To have a schedule.

Schedules.  Why are they so feared by some people?  I like a tad bit of order to the chaos of the day.  Its not like they are concrete things that cannot be flexible....

I enjoy my schedule, I am trying to be diligent with it, and treat this blogging thing like a job.  I try to make sure I spend equal time networking and writing each day, so as not to fall behind, or get lackadaisical.  But in the end, I still feel I’m falling behind in my own way.  I want to write more fiction, yet I think I write just about the correct amount of time with the blog.  Hopefully I can balance this out more soon, though I’m not sure how without spending yet more time here in front of the computer and away from Lisa.

Why I Use a Camera.

 Most people that know me, know that I do more than just write.  I love photography.  Somewhere along the way I got passably good at it.  Well, definitely not just somewhere, I know where I got it from, but still, this blog is more about what fun it is to get a good shot, and how I got them.

Remember to always get a good angle.  That’s the key.  There are many ideas about symetry and other things, and you always have to be conscious of that, but when it all comes down to it, the angle is always the key.

The Thing About Lies.

Dan has told me over and over that he believes lying is the worst sin committable by humans. He talks about how undermines human society, and will be one of the possible downfalls of the human race. "How can we honestly trust anyone, when so many people lie as outrageously as they do?"

Sure, everyone lies, its an unavoidable aspect of existence, I don’t know how many times I’ve lied in my life, I’m sure its more than I’d care to admit...but there is a line I will not cross when it comes to lies. I will lie to protect friends, protect family, bury secrets that need to be buried; you know, things that you have to protect.

An Essay on Writing - Part 2/2 (Trial, Error, and Accomplishment)

(( Continued from Part 1/2 ))

I know that some planning is key.  Once upon a time, I wrote a short story that people absolutely loved.  So I wrote another, then another.  People loved the story, so I decided to write more of them for people.  Then a friend of mine said, “You realize your main character changed names?”

I remember writing the stories and thinking in the third, “Its time to give this guy a name.”  I thought I had written the first two stories trying to keep everything nameless, but after rereading it, I didn’t.  In fact, other details changed, like eye color....  It was my first time trying to write a series and realizing I need an Outline.  So I went back, reread those stories and took tons of notes along the way.  Then I went back and rewrote the first two stories, and started to conceive and plan the rest of the series.

An Essay on Writing - Part 1/2 (To plan a story)

How far should one go to create a backstory for a novel?  There are so many examples of how far some people have gone and its so hard to choose the distance one should take.

In my fantasy novel, I am currently writing, I knew I had to create a new world.  I then narrowed down that the action will take place only on a specific continent, so I mapped that out and just kind of glanced over some interesting places the characters were going to visit.  Then I had to try to figure out what kind of fantasy it was, did it have dragons, did it have griffins, or was it just like earth, with no real fantastical creatures?