Artistry With Words

And a very happy Thursday to you all!

Guess what I’m doing…go ahead, take a guess.  That’s right, I’m working on corrections made by my editor.  I know this is going to sound egotistical, but I think you know me well enough to know I don’t mean it that way….but I’m amazed by the number of grammatical mistakes I made.  I think the years are finally taking their toll on this old man.

I was reading through the manuscript yesterday for the umpteenth time and found some new mistakes regarding consistency in the story.  In one chapter I had the main character with a leg wound and in another chapter it was a shoulder wound.  How many times do I need to read this before all the mistakes are caught and corrected?

And that is my message again for all of you.  If you are going to be your own editor then I wish you luck because you will need it.  Writers cannot be their own editors. It is a kiss of death.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about today.  Let’s start with a quote and then I’ll finally get to my point.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

Steve Jobs
I love this quote and I so get it!  I have had people ask me where ideas come from and I honestly can’t answer. They just pop into my head. Sometimes they are the result of a prompt of some sort, but more often than not they are just random thoughts that appear.  Let me give you an example.

I had started a novel about six months ago, but that novel was put on the back burner while I worked on “Resurrecting Tobias.”  Anyway, this other novel is about a stone-cold killer named Eli Baker and I had written something like 10,000 words on it before giving it a rest for six months.  Last night I was reading a book before going to bed, and it dawned on me that my approach to Eli Baker was all wrong, so I got up and erased 9,000 words of the novel.  I just knew, in some unknown way, that my initial approach was wrong, and then the right storyline came to me in an instant.  Now I am so excited to start writing again on that novel.

So don’t knock creativity, and don’t ignore that little voice inside of you that knows better than you do which direction to take.

I don’t know about all of you, but I love being a writer.

PROMPT OF THE DAY

Hopefully this prompt will kickstart your creative juices.

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY

Sorry, but I have to get back to editing.  I hope you find what you are looking for today, and I hope you trust your inner creative voice enough to follow it.

Bill

“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”