Art, Or Where My Brain Is Before A Trip

I'd intended to write up a post about Wonder Woman, really I did. But my brain doesn't want to form anything coherent right now. (Hopefully I'll write up some comments for a later post, unless I get too distant from when I watched the movie).

It could be anxiety because it's been 4 years since I've ventured away from the family on my own for a long stretch of time (I've dealt with different levels of anxiety all my life, especially social anxiety, and no I haven't been diagnosed, but it does run in my family). Or it could be all the things on my to do list freezing up my molecules, especially my neurons. Probably a combination of both. I'll push through to at least get the necessary stuff done. But a thoughtful blog post? Hahahaha. Not right now.

Sooooo... pretty pictures! I poked around Pixabay for some neat ones simply using the search term "fantasy". Art definitely makes me smile and helps me shove down some of that anxiety, even if for only a brief moment.

First up is this haunted looking train. Definitely neat. I'm sure I've seen it other places around the internet. But I picked this one because I'll be hopping on a train tomorrow! Let's hope it's not a ghost train, shall we?

I also found this neat idyllic scene. I love the face in the tree and the blue butterflies make it pop. What do you think the woman in the picture is thinking? She looks deep in thought. I wonder if her hair hides pointed ears. This might be a good one to do a free write based on and see where it takes me (maybe while I'm on the train)!

And I love this one. Unicorns are my thing. I have a black unicorn tattoo. One of my friends also made me a Unicorno addict (those little figures are so expensive - lol). I love how the edits are done in this picture, though. Makes it all look more realistic. Oh, and I'm also seeking many, many unicorns right now: balance, writing career success, convincing my 3-year-old to not be so stubborn and willful...

Have any pretty art that you've found recently and love?

Thorns Entwine the Blade ~ Soundtrack

So, last week I posted the soundtrack to Mind Behind the Mind (Trinity Torn, 1). This week I'm posting the soundtrack to Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2)!

If you look on the left side and scroll down a bit, you'll see my word count trackers. Thorns is over halfway through the first draft! It's coming, word by word, even with my kids driving me crazy and making it hard to write. Right now, I'm aiming for an early 2018 release. Hopefully that's not too long for all of you to wait between the first and second novel. One of these days I'll be able to write faster (two and a half years until the youngest is in Kindergarten).

One of the things you'll notice about this list is that some of the songs are the same. I mean, those songs completely evoke the mood of my series for me, so you know you'll see some repeats for the final novel when it's being written, too.

Here's some amusement: I'm listening to Pandora while I write this post, and one of the songs (found on both of the lists) just played while I was typing. Serendipity?

Oh... you want to know which song? How about this. Guess! Put your guess in the comments of this post, and if you get it right within the next two weeks (when my next post is planned), I'll send you a bookmark of Mind Behind the Mind once I make them in the next couple of months. Sorry don't have them yet to show you, but I'll be working on them soon! I'll let any winners know two weeks from this post if they got it right by replying to their comments, and give an email address where you can let me know your mailing address if you want me to send you a bookmark. ;)

Anyway, here's the soundtrack I'm listening to while drafting Thorns Entwine the Blade:

Monster by Skillet
How You Remind Me by Nickelback
Stay by Shakespear's Sister
Always by Saliva
The Unforgiven by Metallica
Nothing's Broken by Digital Daggers
Miles of Rain by Otherwise
Outlaw Blues by Pat Benatar
Where Do I Hide by Nickelback
Haunting by Halsey
One Second by Paradise Lost
Orestes by A Perfect Circle
Broken by Seether (Featuring Amy Lee)
Hands of Time by Rachel Diggs
In the End by Linkin Park
Burn Away (III Reprise) by Otherwise
Bleed For Me by Digital Daggers
Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Lorde (cover - original by Tears for Fears)

So, are these songs any better than my last list? Or are you still wrinkling your nose at my taste in music?

I almost forgot! See that hand with the ball of energy? Yes, that's a sneak peek of the Thorns Entwine the Blade cover! Next month I'll be doing an early cover reveal for my newsletter subscribers. If you're eager to see the whole thing sooner rather than later, make sure you Subscribe to my Newsletter.

Happy reading and happy listening, everyone!

Mind Behind the Mind ~ Soundtrack

I've mentioned in the past how music inspires me. For the most part, I always listen to specific songs when I'm drafting a novel or short story. Back in 2012, I posted my soundtrack for Dead As Dreams (don't worry, the revisions for that novel are still on my to do list, but it's looking like not until 2018 now - must finish Thorns Entwine the Blade). Well, I realized now that I never posted the soundtrack for Mind Behind the Mind (Trinity Torn, 1)!

I'm about to rectify that problem. ;) Below is the list of songs that I listened to through many drafts of Mind Behind the Mind. And I mean many, since this was my original thesis for my M.A. (Dead As Dreams was my project when I went to get that F to squeeze between the M and the A). Every time one of these songs pops up for me "in the wild" I can't help but think of Tessa and Bastian - especially the first song.

How You Remind Me by Nickelback
Amazed by The Offspring
Cemetery Gates (Demon Knight Edit) by Pantera
Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins
Good Times Gone by Nickelback
If You Could Only See by Tonic
In the End by Linkin Park
Orestes by A Perfect Circle
Outlaw Blues by Pat Benatar
Mountain by Tonic
Outside by Staind
Stay by Shakespear's Sister
Summer Breeze by Type O Negative
The Unforgiven II by Metallica
Where Do I Hide by Nickelback

Are these songs what you expected? What kind of emotions do they invoke in you? Or do you just think my taste in music sucks? Lol.

Anyway, since I'm in the middle of the first draft of Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2), I thought it would be great to post the soundtrack for that next week. Maybe you'll even get to see a tiny portion of the cover art, too!

And if you haven't grabbed a copy of Mind Behind the Mind (Trinity Torn, 1) yet, you can find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play. I'm hoping to have Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2) released at the beginning of 2018!

Fantasy Image Intermission

I need a week off from lengthy blogging, but I thought it would be nice to post something! So, I snagged a few fantasy pictures from Pixabay. These are free use, but if you search fantasy on the site, you should be able to find them in the first two or three pages.

The first one reminds me of a Fate story I started ages ago (Three of Swords - Sorrow) and really need to continue! I won't caption any of the other pictures, but maybe you can get some inspiration from the images below. Or at least they'll put a smile on your face. I love writing fantasy, and using words to tell stories is awesome, but I always appreciate how pictures can tell a story too. Enjoy!

Writing Prompt #3: A Picture Can Inspire A Thousand Words

Any past Tips & Prompts can be found on my website: Writing Tips & Prompts.

Writing Prompt #3: A Picture Can Inspire A Thousand Words

I bet you've already figured out what this prompt is about from the title. It's not a new idea, by any means. I've suggested using music before for inspiration, but sometimes all you need is something visual to set you off and start a story. One picture could give you an idea for an entire novel!

So, go take a search through some art on the internet. There's a lot of it. A couple good places to start could be Deviant Art (hey, if you find something you really like, maybe you can buy it or have the artist make you a custom creation) or maybe even Pixabay (I use this one a lot to find pictures for my website and blog posts, since all art here is under public domain - free to use).

Once you stumble across an image that kind of pulls at you, that you can see the kernel of a story in, look at it for a while and brainstorm. Or maybe you don't even need to brainstorm--a wave of inspiration could strike you right when you behold a beautiful piece of art. The most important thing is to write! It doesn't even need to be accurate to the picture--the picture can simply inspire something else, like dominoes lined up. You flick one and they all fall over, one after another.

Then when you're done with however much you decide to write, take a look at the picture again and feel the connection between what you see and what you just wrote. A million pictures could inspire a million different stories, you just have to look around to see what kind of art inspires you.

Here is a picture from Pixabay that I found inspiring. Do you? I'd love to see a snippet of writing you may come up with when looking at this picture. If you'd like to share, please post in the comments.

I'll post my own snippet below. If you don't want it to spoil your own inspiration, don't read it until you're done writing.

I'd been traveling for weeks. So many believed the vast oceans of the past to be endless, but they had nothing on the sky. Not only could you travel over water, but land as well. And most of civilization had crumbled to dust, so if you veered off course, there was no telling when you'd find a place to rest, to bolster your supplies.

And I'd done just that. Lost in a hurricane, barely escaping with my life and ship intact. Some say I should be thankful. I'd rather lose my life from a storm, though, than starvation and dehydration. Fast was always better.

Finally, I spied an island, one of the many splinters of earth that had fractured off during the Sundering. A tiny splinter. With a tiny tower. And a single old man that looked like he could have been alive for the Sundering itself.

NEXT UP: April Update

Soundtrack for Dead As Dreams

If you haven't noticed yet, my word count meter for Dead As Dreams is at 100%. I officially finished the rough draft on Monday, after 3 sessions which totaled 5 hours that day for a word count total of over 5000 words (more than 20 pages!). =)

Of course I still have a lot of work ahead--some world-building development and tons of revision, but it still feels great to have typed THE END.

So, I thought it would be neat to post the soundtrack I listened to while writing the rough draft (and which I will continue listening to for subsequent drafts). The first song on this list is the one that gave me the idea for the novel in the first place, at least the one that incited visions of my main female character.

Behind Blue Eyes by Limp Bizkit (cover, the original written by The Who)
The End of Heartache by Killswitch Engage
Lightning Crashes by Live
Sweet by Switchblade Symphony
Papercut by Linkin Park
Hurt by Nine Inch Nails
Within Me by Lacuna Coil
Winter Born (This Sacrifice) by The Crüxshadows
Save Yourself by Stabbing Westward
Amen by Jewel
More Than This by The Cure
In Time by Mark Collie
The Only One by Evanescence

Do you listen to music when you write? Have you listened to any of the songs above? If so, what emotions and images do they evoke for you?

Writing Prompt #2 - Chain Stories

My apologies for posting this later than intended, but Blogger was down almost all day yesterday.


Any past Tips & Prompts can be found on my website: Writing Tips & Prompts.

Writing Prompt #2 - Chain Stories

So, what's a chain story? A chain story is when two or more people get together and go back and forth, adding bits to a story. Each person could write one sentence, one paragraph, or even one page (or more, if people are so inclined to attempt a chain novel).

This isn't to be confused with collaboration, though. Collaborating with another writer on a story or a novel is something that takes a lot more thought and planning. Chain stories take no planning at all! They are very in the moment.

Why write something that is so unplanned and spontaneous?

First, getting together with a group of friends and seeing how a story unfolds when you have to continue from the previous person's addition is just plain fun. Heck, if you have a bunch of writers at a party, it might actually be a great game to play. Most of the chain stories I participate in tend to end up humorous--it makes the stories more fun and off the wall. Lots of laughs all around.

Second, it teaches you how to think (er...write) on your feet. You need the story to still make sense from one entry to the next, and you have no clue what the person before you is going to write until she writes it. This pressure to come up with something on the spot is even harder if you time each person's turn. If you're doing it via e-mail, you can say, allow a day between each response, even less if you're writing the story in a chat or if everyone is together in the same room!

Third, it can get the writing juices flowing. If you're having some issues with Writer's Lack of Motivation (or Writer's Block, but I don't believe in that now, nope, no such thing) writing chain stories with others could just be enough of a push to make your fingers itch to work on your own writing. Like stretching before a run--it gets the blood flowing.

Don't be shy to ask some friends to join in writing a chain story with you. You may even come away with new ideas for your current or a future work in progress.


Now, after this prompt, I thought it would be nice to start a small chain story here. The rules for this one are as follows:

• Each person writes one sentence, taking all sentences that came before into account.
• Post your sentence in the comment section - you can add another new sentence after someone else posts after you. No limit to how many times you can add to the story.
• Don't be afraid to be silly (and don't worry too much about grammar and spelling)!

OK, without further adieu, here is the first sentence:

Luca swirled the water of the pond with his finger, then yanked it back when something nipped at him.


NEXT UP: Chris Stout will be guest blogging!

Born to Write

After years of not doing so, I have finally changed my scrolling marquee. Born to Write. That's my new shtick, and the marquee may remain unchanged again for many years ahead.

Why "Born to Write"?

I was clearing out some old e-mails in my inbox last week, and I came across a couple I had saved from back in 2002 and 2003. There was a reason I saved these e-mails--to remind myself that no matter what, there are other people who believe in me. These e-mails were from my undergraduate advisor (truly more than that, as he allowed me to get away with writing fantasy for assignments in his classes) and in response to applications I had sent out to creative writing graduate programs. I was in quite a miserable state after a couple of rejections.

Well, one sentence in those e-mails struck me again as I read it. He told me: "We both know you were born to write."

It's hard for me to put into words how much I appreciated his support and how his words still touch me. He's right, though--I was born to write.

That sentence was followed by, "Just follow the path best you can through this forest." And that path led me to the Writing Popular Fiction program at SHU, all those years ago (and yes, now I'm back in the program to snag that F). I'm still on that path too. Once in a while the trees close in and I wonder if they'll swallow up the trail, but they don't, and I keep moving.

What does this all mean? That I was Born to Write, of course! So, I'm continuing to slog ahead and push forward. It doesn't matter if I ever get a novel published because that's not going to stop me from writing. I'm going to write until my body grows cold and then is nothing but ashes on the wind.

And I hope, one day, I can touch another writer as I've been touched, to tell someone else that they were Born to Write.