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Month: October 2016

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo

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So, I am gearing up for this year’s NaNoWriMo, and I am feeling so motivated this year, I can’t wait! I’ve got my story. I’ve got my muse. I’ve got the bones of my story outlined…sorta…most of it anyway!

If you’re not familiar with NaNoWriMo, here is the description from their About page:

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.

On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel.

National Novel Writing Month is also a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (formerly known as the Office of Letters and Light) that believes your story matters.

The NaNoWriMo Mission Statement:

National Novel Writing Month believes in the transformational power of creativity. We provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page.

Are you planning to participate? If so, let me know in the Comments! If you’d like to add me as a writing buddy, here’s my profile page! I’ve been participating for nearly 10 years now, but I think this is the first year I’ve been this motivated and had a clear story in the works that I think – KNOW – I can finish!

Before I end this post, I thought I’d share a few links here that might be useful:

  • Discovering Your Writer’s Muse
    We could all use a little inspiration now and then, right? Sometimes all it takes is that one little push to get our creative juices flowing. Maybe it’s a photograph or a memory, a thought or a person; whatever shape it takes, your muse gives you the inspiration and the motivation to share their story. Find yours today!
  • Scrivener [NaNoWriMo Special Trial Edition]
    I’ve used Scrivener in the past, but this is the first time I’ve gotten it installed and ready to use before Nov 1. I am absolutely loving this software! It’s really helped me make sense of my very disorganized way of writing. If you’re like me and you write sections “out of the timeline” of your novel, this software is a great tool. Check it out, and be sure to search YouTube and watch a few basic tutorial videos to get started. This special NaNoWriMo version will continue working through December 7 instead of stopping at the 30-day mark as most trials do. So you don’t have to worry about the trial ending before the end of NaNoWriMo! Also, if you reach your goal of 50,000 words and “win” NaNoWriMo (completing 50,000 words is winning NaNoWriMo; it is not a contest), you can purchase the full version for 50% off (Windows version only; apparently, Apple doesn’t allow discounts?). And even if you don’t achieve your 50,000 goal, you’ll still be able to buy the software for 20% off! (Reg. price is $45 for the Mac version; $40 for the Windows version).
  • Word Count Helpers
    If you look in the top right corner of my site, you’ll notice I’ve posted a widget that will show my word count as I make my way toward my Nov. 30 goal of 50,000 words. You can grab the html code for the widgets from the link above. We writers sometimes need all the motivation we can get, right?

Finally, some inspirational quotes:

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

DMC 3 – If I Could Travel Through Time

DMC 3 – If I Could Travel Through Time

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I’m experiencing some technical difficulties with my 99shadows.com website, so I’m posting my challenge response on this site instead for now.

Let me tell you before we even get started here that I am a weirdo. Seriously, some of the things that pop into my mind leave my husband just scratching his head when I tell him. Asking a sci-fi/fantasy fangirl what period she’d visit if she had a time machine is like asking a kid which piece of candy they want in a candy store full of free candy, so I apologize in advance for whatever transpires on this page.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a voracious and insatiable appetite for knowledge. It’s not enough for me to know a thing – I need to know the why, the where, the when, the what, the how, and the who. It’s part of the reason I was kicked out of Sunday School when I was 5 – I couldn’t accept “because the Bible tells us so” as a definitive answer to my questions. I wanted – *needed* – to know who, why, what, where, when, and how.

I was fascinated by people like Leonard da Vinci, Michel de Nostredame (more commonly known as Nostradamus), Nikola Tesla, and other people who seemed so ahead of their times. Unlike a lot of people, I wasn’t just fascinated by the fact that they were so advanced; I wanted to know why…and how?? Were they merely forward thinkers? Were they travelers from another time? Or had they tapped into a fount of knowledge that exists somewhere to which we all may have access? [Told you I was a weirdo…these really are the directions my thoughts go!]

So if I had a time machine, I would want to go to every time period. Of course, having a time machine, I’d have all the time in the world – within reason, obviously. I mean, I’d still age, right? But I’d want to go to the very beginning of time to answer the age-old questions once and for all – How was the world created? Was it created by a big explosion? By a supreme being? Was it accidental? Just a series of chemical reactions? Or did some creature intentionally design our world? Of course, if it turns out that someone actually created our world and our universe, then I’d need to know – who was it? Where was this being from? Answers lead to more questions, right?

I would want to visit da Vinci. And Nostradamus. And Tesla. I’d want to sit and chat with them, find out where their knowledge came from. Were they time travelers? Were they tapping into the “collective unconscious”? Or were they just really really really smart?

I would want to visit significant events throughout human history – not to change them (I know that [a] it would probably not be possible, and [b] if it is possible, the repercussions of changing something could be detrimental) but to either just observe (like the Hindenburg disaster or Custer’s last stand) or to finally know what really happened, to see it with my own eyes. Did Lee Harvey Oswald really kill JFK? Or was there someone on the grassy knoll? Did Hitler really commit suicide on April 30, 1945 or did he escape justice?

I would want to head into the future, to visit various time periods in the future of our world, just to see “what happens next,” to know what our incredible or crazy humankind will become in the next fifty, one-hundred, one-thousand, one-million years… Will our compassion and humanity finally shine? Or will hate and intolerance continue to dictate our actions for the rest of mankind’s existence?

Finally, although I’d be very tempted, I don’t know if I could trust myself to visit my own past. To think of visiting historical places and events is one thing. Changing one historical event could have potentially catastrophic consequences. Who knows what the world would be like today if JFK had not been assassinated; think of all of the things that happened because of that one moment in time, and all the things that could be different. If I was to warn someone about the sinking of the Titanic, think of all of the people who perished aboard that ship who would have gone on to have lives and children and families and businesses. How would the world be different? I know I could restrain myself from changing something, from potentially setting off a series of possibly catastrophic events.

My own past, though? To see my father again, to visit him as a young man and convince him never to smoke – would that prevent his heart attacks later in life? What if he was on his way to a store to buy cigarettes when he met my mother? Would I even exist then if I convinced him never to smoke and he never went to that store and wasn’t there to meet my mother? I would love to see him again, just to see him…but I could not trust myself not to interfere. The stakes are far too great with historical events, the lives that would be altered if I changed a single significant event are too large a burden to bear. But my own life? I don’t think I could trust myself not to try to change it.

This was a fun challenge because it made me think about what I really would do if I did have a time machine. I’d go joyriding through history, no doubt about it…

Want to take part in the Discover Me Challenges and learn more about yourself while you do? Visit my friend Nichole’s site for details!

The Moon and a Star

The Moon and a Star

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I found this posted on Tumblr and found it so touching that I had copied it down onto a piece of paper and had it stuck to the wall of my cubicle at work. The author is credited with a link to her blog beneath the poem. Just thought I’d share:)

they were once in love, the moon and a star,
both so glittering and bright that they illuminated the night sky.
but the star withered and died, collapsed into emptiness,
and the moon could not love it.
just as you cannot love me, my dear,
for not even your light can reach the darkness of my ruined heart
– ballerinawidow –

Spark Your Imagination

Spark Your Imagination

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When I was a kid, I was bullied a lot and therefore spent a lot of time alone. Some of the greatest friends I had and the most exciting adventures I took part in were through words on a page. They took me away to places I’d probably never go, some of which don’t even exist other than in our imaginations.

I think sometimes readers read and writers write for much the same reasons – to escape to another place or time, to dream and experience things that are beyond their reach, to peel back the fabric of reality and peek at the unknown or the unbelievable, the impossible or the unreachable.

Jules Verne took me 20,000 leagues beneath the ocean; Jonathan Swift let me travel along with Lemuel Gulliver to lands of giants and lilliputians; Betty Smith let me experience the life of a simple girl in New York City through the Great Depression.

Stephen King scared the shit out of me with clowns and aliens and skinwalkers; JRR Tolkien introduced me to elves and
dwarves and orcs; HP Lovecraft reminded me that Cthulhu still waits dreaming…

And it’s not always fiction that opened my mind…Anne Frank broke my heart and made me wonder why humans are so cruel; Ann Rule showed me just how cruel people can actually be; Jim Morrison made me less ashamed to be strange because “five to one, baby, one in five; no one here gets out alive;” Kurt Cobain’s diaries made me realize that we don’t always know the whole truth about anyone.

I sometimes wonder if many authors realize the power they have in their pen or keyboard; how many minds they’ve set free just by putting pen to paper or fingers to keys.

Which authors sparked your imagination or gave you an escape just when you needed it the most?

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole
world around you because the greatest secrets are
always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who
don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
Roald Dahl

WRITING PROMPTS

How about some writing prompts? Pick one (or two…or more!) and write something! See the menu at the top of the page if you’d like to have your writing posted on this site.

  • Use this plot: reporter arrives in town and asks odd questions
  • You wake up, go to the bathroom, and look in the mirror; a different face stares back. Begin your story here.
  • Include this line anywhere in a poem: “…the roughed coals languish long after midnight…”
  • Begin a story with the line, “The clock winked.”
  • Begin your story with this line, “It was the one thing he coveted the most.”
Welcome…or Welcome Back!

Welcome…or Welcome Back!

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Herman Melville once described writers as “…that whole corps of thought-divers, that have been diving and coming up again with bloodshot eyes since the world began.” If you’re a writer, or any creative person for that matter, you’ll understand what he meant completely. Sometimes creating comes easily, and sometimes it eludes us, and we have to dive into the ocean of our imagination to find our next idea…

Thoughtdivers was created to give aspiring writers a place to share stories, poems, and other writing pieces. I created the site a few years ago, and then, as often happens, life got in the way and I sort of lost control of it. I was inundated with 1000s of spammers a day. So…I’m trying a sort of revival, starting over from scratch. I was unable to retrieve much of what was on the original site, so if you’re one of the authors on the site previously and you’ve come back to take a peek, please forgive me! And if you’d like to come back and join again, shoot me an email. Instructions are on the About/How to Join page under the site logo above.

Below is the story I wrote in 2001 that inspired this site (which will also explain why there’s a rate at the top of the site;)

DIVER DOWN
February 3, 2001

“…that whole corps of thought-divers, that have been diving and
coming up again with bloodshot eyes since the world began.”

That’s how Herman Melville described writers. When I read that, it instantly struck a “truth” chord somewhere inside me, and I understood it perfectly.

There’s a book inside me, probably more than one, waiting to get out, and every so often, I dive into my imagination and come back to the surface with a few more bits and pieces salvaged from the wreckage that passes itself off as my brain, that weird scrapyard between my ears that contains probably every meaningless bit of information that’s ever passed through it. I’ve spent my whole life trying to make sense of it, take inventory of all that’s there.

cute-rat-pic-ratatouille-443978_315_400Unfortunately, more stuff comes into the scrapyard every day than is coming out. Every day, more and more pieces of cool junk are being tossed in there, as well as a lot of garbage. Granted, most of the flak gets tossed in some forlorn recess in the back of the yard. Eventually, maybe it’s forgotten, relegated to some dusty corner never to be seen again. But every so often, some lowly junkyard rat goes back there and drags a piece out and I sit straight up in bed wondering why I suddenly remember that Mary MacGregor sang “Torn Between Two Lovers” and why the Rat needed to wake me at 3AM for this bit of useless information.

Then too I think the Rats have a conspiracy going. It seems sometimes they take some of the good scraps and tuck them away in that forsaken corner, where they lay silent and forgotten, waiting for me to take that long overdue inventory. But I’m onto the conspiracy, and I’m one step ahead of the friggin’ Rats! I am smarter than the Rats!

I WRITE THINGS DOWN!

Sounds like a plan, right? Sure. Something pops into my head, and I think, “Wow, that’d make a great story” or “Hmmm, what a cool character” and I write it down, knowing that if I don’t, those fuckin’ Rats are gonna bury it in that back corner, where you’d probably find Jimmy Hoffa, Elvis and Jim Morrison having a nice cappuccino with Jesus Christ.

So I’m a step ahead of the Rats…kinda. Although while writing things down is a step in the right direction, WHERE I write it down is as bad as the Rat’s corner. Napkins, matchbook covers, page 357 of some book I was reading when the thought popped into my head, page corners torn from a doctor’s office magazine, toilet paper (don’t ask).

So I’m thinking the Rats have expanded their conspiracy territory. They’re no longer limited to the confines of the thought-diver’s realm. When I was 23, I wrote a story called __________. POOF! Vanished! Since then, two or three days tops have passed without me wracking my brain as to its location.

Back then, I had less confidence in myself than I do now (which really isn’t saying a whole hell of a lot), but now I know – that fucking story was SELLABLE. When I wrote it, I did it in one fucking sitting and the words just poured out, flowing out of that junkyard like a dream…perfect. I hope Hoffa, Elvis, the Lizard King, and the Messiah are enjoying it over a cup of latte.

So I keep on diving, hoping that someday I’ll come across the remains of that story completely intact, either in the real world lying in a notebook or a heap of papers, or that somehow I’ll find the wreckage sitting there like a sunken pirate ship full of treasure chests spilling over with all the words that came pouring out the first time I wrote it. More than likely, though, the stinkin’ Rats will pull a Geraldo on me and, like the opening of Capone’s Vault, I’ll come out with nothing but a few dusty old bottles. In the meantime, I’ve managed to salvage a few good things here and there along the way, so it’s not a total loss;)