God Bless NaNoWriMo, Good Friends and Loki

Thanks to the boost of NaNoWriMo and some serious soul searching, I'm writing again. In addition to the constraints of time and the commitments of job and family, one of the reasons I've not been writing lately is that it wasn't fun. I was worried about what genre things were, what audience, would I have to work with X publisher, etc.

I realized that was the source of my writer's block. Yes, time has been a problem, but the source of my writer's block has been the fact that writing wasn't fun anymore. Somewhere it had stopped being about telling the story in my head and started being about whether or not anyone cared, would like it, where it fit, etc.  So Wrong!

While writers love their readers, we really do, we need to remember that ultimately we write for ourselves. We write for the people that live inside our heads, the people who play out their stories in our minds and who tell us those stories. They trust us to commit them to words the way that they need to be told, not force them into a genre or worry if anyone will get it.

Writing needs to be fun again.

I discovered recently that a friend whose fanfiction I devoured as faithfully as I read her non-fanfic work, was still writing fanfiction despite having focused on publishing her original works. (Not that her fanfic isn't original, it's some of the best and the plots and characters were vastly original.) Here was the brilliant Jennifer Melzer still having fun with her writing.

I was so jealous! 

Tom Hiddleston as Loki from the Marvel franchise

Then came NaNoWriMo and the old urge to write came back. So now a piece I'd played with, written a chapter or two of a long time ago has been dusted off and come out of hiding. I've added 17, 100 words to it in the last week. It's now more than twice the original length and I feel like I'm just getting started.

And every time I get worried about it, I remember a quote from Tom Hiddleston who plays Loki. When advising a young thespian who was going to be playing Loki in a school production, he said the important thing was to remember that through it all, in everything Loki does, he's having fun. It's always about the mischief and the fun.

Go Loki!

Coming Soon...A Trip to the Dark Side

July 9th is the release date for a charity anthology that I'm thrilled to be a part of. From the Dark Side will benefit the Office of Letters and Light. You may not recognize the name, but most writers will recognize the events hosted by this non-profit organization.

The Office of Letters and Light sponsors National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and Script Frenzy, along with the adult and youth writing programs that go with them. The Young Writer's Program encourages writing for teens and children by providing support to educators, home school families and youth librarians with lesson plans, curriculum materials and exciting community activities to promote writing. Many writers have completed their first novels as a result of the support and encouragement of NaNoWriMo.

The anthology includes short fiction and poetry by twenty contributing writers each taking a look at life on the dark side. The ebook will go on sale July 9th through Amazon and SmashWords.

The anthology includes one of my short fiction pieces entitled Shadow's Embrace.


Life is often painful and unkind, but just when she feels she can't go on, he is always there. He is perfect in every way and he adores her as no one else has ever done. If only his world were the real world.