The Writing Muse (s)

Last night while I was watching Van Helsing, I wrote a short story. It had nothing to do with the movie - or really anything else. It was about a childhood memory of a Chinese immigrant. Funny, how these things work. So far, I have about four short stories (in addition to the one that's included in Bed and Breakfast) and no place to put them. I was thinking of uploading them to my website, but then thought that maybe I'd save them and someday put them together in a book. Problem is that they are all different genres. Two are Fantasy, one is a sweet romance, and this one is what I'd call mainstream. I can't imagine any publisher actually publishing them.

But, what I really get out of it is the ability to create stories in all different genres without worry. Afterwards, I feel recharged and able to negiotate the next scene in my current WIP.

Diana

Resolution Time!

Ah yes, the beginning of a brand new year, and time to make some resolutions.
I decided to look up "resolution"--it has several meanings. In this case we are talking about a formal statement expressing will or intent. Yet the word also means the process of resolving and "resolve" means to break up into parts: analyze.
If you are a writer, and you intend to make 2007 a productive year, then perhaps taking your writing tasks and breaking them into smaller parts, then analyzing what you need to do in smaller steps along the way might actually work!
Now I don't mean going totally anal and filling up notebook after notebook with plots and plans and notes. I've been there/done that and trust me, it didn't work--I had a dozen notebooks full of notes and never wrote that particular book...
However, I've been working on some short stories for several upcoming anthology books, and I noticed something interesting about my writing process. For the first story I jotted down one page of notes to myself--about my main characters and their traits, and some of the situations I wanted to use within the story. I wrote that story in less than a week!
The second story, well, I confess--I got lazy and didn't make my scribbled page of notes. Guess what? I've been working on it for several weeks, I'm only at the half-way point, and I'm not sure where the characters are supposed to go or how it's going to end.
The next sound you hear will be me opening up my spiral notebook and scribbling away with my trusty pencil... Check back in a week or two--I'm resolving right now to get that story finished!
Good luck with your resolutions--Linndah