creativity – Page 2 – WRITE TIME AND AGAIN

Real Life with a Twist

Posted on March 21, 2021 by L. M. Montes

You are up in the mountains hiking with a friend. Along your path you come across a lone pint size milk carton. You’re a fiction writer, and you’re looking for ideas for another story but coming up with zilch. The hike in the mountains you feel will do you some good and perhaps get the wheels of creativity going. The milk carton accomplishes this goal as soon as you see it. It’s as if an electric spark shocked that story center of the right side of your brain. In an instant, your mind has a ‘What if ‘ scenario in place.

What if the milk carton had drops of blood on it, and the blood belonged to someone who vanished without a trace 50 years ago? The blood is fairly fresh too.

In reality, the milk carton is just a milk carton and it most likely belonged to another hiker. They finished the milk and didn’t want to take the carton with them, so they left it there. BOOM. That’s it. BUT, what you did with your ‘what if ‘scenario is put a twist on reality. That’s what fiction does. I love to put a creative spin on things. It makes life interesting.

Writing

WarmUp

Posted on March 19, 2021 by L. M. Montes

Do you warm up your writing engine before you start working on your writing project? I guess I would have to say, for me, it’s split 50/50. Sometimes I will warm up and sometimes I won’t. It all depends on whether or not the creative juices are flowing when I sit down to write. If I know what I’m going to write next in my work in progress (WIP), I don’t do a warm up. If I’m stuck, I do a warm up. That will get the ideas flowing again.

Types of Warmup Exercises

Writing prompts
Journal writing
Writing a blog article
Write a poem
Look at a painting/picture:
- Describe the setting
- Describe what’s is going on (Remember, a picture is worth 1000 words)
- Write a poem using your descriptions (Who knows, you might be able to use it in your WIP)
Take a walk in a cemetery. Speculate about the people who once lived. What do you think they looked like? What do you think they did for a living? How do you think they died and/or what’s the story behind it? Come up with scenarios/stories regarding random people. Did they know each other? If so, what was their relationship? You could go on and on with this.
Go to the beach. What do you see? What connections can you make with what’s in front of you? Maybe the people you see walking along the beach are sea people. If so, why are they there on the beach? What’s their story? (FEEL FREE TO STEAL THIS IDEA IF YOU LIKE)

Don’t be daunted by the blank page ever again. The only reason the blank page is a stopper is because nothing is there. So put something in your head first before you look at that blank page, then you’ll be able to readily transfer it to the blank page when you look at it.

Social

Pick Yourself Up

Posted on March 18, 2021 by L. M. Montes

We all have days when we feel less than adequate. It’s a battle we all face at one time or another. When we feel this way, it’s all to easy to slip into that ‘I don’t want to do…’ mode. Yet, there are deadlines we have to keep, whether they are self-imposed deadlines or otherwise. What is one supposed to do when we feel this way? I’m not going be unrealistic; it’s difficult to climb the ladder out of this mode.

I felt like this yesterday (3/17/2021). My creativity was sapped and I couldn’t think up anything that would contribute to my current WIP. Have you felt this way at times? I was full of self-doubt. Have you had these thoughts too at one time or another? On Twitter I read a tweet by another author who wrote about feeling just this way, and she felt like giving up her writing. She went on to say that one of her fans (not knowing she was feeling that way) sent her a tweet telling her how much she enjoyed her books and even included a photo of the newly purchased book this author just released. What a joy that must have been for that author. That simple act from a fan renewed the author’s faith/confidence in herself.

Since we are all different with different interests, jobs, and hobbies; we will get lifted up in other ways. Sometimes we have to lift ourselves back up. That isn’t always easy to do. I think we need to find the source of our doldrums ourselves at times.

What can we try?

Talk to someone
Meditation
Workout and get the blood/endorphins flowing
Get off your phone. Yes, this means stop playing the games/scrolling social media, etc…
Pray (yes, this really does work). You have to be receptive to this. Spend time with the Lord. He enjoys your company. Sometimes we are the impatient ones and expect results NOW. It doesn’t always work that way.

Even though negating moments such as this don’t feel very good, I firmly believe it keeps us humble and in check. Stay strong. Ask yourself what can be done to turn the negative feelings into positive feelings. You CAN do it. I have faith in you.

Writing

Writing Tired

Posted on February 16, 2021 by L. M. Montes

You wake up in the morning, shuffle your way into the kitchen, turn on your coffee pot, put in a pod (or scoop of coffee depending on the type of coffee maker you have), and pour yourself a cup of coffee. As you sit and drink, you catch up on anything you may have missed on your phone while you were sleeping. The thought of writing starts scratching at your brain, as you begin to think about what you have to get done that day. Many other activities come to mind, but writing is still scratching at your brain. You know the only way to itch it is to sit down and write. But, you’re too tired, even with one cup of coffee in you. The creative juices aren’t being felt. So, you start to do other items on your list of chores to get done. Writing is now banging and clanging against your brain. The story wants to be written, but you don’t want to write because you’re still too tired. You continue doing other things. It’s now 3:00 in the afternoon and you don’t have anything written. You feel guilty because you promised yourself the day before that you would write at least 1000 words today. Uh oh, what do you do? Can you pop out 1000 words from 3:00 pm on?

YES, YOU CAN. Force yourself to do it. You CAN do it. Yes, even if you’re tired. Something will come. I’ve been caught in the “I’m too tired” trap too (too many times). Don’t let procrastination be your mantra.

Social

Book News

Posted on January 29, 2021 by L. M. Montes

I received notification today that the order containing my books, which was supposed to arrive today (January 29th), has been delayed until February 15. My plan was to begin selling them on Monday February 1st, but now it will have to wait until the February 16th (this gives me a day to set things up).

I am so sorry for the delay. Thank you for understanding.

Fiction

The Triunix of Time

Posted on December 31, 2020December 31, 2020 by L. M. Montes

The Triunix of Time

Description, Writing

Creative Burst

Posted on December 24, 2019December 24, 2019 by L. M. Montes

You can take a piece of something intoxicatingly boring and mundane and give it that creative flare. I call it “dressing it up”. Take the pictures above for example. Yes, I agree. They go on forever, or so it appears. Some would see beauty in them; some would see lack of an appeal. I see both actually. I didn’t grow up in an environment such as this, so the vast open plains give me a sense of beauty and allure. But there isn’t a whole lot to them. They’re just a road that goes on for miles, some hills, a sparse amount of trees, grass, and sky.

Now, take these same views, turn out the sun, and watch the stars come out. Now that is truly jaw dropping. Here there are no city lights to drown out the night’s sky. Here it is pitch black outside at night. You can get a blanket, lay it out, lay down and gaze up at the stars for hours. Better yet, the moon. I once saw a harvest moon out in the open like this. I was driving at night on I-70 through the state of Kansas. I looked out my driver side window and saw the biggest moon I’ve ever seen in my life. Talk about spectacular. I wanted to reach out and grab it, it was so huge and close.

In writing, we want to capture these beautiful scenes on paper. We want to capture the boring ones too. Either way, we writers can spice it up if it’s lacking or keep it as is. That’s one of the things I love about writing. We create and it’s anything goes. If your imagination sees it, your hand can write it (or type it).

Fiction

People Watching

Posted on October 28, 2019 by L. M. Montes

I know what you’re thinking, “A picture is worth 1000 words”. Well yes, it is. But go that one step further. Go inside the picture. In other words look at it in real time. Sit on a park bench or on the beach or wherever you feel most comfortable, and watch people. Throw some what if scenarios around in your head and make up stories about who you are observing based on what they are doing. If you’re not within earshot of the conversation, make one up. Have a journal with you to jot down your ideas. You would be surprised how much this exercise awakens your creative side.

All at once the ideas start to flow. An Idea enters that river of creativity. It picks up speed as the current of thoughts continue to take it down river. It picks up more ideas as it flows along. A mile or two down river you have something BIG, HUGE even. All at once your pen is flowing and you can’t stop. The current has taken you and there is no turning back. One plot twist leads to another and you now come to a fork in the river. Which one do you take? Hmmmmm. You decide to take all of them by making each one a subplot. Aha!!! Now you have story that will take your reader on a spellbinding journey.