Tuesday Thoughts

On Sunday, Christy was showing a few interesting photos and the last one caused a sporadic thought to jump into my brain. The photo depicted a dead bird and Christy was talking about omens. I immediately thought, "What a great opener to a story."

I imagined a MC coming out their front door and seeing this dead bird, which was a bad omen leading to a storyline somewhere down the way. The interesting part is how such an inconsequential thing could launch an entire story.

That happens to me all the time. I'll see something or someone, and it starts me thinking about all sorts of what if's. Too often, little things we don't pay attention to (or inconsequential things we pay too much attention to) lead us down interesting paths. It's the idea that there is a story in everything and everyone - there just needs to be a storyteller to put it to paper.

Take for example an aluminum can in the gutter. It doesn't matter whether it's a Coke or Pepsi can (although of course I prefer the Coke side of things). Now along comes an elderly chap who collects cans for recycling. So the man picks up this can, but unfortunately he cuts his finger on a sharp edge. Without thinking, he sucks on the finger in anguish, lamenting his carelessness. From here, there are a number of ways to take it. Does the man become ill from germs on the can? Maybe he instead hurls the can in anger, hitting the windshield of a passing car? Or maybe the money from the can allows him to buy a winning lottery ticket?

From one little object, an entire tale can be told. Has anyone else ever begun a story from a small thing? When was the last time you had inspiration from a singular image?

Monday Muse - Necessary Thoughts And Reflections

Today I walked through many of your blogs and I found entries that really made me think. Now you all get to listen to me pander on as I work through these thoughts. Feel free to get yourself a snack. I'll wait. Okay, ready? Not everything here will be about writing, but all of these things are important for one reason or another.

One of the first noteworthy posts I stumbled onto belongs to Weronika. She had the opportunity (and I view it as a great opportunity) to work with autistic children. This is a post you really need to read through, because it illustrates an important fact of life that I've always tried to impress on my sons. Every parent tells their child "Make sure you eat all your food. There's starving children in China, dangit!", but most children (hopefully) don't really have any experience with starvation. The same idea holds true for our health. If we're really lucky, we are born fairly healthy and manage to maintain that throughout our lives.

I was actually born two months early, and my parents had to wonder for some time whether I would survive. I had to be cut open at 2 days old to unblock my intestine, and 38 years later I still carry a huge scar creasing my stomach. It is a constant reminder to me how lucky I am that I survived, and how even luckier I am to be fairly healthy.

Autistic people (as well as anyone else dealing with debilitating diseases) remind me just how lucky I am. I'm able to sit down and write in an intelligent manner, and my mind is able to coherently form sentences without much effort. It's something we often take for granted, but if you spend any length of time with an autistic person (I have an autistic nephew), you realize just how difficult your life could be. Thanks Weronika for helping to remind all of us how lucky we are. Sometimes we need to remember that and reflect on how different life would be if we had to walk in their shoes.

Galen had a post regarding military buddies that hit home for me. For those who don't know (I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before), I spent about 5 years in the US Army myself. Although I've been out since '95, my blood still flows green. I proudly wear a huge patch on my biker jacket reminding everyone to support our troops. No matter whether you support the current initiative they are a part of, support the soldiers anyway. Galen's words reminded me of some great people I have known, and as usual his storytelling is superb. Too often we tend to forget or marginalize these invisible people, out there doing what they have to. Way too often, their deaths are a statistic on the news rather than a moment for silent reflection. Take a moment and read Galen's words. They are inspirational and heartwarming.

The New Author has a great post by Larry Brooks that is awesome and irritating at the same time. Irritating, because it strikes a little too close to home. Larry cuts us "pantsers" to the quick with a precise scalpel, highlighting a topic I touched on recently - my own lack of structure in writing. Not holding anything back, Larry does an awesome job of illustrating why even us pantsers need some structure in our writing process - and he's right. He even goes so far as to throw Stephen King at us, dangit. Admitting you're a pantser is the first step.

Hello, my name is Eric and I'm a pantser.

The next step is agreeing to put some structure in your writing process, which is much harder but just as important. Larry says it better than I can, so if you haven't read this post, check it out.

If you need a laugh and a good story, stop by Michelle's page. She talks about dreams and nightmares in her usual wonderful way. Zombie bats indeed. Guppster, new story idea for you. You better ask Michelle if you can steal it though (or co-author something together, which would be awesome).

Finally, celebrations are in order. I evidently received two blog awards (which I will talk about in a later post, since this one is long enough as it is) from Michelle Mclean and Robyn Campbell. Thank you so much ladies; I am deeply honored and really appreciate it. And Rebecca Woodhead is officially Ms Twitter UK. Go give her a virtual pat on the back for doing an amazing job of marketing and promotion. She beat out celebrities for cryin' out loud.

This has been a longer post than I planned, so thanks for bearing with me. These are just things that needed to be said, and I hope you get from them what I did.

Where Do I Go From Here?

So who the heck am I? Thats not an easy question to answer, but I'll try to give the best answer possible. I'm a computer geek who has decided computers really aren't all that interesting anymore. Or maybe its that the sameness of everyday dealing with them has made them pale in comparison to so many other things I could be occupying my time with. My name is Eric, and I'm an aspiring writer who hopes someday to be able to consistently "work my muse", as it were. But what does that mean? To answer that question means going back to the beginning and starting a story. Go ahead and get your coffee and snack, snuggle down into the chair, and get prepared for something truly interesting.

A beginning is always hard to start, particularly for someone who is trying to find his muse. Writing has not been something that comes easily to me, except for those few moments when I get in "the zone". Judging from the number of writers that profess this same issue, I'm not completely alone in this. Thats a relief. But back to my story. Quite some time ago, when I was a young pup in high school and quite unsure of myself, I had to write a story for English class. The cool thing was that I got to choose what to write. Sure, I had written other things in previous years, poems and such. But this one moment is the singular instance that stands out in my memory, so we'll start there.

I chose to let loose on my imagination, and quicker than I could believe it, I had a full-fledged manuscript of pure fiction. I don't know for sure if my fellow students found it interesting or not, but my teacher seemed to think it was good work. If I were the man I am today (or at least a more self confident teen), I probably would have recognized the potential and launched into a historical writing career. Unfortunately, that dastardly little imp known as Doubt crept along my backbone and destroyed any positive effort I might make for years.

Recently I decided to take up pen and paper once more (keyboard and mouse actually) and see what I could create. I'm now 70+ pages into a rough draft of a book, a writer and editor for brighthub.com, and ready to kick that imp to the side.

So the question remains - which happens to be the title of this particular post - Where do I go from here? I've heard writers say that blogging every so often helps them get over the "dry spots", those nasty hot deserts of wordlessness that seem to plague us all. This is one reward I hope to get out of this particular blog. And although this writing is an exercise for myself, I am hoping that somewhere out there I'll get somebody to actually read and enjoy these posts - or despise them with a passion, whichever the case may be. I might even be able to get some inciteful comments and improve my writing a bit, so that when my book is in its final draft, it will really be ready to send out into the world. Finally, somewhere along the way I hope to rope in my muse and tie him to my hip with duct tape, never to abandon me again. It sounds good anyway.