Emotional Scenes

Sometimes ... I get so caught up in a scene I'm writing ... so involved with the characters and the emotions ... that I find myself crying. Not just welling up with tears, but tears actually rolling down my cheeks, one after another.

Then I stop, and I read what I've written, and I *hope* that the emotion I'm feeling is translated to the page.

*sigh*

How about you?
Have you written or read anything recently that has moved you to tears?

How Hard Are You Willing to Work to Achieve Your Goals?

My son is visually impaired, and so I often cringe when people say things like, "The blind leading the blind," or "Are you just blind?" I don't get offended. I know people don't mean anything bad (usually) by using these clichés, but I still just cringe, because people who say these things don't usually have any experience with being blind or having any sort of visual impairment, and as a result, their comparisons and comments are often poorly based.

With that said, here's a motivational video. I think it is more motivating if you do NOT listen to the spoken words (because the narrator uses a lot of "if you were blind" analogies). If you mute it and watch the video and ask yourself, "What am I willing to do to achieve my goals? How hard am I willing to work?" ... you may just be inspired.



But wait!

Then I found this video. If you REALLY want to be inspired to work harder to achieve your goals ... watch AND listen to this one. Simply awesome.

 

Which video did you like better?



Great Blog Posts

As promised, here are some great blog posts for you to read:

From The American Scholar
A wonderful (but long) post about writers and their lives. Here's a snippet:
"So my first answer to why do we want to hear about writers’ lives is that we want to understand the mystery of creation. We are not satisfied with the sacral view of the writer. We want to learn the secret of creativity, because it can be the secret to happiness. We turn to all kinds of literature, biography and fiction both, to learn how to live, and in a way, all books are self-help books."

From Press Democrat
An author settles her lawsuit against her publisher for massive amounts of typos.

From Terri Bruce
The author from the above link describes the situation in her own words. Here's a snippet:
"... I’m involved in a dispute with my publisher, Eternal Press (a division of Damnation Books) ... basically the gist is that the final version of Thereafter is riddled with errors that make it unreadable and the publisher, knowing this, published it anyway."


From Rachelle Gardner
Unrelated to the previous two links, here is an awesome post from literary agent, Rachelle Gardner about the publishing industry. Here's a snippet:
"It’s about great stories and important thoughts. It’s about legacy. It’s about a dream. People in publishing still see this dream as worth it. They’re willing to swim against the tide because publishing isn’t just a business, it’s a life, it’s a calling, it’s a passion. To all writers who believe in the dream, who have the passion, who feel called to the legacy — I’m right there with you, and so is everyone else who has staked their livelihood on this crazy, unpredictable, totally unrealistic business called publishing. Thanks for being here, and hanging on for the ride."

ENJOY! And let me know which link you liked the best!

Daughter Distractions

I had intended to publish a totally worthwhile list of blog posts for you to check out, but I am distracted by my daughter. Take a look at these awesome pictures (and then come back Wednesday for the blog list).

I really like her. I really don't want her to leave home. Ever.
*sigh*
But she seems to think that she'll graduate from high school and then leave for a college far far away.
*sigh, again*

I just need to save my pennies so that I can buy an airline ticket and go visit her. Often.
*smile*

Motivation from Neil Gaiman

I find Neil Gaiman's writing advice very motivating. He said:

"If you’re only going to write when you’re inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you will never be a novelist — because you’re going to have to make your word count today, and those words aren’t going to wait for you, whether you’re inspired or not. So you have to write when you’re not “inspired.” … And the weird thing is that six months later, or a year later, you’re going to look back and you’re not going to remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you wrote because they had to be written."

For more inspiration from Gaiman, check out this worthwhile post from www.brainpickings.org

What motivates you to sit down and write?

Short Blog Break

We are all pretty involved with volleyball season right now. So ... I'm going to take a short blog break, but don't worry, I'll come back in a week or two at the most with great new posts!

IWSG: Maybe I Should Just SEW

Yeah, there are some days where I feel a bit insecure about my writing ... like today. Will I be able to nail down the plot for my next story? Will it be any good? Will it be better than the last one?

Maybe I should just sew today.

*sigh*

If you ever feel insecure - check out the awesome IWSG at: http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html

On a positive note, I am absolutely loving volleyball season this year! :) Check out the post below.