George Bernard Shaw's Writing Area

Running in Circles

I'm sitting here, actually for a few hours now, and all I've accomplished is weaning my Twitter account of people who haven't posted in the last year or who have simply never followed back. I have also cleaned quite a bit and I managed to do 3 loads of laundry.

The problem is that today was/is supposed to be a day of writing on my current project. I've always written. I don't remember a time when I didn't write in some form. Still have the first short-story I wrote back in first grade, as well as the ribbon I got at some school competition. I remember that story oh too well. It's titled "The Magic Key." I took printing paper, folded it in half to made leaves of a book, and then "bound" the pages into a construction paper cover. After I had written a line or two on each page (it was a short short-story) I went back with crayons and illustrated each page. I remember as a kid thinking that was so cool to have my story in "book" format.

Now, there's the laptop that takes the place of pen and paper, or at least some of the time. However now there's also Netflix, Google, etc. -- plenty of things to prove distracting. Distractions are only a problem if allowed to be a problem. Some days I allow them a little too much room for play.

Having ideas isn't the problem for me. The problem is usually I have too many of them. They all come at me all at the same and then all run away before I can manage to organize them in my head. So I've learned to keep either a pad of paper with me at all times, or I make notes on my iPhone while on the go.

All in all, I think the best advice is to simply keep at it, on as much of a daily basis as possible. Those moments when the heavens open wide and the words flow as if being channeled in a divine trance, well, those moments make all the other days of labor worth it. One just hopes that the days of writing eventually out number the days of distraction.

Chasing Thoughts

There's a funny phenomena that occurs with my writing, or at least with my attempting to write. I have thoughts, ideas, plans all day long, simply running through my head. They take their time, stopping briefly, maybe just slowing down at times, and they allow me to get a good look at them. Sometimes I'm really amazed at the plot twists and character details that arise. That's during the day.

When it comes evening, however, and I sit down at the laptop, or grab a pen and open a trusty notebook, my mind goes absolutely blank! I'm currently working on a method to sneak up on thoughts so I can pen them without them getting suspicious that I might actually be doing something productive.

Amanda Hocking, Super Star

For quite sometime I've read online about Amanda Hocking. She's now a millionaire, within 2 years of self-publishing her young adult supernatural romance novels. I finally got a Kindle (yay! love it!) and purchased the first book of her My Blood Approves series. Within a few pages I was hooked.

Imagine my surprise that I was enjoying reading a young adult novel! I'm now on the third book of the series, with plans on buying her other books. Her Trylle trilogy is being re-released in a couple of days of days, being published in paper by St. Martin's Press. She's become very success very quickly.

Actually, that brings up another point. People write about "over-night successes." Amanda Hocking is no "over-night success." She's been writing for as long as she can remember. She tried to get published traditionally for years before venturing into e-publishing. She worked a full-time job, drank lots of Red Bull, and wrote sometimes 8 to 12 hours after work.

Rock on, Amanda!