2019 Wrap Up

It has been a year.

I moved. My parents opened up a restaurant. I took several long breaks, some were desperately needed, others were mandatory due to the move.

It’s been interesting. I have to give it that.

This was also the first year in which I had set actual goals for myself that I wanted to get done. Last year, 2018, I only wanted to see what I could and couldn’t do over the course of a year as I worked on my writing and building a platform.

So now, much like my usual monthly wraps, I’m wrapping up the year to see what I managed to do and see what I realistically can and can’t do for next year.

So, let’s get on with it.

Trials for the Princess Ryanne and War for the Good King are going through major overhauls right now. I’m writing this post before I’m writing the post addressing it. But needless to say, neither of those are done at this moment.

As for the anthology, I have the outlines fixes, most of the rough drafts written up, some of them are typed up and on my computer, most of them have titles, but I’m not really happy with the title for the book itself just yet. So, I would say I’m about seventy percent done with the first phase of this piece. As I have said before, I came up with a few more stories that I really want to put in that tie up some more loose ends, so I still have those I need to do.

I’ve abandoned the idea for a newsletter for this year. And, honestly, I think I’m going to leave that idea for now. At this moment, I don’t really feel like I make enough quality content, or am a popular enough author to warrant monthly newsletters. Perhaps in the next few years, I’ll implement one, but for right now it just doesn’t seem like a good idea for me.

As for the revamp of the site I wanted to do. Well… You can see how that turned out. It didn’t. I’m not even really sure what I was planning to do in terms of revamping the site. I think more than anything I just wasn’t super into the layout or pictures. But I can fix that eventually if I’m still so inclined. But I’m not going to worry about that right now.

About the twelve writing contests, I wanted to enter. Yeah… that didn’t happen. I even changed my goals for this to be one contest before the end of the year. That still didn’t happen. But that’s okay. I had so much going on, I’m not upset about it.

I managed to read more than twenty-five books this year. For those of you who follow me on Goodreads, you’d see that at this moment I’ve read twenty-six. I still have a couple weeks until the end of the year at the time of writing this, so I’m not sure what the actual final count is yet. But I’m happy I managed to do this. Especially when I changed this goal from twenty-five to twenty because I wasn’t sure I could do the extra five. But I did. So, I’m very happy about that.

I did manage to outline Realm of the Demon Empress. And I’m very happy with how it’s turned out so far. It took way longer than I first expected to properly outline it and add in all the detail and extra scenes I wanted. It ended up being sixty-something pages before, and about thirty-one after I typed it up and printed it out. So I’m very happy about that.

I didn’t manage to write three short stories this year, but I did manage to write one. And I’m very happy about the premise of it, less so about the way it ends. But, you know what, it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time around, it just has to exist.

I did do a blog event/challenge. The 12 days of Blogmas, which was actually a lot of fun.

I didn’t do a one year anniversary post. That time passed while I was still unpacking and trying to figure my room out after the move. So I couldn’t. But that’s okay, there’s always next year.

I haven’t finished ‘Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Getting Serious About Writing Part 2’, but I am working on it. It’s certainly getting there.

I stopped trying the weekly writing prompts. I didn’t like how it looked on the blog, and on top of that, they weren’t my personal prompts. So I felt kinda icky taking them, despite the fact I tried to give credit where it was due. So that stopped.

I’ve made a few playlists on Youtube for the various pieces I’m working on, and the tone I need them to set. But they aren’t completely done, and there are a few I still need to make up.

And I did the research I needed to, to a degree. I still have a bit more I need to do to get it as accurate as I want to though.

So, calculating it all out, marking the ones I only partially completed as a half, I got five out of fifteen done. It’s not bad. Especially when you consider the fact I realized several things weren’t going to happen, and everything that happened this year.

Overall I’m pretty happy with what happened. And I’m looking forward to getting more done next year. Or, tomorrow I guess.

What did you manage to get done this year? What did you manage to tick off your list for the new year? I’d love to hear if you’d like to share.

I hope you’re having a great new years eve, and if it’s not great I hope it gets better. We’re about to enter a new decade, meaning we have new opportunities awaiting us. And I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

What I am Most Grateful for this Christmas.

Merry Christmas to everyone reading this today. And if you’re reading this afterwards, I hope you hade a wonderful, merry Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Or Kwanzaa because that is tomorrow.

Now, I know being thankful and giving thanks for is mostly considered a Thanksgiving thing. And that’s fine if you agree. However, I do not.

I have always been of the opinion that one should give thanks for the good in their lives. And I feel this way especially around the holidays because I have so much and feel endlessly grateful for it all.

So, in not so many words because I’m sure we all have things we’d rather be doing than readings the ramblings of some woman on the internet, I would like to express gratitude to all the things in my life that I am thankful for.

Starting with, my family. I have endless support and unconditional love. Especially when I’m snappy, and moody, and really don’t want to socialize with anyone. I could not be who I am, I could not be happy if I did not have the wonderful people in my life who I get to share a name with. And, if any of you are reading this, thank you. So, so much. I don’t express it, but it really does mean the world to me.

I am grateful for my ability to do this. To put myself out there, in a safe, introvert-friendly way. I am grateful to share my thoughts and ideas, my progress. And sometimes even just random things that really have nothing to do with a writing blog, but I find lots of fun.

And because I want to keep this list short, I’ll end with this.

I am grateful for you. Yes, you. The person reading this blog. Whether you leave a like, or comment, or follow, or not. I am grateful that you are here. I am grateful you take the time to acknowledge my existence and my scattershot thoughts even if they didn’t register as anything more than ramblings. I am grateful for every last one of you seventy people(at the time of posting this) who are following me. Yes, even the spam/bot accounts. And I’m fine with that because it means my words are reaching at least seventy different places, and I know in comparison to some that is so small, but that’s a lot to me. So, thank you. Thank you for caring enough to give me some time and prove in my darkest hour that this will be worth it. I appreciate you more than words on a screen can convey.

And I will leave it at that before I beat the dead horse and start to sound redundant.

So, no matter what you celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful day. And if it isn’t wonderful right now, I hope it gets better. Because I honestly hope for the best for you all. And I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

Let’s Talk about: Inspiration

Today, specifically, I want to focus on the inspiration for stories. I’ll get to character inspirations at a later date.

I’m one of those people who works on quite a few different stories at a time. A lot of this has to do with strong inspiration that has me really excited to work on them.

So where does this come from? Books?

Not really. I do read a fair amount, but I always try to shy away from drawing inspiration from other people’s books. I’m constantly afraid of unintentional plagiarism, so if I have an idea that’s very similar to a book I just read, I’ll either break it down to its barest bones because I like the idea, or I scrap it. If I really want to write it, I’ll write some more fanfiction.

Movies?

Not generally. There can be a couple scenes, i.e. panoramic, large battles, quick cuts from different characters to build tension, that I enjoy and might even want to imitate in my own work. But the basic premise has already been done. So, much like books, I try to avoid them as often as possible.

Video games?

I have actually gotten a couple of ideas from video games. Or, more specifically, video game playthroughs. Generally, I latch onto certain little plotlines, ideas, or elements that can be expanded upon but aren’t specific enough to be considered plagiarized, but have been presented in interesting ways that I either hadn’t heard before or hadn’t considered before. I have a central plot point for a novel through one little aspect of a video game playthrough I watched presented in a way I hadn’t seen before.

The people around you?

Most of the people around me influence my characters more than any plot or device within the story. However, every once in a while when someone’s going on a tangent or just sprouting jibberish, they drop these little nuggets of gold. Something so weird and bizarre, and out there, yet so… plausible. Easy to picture. And, at times, freaking badass that I have to take note and jot that down. It might not be relevant to any of the pieces I’m working on now. Or even anything I’m going to make in the next few years. But that’s the beauty of a writer’s notebook, you don’t have to use everything there. It’s just there so you don’t forget it.

Everyday objects and situations?

Sometimes. This is far more touch and go for me. I can certainly find the mystical in the mundane. But I think a good portion of this comes from seeing or experiencing something in a certain light or mood. I don’t often get this, at least not usually on my own. So this is a far less used option than anything else.

What else is there?

Writing prompts. I feel like I’ve beaten this to death and back, but here we go again. Whenever I’m on Pinterest(usually at least once a day), I come across a handful, sometimes more writing prompts that just get the creative juices flowing and have me excited. It isn’t just story prompts either. Pinterest has character prompts, scene prompts. You can find these on Tumblr too, but posts about interesting character ideas that give way more depth and intrigue than the standard character norms we have, sometimes breaking them entirely. I may or may not have entire stories planned out from a handful of prompts, a couple quotes, and some kill the clique posts(don’t hate, appreciate).

That’s all I got right now. For my writers out there, where do you find inspiration for your stories? I’d love to read if you’d like to share.

If you have something you’d like me to talk about next week, please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer it.

I hope you’re having a great day, and if it’s not great, I hope it gets better. And I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

Why I Like Working On More Than One Project At A Time.

I know there are some people who will plow through one piece to completion and then move on to the next. I appreciate these people. I respect these people for having the work ethic and discipline to limit and focus themselves to just one piece at a time. There is a sort of refined maturity in this method, at least to me.

I am not one of those people. I have no refined maturity. I have, what I call, a squirrel attention span. And by that I mean my mind is never in one place for too long. Lunch, conversation, stationary, SQUIRREL! (usually puppy, actually) conversation, etc.

I have tried before to focus solely on one piece at a time, and it has not worked for me. I tend to get bored. Almost to the point where I want to give up on the project altogether. So, I’ve always been in the mindset of, I’m losing steam on piece A I’m going to work on piece B for a little while here. That way I can come back to piece A with renewed vigour and maybe some fresh ideas. I’m not bored with piece A anymore, I’m more excited about it than I was before.

Another thing is, there comes a point where you can’t touch a project for a while. Either it’s because you just finished it and it needs to rest before you jump into edits so you can see it with fresh eyes, or the piece is going through a beta reading process. I personally don’t like to touch a piece until I have all the feedback from my betas and then look objectively at their feedback and what can be improved upon.

This leaves a lot of free time that can be used on other things. I only have this blog and my twitter(@TRFlynn2 if you’re interested) as a platform that requires some time, but not enough to take the entirety of my ‘off’ time.

So, let’s assume I spend about an hour a day working on my platform. Take out eight hours of sleep, two hours of bathroom use, two hours of eating, about three hours for work, and four hours for writing/editing work. There are four hours a day that can be put towards something else creative. And if I’m not touching project A for one of many reasons, that means there are eight hours left in the day for me to do something constructive.

I am as guilty, possibly guiltier than most, of taking breaks and not realizing I need to pause and recharge. So I’m not writing/editing/drafting/thought dumping/etc for four to eight hours a day, on a really good day I think it’s between four and five hours and those are very few and far between.

But I just like to continue to jump around and come back to different projects. I would rather take a little longer on a project by jumping around to various other projects so I don’t fall out of love with my pieces. And I think that’s the biggest thing about why I jump around when I get bored or a little frustrated. I never want to fall out of love with my writing.

I think that’s all I have for you right now. Do you like working on one project at a time or are you like me and jump around? Do you have a suggestion for next week’s post? I’d love to hear if you’d like to share.

I hope you’re having a great day, and I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

4 Ways To Make A Story Longer

Presently I am editing War for the Good King, and one of the biggest struggles I have is its length. It’s supposed to comparable to Trials for the Princess Ryanne, but it’s presently much shorter than I would like.

There are always ways to make a story shorter, cutting unnecessary scenes, redundant dialogue, and pointless descriptions. This is great if you’re an over writer.

I struggle with writing more than I should. I am a notorious underwriter. In essence, I don’t write enough. As such, WftGK in its first draft was a bare bones story.

After letting the story sit and rereading it, I came up with a bunch of things that I could expand upon and add, not only to make it longer but to make it better. And I’m going to share some of them with you!

Disclaimer, before we continue, I am for the idea that a story is going to be as long as it’s going to be. That means I am not going to make a five hundred word flash fiction piece into a one hundred thousand word novel. The simple reason for this is because the story can be told in those five hundred words and feel complete. What I am referring to in this post, is a story that is incomplete as the depth is not there.

Now that we have that cleared up, let’s move on.

1. Building tension.

My first draft is literally just me trying to get words on the page to mould later. Therefore tension is one of those things that fall through the cracks a lot of the times until I can get around to fixing it.

There is SO much tension in WftGK it’s kinda insane. So taking the time to slow down a scene, describe the slow thumping in a character’s chest, the cold sweat beading down their back, the smell of herbs and death in a room. It all paints a picture that’s far more vivid than saying her heart hammered as she grew cold because the room smelled bad.

On top of that, taking a few moments to describe what the character is feeling and how hopeless a situation feels adds all the tension and suspense.

And tension isn’t all horror either. What about romantic tension? I know I’m going to need to build that up between two of my characters. That will be fun.

2. Showing, not telling.

Every writer hears this all the time. It’s way better to show than tell. This bit of advice has been beaten to death, and then reanimated, and then beaten again. But there is a reason for it.

The impact of hearing a blade scraping against stone, and the breathy hiss of the sentinel as it patrols the halls the characters are trying to navigate, is way more impactful than just saying there are creatures in the hall that will kill you if you get caught.

It helps to put the reader on the edge of their seats too. So it’s a win-win.

3. Subplots!

I will be the first one to say that I do not plan out subplots as well as I should. I know where I want everything to go, but actively putting them into motion and carrying through is something I need to work on more.

Side characters falling in love, a supporting character gaining strength and confidence in their abilities, sidestepping the main quest to deliver a letter, or racing back home because a loved one is sick.

There is an infinite number of subplots that one can use to not only make a story more enjoyable but add to it as well.

Just make sure that if you start a subplot, you finish it before the story ends.

4. Take a break.

No, not you! You need to work on this piece and get it ready for people to read. I’m talking about your characters. Give them a break.

I don’t mean send them to the spa on the pages(although you can if you want, that could be fun), I mean give them some downtime. Having things be high tension all the time is exhausting and soon there is no tension, it’s just life.

It’s all about a balance. You can’t have good times without bad times, you can’t have stressful times without relaxing times. Still not talking about a spa.

What I’m saying is, let’s say your characters are in a war zone. In between planting bombs, fighting, and finding out revolutionizing information, the main cast is hanging around at camp together. They’re shooting the shit, talking about better times, what they’re going to do once they get home, telling stories, etc.

Or maybe you take a couple of the cast or the love interests and you give them an intimate moment together, just the two of them. You let the reader think everything is going to be okay. This little glimmer of hope makes the high intensity scenes where someone is getting tortured and all is lost all the more impactful. Why? Because you gave them hope. Now rip it away again and slap them with a fish! We’re in an active war zone, damn it, no one is getting out of here unscathed.

That’s all I have for you today. If you have a topic you’d like me to talk about, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to make it happen.

I hope you’re having a great day. If it’s not great I hope it gets better. And I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.