The Realms of a Fantastical Mind

Life is chaos. Anyone who tells you different is either extremely organized and living alone, or that person is the luckiest person in the world.  For the rest of us, chaos reigns. Between jobs, relationships, children and trying to give ourselves some entertainment it’s hard to give a little extra time to do what we writers love, and that is to create with words.  The great part is we do find time.  We pluck a half hour when the kids nap, or during our break time at work.  We sneak away for a few moments to write down that next idea when everyone goes to sleep.  We grow our ideas into stories, but the chaos doesn’t stop there. Once we feel the story is ready to share we send them to our critique partners, where the story is picked apart, line by line. All the mistakes are shown in red and writers have a moment to reflect that we are not as good as we thought. Then we rewrite and edit some more. Over and over the carousel of writing goes.  So where do we start and where do we end?

Oh look, it's a guest, on my blog.  Wait... when did that happen?  Um, now?   I'd like to welcome Dean C. Rich to the Realm. I met him at AQC . He's part of the Speculative Fiction group I joined several months ago, where he does critiques for fellow members, and adds to the helpful silliness that makes me love the group. He has a blog called The Write Time where he has advice for us writers and several guests from AQC and beyond. You can also find him on twitter as @DeanCRich   And so without further ado and with now more delay I give you dum dum duuummm ... Dean Plotter or Pantster I once saw a sports commentator inside the football locker room showing the offensive line’s lockers. Everything was nice and tidy. The jersey’s were hung up neatly, the cleats were lined up. It looked like Monk’s closet. Then the commentators went over to the defensive line’s lockers. Those looked like tornados had ripped through them. They laughed and said this was typical. The

I've been doing some research on this, since lets face it, any and all writers who want to go the traditional route of publishing or publish themselves need to have a strong first sentence. You want to grab the reader by the mind, heart and spirit at first glance.  You want your book to be that sexy blond haired blue eyed girl that everyone looks at, right till she walks out of the room.  The grabber of attention.  To any writer, your story is a child, a brain child that you want people to notice.  However, attention spans are not what they used to be.  There was a time when a reader would accept the long winded description of scenes and the characters in them before anything happened. That is just not the case anymore.  The reader wants to use their own imagination implant their own ideas of what things look like, not to be pushed into viewing something else.  They want that first line to be one of those lines that tells them everything and nothing.  So, how do you do that?  Well

Time flies by on wings unseen. Words flow to page as if they were already written but there is not enough time to write to dream. When you wake will you still see what was written behind your eyes? Will you see the beauty of imagination's first kiss last kiss Walk in the shadows of light walk on the clouds of thought. it is your dream you desire your choice to remember and write the story share with the world the depths in which imagination can flow It's your choice. Sorry if you weren't expecting poetry.  It comes and goes, I haven't shared mine in almost 10years.  I apologize if it seems a bit off.  I'm rusty at it, but the poetry has been hovering over my shoulder for the past few days and ran through me when I started to write.  Kind-of how my characters are at times in the story I'm writing.   The question I wanted to ask, is how many of us create our stories out of a dream? I could say that mine was created out of a dream, th

This is the day when each of us looks at what we have done, and what we want, whether it be in ourselves, about ourselves, or how to make things better. Ultimately it's a selfish day, but there are times where selfish can be the healthiest way to feel.  All things in moderation of course. So what is your Resolution? What do you want to do or gain that will bring you happiness? Will you still be happy if you do not achieve your goal? My Resolution is to research Literary Agents this year.  It would be great to get representation, but I want to know my investors as much as they will in turn need to know me.  A writer can spend years, even decades perfecting the craft, and only give a glance at those out there who would invest in their work.  Would it not be prudent to also work hard on finding the perfect match for your talent.  I think so. Finding an agent would bring me a thrilling joy.  I will still be happy even if I don't get one this year.  All things take time and t