Is It Too Late To Come Back?

I write this post, trying to gain some new ground. I'm pretty sure I haven't written a word of fiction for a year. And yet I have a box filled with half-finished fiction.

Just seems so hard to come back to it. Did Hemingway have dry spells? Vonnegut? Heller? Bradbury?

I'm 25,000 words into a crime fiction caper and have been dying to return to my characters. I've also been itching to write Mr. Dead Eyes 2. I'm also working on a sci-fi thriller involving visitors from the future.

Right now I'm fully focused on narration. 30 different projects. I've read some good books this past year, and each one has been needling me to finish my own writing projects.

But after a solid year of no new words?

Is it possible?

Maybe I should finish all my narration gigs first. Or should I just jump back in, guns blazing?

What do you think?





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Here Today, Blog Tomorrow #15

Not many people know it but, I'm partial to the classics. My first ever introduction to a classic was when a teacher made us read Animal Farm. I hated it. I remember I couldn't stop thinking how overdone it had become. And yet, when my wife and I were at a Borders, she recommended 1984; I sat down, read two chapters and automatically loved it. It just goes to show that you never know what a good classic can do for you.

Then there was The Time Machine and The Invisible Man, both very good H. G. Wells books. they weren't hard to understand and they introduced and produced many books and movies dedicated solely to the mad scientist and time travel genres. Yes sir, I'd have to say that Wells created the science fiction genre. A lot of people say that Poe was the one who introduced it but I still stand by Wells.

But both of those novels could not compare to War of The Worlds, my favorite of the bunch. The first three opening paragraphs set the scene perfectly. I still get chills whenever I read the line: Across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

God, I love that line. But it's not just the three paragraphs that caught me. Granted, now I use this as a basis for picking up a book to read, scanning the first three paragraphs to see if it will draw me in, but also, the rest of the book is so perfectly worded it's almost like poetry. I could imagine Wells, then a teacher in 1898, writing one perfect sentence a day.

In college, it was my rhetoric professor who introduced me to the textbook, The Story and It's Writer, a valuable compilation of short stories with some added essays and thoughts by the authors. He also introduced me to Joseph Heller with Catch-22. I remember I hated the book when I first started it, but he suggested, "Read past chapter five. It gets much better when you pass that chapter." He was right. It opened me up to the world of Heller and I found myself quickly on a hunt to devour his books, reading Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man, Catch as Catch Can: Stories, and No Laughing Matter. I own Something Happend, his second novel as well as Good as Gold and Closing Time, the sequel to Catch-22 but I'm waiting for a rainy day to tackle those.

At one point or another, I've been given suggestions on what to read next in the classic literature category. But, I have to say, the one I currently have my eye on next is Jane Eyre.

When my wife and I had a friend over, one that she studied with in France, she played a movie trailer on her laptop for us. Apparently, someone had made a recent adaptation of the book. After the trailer ended I was completely knocked off my socks. I mean, wow. And here I thought that it was nothing more than a snobby tale of a woman growing up in an orphanage. I was dead wrong. "I had no idea the story was that supernatural," I said to them both. "Oh yeah," my wife said. "It's very Gothic. You should read it."

I'm sure I will.

Round Two: TKO!

We're off. Looks like Roberto got off to a sluggish start, Writer's Block had him on the ropes. There's the bell. The first jab. Wait! Roberto bounces back with a left hook! A right jab! He's got Writer's Block begging for mercy! Yes, yes! He's back into his old rhythm ladies and gentlemen. Writer's Block is down for the count! Total knockout!

You better believe it, baby. For two days straight, I've been writing up a storm. I was able to finish my "clocks" story and am now 5 pages into two other stories. It won't be long now before the stories are finished. Right now the collection is 233 pages. 64,000 words of thrills, chills and a little dark comedy.

Looks like those trips to Barnes and Noble are starting to pay off.

As far as reading goes, it looks like I'm steadily devouring works from Joseph Heller. Just have to pick up a copy of Good as Gold and Picture This when I get a chance. After him I'd really like to go through some of Chuck Palinuk's stuff (already read Choke, saw Fight club) and/or Jodi Piccolt. I think I'm drawn to controversial plots now.

One show that has really helped in beating the crap out of my writer's block is http://www.writingexcuses.com/ hosted by Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson and Howard Tayler. These guys have round table discussions on the many leaps us writers have to take. Check 'em out.

Until next time, in the words of Billy Crystal, "A writer writes . . . always."

"What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window. ~Burton Rascoe"

Writer's Block: Round One

I’ve been in a bit of a stump since the last time I wrote something on this here blog of mine.

You guessed it; writer’s block.

Yes, that’s right. The creative juices have clotted. Yesterday showed a pitiful failed attempt at writing. Well, not writing but rather staring at the screen of my laptop inside a Barnes and Noble for two hours straight. To which I finally gave up.

Always easy to start a story.
Soooooooo hard to end it.

Right now I’m looking at 223 pages finished of my first short story collection, which I hope to podcast soon. But six stories remain unfinished. 3 are halfway there, 2 I haven’t even started and one is an adaptation of a previous screenplay I wrote as a teenager. All totaled, the collection holds 20 short stories. Originally it was going to have two additional stories, but I decided to pass those on to the second short story collection. Also, I don’t have the patience for those two stories right now. They piss me off.

I’ve been reading a lot, hoping that dipping into another author’s mind will wake something up in my own head. So far, nothing has really come of it. But here is one I highly recommend.

Talk about writer’s block. This book parodies that very concept. Eugene Pota, an established writer, now seventy, is trying to write his last great book. The only problem is . . . He has nothing to write about. The story is a unique experiment of what a writer goes through and the false starts he attempts. I originally had an idea similar to this, a book consisting of nothing but false starts, but looks like Joseph Heller beat me to the punch. Well played, good sir. I bow out of the project, respectively. It’s a quick read. About 233 pages. Already 100 pages into it. Pick it up, you just might like it.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

"If I'm trying to sleep, the ideas won't stop. If I'm trying to write, there appears a barren nothingness. " ~Carrie Latet