Sunday, September 29, 2013

In taking an English class I encounter the typical thing in the text book.  It tells you to keep writing and ignore your internal critic.  Its a difficult thing when I do not have necessarily an internal critic.  I am my critic.  Even when the little voice inside says meh it could be better I had often just scrapped the idea.  One month for National Novel Writing Month I started writing a story.  I got to 8,000 words or so before I scrapped it.  It was a good idea about how suicide effects many people around and sometimes it isn't just 1 life that it destroys.  I was rereading part of it as a quick proof read and I realized this story sucked.  I wasted a huge amount of time on it.  I don't have that time to waste anymore.  The textbook tells you to keep writing and even write that you cannot think of anything to write.  Write about your day, breakfast, the color of the walls.  After 10 minutes of writing about nothing what does it accomplish besides wasting time.  I can understand it is a learning exercise in order to get the word flow going but I find writing from muse so much easier and better for content quality.   I could be wrong as I have no books published and these teachers have probably lots of things published or at least fully completed.

It is hard to change habits formed from years of listening to your own ego.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

I play role playing games.  Sometimes I even run a Dungeons and Dragons game.  I find it helps me think creatively and work on character interactions.  So when I'm writing a story I may put my friends in the position I have a character in to see if they react the same or differently.  While my friends wont have the same motives it helps me see a different perspective for my fictional characters. At times it is weird because I can throw together a few hundred words on the fly for something random but will struggle when I try writing with a goal.  So much of my writings are pieces put together with a little bit of glue and prayer rather than something I wrote as a single stream.  Perhaps that is how most writers work but I always envisioned it as being set upon by a muse and after a few hours you have 20 pages or so written.  Will classes help me in this?  Yes it would however currently I'm taking just the English 121 class and then 122 it will probably be a year or so before I can do creative writing or have time for it since they do not offer it online.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

What does one believe in?

There are probably hundreds of little belief's that fit within your life. It could start as something simple like "No limits"  perhaps even something creative like "Don't be a Dick".  Religion, upbringing, media, and books help form the basic parts but it is self discovery that should lead you to your own creed.  In the journey through life not many ask what you believe and it is usually only actions that speak it.  Sometimes actions are screaming it to the world and other times it is a whisper.  What hinders it is self deception.  We so want to be better than what we are or at least believe we are better than what we are that self deception blocks us from attaining our goal.  Perhaps the best credo/creed could simply be,  "honesty and know thy self".

Thursday, September 05, 2013

My wife and I have two cats.  Toku and Yuki are their names.  Yuki is the one I picked because at PetSmart he was an active kitty eager to play around.  Toku is the one my wife picked because she fell for him due to he only has 3 legs.  His left rear is cut off a little bit above where the knee would be.  Toku was a poor little cat that hid and seemed afraid of everyone and everything.  Three years now we still have both cats and there is a lesson in marketing here.

            The general idea of marketing is to sell a product to someone by making them believe their life or job will be better because of it.  You want to appeal to a persons desires.  I desired a cat that was active that I could play around with.  Yuki was those things.  He would chase after a pet mouse and very active at the store.  Once we got him home and settled in suddenly he became a lazy cat wanting nothing more than to sit in a window and sleep.  Toku surprisingly was the more playing cat once he got comfortable with us.  That is marketing in a simple form Yuki sold us on him being something which was not true and Toku who either unwittingly or deviously crafted act sold us on the “Poor sad little kitty with 3 legs”. 

            We are happy with both but sometimes I look and wonder how did I get fooled and end up with a “fancy” lazy cat.

Tuesday, September 03, 2013



‘Every day is the chance the change the story” A song lyric that I came across when looking for new music.  It is interesting on how this simple line can sum up so much.  Even within the confines of writing it fits perfectly.   It is simple, each day you affect change upon reality.   Made up realitys are not exempt from this either.  That story you write 10 years ago you can revise it so the main character is a diabolical genius instead of the accidental superhero.   While changing a story or bit of writing is much different than changing your life it is often the smallest beginnings that great things spring forth.  Remember all trees massive and tall started off as a single seed.