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Work in progress, it made my hand hurt inking this one..

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I consider myself a naturally bubbly person but in the recent past I stumbled into a deep valley of blues.

I was sad for several weeks due to personal circumstances and honestly writing this blog and reading and commenting on your blogs were two things that helped me through this dismal period. So I appreciate that more than you know.

Here’s the thing: As a writer, it’s very hard to create when sadness is heavy in your heart. It was true for me. I didn’t write much at all during this time and this only added to my already distressed emotional state.

Writing is hard enough without the added burden of emotional distress. The cause of the sadness — whether it’s heartbreak, loss of a loved one, or other personal circumstances — the feeling is real and can’t be ignored.

As writers, our creation starts in our minds and if our minds are muddled with mental distractions, we really can’t do our best writing. We can try of course but it can be hard writing through sadness.

But there are ways that can help you cope until you can clear your mind and find your way. The following things helped me:

Be in the feeling. This may sound counter-intuitive but suppressing the sadness only temporarily buries it. Until you face it head-on, it will stay with you. I’ve found facing your sadness and accepting it is the first step to moving past it.

Know all things are temporary. Things may seem bad now but nothing stays static. Everything is always in motion. Believe that this is also the case in your situation. Nothing lasts forever.

Ask for support. Don’t be afraid to ask friends and family for help. Ironically, until you ask, the people who love you the most may not even know there’s a problem. And seriously, don’t be afraid to take it step further and talk to a therapist.

Focus on what’s good. Although there are bad things going on in your life now, if you look deep enough, you can *always* find good things. Focus on those things and be grateful for them.

Pamper Yourself. Whether it be a bubble bath, a manicure or even the simple act of surrounding yourself with beauty like flowers or scented candles, do it for yourself. You deserve it.

The good news is that I’m feeling much better and I’ve found my way back to my writing. Operation 50/50 is just one of the ways I’m connecting back to my novel project.

For me, the lesson that I’ve learned during this time is that for every shadowed valley there is also a bright hilltop. And when you travel back up that slope and bask in the warmth of the sun, the writing will be there waiting for you.

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I’ve been tempted by a new idea.

When this new idea approached me, I didn’t tell it about the current relationship with my current WIP. Yeah, we’ve had some good times — and not so good times. But I know my WIP’s quirks and definitely have accepted all the flaws. We’re going through a rough patch right now, but I think we can work it out.

When the new idea offered, I wrote down the its plot and premise. My WIP wouldn’t have to know.

Now I can’t help thinking about this new idea. So hopeful and promising. Makes me want to dump my WIP and spend time with this new hot thing. Looks pretty flawless. So young and fresh. Let’s face it — me and WIP have been together SO long — it would be nice to have a change.

But you know what? I made a promise to my WIP. I made the decision to stick it out in our relationship. I knew it would be hard when WIP told me about the new plot element. I was blind-sided but I knew it was for the best. Even if it meant I would have to write a WHOLE other ending and rewrite the last 6 chapters. Sigh. We’re working through it.

So I can’t leave now. And I don’t want to be a cheater. I’m going to just put my bright and shiny idea away in a folder. Not even peek at it again until April when my WIP is resting up for my critique partners and beta readers. The relationship will be over and I’ll be single. Again.

I know when I tell the new idea about my WIP there will be disappointment. But I know after that shine wears off, the new idea will show its flaws. There’s no such thing as a perfect relationship.

My WIP doesn’t deserve to be betrayed so I’ll remain faithful.

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I’m so NOT a fast writer. This is probably one of the reasons that I’m not a good participant in National Novel Writing Month or sit in amazement at one writer friend who can push out a draft in 30 days — seriously people, she does it.

I know some of you who read the blog consider yourself “slow writers” or may be that’s not the right word for it because it isn’t like we’re writing slow but rather I believe our thinking process is different. Like for me, I really have to have my plot and go through all the loopholes before I get in too deep — or else I develop a case of Writer’s Push and end up writing a bunch of stuff that never sees the light of day.

So I really felt a kindred spirit was speaking to me when I read a fabulous post by author R.L. LaFevers — Thinking, Stewing, Fermenting, and Percolating and the Joys Therein.

Here’s a gem from her post:

“The longer I am involved in this writing gig the more convinced I become that the actual writing—putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard—is sometimes only 20-30% of the writing process. Not because I’m avoiding anything or letting myself be sidetracked, but because good pages don’t just happen. They are thought about and pondered over. They stew and ferment and percolate. This is especially true as my books become longer and more complex. Depth and nuance doesn’t (usually!) just fall from the sky in a burst of inspiration while I happen to be pounding out my 250 words per hour. It can, but it doesn’t always. Most often, you have to go out and hunt depth and layers and subtext and club it over the head, drag it home, and then finesse it into your WIP.”

Yeah, of course lack of progress on your novel project could be procrastination, fear, or just life getting in the way. But sometimes it just may be that you’re the kind of writer that needs to let it “slow cook.”

It’s just a different type of writer process that’s not for everyone. Me? Definitely slow cooker. Steady progress though.

What about you? Are you a slow cooker?

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I mostly write at night and some of you who follow me on Twitter already know that in the last couple of days, I’ve been struggling with the scene from hell.

**Cues scary Satanic music**

This scene is a new one for the middle of the novel based on a new plot point. The premise of the scene was a setup to get all of the major players in the novel into one place so that a major turning point occurs. Sounds simple enough, right?

But it just wasn’t working. Ugh! And the scene from hell was born.

**Demons laughing in the background**

Now this struggle could be a case of writer’s block but I was writing words for the scene — they just weren’t sounding true or right. You know that writer gut feeling that tells you what you’re working on will probably go into a WTF folder? Yeah, that was the kind of feeling I had.

I tried anyway because I’m a stubborn girl. And I tried. And I tried.

Then I just gave up. There was no use pushing this scene that wasn’t working. So I closed my file and drank a Blue Moon and lost myself in a book.

Little did I know during all this time my subconscious was working in the background. Figuring out how to make this scene better. After a few nights of good sleep, I woke up yesterday morning with a “That’s it!” moment.

Love it when that happens!

So the thing I’ve learned this week (or rather re-learned with the selective memory I have) is that I can’t push a scene where it doesn’t want to go. I need to trust my gut to let it go and just come back to it. I didn’t have a bad case of Writer’s Block but rather a serious case of Writer’s Push.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you had a case of Writer’s Push?

Would love to hear how other writers found their true words. :)

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Added some watercolors to the last post

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That is rostra in color

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As I’ve already shared before, this year will be focused on the craft of writing and the journey of finishing my novel project. This focus can sometimes be hard to do when you are preoccupied with the finish line.

But one thing I have noticed — at least for me being the plot chick that I am — is that when I rush to get to that finish line, I find that I’ve missed many things — the most important being emotional development of the novel’s heart. Because for me, without the heart of the novel you just have words on a page that do nothing to engage the reader.

I stumbled across this really great quote I wanted to share. I found it at the airport last week in O Magazine, where this month’s theme is all about imagination and creativity:

“No great thing is created suddenly. There must be time. Give your best and always be kind.” – Epictetus

This quote spoke to me on many levels. Creation does take time. And you must try to do your best during the creation. But most importantly, be kind to yourself. Writing a novel is a very bold and courageous thing. Be kind to yourself along the journey and know that with persistence and conscious creation, you will finish your novel and give it the heart that it deserves.

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Me and a Gun

It's not Bob Dylan's best by any means, but for quite a while I've had a fondness for his little-known early folk song, "Let Me Die in My Footsteps", which I first heard in a recording by Happy Traum (with Dylan in background) from the Best of Broadside album, a marvelous collection that I gave to my mother as a Christmas present ten years ago.

When I first heard the song, this verse is one that quickly stuck in my mind, and is one that has a habit of floating through my mind's ear with some regularity:

If I had rubies and riches and crowns
I’d buy the whole world and change things around
I’d throw all the guns and the tanks in the sea
For they are mistakes of a past history

It was a constant earwig this weekend after I learned of the massacre in Arizona.


I think John Scalzi, among others, has sensible things to say about the politics of all this -- it's entirely likely that Jared Loughner was, in a vernacular sense at least, "crazy", but the national conversation has turned, for good reason, to the violence implied by much right-wing rhetoric -- and overtly stated by slightly less such rhetoric.

I have lived most of my life in a state where it was recently declared legal for people to carry guns in the State House. I lived for the first 18 years of my life with a gun shop attached to my house. When my father died in 2007, I inherited that gun shop, and had to get a Federal Firearms License to sell off the inventory. I know the gun culture in this country well, because though it's never held much appeal for me, it is a world I have never fully escaped. Mine has not been a world just of hunting guns, either; I shot my first machine gun when I was about 9 years old, maybe 8. (I've written about all this in some detail in my Rambo II essay.) I still have many well-armed friends, some of whom, in fact, I sold guns to.

Despite my left-wing tendencies in nearly every other realm, I'm not a big fan of most gun control proposals and legislation, but my reasons for not being a fan would probably cause people more comfortable with our gun culture to label me anti-gun -- most of the legislation seems to me ineffective. Dylan's utopia in "Let Me Die in My Footsteps" is one I fiercely yearn for -- a world of no weaponry.

But that's a utopia, and while utopian thinking has its place, I don't think it should be the base of legislation.

Ours is a nation of hundreds of millions of guns legally owned by civilians. It's just about impossible to know how many illegal guns are out there in addition to the hundreds of millions legally available. That's not a fact you can just legislate away, and broad attempts to do so only play into the fears of gun owners who think the government wants to take their guns -- and playing into those fears just causes more people to h

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Progress on the cover for Forts 3 continues to putter forward. It feels pretty good to be woking on these characters again. I took too much time away.

Art has always been therapy for me and this has been a rough year.

Steven

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Fire drill now in color

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Color to come

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A design was picked! Commence my favorite part... figuring out how to put it together. It's a good thing I'm a kid at heart and surround myself with stuffed animals. Lots & lots of examples of how to make a plush :)

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Along with the ten-thousand other things I'm currently working on is the sequel to Paul Wood's "Cousin Albert" Series. Not only is Albert taking a trip to the zoo this time out, but he's doing it in full color. That's right, no more black and white interiors, this time it's color all the way.

While I haven't seen the full manuscript yet, I have gotten started on the cover. I'm pretty pleased with the overall design - think it'll be a quality piece when completed.

Hopefully it will...

Otherwise, as an eight year old might say, I'm in deep doo-doo.

On another note, it's only about four months or so until book 2 in the "Forts" series comes out. I'm excited. A part of me thinks it'll be the one people remember the most. It really is the "Empire Strikes Back" of the series It's a bit darker, the ending will leave you wanting more, and once it gets rolling it doesn't stop.

Then there's Krystoph...

You're going to like Krystoph.

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I remember my early critique days. I would get all of these suggestions but I was closed off to them.

I would say, “They don’t understand!” or “This is the only way this story can be told!” or even “What? I’m not doing that!”

It took me a while to realize that my novel is not something rigid.

Novels can change.

Novels are fluid.

I believe in order to grow as a writer, you have to be open to the different avenues your novel can take you during the creation process. You have to be open to new ideas. And ironically some of the suggestions that you react most negatively to are usually the ones you need to give close attention.

For instance, the novel I’m working on started out as a middle-grade with 3rd person POV. I was going to make this happen! I didn’t want to write another novel in 1st person POV. I didn’t want to write YA because I was a MG writer. I fought this for about a year until I realized that my critique partners (God bless them for dealing with my stubbornness) were right.

This novel is stronger because it is a YA with 1st person POV.

Of course, you may not and should not change every idea that is suggested by your readers and/or critique partners. But what you should do is really be open to all possible avenues that your novel can take.

There does come a time when a novel must take a stable form, but until you are finished writing and revising, if something is not quite working or if you are getting suggestions that niggle the back of your mind, give them some serious thought.

Be open to changing your novel.

In the end you’ll end up with stronger writing while learning something in the process as well.

Have any of you changed your novel for the better? Were you stubborn like me or did you embrace the change?

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I finally finished up the piece for my brother and his wife in honor of their impending twins (who are due in August). Overall I think it came out pretty good. Hopefully they like - at least pretend to like it.

Either way is fine by me really.

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Here's a quick update on the piece I'm doing for my brothers impending twins. I spent much of last week in the hospital, so progress has slowed considerably.

Feeling much better though - thanks for asking.

Overall I like how the piece is coming along. There's a lot of work to do though, and they are due to pop out sometime in August.

I need to get my keyster moving.

Steve

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I printed the line work on heavy watercolor paper then I washed it with some watercolors. Can be seen in higher resolution on my flickr account

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last sloppy piece, I'll put them together digitally.

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I decided to continue the drawing on the previous spread, expect a continuation..

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So my brother and his wife are going to have twins - twin girls in fact. Instead of buying them a super-expensive gift to celebrate the joyous occasion, I've opted to go the cheapo route and paint them a pretty picture for the nursery.

I'll try to convince them it'll be worth something one day...

It won't.

Anyway, I started on it last night.

It may not look like much at the moment, but I'm liking the early direction and have high hopes.

I'll cross my fingers and you cross yours. Deal?

Steve

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I filmed while drawing (my set up makes drawing rather hard, the camera is kind of in the way), then I speed up the clip by a factor of four. I Here's the finished image.

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