Less Writing More Spaghetti

This is one of those "how's the writing" posts that can be kind of boring, because when it's good it's good, and when it's bad it's bad. And short of just doing it on a regular enough basis there is nothing else you can do, but just deal with it when it's bad and hope that getting something...anything on paper will allow you to get to the good stuff.

A great example of when it's good was when I wrote "I'm Just A Boatman," a short story that is currently (hopefully) on somebody's desk at Doorways magazine to get either published or rejected. The story started as an exercise in Tina Jens's fantasy writing class my last semester at Columbia. She brought a whole range of fantasy reference books, mythology dictionaries and what not, laid them out on a table and said, "ok, grab a book, find something interesting and start a short story." I managed to stumble across the article about Charon, the boatman who ferries the dead across the river styx. Across the table a friend was reading the Zombie Survival Handbook, and somehow the two ideas coalesced into a short story. In a few short hours after class I'd hammered out a complete first draft. Concieved, written, and finished in one massive sitting.

Then there are days like today. Sitting around this morning, an idea hit me for the climax of the novel, which is probably still about 10-15k words away. I get in front of a computer stoked to start working and then BAM! Brick wall. I managed to squeak out about 1200 words, but very few of which I'm happy with.

I am about to start a two hour shift at work that will undoubtedly be dead as a doornail, and that being so, I'll probably end up just working on it there, hopefully working out the issues.

~~~~~~

In other news:

I had a spaghetti dinner this weekend. Good turn out, good times. My boss was among them, which was massively awkward, and also funny. Especially when she walked away with my dirty martini...

Friday was spiffy. This blog got mentioned on Gaiman's blog. You can read the original post here.

And that about wraps it up for now. If writing gets boring at work, I'll probably make the post I've been meaning to make about Lakeside from Neil Gaiman's novel, American Gods, and the road trip I'm planning. You can read the first post about it here.