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

Writing is hard gig and if anybody tells you differently, they definitely don’t get what we writers are about. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing and the actually process of doing the writing is easy for me. My imagination runs wild and there are many days I have to reign it in.

It’s the other things that come with writing which make it more difficult for me. Things like the punctuation. See, I should have theoretically put a comma before the word which and I didn’t. Does that make me a bad writer? Or one who thinks the story is more than its punctuation?

I daresay it’s the latter. Yet, those things are important but even readers have to realize that those things aren’t the story. Sometimes it is necessary to look beyond the stringent and rigid rules to get to the meat of what you’re reading. That’s the important part.

For each and every writer, the process is different but for most of us, a little bit of our heart and soul is in each piece. How much depends on the writer and what they are writing about. Don’t you ever wonder Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte were thinking when they penned their fabulous tales? Or how about Bram Stoker or Isaac Asimov?

Every time I read a great story, or even a not so great one, I tend to wonder what the author was thinking the exact moment they penned those words. Were they sad? Happy? Or thinking horrible things? Or like me when I think ‘let’s twist the knife a little more’?

Each aspect can have different outcomes and for us as readers, we can love them or hate them. There are stories that I’ve absolutely hated the author and couldn’t finish the series because I couldn’t resolve what was happening and what I thought should be happening within the story.

As a writer, I try to consider what a reader wants when I’m doing dastardly things to my characters. I know that there is a certain expectation in what one writes and while I love my fans, for me, it’s all about the story. And my stories tell themselves most of the time. I have pieces that have languished for years because they won’t fit into the boxes that I felt were where they had to go. The stories wanted to go to different places and many of those places were where I felt I couldn’t follow for various reasons.

How’s that possible you may ask…well…most authors have a line in the sand. Most of us won’t cross that line and there are definitely things that I won’t write about. Period. Don’t ask what they are because while many of them are the standards, some aren’t and there are things I am going to write about others won’t. I plan to push limits but I also plan to please readers as I’ve mentioned.

Therefore, every day is a new dilemma, a new push me-pull me aspect that needs to be resolved so I can create the best stories possible.

What do you as a reader feel is a writer’s best, or worst, aspect when writing? Be honest here…we writers really want to know.

Until next week…

Lynn 

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

NOTE: Sorry that this didn't post correctly on Tuesday. It was there but apparently my internet wasn't up to parr and I didn't realize it until today. I truly apologize for the screwup. And no, it's not because of what I write in the column though me and Pup Harry are alone until late Monday evening. 

I have been in a funk for a few weeks now. Bet you haven’t heard that word for a while. Some people might think it means a type of music and it does. But it also means slump or a depressed state of mind. I’ll take the latter and stick with it.

It’s been said that writers are a moody lot by and large. While I’ve seen some moody writers in my time, and ones that are pure divas if you get my drift, but overall I think that’s pushing it a bit. I rarely get depressed if you look at my life as a whole. There have only been two times that I can recall that I was so to the point of being debilitated in some way or another.

Once was when I lost a business that I loved. We were basically victims of 9/11 and bad employees. And frankly, I don’t know what depressed me more, the fact I’d just lost $200K or that the business was down the tubes.  That happened nearly 15 years ago and the money has been repaid as well as recouped.

The last one was more recently. It was the passing of my father last year in late March. I took my time with coming to grips with his passing. Or so I thought. As the yearly anniversary of his death rolled around, I found myself not only in allergy hell but in the slide toward being depressed about it all over again.

It’s times like these I get my zen on. I start taking long reflective walks by myself. I think about the overall scheme of life. I read and study and just try to go with the flow in order to get past the moment. Losing someone important in your life takes a lot out of you. You want to scream why at the heavens. You want to pound your head against the wall or desk and figure out the meaning of life. Everyone goes through these stages of grief and I’m no different.

This time, however, I must do it alone. My DH is on travel and he’s spending the week at our home in the States. Lucky him. There’s only me and Pup Harry and a world full of memories that sometimes won’t let me go.

I’ve gone back to having a list just to make sure I get things done. And there are moments I feel that I’m just plodding along with no real goal or end in sight. I plotted a new series and designed the covers and decided that the website truly does need an overhaul. Yet, no matter what I’m doing, it just doesn’t seem like it’s enough or I’m making headway. It makes no sense. Then neither does death but it happens. The living must learn to deal, to keep moving forward and try to keep it all together.

How do you as a person or a writer deal with the difficult things, like death or divorce or anything similar, in your life?

Again, sorry that this is late…the allergies kept me in bed a huge portion of the day…the rest is like moving through a haze with the meds. I apologize. The picture is of me and my Dad when I was much, much younger.

Until next week…

Lynn 

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

Ever have a morning where you just wanted to pull the sheets over your head and say to hell with it? Yeah, yesterday and today were those mornings. And it’s all because of allergies. Which reminds me of last week where I said all life was connected. This is true and no more true than in the spring time.

Many people are allergy sufferers and it used to be that I’d never count myself among them. It wasn’t until I was over forty that the allergies hit me full force. Only then did I realize just how much my brother had been affected all our lives. He suffered from horrible allergies from a very young age and I never understood the big deal.

When I started to suffer from them I asked him if this was what he was feeling and he told me honestly he’d felt that way every day of his life. See, when you live in some place like Nevada, the seasons aren’t very well delineated and that means there is something growing all year long. So, all year long, allergy sufferers have a hard time. It was only when he moved to Idaho, a place with four distinct season, did he feel better.

I was even luckier because when we moved to Austria, it took me three years before they came back full force. The first years I only maybe had a couple of days to a full week of symptoms. Most of the time, I didn’t even have to take any meds at all. This year, that all went away as a month ago, I started feeling the effects but hoped it was something different. About two weeks ago, I started with the nose bleeds that are so typical from sinus allergy sufferers. I was extremely happy that I had my nasal medicine.

Then yesterday, came the rest of the symptoms. All I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep. At home, it would take me up to three weeks to get out of this mode. During this time, I feel lucky to be able to function at all. My mind is groggy and life is hazy just like the smog hanging over Vegas in the winter time. I guess it actually happens more often now. At any rate, even with meds, I just want to curl up and not do a thing.

As you can imagine, this makes writing difficult. Damn difficult and makes me wonder if I’ve picked the wrong profession. Sure, since I do write so much, it’s not going to hurt for me to miss a week or two. But if one is not careful, a writer can get out of the habit of writing every day. And that is even when you’re as passionate about writing as I am. I live, eat, sleep and breathe writing. I couldn’t live if I couldn’t write. Yes, it means that much to me.

So, to keep me going during these hard allergy times, I do other things to keep my mental juices flowing. If I take to bed, I’ll lay there watching TV with a notebook in hand to jot down anything I might be able to use. I’ll read and just file things mentally away if something creates a spark in my mind. I never just do nothing.

Sure, there are times where I’ll just sleep because nothing else is working. Matter-of-fact, I feel a nap coming on today…but the point is…that I will do something that directly relates to my writing. Right now, if I can manage to sit up I will work on some of the classes I’m taking. Yes, I take classes, lots of them and I try to make sure I keep up with them.

I take writing classes, like now I’m taking one on how to create a language, to marketing and more. Writers need to be life-long learners because that makes our writing fresh and open to change. Now I’m not saying that writers need to change but we need to understand the market and how it works. Sometimes, that will require a change in how we look at things and occasionally how we write.

So, for now, I’m going back into my writing cave and try to do some research because maybe in my allergy induced haze, I can make something of the ideas that flow through my head. It’s my hope I’ve related just a bit of what it means to be a full time writer. Until next week…

Lynn