Peeling Away The Cobwebs, The Words And Vampires Pour Out...

Okay, yes, well...haven't really been lazy or anything of that nature, but it's been slightly over a month since my last post--actually, upon checking, it's been 40 days and 40 nights, seems I've entered into Noah's time zone--so I figure it's time to peel away the cobwebs and get back to the blog. You ready? What with the holiday and a fair amount of writing, I was busy, but now as I stumbled through some words on a big piece this morning (which, with the delay noted below, was a couple days ago), I figured a break from that with words here would not be a bad thing. Kicking things into gear, getting back to more consistency with the blog again.

What have you been up to?

Me, I've been writing. Finished a story early last month called, "Beautiful," which was an experiment for me. The story required a specificity of language as it dealt with perceptions of what is beautiful from a couple different angles, one being from the main character's take on it, though the main character is...different. Let's leave it at that. Must get it out there, submit it later today since it already has it's first rejection. Yeah, part of the deal, but somebody will love it.

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions. I am the kind of person who sets up regular goals, so what's the use? But I did kind of tell myself to Get Writing asap in the new year, not that I don't write most all of the time anyway, but I want more consistency, more words. More Words was actually my offhand resolution, haha... I told myself this as a Big Idea took shape in my head, one I had been mulling over for months, for a long time, actually, yet now as the piece gets rolling, it may move well away form the initial inspiration, yet we will see. Something's happening and it deals with a vampire, which might seem quite out of character for yours truly since I rarely embrace familiar horror tropes, but this is definitely not your average vampire, either. There's philosophy, but perhaps not as much as I thought. And addiction. And Sex. And has a quirky tone I'm still getting wired into. I even allowed myself to sketch out the path, have the chapters aligned, big, fat chapters, for whatever reason. The first one presently clocks in at over 4,000 words; I'm positive at least two of the other chapters will probably double that in length. With this loosely defined path, I keep adding notes to the chapters, ideas for conversations, side avenues to explore, etc. Along with the philosophical side as crossed with something of a warped sense of humor, I, being a firm believer in balance, can't wait for it all to get swallowed whole by the dark dark dark stuff in the latter chapters. Yeah, this is my ramble, no gameplan here, but this is what I am dealing with. But today (but not today--you following this?), well, there are days when the words flow, and days where they keep tripping over each other. Today, yeah...you know...

Along with this, there's some shorter fiction percolating, things that will get finished when I've worn my brain out with the big piece in progress, keeping the flow consistent, new stuff for new anthologies, perhaps, and just, in general. the knowledge that I Love Writing and need to make time for it every day. I am usually good with this, but there are times that real life and such shuffle things around, make it 'seem' harder to deal with words when we have no excuses. I write. What's the probem, John Claude? No problem at all.  Get to it!

That's all it should take for any writer. Set aside a time if you must--I like setting a schedule, but am flexible as needed--and make sure to Be There Completely.

Trust Your Instincts.
Full Immersion.
No Fear.
Just Write.

I see these words to my left, hand-written in the initial hand-written notes for the big piece. Makes sense to me. I like seeing them there, glancing over and nodding, yes, YES!

Makes me want to get back to more words, the stories. Writing!

How about you? These are good catchwords, keywords, whatever you want to call them. Just change the last one to fit your own art, what you do, painting or playing an instrument, etc.

Trust Your Instincts.
Full Immersion.
No Fear.
Just Create!

Now!

Here's one of my favorite pieces of Vampire art, done by Edvard Munch, most well-known for his painting, The Scream, but this one's right up there with that one for me.

Enjoy!

 

No, wait, that's not Munch's Vampire, that's yours truly, annoyed that something's up with Blogger and I cannot seem to upload a photo from my computer sooooo...well, hopefully I can work this out asap, but for now, since this blog has been sitting here close to completed for a couple/few days, let's roll with this photo, from my blog a while ago, me back when I used to wear a professional moustache.  Yeah, many eons ago, when I used to hang out with Dali.  We had competitions, y'know.  Moustache twirling competitions.  It really annoyed him when I could do it with more, um...flair.  Probably why he hasn't talked to me in quite a while.  Oh, sure, he's "dead" as you understand it, but that's only As Most Humans Know It, and since I know differently, having visited him on the AlternaWorld that runs alongside ours in a different dimension, well...

What?

Okay, enough nonsense and rambling.  More writing news and darkness soon.

;-)