Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Sci-fi Con Day 1: Been here for 6 hours. So far I've gotten stuck on an elevator for twenty minutes with Hiccup, a girl wearing the same Batman t-shirt as me, two strange guys, and Obi-Wan. MY LIFE IS SO WEIRD.

I am now hiding out in the gaming room working on some writing and debating going to a Writing Professionally panel in fifteen minutes.

Day 1 Wrap-up: Aside from getting stuck in the elevator, I enjoyed another weird moment: after the official convention activities wrapped up, that's when the room parties started (and the drinking for the adults. Also Star Wars cake and a cake in the shape of Luke's hand.) Anyway, so later in the night we ended up in a room party with like rave lights and very loud music being played out of an old school boombox. We sat in that room for a long time listening and talking and enjoying the light show, until this wonderful moment when one song ended and the next one began and without prearrangement, everyone busted out the first lines of "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. Realizing all of us strangers were all in the moment, we jumped to our feet and sang the rest of the song at the top of our lungs and danced like tiny lunatics and it was all kind of magical. Like an episode of Glee.

Man, guys, I am having the hardest month. It's fiscal end-of-year at my husband's job so he's working 65-70 hour weeks and coming home just long enough for me to throw some food at him and send him to bed. Since I don't work a day job it means a lot of long, lonely days at home. It's monsoon season here in the desert which means we get violent storms rolling through every 2 or 3 days - which isn't bad in and of itself, but with my health issues the drastic changes in barometer make me hurt so badly and feel so exhausted that I can hardly function. I want to write so much it hurts but it's so hard to get my brain in gear. The best I've been able to do for two weeks is stare blindly at my WIP, write two or three paragraphs, then spend the rest of my writing time doing absolutely nothing productive. Hopefully I'll be getting my medications upped when I go to my doctor on Wednesday but until then I feel like I'm just flushing this month's progress down the tubes.

<sigh> Thanks. Just needed someone to listen.

If it makes you feel better, Brenda, I just finished the first five chapters of one of your WIPs. So far so good. I like the magic a lot.

MattLarkin wrote:If it makes you feel better, Brenda, I just finished the first five chapters of one of your WIPs. So far so good. I like the magic a lot.

Thank you, Matt. You have no idea how much I needed to hear that today.

Hey Brenda,

I remember someone saying something like "Everything is a muscle" in relation to writing. Furthering that analogy: if you've torn one, it'll need a bit of time to heal. So in the meantime, either do something light or exercise something else.

I create faster than I write, so I get "cramps" all the time where my brain has already written the scene and then has to go through that boring part of transeferring it into words. As such I can't do the mindless running just then - so I tend to veer off and do something else. I'm running a D&D game at the moment so I have that. I often end up spiralling into building combat systems for video or tabletop games. Sometimes I construct comic superhero ideas. I've always got a piano or a guitar in the house.....Basically if I can't run I'll just grab the shiniest looking horse and ride that for a bit. It might no go in the same direction, but it's fun and it keeps me off my leg until the cramp passes

Wow - I murdered that analogy didn't i?...hehe

And in this economy, are the Big 6 more or LESS likely to take a risk on a new author whose production costs are going to be twice that of another author (or more)?

I think this is really a gamble. Even in a country with a good economy has it's risk. I guess you just have to trust your work and go for it?


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