I called this Newsletter/corner of Substack BrainStorm. Not because of the brainstorming writers do to create their characters and worlds. I called it BrainStorm because I feel so often that my mind is firing off in different directions, filled with storms. Icy blizzards. Torrential downpours. Summer thunder. Way back in… 2006? I called my blog, The Eye of Loni’s Storm. There, I felt like that I could sit in the middle of the storm and sift through my thoughts, usually on books and movies, sometimes on parenting as I got older. That blog lived for a long time. It’s still up if anyone wants to have a look. I thought I’d post whatever newsletter I created on Substack over there as well, but nope. I just don’t have the time. (At some point, I should write up a post directing any old followers here.) I really loved that blog.
Now, my feelings have shifted. My focus has shifted. Not just in how I’m expressing myself online, but in how I want to spend my time. My family still comes first. I have a job to support them. Then, after all that, I have “free” time. Most of it is spent on this laptop, spilling words, then tidying them up.
The more I write, whether fiction or blog posts or newsletters, I have to remind myself, WRITING IS HARD! Writing is one of the most difficult activities I could have chosen. Stories and characters and all their words are calling to me.
After a tough day at work, after getting dinner ready for the family (maybe before getting dinner ready), it would be so easy to curl up in the rocking chair with a book and tune out the world. On really bad days, I've done that. Reading can be so easy. I can escape into a world and ignore whatever set my teeth on edge or gave me a headache. It could be a fantastical world like Shadow and Bone and the Grishaverse, or it could be the world of Ali Hazelwood's latest romance. Get me into that world with those characters, and I'll be happy.
After that same type of day, opening up my personal computer or a notebook to work on my own stories can seem like too much. Where are my words? What will they say?
Writing requires practice. Grammar practice. Fiction practice. Proofreading. Characters. Plot. They all take practice to create and describe. Show, don’t tell, except for when telling is allowed. Find your voice. Find your character’s voice. Do all your characters have the same voice? They shouldn’t, but it’s difficult to make them all sound different. My go-to trick? I write journal entries in the voices of the characters whose POV I’m going to use. Even if there’s only one POV, like with my modern gothic. My MC’s voice isn’t my voice (even though it is). She has a confidence that I didn’t at her age. She’s owns herself and her decisions. When I felt I was losing her voice, I’d do the journal entry activity again. Alan Watt’s 90 Day Novel has some excellent writing exercises. (Could I write a book in the way he describes? I don’t know. No? I might try one day, as an experiment. But those writing exercises are great.)
In the end, even though writing is hard, I practice. You should practice too. The more you do something, the better you get at it. That includes writing, whether fiction, non-fiction, short stories or poetry. Writing is hard, but so is anything worth doing.
What I’ve been reading:
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherworlds, by Heather Fawcett
Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
What I’ve been listening to:
HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, by Billie Eilish
What I’ve been watching:
Spy x Family, on Netflix
My Happy Marriage, on Netflix
Star Trek: The Next Generation, on Paramount+
Learn about the land where we reside:
Love this. I miss writing with you.
Allison