Chicken wire and crepe paper
wrapped around a hayrack,
towed behind a pickup
in the homecoming parade
in a town as small as this one,
maybe smaller, but that was
too long ago, my distant past,
my childhood a charade
CHORUS:
I had a dream last night
you turned around and asked me why
I wasn't coming home again --
I couldn't tell you (2x)
Traps set in the corners
of the hallways of my high school,
memories like tigers
crouched and ready there to spring;
tried to do my best
to be invisible, but that was impossible,
a waste of time,
a waste of everything.
CHORUS
Tried to tell the people
with their eyes glued to the tv set
to look at something else
besides the color of their hate
I was just a child then
but I wasn't, but that was 'cause
I couldn't be,
it wasn't fair,
you can't go back to change my fate
CHORUS
Category: About Writing
Autumn
It finally feels like fall, with morning temperatures in the 30s and the sunlight growing softer. It’s not a great year for autumn leaves, with most turning a dull yellow-green instead of fiery red. But I’m here for it, and looking forward to the coccooning that happens in the season.
I’m off today (Friday in the US) because of Walkout Day, a custom at the university during Homecoming week. Homecoming is a tradition in colleges and high schools surrounding an (American) football game, where there is a parade and homecoming floats and other activities. Alumni come back to enjoy the festivities, hence the name. It is the epitome of fall activities for small towns and small universities.
I hope to write today. Mostly organizing my notes, but that, too, is writing. I also may pick the picture for the cover of Kringle All the Way. We shall see how productive I feel.
Finally Feeling It
This new novel is got me looking forward to developing it, which I will do more of today in my spare time. I didn’t know what I was writing would make such a difference.
It’s another Christmas romance. Low spice, cozy with some humor.
Jacquie Ames goes back to the hotel she spent her honeymoon at 15 years ago, trying to find closure after her recent divorce. Only to find her ex-husband with his much younger fiancee there for the holiday. Barry Trout, the executive chef at the hotel, sees Jacquie’s distress and makes a deal: Let’s show your ex that you don’t need him. What could it hurt? The ex definitely has it coming to him. The two become a fake couple, but genuine feelings grow. If Jacquie could just find closure from her divorce and Barry could give up his solitary existence, maybe they could make it work for real.
This is another of the novels I write during the Christmas season so I get the full feeling of the season funneled into it. (To be truthful I will start it November 1, so a little early for the Christmas season, but WalMart will play Christmas carols anyhow).
I write to write. I publish just in case someone wants to read. I hope to be discovered, because I promote as much as I can, but it’s not enough. But the books will never be read sitting in a drawer somewhere.
The Long Hiatus
I haven’t started writing yet. It’s been that kind of semester, where I don’t feel like writing at the end of the day. This is not to say I have been completely devoid of writing-related endeavors. I have been waiting for Reclaiming the Balance to come back from a sensitivity edit. I have been working on Kringle All the Way‘s plotting and characters so I’m ready in November. I made a poster for Reclaiming for my office (and have yet to print it).
I haven’t felt like much of a writer lately. Fewer stops to Starbucks, fewer days writing, less inspiration. Neither of my open novels are doing a thing for me inspiration-wise. Not much flow when I do write. I feel a bit foolish now talking about flow and how well I had been doing.
I will go to Starbucks tonight to work on Kringle All the Way. I need some plotting and character sketches before I start writing in November.
Wish me luck.
I’m back
I made it through Missouri Hope. The grand total was 135 role-players in 240 roles (some did multiple slots) over three days. In other words, a lot of work. I would call it the most intense weekend of my year, because I tend not to schedule intense work on weekends. I need my weekends to relax and write.
I have to admit the past couple posts were mainly to keep from losing my record, which is either 70 days or 90-something. The record-keeping software on WordPress has a glitch somewhere, and I don’t know whether the higher or the lower number is the glitched one.
Now is time to recover and work on getting ready for November. I will be writing my latest Kringle novel in the month of November with a goal of 50k words. I will not be participating in NaNoWriMo, for reasons I’ve laid out here. The wheel of the year keeps turning, with Homecoming and Halloween soon, then the holidays, and I am carried along with it.
A New Book on the Horizon
A sure sign that I don’t like where a book is going — I lay out the bones of another book.
I just made a sketchy outline of the next Kringle book, which I traditionally don’t start working on until November. Oh, wait, it’s only three weeks until November! This is about the time I start laying out the next book!
Traditionally, I write my books during NaNoWriMo, the international writing movement which takes place during November. I will write in November, but I will not be using NaNo’s infrastructure, due to the controversy around its support of AI for writing. I will have to find other motivational tools. Maybe Written? Kitten! or Pacemaker. Or maybe I’ve outgrown the need for the graphs and awards of NaNo.
I’m also working on the playlist. I make a new playlist for each novel I write, not necessarily to listen to while writing, but to get the feel for the novel in my head. This year’s, for some reason, is tending toward bossa nova, even though it’s set in one of my favorite places on Earth — the alternate version of Starved Rock. There’s a lot of bossa nova Christmas music out there, by the way.
But it’s time to work on prepping the Christmas novel, at any rate.
Lazy Days
The prompt is, “Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?” The answer is “Yes.” I feel rested and unproductive at the same time.
I’ve been needing a lot of lazy days lately. Not that it’s a hard semester at work, but that it’s a somewhat busy one. I have lots of grading to do, lots of students to visit, and lots of meetings. I jealously guard my free time these days.
Yet I still feel guilty when I take a lazy day. I could be writing. I could be doing housework. How dare I be unproductive!
I relish my lazy days and feel guilty about being unproductive. Not a way to enjoy lazy days. I need to either take the day off and not feel guilty or do something.
AI Steals My Words
I’m tempted to have AI blog for me today, because I’m tired from lack of sleep. But I would never do that, because I know what generative AI is: a plagiarism of what’s available on the Internet.
Artificial intelligences such as Chat GPT are “trained” on Internet content. That means the AI studies composition, word usage, style, and content. It captures the writing itself and uses it in other combinations for its own work. What makes my writing unique is my choice of usage, style, composition, and content.
I’m a writer. I don’t like that generative AI can take my work and make it theirs. It seems like an appropriation of my creativity and that of others. I especially don’t like what it does to visual artists, because stealing pieces of images seems more blatant than just stealing words.
Somewhere, an artificial intelligence is scanning this and putting the information in with other writings it’s scanned. And maybe it will spit it out verbatim into someone else’s writing. I don’t know, and maybe that’s the worst part.
The Writing Slump Continues
I have been putting off writing. This is surprising because it’s my flow exercise, the thing that keeps me going. Still, I haven’t written in days. I can tell that I’m reaping the effects of not writing in lower well-being and some anxiety attacks.
Why am I not writing, if it’s such an important thing for me? Frustration with my stories. I don’t like where either of my stories are going, and I don’t know how to fix them. So I’ve been avoidant.
I feel like I need to start a new story, that my current stories are so flawed that I can’t continue. But I don’t feel inspired for a new story. I’m not sure what to do.
It’s probably a day for free-writing. I keep saying this, but I keep putting that off as well. Time to quit procrastinating.
Stalled Stories
What do I do when I don’t like where the story is going?
I have this problem with the two works in progress that are not currently in progress. One of them has a main character problem. The main character is a cipher, which is as it should be, as he is keeping a big secret. The thing is that the progression of their relationship seems vapid as a result. Which it might well be, given that he’s keeping a secret, but it’s not good storytelling at the moment.
The other book? The plot got so convoluted that not even I know what’s going on. Why are they going to the planet where they expect the bad guys to be waiting for them? I’m not sure I’ve given them compelling reasons to do something this stupid.
So what do I do? The first thing I do is avoid writing for a while. This is obviously not a good strategy, but this is a blog post about what I do, not what I should do. I’m edging toward the end of my writing hiatus, so I have to try the next step.
Next I start doing some writing exercises. I need to interrogate the two characters in Walk Through Green Fire, explore where they’re at right now and how they feel about it. Interrogating the character is interviewing the character, except for the tricky part that they don’t exist. It helps me get into the character’s motivations.
Then, hopefully I’m in the space to write. If not, I abandon the book and start on another project. I’ve already done this with Walk Through Green Fire once. It may be a fundamentally flawed work, I’m not sure. Or something I’m not willing to write because reasons. In which case, I need to find a new novel. Maybe it’s time to do the Kringle novel for this year.
Words Like Me 