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.

New Story Published - The Buddy Well

I have a collection of stories that are more on the horror side, disturbing maybe, I hope I build them with the right twists to catch the readers off guard. It's over on my Wattpad profile and I call it Creepy Spine Tinglers. In there am putting my short stories that fit this genre. The stories run from a 500 words up to 5,000. Short to short-ish.

My latest I call The Buddy Well. This one is one of the more morbid ones I have put on paper, it definitely could have been more graphic but I left it to the readers to fill in the gaps. I am still working on writing and creating suspense, but that's how you learn. You write many things that suck to get the good stuff out.

Go check it out, leave feedback, enjoy it either way.

Time to turn the page.

Wattpad profile.

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.

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 Everyday Exercise - Remembering Smells

WRITING EXERCISE -

Remembered smells. What’s your earliest memory? How old were you? Try to remember the smells around that memory. Describe it and why you remember it.

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Here's another exercise that will get your mind working overtime. Try to describe something intangible that's subjective to each person. Then recall it from your past.

They do say that the olfactory memory humans are capable of is the strongest, most reliable connection to past memories when there's a smell attached to it.

If I ask you to remember your grandmother's house on a random Saturday afternoon from your childhood, chances are you recall the smell. The very distinct association with that memory.

Have fun with it.

Time to turn the page.

Writing Everyday Exercise - Write about Red

WRITING EXERCISE - Write about the color red without using the word 'red'. Describe it to someone.

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This exercise will really push your mind to the limits. How do you describe something that no one else knows how the other sees it. How do you know that your color red is the same as what other's see? We assume but that's it. Perhaps in our brains the shades are identical but the actual color processed is blue for you where it's red for me.

Another twist on this exercise is thinking about try to explain a car to someone from the 1600s.

This exercise was a good one and from the challenge was the lowest word count productivity that I have done with these 10 minute sessions.

How will you do?

Time to turn the page.

Writing Everyday Exercise - Headline

WRITING EXERCISE - Daily Headlines. Read the first word of the first story headline in today’s newspaper/website. Write that word at the top and go for 10 minutes from there.

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The first story I saw on the Star Tribune website was Caught In A Dark Cult's Embrace. The story was about a nationwide manhunt of a Minnesota native who was a leader of a religious cult. Messed up. For the exercise I used the word caught.

Thinking of the word caught the only logical connection was to catch something that target must be moving, running or doing something to avoid capture. I wrote about a woman on the run. What she was running from or why I didn't get into the details. I eluded to her overall purpose of running, to free someone she knew that was captured by the same group years ago, but never said why.

In 10 minutes you can get the cloudy form of what you were going for but not the details. As I do these exercises I find myself writing about common themes, political thriller, escape, action, which is all fine and good but as you do these exercises I think you also need to change your topics and genres as well. Do these in styles and forms you don't normally write about, truly exercise yourself, go outside whatever box you have built for yourself and you will find more value in doing things like this.

My two cents on the matter, it's working for me, it may not for you but unless you try you will never know.

Time to turn the page.

Writing Everyday Exercise - What time is it?

WRITING EXERCISE - What time is it right now? Take the time and write it down at the top of the page. Create a story around the time. 10 to 20 minutes.

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1:35 PM was my time. I started off with a story of a guy called Wally Plugman being asked for the time. From there I spun out of control and the short turned into a pair of terrorists ready to attack a train station.

I am currently back into political, military thrillers so I had that on the brain. Either way I started off with one idea and I freestyled myself into something completely different. That's the point of these exercises. Break the analytical mind from the creative side and let your creative processing take over before you stop and analyze if it makes sense or not. These exercises aren't supposed to make sense. They are designed to get your brain out of the processing ditch of normality to work in new and fast ways.

Don't think, just write. Your brain will figure out the rest as you go.

Time to turn the page.

Write Everyday Exercise - How Does It Taste?

WRITING EXERCISE: How does it taste? Look around the room you are in right now. Take an object that may or may not be edible and describe how it tastes. Good or bad be as descriptive as you can in 10 minutes.

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This one I had some fun with and grossed myself out writing it. I was in a conference room at work and the only object that was in there worth trying to eat was the whiteboard eraser.

This exercise is more challenging the less edible the object is. Flex your brain, stretch your imagination and put those into words.

This probably won't spawn into your life's work but who cares, you are writing.

Time to turn the page.

Write Everyday - Nearby Streets Exercise

WRITING EXERCISE 

Fun with addresses. What are the three streets that border your neighborhood? List them. Take the there names only, numbers for streets, and write something silly with them. Keep writing.

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Writing is writing and not every exercise has to make sense. Let go from your norm and have fun. This one is designed for just that. Take the streets around you and go nuts with silliness. 

The streets around me are full names, not numbers, so I created three characters and made a goofy short about them meeting in a universal fate angle. At the end, in the 20 minutes I spent on it, I tried to build up that their meeting was for a reason. At the end they bumped into each other on a street corner, said excuse me and went about their day. The silliness was with the characters I created. The first was an accountant that collected bottle caps but only ones that have been removed, dented, by a bottle opener. The second guy was a pierced out bike mechanic in his mid 20s that dreamed of having children running around his house one day. But when he hangs around the Children's Museum staring at the boys you could see he is not getting a family through marriage, a little morbid but I blame the news tonight from that idea. The third guy is a monster of a man, Russian circus performer, that is currently the bearded woman but looks forward to his promotion to dwarf tosser. 

Silly enough? If you are going to go silly, might as well go silly.

Time to turn the page. 

Write Everyday - Through The Window Exercise

WRITING EXERCISE  

What’s out your window? 

Write about the weather, sky, buildings, treetops. Let your writing take you wherever, place and time. Write for 10 minutes.

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For the next several posts, about 20 or so, the exercises are designed for the busy, career laden writer. 10 minutes is what's required but the longer the better. No planning, no thinking, no editing. Just write, let the mistakes flow, write as you think. The point of these exercises is to break your mind from analytical overthinking and let the subconscious creativity take over. 

My output for this exercise I wrote while I was working at home and in between meetings. I got about 15 minutes of silence and what I wrote started out to be what i saw out my office window but turned into having mysterious undertones of a single man who was in the middle of this suburban neighborhood surrounded by families. Working on something secret where during the day the streets were silent as everyone was at work, kids were at school, but soon they would all return to make noise. I think the character came from one of my neighbors who is just like that. A single guy, no one knows, someone that we rarely ever see, his house is always dark and everyone in the neighborhood is a young family. What is he doing here? Who could he be?

Anyway, that's where this exercise went for me. You let your mind take you on your own journey.

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

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.

Creative Thinking Is Not Reserved For Artists

"The sorcery and charm of imagination, and the power it gives to the individual to transform his world into a new worold of order and delight, makes it one of the most treasured of all human capacities."
- Frank X. Barron

I have written posts recently about thinking and getting organized. The structure of thinking more effectively is important but thinking creatively is the core of coming up with those solutions in the first place. Imagination or creative thinking is one ingredient success cannot do without. Imagination is what creates better filing systems, better bookkeeping, better websites, better games, more unique applications and easier working conditions. There is room for imagination in ANY business and walk of life.

As a manager or employee don't be afraid to use or accept imaginative thinking. Some lines of business' depend on it. The more you see it, the more you use it the better it will become. No one becomes proficient in any endeavor until they have been 'in the trenches' a little while.

Like anything else that you want to be good at you must practice creative thinking and using your imagination. If you practice kindness, you become a kinder person. If you practice JAVA, you become a better JAVA programmer. If you practice creative thinking, you use your imagination more.

Sadly nowadays most of us have fallen into a mental rut that's difficult to climb out of. In time past people HAD to practice creativity to live and in some cases survive. In today's way of life with the technological conveniences all around imaginative exercise is not as necessary for the masses. The gadgets provide enough filler for all of us.

The other aspect of today's way of life ties into the business environments we have created. In my previous post about Functional Stupidity I talk about how the business world, not all, aren't open for imaginative thoughts. Aside from that self-inflicted restriction, most people are afraid or embarrassed to try to create new ideas. Fear of rejection, what people will say, humiliation concerns...all rubbish. If they do come up with new creative ideas they don't have enough confidence or corporate support to deliver them.

Don't worry about what others think, only go by what you think. If it gets rejected, then it gets rejected. At least you are being creative and assertive. All it takes is one of you creative ideas to be accepted to get you success.

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success before they gave up." - Thomas Edison

You are only limited by your own imagination.

The other excuse people will give in their busy lives is that they have no time...
You can find time for EVERYTHING if it's important to you.

"Does thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of"
- Benjamin Franklin

Time To Turn The Page

33 Ways To Stay Creative

All this talk about thinking, organization, creativity can be overwhelming. When you look at it from a higher level it's really quite simple. As I read I use Evernote to save anything and everything motivating and inspiring. From time to time they actually come in quite handy like this list below. 33 Ways To Stay Creative. Why 33? Why not? It's different.

1. Make Lists
2. Carry A Notebook EVERYWHERE (digital notebooks work too)
3. Free Write
4. Get Away From The Computer
5. Be Otherworldly
6. Quit Beating Yourself Up
7. Take Breaks
8. Sing In The Shower
9. Drink Coffee/Tea
10. Know Your Roots
11. Listen To New Music
12. Be Open
13. Surround Yourself With Creative People
14. Get Feedback
15. Collaborate
16. Don't Give Up
17. Practice, Practice, Practice
18. Allow Yourself To Make Mistakes
19. Go Somewhere New
20. Watch Foreign Films
21. Count Your Blessings
22. Gets Lots Of Rest
23. Take Risks
24. BREAK THE RULEs
25. Do More Of What Makes You Happy
26. Don't Force It
27. Read A Page From The Dictionary
28. Create A Framework
29. Stop Trying To Be Someone Else's Perfect
30. Got An Idea? WRITE IT DOWN!
31. Clean Your Workspace
32. Have Fun
33. Finish Something

Time To Turn The Page