding me back from embracing the Tove Jacqueline Ghent brand of Big Magic? What is it? Speak up! FEAR!  The real reason my National Novel Writing Month 50,000 wor...

My son and I went on an epic camping trip this past April, trading the dreary vestiges of a long Midwest winter for the sun and sand of the Mississippi Gulf Shores. We stayed in a campground at the Davis Bayou, which is part of the National Park System. Every day we went down to the boat launch with our folding chairs and our writing implements, and while I was still in that restless state where doing more than jotting down a few words was impossible, my son found his groove, and wrote full speed ahead. "Mom, I forgot how much I love to write in nature," he exclaimed as I sat there, beaming. He had a tough couple of years behind him, and I was really happy for him that he discovered that writing while surrounded by nature, was a productive, restorative, life affirming thing. It was odd, too, given that on previous family camping trips, from a young age, his preference had always been to hole up inside the camper and kick back with a stack of comic books. His dad and I wou...

I made the decision to self-publish my first novel, The Naked Truth, in an alcoholic blackout, in spite of the fact that it was a few edits short of a decent read.  I had hung up my police officer’s hat after a booze-soaked eighteen years, and grimly decided it was time to begin writing again, something I had more or less walked away from when I left college and a few years later, got married...to the son of family friends, who happened to manage a liquor store. How convenient. I started working on The Naked Truth during desk duty at our local regional airport, and I finished it awash in wine and sorrow over the abrupt end of my law enforcement career. In the category of “write what you know” it was a hybrid police-procedural romance, a genre possibly of my own invention. Did I mention it could have used some extra edits? Yeah. It wasn’t that I didn’t look for help, I have always been a fan of books on writing. My favorite how-to (and what not to) writing book is Stephen...

Dementors, and Write What You Don't Know  My son grew up on Harry Potter. One of our better parenting endeavors was instituting "family reading" - for a whole year, my son, his dad and I took turns reading the entire series out loud. We had already seen some but not all of each movie, because the movies were really, really scary. How on earth did J.K. Rowling ever come up with those frightmares known as Dementors? If you've just arrived from another planet, or Harry Potter isn't your cup of tea, a Dementor is described in the Harry Potter fanbase wiki page as, "a gliding, wraith-like Dark creature, widely considered to be one of the foulest to inhabit the world." They feed on the soul, generate feelings of despair, and can kill you.   Maybe we have all known someone who just seemed to suck all the air out the room.  Maybe so did J.K. Rowling. Today, I popped in to see my son and I jokingly said I was a "drive by Dementor, trying to suck his id...

Accountability buddies and beta readers I am lying somewhat uncomfortably on the couch right now, the chromebook carefully balanced on my tummy, thinking about all the time I have wasted not writing, when I really wanted to be writing.  Last year I tried setting aside a time for my son and I to write together, but, as he observed to me over lunch this week, every time we met, he wrote while I cleaned.  If we went out to write, I would hook up to free internet and surf the web. I have come to realize that if we are not actively writing together, as we did with our blog about the worst movies ever made, it is very difficult for me to write with another person, even my favorite person. I guess figuring that out was at least worth something.  (And my house got cleaned!) In theory, an accountability buddy is a great idea. I am starting to lean towards a different type of accountability, one where I just get a beta reader and have them give me feedback. Or not. I...

Introduction Some writers are born, some writers are made. From an early age, I made up stories in my head, devoured Nancy Drew, and dreamed of writing detective stories. Fifty odd years later, I have one self published e-novel to my credit, called The Naked Truth, and, for reasons I cannot quite fathom, a first draft of a novel neatly printed and punched into a binder, languishing under my bed. I sleep on top of it every night. I wrote it for my son during NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month), and it is called Soul Cloud. After I am dead, maybe it will discovered and published posthumously. Or just pitched into the eternal junk pile of failed creative effort. My point is, friends, being a born writer doesn't guarantee you will be the next Steven King or J.K. Rowling.  My point is, I procrastinated and allowed life to interfere. I lacked the stamina, the drive, the motivation that makes a writer write. That's where writers are made. And I have had six or seven faile...