Saturday, December 15, 2012

3 Things I Love/Hate About Writing



by Gracen Miller

The top three things I love and drive me insane about writing…we’ll start with the three things I dislike the most—I shy away from saying hate because I had to work hard at coming up with the 3 things I disliked—and work my way up to those things I love: 



3. Synopsis – I stink at writing synopsis. Figuring out what are the most important aspects of the story that need to be focused on, is really difficult for me. Probably because I think everything is important. I mean, let’s face it, if it weren’t important, I’d have cut it from the storyline, right? LOL

2. Blurbs – Did I say I “stink” at synopsis?  Well, I suck at blurbs because condensing my book down to the important parts is just damn difficult. Even worse than a synopsis because I’m trying to give the abridged version of the book in roughly two short paragraphs. Gah! 



1. Temperamental muses – It’s frustrating when my muse decides to take a leave of absence without any notice whatsoever. There should be a freaking rule in place that says under penalty of severe lashings by the writer (that’s me), the muse must, abso-freaking-lutely must, schedule leave of absences to work with MY timeframe. It would make life so much easier, right? :D 



Now, the top three things I looovvveee about writing…

3. Creation – I love everything about creating new characters. I love learning their flaws, discovering their inner demons and slowly coming to realize what it is that makes them tick. I love falling ‘in love’ with my cast. I may breathe life into them initially, but often times by the time I finish writing their lives, I realize I didn’t know them until the very end. 



2. The hours – I create my own work schedule. This can be a dangerous thing, but when the muse is on fire, all I will want to do is write from morning, noon and night. So, sleep becomes a novelty. When I’m deep into the characters, they’ll plague all my waking hours. When I’m driving, I’ll be stitching together plots. When my children are talking, I’ll be piecing together dialogue, which can get me into sticky situations at times. 



1. No legal recourse – LOL  No, I’m not blood thirsty….much. *grins* It is freeing though to know that I can do whatever I want in my stories without any legal recourse. Yeah, that sounds bad, but you writers know what I mean. We can kill someone without really going to jail or facing any consequences unless that’s part of the storyline. 




Where you can stalk me—not really!—but I would love to meet and interact with you:


Huggles,
Gracen


2 comments:

Theresa Esterline said...

You should hire someone to read your books before they are published to write your synopsis and blurbs - they are a lot like book reviews and I'm sure you could find someone to do it - maybe even just for free advance copies of the ebook. It's worth a shot, especially if you don't like doing it. I haven't read any of your books yet, but would be willing to volunteer. I haven't written much since college (other than technical self help and communications for work), but I'd be willing to try - if you are interested.

theresa.esterline@gmail.com

Unknown said...

Great article and yeah blurbs suck. When doing reviews some want me to include a blurb of the book which of course is something that takes me forever to put together even if it's a book I loved completely. michelle31071 at suddenlink dot net