Today the Dragon Wins

"Today the Dragon Wins" offers information from Fantasy Author and Professional Editor Sandy Lender. You'll also find dragons, wizards, sorcerers, and other fantasy elements necessary for a fabulous story, if you know where to look...

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Sandy Lender is the editor of an international trade publication and the author of the fantasy novels Choices Meant for Gods and Choices Meant for Kings, available from ArcheBooks Publishing, and the series-supporting chapbook, What Choices We Made.

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Writers Guide
J.K. Rowling had Writer’s Block?
Or…what’s your muse up to?

Look, if 2.9 million copies of either of the sequels to Sandy Lender's Choices Meant for Gods were guaranteed to fly off the shelves the way 2.9 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are supposed to fly off the shelves this weekend, you can best bet there would be no problem with writer’s block in my writing den. I have no problem with writer’s block on a bad day. I can’t imagine it descending upon me if I’ve been listed as one of the wealthiest women in the world—that would be right up there with the Waltons and the Queen of England. I read an article back in the winter that Rowling had writer's block because killing off one of the characters had messed her up. Now, dude, don't get me wrong, killing off characters sucks. I know. It hurts. I truly feel for what Rowling went through there. You have to put the manuscript down for a couple days (or a month in the case of one of mine) and mourn…while you work on all of the 19 other works in progress.

So. The topic of this article is “what’s your muse up to” because I’m curious about this. How many writers out there actually struggle to get started writing each day? How many of you find it difficult to come up with a new idea or a new plotline or a new character? How many of you, seriously, ever suffer from writer’s block?

See…I never do. For Pete's sake, People, I practically drive off the road writing down ideas in heavy traffic because this stuff just hits me any time, day or night. Maybe it’s the pictures of John Taylor in all his hotness plastered around my writing den that keeps the creativity stoked. Maybe it’s the pictures of dragons. Maybe it's the streaming iTunes with Duran Duran and Arcadia in heavy rotation amid the Barry Manilow, Robert Palmer, Norah Jones, etc. Maybe it’s the candles I light when I want to work on the medieval-themed stories.

Oh, wait.

I may have just stumbled upon it. The medieval-themed stories versus the regular-ol’-fantasy stories versus the vampire stories versus the paranormal romance stories (oh, yeah, for some reason, my face-to-face visit with my muse back on December 15 struck the paranormal romance vibe in my brain and I wrote one of those novels…now I can’t stop) versus flash fiction stories versus stories for eBooks that my online writers group puts together from time to time versus this story about a winged girl who was abandoned at birth (which is really upsetting Nigel Taiman, let me tell you) versus marketing materials like press releases that get me all riled up versus…

Do you see where I’m going with this? I don’t have time for writer’s block.

So tell me if there really are “real people” like you and me who suffer from this. And what do you do to overcome it? Because, hey, I could post an article about tickling the muse tomorrow if we need to. I mean, the idea of throwing John Taylor to the floor here in the den and tickling him is fabulous. And, with that thought in mind, I feel the need to go write…

“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

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1 Comments:

Blogger Laura M. Crawford said...

Sandy, OMG, I am just rolling here! I have to be quiet because the boys are sleeping and it's almost 2 am. No, I can't say I have had "writer's block", but I do have some major procrastination and time management and organizational issues. I mean, for crying out loud, if my head wasn't attached, I would leave it on the kitchen table with my keys everyday!

I do have a problem with avoiding writing. Like, I feel like I should be writing, I should be editing my novel I wrote in November that is just sitting in my computer. But then I look around and my little ADD brain gets going with, "The kitchen is a mess, that needs to be cleaned." then when I am finished, I see the furniture needs dusting, and then the laundry needs to be washed, dried, folded, and I need to take something out for dinner, then water the plants and the flowers, and...and... And then I am so full of "stuff" that when I do finally sit down and write, it's like turning on a faucet full blast and letting the water run all over the place.

However, I do want to someday invent a PDA or something like it, that you can put in your shower, so when inspiration strikes, you can write it on a screen and it will be automatically saved in your computer or any other device you want. It would be totally waterproof, totally portable and totally worth it if I didn't have to try and read my soggy ink stained pages of a notebook wondering what in the hell was I thinking when I wrote this and what does it mean??? Then, baby, we can retire filthy rich from the patents! LOL!!

Laura :)

1:52 AM  

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