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Posts tagged ‘inspiration’

Jul 25

32 Comments

Seeing through a glass, darkly

Unhurried imagination.

That phrase occurred in a passage Amanda quoted in her Tuesday column, and it… so to speak… caught my imagination. Because that’s not how my imagination – or Amanda’s, to judge from her comments – works. Ha! Imagination should only be so polite as to present itself in long, leisurely segments that fit my typing speed! It tends more to arrive with the speed and finesse of a runaway train!

A long time ago Diana Gabaldon told me something about her writing process that exactly described my own (Yeah, I know, too bad my results aren’t as wildly successful as hers). I’ll try to paraphrase from memory: Read more

Jul 23

7 Comments

Tinfoil Fedora Time

Before I get to what’s useful for writing, I’d just like to ask the world to spin just a little slower. I could use a couple more hours in each day. I have projects to finish. The car need an oil change, as (probably) does the Valkyrie. And Mrs. Dave’s Jeep. The bedframes are coming together (hehe), but some of the boards need another shot with the sander, and then some stuff needs gluing and screwing (fun, but not fun-fun), and then staining, and I’ll need to acquire some plywood to support the new mattresses. I can almost taste the greater organization of having a clean laundry-room-slash-office. Read more

Feb 5

6 Comments

Table Top Pulp

Today may or may not be a little late, and for that I apologize. We had SNOOOOOOOWmageddon here in the Pacific Northwest, and the (maybe) three inches of snow has more or less ground things to a halt. I pitch a little crap at the area, but the truth is this is a once every few years occurrence, and the infrastructure is too bloody expensive to maintain if you don’t need it for months out of every year. So: snow, schools are closed, kids are home, Dave has two adorable and energetic distractions. On the upside, the house is clean (more or less) and a mess of chores done. But I’ve been having trouble getting to writing. Shockingly. We also have a military buddy staying with us. So things are … a little out of routine.
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Oct 30

14 Comments

Life returning to normal

Or as normal as any writer’s life ever gets.

As you know, the last few months have been odd, to say the least, for the Green household. Mom’s shoulder injury and subsequent shoulder replacement has turned many things upside down. It drove home the point of just how lucky we have been she’s as healthy as she is at her age. It reminded me how much of the daily “putzing” around the house she did. It’s little stuff I tend to let go until weekends otherwise–things like dusting and picking up mail that I tend to drop onto the entry hall table, etc. Stuff that keeps the house looking good instead of letting it become a writer’s cluttered workspace. Read more

Aug 4

Library Dragon
23 Comments

Blast from the Past: Writing with Hope

Sorry about the retread, but I’ve got a sinus monster in my head, and he’s squeezing my brain in his coils and thought is… elusive. Besides which, this is a timeless topic. 

Eric S Raymond nails a list of symptoms to look for as warning signs that a book may be unreadable… Read more

Jun 19

16 Comments

Taking time to recharge

This is the first time in almost five days that I’ve opened my laptop to do anything other than a quick check of email. I haven’t blogged. I haven’t put down a single new word of fiction. I even quit carrying my iPad around with me wherever I went. Better yet, I haven’t felt a single pang of guilt about it. How could I do such a thing, especially with a deadline looming less than two weeks away? Easy. A friend was coming into town. For the first time in years, I was allowing myself time to relax and not worry about the next book or editing the current one or anything else like that.

And I loved it.

More importantly, I realize now that I needed it. Read more

Mar 22

21 Comments

Unwelcome visitor

Recently my old acquaintance Tenebra came to visit. I came across her sitting by the fish pond.

“How come you always show up when I’m three-quarters done with a first draft?”

“It’s the perfect time to visit you,” she said. “If you listen to me, not only will you stop writing this book, but you’ll have wasted the time you already put in on research, plotting and writing.”

“That doesn’t make me more inclined to listen to you.”

“No? Then why are you sitting by this pool, chatting, instead of going indoors and writing?”

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