Merry Christmas Dragon Visitors!

I just want to take a moment to carefully peck at the keyboard here so I can wish all you visitors to Today the Dragon Wins a beautiful Christmas! I hope you're spending this special day with friends and family who are dear to your heart. All of you writers, make sure you take advantage of some quiet moments to sit back and write down the special thoughts flooding your mind today. We busy people take so little advantage of quiet moments...my special little Christmas wish for you today is that you get to write or journal for a while and that it is a fruitful time.

Merry Christmas!

If you're stopping by for the first time, Welcome! The Author Island Kindle Contest post that you're probably looking for is just below. ;)

With love,
Fantasy Author Sandy Lender
"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: Merry Christmas, fantasy author, Sandy Lender

Writers' Guide: Inspiring Question for the Last Friday in March
Or…The Dragon says journal about this one…

We have a Grammar Guide AND a Writer's Guide today. I like to try to throw one of these thought-provoking questions at you on Fridays, and I won't be able to next Friday because we're having an author interview here at The Dragon. So this week's is bizarre to make up for skipping next week. How's that? Put your answer in the comment field, but feel free to use this thought-provoking question in your journaling or short story exercises today!

Where on your body do you have a scar and how did you get it?

I have this whole patch of scars on the inside of my upper right arm. They've faded quite a bit now that I'm nearly 38 years old, but I got them when I was a toddler. My poor mom. I reached up with my wee little hand to the stovetop to grab the handle of a boiling pot of water…

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: journal, journaling, short story exercise, inspiring question, writer's guide, thought-provoking

Journaling Topics for Your Writing Enjoyment
Or…The Dragon gets distracted easily by wildlife

Working from home has many advantages. And there's one bizarre disadvantage for me. My den, which faces this well-planted common ground among the condos where I rent, has four very tall glass windows that are about a foot off the ground. I can see all the wildlife that scampers by outside. Some of that wildlife is aware that by sitting outside the door (which contains one of these four tall windows) and peeking in longingly, one can obtain food from the guilt-ridden human inside.

Yesterday, while I was attempting to work, the following wildlife tried to seduce me with their whiles. A raccoon. A duck. A dove. A squirrel. What surprised me is that the squirrel came alone. She usually has a friend…

Do you have woodland creatures that you can blog about today? They're great for making up little stories for your journaling exercises, you know. I've got a lizard that lives on the front lanai who's probably going to end up in a short story one of these days.

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: journal, writing exercise, wildlife, dragon

Writers' Guide: Inspiring Question for Good Friday
Or…The Dragon says journal about this one…

We want you to share your answer in the comment field, but feel free to use this thought-provoking question in your journaling or short story exercises today!

Describe your outlook on life or your point of view in meteorological terms (such as windy, partly cloudy, tornadic, etc.).

For a while there, Fantasy Author Sandy Lender's point of view had become cloudy with 100 percent chance of a Cat 5 hurricane—seek shelter. You know…get under the mattress in the bathtub now! Now! Don't wait! The sirens are going off now!

Luckily, I don't like having that kind of outlook (despite the heavy post below with all its negativity—hopefully folks see the sarcasm laced throughout and can laugh at it with me). So! Even though the practical, down-to-earth side of me sees some partly cloudy skies ahead, I see a lot of sunshine, too. (Hey, I live in Florida and I write books for fun. How can I NOT see sunshine ahead?)

Your turn! What's your outlook?
AND!
When you sit down to journal with this, think about this question for your main character in your current WIP. It's a great exercise.
Those of you who have read Choices Meant for Gods know that Chariss starts out with a pretty rainy outlook, doesn't she? But there's an arc that character's going through…like a pretty rainbow in the sky… ;)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: journaling, outlook, point of view, Choices Meant for Gods, writer's guide, inspiring question, thought-provoking, writing exercise

Writers' Guide: Question for Friday
Something Thought-Provoking for Your Journaling Time Today

Of course we want you to share your answer in the comment field, but feel free to use this thought-provoking question in your journaling or short story exercises today!

What three words would you use to describe this past week in your life?

Fantasy Author Sandy Lender answers with:
1) indecisive
2) unreliable
3) coconut
(I included "coconut" because I included Sunday as part of this past week. Bwuahahaha.)

I would continue and give reasons for each, but then I'd have to hunt down all the blog visitors and shoot each one, and that would be a shame. (and time-consuming)

So in the interest of time and safety, I'll just open this up for comments now. Have fun!

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: fantasy author, Sandy Lender, questions, writers guide, journal, dragon

Journaling on Friday
Or...The Dragon wants a writer's break

I'm so freakin' glad the weekend is right around the corner. I don't know about you other writers visiting the blog (so I invite you to post a comment to tell me) but the weekend means more time to write.

Here's a writer's life: During the week, I work at least 50 hours at the day job (when I'm in town for the job - it has me traveling), I exercise at a club each morning, I run errands either on a lunch break or in the evenings when all the senior citizens join me and clog the roads with their land yachts that they drive at speeds about 10 to 15 miles per hour below posted limits, and I try to entertain my bird so he doesn't forget that I'm in his flock. (He's a great bird.) I deal with divorce attorneys and the requests the court makes in that situation. I deal with foreclosure stress and decisions. I function as a support system for a variety of friends in a variety of horrific life situations. (Truth IS stranger than fiction.) I edit books for other people in hopes that someday that will become profitable. (Hope springs eternal.) I market Choices Meant for Gods and other peoples' work because I believe in us and our products and I know that some day all this work is going to pay off. (Hope springs eternal.) Etcetera.

Here's a writer's dilemma: So finding time to write and edit my own work doesn't happen as frequently as I'd like.

It's been like this throughout the past 16 years since college. I find snippits of time to write, but the majority of my writing blocks come on weekends. I realized this recently when I found a journal I had purchased during one of the more stressful periods in my marriage. According to the first entry of the journal, I'd been told that journaling would help ease my troubled mind and get my anger and resentment out of me and not directed toward my spouse, who was driving me crazy. Turns out, I spent a lot of time journaling about all the tasks I performed on a given day. It's very bizarre. But it showed me something.

I spent more time performing tasks and "playing Mom" to the spouse in my life than writing. What a shame! (No wonder it took three years to write Choices Meant for Gods, which I'd spent 18 years planning. With that kind of background planning, a fantasy novel should pop out of you in a month, don't you think?)

Here's a writer's question to you: Anyway, the point of this post is to see what other writers "save up" their writing bursts for the weekends because their workweeks are so crazy busy that they can't get good, solid blocks of writing time. I can sit down at the computer for an hour before bed or drag a notepad off the dresser next to my bed to scribble ideas and scenes and dialogue before falling asleep, but that's not the kind of writing I'm wanting to do. I love those day-long binges where you crank out thousands of words and suddenly realize the room is dark because the sun has gone down and your bladder is screaming because you haven't peed for eight or nine hours. THAT'S the kind of writing block I want this weekend.

And I'm looking forward to it.

What kind of writing blocks do you get to lose yourself in? And how do you set them up?

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, writer's life, journaling, journal, writing time, dragon

Writers' Guide
Or...something thought-provoking for your journaling today

I've been in the slow, arduous, horrific process of breaking up with an alcoholic who seems unable to understand why I want him out of my life. He's being "victimized," you see, despite the fact that he's a jerk when he drinks. (Hence the "get out of my life" necessity.) But I noticed something about myself this weekend when dealing with his obstinancy. I was acting quite obstinant as well. And this makes a great writer's blog because of this quote from Nietzsche:

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster...When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

How about that? Now, I'm not becoming an alcoholic. Far from it. In fact, watching this person's inability to stay away from liquor despite his desire to do so has soured me on the whole "I need a stiff drink" concept. You know how some days the stress just makes you want to chill out with a glass of wine? I don't really feel like chilling out with a glass of wine anymore.

I look at this person and see a shell of the person I originally met. It's like looking at a slumped-over creature that once was very full of life and vigor and an incredible sense of humor. The muscle tone and spring he once had in his step are gone. Depression from a job loss swung into a drinking binge that just won't stop and I'm watching this person, now back among the employed, making excuse after excuse after excuse for the booze in his life. He's fighting with a monster, and I'm going to stop fighting with him before his excuses and arguments and angry attitudes become mine.

And there's your journaling assignment for today. How do your characters fight with their monsters? Do they take on characteristics of the creatures they abhor? How do you keep the "good guys" pure when the "bad guys" are too close? How do we heed Nietzsche's advice and keep our heroes and heroines from becoming the monsters they fight?

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: Nietzsche, writers guide, monsters, dragon, alcoholic