Believe in Magic

I'm not a big believer in the idea of the muse. If I only wrote when I felt magically inspired, in the flow of writing, very little would ever happen. But that doesn't mean that I don't see the moments the muse shows her fickle butt up to the party. For me, the muse regularly shows up when I'm in the shower, or washing dishes. Something about my hands being covered in soap and water really makes the muse smack my brain with all of the great ideas. What an ass. 

I fully believe that writers need inspiration to keep going, to solve the problems that inevitably arise in stories. Maybe it's in the spark of an idea, or the sudden connection of two ideas to solve a problem.  So what can you do to coax some inspiration out? Well here are 5 little tips.

1. Stop forcing it. 

Sitting at the computer and demanding to be hit by the inspiration stick usually just leads to a lot of frustration and not a lot of production. Sit down (or stand or walk!) and get to work. Maybe inspiration shows up, maybe it doesn't but you've got work to do. 

2. Take time off

Work, work, work is a recipe for burn out and a whole lot of nope. Take time off from your work. Go outside, take a shower, wash dishes, do laundry, play a game, do something else. Give your subconscious time to stir the soup of ideas. 

3. Talk it out. 

Sometimes you've got to talk the little gremlins down. What I mean is, sometimes you need to take that plot problem out of your head and into the physical world. It doesn't matter if you're talking out the plot problem with your cat, dog, stuffed weasel, whatever. What matters is getting the words together to explain it. I'm amazed at the number of times simply speaking it out loud makes a solution suddenly click into place. 

4. Have fun. 

Go and do something you enjoy. Take a hike, a bubble bath, a nap. Do something that you enjoy, feed the muse some happiness. 

5. Remember you're more than your muse. 

So maybe your muse is MIA and you're feeling like crap. Your self worth is not tied up in your muse taking a day (or more) off. You're still amazing. Take some time to re-fill your creative well and that muse will be back. 

Magic happens in the mundane, you just have to pay attention enough to catch it.

Tabletops and Storytelling

I was really late to the part with tabletop gaming. While I played once or twice in college, it never really clicked until after college when I joined a small group that played together once every two weeks or so.

That group made of only 4 people (3 players and one dungeon master) hooked me and I've been playing regularly ever since. I've even run a few campaigns of my own and have always enjoyed the adventures that can be built through storytelling and dice rolling. But one thing I've really been noticing more and more is how playing tabletop games has taught me a lot about storytelling and what makes a compelling tale. 

Let's start by defining what a tabletop game is. A tabletop game (like Dungeons and Dragons) is a game played with a group of players and led by a dungeon master. The dungeon master controls the enemies, and the general plot, but a good DM (Dungeon Master) will work with the players to tell a collabrative story. It requires a lot of imagination and innovation on all parts. The game is played by rolling dice to determine successes or failures. Combat is done in a similar way. You see a flash of Dungeons and Dragons at the very, very beginning of Stranger Things. 

So what can you learn about storytelling through a tabletop game? Lots. Here are 5 things I've learned over the years.

1. Little details can matter a lot.
I love when a random towns person you discover suddenyl becomes important to the plot later. Or if you discover a strange item that is suddenly very useful 7 or 8 games later. Tie the little details into the big picture and watch the story become a huge, steady narrative arc instead of disjointed mini-adventures. 

2. The first thing you think of is not always the best option.
The first idea you have to solve a puzzle, or get out of a dungeon is usually not the best option. Dig deep, think to the next option then the next then the next. Push yourself to not go with the obvious but to go with the subtle, the outlandish and the unexpected. 

3. You can fail at things you're amazing at. 
Nothing is more frustrating when your master assassin rolls a failure for a sneak attack. Something your character is literally trained to be the best at and you fail. It sucks, but it's also true in stories. Sometimes the hero fails at something that should be second nature. Things go wrong and the unexpected happens. How your character handles those failures is what builds them into something unforgettable. 

4. You can excel at things you're terrible at. 
Sometimes the huge minotaur in plate armor rolls an instant success on sneaking into a room. Just because your character is terrible at something doesn't mean they have to instantly fail at it, sometimes the unexpected works in your favor and that leads your character into new situations where you'll have to think fast to not die immediatly. 

5. Stories have multiple paths, your choices impact the tale you tell. 
Even with a set path of adventure, the choices your character makes along the way shape what the tale will be like. If you're in a cursed city filled with vampires and dread, you can still have a comedy on your hands if that's how the chraracters interact with the world. The characters create the interaction and build the 'flavor' of the story. Use that wisely. 

I love playing in my tabletop campaigns and every time I leave the game filled with a renewed sense of inspiration for my own work. Telling a story with a group of people all working together builds a unique and incredible tale that can be totally different every, single time and that is a whole new kind of magic that I can get behind. 

My Hopes for You in 2017

2016 was a doozy for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. It's been a rocky 12 months for a lot of people and the breath of air at the beginning of the new year is welcomed and needed. So here's what I hope for you for 2017. 

I hope that you do something that makes you laugh so much your sides hurt and tears stream down your face. I hope you're laughing with a group of your favorite people feeling human and like the physical embodiment of helium. 

I hope you read and write things that challenge you. Don't read your same favorites over and over again in 2016. Read an author who is nothing like you. Write a story you've been afraid to tell. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and see what new wonders the world has to show you. 

Be kind to everyone you meet. The world is filled with people suffering with things we never know about. Don't add any weight to anyone else's life and try to help carry weight when you can. 

But don't mistake kindness with silence. Kindness is offering a hand when someone is knocked down. Kindness is not walking away in silence when someone needs your help. When you see racism, sexism, xenophobia, and hate in all its form, I hope you turn the spotlight on it. Tell hate that you see it, point it out to everyone around you and watch it wither. Hate thrives in the dark so don't let your silence be its fertilizer. 

I hope that you find your footing in anything you're struggling with. Whether it's with your budget, your relationships, your career, your home, whatever it is, I hope that you find the path that you've been searching for. Just remember that it's not going to be the easiest one, walk farther to end up where your heart longs to be. 

I really hope that you get rest. The world is so constantly go, go, go that it's almost impossible to not get washed into the current of busy-ness. The 'hustle harder' mentality is burning you mentally, physically and spiritually. I hope that you take the chance to sit down and take a breath. Enjoy a bubble bath, go on a walk, take a nap. The world will still be here when you get up. 

Reach out. Despite the ease of digital communication, it's easy to lose touch with people. Take 5 minutes out of your day to send a friend a nice tweet, a text, a Facebook message or a call. We are all on this ball of mud together, we might as well find a friend. 

I hope that you keep track of the good things that happen to you this year. The bad things fester in our memories, but there are moments of joy and beauty even in the awfulness. 2016 was filled with terribleness but there were moments of brightness, even if it's just something as simple as PokemonGo coming into our lives. (Team Instinct!)

Most of all, I hope 2017 brings you closer to your goals and to the person you were always meant to be. 

I'll be cheering you on. 

Give More Of A Damn

So on Monday I talked about the importance of not giving a damn. Today I'm jumping to the opposite side of that argument and telling you to give more of a damn. The truth of the matter is I've gotten lazy in a lot of things lately because I've gotten so caught up in not caring so much. The problem with that is that caring is important in putting out a good product (and I mean generally in life). I've made stupid typos, not reviewed work for errors, and generally not cared about the proper layout of the English language. (I still stand firm in my internet speech of deliberately mess-ups like 'It are me.')

So where does that leave me? Well, it leaves me embarassed when I get called out on careless errors, and regretting not reading over an essay before submitting it. No one will ever care about your work as much as you do. You are the champion of your work and if you don't care enough to read it 300 times until you can nearly recite it from memory, who will? 

One of the biggest wake up calls for me was when I got the finall layout proof for The Bone Queen versus The Pulptress. My first thought was 'Meh, I'm sure it's fine.' and I nearly just sent it back without even looking over it. I know, I know. I want to slap past me too for even thinking that. But, I forced myself to sit down and read over every damn page, and you know what I found? A section where the layout person's cat had walked across the keyboard and left a string of gibberish in the middle of the page. 

If I hadn't cared enough to read over the proofs, would that have been caught before print? The truth is I don't know. My publisher did an amazing job with edits, but a publisher is handling more than just your book. They're having to care about a lot of books. You only have to care about yours, and that means you care more than anyone else. It was a massive wakeup call for me. 

I'm still working on it. I want to write my first draft, do one round of edits and call it done. That doesn't fly for me. (I'm sure there is someone out there that does work for and good on you.) Now, I'm spending a lot of time on outlines then starting a first draft. I'm going to take my time, go at a speed that works for me, and edit, edit, edit before a second set of eyes even sees it. 

It's easy to get lazy. You wrote the words, why on earth do you then have to spend months staring at them more? Because you need to care enough to take that time to sculpt those words into the best shape they can be. You need to care about your project more than anyone else ever will because it's yours. At the end of the day it's your name, your reputation, and your words on the line, no one else's. 

So don't give a damn when you're getting started but you sure better slow down and care a whole lot once that end comes into sight. 

Don't Give A Damn

Writing is a lot of ignoring everything else around you. You ignore the lure of the television, video games, and even time with friends or family for the chance to get those words down. That's a struggle but what tends to always freeze me is when I start caring way too much about what I'm writing. I can't progress the story because I'm hung up on what color my main character's eyes should be. When I start getting too caught up in the little details, I have to remind myself, all of this is going to change anyways. 

When you're first drafting, it's okay for the character to go from green to grey eyes in the span of a chapter. Stop giving so much of a damn about your words that you get paralyzed and write nothing. 

It's easy to feel like every detail and word you write is worth stressing over, but if you spend your entire life writing the same page over and over again then you've not really accomplished anything. If your goal is to get your words out into the world you have to stop giving so much of a damn about them and just worry about getting them done. It can be liberating to let go of the worry and just write. 

Lately I've gotten hung up on worrying about if what I'm writing will ever sell. What if no one wants to read this? What if no one cares? I worry and think about that so much I get nothing writte and instead I just circle the drain of self-pity and wallow in a gallon of ice cream. What I've had to remember is that while thinking about market and sales is important, you have to remember what you're passionate about and write that story. Sitting paralyzed because you're too concerned you're never going to sell anything doesn't help either. 

Maybe the market isn't supporting your paranormal romance right now but write it. If it doesn't sell, put it in a drawer and move on to the next project. Trying to write to the market is like letting a blind, drunk elephant guide you through the plains. You're going to end up lost in the grass and eaten. 

Writing's a strange mix between having to care deeply, and having to not care. There are points in the process where caring is more important, so here I'm talking specifically about getting down your first draft and organizing your thoughts. You need to let go of the idea of the perfect, just-right-for-the-market, flawless story that exists in your head and start writing it. There's no shame in writing an awful first draft and then taking the time to carve out the story in your mind, but without that first block of clay there's nothing to even sculpt.

That image of the story that exists in your head can never reach this world if you keep it locked up because you're too afraid to make it. 

The quote I've found that almost always keeps my butt into creating is the incredibly popular quote from Ira Glass on creativity: "Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

Starting out it's painful to realize that what you have in your head is not going to be as awesome as what you like, and what you see. You have to keep going, not give so much of a damn and get through all the crap to find the diamond buried in your own work.