Finding Katie's Story

Hello vocal peeps, Katie here. This is my writing blog as promised. Granted, I planned on to post it a week after the last one, but I lolly gagged. That being said, I am posting now, and that counts. I said every two weeks I did not specify when I would start these posts so, it's all good. Right? Right!

I refuse to feel discouraged or to be angry at myself for not being perfect. I am working on me, and I am a work in progress (aren't we all). The key word is progress, and hey I am more positive lately than I have been in a long time. I am going to celebrate all the victories large and small and not sweat the small stuff. I wrote the writing post #1! Boom. I even talk about my novel later on. That’s two victories already- that’s my story and I am sticking to it. The truth is, change takes time, and I am going to do it a little bit at a time and cut myself some slack while I am at it.

I read a book on writing years ago, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and it stuck with me. Apparently, the author’s brother chose not to work on a massive essay about birds until the last minute. Faced with the sheer magnitude of the assignment he does not know where to start and his father advises him to do it bird by bird. So, that’s where I am going to start- I am going to start small, one manageable task at a time. One bird at a time.

I shall start with the most sacred of birds… the rubber ducky. Is anyone else hearing this:

Am I the only one smiling right now? Man, that is a beautiful slice of my childhood right there. It also helps remind me that writing is fun, and I like to write. I genuinely enjoy using words to create emotions, to create worlds, to create characters, to simply create. When I worry about following through and my novel-less existence sometimes I forget the joy and the fun. Whenever I am worrying about what I am not doing or how I am not good enough- I am going to remember the rubber ducky.

I still want to work harder and have more to show for my time. One of the problems with trying to write my novel is that my brain is full of words. I have too many stories and worlds in my head, and I don’t know where to start. That toxic brain dance is rearing its ugly head, and I am staring at a blank screen. What I need is to figure out what story I want to write, but I have no idea how to do that.

Last of the Dragon Kin, the Lost Princess, the Reluctant Prime (or maybe the reluctant mage), etc. etc. These stories aren’t full stories. Mostly they are characters and some scenes that press into me like they are actually happening. There may even be some basic world building, or more than basic, but no clear direction. Even if there is a plot arc it is not truly there. Mostly they are banal scenarios that my characters can run around in. What there are, besides the characters, are ideas. Large fun ideas, specific strange ideas, idea ideas.

I read something recently that resonated with me. It was in On Writing by Stephen King. He basically said that there is no idea factory where all the ideas lie. The ideas simply happen, the key is to recognize them before they pass by. I have all these half ideas that have never become fully solid. I am simply letting ideas float past me, and I am not reaching out to see where they could take me.

I have been thinking about it lately and now, I have an idea. It is a tentative thing, like sand in my hand that I am afraid will blow away. The idea doesn’t have all the questions answered yet- but it is there. Several ideas have merged and become something new, something odd, and interesting. Something fun.

What if there is a world nestled right next to ours? It’s a similar world; except they have magic. Lots of magic, oodles of magic. Too much magic, in fact. The magic is tearing their world apart. Our world on the other hand has no magic, none at all, but our world is in peril too. Magic is like water, without it you cannot survive, but too much can kill you. Leave it up to our plucky sarcastic earth (as in our reality ish) girl to fix it… if she can. Sucked into the magic version of earth she has to figure out what secrets are being kept from her and if magic will ruin or save her world. Bum bum baaaaa-

I went into back of the book blurb mode for a minute there. For my next writing post, I will try to share some of the actual story or perhaps I will talk more about the plot. I will begin at the beginning, one bird at a time.

I would never have gotten this far if I didn’t manipulate myself into writing vocal posts every two weeks. You super stars out there are helping me reach my goals. Someone is reading it, and maybe someone is looking forward to the next post. That’s enough positive pressure for me to keep on keeping on, so thanks for reading. Tune in week after next, same bat time, same bat channel.