Wednesday Writer's Report

Did you miss me last week?! Well, I was unwell. Covered that already. Moving on.

Being sick or distracted by the real world tends to bugger up the writing process, but I did spend a couple days earlier in the week spinwheeling out of the mud.

I admit that one of the biggest retardants to my creative process is the demon I've come to embrace in bloglandia. You see, I read a lot of agent, author, publisher blogs - for the advice, perspective, duh? - as well as a crapton of other review blogs, and sometimes I get this sense, this feeling that

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, THERE'S TOO MUCH COMPETITION IN THIS MARKET.

And, frankly, it's a little depressing. Then I go and try make comments to these GURUS, trying to make new friends (ten million posts on making friends in the biz, yo), and they go unanswered.

DOOM DOOM DOOM!!

Then, I stumble upon someone's manuscript. Not any of YOURS, gentle readers* - people chatting with agents and so forth, they post up their junk out of their trunk, word. (*Haha, gentle reader apparently is very annoying to many people.)

Anyway, I see that and I read it with a critical eyeball and I remember to think, "I'm at least half as okay as that." (In broader, more egotistical mental strokes, mind you.)

Am I really, truly? Dunno. But navel gazing annoys me (wait for it before you scream hypocrit), so I don't want to get to this circle-jerk exploration that seeks validation in why I'm doing what I am doing.

In the past year, almost to date, I've written the count you see above. I can do better than that, and that's why I'm doing this. It motivates me to stay on top of my game, to watch my progress - and wait, why make it public?

I used to be a performing Emcee/DJ, and just before I'd start a show, I'd be very nervous, butterflies, anxious - but when I got up there to do my introduction, once that microphone was in my hand and I knew that people were watching me - I was a superstar (in my head)(in a low rent pub in the middle of nowhere)(something other modest goes here) and I felt the power. The power to succeed. Rawr.

You can ignore or comment on these posts as suits you (Precious LOVES comments), but I like to track what my thoughts are and I like to make it public, on a trend, so that I'm forced to feel that same power when I stare at my blank screen, as I used to feel before I took to stage.

***

Anyway, I am thinking of some more interesting content, and I was going to include that notion in this post until I started babbling - in short, because the warriorwriter said so, I want to chat about fantasy stuff in addition to books, movies, TV shows, etc., that I like.

Any fantasy tropes you wanna kick around? Vampires vs Elves, Vikings vs Pirates vs Ninjas vs Assassins, Dragons vs Griffons, etc, etc. Yea, eventually, I'm going to cover them all, because (ha!) I write about them all. I do. It's a REALLY big world and I like to mash things together that shouldn't BE together. (They have super cool conversations!)(Okay, I'm not really planning on Vampires and Werewolves, per se, but I do have a derivative idea where I can mock.. er.. mix them up a bit.)

Okay, don't answer that - I'll do another post tomorrow.

P.S. congrats to China Mieville for winning the Arthur C. Clarke Award.