Aussie Gunslinger

It was a pretty rough week for me. Between the heat and some issues with a couple projects in particular, my wordcount suffered in a major way. It was frustrating because I had high hopes for my productivity. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. 

Last night was the worst writing session so far. The words and imagery didn’t flow as easily as I would have liked. As time progressed, annoyance turned into something more dark and disturbing. The chapter of Elven Gunslinger I’d been trying to work on the past week had reached the point where I wanted to throw my computer out of the window. 

I took a 2 week hiatus in the hopes of catching up on a few longer projects. Although I didn’t achieve as much as I would have liked, I’d be lying if I said I got nothing done. I caught up on Valiance Chronicles and learned a few things about myself in the process. The fact is, you can’t force creativity. I know I’ve said it before, but it needs repeating. You can have high hopes, but there is a time and a place for every idea.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to scrap my chapter-based schedule, working on my longer fiction when inspiration comes. I will continue to use short fiction as a tool for learning the craft, but I won’t rely on it. I am still learning what works for me, and I will continue to experiment with new ideas until I find something that fits best. 

I decided to take a short break from normal writing (the weekday blogfic posts) to focus on some other stuff this week. Originally, it was supposed to be used as a way to catch up on some longer writing projects. However, I realized that WoW servers have a couple of neat annual festivals running, and I sort of want to get a cupid for each of my toons on Saurfang. 

In spite of these WoW-related distractions, I’ve made some decent headway on Gamer Girl and with Valiance. Elven Gunslinger seems to have taken a hit, as has Heaven, but I’m not worried. I realize that when the time is right, the stories will flow. At that stage, I’ll get to work and probably churn out some chapters in a short period of time. 

You can’t force creativity, but you can at least encourage it. I won’t be dismayed when one project isn’t flowing as well as I’d like, because I will always have others to work on. I refuse to stagnate, and will take any words down as a victory any day of the week. I won’t rely on word-counts either, instead seeing them as merely a sign I’ve sat in the chair and written something. 

I know, I know. It probably sounds like I’m making excuses for slacking off. Oddly enough, I’m not. I enjoy playing WoW and I love to write. As it is, I have dramatically cut down on my gaming time to focus on my writing again. Of course, if I ever had to chose between writing and gaming, I’d pick writing every day of the week. 

The last week hasn’t been as productive as I would have liked, and I am still recovering from the gaming day the previous week. As such, I still have some outstanding blogfic entries and review posts. I will need to catch up on some chapters of some of my novels as well, but that might take some time given that the next few days will be spent gaming. Perhaps I will get some words in before the sessions start. One can only hope. 

However, in spite of the rather chaotic week, I’ve written some fiction that I am quite happy with. One such story, a YA Sci-fi story entitled Remnant, is currently being posting over at Songfic, along with a superhero origins story called The Event. There is some other stuff, but I find that my attempts to write shorter fiction are falling by the wayside due to missing some reading days. Any words down is a victory in my book, but words you can be proud of make the victory that much sweeter.

After another awesome week, I’ve had to chop one of my side projects for the foreseeable future. My Word Count Journal for Ironside was becoming more work than it was work, so it had to go. I may return to it in time to come.

The blogfic stuff is still going strong, resulting in some awesome new material that will no doubt come into play sometime down the track. I started a few micro-serials on all three blogs, but I am trying to mix it up a bit so that I don’t return to being a single-minded (crap) novel writer.

I’ve been falling a bit behind on some chapter-based writing. In spite of getting some stuff out of the way last week, Heaven, Valiance and Elven Gunslinger are being neglected. Hopefully, I’ll make up for this during weekends when hubbs works. However, this weekend is for playing roleplaying games.

In other news, I submitted to #flashfriday for the first time. If all goes well, I will become a regular. You can read and leave comments on a short story that may potentially become something much larger, by checking out Master at Songfic. It would be great if you also check out the rest of this week’s pickings by visiting The #FridayFlash Report – Vol2. #35. You will find a host of talented writers amongst the numbers and your comments will be appreciated. 

I’ve been slack the past few days. Sure, I’ve got a lot of words down with my fiction, but this entry is 4 days late. Why? I already told you that I’ve been slack. :-D 

The last week was a blast! I haven’t had anything near the level of productivity in that week, getting 1 little over 15k written in 7 days. This was spread out about amongst multiple projects, but I am not complaining. After all, I am happy to just get the words down on my computer screen. 

Songfic is moving along nicely, with most of yesterday spent writing the blogfic entry. This was at the cost of Picture Fiction and Eternus Divum entries. The story was around 3200 words in length and was a story about a robot girl escaping an organization willing to kill their more brilliant scientists to get their hands on bright-and-shiney new technology. Why do I love Gynoid fiction so much? Perhaps there is a part of me that wants to be an arse-kissing robot girl. 

Picture Fiction is gaining some momentum, with a few writers showing an interest in joining in on the projects and the other blogfic sites I started on blog.com several weeks ago. The Mycena Interrupta inspired short story is moving along nicely, but will reach its conclusion in the next week.

As for the El Aquelarre-inspired story over at Eternus Divum, I suspect it might take some length of time to finish. There are wheels within wheels within wheels with that story, and I have no clue what will happen next in the story. What I do know, is that I like the story. With all discovery stories, it should require a LOT of drafting and polishing.

I wrote and posted the first draft of Valiance Book 1 chapter 1 on Saturday night. In spite of a lot of traffic, nobody has posted feedback. It is a little frustrating, but I am probably too reliant on feedback. I have to say that the first draft is quite a bit better than the third or fourth drafts of some of my other W-I-P’s. 

On Sunday, I post the first draft of Elven Gunslinger Book 1 prologue. Although a little forced at times, I managed to get the core concepts down, along with a little introduction to the nomadic Fury people. The chapter offered some insight into their culture and ritual practices, as well as introduced one of the major characters that I’d previously looked over. With the new developments with Irving, the story should have enough material to keep it running for a while. Sadly, I haven’t finished writing the Gilanthos short story. Perhaps next week… 

Well, that is it for the update for the past week. I hope you make you enjoy a good book and do something creative this upcoming week. Take care and happy hunting!

Oh… my… God… It has been a busy week. As I mentioned last time, I started a short fiction blog. Well, I was silly enough to start another one, and managed to have lots of fun playing around with ideas in spite of this bold new challenge.

So far, I have posted 6 posts on Eternus Divum, including what is an ongoing dicovery story entitled El Aquelarre. So far, this fantasy story about a minotaur magician working at a circus is up to 3 parts, but I expect to conclude it sometime next week. 

I currently have 4 posts on Picture Fiction, all are a part of a fantasy first person POV adventure about a bunch of idiot adventurers that get lost in a cave system while looking for treasure. I am really digging the characters, though the vibe is quite a bit different from that of El Aquelarre. 

I am somehow keeping ahead with my Ironside story over at Word Count Journal. Unfortunately, it will need to be completely reworked during the next stage of the drafting process for most of the scenes to make sense, but I’ll deal with it sometime down the track when I care a lot more. 

Last night, I head over to the Bubblecow website and had a nice chat to writer/mentor/advisor/editor Gary Smailes. I’ve been following his twitter account for just on two years, but there is something to be said for instant messaging. When I mentioned I’d been working on improving my short story writing, he suggested I check out Ether Books. I did so, and it intrigued me enough that I am going to polish up some fiction and send a query email. 

That is it as far as my writing week is concerned. I hope you’ve had an enjoyable, productive week as well. 

"Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only for wallowing in."

Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923) 

The Quotations Page  

Well, I’ve finally taken it upon myself to create a blog to cover my journal to publication. I was using my blog over at http://keikomushi.wordpress.com, but it seemed like the right time to separate some of the content. I suppose most of my reasoning is that the other site is… well… too random. So, here I am… 

The last week has been a road of discovery for me, as I strove to find a web-host. Nearly two weeks of experimenting with new platforms and services, but I keep coming back to a blogging platform as a means to connect with people. It has been pretty frustrating to say the least, and there are quite a few new sub-domains floating around using the name “keikomushi” in the prefix. I’ve deleted what I can, but some of the hosts offer no real support for customers. It is a sad day when your provider refuses to talk to you about your account. 

On a good note, I’ve made a lot of progress on the first books of Elven Gunslinger and Heaven. What I find particularly odd about this, is that these stories started as Freewrites in mid-2010. All it takes is a small plot seed and an entire world can grow from therein.