• bluegum said on Mar 27, 2008....

  silver what you have got is called wanting your cake and to eat it too and why not .
   
  soulcast dose this to me i'l read a post and it will jiggle a thought loose in my memory that was someware and a whole event or events will bubble up that otherwise would stay forgotton.ps sorry its a bit messy but that me!.

• MissMimi said on Mar 27, 2008....

  I generally am inspired by events or conversations or even e-mails (you remember, don't you?  :D ). 

  Reading is always a reminder of how much I love to write.  Kushiel's Dart you say?  I'll have to check it out.  

• the_infernal_optimist said on Mar 27, 2008....

  Oh, it happens to me, too. My Muse is incredibly annoying that way. :-p I love to read, but I'll get sidetracked by one phrase that'll nudge a thought into play about one of my two ongoing projects, and I'll just stare off into space for a bit, fleshing something out, and then be startled to realize that I still have a book in my hand and a half hour has passed.
  
  ~Infernal
  

• uniquely-ironic said on Mar 27, 2008....

  not me, but then I'm not a writer.
   
  My son does that though.  In fact, his senior project for high school is to write and publish a book.  He's already written the book, we're just helping him get it typed up so that we can send it out to be privately published.

• GrapeKoolaid said on Mar 27, 2008....

  I always keep a pad of paper and a pen next to me.  You never know when you have to jot something down.  Even when I travel, I keep a tiny notebook in my pocket.  Sometimes, when I'm reading, I'll write on the margins of the pages of books, then I'll forget all about them.  I try to write in pencil when I do, and very lightly.  You just never know when an idea will strike, you know?  

• vacantmind said on Mar 27, 2008....

  I do this too, though I don't think I would ever be a writer. I do better in the poetry department but only on rare occasions. This is what I do though, if something sparks a thought that I think I can go with I use a digital recorder and read the sentence into it and then the thoughts that it provoked at the time. I did publish some poetry a few years ago and I listed those artists as my inspiration. It works pretty well for me.

• silverwhisper said on Mar 27, 2008....

  bluegum: o good, it's not just me! :D yeah, i suppose that's a fair thing to call it, huh? :>
  
  mimi: i do indeed remember. :> and yes, you might find it of some interest yourself. :>
  
  infernal: heh...i might've known you suffer from the same affliction. :> my muse is highly annoying in precisely that way--who knew? :D
  
  u-ui: what a neat senior project--that's really cool, u-i! i wouldn't have guessed you have a son that old, to be honest. :>
  
  grape: see, i used to carry a notebook and pen for that precise reason too! i really need to start carrying one to the office, gorram it!
  
  vm: ah, you too, eh? i shoulda known you wrote poetry for some reason--something about your phrasings shoulda tipped me off. :>
  
  ed

• wombat said on Mar 27, 2008....

  While the "writer" in me is forver sleeping, it seems, sometimes when I am reading I will hold the book back and think to myself, "Why am I not doing this?  So many books out there that don't seem like they were that hard to write...but then I am not reading such deep material as what you are reading probably.  But sometimes I am thinking, "How did this get published?  Confusing dialog, too much unnecessary description....one thing or another that wakes up the inspiration that I keep putting under a bushel out of laziness and fear. Sticking with it is my problem.  I just had two months to work on my writing, and I spent most of it reading instead.  I may be hopeless now, but I hope you will write (an finish writing)  if you get the inspiration!

• Trinov said on Mar 27, 2008....

  Hi, I usually have no patience with fiction when I am trying to write fiction,-- history or biography --both great inspirations--are my thing then. The only exception is Rowlings, she is just so wonderful that she replaced Tolkein as my favorite, and we were nuts about Tolkein up to the point of writing with his runes and for my husband, learning some Elvish! So since I don't compare myself in any way shape or form with someone that good, I can still enjoy reading (and watching) Harry Potter and still go back for the umpteenth time and re-write or even do a first draft on our project, which is for me, very difficult at any time.

• silverwhisper said on Mar 28, 2008....

  wombat: well, remember that what gets published is about whether people think it will sell. so yeah, i've had that experience more times than i care to count. :> and i wouldn't call you hopeless. :>
  
  trinov: holy crap, your husband learned sindarin? i'd quite forgotten just how familiar you are with tolkiens' work. what's this project you speak of?
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Mar 28, 2008....

  Hi, we're a bit nuts. We once wrote a three page or more letter entirely in Tolkein Runes to my brother, who thought that they were Scandinavian runes and spent hours in the library trying to find them! And was very annoyed at us for that.
  
  Anyway, our project is a group project of writing a science fiction series, and since it is a group project it belongs to the group and I can't speak about it, only that we've all invested a lot of time for about 6-7 years on it. My personal stuff is children's stories, and my husband and I have written non-fiction, including a weird text book or two, one published.

• uniquely-ironic said on Mar 28, 2008....

  He'll turn 18 in May.  Bill and I have encouraged him to try a bunch of different things and writing was one of them.  We told him that if he wrote the book we would pay to have it published, so he took that and made it his high school senior project.
   
  The book Eragon was written by a 17 y.o. boy.  I was impressed with it and gave a copy of it to my son for inspiration.

• Alyss said on Mar 28, 2008....

  Keep reading ed, it's worth it. ;-)

• silverwhisper said on Mar 29, 2008....

  trinov: bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! that thing about that letter to your brother in tolkien runes (sindarin? dwarvish?) is hysterical! i'd like to know a bit more about the writing group, like how you organize things and make sure you don't step on one another's toes, that sort of thing.
  
  u-i: i think that's fantastic! and i completely forgot that about the author of eragon--very cool.
  
  alyss: so i've been told, my friend. so i've been told. :>
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Mar 29, 2008....

  Hi, re the writing group, we try not to be too nasty to each other, at least I do, but all of us react sometimes a bit nuttily to what the others want to change when it involves a certain specific character-- that for some strange reason everyone identifies with.
  
  I write a lot of the first drafts, but that is because 'some people' don't like blank pages and then those same people get very nasty about all that 'nonsense' and re-write the scene from scratch,-- and much better than I did I have to admit. Very little of the first draft remained in the first book except for the characters and a scene or two --but each person adds another perspective on this shared vision, and when we are not fighting over commas we enjoy the whole process. Each time somebody makes a change it is just a great turn on to read it, even if I may have to fight the changes.
  
  What holds it together is the fun of the whole venture and describing a whole world and its specifics and visualizing it, and psychoanalyzing the characters, and arguing the politics, and the science--we really get into it and it is a marvelous escape for us and hopefully will be for others when it eventually gets published.
  
  We all are science fiction fans from childhood and have 'lived' in Tolkein and Heinlein's worlds, and in "Dune" and others and we want to create something that is four dimensional and feels real, with good and evil, not a utopia or distopia which I find deadly boring. (Being in a group can mimimize everyone's writer's block or down periods and moderate the manic highs.)

• Trinov said on Mar 29, 2008....

  Hi, say if you wanted to experiment on soulcast, abuot 5 people would suggest characters, situations, problems. Once the characters are somewhat real, and the situation is agreed apon, they have to face a problem and once you have the problem you have the beginning of at least a short story more or less : a writes, gives it to b, b gives it back to a, then c gets it and sends it back to b type of thing, or b and d write it back and forth, then send it to c etc-- or on a blog it could be a series of comments, each one re-writing the previous one but coming back to a, b etc until there is a consensus--this we all agree on and then one to the next scene. But not dozens of people, that would be impossible. And the characters develope with the action and the action is modified by the personalites of the characters etc. Or one person starts it and finished it, a short story or a chapter and then passes it on, with the knowledge that it could be totally re-written.

• silverwhisper said on Mar 30, 2008....

  trinov: that sounds like it would be kinda chaotic for my tastes, but i'm sure it must be what works for you guys.
  
  i don't think i'd want to do that on SC--mainly b/c if the work turns out to be any good, publishing it online guarantees that no publisher would pay money for it, you know?
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Mar 30, 2008....

  Hi, You're right about that, we do everything encrypted etc. But a long distance group is possible, and a lot safer when things get hot.

• silverwhisper said on Mar 30, 2008....

  o, i know it's possible--i've been involved in a writing group that tried it. that one just didn't work, sadly.
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Mar 30, 2008....

  Was it because of creative or organizational or financial difficulties? We have defined our financial terms in advance, and may go to a lawyer before anything is published. I think that if anyone feels that they are not going to get their proper share it could hurt the whole project. Also we all do respect each others talents, for example somebody really good in dialogue is appreciated for that, someone good with action scenes is appreciated for that etc.

• silverwhisper said on Mar 30, 2008....

  no financial difficulties--more creative differences than anything else, really. plus there wasn't much sense of shared purpose, so that really hurt things, i felt.
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Mar 30, 2008....

  Hi, It think the shared purpose is important. I've been involved in two other projects before, and what characterized the one that succeeded was the shared purpose.

• silverwhisper said on Mar 31, 2008....

  yeah, i think that if there's a single shared purpose, that can help overcome differences, you know?
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Mar 31, 2008....

  Hi, also I think that a shared purpose is part of a belief in the project-- as something worth your time and effort,-- and if one of the people involved feels that he or she is condescending to help out the others, or just sees it as a financial thing, it probably has to sour. And maybe a sense of humor and proportion is also a factor.
  
  Once we lost a friend, and a project, because someone couldn't be a team player--he was the illustrator, and he was a very interesting artist, but he had contempt for the written part and at one point was willing to sell out at a very bad offer which the rest of us would not accept.

• silverwhisper said on Apr 02, 2008....

  the illustrator was obviously not artistically engaged in the work and probably should have gotten out!
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Apr 02, 2008....

  Hi, he wanted eventually to use his work for his own purposes which was his option. But we didn't have the same relationship after that, and we lost him and his wife as friends, but I guess they never really were friends?

• silverwhisper said on Apr 03, 2008....

  yeesh...that's pretty weak, trinov.
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Apr 03, 2008....

  Hi, you're right, we were a bit braindead about that --but these were people who were invited to our house and we to theirs, who invited us to their ( overly expensive) affairs and whose two girls I tutored. There seemed to be a relationship, but money conquers all in some people's thinking. C'est la vie, c'est la guerre.

• silverwhisper said on Apr 04, 2008....

  i'm not sure "thinking" is the word i'd choose there... :D
  
  ed

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