The Story Won't Leave Me Alone

As a writer there are different ways each of us interpret and convey our stories.  Some of us listen to our characters and tell the story that they're telling us.  Some of us line up our characters and tell them what to do.  Some of us do a mixture of the two.  None do exactly the same thing.  We each have our little process and techniques that we cling to because they've become habit.

No matter how we connect with our characters or our story, though, there is one thing that each writer has in common:  Occasionally a story or character will take over our brains.

I'm not talking about literally taking over our lives, of course (though now I'm thinking that would be an awesome idea and I may need to write that in my Shiny New Idea Book.) I mean that the character or story will become something that we can't stop thinking about.

We'll picture scenes, or just the character themselves.  Hear the dialogue running through our heads.  Find that ending that we just have to put down on paper (or in a word document, whatever.)  And it will distract us from anything else we could (or should) be working on.  It doesn't matter if we're in the middle of a novel, these projects overpower anything else until we're left wanting nothing more than to write that story.

Not too long ago I was introduced to a new webzine that a friend of mine helped to start up entitled Insomnia Press. I was reading through their website (including submissions.  I may not write a whole lot of short stories, but I thought I might as well take a look) and I came across the theme to their third issue: Death, Lies and Secrets.

I'll admit, this may seem like a rather broad theme.  When I first read it I thought 'that's it?'  I was going to just navigate away, sure I could never write anything dark enough to fit in either that theme, or the publication itself.

Apparently I was wrong.  (Okay, I hope I was.  I'm not actually done writing yet, and for all I know it could turn out horrible.  I'm going to optimistic this week.)  I had just navigated away from the page when a scene flashed through my head.

I'm not going to give away the story now (as I'm hoping to get it published and all) but it's definitely one of my darker pieces.

This story latched itself into my brain, and it's refusing to let go.  Stubbornly holding on even though I tried to inform it that I'm in the middle of Camp Nano, and I want to finish the novel I've been working on.  It's one of the most insistent stories I've ever come across (and, trust me, I've had some insistent stories.)

After a computer crash that cost me an entire day of writing (no, I didn't kill my computer, yes I wanted to) I decided that 50k words in 4 days, while actually plausible for me, isn't something I was interested in doing during June, so I finally gave in to this driving urge to write the short story.

I started it last night.  While I'm only 500 words in (I can only go up to 5000, so I'm trying to be careful with my words) so far, I think it's fantastic.

I will, of course, be looking for beta readers when I'm done to make sure that it has the impact I'm wanting it to have.  But, until then, I'm looking forward to writing the rest of it.  Even if it's only so I can think about other stories again.

The Necessities of Writing

A couple of weeks ago I made a post about what I use as a writer to help me do what I need to do.  Music and movies, maybe a quiet place where I can concentrate, those were the kinds of things that every writer has that not everyone understands (including other writers).  Today, though, I'm going to talk about something that every writer needs in order for their craft to work.  A computer.

I know, you're thinking that some people write by hand.  You would be right.  There are some out there that do write out their manuscripts by hand.  I personally think they're crazy (though many people think that I'm crazy writing 300k words in a month, so I guess it's more in the eye of the beholder.)  The fact of the matter, though, is that we're no longer living in a day when books are hand written and bound.  Whether writers like to write out their first draft by hand or not, that manuscript does eventually need to make it's way into the computer.

So what happens when your computer breaks down?

Last night I got home from a night out with friends, determined to either do more editing or writing a blog post.  (Yeah, yeah, okay.  I was actually going to procrastinate.  Don't hold it against me.)  Anyway, I turned on the computer, checked out facebook...and my computer crashed.  I tried to wait it out, but nothing was working, and I eventually had to shut the computer down.  When it restarted, windows refused to load.  This continued on for an hour!  One hour of turning off and on my computer trying to make it actually work.  An hour when I could have been editing (or possibly procrastinating.)

I'm sure you can all imagine that I was rather pissed.  A few angry texts were sent out and I swore to my computer that all the money I had set aside was going into buying a new laptop, cause I have had it!

Truthfully, I will probably end up buying a new computer.  I was already planning on buying one next month, however an hour long computer crash isn't something that I can afford on a regular basis.  I spend a lot of time on my computer, and it's not always about facebook or twitter.  Most of the time I'm writing or editing, or even planning.  I do most of that on the computer, and if the one I'm using is going to be unreliable, then I have to shell out the money to replace it. 

I've never been truly serious about anything like I have been with writing.  I think most of my family is surprised that I've actually kept up with it.  I've told them so many ideas for what I was going to do with my life, but it's never lasted even a year.  I always change my mind, or decide that it was a stupid idea in the first place.  Now that I am, though, I can't just neglect the things I need in order to be successful in the writing industry.

So this weekend I will be going out and seeing what laptops are available.  I'll be bringing the tech savvy boyfriend with me so that I'm not buying something that's going to crap out on me as quickly as this one did.  Who knows, I may be the proud owner of a shiny new laptop the next time I'm posting on this blog.  while that would make me happy, it would probably make my bank account not so happy.

But my bank account can complain all it wants to, it's going to fall on deaf ears.  I need reliable tools in order to accomplish my goal.  I can only hope that I find a computer that is in my price range but is still better than this one!