Update from the Writing Factory

You may have noticed I missed two posts recently (or maybe you didn’t), but the writing factory is still open. I chose to forgo my last two posts because I’ve been working on a story for my other blog, Saturday Night Pulps, which has run into a longer project.

                This happens sometimes. You start writing, grabbing ideas from the ether, not sure where it is going, and bam, your short story turns into a novella, or novel, or an epic ten book fantasy.

                It’s one of the things I love about writing. Sometimes, no matter how well you plan or outline, if you do plan or outline your stories, the characters take you by the arm and lead you down some ally way you weren’t expecting to go down.

                I don’t usually plan or outline my stories. I start with one sentence, or idea, or a vague notion of a character I want to write about. But this new story I started did start with an outline. I thought it would make it a tighter story to fit within the framework of my SNP blog. Well, I was wrong.  The characters took me by the ear this time, and said, “Uh-uh, Donny boy. This story is bigger than you thought.”

                When a story does that, you have to go with it. To deny it, would be to deny the very fabric of what makes a writer write. It makes all those other stories I’ve started, just to toss them out because they weren’t going anywhere, worth it. When inspiration strikes, you strike back, because you never know when she’s coming, or if she’ll ever return.  It’s a fear I think all writers have.  To one day wake up with the stories gone. The ideas and characters you dream up vanished back into the regions from which they came.

                You also never know what the story could have been if you don’t see it through.  Even if it’s garbage thrown into the recycle bin, it’s all going somewhere. Tools you can pull out when you need them.

                I have this one character I created when I was a kid and was first seduced by the goddess creativity.  He was a cowboy and a lot of him was taken from other cowboys I had seen in the movies or read about it books. But he was my cowboy. I created him, and I wrote about his adventures.  This cowboy might never see the light of day. His adventures might always be for me and my own enjoyment. But the tools and experience I picked up writing about him will always be useful to me and will always show up in the stories I do share.

                So, off I go, to whip the workers in the writing factory into shape to meet an all to quickly approaching deadline. Maybe I’ll give them a bonus if they can fit this weekly blog into their schedule as well. Or, maybe not. A writer’s life is supposed to be torture, after all. Can’t let them get to comfortable.

Jeeves keeps the monkeys in line