Daily Writing - Posting My Work

Write everyday. That is the one lesson you need to hammer into your brain if you want to be writer. It does not matter what type of write you are or need to be, writing everyday is how you get better. No writer will tell you different.

I write, almost everyday, and keep those activities private. But who does that help? No one. I am writing sure, but am I doing properly. Are my ideas any good. Are my flows working. Are my grammar good? (see what I did there?)

Nothing in my daily prompts are secret, insightful to me, I try to take whatever prompts I use and turn them into 1,000+ word stories. I start with the prompt and go with it. No planning, no idea where I will end up, just let it flow. Break out of the over-analytical mind and teach my self to be free creatively.

I have decided to start to post my prompts in a Wattled collection of mine. Raw, unedited dumps. Why not? If I get any feedback it's more than I would get by keeping it in my Scrivener binder, never to see the eyes of anyone but myself.

I will use this blog more to update when I add to that collection. It may not be every singe day but will contain my daily prompts when I do.

Feedback is welcome and maybe a bigger story will come out of these. Who knows?

Time to turn the page.

This Is Getting Humorous....

A writer. What does that mean?

I write everyday, emails, blog posts, white papers, summaries, reports... my career is reading and writing. If I don't do either I don't make a living.

Geek to Author was not intended to be the career side of my writing but the transition into fiction writing. Storytelling. Expanding beyond my realm of comfort. The biggest challenge has always been the balance between career, home life and the pursuit of which is categorized as luxury.

I don't need to write. I do have an inner spark that is telling me to. Although I have not been writing and putting out works as regularly as I want to, I still have been studying on the practice. Ironically and against everything I have read it's easier to read and study for 30 minutes than to get quiet time for that amount.

Now that the career has calmed down. Kids are older, less 24/7 focus. I have more free time to work. Acquired new tools and a new approach to writing will change things for the better as well. As a career technologist, when you have a dynamic and mobile life as mine you need to have writing tools that are as dynamic and mobile as you. Pen and paper are fine, if you like to write that way, but I don't. Now I have tools, mobile, laptop, desktop that are all the same, interconnected for collaboration and synchronization. I can work on one, pick it up on another and continue on.

The prove it I will talk about the next big short I want to write called Fear of God. It's a story of a newly haloed angel visiting New York and meeting Satan who proceeds to tell him the true power of God.

Write everyday. I now know that. Reading about writing is fine, but not if you write. Everything put on paper doesn't need to see the light of day, in fact, most shouldn't.

Time to turn the page.

New Story - Chance Encounter

I'm on a roll. I added a new story called Chance Encounter to my Wattpad collection. Go check it out and let me know what you think.

I have been writing more fringe sci-fi or at least those are the ideas that have been brewing the most. Not quite futuristic but not quite modern either. Trying to wrap the plausible into the reality you know. It's something and I am writing almost everyday. 500 words a day is the goal and if I go more I write more. If I hit a block and I hit my goal I stop and sleep on it. Usually I can pick right up where I left off without skipping a beat and without banging my head on the desk for an hour trying to get to the next step.

Let the brain work, don't work your brain.

Time to turn the page.

Back In The Writing Swing

I am begging to find my writing groove again. I am writing every day trying to focus mainly on fiction, creative works but also blogging meaningful posts on my other blogs that are more aligned with my career works.

I am using Wattpad as my posting place and where I write the most. Here's my profile.

All the little ideas I have I am putting into collections or writing them as stand along short stories. My goal this year, like last, is to ramp up and participate in the NaNoWriMo this year. Either complete my Emerald Event novel or start a new one. I may trash and re-write The Emerald Event but between now and then I may get motiviated on something else in my journals of ideas.

Either way I am getting my routine and loving it again. I have finally figured out how to let go and stop over analyzing my works to an impossible goal of 'perfection'. Create, mold, then let it go.

WOOT!

Time to turn the page.

Hello 2015, Not starting New But Readjusting Focus

Happy New Year! Are you pumped? Are you ready to tackle your resolutions for the new year and feel regret around Feb. that you failed them the 2nd week of Jan? Resolutions like goals are worthless unless you have a plan to get to them. Just saying I am going to write more, drink less, make more friends are valueless without an idea on how you are going to do it.

I didn't make resolutions I made plans.

Plans to write 500 words a day. Instead of locking myself into 500 words of fiction or 500 words of my projects, open it up to 500 words in general. Everything I write can be counted except for emails, texts or other communications. Journals, blogs, stories, brain dumps, or just free writing with absolutely no purpose all count. The only sub-rule is that my writing style or approach is slightly new each time. Whether I use alternative language, rely on a thesaurus for new ways to say the same thing or change the tone. That's the only way you can grow, stick to the same and you will remain the same. How do you know if another way is better for you unless you try it?

That's my year. Rebuilding my routine but opening my walls to a less restrictive approach and that may sharpen my other focuses on the things I do want to get really good at. Fiction writing.

You don't know unless you experiment. You really don't know unless you actually do it.

Time to turn the page.

NaNoWriMo Is Almost Over And I Failed

EPIC FAIL. That's me. Terrible, awful, no excuses although I did my best to make them up. Last year I completed the NaNoWriMo with my project Perspectives. Almost 60,000 words and looking back on it the draft is crap, but it has a shell of a story. Long and drawn out but a story nonetheless.

This year I have nothing to show for it. Nothing structured anyway and no where near 50,000 words. Only myself to blame, words ain't going to write themselves.

However there is a bright, white light. I had an epiphany that may be my gateway to getting something solid and perfected and I owe it to my 6 year old son. He has taken to reading like a duck out of water. He's reading at a 3rd and 4th grade level with near photographic memory comprehension... he's in 1st grade. He is bored with the books his age, refuses to read 'picture' books and only chapter books yet we haven't found a series he likes yet. He has read two American Chillers books which are not really horror genre because the 'horror' is a setup joke to take away the real horror. They are about 150-180 pages and he'll read them about 5 chapters at a setting. He' reading who cares, right?

Anyway out of the blue he asked me to write him a book and he will read that. What a great idea! His 6 year old mind of absolute insane imagination and processing would be a great source of material and flow for a story. Tell me what you want to read about and I will fill in the blanks. I have even began to record him in the morning to describe his dreams from the night before, sometime they are the scariest things I have heard. To him it's as real as life but to me it's a starting point to wrap a world around and aim it to a sub-10 year old mind.

Yes! Exciting.

I don't need NaNoWriMo, I just needed my purpose. I think I found it.

Time to turn the page.

Writing About Writing

NaNoWriMo 2014 is approaching and I have no idea what novel idea I am going to tackle. Last year I wrote, or began to, write my Perspectives book idea. I was successful and completed the NaNoWriMo goal but after that I looked at it and realized what a pile of disorganized crap it was and left it. I haven't touched it since.

What to do now? Do I go back and re-write Perspectives with a straight storyline approach or continue with it on the compilation of novellas? Episodic or novel. Even though I did produce 50,000 words toward the project am I better off abandoning it altogether and starting with a new idea. Learning from the lessons of the past and pressing forward with something new to maybe someday coming back to finish the first real work I have created. The more I think about it it is becoming more and more clear that I start anew. Fresh and clean.

Nov. 1 is right around the corner and in my writing thought journal I have lots of good ideas for stories that could be built to novel length most require significant research to get the details right. This then pulls me back into the struggle I have been wrestling with for years. An over analytical mind trying to be creative. I have a passion for writing, I hate doing it but I absolutely love it and I don't do enough it of it. There's a fire inside of me to do this and I don't know where it's coming from, all I know is I have to quench it.

Geek to Author was supposed to have a published book by now. Something. Instead I have short stories I am not happy with, continue to re-write and nit-pick, I am afraid to show them to anyone or post them to any site for critique even though I am members to the major ones. Struggle after struggle and it all resides in my own mind.

Time to get public, get the support, find the others who are in my position and work together to get our work out there. I write for myself but if one person come back and says that my story was good then it all was worth it.

Write to write. Write everyday. Write without borders or obstacles and no matter what anyone says about your efforts, like all arts, opinions are subjective and matter very little.

Time to turn the page.

Writing Is Fun Even Though It Isn't

Writing is fun. It is, believe me. Sitting down and painting your thoughts with words is a liberating experience. Once you let go and allow your mind to go where it wants the results can be amazing. Shocking perhaps.

I used to write thousands of lines of code, computer programming, hours and hours of pumping out creativity using computer logic. There are many times when I go back and see what I built and I am amazed that I came up with that a built it. Writing is no different.

You can plot, plan, sketch, flow, chart, diagram all you want around a story or idea but until you put words on paper it will never be realized. That's the fun part.

Writing is also one of the the most frustrating, complicated and confusing abilities humans can do. One moment you can be on a roll then your creative processing center shuts off. Disappears. This could happen for any number of reasons, emotions, overthinking, it's raining outside or it's too sunny out, the baby's crying or you're hungry. Mind over body, creativity over analysis, free-flowing or planned. Writing is a battle.

That's why every book, author, blog, speech, class everywhere tells you to write everyday. A writer writes, always. Write daily. Don't stop writing. Keep the mind going, leave it free, create with your words, paint that picture, introduce new worlds and people, express yourself. If you don't write, you can't do anything.

Accept frustration, anger, obstacles. Accept success, creation and accomplishment. Regardless on how 'good' your stories are, at least you wrote a story. Then next one will be a little better and the one after than better than the first. That's the enjoyment and also the hatred of the process. If you are like me nothing will ever be good enough, you just need to learn to love creating and let it go when you are done.

Time to turn the page.

My 500 Words Commitment, 31 Days

I'm back. I have been around just not blogging here on my writing progress. I am writing and enjoying it, expanding on my craft, but the chronicling my journey for others to share in have fallen to the side.

No more.

I am announcing my commitment to 500 Words A Day for the next 31 days. This will be the lead in to the NaNoWriMo which I completed last year but this year my goal is to have a more substantial piece of work to take closer to an end. last year I did it to do it. Now that I know I have it in me to do it I want to create a functional novel flow toward a more planned out structure.

500 words is nothing, simple, easy. I talk more than I should anyway, writing more than I should comes easy. Making it efficient and meaningful is the hard part of the writing art. That's why you need to practice every day, write everyday, and no matter what don't stop.

Time to turn the page.

Book Review - The 5th Wave

Originally posted on my other blog - Binary Blogger.

I love to read and do it any chance I can get. Whether it’s short stories delivered via email daily, books about the latest in IT Security or Management to fiction novels, reading is a fantastic activity that everyone should do when they can. I use Goodreads regularly to find new books to read, authors to follow and skim other people’s reviews and I find it to be very helpful. However, every book I read I don’t write a review for, some just aren’t worthy of my time to give my thoughts on, others are either really good and deserve support or are on the other end of the spectrum and need to be called out. The 5th Wave falls into the latter category.

The 5th Wave is categorized as young adult (YA) fiction and seen as in the same class of style as The Hunger Games, Divergent and the The Maze Runner but that’s only because of the style and target audience. After I read The Hunger Games, a series I was consumed by and read all three books in a week, I have kept my eye on the young adult genre as it shows from time to time it’s not as young as they claim. The 5th Wave I saw sitting on bookstore shelves for a while now and started to see more hype about it. After I went back in time and started reading older books I haven’t before and got worn out by my mass consumption of political thrillers I decided to give The 5th Wave a chance.

The 5th Wave is about an alien invasion of Earth. A large spacecraft arrives in orbit, no contact can be made, and extinction level attacks start to happen that the society on Earth call waves. The 5th Wave is the assumed final wave where the remaining population is wiped out. It has aliens, invasions, fight for survival what could go wrong?

SPOILERS AHEAD

As I got into the book about 50 pages in or so the plot started to seem awfully familiar. I could place it at first but then as the waves were being described and talked about by the characters it became clear to me why I recognized it. The alien arrival and attacks or waves are a rip-off from a Discovery Channel series called When Aliens Attack. A TV series I was greatly interested in and watched whenever it was on. The series was exactly this book, how aliens could arrive on Earth and take us out without ever stepping foot on the planet. From the Manhattan sized craft approaching and entering orbit, sending down non-explosive massive mile-long rods to destroy cities with using kinetic energy and leaving no radioactive residue. The book even had a radical idea from the TV show about burying nukes and drilling huge pillars filled with water to super heat the water to steam and sending metal caps into space at the ship. All lifted from the show. The show and book went on to talk about using the birds to spread disease and and so on… This was a big disappointment when the pieces came together for me. Young adults would never catch it, unless they watched Discovery as much as I do.

The next major downfall of this book was a clear case of blatant plagiarism. I will use this term freely and loudly because anyone cannot deny this. There is a scene where the children and teenagers are going through a boot camp situation. The Drill Sargent and the dialogue is almost a 100% word for word ripoff from the movie Full Metal Jacket and the Gunnery Sargent Hartman. This was more apparent than the TV show plot lines.

Aside from the plot the writing style of this book was tough to follow. It would switch from 1st person to 3rd person back to 1st person and at times you weren’t sure which first person you were reading. You’d have to remember the scenario or location to put the pieces together whether it was Cassie or Ben you were following. The other supporting character Evan was never 1st person perspective. Stick to one throughout, don’t hop around.

By the time I got 3/4 of the way through I stuck with it to just finish it. I rarely abandon any book I read once I start and this wasn’t that bad to quit on it but it was close. The end was loose, non-climatic and attempted to leave you on a cliffhanger but I never saw the cliff.

There’s a sequel coming for this book but I don’t think I will rush out and get it. When I get around to it maybe, and that’s a big maybe, which means probably not. I have a 100 other books I want to read and this didn’t make itself worthy to stick with through any kind of long series.

Keeping Your Writing Organized Across Many Devices And Mediums

The world is full of devices. Phones, laptops, desktops, tablets, notebooks of all shapes and sizes filling out bags and our desks. Write everyday, that's the goal. But like me, a full career, family, babies having the time to write let alone writing in the same place is hard to come by. So I use many methods to write but I have made my life far more complicated trying to keep it all straight.

I started out and still have a leather bound notebook where I put my story and character ideas into. I have a whole shelf of other notebooks standing by as I fill this one up. I also write a significant amount on my iPad using a few different apps that all sync/save to Dropbox. For the finalization I use Scrivener on my Mac. In Scrivener is where I pull in my Dropbox files and transcribe my scribbles from my notebooks and scrap papers into various project binders within the application.

However, it's inefficient now. The ideal method to use one computer, one app for all the writing doesn't work for me. I don't know where or when I will get a change to put down a few hundred words.

The other problem is if I am not working on a solid project, I may be starting to drafting out ideas for a few others. Some ideas look good in a summary but until you get into the flow you as a writer won't know if you can 'feel' it or not.

Get a central location for consolidating your work, for me that's Scrivener. Use templates for character development and expand the templates as you expand your skills of character building. The same goes for settings and plot flows.

No one can tell you how to do it, your brain works differently than mine. What I can suggest is whatever system of creative organization you adopt, be consistent. Because you may end up doing what I did and am still trying to shake off. You'll spend more time trying to organize your creations and realize that you aren't spending enough time to create to use your system.

Write, organize, produce.

Time to turn the page.

Writing With A Hectic Life

What the hell am I doing? I am trying to expand a creative hobby that is one of the most time consuming and lonely. I have posted many times about false starts, lack of this, not doing that. Life getting in the way. Excuses upon excuses.

I have broken the cycle. Ironically the birth of my second child, that's right a newborn in the house on top of all the rest, her arrival has helped me focus. Routine, structure, scheduling, rinse and repeat.

When you have a baby you suddenly lose all the enjoyments of being lazy anyway. TV, video games, going out with friends, all of that is restricted. So run with it. When the older child is off to bed and the baby is close to winding down before she goes to sleep, write. If she's in the swing or bouncy chair, have her do it in the office while you write. Don't sacrifice cuddle time but you can't and shouldn't hold a baby 24x7 anyway. That's when I write.

Generally I can get a good 30 minutes of hard writing done, if I am lucky an hour. If the baby wakes me up after 4am I get up for the day. Get her back to sleep, the wife is up getting ready for work. I slide downstairs, make a quick cup of coffee from my Kuerig, and write in the silent dark of the pre-dawn morning.

Now I am working in writing sessions at the office. Instead of eating lunch at my desk and browsing the web I will sneak off to a conference room and pound out a few hundred words. You know what? I am writing. I have several stories completed that I have set aside as I create new ones, then I go back and edit.

This blog I am putting out the exercises and tips that I have been told or read about for the rest to see and maybe use in your journey. I wish I could get 4 or 5 straight hours to pound out a few thousand words toward a novel but with a career, family, and everything else that comes with it that is very, very hard to come by. I am just making sure those are no longer excuses and it's working.

My goal is to bump up my daily targets to close to 1,000 words a day, no matter what it is. Although I am not sure blog entries should count, but putting words down in any format is still putting words down.

Now go write something.

Time to turn the page.

Everyday Writing Exercises

Writers write always. Whether it's a blog post, journal entry, a letter to mom. As long as words are being put on paper it's writing. Now, I say that if you are trying to be a fiction writer then you need to be writing fiction everyday on top of the other compositions you may do but that's me.

Geek to Author is a slow go. Finding time to write is very difficult, especially with a full career, wife and 2 kids, coaching baseball, etc... but I see people do it all the time and they are writing books! Why can't I? Why can't you? I know the answer, commitment. Dedication. Failure to build a structured routine.

I came across a resources, several actually, that is specifically targeted for writing with a career. The common thread is ease into the routine but build into your day that you sit down and write. Period. I am going to share these writing exercises for everyone else as well as give an insight to my methods.

I haven't been blogging here much, but that's because I have been writing. Not putting anything out there for consumption yet, but I am writing. Short stories mostly but I have a very rough draft of 50,000 words toward a book. So I am doing it. The second part, editing my work, is where my analytical OCD is battling me. Tweaking the stories, expanding them, changing the dialogue instead of fixing the grammar and flows.

Each exercise I do I will start to publish them here. They are not ground breaking and most of them I tweak around to make them more creative and challenging for me. You don't have to follow them verbatim but use them in your own way for your daily writing. I have found it's very liberating and frees the mind to break away from your stories and structures and freestyle write about nonsensical topics as creative and in styles you may never use again. Experiment.

We only learn from failures.

Time to turn the page.

Geek To Author - Wattpad

New Year Bring New Writing Focus

So I completed the NaNoWriMo challenge and I have 50,000 words toward a novel completed and sitting in draft mode. My intention was to pick it up but life stepped in once again. My second child arrived in Mid-December and that put everything on the back burner.

The routines are settling in, the holidays are over, the New Year has arrived and in 2014 I am moving forward with my writing. I am going to be integrating my writing during the day, I have to. With a 5 year old and 3 week old in the house, wanted to sleep at some point, writing when I used to later at night isn't a good option. Instead I will write over my lunch hour at work. I'll find a dark conference room and tuck myself away and write in silence.

Using the gift cards I received as gifts I picked up a pretty good book, so far, called Writer with a Day Job. It is more about creating a writing schedule and routine around other busy aspects of ones life whether it's a job, family or other responsibilities. Consistency, consistency, and writing always.

The NaNoWriMo showed me that I can do and I love it. Like everyone else I need to find time to do it because writing isn't going to replace my day job any time soon. Odds are it never will, but that's an assumption I hope I get wrong. But I will never get close to that until I write more often than I do now.

Time to turn the page.

Greetings From The Geek

Lots has happened since I started up this side persona of the Geek to Author. Life happened as we were blessed with another child set to arrive at the end of the year. Work happened. Healthy focused lifestyle happened. Writing as much as I wanted to and what I wanted to write did not.

I was re-reading this blog and saw more posts about excuses and false starts than productive posts about my writing and things learned along the way. I still desire to write, I don't know why it appeals to me. I love to read and what I have wrote I thinks is pretty good. Putting it together in a routine of practice and getting out of this mind set that everything I write must be published is hard.

A writer writes, always. I am not. I am, but not everyday and not fiction. Even this blog has inadvertently turned into a blah blah post about something worthy instead of a blog or journal of the transition of an 20 year veteran IT Geek to an author. My claim to say that I officially am an author is to make 1 sale of an ebook in Amazon (to a complete stranger). That's my goal. Then I can say I did that, if it gets more great, if someone spends time to rate it, good or bad, even better.

Another mistake I have made is trying to get more exposure first with little substance of stories or works to put behind it. I am a mamber of several writing sites, lists, boards. I get daily stories to read that I never get around to, tips everyday, podcasts, and the more time I spend reading those topics I am not spending on writing something. Even if it's a short narrative of what I see outside my office window at a random time during the day, at least it's writing. Who knows, that small idea may spawn into the next big seller.

You will see more posts from me, I promise. More personal posts and less me trying to be a news source of canned inspirational posts, reposts or links to another site. I will if I stumble across something that I find very useful but no more of that stuff just to get a post done.

The Geek will become an author and I want to take you with me.

More to come, I promise.

Posted with Blogsy

Blogging About Story Ideas

As a budding and wanna be writer having this blog about writing. I blog about writing and write about blogging. When you start to cross over and want to get personal with writing about your writing you start to cross into the area of idea sharing without a product. Let me explain what I am trying to say.

I have a journal, several now, full of scribbles, thoughts, story ideas, plot lines, characters and scenery. My over analytical mind I try too hard to build the world first in a sketch mode then write around that instead of building the world with my words... any tips to help me break this cycle please let me know.

Anyway, I want to start writing about these ideas but as a business man I feel I could potentially be giving away ideas without a story behind it for others to take. Do I or don't I? That's the struggle.

For example let's take my Perspectives project idea. I want to get communal conversation around it, heck even having multiple writers working on it would be awesome and true to the Perspectives concept... side note - that's a GREAT idea actually... hmmm, let me chew on that one.

Anyway, if I detail out too much I fear someone else will take it make it their own, claim it as their idea and take it. Although all the blog posts and paper trails will protect me in a lawsuit, which I would fully pursue, but either way do you get where I am coming from?

How do you get your creative juices flowing on an idea before you start writing about it? What if it's so far off and stupid why waste the time on that one where it could be spent elsewhere?

Let's get some feedback... comment away!

Time to turn the page.