I’m doing it…

Writers, editors, and self-help writing books all preach the same thing. Write, write, and write some more….then write a little more. On the first story/novel I was fresh to the whole thing and was super eager to do something. So I wrote 2000 words, 3000 words here or there. Momentum and tenacity sort of got me to my 49,820 words and an ending. On the one hand I was super stoked because I’d finished a story and in all honesty I’d rarely done that. I’d started a lot of stuff, but almost never finished anything. On the other hand I was bummed for two reasons. The first was because it was the typical story I always wrote and think of. There were no star wars references, no force, no swords but it was still a Star Wars clone. I changed the names to protect the innocent.

So fast forward three or four weeks and a myriad of starts and stops. Gothic vampire novel idea. Check. Uber cool Urban fanstasy. Check. Hip futuristic Cyberpunk concept. Check. All of these great ideas/concepts were no more than a page or two and I kept returning to this idea that I wanted to write a PI crime story. I read through Sue Grafton novels, and more Robert B. Parker books (I concentrated on the Sunny Randal series) and while I sorted through story idea I returned to one I’d started a few weeks earlier.

It was only a page and a half and crude as hell. I fixed up that page and a half and something clicked while I was doing it. Soon I was off. I realized a few things about my characters and about what makes a story good. Grafton and Parker both rely on the everyday, almost mundane, routine of their characters to spruce things up. A few conflicts here and there and suddenly the mystery is nearly in the back ground. We almost don’t care about it. I found this enlightening and amazing. I’ve tried to incorporate it in this story I’m working on.

I also toned down the characters. All of my characters are really nothing more than super heroes. Flawless and perfect. This time he’s not. Slightly larger than life? Maybe but not perfect. I’m also writing almost everyday. I’ve committed to at least 5,000 words a week and have broken that down to about 1,000 words a day. Never less. A couple of the days have been fairly rough and I’ll probably need to do a really good edit job but its been fun and I’m really feeling like the whole thing is coming together. When I manage to finish it I believe it’ll be the first story I’ve ever written that wasn’t either a sci-fi or a fantasy. I’m pretty excited about that.

Where to go from here?

So I’m still a little stuck with my desire to write. For the past several weeks I’ve started and stopped nearly half a dozen ideas. They seem great and then they peter out. The idea pops into my head and I take off. The first page, then two, then three all come flying across the screen as my fingers type at breakneck speed on the keyboard. I hit my time limit or the idea just fades and I’m left with three pages of a some what acceptable intro….and nothing else!

I’ve even had an outline or two. I’ve come up with a mystery or three that seems super-mega-cool only to sound flat and boring upon reflection. I’ve got characters galore but no one with any sort of depth. I live in a world of cardboard cutouts.

I did finally start a story though and while I have not gotten far it had a depth the previous attempts lacked….but it was a Western Fantasy! Do I even try to write this thing that should not be? Do you spend the time trying to write something that you know isn’t going to sell? Or is this simply my inner critic telling me, “You suck my friend. Get over it.”

I’m sticking with it for now, well because I’ve not had anything else plop into my head, but I still really want to write a mystery. I want to have that recurring character that everyone loves and I doubt there is much of a market for a cowboy fighting werewolves and vampires. (Unless of course Stephen King writes it…or Nancy A. Collins….or Charlaine Harris.)

Still, if I can give enough character to this cowboy of mine perhaps there is a market for it. If I can create such a sympathetic character that the world will want to know what happens to him then perhaps, I too, shall have my own HBO series! Dreams are good but perhaps I should have a bit more modest ones…..like oh I dunno FINISHING IT FIRST!!! Thanks for listening folks and may all your dreams come true.

How do I….

How do I keep with it? I have officially written one story of about 49,000 words. It’s not a bad story and needs to be edited. I look at it as a first step in the process. I can say I’ve written a novel. It’s not a short story (to long according to the Guru’s out there) and though its probably not quite long enough to be a trade paperback I’ll still call it my first novel. So I am officially part of the writer’s world.

Or am I?

Do you have to be published to become part of the Writer’s world? Do you have to have an agent? If someone asks me what I’m working on I tell them I’ve finished one novel and I’m getting ready to do another. This first novel will probably not turn out to be anything more than that novel in the drawer that all authors collect over time. So the trick now is to write a second book.

Or is it?

No really. That’s the goal right. Write one, write two, write three and so on and so forth. So, why can’t I get motivated to write a story and why am I struggling to find that perfect plot, the perfect character. Or better yet utilize that perfect character that’s in my head. I’ve tried writing a western, a sci-fi space opera, a military sci-fi, a fantasy, and finally a murder mystery. Nothing is clicking and the plots I come up with seem over the top and convoluted. So much so that even I’m bored about ten pages in. What gives? The first book went so smoothly. I was on fire and wrote every other day or so. Now I’ve noticed it’s like a week in between sessions.

I’ve visited blogs, I’ve visited Writer’s Digest.com, I’ve started reading some writing books and I’m devouring PI novels from Grafton and Parker because I think that is what I really wanna write. I mean really bad, I’m just having a hard time coming up with something original. So now I’m looking at the K.I.S.S. method, tryin to find a plot that’s easy. An introduction to the character…..and that leads me to the next problem. I wanna write a female main character. I even have one all picked out….but she’s just not working. There’s no flow, no feeling. So I’ve turned to a male character and he’s better but I feel sort of disconnected from him and I’d like to have that change.

So it’s back to drawing board I guess. I’ve picked up some books on developing character, one of them written by Orson Scot Card. Now its time to read them and see if I can breath new life into characters, the way I feel like I did with my first novel. I will say this, it is definitely harder than it sounds or looks. It takes a lot of hard work but I am determined to not be in the; “I had a good story once.” or the “I had this one character once and I was so gonna write.” camps. I wanna make this work, I wanna see my writing in print….even if I have to print it out myself!

Onward and upward and hopefully one foot in front of the other will lead to that perfect combination of character and plot that will then lead to being published! Thanks for listening.

It’s been a while…

Well I guess it’s been nearly two months since my last post and I apologize. I have been writing and going to school part time, working full time and paying husband/father full time (me thinks that’s one to many full times) and the blog has not been a priority. When I started this page it was with the idea that I might freelance a bit, you know try to get my name out and about, but since then I have had other ideas. School has become a priority and I have little visions of an MFA in creative writing floating through my head like faeries high on pixie dust. Unfortunately, reality dictates that I get my AA and my BA first….damn reality! Still it’s a goal….we all need goals…or so I’m told.

In other news I completed my first manuscript. Well at least the first draft of it. Yep my little Masterpiece in the Sky is done. I finished it about three weeks ago and I have promised myself that in another three I’ll pull it back out and re-read it, edit it if you will. The bad news is that since then I’ve literally been able to write….well zilch. I’ve tried, oh lord have I tried, but everything falls flat. The excitement while writing the Masterpiece in the Sky is just not there. Its work, its dull and its cliché. I’ve tried female characters, male characters and sci-fi and mystery. There was a Space Opera for a day, a mystery novel the second. Finally, I tried to combine them both with a cool little plot. The problem….the characters were flat and not likeable in the least. I have found myself backpedalling, questioning my decision to pursue this finicky little art and I find myself in a corner.

Author Lilith Saintcrow doesn’t believe in writer’s block and suggests we write everyday without fail. So I have written drivel after ream of drivel. With my back in the corner I pulled out some old characters from way back in the mid-nineties. I re-examined them and looked at this fantasy world I created. I think it’s good….doable at least. A 6 on a beauty scale of 1 to 10…10 being Angelina Jolie! I sat down and effortlessly put in 2000 words in a little over an hour. It flowed fairly well and best of all I was excited about it. I felt like the character was right there, the story line is a fairly routine one but the main character is not human or elf or dwarf but something I made up on my own and refined for a decade. Maybe it’ll be shite in the end but if I have fun writing it. Who cares!

In related news I’ve been reading like a mad man. 34 books so far this year and while I know some who read this will scoff at such a lowly amount, it is the first time I’ve ever really kept track. I was actually fairly amazed at the diverse style of books. There are westerns, and thrillers, a mystery novel or two and a historical novel, sci-fi and some fantasy. I’m impressed with myself (which is probably far too easy…just ask my friends). If writing is the key to understanding the art of writing than reading must be a pretty close second. So with that in mind I’ll keep writing and keep reading!

Thanks for listening friends of the written word. Keep on reading and keep on putting pen to paper! Er fingers to the keyboard! ;-)

Inspiration Part II:

I just finished reading Stephen King’s book On Writing and I have to say it was pretty good. I noticed as I read it that many of the little sayings you hear from other established authors were repeated. It seems the mantra of the writing world is, “Write, write, and then write some more.” What I found really fascinating was the idea that a writer should, “Read, read and then read some more.” In most books on the art of writing you rarely see this spoken about. Yet, as I surf through author blogs many of them are avid readers as well. They soak up the art form from every angle they can. This idea really struck home for me because I love to read. I tackle book after book and while I may not hit the 70 or 80 books a year that Mr. King does I come pretty close. The logic is so clear that I can’t believe it doesn’t come up more often. How can one pursue the art form if one doesn’t know what the art form is supposed to look like? My boss is a perfect example of this. Her memo’s and emails are horrific. They’re bossy, rude, and lack personality. There is a use of words so far above her regular vocabulary often times the memo/email doesn’t even make sense. Sometimes it’s a struggle just to get through one of them and get any sort of meaning and not be insulted. She doesn’t read. She hates it. It shows. So now I have an excuse for all of my reading (and the money I spend on both new and used books…I’m doing research!)

What I found even more interesting was that I don’t even really like Stephen King’s books but I know he is a sort of god of writing. I mean look at his success. He started out writing for adult magazines and now he’s created some of the most influential books of our time. I’m sure some of his work is even required reading at a few colleges. So as I read On Writing I knew of books like Carrie and The Green Mile but I’ve never read them. In fact the only books of his that I’ve read are The Stand (which was awesome), and The Gunslinger which was not as good as I had hope it would be from the title. I still found myself, however, being inspired by his words. I saw how his tenacity, his knowledge had led him to where he is now. I found similarities between him and me. We both started writing young. He started with original ideas and I did not. He had the support of his mom and shared his work. I did not. I was so absorbed with being cool that I rarely if ever shared any of what I worked on. I had an English teacher that supported me and I just threw away the two notebooks from that class. Both had poorly written Star Trek stuff in them. His success, however, gives me hope that at 36 perhaps I still have a shot. If I stick with what I’m passionate about and keep pushing forward in the face of self-doubt that perhaps I’ll succeed where in the past I’ve failed. I feel empowered to keep pushing forward with my work even when I think it’s not that good.

Inspiration...

So last Thursday I packed up the family and we made our way to the mecca of all Geeks and Nerd alike. ComiCon! Yep, I hadn't been in about three years and the kids had never been there. We dressed the youngest as Han Solo and he sat in the stroller for most of the day just totally and completely overwhelmed. A few people recognized the outfit which thrilled the wife to no end (she designed it and made it). The Twins seemed to have really enjoyed it and Twin 2 seems to want to go back again next year. I am a proud Daddy indeed.

So where does the inspiration come from? Well I'll tell you. The art work, the creativity that exists within all of the comics. The tenacity of the creators out there trying to get their idea out in the open. We strolled through the artist area and there they all were professionals who'd taken a school kids desire and turned it into money. I'm sure it wasn't that easy. In fact I'm sure it was down right painfully hard. Years of struggling, bleeding fingers and dry eyes probably dotted the way before they're signing autographs or sitting on panels for DC, Marvel, Top Cow, and Image comics. But they started and despite it all they believed in themselves and kept pushing. It wasn't just in the artist area either, I heard people pitching their ideas in line, while walking, hell to anyone who would listen and it was quite inspiring.

I found myself sitting down and working on "Fistful" with renewed energy and desire. The first draft may suck but the ideas are down on paper/screen/disk and at the very least I think there is something there. So I am pushing through. I'm at about 26,000 words and I am sort of seeing through the haze of doubt a climax coming and an ending. If there is an ending it'd be the first story in many many years with an actual ending. I'd be impressed with that if nothing else!

So keep reading, keep writing and by all means keep getting your nerd on because, hey, we only live once.

It’s just like Playing the Lottery

I’ve been on a steady high from this far off light at the end of the tunnel. I have this feeling of accomplishment simply because I’ve made my mind up to pursue a certain path whether it helps me or not. Is it stubborn optimism or simply an uneducated fool of a choice? I don’t really have an answer to that but if I were to hazard a guess, it’s probably somewhere in the middle I suppose. It is, however, refreshing to be able to put aside the petty crap of every day life because of this dedicated belief that something better is going to happen.

My dedication however isn’t really one based on faith of a denial of reality. I think it’s more a belief in myself and the dogged determination to stay the course. I’ve told most people my plans. Told them these grandiose ideas that will take place over time and it’s an easy thing to do. The telling of an idea is so much easier, and sometimes more rewarding, than the actual ‘doing’ of the idea. Dr. Covey, of “7 Habits for Highly Effective People” fame, asserts that the speaking aloud of goals makes them somehow more real and easier to obtain. To that I say bulls**t. It’s easy to say it, it’s easy to commit to it, but it’s a whole other issue when one must get to the doing of it! I can sit down and say I only have five more classes of junior college left before I can finally move on to a real college and start doing real classes that actually matter to me and not Math051. The easy part is in the saying of it, the hard part comes when I have to climb down into the dirty, grimy, and muddy trenches. It’s much harder when I have to slug it out with that stupid classic of a story in Lit class or stumble through yet another 2+2=4 math problem that I could probably do in my sleep. I’ll post again when I reach week 10 of 17 and all I wanna do is hang the whole damn thing up and walk away!

But it’s like playing the lottery…or perhaps more accurately betting on your #1 baseball team (Go Padres!) or football team (Go Chargers!). You do the prep work, you research the hell out of the match-ups, the trends and then you take your educated guess and put it out there to see if you researched right, if you guessed correctly. Writing seems to be like that. You write, you write some more and then you write just a bit more for good measure. You educated yourself on the process, on how to bring life and dept to a character. You learn how to chisel a plot from nothingness and you find that right topic for that perfect moment. You study. You write. You succeed!?

I’m reading Stephen King’s book On Writing and he talks about his book Carrie. It’s interesting because he wrote it and he put it out there. Someone grabbed it. He made a few hundred dollars on it originally. It sold to paperback and he made nearly $200,000 on it. In 1974ish when this took place that was a lot of money. Heck that’s a good chunk of money now. So how did it work for him? I mean why Carrie. He’d written stuff before this. He wrote articles for men’s magazines and he’d studied the craft. He got educated and he was working as a teacher. Had he done just the right amount of research? Perhaps he didn’t get bogged down in the research and remembered to keep writing. I really don’t know, I mean he’s Stephen-Freaking-King so maybe it was just his time, his ultimate destiny. After reading this chapter though it really got me to thinking about how much of a crap shoot it is. You work and you work and maybe there’s something there, maybe even when you think its crap and you still sit down and you still keep pounding it out. Perhaps someone does read it and does think it’s good and WHAMO!!! You are sitting next to Stephen King,Dan Brown, and Robert B. Parker on an author’s panel at some convention in some small hick town in the hind end of nowhere.

So is it a crap shoot or a lottery? Maybe, maybe not. For authors like Stephanie Meyers it’s probably a crap shoot or lottery (although I do believe she majored in English) and for others like Mr. King maybe it’s more of an educated guess. For an author like Robert B. Parker perhaps it's sheer numbers. (He's published over 50 novels for heaven's sake) I’m hoping for educated guess because I’m just not that good with the whole lottery thing.

A quick little note/complaint....

Transformers 2 - Revenge of the Fallen opened nation wide this week I've been eagerly awaiting it. I've watched trailers just to get excited, I've read whos acting in it, I've followed the rumors and now that it has been released and I've seen it I have to say WOW! I loved it. It was awesome. It was robots kicking the crap out of other robots. It was a little romance (but not to much). It was just plain COOL!

What I am sick of though and where my complaint comes in is why in the world are the critics slamming this movie? I mean what are they expecting when they see it? It's a summer action flick by the king of summer action flicks. It's not an Oscar movies, it was never meant to be. It's not Shakespear, it's not high art. It's just a movie about robots beating up other robots. There is a mild plot but I'm not wanting plot I'm wanting more of Prime ramming his sword through Decepticons in the forest. I'm wanting more of Megatron growling, "I can smell you...Boy!" or "Come here Boy!". In the end that is exactly what this movie gives me. It is bringing my childhood to the big screen just as Spider-Man, X-men, Iron Man, and Star Wars has done! It rocks! So to all those professinal critics AND the amatuer upset fanboys out there I say lighten up! Relax and go rewatch it and quit worrying about plot and character development. Just enjoy it!

A writer’s world…

I’ve read over and over recently how lonely a writer’s life is and as I get more and more into the “Story to be Named Later” I realize just how lonely it might get. I read blogs from established authors like Lili St.Crow and I get a glimpse into the busy life of a successful writer and I wonder just how well organized their life is. I sit here writing this and keep glancing at the clock, knowing I’m running out of time. Work is around the corner. Tomorrow is a day to take the little monsters to the parental unit’s house and for the first time since my new commitment to writing I’m trying to figure out how to deal with kids all day AND write. This past weekend is another example. I came home from eight hours on the job and just had no energy to write.

A book will not write itself.

So I find myself hammering out words here and there for twenty minutes, thirty minutes, anything to add to the word count. I day dream while I’m driving to and from work and lay out plots while I’m eating as if possessed by these works that are still waiting to be born. Then the inevitable happens. I get sidetracked. I see something, hear something or smell something that launches my mind into a frenzy of creative activity and a new story idea grows. A new character that seems better, faster, stronger than the one I’m currently writing about. A new genre calls my name and it’s a struggle to maintain the flow on the story I’m currently working on. Then I go back and I sit and I wonder. How do ‘real’ authors deal with these tsunami like ideas when they’re working on their ‘real’ book? Does Jim Butcher put off his latest Dresden novel because he has a great idea for a romance novel? Does Saintcrow put off her latest Strange Angels novel because she has a great idea for a western? Yet authors do jump genre and authors can write a plethora of books (Butcher comes to mind). Robert B. Parker seems to have books coming out at a pace that is startling. He has Spencer novels, a YA Spencer novel, a western, and a Jesse Stone novel all coming out around the same time. Does the man ever sleep!

And then we are back to the original driving force behind the post. How lonely it is to have all of these great ideas and few people to share them with. These ideas and worlds swimming through your head and no one to share them with or at least no one who will really see it the way you do. Hours of pounding away at a keyboard the story playing out like a movie in ones mind and no one to share the maniacal genius of it all. It’s a bit scary and a bit enticing. Still, it’s going to be a long journey until completion. I’m figuring at least 150 rejection slips before I even get close to an acceptance!

Addiction...

So I was just over at Lili St.Crow's blog (it's a good read if you get a chance you should go check it out)and she was mentioning an addiction to the internet. I got to thinking about this and realized that I am trully addicted to the internet and I wonder why? I mean I subscribe to Facebook but I haven't been on there is ages. I don't subscribe to Twitter so I'm wondering what my excuse is. I have several emails to check each day from School to work to personal. I check my fantasy baseball team and a bevy of blogs from authors to bike riders to editors. It just seems to suck the time right out of a day. You turn it on at 8 in the morning and before you know it BAM its noon and nothing productive has been done! No writing, no homework....nothing!

Well yesterday I had had it, so I shut the whole laptop down and went to Jack in the Box and ended up writing with pen and paper. I went old school folks and you know what it was great...except for a serious case of wrist cramp about 45 minutes in! I'll sit down and input some of it into the "Story to be named later". I felt really productive and while I doubt the word count was very high it was nice to get it out without interuptions of the internet kind!

Endings and Beginnings…

As I write this, my spring 2009 school semester is done. It was a rough one this time around with work getting in the way, financial issues on the home front and a myriad of other obstacles. I had started the semester with two classes and due to the above laundry list of issues in the past seventeen weeks one class became a casualty of the war! So I finished with one Environmental Science class. Even that one class was a real struggle these last few weeks. Still it looks like things will end on high note as I’ve earned a B for the class; not bad for a guy who hates Science.

I have to say that the Professor for the class really helped me out. Her belief in my ability to pull through really kept me from dropping out of the semester entirely and I’m not sure I’d have some of the revelations about my educational future had I done that. Many thanks go out to her for that support.

So as one thing ends so to do many things begin. Last week I started work on the Book to be Named Later. I had spent many days prior to that start beating myself up over my writer’s voice and even wrote a rather depressing blog entry about it. I struggled with what to write, what genre, what kind of character and finally I just sat down and wrote what I like. I like ‘trashy’ sci-fi novels and so I’m writing one. I might try another genre later but to get things started I am just sticking with what I know and love. I may try to write another genre during the NaNoWriMo month of November to see how it goes. I have a few ideas for that. I’m reading No Plot? No Problem written by the founder of the NaNoWriMo and I have to say it’s been encouraging and November can’t get here fast enough.

The other thing that inevitably begins when spring ends is that summer begins. Summer vacation (a whopping nine weeks long this year) should be fun, or I should say I am determined to make it fun! Last year it went by far to quickly and I feel like I robbed the Garbage Disposers with hair the opportunity to have a great time. We missed the beach altogether and only went camping once. This summer I’m really hoping to do a few more things with them. First up will be a trip to San Diego to see museums (hey they said they want to and who am I to stop that!?) and then who knows.

So endings lead to beginnings and off we go. I have a pretty solid idea of my educational goals and it’s lit a fire in my backsides. Perhaps the end result won’t result in any more money for us as a family but I’ll be far happier working on a degree I find satisfying than to work on a degree just to earn money! I have plans for the summer that will involve me spending as much time with the "Little Me's" as possible and life will hopefully settle in for a nice little trip through summer.

As the school years end across the country I wish you all a very merry and fun Summer!

Onward and upward...

It's that time of year again. It's a beautiful time of year when the temps stay reasonable and the sun shines throughout the long days. It's that time of year when the birds sing, babies are born and school is out for the summer. In just one week I will be done with yet another semester of school and my girls will be going on to third grade.
After a tough semester full of depression and uncertainty I feel more triumph this time around. It's the first time in a very long time that I survived a whole year in school. It's also the first time I've realized I'm almost done with junior college. It's still 18+ months off but there is a light at the end of the tunnel and a promise of good things to come. I have plans forming in my mind and they seem attainable if a bit far fetched. It's not a feeling I get very often. Work, school and family tends to bog down ones mind and its hard to see to far into the future. Yet, I've been able to.
This morning I spent a couple of hours talking with my Environmental Sciences Professor about school. We didn't discuss the class or the junior college and all of its little nasty oddities but rather we discussed the possibilities facing us. I got to share with someone besides my wife my ideas about what I want to do for school. I've realized recently that I don't want to go to school just to ultimately make money. I want to go to school so that I can be happy and to learn about something that really matters to me. My wife is crazy loyal and supportive and sometimes I wonder if she isn't just agreeing with me to make me feel better so it was nice to have an outside unbiased source agree with many of my ideas and even feel excited about the ideas. I felt empowered that not only did I and my wife think the ideas were worth it but a third party seemed to be jumping on board too. For the first time in too many weeks I feel uplifted and open to the possibilities and I have to thank my professor for that. She rocks.
So what are these wild and crazy ideas? Nothing super special I suppose just a solid idea of where school will take me. I've had only two passions that have stuck with me through life (other than my family) and I've decided to pursue one. I've been writing stories and fan fiction since I was a kid. I've been reading books most of my late teen years and all of my adult life so I've decided to try and pursue the art form. UCR has a bachelors degree in Creative Writing as well as a M.F.A. in Creative Writing. I am going to chase after these degrees and I don't care if they bring me work or not. To stand up and proclaim that I have a Masters in Creative Writing would be really really cool. I do, however, feel that by following this path possibilities will open themselves to me. By working hard and giving 110% something will open up for me and I'll be able to put the Master's to work for me. Believe it or not I feel....HAPPY! It's a strange feeling of late and I'm looking forward to holding on to it for a few hours!

Poetry, Part 1: Do I still have a voice?

Recently I have been watching a show on HBO called “Brave New Voices” it is a powerful show that focus’s on teenagers participating in Slam Poetry. These kids come from various backgrounds from the ghetto’s of New York to the relatively well off world of San Fran. They all have stories that make me shake my head and a tear to leak from my eye. From a kid who’s father left him at an early age only to run into him when buying some soda in a convenient store…and the father didn’t even acknowledge him. Another story involves a young lady with a blood related sickness and she struggled through this debilitating disease to still perform her poetry. These kids all have one thing in common. They have a voice. They have strong opinions and activist ideas born of poverty, strife and struggle. I have none of these!

I didn’t grow up in the hood, the barrio, or the ghetto. I know my mother and my father and both were active in my life from day one. I graduated high school, I tried the college thing and yet I’m still lost. I’ve never been mugged, I’ve not had disease or been abused. I’ve not been homeless or kicked out. I live in the perfect world, right? I have children, I’ve been married for 16 years and I’m 36. I am rapidly outgrowing my teenage angst and my anger at the world has been blunted by to many years of being beaten down by the Man. The system has drug me over the coals and left my soul worn and withered. My voice has gone horse from screaming obscenities at a government who gives two shits about me, my house or my people.

Did I mention that I’m white? And Male?

Yep that’s right I’m supposed to have it all! I am the picture of success the white devil riding the coat tails of the minority. Eating the food they’ve picked, going to the restaurants they clean and driving my gas guzzling SUV they’ve built. I’ve killed, I’ve maimed, I’ve ruined lives and taken nations away from people. I’ve driven people to drink and suppressed the voice of others. I am the root of all evil in the world. I should repay, apologize and grovel before the feet of those my people have destroyed.

In the darkness at the end of the day though I just sit humbly in the corner watching myself grow old. Seeing my imaginative spark dying a slow painful death. Sucked under by bills, children and a mortgage. I want to be free and to fly. I want to shout at the rooftops and proclaim my place in the world. Yet I sit back and I wonder….do I still have a voice? Can I write the poetry these kids have written? Once I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. My angst, my anger and my passion fed the words that spilled onto the screen. My fingers flying over the keyboard like lightening cast down from the Gods; this was my world. Then came children and responsibility. Happiness ensued and passion died. My angst has dwindled to defeatism and I exist. To old to embrace the youth and to young to embrace the death that is inevitable.

I want a voice. I want to speak and to shout and to write but all too often my mind is blank and I my own private fear gives way to stark panic; Have I lost my voice?

A writer’s life!

As I embark on the more serious side of writing attempts I have come across many books describing how to do it. These books range from daily hints for writing or daily inspirations for writing to character studies. One book I looked at spent the first chapter expressing how miserably hard the publishing world is! That was a desperately depressing book. I walked away from it. All of these books are an attempt to open the new writer’s eyes and get them moving forward, yet none of them really answer my questions.

And what questions are those Jack?

Well let me tell you! I am infinitely curious how the ‘real’ authors really work. How does Lilith Saintcrow, Jim Butcher, William Gibson, Robert B. Parker, E.E. Knight and others go about writing? I’ve seen pictures of renowned author/director Kevin Smith’s ‘office’ and it looks surprisingly like mine….slightly messy with an ode to my favorite comic/movie/book. I wonder more than that though. I wonder how they go about composing their ideas. What do they read to get those ideas? Do they write by hand much or is everything kept on a laptop and that laptop is never far from their side in case the light bulb lights up unexpectedly in the middle of a long day of rushing around? Is there a small journal floating around that has bunches of notes kept over the years? You know the type, small and leather and kept bound by a rubber band….an ode to Indiana Jones little notebook in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.

For many, these questions may seem trivial and perhaps you could view me as a closet stalker. I prefer, however, to see myself as trying to understand the inner workings of a successful author so as to try and incorporate some of those patterns of success into my own hectic day. Successful patterns can lead to enlightenment when examining ones own daily patterns and to that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I’m not looking for an all encompassing answer or that magic way to be successful just some insight. Call a signpost on a long trail that you’ve spent six days trudging down. You’re out of food and water and just want to dive into that six pack of beer waiting in an ice chest in the trunk of the car. An insight into their life would be something like that……..

A writing career? What writing career?

Since I was just a wee boy stumbling his way through the rocky shores of my pre-teen existence and the crashing emotional wave that is teen-hood I have written. I have spent many hours lost in other worlds. Many classes were spent day dreaming about Han Solo's cousin (what you didn't know he had a cousin named Flynn?) or about the U.S.S. Archer (long before there was a Captain Archer or even a Beagle for Scotty to lose...let alone an Admiral Archer). I stumbled through my 11th grade English class on a wing and a prayer working on story after story just to get away from life.

Then just into my twenties I stumbled across William Gibson's first novel and I'm hooked. I had read Star Trek books and some Star Wars books (I loved the original Han Solo trilogy) and I had read all of the Robotech books but Neuromancer was my first real sci-fi book outside of those three previously created universes. It took me in a whole new direction and I had the anger and angst to fuel many many more hours of writing. Acyd was born as was Isis and my world took on a dark and sinister aspect. For nearly four years Acyd ruled my life. His story was one of the longest I've ever typed at nearly 150 pages.

Children changed all of that. I had no time to write and my life settled into a comfortable sled ride through the dreamy snow covered hills of some far off fairy tale. Yep, I was content. No anger combined with no angst all added up to no ideas, no feeling and no writing. I longed to write, oh believe me, I wanted to write more than a crack whore needs her next fix. Nothing came out. I tried everything and finally figured that was it. I was done and the silly adventures I had penned all those many years were simply a way for an emotionally torn up teen to make it through life. A coping mechanism I suppose.

Fast forward to NOW! I find myself really wanting to write. The urge is there but the ideas are not. I even went to the book store to try and find a book to rocket me forward. I got rocked perhaps, but not rocketed I suppose. I found a book on freelance writing and now I have this ambition to become a professional writer. I have virtually no hope in this endeavor and yet it nags at me like my two year old wanting a fresh sippy-cup of milk. I bought the book and tore through it. I needed to know the secret and I've stumbled on the humbling idea that there is no secret. There is no Dr. Jones moment of triumph but rather long hours of slogging through the mud to get to an end that I'll probably never see.

Ideas for 'true' stories seem to elude me at this junction in my life but I have written. I am forcing myself to write for an hour a day 5 to 6 days a week. The experts say that to be a good writer one must write...write...and then write some more and so I am.

I have not only started to write but also I am devouring books and finding outlets for a beginner to go to. Perhaps this is a pipe dream but its a pipe dream that perhaps I'll slide down for a little while and see where it takes me.

I am hoping to share some work here and to lay out my attempts and my stumbling blocks. I am hoping to share the tragedies and triumphs of a wanna-be author, writer, father of three, husband to one awesome woman, part-time student and full time government employee. That's a lot to juggle and if you want you can jump on this pipe dream with me leave a few comments and see where it takes you to!