Daily Inspiration (Warning: Graphic Image)

Prompt: "Here he is . . . poor kid."

Suggested Listening: If I Die Young - Band Perry

Quote: There are things in life that we just can't control. The world isn't a happy place and most of the time, we aren't happy in it. We need to take the good and the bad from everything, decide which we're going to keep close to our hearts, and keep our faces turned skywards. - Yours Truly.



Not everything is going to be sunshine and rainbows in your life. The same should be said about your story. If nothing goes wrong and everybody is happy through the whole story, go back to your planning stages and take a good hard look at what you've got. If you can't bear to put your characters through even a minor hardship, maybe you need to think about giving writing a little bit of a break for awhile.

It isn't wrong to love your characters, and it isn't wrong to want the best for them - these feelings should never interfere with your desire to tell a good story. Don't get so attached to your characters that you sob and cringe at the thought of letting anything, however small, bad happen to them. As much as they exist in your imagination, they aren't real people who will hate you if you write in a breakup or write in the death of a loved one.

Learning to treat my characters as characters was a hard lesson I had to learn a long time ago, and needed to remind myself of tonight.

I apologize if the picture stunned/shocked you.


Peace.

Daily Inspiration

Prompt: A coffee shop at midnight.

Suggested Listening: So Small - Carrie Underwood

Quote: The Master said: "Artful speech and ingratiating demeanour rarely accompany virtue. The Analects Of Confucius, Book One: Concerning Fundamental Principles.



I'll be posting this one again before November and the National Novel Writing Month challenge starts, because this is possibly the best way I can think of to emphasize how important it is to give your writing the same amount of time, effort and care that you give to everything else in your life.

Try thinking of your writing area as a train station, and your physical body as the train. Now make yourself a schedule to stop at your writing area every day, at the same time every day, for the same amount of time every day. Once you have this pattern of arriving, writing and departing, you'll find it easier to get yourself into the mindset of writing every day during that time.

Miss a day? Arrive early or late? Don't worry about it. The trains don't always run on time either, but they always get there eventually.

Daily Inspiration

Prompt: A rare old book covered in fresh blood.

Suggested Listening: Remember - Josh Groban

Quote: I then realized my appearance was a bit odd. My right leg was no longer with me. It had caught somewhere in the top of the cockpit as I tried to leave my Spitfire. - Douglas Bader



Guess what everybody? I'm back!

Daily Inspiration

Prompt: There is a very strange egg in a basket on the neighbor's doorstep.

Suggested Listening: Call Me - Shinedown

Quote: Our destinies lay not in the stars, but ourselves. - Unknown



There is a special throne in heaven for poets who labor in obscurity. The rest of us harbor an unexpressed hope for fame and glory.

You might be tempted to write for a market. You might be tempted to ride the crest of a trend.

That kind of writing is about as stable and fulfilling as day-trading.

Write what moves you. Write what interests you. Write what frightens you. Write what thrills you. Take a cue from the poets, bless their underfunded little hearts. From: The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood.

Daily Inspiration

Prompt: When God made the world, he asked: What's my motivation?

Suggested Listening: The Alice In Wonderland soundtrack - various artists

Quote: We are blessed and sustained by what is not said. - Unknown



Butterflies. No deep, insightful piece of wisdom today, just . . . butterflies.

Daily Inspiration

Prompt: Cookies made with fresh Espresso.

Suggested Listening: Can't Come Quickly - Scissor Sisters

Quote: Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. - Willy Wonka, the Remake


If you're stuck and have been for more than three days, move on. Leave what you're stuck on and just skip ahead to the next plot point or character conversation. It won't vanish if you don't finish it, I promise, and you can always go back later when you feel you're ready to do it.

An Apology

To all my readers - all two of you that I know about, and all the ones I don't - I am extremely sorry for my week-long radio silence. I wish I could say that I'll be updating very, very soon, but that would be lying and I dislike doing that. I've been working very hard to graduate - going to college is just a little more important to me than keeping regular updates in a blog at the moment.

The crunch is over on Monday, June 14th. Regular, daily posts will resume then.

Keep writing,
Seriah

Daily Inspiration

Prompt: "Well. That was entertaining. Now what's for dinner?"

Suggested Listening: Once Upon A December - from Disney's Anastasia

Quote: Jesters do oft prove prophets. -William Shakespeare



Writing can be hard on the body. Don't forget to get up and stretch, often! While you're stretching, say a prayer, recite a poem, hum a song . . . keep yourself in a meditative state. - From The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood.

Daily Inspiration

Prompt: You're going on a date with somebody you met on the bus on your way to work this morning.

Suggested Listening: Will You Remember - The Cranberries

Quote: How quaint. Somehow, you've managed to delude yourself into thinking that I care about you, when really . . . I don't. - Angeline Devries



Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Cleanliness is also very good for your mind. Today, take all the projects you haven't touched in weeks, put them all into a folder on your desktop (or a three-ring binder if you're working with a pen and paper) and put it away. I think you'll find that once you've got a nice clean, clear space to work with, it'll be easier for you to concentrate on the here and now, as opposed to getting distracted with things from the past.

But don't throw anything away. Who knows? Something might be worth going back to eventually.

Daily Inspiration

Prompt: A macaroni picture of a gruesome murder.

Suggested Listening: Rat In A Cage - Smashing Pumpkins

Quote: People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. -Hermann Hesse



Description, description, description. The extremes are nothing but, and everything but. The happy medium is just enough. Today, pick one aspect of your least favorite character and apply both extremes to the description. Aim for three or four pages of floral, vapid, disgusting prose about one aspect of this trait, and maybe one sentence on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Once that's done, find the happy medium.