Waiting for the Next Idea...

It’s always hard to go to work on a Monday but after over a week away from work, celebrating the holidays and generally being rather lazy, it’s extremely hard.

It didn’t help that it was a very quiet day at work. It was one of those days where people aren’t returning phone calls, everyone is feeling sluggish and not much gets done, even if you have the best intentions.

For me, it felt a little torturous sitting at my desk when, just yesterday, I’d been finishing up a week off by reading, doing puzzles and playing with the pups.

Now it’s time to get busy again. In my case, this means starting to brainstorm ideas for a new novel. I finished my sequel to The Reluctant Demon just about two weeks ago and while I’m editing it, I want to start something new that isn’t quite so frivolous and silly.
That’s a hard thing as a writer, especially because I’m the kind of writer that I am. I’ve tried techniques before of coming up with ideas by diagramming stories, using notecards…all of the things you read about in writing books.

However, now I’ve written ten novels, I’ve learned that the only thing that works for me is for me to sit down and just…write. All I need is a glimmer of an idea and then to create a character who ‘speaks’ to me and thus, a novel is born.

I’m just waiting for that glimmer.

The problem is, I want my next novel to be good. This is not to say that my past efforts have not been good because I know most of them are, at least, very decent. I mean to say that I want the next book to be really good- the type of book that means something to people.

That’s a lot of pressure. I wonder if when some of the great writers of the past sat down to start a book, they intended their novel to be studied and read for generations to come.

Of course, I’m not sure that’s the type of good I’m looking for. Mostly, I want the type of good that, when I write, I can’t wait to get back to it, to see where my character is going to go and what will happen to him or her. My last books were fun. They were great ways for me to use my imagination and envision what a view of Hell would be like from someone who was only there to rescue her demon lover.

So, I’m beginning my New Year by trying to come up with new ideas. Now the holidays are behind us, it’s time to focus on the path ahead. For me, this means writing. This past year was my slowest as far as writing went. Usually I finish two books in a year or, at least, finish one and get another one halfway done. Last year, I only wrote one. Granted, I published one as well but as far as the writing process went, I allowed myself to be lazy and procrastinate. I could blame my procrastination on a number of things. For most of the year, I was in a job which I increasingly hated with each passing day. I finally did something about it in October. Now I have a job I enjoy that I find rewarding. I also adopted two puppies. They’re not as much puppies anymore as they are dogs. They just turned a year old on December 28th. I had to buy them dog biscuits as opposed to the puppy ones. That was hard because it was a concrete reminder of how things don’t stay the same.

I still think of them as puppies though. They still act like puppies and I have a feeling that, in my eyes, they’ll always be puppies. They’re more self-sufficient now than they were a few months ago but they’re still available for cuddles and love whenever I need it. At the moment, poor Rory has an ear infection so she’s needing a little more babying than usual.

Aside from puppies and work, my slump in writing can be blamed simply on me being trapped in my own head. I’m my own worst enemy- I get down on myself and start believing that I’m useless and a fraud. This year, I’m vowing to not let those thoughts overrule me. Instead, I’ll look at what I’ve accomplished and simply be happy that even if my wildest dreams have not and might not be met, it’s still ok to be happy with what I do and what I’ve done.
I suppose you could consider this a New Year’s resolution though I’m not so sure I want to call it that. It’s ok to make resolutions but I think that we shouldn’t use the New Year as an excuse to do so. Instead, we should make them when we realize we need to change regardless of the calendar date. Still, I can’t help but use the new year as a reason to try to improve. It’s a convenient starting point.

I’m excited to see what the New Year brings. Even if it does mean it’s time to get back to work.

Happy Tuesday!

It's 2010!

I suppose this is my first official blog of 2010 although, to be honest, it really doesn't feel any different from 2009. Since, technically, it's really only three days into the year, that's not really a surprise.

It's been a busy three days. It's amazing how busy vacations turn out to be, even when they're relaxing. I managed to see two good friends, hang out with my family, celebrate New Year's with my sister and brother-in-law by unintentionally renting a movie with a talking penis, see "Sherlock Holmes" and, naturally, eat too much.

Some of that needs no explanation, other parts do. Take New Year's Eve, for example. My sister invited me over to hang out and watch movies she's rented. My sister, who I adore, has inherited my father's ability to view an entire shelf of well known movies and still manage to pick the ones that were never released in the theatre because, well, frankly...they're not good. Sometimes, the movies have been released but lasted perhaps a week or two at most in the theatre. I actually think this is quite a talent. I can tease my sister though because I know, unlike me, she actually has a life and doesn't spend way too much time reading Entertainment Weekly online or watching TV and seeing trailers for movies like, say...me.

Sometimes, though, this ability to pick bad movies is a bit unfortunate. For example, on New Year's Eve, she rented a movie called "Deadline" which starred Brittany Murphy and Thora Birch and made barely any sense at all. When the movie finished my sister, my brother-in-law and I actually had to collaborate to try to figure out what it was actually about. We never reakkt did come up with a conclusive answer.

Then we put in the second movie which was "Bruno."

Now, I'm not a Sasha Baron-Cohen fan. I think he was funny in "Talladega Nights" and he made a funny penguin in "Madagascar," but I was one of those people who thought "Borat" was stupid, didn't get it and wanted to smack him quite hard. So, I wasn't excited about "Bruno" to begin with. Five minutes into the movie our mouths were hanging open with a combination of horror and shock. Let's just say that Bruno, a German celebrity in his own mind, had a pigmy boyfriend and viewers were (un)fortunate enough to see how they pleasured one another. Somehow, we kept watching, hoping it'd get better. By the time Bruno had moved to L.A. and done a pilot of his celebrity interview show, complete with his penis doing a rather alarming dance and talking to the camera, we had enough. That was enough Bruno for us.

My sister was a little embarrassed. She believed that the Redbox movie rental machine would not have such things in it. Now we know better. Bruno was not our cup of tea. She said she wished she'd rented "The Hangover," instead. I wish she had too but, at the same time, being that she's my little sister, this does give me some rather delicious ammunition to tease her with for a while.

All in all, bad movies aside, I had a lot of fun spending New Year's Eve with my sister and brother-in-law and still made it home in time to ring in the New Year with my parents. We didn't do much to celebrate though we had some rather nasty cheap champagne that I thought seemed like a good idea but, like so many others, was better in theory than in practice. We also pulled Christmas Crackers which is one of our traditions- nothing like wearing a silly paper crown at midnight as the New Year is rung in.

I know, I know...it doesn't sound very glamourous. I'm sure there were clubs I could have gone to, places to have celebrated but, truth be told, it was a pretty perfect way to ring in the new year and I wouldn't have changed it for anything.

As for the rest of the weekend, much of it was filled with food. My mother fell and broke her shoulder bone last week and, being it was her right arm, she's a little handicapped at the moment. Thus, my father has taken the opportunity to demonstrate that he can cook. For several years now, my father has been an enthusiastic cook, provided he's in the mood. He does cook well, for the most part. He even enlisted me as his soux chef for one meal- roasted flounder in a lemon-lime white sauce with saffron rice and roasted red peppers. Sadly, it was not my favourite of my dad's meals. Sometimes, he tries a little too hard and in this case, it was a bit heavy on flavours that didn't mix. However, his roast beef that we had the next day more than made up for it. Now that is one fine meal.

In addition to my dad's cooking, I also got to spend time with my parent's at the movies. My parent's and I all had wanted to see "Sherlock Holmes" because it looked very funny from the previews and, for me, it had Robert Downey Jr. in it whom I have loved for many years. Unfortunately, after viewing the film, I have to confess, the previews were the best part of the movie. While Robert Downey Jr. was very good and Jude Law a pleasant sidekick as Dr. Watson, overall, the movie was just kind of...boring. There were too many fight scenes, too much action and not enough of the clever humour the previews had promised. I admit, I'm not a Guy Richie fan to begin with; I find his annoying quick-cut/fast-talking action scenes in his other movies like "RocknRolla" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" slightly tedious. I'd hoped with "Sherlock Holmes" he might have calmed down but, alas, there were quite a lot of explosions, quite a few fight scenes and not enough comedy between two fantastic literary characters. What humour there was was actually hard to detect as it was mumbled in that British way where if you don't strain to hear it, you miss it.

So, my first movie of 2010 was a bit disappointing especially as I'd wanted to see it quite badly. I'm not too worried though. I mean, my last movie of 2009, technically, was "Bruno" so anything would have been an improvement.

The entire year lies ahead. Part of me loves this new beginning, part of me is worried that things will change. I'm a creature of habit as I've demonstrated time and time again in my blog. I like things the way they are. However, there are things in life that need a change: Jobs, for example. I dislike my job and would like to find something that reminds me that it can be fun to earn a paycheck, even if I'm not necessarily changing the world.

I'm also planning on writing more, being more assertive in trying to get published and avoiding the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest like the plague. I was invited to enter. I knew I wouldn't yet I clicked on the site anyway. It was like Post Traumatic Writer's Disorder. Needless to say, the minute I saw the same awful clique hogging the forums and when I read the rules, I knew I couldn't do it. I actually want to get something published that people want to read. As far as I know, the ABNA past winners are more like folk heroes. I can't even find the first winner's book in a bookstore. I'm not saying it's not a valid contest but after my horrible experience last year that I blame for over six months of writer's block, I'm not going to do it again. I'd rather expend the energy editing and writing and enjoying myself, not obsessively reading forum posts to see if anybody has actually read my entry or if there's a problem with the contest...again.

No matter what happens, 2010 is a new year. Depending how we look at it, it's really just a date. However, it's also a representation, as every New Year is, of a place to begin anew and start over with the things in life we want to change. Yet, it's also a time to appreciate what we have. I may dislike my job, I may still be single and I may still be unpublished but perhaps, in the next 362 days, I can find a way to change that.

And, if not, I'll try again the next year.

Happy New Year and...happy Monday.