How Do You Get In The Mood (To Write)?

How do you get in the mood?

No perverts and pervettes; I meant in the mood to write. (Please note: Any ladies wishing to discuss mood setting in non writing topics, please write via my Contact Me). Enough already.

Odd puppy that he is, Lonely Author has changed in his ability to write. Used to be I needed total silence. Now, I can write in the epicenter of a storm. (Still need to edit in total silence). For certain chapters (or scenes for my screenplays) I seek mood setting places.

For romantic scenes, I dim the lights and listen to soft jazz (Kenny G.) or love songs (Waiting For A Girl Like You, Lady In Red, My Heart Will Go On, and many others). When I want to write about an alluring woman, I begin with Frank Sinatra’s “The Way You Look Tonight.”

For dark moments I seek solitude. I once wrote a dark chapter locked in a closet. I exited sweaty, tearing, and exhausted. But the chapter had the mood I wanted to convey.

Dark Paradise, my novel waiting to be transferred from hand written notebooks to computer, written by candle light. While on a month vacation in the Dominican Republic (an island that suffers from power outages), I received the inspiration for a novel based on a serial killer who strikes when the lights go out and an American cop hired to stop him. The cop obviously, has one phobia – he is too proud to admit he is afraid of the dark.

I penned half of the book by candle light, setting the mood within myself.

How do you get in the mood to write?

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Support Systems: My Number One Fan

There are many support systems a writer can turn to and some of them may be as close as the next room. A few years ago when i wrote my first science fiction screenplay Paradox, I received great motivation and insight from my poetry writing, movie going thirteen year old daughter Catherine. You wouldn’t expect that from a young teen, but her suggestions were invaluable.

After reading my script, Catherine recommended changes in dialogue responses that added conflict and foreshadowing to many scenes. Her observations about my characters helped me build better secondary characters, a delicious antagonist that everyone will love to hate, and kept my protagonist always in character. Later when I adapted Paradox to novel format, she suggested tweaks to dialogue that improved characterization. Her poetry writing habit of always searching for the right word improved my manuscript with a few minor words changes.

My arduous journey to publication may be a lonely one, but at least I had my number one fan in my corner.

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Distractions

As if writers didn’t already have enough obstacles in the way with slush piles, difficulties in finding an agent, and keeping up with the latest demands of the market, we also have to face the difficulty of distractions. Nowadays, with social media taking up more of our precious time, its a miracle anyone gets anything done. (Victor Hugo didn’t have to worry about twitter or updating his Facebook status. If he did, Quasimodo may have suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome instead.)

To avoid the daily distractions of our lives: the noisy kids, quality time with the spouse (Sorry, honey you are never a distraction), the TV, etc. I made it a habit to get up an hour or two earlier than everyone else. Early morning quiet time that I share with my laptop and my favorite coffee mug have provided countless hours of productivity. (If you are a night bird do the opposite go to bed an hour later than everyone else.) It may not seem like much, but if you train your body and mind, you will be productive.

Remember this, while an hour a day may not seem like much, you can only write one page at a time. There have been days where I write five ages in than hour and there are days where I barely complete a single one. If you write one page per day you will have 365 pages at the end of one year (that is roughly 91,000 words).

You need to find a system that works for you and write.

Top Ten Reasons

Top Ten Reasons You Know You Are A Writer

10 – You overhear a conversation about a plot at the cemetery and your mind automatically thinks horror story.
9 – Your stories at the dinner table are always character driven.
8 – The question “What have you published?” can be as annoying as your third grade teacher running her fingernails across the chalkboard.
7 – You complain because the conversations at a dinner party sound nothing like dialogue.
6 – You assume exhibitionists are great writers since they prefer to show instead of tell.
5 – The last time you received this many rejections was at your senior prom.
4 – Every time you watch a good movie or finish a great book your first words are, “I wish I wrote that.”
3 – You miss your bus stop because you were too busy writing an imaginary description of the eccentric lady sitting across from you.
2 – You ask the waiter at your favorite restaurant why there is no page numbering on their menu.
1 – Naming a secondary character in your manuscript provides a greater challenge than naming your unborn child.

The Lonely Author Blog

Why did I chose the name the Lonely Author blog? If you are a writer you already know the answer, or should I say you have already lived the answer? Hour upon hour sitting before a laptop, stringing words together to form sentences. Writing paragraphs full of emotion and tension. Filling up blank pages with nouns, verbs, and adjectives in hopes of eliciting a response in our readers. Unaccompanied moments certain we have written prose as sweet as honey, fighting the angry demons inside our skulls who assure us we only created Blasphemy, Bullshit, and Beyond.

My objective is to create an inspirational depot for the weary writer to seek asylum. Hopefully, I can motivate unpublished authors after they receive another rejection note. Maybe my blog will combat the dreaded creature known as writer’s block. At the very least, I expect to make you smile. Perhaps, if nothing else, this blog will allow me to cling to my fragile sanity as I struggle to be heard.

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