The Unfinished

There’s a lot of nagging words that plague you during your journey as a writer.  A lot of them nag you while your writing text in your story, whether it is background or a heated argument those type of nagging words tends to elude your memory, even now, the time of search engines and auto correct or reading a scathing review of your work.  Those words from the latter of the two are a hurting type of nag that won’t leave.  Then there’s one that just sits there, creating a malaise of feelings ranging from disappointment to fear to almost absolute hatred.  My ultimate nagging word is unfinished!

            Oh, it’s going to happen…A LOT!  It could be this cool idea you had for this short story or trying to map out an outline for a novel or your wonderful poem you just can’t wait to show your family and friends to see what they think.  Then you stop.  You stop the piece of possibly several reasons.  Many you’re too tired to keep your head off your laptop or your many laid out papers on your desk.  Maybe a family member all of the sudden wishes your attention and has derailed your train of thought.  Quite possibly, what I mentioned above, you can’t find the right words and you decide to walk away from your project hoping it may spark something in your brain.  Whatever it may be, eventually that work is going to be stored away or even lost for days, weeks, or even years.  And then sometimes it’ll nag at you like certain fictional characters that shall remain nameless.

           

I have two examples of this final hypothesis of nagging:

 

            First:  I thought I wrote a short story entitled “Maximillion, Matthias, and Marty.”  At the current place of work the entire story unfolded into my head while running a press.  I couldn’t stop and just write stuff down so I had to fight to keep the entire story inside my brain so that I didn’t forget every little bit of the story.  When I got home I was giggling and laughing as I made a b line to my computer.  Three hours later this story was rough draft finished.  I am sure we writers love when creativity just jumps out of us like that and finishes itself.  We would sit back as if we just ran a marathon looking at the screen at the “gem” we had just created.

            I started showing it to people like a proud papa knowing they would love the story until I tried getting it into magazines or compilations.  A keen editor pointed out that there really wasn’t a real plot here.  It wasn’t really explained why the three brothers showed up in the greasy diner, other than one of the men picked it and the story ended with too many questions.  It wasn’t a defiant ending.  The more the editor went into it I suddenly realized the story was opening up into a novel and the background was forming, including information on the titular characters.  That’s when I knew it was more a novel than a short story.

            Three Brothers still sits to this day unfinished.  I think it’s fifteen years old now.

 

            Second: I wrote this short story from scratch for this upcoming compilation.  I worked really hard on the word count (they were really specific on how much) as I already know the science fiction/fantasy subject matter at the time.  After the third rewrite I thought “Last of the Storms” was ready for perusal for the head people of the project.  However, like usual, I received a rejection letter for it.  However this one was different.  The editor actually liked my story and they thought it was good enough to be in the compilation if it wasn’t for one thing.  It seemed like it was part of a bigger story.  The editor when into detail about certain minor characters that were discarded very early in the story and that I never elaborated on their background.  Nor the race the protagonist was from or the obvious history from other characters. 

            I sat back and stared at the story for many moments after reading the letter and felt the light bulb turn on.  “Damnit!  I wrote a middle chapter of a novel.”

            Stormjammers is also sitting around with fifteen-year-old dust on it, unfinished.

 

            I know there’s a ton of poetry and song lyrics just lying around never to see the light of day along with discarded notes and the beginnings of novels just laying to waste.  As you go year to year as a writer it’s going to happen.  You can either let it consume you and you go so mad that you have psychotic episodes every six months or you can do what I do and just accept the fact that it happens.  Maybe, someday, it’ll turn back up in your head and it’ll go to another story; find another home.  Or it was merely background for something else.  It’s the circle of life, Simba. 

            Just remember one thing as a writer when it comes to the unfinished.  It doesn’t matter how redundant it may become early on when they are first created or how much clutter they create when they sit around collecting imaginary dust.  Don’t forget to SAVE YOUR WORK!  You’re welcome.

 

            By the way, just for added fun and understanding about my self torment in writing, I just thought of another story idea just by writing this blog.

 

(SHAKING FIST IN THE AIR!)

Now a shout out to Briana Mae Morgan.  This is her website: http://www.brianamaemorgan.com/ if you click on the link today you'll see my guest blog on the very tip top of her website.  She writes books and edits too.  Give her some love.

TTFN

 

When the Creative Process Takes a Sharp Left Turn

I’m going to talk about something a little insane. To some writers this isn’t insanity.  Instead it’s quite normal and at times expected.  So there will be those of you who will be taken a back to this.  My characters talk to me in my head. (Singing: “These are the voices…the voices in my head.”)

            This kind of problem goes into the lines of “The Devil finds Work for Idle Hands.”  So when my mind wanders they tend to pop in unannounced and proceed to spark a conversation with me.  Sometimes I would find myself imagining conversations between characters.  This would get weird because sometimes a dead character is there or they aren’t part of the same universe.

            I’ve also had characters from role playing games join in and had friends who would do the same thing with theirs.

            Daemon is the most dominant of the characters, obviously, as he is basically my alter ego.  These conversations have been turning pretty unfriendly as of late.  It usually ends up like this:

 

DAEMON:

(Sighs) Reading another book?

ME:

Uh…yeah.  That’s what this is in my hand; a book.

DAEMON:

Is it still about that schmuck of a vampire from your twitter friend?

ME:

(Looking back into the book) Yes.  It’s the second in the series.

DAEMON:

Why aren’t you writing anything?

ME:

(Still looking in the book) Because I’d rather be reading right now

DAEMON:

(Lets out a big sigh then speaks under his breath) Yeah, sure, okay.

ME:

What’s your problem?

DAEMON:

Well it seems you’ve been reading a lot lately but haven’t been devoting any time to your own stuff.

ME:

That’s because I have no time and I’m actually hooked to my friend’s stuff, so I’m going to read it.  Why?  And why are you so concerned about my writing anything?  None of your stories are even up to get done yet.

DAEMON:

Why not?  I’m clearly the best character you’ve written.  I’m the most interesting of all of them so I don’t see why you can’t just continue writing about me.

ME:

Maybe I don’t want to get stuck writing the same ol’ crap over and over again.  When something intriguing comes up when it has you in it I’ll write about you again.  Until then, you can shut your cake hole.

DAEMON:

So is that how you treat your intellectual property?

ME:

(Goes back to his book and says nothing)

DAEMON:

You know I might just disappear and then where will you be?

ME:

Probably writing about Millicent.

DAEMON:

Why the hell would you do that?  She’s not interesting at all.

ME:

No, she’s interesting enough to get her own novel.  A novel that you’ll appear in, I might add.

DAEMON:

So when the hell will you write a story where I’m the primary character again?

ME:

I dunno. Does it matter if you die?

DAEMON:

(Stands in silence)

ME:

Yes, I have that power and have been mulling over when I exactly kill you off.

DAEMON:

(Still gives more silence)

ME:

I knew that would shut you up.  Can I go back to reading my friend’s book now?  I’m really digging the werewolf culture she’s created here.

DAEMON:

(Sounding defeated) Yeah, sure.  Have fun.

But now Millicent has recently chimed in with her two cents.  I think it’s because I finally found a model who really closely resembles her physical appearance and she probably doesn’t like it.  But she convinced me that I should write a sequel of sorts to the last Daemon novel.  I say sequel of sorts because it takes place in between to chapters.  If you wanna know which ones then buy the book and read it.

            So it seems Daemon wins for now, but only because I believe to set up Milly’s own novel right I have to write a second book to Daemon, thus sort of making it a series.  So right now the working title is Daemon 2: Electric Boogaloo until I think of a much better title.  I really hate it when my kids win.

            So let me know.  Do any of you suffer from the same afflictions?  Far as I’m concerned my brain is far too crowded in the first place.  Do you ever get a character that yells at you “Talk about me!  Talk about me or I’ll f*****g go away!”  Or does a dream leave a lasting enough impression than you have to write it down as soon as you wake up?

            Now I have one shout out for this blog because I really think this person deserves the attention.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRCe6LdbF9X5660wsqpBZvA is the YouTube channel for Sarah Ortega.  Please subscribe to it, she's really really good.


TTFN