Tuesday, March 24, 2015

My So-Called Writing Life ~ @oddlynn3 #LynnCrain #amwriting #PCers



Surgery went well even though there were a few hiccoughs. Most of those again were mainly because of the language barrier and the differences in how the American medical system works versus the Austrian. Here they wanted to keep me a full three days for a surgery that was 20 minutes tops. At home, it would have been in 6 hours at the most for the whole thing. I felt lucky I got out in 36 hours and that was because I convinced my doctor it was for the best.
So finally, we’re back to my writing life but in case people don’t realize it, everything in my life is related to writing. When I take a walk, like I did this past week at Schönbrunn, I look at the people and scenery to see how I can use it. When I’m at a restaurant or the airport, people watching and listening in on loud conversations is the norm. I am discrete and don’t butt in at all unless of course I should.
You’re probably wondering about that last statement. I feel that most things are private but if you decide to bring your dirty laundry out into the open, don’t be surprised if I step on your parade or smack you up the side of your head. And there are only three things where I’d even do that: beating a woman, beating a child, or beating an animal. Those things I would be jumping on someone immediately. And there is a difference between beating a child and disciplining a child. I got spankings and today, some kids deserve a few just to get into line BUT this is just my opinion and I’m allowed to have it.
And opinion forms a lot of my or anyone’s writing. It’s all a matter of perspective and I only have mine. I can try to put myself in my character’s shoes but face it, most of it’s conjecture on what I think they are feeling. I can’t know because I’m not there but I can imagine it. We’ve always been told as writers ‘write what you know’ but I was gently corrected once by a well-known mystery writer who told me ‘write what you can imagine.’ Believe me my imagination is huge.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t be open to learning more. Since the beginning of the year, I have signed up for a host of classes. I’ve signed up for a Scrivener class, a Book Ninja class, how to write a series class and a how to develop my own language class. Each of those are designed to help me with some upcoming projects and because I feel that a writer is also a life-long learner. You can’t have one without the other.
So where’s the writing in all of this? Yes, life happens and writing sometimes gets shoved aside. However, the day before the surgery I wrote a short story of about 2300 words and some in a journal I’m developing for a series. Therefore, the day before I managed to eek out some 3800 words by hand. Since then, I’ve pumped out eight blog posts and a variety of things averaging about 2k a day. And that’s on a surgery week. Think what I could do if I really put my mind to it.
That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ve decided that the only days I’ll be writing blog posts, playing on the net and research, which includes classes, will be on Sunday and Mondays. The rest of the week will be for writing my fiction and putting together my series on self-publishing and helping other writers.
Until next week…


Lynn 

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