“Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”-Mark Twain
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Tag Archives: Inspiration
[Mae’s Writing Days]-Faithless is what I am
I’ve nearly forgotten that I’m a fiction writer. Oh, don’t misunderstand me: I’m as faithless as they come. I could never hold steady or true to that vocation, even though I get so taken up with a story that the world without disappears. I still stray. Every single time, satisfaction be damned. Continue reading
The Dead Writers Round-Up: 14th-18th January
- John Dos Passos was born on 1/14/1896. “A man’s got to work for more than himself and his kids to feel right.”
- Lewis Carroll died on 1/14/1898. “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” (‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’)
- Tillie Olsen was born on 1/14/1912. “Women have the right to say: this is surface, this falsifies reality, this degrades.”
- Anaïs Nin died on 1/14/1977. “Good things happen to those who hustle.”
- Jean-Baptiste Moliere was born on 1/15/1622. “A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.”
- Earl Wilson died on 1/16/1987. “If you wouldn’t write it and sign it, don’t say it.”
- Anne Brontë was born on 1/17/1820. Anne was the last-born of the Brontë brood and the author of 2 novels (‘Agnes Grey‘ and ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall‘).
- Betty Smith died on 1/17/1972. “Look at everything as though you were seeing it for the first time or the last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”
- Gregory Corso died on 1/17/2001. “The most important of the beat poets…a really true poet with an original voice.”-Nancy Peters.
- A.A. Milne was born on 1/18/1882. The A.A. stood for Alan Alexander.
- Rudyard Kipling died on 1/18/1936. “Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.”
Fuel for My Jetpack, Mead for My Dragon
Doing the impossible is a lot harder than it sounds.
Being a science-fiction or fantasy writer is hard. Wrestling with the hassle of plot, theme, character, setting, transition, voice, and deeply rooted psycho-sexual subtext is hard enough without having to deal with the added challenge of hanging the threads of your story from the rafters of disbelief in order to satisfy the demands of the genre. As if these hurdles weren’t high enough, the problem of inspiration when it comes to thinking up a memorable and appropriately science-fictiony or fantastical-without-being-embarrassingly-flamboyant name for characters and exotic lands becomes even more frustrating when writer’s block insists on being a squatter in the house of ideas.
Fortunately, the Internet hosts a series of solutions to this problem in the form of name generators. Name generators are applications that are programed to combine a number of different elements of vowel sounds, consonant constructions and a slew of other linguistic elements into new configurations that give you just the unearthly quality you need to sound authentic.
One of the first and best experiences I’ve had is with seventhsanctum.com, a website by Steven Savage featuring a particularly robust set of generators. Not content to focus on names alone, the site enables the visitor to play with a number of different subjects, from character names to planet names, story ideas, character skills and even ideas for when good old cousin Writer’s Block stops in for a few days.
A quick click on Elf Names – described as “Names for both Tolkeinesque elves, Wild Elves, and general fantasy,” – opens up a page that requests the number of names desired (up to 25), a category field offering the choices of High Elves, Wild Elves or Full Names, and a generate button. A selection of ten High Elf names renders thus:
Aderlusn Hammerfinder
Adsaar Smilefollower
Atagear Firewand
Atleid Lakemaker
Goglaal Prayerstealer
Ilburb Mercyblade
Ilolain Rainvoyager
Lorhaeg Dreamfletcher
Naratg Featherfollower
Otibnadr Hawkbrewer
Somewhere in there is my future pen name. Or hotel-check-in alias.
The names don’t always have to be exotic. Utilizing information from the US Census, seventhsanctum.com’s Quick Name Generator can supply you with garden-variety appellations that can also be frustratingly difficult to come up with without sounding bland. Kristina Scott, Lily Cash, and Stefanie Hatfield would agree – were they real people.
The site is a blessing for anyone looking for humor or inspiration in writing their story or bringing their role-playing game setting and characters to life. It was put together with an obvious love for writing and creativity. Not content to simply kitbash the English language and leave it at that, there are several links to other sites and features meant to aid the artist’s mind in advancing technique and even suggestions as to how to make forays into the world of getting paid to do what you love.
So the next time you seethe with frustration when you find that somebody else preemptively stole your idea to name the dashing hero Han Solo or Aragorn, head on over to seventhsanctum.com to kick-start your creative slump, and find a doorway into a great community as well.
KMS
Lost and Found
After months spent working at my husband’s desk, using his laptop, I am finally back in my own cozy, lovingly crafted studio space. Writing on my machine. Surrounded by my things. While I know that I can write anywhere, if pressed, tapping out these words on my computer feels so right. I crossed the room, sat down and am home again.
Joe Strummer reminding me that the future is, indeed, un-written.
The Dead Writers Round-Up: 9th-13th January
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Simone de Beauvoir was born on 1/9/1908. “Art is an attempt to integrate evil.” Katherine Mansfield died on 1/9/1923. “Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different.” Countee … Continue reading
Heigh-Ho, January! Sane (and Fun) Writing Goals for the New Year
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January, although frigid and dreary, has a few compensatory gifts up its wintry sleeve that no other month can offer: a chance to rewind the clock to start, a vague idea that anything is possible, and a sense of euphoria that can only be found when the year is in its first blush. Although these feelings naturally fade as the temperature rises, you should be able to use this energy all year-long. The goals I have in mind aren’t tauntingly out of reach, nor must they be broken down into a dozen discouraging steps; they could just as easily be called Life Skills for Writers. Continue reading
The Dead Writers Round-Up: 4th-8th January
At ASPL, one of the refrains that you will hear echoing in the background like a parade ground tattoo is that we love dead writers. They are, after all, the reason that we came to be such insatiable reader-writers. How their very existence in a world full of untold possibilities helped us make the journey from there to here is the stuff for another story. Today, we are here to launch a new feature in their honor called, perhaps a bit too straightforwardly, The Dead Writers Round-Up. This is a glorified birth-and-death type of history for those of you interested in such niche oddities. The haphazard nature of the life and death cycle gives us some interesting juxtapositions; perhaps proving that, if viewed in just a certain way, the Fates have a sense of humor. Or that we are lit geeks to the extreme. Either way, please enjoy this first edition of The Dead Writers Round-Up.
- Max Eastman was born on 1/4/1883. “The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.”
- Albert Camus died on 1/4/1960. “A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.”
- T.S. Eliot died on 1/4/1965. “Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.”
- Christopher Isherwood died on 1/4/1986. Isherwood wrote the novel ‘Goodbye Berlin’ (1939), which in turn was made into a Broadway play (‘I am a Camera’ by John Van Druten) before eventually being immortalized on both stage and screen as ‘Cabaret’ .
- Frances (Fanny) Burney died on 1/6/1840. Although a celebrated novelist and playwright during her own very long lifetime, today she is best known for keeping a private journal for an astonishing 70 years.
- Carl Sandburg was born on 1/6/1878. The Illinois-born poet was friends with Marilyn Monroe the last few years of her life.
- Kahlil Gibran was born on 1/6/1883. “All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.”
- Alan Watts was born on 1/6/1916. “A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.
- Zora Neale Hurston was born on 1/7/1891. “It’s a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing nothing.”
- John Berryman died on 1/7/1972. “I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut.”
- Wilkie Collins was born on 1/8/1824. The Victorian novelist is best known for his immensely popular mystery novels, ‘The Woman in White’ and ‘The Moonstone’.
- Storm Jameson was born on 1/8/1891. The English writer lived to be 95.
- Paul Verlaine died on 1/8/1896. “Tears fall in my heart like the rain on the town.”
Yoko Ono-Words to Live By
Question: What do you think the biggest obstacle is that non-conformist women face in their pursuit of success?
Yoko Ono: Themselves
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 