Today I have nothing to talk about because I’m Getting Creative. Oxymoronic? Well, yes. Everything goes inward and the mind rambles. For instance, in the false starts that began this post, all mercifully deleted, my mind wandered on the following topics: Bill Nighy, Facebook, Goodreads, Voldemort, grammar, Judging the Big Contest That Shall Not Be Named, lunch, houseplants, and back to Bill Nighy.
I really like Bill Nighy.
But this Getting Creative thing: What do I want to do next, what might sell (I’m clueless), what will stop me getting bored. This time around I’m approaching from the opposite direction to my usually haphazard process. I’m planning. I will be messing with file cards and diagrams and pencil scribbles. I might actually get to know characters before I pluck their names out of the air and drop them into a story.
And I have the books to read for the Contest That Shall Not Be Named. I have a clutch of books I’ve never even heard of and even though it’s only a handful it reminds me how many thousands of books are out there and how easy it is for a good book to be overlooked. This is a scary, inexplicable business.
I’m happy to mention, though, that I’ve done some things I decided on at the beginning of the year: I went to the National Gallery in Washington DC to see the exhibit The Pre-Raphaelite Lens which I enjoyed. I started tidying my office. I started thinking about getting ready to tidy the house. I might, even, gasp, sort out my books and decide which ones I really am never going to look at ever again to make more space (and not buy again).
So I pose a challenge to you: track your thoughts and see where they go, as I did at the beginning of this post, and see what you can come up with.
I like Bill Nighy, too.
That sounds exactly like what the book “Refuse to Choose” by Barbara Sher suggests. Which reminds me that I really need to get back to reading it more carefully. There are so many books in my TBR pile, like GMC Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. But I really need to finish my self-help book that’s currently on my desktop. At least I have been working on that today. I shouldn’t dawdle too long because I have to be ready to go when my sister picks me up to work in the kitchen at her son’s reception (I’m happier helping out). Before that my BFF will be calling. I’m looking forward to that. I’m also reading Marie Ferrarella’s newest Silhouette Romantic Suspense, which is being done away with at Harlequin. Harlequin says they’re working it into the Harlequin brand, but I’ll miss the Silhouettes, which have a slightly different “feel” than their Harlequin Intrigue. And speaking of Contests, I’ll be getting my stack of books soon. Not going to worry about that right now, too much other stuff… Geez, Janet, look what you started! 🙂
Bill Nighy = Good.
Have you seen The Girl in the Cafe?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443518/
On plotting & character development and such, I’m hearing good things from folks about Scrivener. I’m a bit leery, seems like one more thing I can make a big, disorganized mess out of.
I’m thinking the universe is tilted! Megan on a Thursday? Janet on a Friday?
Starting something new is always exciting and scary, but I like how your mind is meandering and staying open for creativity. We love it when Janet becomes creative!
Definitely like Bill Nighy.
Tearing my latest manuscript down for rewrites. Driving me nuts!
Trying to organize my research notebooks into more cohesive volumes.
It is my day off and I am trying REALLY hard to devote every minute to creative endeavor without allowing the reality that I have to go back to work tomorrow to depress me into a chocolate eating, veg out in front of the television coma.
I let my thoughts roam free and frequently surprised at where I end up. Once I tried to explain to my husband how a comment on one thing meandered through a multitude of loosely related places to result in a comment that was totally unrelated to the first. The trail it took made sense, sort of. He thought I was nuts and I decided the female brain works much differently than the male. It could be that those of us with better imaginations let our minds wander a bit more freely than others do. They don’t know what they are missing. We never know what we will find.
Well, reading this post I’m thinking: 1) I wish I could see that exhibit! Anything with Pre-Raphaelite in the title and I’m there 2) I really need to start reading the books from That Contest–they look like an interesting bunch this year 3) I also like Bill Nighy. I might need to watch “Pirate Radio” again. 4) TG it’s the weekend