Hello January

Cold weather here in the north east brings pain from an old shoulder injury. The pain radiates from jaw to fingertips so everything seems like an effort. Even typing. I exist on Advil and heating pads while I try to pound out a few pages every day.
And my Blue Diamond seems to be a struggle right now. There are things I have to get settled within the story and it's freakin' boring. She's homeless but I need to have hero-man help her without her being too needy about it. So it's a battle between keeping her independent and letting him in enough to supply some help. I need her slightly indebted to him so she takes up the adventure he's offering.
Does any of this make sense?
How do you get over the abyss in your story? It's there, it tells us stuff we kind of need to know but I feel like I'm missing something here.

Does your WIP fit the Hero's Journey?

Does it have to?

There's a pretty good site (okay, their selling something but I still like their outlines) that talkes about the Hero's Journey. They list a bunch of movies on the site and outline them into the Hero's Journey. And they do it more indepth than I've ever seen it before. 188 stages!

Now I want to go back and watch the movies so I can match them up visually to the Hero's outline, because I just want this to sink into my brain better.

Now I'm looking at my own WIP and trying to see how it fits. Did I cover all my bases? Forget a major part that will leave my work looking weak? And if I have a hero and heroine who are both major players....do I have to "journey" them both? I mean, sometimes I'm in the heroine's head so does she need a journey here too? And did that guy who wrote Star Wars have the hero's journey in his head when he was writing it?

Here's the basic journey I'm working off of:

The Call

Threshold

Challenges

Abyss

Revelation

Transformation

Atonement

The Return

Not 188 but its a start.

Does anyone think of this while their working their WIP?

Opinons?

Getting back into it.

I've taken a bit of a break from writing, painting and most everything I love to get into a new job.
I was sitting in a campaign meeting (a friend running for mayor) and someone came in with a job offer. The few who knew I was unemployed started pointing at me and saying "She wants it!" Well, going back to work before my unemployment ran out was a bit of a shock. Although I was putting the word out that I was looking, I never really gave it my all. I gave it to Karma instead. Whatever was meant to be, shall be.
And I guess Karma decided it was time.
Well the new job is in the county election division. I started two weeks before the election and haven't slept since. The amount of work that came through the office was unbelievable. We worked late every night & weekends. By election night (in at 5 a.m. not home till after 11 p.m.) I was exhausted! I think I'm still recovering. Like jet lag, election lag had me down for the count.
And now I feel like I'm back! Its time to take back control of the things I want to do as opposed to those I have to do. And I have a plan. Write at night, print and edit on my lunch hour. (I actually get a whole hour for lunch and finding myself not knowing what to do-at my last job I ate at my desk and did email during lunch.)
So my question is how do you slice up your time to write and get all the everyday demands done too? Do you have a schedule? Or just go with the flow?

Another turning point...

This photo is my latest WIP. Tomorrow is my last day at work. Feels strange. Freeing, scary, exciting and I'll miss my boss. She was the best boss in the world. It was a great office. Nice people worked there.

Via con dios' mi amigos.

Another turning point a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go
So make the best of this test and don't ask why
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time
It's something unpredictable but in the end It's right
I hope you had the time of your life
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good heath and good time
Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while
It's something unpredictable but in the end It's right
I hope you had the time of your life
It's something unpredictable but in the end It's right
I hope you had the time of your life
It's something unpredictable but in the end It's right
I hope you had the time of your life

When the urge hits. What do you do?

I've put aside Elevator Man for now while I turn Lucifer Walks into a screen play for a small film company. Almost done with that- Yay! But its consumed me. It was one of those things that took more work then I expected. First I had to read through the original 400 page manuscript and chop it up into screen play size. Push aside all those descriptive phrases and just give direction. OUch! I did a lot of writing, cutting, writing.

But now I have the overwhelming urge to lock my self in my garret (okay, its just a spare room but to appease the artist inside I think of it as a garret) and paint. I want to get my hands dirty, touch the paint, feel the canvas beneath my brush and splatter my jeans with rainbows of acrylic.

When I come up from air after whipping my WIP I always have the urge to paint.

Question; When you come up for air, what do you do to re-center yourself?