Cynus

Granted, it's raining every other day for the next month. I wish there was something stronger in my cup...

I have been experiencing literally the same thing for about a year and a half. I just wrote a blog post about this, actually: I hope my little insights into my own problem might be able to offer you at least another perspective. If you ever want to sit down and have a chat about the particulars of writing motivation, maybe we could lift each other up?

Writing has been difficult for the past year and a half. It's not from a shortage of ideas. I'm drowning in ideas right now, and I think if I could sell ideas I'd never have to work again. But I haven't been able to write most of these ideas myself. It's been a struggle ever since I finished "From the Cup of the Worthless". At first I thought it was because I was depressed, or that I'd started to overextend my use of similar themes. I managed to pump out "Fearless" really quickly, and I hoped I was back on track, but then a dozen more false starts brought me back to nothing. I eventually started "Weightless", which turned out the be the most difficult story I'd ever written. I dedicated it to my long-used muse as a sort of going away present, vowing to stay away from gay teen high school romances from that point forward. I thought I had a clean slate, and with that I'd have the ability to make a fresh start with all the ideas floating around in my head. And then I didn't write another novel until March, despite another dozen false starts which seemed to indicate I had something to write. I was in a relationship at the time, a great, amazing, uplifting relationship, which is when I started to get it through my head that maybe I could only write from a place of negativity, that I could only write if I was unhappy. I cloistered myself, dropping everything but work and writing, and I wrote a 70,000 word novel (which I'm currently submitting to literary agents, which is why no one has seen it) in 9 days, the fastest I've ever written anything. I thought I'd figured out the cure, that if all I did was focus on something I could get it done. But here I am, three months later, and, you may have guessed, another dozen false starts in my data banks. And it's really starting to suck. Today I had a bit of a realization, brought on by a conversation with another artist friend. What if it's not the muse, like I assumed during "Weightless", but the message that I'm struggling with? I've always tried to communicate a certain theme. What if I feel I've already explored that theme in all the ways I can conceive of through writing so far? I think I'm on the right track. I think I know what I need to do. I need to figure out what it is I want to communicate through my art, and I think everything else will fall back into place. It's time for a little self-diplomacy.

In an effort to confuse the enemy, the soldiers constructed life-like animal decoys to wear above their heads as they slinked through the fields.

All Billy had ever wanted to do was work for Playboy, but the auditions proved more grueling than he'd expected. All he had left was a single cigarette, a heart full of hopeless dreams, and . . . wait, what's the sign down there? Oh look, Energizer is hiring!

eldritch

Granted. But the pizza wasn't the one Dr. P ordered. It has all of your least favorite toppings on it, and it's burned. I wish I'd exercised this morning.

Granted. it's just as hot as Pluto now instead. I wish I could write fiction again.

Wizard

Granted. The cat is now farting in its sleep, and it had rotten fish today. I wish I could step into the world of one of my stories.

Reality is hardly a corruption.

Granted. It has a dietary restriction of eating nothing but dead skunks which it refuses to hunt on its own. I wish I was closer to those attractive divers outside my window...

Granted. It starts and finishes in one hour long episode in which everyone lives and the action is reduced to Hodor singing a lullaby. I wish my favorite Netflix series weren't all canceled.

Granted, but only the comic book version. Hope you like the taste of paper. I wish I had some non medicinal alcohol available.

I messed up.

Granted: There's a cute man to focus on inside your room, Spawnling I wish I didn't have to work today.

HURRA Homosexual Ugandans recently resisted arrest. RIGHT(s)

It was pretty awful, which is why I'm glad to see him take such a stand. That very reason you mention is why I initially avoided him like the plague.

Trash - Tyler Glenn Same Q

I've had far too many to count over the years, but I think my personal favorite is "old man", said affectionately by my three best friends. I was actually the second eldest, but I acted like the older brother of the group. New question: What song is currently going through your head?

So, I only really learned this recently, but I think this is one of the coolest things ever. Tyler Glenn, the lead singer of the band Neon Trees, came out of the closet a few years ago, but only a short time ago he finally left his childhood faith, Mormonism. He then created a solo album dedicated to both leaving the church and his coming out process. The whole album is titled "Excommunication" and I highly recommend it, but here's a sample I think a lot of us could relate to.

I don't know if this was already posted before, but there's a new short film coming out soon and it's awesome.

I guess the new setup of GA didn't notify me of this comment, because I surely would've come back to it and replied sooner than this, haha! Silas is, in many ways, the person I both aspire to be and the person I am when i'm wounded. He's a very complex creature born out of my own psyche, and I love him more than most of the characters I've created, if not all. 'Best' story is in the eye of the beholder, of course. My favorite is, and may always be, "From the Cup of the Worthless", but "The Navigator" will always occupy a special place in my heart. It's the first novel I wrote where I truly felt that I understood what writing a novel was really about. This story flowed better than anything I had ever written up to that point (I wrote it in a month), and it astounded me how effortless it could be when I truly connected with the muse. It's rare when it works that way for me, although it has happened since (the aforementioned "From the Cup of the Worthless" for example) I'm so grateful for the following this story has generated (despite its flaws, heh. I think they're loveable flaws, though), and I'm glad it continues to attract new readers and bring readers back to it again and again. Thanks again for this support!

That was exactly what I needed today. I don't know how to thank you. I've been running up against this wall of trying to find a literary agent for my newest novel and, even though I expected them, the rejections are kind of soul-crushing. It was nice to have something as validating as this show up today, and I am truly grateful for it. Thank you.

I'm glad it kept you going. Thanks for reading! Thanks! Yeah, when I decided to write about a politician, it was really hard not to aim some harpoons somewhere... Heh. Yay! I never know how well I've written suspense until people read it, since I know what's going to happen when I'm writing it, haha! Thanks for reading. It might be awhile before I post something longer, I've been a bit off in my writing lately, but rest assured, I haven't forgotten about you all. Heh. I wanted the alien angle to dangle in front of everyone as a feint so I could slip the real deal under your noses. Hopefully it worked. Who knows? Maybe I'll write these characters into some epic space battle some day? Thanks for reading! Thanks for reading it! I'm glad to hear it drew you in. If I'm bringing in politics, I'm not going to pull any punches. I considered mentioning something about HIV/AIDS, but didn't end up going that route. I wanted to create a politician who would feel human, which is not something I see very often in the politicians we have here, especially not at the top. Hopefully that helped make him relatable. What about a gay cheeto? Thanks for reading! So, quick explanation: this story was actually a response to The Grid and Dice Game. I failed to get my story done in time, missing the deadline by a couple of days. I posted this story unpublished (unchecking both boxes) but it published itself anyway (one of the bugs we're still working out with the new system), which is the entire reason you're reading it. It wasn't supposed to be released until April with the other late stories. After forcibly unpublishing it several times, we decided to just leave it up. My prompt was "A lonely duck who can't shift, Roswell, NM, and discovers an email to a cheating partner from the bit on the side" Hope you enjoyed it!