Zedephants

Inspiration is a wonderful thing. It makes something so much easier when it just comes to you instead of sitting in front of a computer screen wondering what in the world you’re going to write next. Today that came in the form of a Zedephant.

If you were to ask me what one of my biggest challenges with writing was I would say, grammar. Obviously. Sorry that was a poor way to start that paragraph, but we all do it. It makes me think of a how I met your mother. Barney constantly says he has one rule, and other rubbish of a similar nature, but the rule’s different almost every time. I digress.

Something that has been a challenge in writing is animals. Why are animals so hard? In a fantasy world you have fantastical animals. Right away you have to make a decision do animals I’m familiar with exist in my world, and are they called the same thing. Avatar: the last air-bender does a great job with this. All of it’s animals are mixes of things we’d recognize. It makes it easy to relate to and the name basically says what you’re looking at. Other creatures are staples that everyone recognizes, Dragons, Fairies, Vampires, Werewolves, etc. These creatures you expect your audience to have some idea of what they’re looking at.

When you create a unique animal you are suddenly stuck with describing it. If you’ve decided to omit the creature that would best match it’s description you’ve suddenly given yourself the challenge of describing something that is almost like something that isn’t that something. Your description would probably be as confusing as this paragraph.

A Zedephant is an elephant. How does a brain work? Look above. Somehow while sitting in a car driving to the zoo we got talking about elephants. To mess with my son I began switching the first two letters for fun, mephant, pephant, zedephant. All those names got me thinking about new animals I could introduce into my fictional world. This lead to my complicated thoughts regarding the challenge of describing those creatures. Thus I present you with a literal form of word vomit.

To be, or not to be

“To be, or not to be: that is the question” Hamlet says as he contemplates the meanings of life and death. That’s a big question we all ask ourselves these days. It’s a big question in the world right now. While we may not be contemplating life and death, we often contemplate our purpose in life. We wonder what paths we need to take, where we may end up, and what we might have to suffer on the road. To be, or not to be.

What part does this play in writing?

For a long time I’ve written casually. Yes, even now these very words are casual and leisurely, but my real burden was whether I wanted to consider myself a writer. I’ve never identified myself as such. I’ve joined groups on Facebook, worked occasionally on personal stories, even started blogs where I could have more freedom and ability to write. I did all this with little commitment. To be, or not to be.

Recently I gained a new perspective. Writing is something I’ve always loved why not work at it? Why not make it into something more then just working on things when I feel like it? I always have the desire, it just comes second to easier relaxation. So I worked to make a commitment for myself. I wanted to write and so I wanted to be a writer. I know I’m no pro. honestly I question my ability daily, but that’s what deciding to be is about. To be, or not to be.

By deciding “to be” a writer I’ve taken on some of the challenges, learning grammar, structure, and all the millions of things that make writing better. I commit to becoming better, taking criticism, putting my work in the eyes of the world. But by doing all that it allows me to stretch the muscles I’ve always wanted to. Become more of the person I always thought I was. I chose “to be”.

I could have just as easily chose “not to be”. In some ways it would have been easier, but in a lot of ways it would be harder. I know as long as my efforts to be a writer doesn’t hurt the people I love more than writing, that I have the power “to be.”

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:”

Inspiration

I think inspiration is a fitting topic for a Sunday morning. Even if you’re not religious Sunday is a day we seek out inspiration. We’ve had Saturday to rest from work, we’ve had a night were we’ve gotten plenty of sleep, or not enough. Sunday can be whatever we want it to be. Now this could be any day in the week, but Sunday is the universal last day of the weekend. The recovery day we prepare for the week again.

Inspiration comes from many things. Some people find God inspiring, some find being in nature inspiring, and some find inspiration through imagination.

When writing stories I think it’s easy to see God’s inspiration on the writers. Often times the stories aren’t fiction at all, but amplified reality. Other’s write stories with a god-type figure that embodies the god they believe in. In some stories the god figure isn’t present at all, but the morals are. In any case, those inspired by God show that in their stories.

I love nature. I love to breath it in. I love to look at it. I love to imagine how it will fit in my fictional world. Looking at tree’s, hills, mountains, fields, etc. I look at them with the eyes of my characters wondering where they might see this, and how would they describe it if they saw it. I think nature takes a big part in inspiring writers.

Imagination is the key to inspiration in writing. For me, the most amazing parts of my story came to me, not while writing, but while thinking about my story during the day. When I was young I would act out the characters’ lives in my backyard, now I just imagine the story like a film playing in my head. Often this imagination dies out as we grow older. Too much real world to deal with. I know imagination is what inspires me to keep writing.

Everyone is inspired differently. These are only a few ways people are inspired. What inspires you? What moves you forward? I think when we answer these for ourselves we can move more smoothly through life.

Write. Write. Write and Rewrite.

In the process of writing, something that is both very important, and sometimes extremely debilitating is rewriting.

First of all, rewriting is important, necessary in most cases. The first draft should be information dump. You want to get everything out on the page so you don’t miss all the amazing parts of your imagination. For a creative writer it’s important to get the information from the imaginary to the physical. Now that it’s on paper, or computer, now’s the time to make it make sense. For the writer the story seems great, but more often then not a reread of what you’ve put down will reveal plot holes, grammar mistakes, items important in the beginning disappear, etc.

Writing is a unique art. Unlike painting or music it’s much harder to get a look at the big picture. Painters can take a step back, musicians can listen through their track, but writer’s have to go back and reread everything, but what’s worse we have to separate our brain reading the story the way we meant it to be read to reading it how we’ve written it.

It would be the equivalent of a painter painting a portion of a picture. They rush through each section, realizing they’ve made mistakes, but their not sure exactly how they want the picture to look yet. Once they finish they step back and see each section put together in one big picture. It looks horrible, the sections don’t go together, there are color’s within each section that don’t match the flow.

Rewriting is essential.

On the other hand, rewriting can be the ending. When writing poetry, or a short story, rewriting isn’t much of a chore. When it only takes a minute or too to read through what’s been written in a few hours you can edit and rewrite multiple times, but for a novel. When your verging on 70 to 80 thousand words rewriting can take months. The craziest part is the time is a small reason rewriting is so crippling.

Everyone wants their story to come out perfectly. Like the painter we can see every stroke that doesn’t match, every section that doesn’t quite line up how we wanted it to. It’s only us though. As the artist we can see the whole of what we’ve created vs what we wanted, but our audience only see’s the art. If the perfectionist bug bites you while creating a story, you’ll never finish. With novels by the time you halfway through a rewrite you’ve already learned a lot making the edits at the beginning of your book outdated.

Rewriting is important, but it can’t take over. At some point the rewriting needs to end. The best way is getting the words in front of a chosen audience who can help you know if the story is being understood how you would like it to be. Rewriting makes the difference between organized thoughts and dreams that are a foggy image that fades before we have a chance to remember it.

Writer’s block, writer’s block. Always got writer’s block!

Writer’s block is a funny thing. I think when we hear that short phrase we immediately think, creativity block. Writer’s block is more than that. Writer’s block is when you’ve written, then gotten occupied with life, so now when you return to your project you’re wondering how it all fits together again. Writer’s block is when you’re not quite sure how the story is meant to move forward. Writer’s block is when you realize your grammar is terrible and you feel like you’ll never create something tangible to anyone but yourself.

This blog is part of overcoming the last stumbling block. I’m not afraid to admit that although I struggle with grammar and often find myself correcting my your’s, there’s, and even too’s, that doesn’t have to stop me. If you’re reading this and you find mistakes, awesome! When you see them and mention them suddenly I learn what mistakes I make quite often. By putting work on the table for others to see it helps improve writing.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at my story and said to myself, “Why would my characters make that decision”. I see it in other books too. That’s a big part of character-building understanding why a character would make certain choices within the story. For me, this often brings up a rewrite. I find myself changing the story to match up with my character’s expectations or with a more logical line of thinking.

For example; In my story there is an injury that occurs the brings my characters to a certain village. Initially, they chose this village because it was the only one with the proper medicine to mend the wound. I spend much time thinking through this and why it had to be so, even creating an entire backstory to the village as to make it look more probable they would have this necessary medicine. Then, like a flash of light, I realized it was common sense for them to head to this village. First off, they are fleeing an enemy, this village is the closest with a healing facility outside their enemies’ jurisdiction. There doesn’t even need to be a second off, it just makes that much sense. Built my own writer’s block for something simple.

The last type of writer’s block I fall into all the time. I’ll be working hard on a chapter, inspiration pouring like a waterfall onto the pages. Then, like a sudden damn has been placed up the river, life hit’s and normal obligations pull me from my chapter. It can’t be helped and most of the time I’m being pulled away by my family who I’m happy to turn away from my computer for any time. Needless to say, my chapter is left unfinished. When I finally return, whether it be a few days or even a few weeks, I’m looking at the story longing for a reminder of what wonderful inspiration I had for it before. This can stop me from writing for weeks. Every time I get to the chapter I worry I’m going to ruin it. Destroy the beautiful picture I had painted in my mind when I had written before.

The good thing is writer’s block never lasts. Sometimes mindless writing, that messes up the story a little, leads into the inspired writing you’re looking for. It breaks that wall and lets the water pour back down onto the pages. If you’re stuck, move forward. I think that’s applicable to almost all things in life, don’t let feeling stuck stop you from moving, because each step helps break away the stiffness in your legs.

Introducing… me

Introducing… Me

The first question you ask yourself when beginning a blog. Why am I doing this? Do I really have something to offer? Is my skill appropriate to tackle it? All these and more bug me as I sit here writing my first blog.


That last statement is not completely true. I’ve begun blogs in the past. Hell, this one might not even stick, although I’m hopeful. The reason I think I’ve failed in the past is expecting too much from it. A blog was always a means to an end, and when that end didn’t come fast enough it was easy to forget about and move on. Now I’m hoping it will be more a means to a beginning.


Writing for me began when I was young. I grew up in a religious family where we took Sunday rest seriously. Video games were off, no movies that did not have religious context, and no going out with friends. Sundays were a day we spent together as a family, even if that spending together was in our beds trying to figure out a way to occupy our minds without our usual media outlets. For me, that was writing.


My story began as a star wars origin story. I’d built this wonderous world where our short green master was once a human that was cursed by someone to eventually become the alien we all recognize from the movies. It was simple, characters all had names that matched the movies, foreshadowing, and there was a wonderful love story between the characters.


I loved writing by hand. I worked hard on my penmanship to have the prettiest words I could create. I look back on it now and can’t read many of the words, especially those that got too fancy. Over the years writing took a back seat to a lot of the other artistic outlets I had. I acted, sang, and even dabbled in drawing. My high school theater was what took up a majority of my time. My biggest problem, I was no good when it came to grammar.


To this day I struggle with my concept of grammar. I’m sure many professionals can barely read this without struggling to break through the many instances of bad grammar. I had to break through that barrier myself, so I keep writing.


Now as a 28-year-old, working for Amazon awaiting my time to begin Air Traffic Controlling I’m writing again. My story has developed into an entire world full of history, culture, and war. I imagine as J. R. R. Tolkien was creating the world of middle-earth he felt the same passion for that world that I do of the one I’ve created. Each day as I develop it more I hope to give these characters a life outside of my laptop. Maybe one day.


For now, I write here. Here I will post my journey as I continue to build this world. I’ll share thoughts of what is shown and what is behind the curtains of the story. How issues of the day are inside the story and even how my beliefs affect the story. Sometimes I’ll even share why I believe a story can contain ideas that are contrary to my personal beliefs.


So, welcome to my journey, and come along if you’d like. I can’t say every moment will be an adventure, but why risk missing out.