Tag: monday blog

Tea Please

Irene Haven

I have a tea reader in my story, no leaf reader mind you, but someone who dissects tea bags and talks about the decision you are about to make. Because you can only go to a reader of tea if you really can’t make up your mind. Before entering you need to pass the coin thrower, another barrier. He will toss for you and if your dilemma is solved with choosing heads or tails, you won’t get to see the Tea Reader.

(fiction) Should I pick this major?

(fiction) Should I kill my nephew?

(me, just now) What the hell am I suppose to do with my day job, I’m panicking over here. Quit? Switch careers? Go work in a grocery store?

Sometimes I wish my fictional characters were real and came to the rescue.

 

Cue Insecurity

Irene Haven

I’m in the midst of rewriting a YA contemporary fantasy, and my inner editor is sabotaging the flow. I’ve got a rough outline to guide me through the structure of the story I’ve in mind, I have a Beginning, at least one major Turning Point and an End, so a few of the big building blocks are there. But still I’m creatively stuck. I’ve read/rewritten/read/rewritten some chapters so many times, that I’m bored with my own writing. Cue insecurity.

I should abandon this project.

I am never going to finish.

If I finish it is going to be Boring (yes capital B) and no one is going to read it.

 

Maybe this is the point where I should try to find some Beta readers. Cue insecurity.

 

I won’t find any.

I can’t possibly let anyone read this boring story.

If someone reads this, you are never going to finish.

 

Guess this writing thing means: continue writing. Even when your brain is in the way/ you are bored/ you feel insecure/ you want to abandon the Thing.

 

Send help.

Sitting, waiting, wishing (also known as: not writing)

Irene Haven

I’m sitting here, at the dining room table, waiting for inspiration to strike me. Wishing I could muster up the willpower to plunge ahead in the world of words. Every writer has his own process, mine has much to do with this title.

Sit behind computer/notebook/phone, wait for inner editor to shut up (because she is yelling that this story is too complicated for me to put on paper), wishing writing felt more easy.

The thing is, I love to write. To lose myself in a story, surprise myself with strange twists and cunning characters, but I also find it the hardest thing to do. Maybe because I’m a perfectionist. Maybe because I’m lazy. Maybe because I’m scared the story won’t come out the way it’s intended. Maybe because all of the above. For me writing never gets easier, not really.

But since I’ve already typed over a hundred words, I might as well go ahead and write a new scene. My character is going to set something on fire and while she’s gathering highly flammable materials to set alight, she’s going to describe her favorite moment of all moments.

The second after striking a match.