What atmosphere is best for your creative juices?

Another poster brought up that she liked to listen to music, so I thought it would be interesting to see what conditions best suit you when you write.

I have different ways depending on the mood I am in. Once in awhile, I like to have everything perfectly quiet. No T.V., no music, no kids, no hubby, nothing. Unfortunately I do not get that very often. On days when everyone is home, I often go to my playlist, slip on the headphones and try and drown everyone out.

The problem with this is that the music can turn out to be a distraction too. I will find myself bopping my head to the beat, and one time, I actually typed the lyrics to a favorite song. Other times music really helps me to write. It flows into my words. On these days, my writing seems to shine. The characters. The scenes seem to be filled with life. I happen to love those days.

What about you? How is your best writing created?

How do you write?

So far, I am writing four manuscripts.

The first is a young adult fantasy. It is complete. The second is a paranormal romance. It is half way complete--45,000 words. The third is a sci-fi paranormal (I guess might be the best way to describe it)---4,000 words. And the fourth is just the beginning of a sequel for my young adult fantasy.

I know how I want to start my books. I know how I want my books to end. I have a little bit of an idea of how to get from point A (the beginning) to point C (the end), but over all, I don't have the foggiest of what is going to happen, nor do I know all of the characters that are going to rear from the depths of my imagination.

My storyline often ends up being as much of a surprise for me as it might for any prospective readers.

How about you? Do you write with no idea of what is going to happen? Or are you the organized type that has an outline that they follow?

How do you keep going?

What do you do when the words don't seem to want to flow? How do you get past it?

When I finally get free time to sit down I find it rather frustrating that I can't progress any further on whatever manuscript I am working on. The words just seem stuck at my fingertips and refuse to be typed out along my computer screen.

So what do I do?

Often I will go back to the previous thing I was working on or maybe a bit further and read what I have down. This seems to help me get a direction on what I want to work on next. Another thing I will do is go take a long bath and think about my story. If neither of those work, I give up and read a book, which in turn helps me to get the creative juices flowing again. :)

A Writer's Story Part 2

So what makes you all want to write? Why do this?

As many of my writing friends know, writing is not easy. I think some people give it a shot because that is exactly what they think--"My easy peasy road to fame and fortune." But we all know that it is far, far from easy. Far--far--far. If there was a spectrum of hard to easy, writing would be a direct polar opposite of the easy mark. :)

So why do this?

I know why I did.

For years, I wanted to be a writer. I love to read, to be carried away to different situations and worlds, to fall in love with characters (sometimes literally :P ), and when I was in school, I loved to write stories and such, but I never pursued it as a career. When I was younger, I didn't have time, mostly I really didn't think I had the creativity. As I got older, I tried to write a couple of books, got to about page fifty, then would get side-tracked with kids and stuff and give up. (I commend all authors that have kids constantly pulling at their attention and still have the zing to it.)

Why now? I don't know why, but this time when I sat down with an idea, I was determined to see it through. And I did. My manuscript for KRELIS is done.

So what now?

I'm trying to find an agent for my high fantasy, KRELIS, and I have started another two books.

If you haven't published KRELIS why are you writing more? Apparently you don't have the talent to write?

For the first question--I am doing what writers do when they have a passion for the written word----Write. It doesn't matter if my first novel is published or not. For the second---maybe that is true, or maybe I just haven't found an agent that has the same passion for my story as I do, or maybe....??? I can't bother myself with that type of question. All I know, is I have stories in my head that I am going to get down on paper.

Does it matter if I get published or not?

I would love to be published. It is one of the reasons that I am doing this (only a small one though), but it is not mandatory for me to continue writing. I write because I love it.

A Writer's Story

This is a story of an aspiring writer, who wrote a novel that has not been published. The novel's name is KRELIS, and who knows maybe one day it will be on your local bookshelves.

Although KRELIS has not been published, she has moved on to other projects in hopes that one day her dream might be realized. One is a story of young witch and the other is about a girl who can read minds.

KRELIS is about a young wizard who is rather happy living on an isolated island in Known World. But one day he is propelled from being an apprentice to that of a full fledge wizard and equal with his master, Antigonus. Antigonus has a dream a hundred years in the making, and asks Krelis and his friends to go on a long and dangerous quest to collect dragon stones.

What are dragon stones?--you might ask. Dragon stones are just regular stones that form from the hearts of a deceased dragons, but when the stones are merged with the dragon's spirits, a transformation takes place, creating a powerful talismans. Talismans that have the power to change Known World.

Will Krelis and his friends be success? If they are successful will the reward be worth the price they pay? Maybe one day you will be able to know. :)

So here I invite you to follow me on my own personal quest. One of being published and sharing with you the stories that float in my head. It really isn't as scary as it sounds. :) Please feel free to leave comments, questions, or whatever your heart desires. :) And be sure to follow some of the other blogs and tweets that I do.