Controlling the Magic

I've really been struggling with this gift / curse of a creative mind. I once said to my husband, "I wonder what it would be like to live in only one world at a time."

His reply was, "Well, you'll never know."

At least he's getting it. Dear man!

In my current project, I'm exploring the concept of magic as something that rises innately within the characters and which they struggle to control. Not a novel idea, I know, but new to me.

Anyway, a funny thought occurred to me as I was musing last night over this puzzle of how to function in the workaday world as a creative soul: What if I think of writing as magic?


What if when I feel that urge, I think of suppressing it as the same kind of skill my characters must learn, and releasing it when called upon, another skill? A whimisical thought, but I'm grasping at anything these days.

What have you, dear fellow bloggers, done to control the muse during your non-writing hours? Please... tell me.

A quick, silver cut
Kills hope
Quickening the tide of grief
For story's leaving

Update

Yeah, so, not so much progress on the editing front. I need to edit something like 4,500 words a day to be done by the end of the month. hahahahahahaha  *gasp* hahahahahaha


But we had a great weekend in North Carolina, looking at possible property to purchase for a future home after my husband retires. Decisions, decisions. How'd you like to wake up in the morning and have this be the view from your bedroom window?

Or how about this one?

Or, we could get a less expensive, wooded lot and just walk up the road a short piece to enjoy the view.

But which to choose?

Sunday Snapshot

It's time for a Sunday Snapshot! I haven't done one of these in ages.

Post an excerpt (100 words or less) of the last thing you wrote. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to be good... it just has to be yours! Here's mine:

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“Car accident. If anyone asks, I was in a car accident.” 

Crystal fumbled with her keys at the back door of her Sea Island, New Jersey, cottage.  She dropped them with a clatter on the wooden deck and reached down to pick them up again. Nervous sparks arced between her fingers.  

 “And staticky.”

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Pre-Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month. "NaNoWriMo."  InCaUDiNo. (In case you didn't know.) Every year I lament the fact that I can't start anything new for NaNo because I'm still working on the same book  I started in 2007.

But this year I am going to do it. Which means I have to FINISH  The Golden Gryphon. I have set a deadline for myself of Sept. 30th to finish my revisions. Then I'm going to give it to a couple of beta readers, make a basket of reeds and send my baby out to sink or float on the great river of query slush.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Are you planning to do NaNo this year? How are you preparing for it?

Show Your Villains Some Love

What makes a good villain?  Is it the clothes, the snarky dialogue, the diabolically evil plots? We all know they need motivation and depth. But how deep? How much motivation? Do you develop backstory for your villains as well as for your heros?

Do tell.

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The photo above is my favorite villain of all time, the fantastically tortured Brian de Bois-Gilbert of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, portrayed to perfection by the incredibly sexy Ciaran Hinds. I love that man so much, I even recognized him as Aberforth Dumbledore in "The Deathly Hallows, Part II" under all that makeup. It made the movie that much sweeter, knowing he was in it. It's the eyes, oh my God, those eyes! And that slow, rich British cadence to his voice. And that he looks damn fine holding a sword, thank you very much.

Health is the first muse

Health is the first muse, and sleep is the condition to produce it.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is it about writers that we wear our lack of sleep like a badge?  We often write about such young, vigorous characters and yet we ourselves are models of poor health, myself included.

If only I had the energy to caper about as they do. I might if they didn't keep me up so late.