Pause in Writing

Several years ago, I attended several writing seminars. In each of them, they told us that to be a writer, you needed to write; they said that you should force yourself to write every day. I don't understand that idea. I don't want to write something that I am not proud of, and if I were to make myself write something without feeling ready to write it, I am certain that it would not be good. I certainly would not want to use something that I forced myself to write in a book, perhaps it wouldn't matter if I just forced myself to write something that I would throw away, but I don't see the point. I don't believe that you can make yourself better at writing by writing garbage.

I have not written much since I finished my second novel, A God's First World. It's difficult to get motivated sometimes when you don't get feedback about your work from very many people. I have an idea for a third novel in the Infused series, but I think that I might want to work on something else for a while - give readers with different tastes something to try.

I am not one to stay strictly in a genre - I'm not entirely sure how the two novels that I have written should be classified. Infused is a modern times science fiction novel mostly, but also a story about a person that does not really relate to society. A God's First World has the science fiction angle, but is based in a more fantasy type world, and half of the story is very much a romance. With Geoff's abilities, I could easily write books in a number of different genres about him.

In between writing the first two Infused novels, I did write the first seven chapters of a fantasy story, but I got hung up on the best way to write battle scenes. I also have developed characters for a government agent type of story - although I know the main character very well, I don't have a very defined story yet. So, I am just writing bits and pieces of character points that I could intersperse with the story (once I know what it is).

So, I am waiting for inspiration, or at least some good motivation to decide what I should work on.

Writer's Note #3

I don't know how others feel about it, but I am still affected by my own writing no matter how many times I read my novels.

In Infused, reading chapter four always makes me smile. In that chapter, an inexperienced Geoff seems to be enthralled by a woman's leg (once he comes to the realization that he is actually touching it). I find it amusing and a bit heart warming. It really shows how Geoff was at this point, how removed from any kind of intimate interaction he was.

In A God's First World, I can't help but cry when I read chapter sixteen because of the intense emotions that occur as the characters deal with life and death. Geoff's minimal experience with friends and loved ones prior to this had led him to have limited control over his emotions. Faced with the the events of this chapter, his emotions are pushed to extremes.

Writer's Note #2

In my second novel, A God's First World, there were some details about the story that I did not put in the book.

One of the details was why a person was in a location at a certain time, when they would normally be there at a different time of the day. There were a couple of reasons that I didn't explain this detail. The main reason was that I did not want to break the mood by throwing in an explanation in the middle of a very emotional chapter. The other reason was that none of the characters knew why the person was there at that time, so they couldn't answer the question in story (if you have read the book, this will make sense).

The character was there at that time because they were attempting to avoid running into Geoff.

Writer's Note

Before the final editing of my first novel, Infused, had been completed, a few friends read it and gave me some feedback. I learned that some things that I had left unsaid, needed to be said.

Since I wrote the story, I knew why people were doing the things that they were doing, and I understood how they felt. However, sometimes things aren't as apparent to people that do not have the story living in their head. So, I added a few lines in to the story to clarify what was meant.

I try to look for things that may not be evident when I write now, and then I will make sure that I state the non-so-obvious.