COUNTING DOWN THE STORM (Temporarily Unavailable) A Novella by D. Ryan Leask
For two days the storm has taken over the city, and two people's lives. A man convinces himself that his life is worthless when his lover leaves him for another man. Alone and depressed, he allows his life to sink into the bowels of civilization. When a wife and mother discovers that her husband is having an affair she abandons logic and gives in to the perilous abyss of jealousy and revenge.
Re-Launch Tentatively Scheduled for Oct 17th:
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Friday, February 15, 2008

Wine, and the finer points of writing


Yesterday I was sane.




Well at least I felt sane. Perhaps I have been pushing myself too hard today.




Last night I finally stopped writing at around 11:00. I believed that I had managed to clear my mind of clutter and would have no trouble sleeping. I was wrong. Despite that fact that the one drink I'd had with my fellow writers in the lounge coupled with a glass of wine while I read some work of one of the authors in my writing group, I lay in my incredibly comfortable (but lonely) bed wide awake.

The same question kept rattling around in my mind. Why do I need this character, Dylan Campbell, to pull the story of my serial killer, Henry James Smith, along. I didn't have an answer, nor could my tired, over taxed mind come up with one. At 2:00 am I had to find out. If I didn't all sleep would be lost and today would have been a complete write off.

It took me an hour of writing to realize that there was no way to carry out without Dylan. I slept well after that.

I woke up this morning with a fresh outlook on where I was going and a drive to work out my problems with my story. Breakfast, lunch and dinner have been a bit of a blur. I think that my fellow writers have noticed that I am really focused which is good I suppose, but I also think that they may have also discovered that I am somewhat odd.

I've been trying not to show my rather eccentric side when I'm working. Actually I don't think anyone has really seen my eccentric writing side, not even Toni. It's been hiding away since I stopped spending hours in some random hotel in the middle of nowhere. I suppose that it's finally starting to show up now because once again I find myself somewhat isolated here. The only differance is that now it's by choice.

So where am I now?

Despite the fact that most of my story is hidden away in dinky notebooks scattered across my desk in my very writer friendly room I am working mostly from memory. I've dug deep into my mind and pulled out what I've worked on months ago. Perhaps it's the knowledge that if I get stumped I can always look up what I wrote and get myself back on track that keeps me going, or maybe I've just found a place both physically and mentally where I can think of nothing else. I'm nto sure. Everything seems to click.

This morning, although I was glad I had sorted out my problem, I felt that I had wasted several key strokes at two am, but I somehow managed to incorperate them. It seems that no matter how many new ideas come into my head I keep looking down and the path of the story I have loosely created is still under my feet. I'm amazed. I'm not writing, there is a puppeteer somewhere above me pulling strings and moving my fingers (although that puppeteer appears to have atrocious grammer, no idea of punctuation and also has a bad habit of screwing up tenses).

The only sticking point I've had today was so incredibly silly that I can't just ignoring it in hopes that it would go away. When it didn't i went for lunch. This is where the self imposed and not forced isolation came in handy. I spoke with the other writers about it and they helped me try to work through it. Of course one of the suggestions was to ignore it and try to work it out later. I'd tried that approach and it didn't work.

The problem was something that Dylan was trying to say. He needed some sort of witty thing to call himself. He's a reporter with a newspaper much like the Weekly World News (WWN). If I remember correctly the dialog goes something like this:

"You don't look like yourself today Dylan," Lou said as I walked in and flopped down in the old brown chair.

"I'm not Lou. Yesterday I was a _________________ and today, I'm an author."

It was the _________________ part that I had trouble with. I originally had myth paparazzo, which was absolutely aweful. It made me cringe everytime I saw it. It almost literally jumped out of the screen and attacked me if it was visible. After lunch I sat down and wrote down all of the words that I could think of that were ever remotely realted to 'myth' then came down here to the internet and typed them into Wiklipedia. It lead me to the WWN website where I saw the word 'monster'.

So today, boys and girls, the word of the day is.....

MONSTARAZZI
Definition:
A journalist whose primary subject is writing articles about myths and legends such as the Lochness Monster, Saskquatch and aliens.

I'm quite proud of myself.

After that I was able to carry on writing. Breakthrough after breakthrough occured. Let's just say it's been a good day for my writing, as for my psychie...

Well that's another story.

A little explanation about the title of this blog. Before I left Calgary I thought that perhaps I would like to have a drink or two in the evenings to wind down. Despite the fact that I was writing ferociously at about 4:00 I began to loose focus. After going for a short walk, which didn't help (like yesterdays walk all I could do was think and fret that I wasn't writing any of my thoughts down), I decided to lean on an old Fat Bastard. It wasn't and elderly overweight guy that I had found, but rather a bottle of very pleasent red wine that I had opened last night before bed. I intended to have just a glass to help redirect myself but wouldn't you know it. The hole damn thing seemed to have gone missing. It did help though, and up until now (with a very brief stop for supper) I haven't had anymore wandering mind.

I'm not going to make a habit of it though, but then again I can't see myself making a habit of writing for ten plus hours a day two (or three, we'll see how tomorrow goes) in a row either.

One last thing:

I FEEL LIKE A WRITER!!!!!! (saying this is almost bringing me to tears)

Thanks for Reading,

Dennis.

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