Dude where's my muse and other ramblings.

I've been trying to write more lately, but it seems that I'm pretty tapped out right now. Someone turned off the light and now I seem to be fumbling in the dark for something.

I love to write and actually it was my second love next to pottery when I was in high school. It firmly comes in first now, but right now I feel very much like the jilted lover. I think my muse has decided to take a hike for a while and she won't come back no matter how many roses or how much candy I offer her. I think she's upset that Mr. Wii is now in my life though I'm trying to convince her that he's just a friend.

And now for something completely different.

For those of you who don't know, I love writing fiction and for the most part, it has usually been IR fiction. Actually, I was writing IR fiction before the masses had access to the webternets. I was a solitary writer trying to do what I loved best. (Also I was tired of the hackdom that was the YA market at the time and as we know, a teenager can always do much better than anyone else.) I wrote IR fiction because then because I was writing the person I wanted to be and also I wrote the kind of people I'm attracted to.

I haven't shown my family my writing because they're crazy. I love them, but they're nutjobtastic. The other reason I haven't shown them much of what I write is because I'm a little self-conscious about it. They already make enough noise about who I date claiming that I hate black men. I hate black men about as much as I hate ice cream, which is to say not at all. I have come to the conclusion, having grown up in suburbia, that you are attracted to those who are attracted to you. I can count on one hand the number of black men remotely close to my age who have asked me out (in a fashion to which I would respond) and that number is two, dos, deux, due, zwei, ni. No I'm not kidding.

So as a result of my lack of dates with black men I get asked, "Why do you hate black men?" My first response is to look at them like they have a giant parallel universe inducing insect on their back. (I watch entirely too much Doctor Who) My second response is to ask, "Why do black men ignore me?" The responses I get are varied and they usually involve phrases like, "You're too nerdy," or, "You need to dumb it down a little," or, which is just as good, "You need to lower your standards." I do it for love, being who I am and I'm not going to bottle it up for anyone.

I guess what I'm getting at is that life is too short to wait for that one person who fits in that tiny little box of everything that I wanted. I'm an amazing person and yes, I'm still looking for an amazing person who may be any color of the rainbow even *gasp* black. My box is a little bigger than it was when I was a teenager with relatively few things that I'm asking for. I want someone who will respect me, someone who likes books and someone who understands my twisted sense of humor, someone who has no girls named Hallie Tosis in his life. Pretty much everything else is on the preferred but not required list so he doesn't have to look like Cillian, Will or Takeshi anymore *sighs dolefully* doesn't have to be at least a six footer (but he still has to be taller than me as long as I'm not wearing heels. Hey, I'm five nine but there's something to be said about feeling small).

My creativity makes me crazy

I'm rambling today. Read at your own risk.

No, really, it does. I haven't been posting so much in the past few months (ok so nearly a year) because I have no life. I'm at least half time if not full time on everything, but it's ok for the most part because I can handle it.... I think. I'm pretty happy with the way things are going right now except for the people in my life who get angry at any perceived slight. There is a difference between what they think they hear and what they actually hear. It's sad really, because when people get angry at the drop of a hat before clarifying what they think they heard, I think they must really be miserable in their own lives and need to find control any way they can. It's a game I refuse to play. There are some people who want to make me angry so they feel like they're truly powerful. I choose stoicism instead because getting angry isn't productive and it doesn't do anything for me. I can even ignore the passive aggression that people throw at me because again, the truth is that they want me to respond and frankly I don't feel like it, but I need to get off this because that is not the point of my post. Sometimes I just need to rant.

I consider myself a highly creative person and sometimes all this creativity brings me to a standstill when it comes to my writing. I think I have about fifteen stories in my head and I think at least seven of those are good, but the problem is where do I start? Do I start with the one I started in high school (which was a little while ago). Do I start with my epic adventure? Do I start with this new idea which isn't even the genre I write in most of the time for kicks and giggles? It's making me crazy. I think that what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick one and push through all my blocks when I have them. The goal is to write something every day though my ideas come at times that are highly inappropriate such as when I'm teaching class or when I'm going to class.

I think that sometimes I hate writing as much as I want to do it and other times I love it. I hate writing when I can't do it. I hate it when I can't do it at those inappropriate times and I hate it when I'm blocked. I love it when I have free time (which is difficult to find when I'm working full time, going to school half time and dedicating at least an hour a day to going to the gym)
and I love it when the words come from the tips of my fingers like water.

Having so many unfinished products makes me feel like the Flatliner Flip Flippen's inventory says I am. I just wish I could stick to one story at a time without going out of my mind.

Monday musings

I've been making an attempt to write today. Fiction, yes, actual fiction. Instead I find myself on my blog again. I hesitate to call it wasting time because it is highly entertaining for me and feels like a warm-up for my brain. I was going to write about how I'm not blocked and my characters are making foul gestures at me and cursing because they're still stuck on the road. Instead, I'm going to write about what function my writing serves for me. Certainly I write about extraordinary people who do amazing things. I want to write stories that show that as much as a person can be good, they also can be rotten. These are people like you and me. I also admit that I write people I can admire (and who are often modeled after real people I admire, but shhh I didn't tell you that). These people act-- sometimes rashly and sometimes with a clear head -- because they know something that I'm not sure even I know in my own soul yet. In the face of something wrong, there is no greater evil than inaction.

About the Process

I'm not sure how many of you are out there--those like me who are dedicated to the people in their head. Before the rest of you deign to call someone to put people like me in white jackets, think about the authors you like to read. Better yet, think about the good authors you like to read. For some it takes months, sometimes years to come up with the dynamic, engrossing stories that they tell. A writer's dedication to the people in her head brings you protagonists you love and sometimes want to yell at for being so phenomenally stupid. It brings you the antagonists you: wish weren't so clever; and love frighteningly enough.

This brings me to my rant of the day.

There are certain writers whom I've read enough of to know that they are possibly at the end of their creative rope. There is a point at which you become hyper aware of the same devices and descriptions. I know that we all hope for happy endings and I know that there are some genres that only write happy endings. It's not to say that there's anything wrong with those genres. There is something wrong with the writers. I think even with a genre such as romance where most people expect a happy ending, the author should be challenged to keep some of the mystery alive. I shouldn't be able to guess midway through the book how the happy ending is going to unfold. (Yes, I'm looking at you Nora.)

Another thing I have problems with are cookie cutter characters. We have the ingenue, young and plucky. There is the quiet, demure shy girl and then there's the amazon who just kicks ass when she needs to and moves on. There is nothing inherently wrong with these archetypes. Every character is an archetype to some degree, but the best authors are the ones who add so much depth to a character that we forget. Many of the problems I see in writing have to do with the characters of whom we are only shown photos. It seems like going to a dating site and seeing photos of a guy and having someone tell you, "Isn't this guy great? You should marry him!"
Are we expected to fall in love with characters when we've only seen a photograph? Of course not. It's not enough to see what type of character you have, but how the character came to be that way.

In addition to the mistakes listed above that even seasoned writers make, I'd like to add something that most beginning (and sometimes seasoned) writers miss. (Nora, you are indeed overly seasoned. Have a rest.) No one likes a perfect character. NO ONE. They get on our nerves and oftentimes piss us off. As human beings we're not perfect and we don't want the characters we read about to be either. Could a character have something backfire? Let it happen. Is there a way the character can struggle with him or herself? Let them. Have a character agonize over an action that has to be taken even though it may hurt someone they love dearly. If a character can breeze through life and not have to bat an eye at what he or she does, then there's no point in telling the story.

The last think I would like to add is avoid things that make (obviously support) characters annoying. The chief problem I've seen are stereotypes. Please no stereotypes. I don't want to see the Black street thug with an absent father, the Asian nerd or a Hispanic roughneck. I don't want to see the oversexed Black or Latina woman and I don't want to see the docile Asian woman either. Don't write a minority character just so they can be used for fodder later. If screenplay writers had L.L.'s character live to the end of the movie Deep Blue Sea you can write a minority character that will live to see the end of your story too.

In contrast, if you want to find out what you should do, read good authors. A good author can make you laugh out loud, make you cry and make you think. Authors I recommend are: Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clark, and Lynn Flewelling.