8:05pm
Okay, so I'm a little gung ho tonight with the blogging. Actually I'm
just chatty but don't feel like calling anyone.
I've been doing a television fast now for a week. I got the idea from a
newsletter called, Early to Rise.
http://www.earlytorise.com/index.php
Basically, I've stopped watching t.v. and am taping the shows that I do
eventually want to watch. It's funny how I can turn on the television
and find excuses to watch repeats of shows and get nothing
accomplished. I can remember a time when I didn't have a T.V. and
didn't know what I was missing. Those were in the days when I would
blow my whole paycheque on records, listen to my music and write until
bedtime. If I want to get some semblance of writing discipline back, I
need to turn off the T.V. and that's what I've done.
One of my writing groups mentioned this idea of getting your characters
to keep blogs. I'm considering doing that. A good way to work out the
kinks and get to know the insides of a character. I've currently got
seven novels in progress and one book of personal essays. I'm not short
of ideas by any stretch, I just need to get down and work them out.
White Wishes which will eventually become three novels has been giving
me a hard time so I've had to take a bit of a break. It's weird because
I'm actually interested in it but I seem to keep hitting roadblocks.
It's gone through many incarnations over the last decade or more that
I've been writing it. It can be so gruelling when you get stopped up.
My main characters name was originally Janay because I like the name
but when I changed her name to Kali that seem to get me going. I had
the bulk of the novels being Kali's story and in the third novel there
would be a whole section of her mother Rachel's point of view. Now I
realize that readers were seeing the mother in too harsh a light so
I'm in the midst of changing where the chapters will alternate points
of view between mom and daughter after the first four chapters of the
daughter. Since it is still the daughters story it will still be Kali
heavy but a more evenly proportioned Rachel. It's ragged but I'll get
it!
One of my favorite videos to watch for inspiration is, Listen Up the
Lives of Quincy Jones. In it he's doing his rap for Back on the Block
and when he's finished, knowing that he's not on point, he says, "It's
ragged but I'll get it."
I loved that line because it implies that he's fair to himself. He
knows it wasn't his best job but he's not going to give up and he'll
get it. I love Quincy Jones (Quincy is the name of my other cat)
because what he does musically is what I'd like to do as a writer.
Others that inspire me are Prince (if I was stranded on a desert island
and could only take one artists music, he's my guy), Pablo Picasso (his
pieces on war inspire me poetically), Saki - he wrote a story about a
talking cat called Tobermory (my cat Saki died 4 years ago and I still
cry).
I love prolific people. I like the output of Stephen King and Ray
Bradbury. My favorite writers however are A.M Homes, F. Scott
Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby specifically) and Alice Walker. I love
Jasper Fforde for his hilarious Tuesday Next books starting with the
Eyre Affair. His books are the adult equivalent of Harry Potter. fun
fun fun.
