A
CAMPFIRE CHAT WITH STEVE VERNON
ON
BURNING THROUGH WRITER’S BLOCK
You can feel the changes whispering at
hushed gallop in the breeze as the sky leans down to kiss the leaves into
bouquets of flame and color. It feels as a doorway has opened up in front of
you and you know that you are going to have step right through the doorway into
the weird winter world that is just waiting beyond it.
It is November and a lot of you folks –
like me – are getting set to take part in NaNoWriMo. You are getting set to try
and lay down 50,000 freaking words in a month that is only 30 days long.
That is a daunting task – but it shouldn’t
ought to be so.
Let me give you the secret.
Let me whisper it into your ears.
Sit down.
Sit down here at the campfire.
These are magic words to the human ear. The
campfire is a place in the universe where we all come to listen to the
crackling dance of wood upon flame.
Every time that a writer sits down at their
keyboard they get in touch with that inner spark as they blow their words upon
the embers of their imagination trying to roar that flame into life.
That is what you need to remember whenever
you find yourself at that fatal sticking point. When you start to think too
damn much and you worry about what word you are going to put down next.
Remember – this is not rocket science.
It isn’t even writing – not really. Not
when you stop to think about it.
You are just telling a story.
Don’t fear that.
Don’t let yourself freeze up.
Remember – we are ALL born knowing how to
tell stories. Just as soon as you open your mouth and say “A funny thing
happened to me just yesterday morning…” you are getting set to tell a story –
and that is ALL that writing really is. At the heart of it, at the root of it –
you are just telling a story.
You cannot open your mouth without a story
falling out.
Whether you are talking about the hockey
game that you watched last night, or the reason why your girlfriend has decided
to run away with the local hot tub salesman, or if you are trying to sum up the
answer to the meaning of life in 42 words or less – you are telling a story.
I always get a quiet little giggle out of
how many people think that I am some kind of a freaking genius just because I
know how to wrap a story around the framework of a novel and make it work.
It isn’t brilliant.
It isn’t freaking rocket science.
It is just telling a story.
As
you sit down at the keyboard today just stop and picture yourself sitting at a
campfire across from your very best friend in the universe.
I mean besides your dog.
Just picture yourself sitting there and
telling a story to very best friend and stop freaking out about how you are
supposed to be writing and how this is supposed to be hard and just let the
words ember and roll.
Blow each syllable upon the flames of your
imagination and let the fire rise up inside of your spirit.
And if you think that I am just talking at
you and telling you something that really isn’t all that true just stop and
remember that I wrote this entire 600 word blog entry utilizing a strong
underlying autumnal subtext with overtones of flame and fire without ever using
the word “kindle”.
Speaking of kindle…
SUDDEN
DEATH OVERTIME – A STORY OF HOCKEY AND VAMPIRES
Meet Sprague Deacon - one of the toughest
old-time hockey players who ever skated upon a rink of hand-poured ice. Sprague
was born and raised and he expects to die here on the Northern Labrador coast.
What he did not expect was a tour bus full of vampires - none of whom glitter
in the least bit - to pull into his town and begin lowering the population
level - one corpse at a time. Sprague and his three best friends - an
over-the-hill never-say quit bush league hockey team from Northern Labrador go
toe-to-tooth with a tour bus full of vampires in an immortal-stakes showdown of
street hockey? For the answer - throw Paul Newman's Slapshot into a blender
with Steven Niles 30 Days of Night and hit frappe! Also including the bonus
time travelling hockey tale, "Time Out" as well as a bonus
hockey-oriented ghost story, "Smoke Signals". Only 99 cents for this
week only.
Available on
Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P2P5WMY
Amazon.ca - http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00P2P5WMY
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