Connected?

I apologize for not posting a blog post last week Wednesday. Truth be told, I forgot about it! Once I did remember my creative well was coming up dry, and there was no time to dig a new one. But I felt guilty about it, even if they're only a handful of people reading it. Which isn't to say that the people who do are insignificant. They are far from it! It's simply that I look forward to writing a blog post every Wednesday, even if it at times seems cumbersome or like last week...I am fresh out of ideas.

How does that happen anyway? Before I had no problem pulling an idea out of my bottomless hat but sometimes? I don't have any ideas just magically appear and I'm left on the stage in front of a snickering audience, with nothing to give them. As I've mentioned numerous times on the Internet this blog doesn't have any initial thought pattern. Whatever comes to me each Wednesday I write down. It could be about music, writing, life in general, old houses or any number of things! Now I realize that most of my posts run in the same vein. Like this one for instance runs in the vein of writing and the many benefits and frustrations it brings to my life. So I guess you could say that my blog is a commentary on the things that interest me most in life. I'm still contemplating why exactly I enjoy talking about music so much. I never struck myself as one to do so. I always thought that was for those columnists that work at record companies where they hash and praise the album's that come out, or rave about this song, or rant about that song. What I have some to realize is that I love music! Now I'm not just talking about all genres. As much as I'd like to be, I'm not that open minded. Perhaps it's just a fear of branching out of my musical comfort zone or just a lack of sense of adventure on my part. But in my defense I'm getting back into 70's, 80's and 90's rock! Which is a grand adventure so far I might add.

But back to the point of this blog post, if there is a point at all that is! You'll notice that the title is connected with a question mark. Why so you ask? It's because of this question I posed to myself yesterday, when I finally got back to a story I've been meaning to finish for way too long. The question is: when I unintentionally or intentionally neglect my stories, does my creativity for my blog posts suffer in turn? If you didn't understand that question, I'll rephrase it!

Often times I won't get to work on my stories as much as I'd like to. There's homework, chores, classes, school preparation things...and so on. So they sit there half finished, almost finished, barely begun or just a simple chapter or two of a thought or scene that sprouted in my mind and screamed to be written. These thoughts are referred by me as story thoughts. Because that's what they are. They're a story in progress but still a thought. These both feed my writing and kill it. For example, I'm on the last chapter of a novelette I finished last year and I had logged onto my computer a few days ago with the full intention of finally closing that cumbersome gap between the unfinished and finished parts when...a story thought invaded. It was a simple image of an outdated, sun-drenched kitchen in a c.1900's bungalow somewhere in the Great Plains.

Now, that may seem like way too obscure an image to build anything upon. But you have to understand how my brain works. If that's even possible! All I can say to help you understand is this: most of my stories are built off of a single image. Most often that image is fictional, such as the bungalow, but it'll be based off of a real house, or something else in the real world. The inspiration for the launching of the first installment in the first series I've written entitled Wide Open Spaces was a beautiful, gray and white bungalow near Lake Michigan where I live. With that single house in mind I managed to build an entire fictional world around it, and drop in five characters that the story follows. Just as with the previously mentioned bungalow I was able to squeeze out ten pages. Since I love houses so much I'm going to through a house analogy at you! Think of that first, initial image as the house's foundation. You don't know what the house is going to look like yet, but you have something concrete to build upon. When you get a few chapters in perhaps a few walls go up. Now you have a better idea. Once you get several chapters in and one or more characters developed soundly, those walls may become insulated and siding will go up. Pretty soon you stop to breathe and realize there's an entire house around you, and all it started with was a simple foundation. A mere outline upon the land.

Perhaps you've figured by now that most my stories are inspired by houses, especially historic ones! But I must also point out that my favorite style is not in fact the bungalow but Victorians, specifically Second Empire. I just realized now that perhaps there's more to my bungalow penchant that I give myself credit for!

Well, it's almost time for me to go to my Creative Writing class. This was definitely a good way to spend the forty-five minutes I have before it starts! In all honesty the title for this blog post didn't really tie in to anything I said, which is sometimes the case because I have a humorous way of sidetracking myself until I'm so far from the path I had intended to go on...it's not even worth trekking back! But I will say this, sometimes the path you find yourself on is better than the one you had intended. And sometimes it's best just to let your writing guide you rather than your mind or a logical thought pattern. Let one thing lead to another! Who cares if you're scribbling all over the page instead of in the lines! Someones bound to read and like it. It may only be one person but that's better than no one right? Besides, as long as you're pleased with it, that's all that matters.