I don’t know how many creatives ever have it.  That idea, that inspiration, that spark, that just ignites in them a true moment of creativity that sees something come forth that manifested in their mind and becomes a real, tangible thing.  I have had it a couple of times, usually in the form of a short story or an essay.  Something just gets me riled up and I do it.  Most of mine have been a one day thing.

It has happened to lesser degrees as well.  I just have an idea that seems cool and I start, then it just spews out and there it is.  Again mostly short stories.  Like the Battle of Golden Hills I put up a few weeks ago.  That was just an idea from a conversation that i sat down and knocked out in a couple of hours.  Nothing amazing, though with some actual effort after the fact I know it could be polished to be fairly good.

But what I mean is the kind of spark that borders on epiphany.  I had that happen once so far.  In fact it ‘s what got me back into writing.  To be fair there was some build up and preparation, like most serious works.  The thing was though that when the time came for me to actually sit down and do it, BAM.  The spark.

What resulted was 60,000 words in five days.  It was by no means amazing, but that is what we all have when we finish the initial draft.  There has been polish since then, but the point being was that it happened and I would love for it to happen again.  The thing was after that initial spark, at least for me, it carried over, to a slightly lesser degree or it might have been the pure excitement of the original spark that just motivated me.  10 days after the first one I had a second.  Then 14 days later I had the third.

I had managed over 160,000 words, over 700 pages in 29 days.  The third volume being the longest.  I had an idea I wanted to write and with a combination of adrenaline, caffeine, and nicotine I was able to pop out a trilogy in less than a month, unless you count February in a non leap year.  I haven’t had that since, almost three years at the time of this writing.  But I yearn for it again.

Sure, I have tossed out stories since.  I think the closest I have come is my Emporium of Awesome which took about two months.  But I came to terms with the spark being a rarity and have since settled into a more consistent process for writing.  But in the back of my head that desire to just go on a tear and create to such a degree as fast as I did once is there.  Almost like an addiction, but one that can’t be satisfied with anything else.

It is good and bad, bad in that I want it so much, but also good in that I keep pecking away at the keyboard hoping that one day it will just kick in.  So, I keep writing down ideas.  Thinking of new things and drudging along waiting for the next spark, which might never come.  I have tried to force myself to go above the 1k to 2k I do everyday, but to no avail.  I have to have that urge to plop down more words.

Maybe someday it will hit me again, but if not, that’s okay too.

This is post 68, at least from what my stats tell me.  So just over one a week.  I would have loved to keep up at least 2 a week, but hey all that real life stuff gets in the way.  I am actually writing this one a say early, cause apparently I forget to do it in time normally.  The downside is that they can’t be as timely as I would like.

One thing I have been able to do regularly that I am happy about is a chapter a day in the Vampire story.  It isn’t amazing, IMO, but still better than twilight.  As of 11 days I have manged 10 chapters, 52 pages and like 16000 words.  So not too bad.  I didn’t technically miss a day, I wrote something else.  As long as I am averaging the five pages a day I am good.  Though I wan to get to a point where I am doing 10 a day, but not all just one project.

I have literally stalled out on the other two bigger things I want to do, but have spawned two essays and two short stories in the meantime in addition to the vampire book.  I do wonder how much farther along I would be though.

See I did a synopsis of the overall tale as a short story for school.  When I finished school I went through all of the files, etc and purged.  Apparently that synopsis was lost in the purge.  As hard as I’ve looked I couldn’t find it.  So I had to recreate the narrative from scratch and ya know it kind of pissed me off.

I am usually so good about keeping notes on things.  Hell, I have files and stuff for some of the games I designed over 10 years ago, but the book I want to write and did notes on a month ago, gone.   These are the kinds of things that can agitate creative people.  Misplacing and all that, which being messy seems to be the norm for most creatives I know.

Personally I am anal retentively organized.  From my sock drawer to my card collection.  I know where most things are most of the time and not one of those, I put it over by the microwave a coupe of weeks ago ways.  I mean anyone can walk in and quickly figure out how I have my stuff sorted and be able to find anything as well.  I even do the 2x a year purge of anything I haven’t used.  I like to keep things light in case I have to relocate.  Just a habit from my time in the military.  If it couldn’t fit into 2 seabags and a backpack, it wasn’t worth keeping.

Of course I allow myself a bit more space now, but the point still stands.  If I can’t load it into my car and/or a small trailer, it gets left behind.  Furniture is the main thing.  There is a thing called craigs list.  I showed up with a bed and a bookshelf to where I live now, and it has grown into enough stuff for a small apartment.  It’s great when you only look at furniture as stuff to hold your other stuff, including you.

Before this becomes a rant on the finer points of furniture and how people pay WAY too much for the stuff new, I think I will step out and let all four of my readers get on with their day.  I might tease you with another chapter from the Vampire tale on Wed.  Which is also the day I get to (hopefully) get my service puppy……..

I am a huge Nerd.  The biggest one I know.  Not a superfan of any one thing in particular, but the kind of nerd that embraces most of the geek in the world.  And in a way I think this kind of leads back to what makes me able to write about a lot of things.  But I will say that if I had to call out one thing I liked the most it would be a tie between Firefly and Star Trek, nothing against Star Wars, I enjoy that as well (until Last Jedi anyway).

When the new Star Trek came out, or more like before it, I sat down and watched EVERYTHING before it as a refresher.  Including the Animated series…..  And the 10 Prime line movies.  Of course I can’t say the new show has been all that, but then again most of the other series took a season or two to find their footing, well those that lasted more than that.

For a perspective that is The original, Animated, Next Generation, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise.  I think DS9 is the best, story wise, Enterprise is underrated and Voyager could have not been made, but still.

I am a political junkie, a bibliophile, I used to own a game store, also designed board games for a while.  I also love to learn.  I am kind of looking into getting a sixth degree, cause why not….. I have time and like I said I like to learn.

There are the smattering of other things as well.  I do the D&D thing, run it every week.  My board game collection might be considered hoarding, and I used to LARP (shhh on that one).  Then there are the card games…..  My true weakness.  I currently am about 20 cards short from having all the cards in Hearthstone (on online CCG) and play a real one called Force of Will.  Yes I did Magic the Gathering for about 15 years, even made it to Worlds once.  But in my opinion the game has aged poorly and changes have been made to make it not as fun.

So I play my new one.  In fact I am heading out today for a three day event.  I am about 13 cards shy from having everything.  That’s 29 set and a few years… I have no life.  I managed a Nationals top 16 once and a few state titles.  What has all of this got to do with writing?  A lot actually.  The interactions and all of the subtleties when playing a complex game are similar to writing.

One has to know enough about the situation and have the ability to be fluid to maximize their plays.  At the same time being constrained by additional limitations.  In the case of a card game, the cards in your hand, in writing it would be the options that fit within the story as you move forward.  It might sound weird, but if you are writing a crime story you can’t have a dragon fly down and assist.  There are certain limitations you place on yourself when you write.

There might be some crazy tales out there that incorporate different aspects in themselves, but they are either set up to do that or are just bad writing.  When playing a game though you learn to be quick and play off of your opponent though.  In writing you kind of do the same, but in that case the opponent is the story and you are against it, trying to make it the best version of itself that you can.

At least with the way I write.  I like to let the story go its own way, and I am just there to help keep it on the path.  Being a nerd in geek and academics as well as having the ability to think in a variety of situations, I think adds to my ability to create narratives that some people might find entertaining.  Though at the end of the day it doesn’t mean they are really that great.  I mean writers are their own harshest critics.

What is it about writing that so fascinates us?  I mean in the kind of way that a lot of people at least try it to a certain extent.  A lot of persons I know either write of did in their yoot (cousin Vinnie reference).  The thing is most people stop doing it.  And to be fair a lot of the time our literary attempts when we were younger are not exactly the best of out work, we all can’t be S.E. Hintons (outsiders reference).

Do i really need to actually point out the things I am referencing?    I have no idea.  Not like I have actual demographic data about all four people reading this drivel.   For all I know they are all well read sixty year olds……  Then again they could be bots.  In any case, I just like to ramble from time to time.

I’m still not sure what bug crawled up my ass to evoke my need to write again.  Not that it really matters.  I f I could pick one thing to actually learn about my writing though it would be want made it not as shit as it used to be.  I have always wanted to get back to writing since my yoot, but every time I tried I found it lacking, personally.  Then I would go back and read the bits of crap that I had kept from those long ago days.  They were bad, so further discouragement.

Along the way though something clicked.  Was it experience?  Was it pages and pages of professional writing?  No clue.

I know why I can write fast and furious, and why knocking out 1500 to 5000 words in a sitting is easy.  All the education.  Not that I learned anything, just the sheer amount of it.  I had to force myself to write long ass essays and papers on deadlines, so now doing it is easy, since now it is for me and I enjoy it.  Still doesn’t make it good.

I know why I am able to share my work freely.  I have no shits to give.  You like it, cool.  You don’t, tell me why.  You don’t and give me shit, then fuck off.  I could care less if people hate what I write.  I am able to take criticism and critiques and ignore asshats.

This, I find, is the most liberating.  Not saying it don’t sting a bit, but whatever I can live.  But in regards to the less suckage of the words I write, I cannot pinpoint when that changed.  And most likely never will. Then again not giving a shit about what others think is a huge win.  A lot of the “advice” one gets in pursuit of a degree is to “not take it personally” when pieces are rejected or harsh words given.  I mean that is good advice in general, but my thought has always been if you react adversely to saying something you create is no good, why are you writing?  This can apply to most creative things though.

We can’t write classics every time, shit most of us will never even write one.  I have no illusions about what I write.  I am not setting out to do a Gatsby or 1984.  Could I create one?  I think I have the ability too, but I doubt I ever will.  Cause I like the more light hearted stuff, not so much when it comes to messages but in the whole package.  I can write about headier issues and all that, but in a much simpler way.

My target is simple, can my kid read it, understand it, and be entertained by it?  If yes, then goal.  I am not writing for awards or all the elitist shit.  I write for me.  If I can make some dollar signs off it, cool, if not, oh well and even if I do I wouldn’t mind just enough to get a nice dinner.  Not everyone can “make it”, getting six figure advances and selling movie rights.  It would be cool, but I am aiming low, both in quality and goals.  No need to be self-delusional.

That doesn’t mean I won’t strive to become better and better at the craft, I just have to be reasonable in my approach and chug along the path I have set for myself.