Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Is your Muse blissed, blessed, pissed, or dissed?


Is your Muse blissed, blessed, pissed, or dissed?

I am not sure who first coined these terms for writing. I have it in my notes that it was The Four Energies of Writing: What's Your Fuel?, May 21, 2008, by Bill O'Hanlong; however, I have not been able to find the original reference. With that said, I wanted to discuss how the mood of your muse can influence your writing energy and help you get in the ZONE. Being blissed, blessed, pissed, or dissed influences your writing energy and creates what many writers see as the “NEED” to write, or being in the ZONE where nothing can stop us. All four of these energies will create beautiful and wonderful art and many artists will move in and out of these moods and it can be seen in the shape their work takes.

In being blissed and blessed we are in the positive zone for writing. Our life is good, seems to be clicking along and we want to share that with the world through our words, our art, our paintings, our music, our sculptures. In a blissful state, the muse is happy and passionate about our topic, our character, our way of looking at the world and just needs to share it with the world. In a blissful stat our passions take over and we are drawn to our craft to share our joys.

When we are blessed we are sharing with the world our abundance or our blessings. We know that God is in her heaven and all is right in the world. At times, this follows a specifically harrowing experience, at other times it is followed by survival, the courage of others, or the deep caring of the human spirit. It feels like our muse has been moved by the spirit and been blessed and has a need to share with the world all the that is good and abundant in life.

At other times, our muse is spurred by the negative energies: pissed or dissed. Again, these are two very powerful energies that will stimulate our writing and get us in the ZONE of creativity. When we are pissed there is something that has angered us to the point of creating. If we do not get it out, we will explode and our art is reflective. When the muse is pissed the writing is passionate, strong, forceful, and full of angry energy. It is not bad, but if we did not let this anger out, we would be in danger of high blood pressure, a stroke, or a heart attack. The anger has to be released and some of the best creating comes from this state.

When we are dissed, we have also been disrespected and our sense of self-righteousness stands up and says ENOUGH!! And we have to create it out. We create from the fire in the belly to right a wrong. It could be something that happened directly to us to something that happened to a loved one, or we may be spurred by the political climate. Whatever the impetus for the art in this stage, we have a need to right a wrong on a personal, social, or global level and our muse will not rest until we have said our piece.

What mood is your muse in for the upcoming NaNo? Are you blessed, blissed, pissed or dissed and how will that influence your final project?

Con un pan y cafecito, seguimos adelante!!!
Zulmara


Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Living the Writerly Life



Living the Writerly Life

The success of NaNo for me was living the writerly life with wild abandon, juicy pens, thirsty paper, and lots of inspiration. I suggest all Wrimos connect with other Wrimos. No one knows what you are going through, except other Wrimos and no one can connect with you and what you are doing, except other Wrimos. Once I met up with the other Wrimos, I knew I had found my group. From our first meeting in the park to our wonderful Build a Muse then let’s have lunch at the Storybook CafĂ© in Disney’s California Adventure to our Midnight write-ins at DCA, we had a blast. We were all writing in different genres, we all had different ideas, but we were all writing our hearts and souls during the month of November and having a great time. I loved meeting my group and spending the month of November living the Writerly Life and being totally tuned into my writing. This is what I imagine a full time writer’s life to be...going on artist’s dates, connecting with other writers, sharing time to write, and just being together to offer support and encouragement.


As your month progresses, I hope you look on the site and see what the Community Liaison has planned for your area and find some Wrimos to connect with.

Leave a comment here or Like my FB page for a chance to win a Writer's Tote at the end of the month.


Con un pan y cafecito, seguimos adelante


Zulmara


Sunday, September 11, 2011

NaNo and Scriveners--a Perfect Team

Hola mis amigos,
A few years back my son wrote a Harry Potter Fan Fic.  It is about 12 chapters and very well done.  It was never pulled into a book format, but this year my niece finished all the HP books and my sister thought that it would be nice for her to read his story, so I thought…what a great win/win.  I will use Scriveners to pull his chapters into a book format and I learn the program and see if it fits my needs.  I went to the Scriveners site and downloaded the free 30 day trial of Scriveners to see if it would meet my needs, and boy, was I impressed. 

The organizational structure, the flexibility, the ease of use, and the tutorial are soooo wonderful.  It will not write your novel for you, but it will help you organize your research, organize your plot ideas, keep track of your characters characteristics, help you with timelines, and just plain keeping the story straight.  I am not one who likes to learn new programs, but this one…is a keeper.  If you have a Mac or a PC and are looking for a way to organize your novel, check them out free for 30 days. Scriveners seems like the perfect binder for organizing thoughts, poems, songs, plots, and quotes. 

Of course the moleskin books are still the BEST for the pesky thoughts that hit you in the middle of nowhere, when you least expect it.  I will be sharing my journey of plot, characters, scene, dialogue, and noveling here…so stay tuned.

If you have another program that you use that you just love, please let me know.  I do love Scriveners, but am open to looking at others if they are easy to use.

Remember to post a comment here or on my FB page for a chance to win a Writers Tote full of goodies!!!

Con un pan y cafecito, seguimos adelante!!!

Zulmara

Friday, September 9, 2011

NaNoWriMo 2011--Here I Come!!!

Hola mis amigos,

Well, I did it. I wrote my novel, Just Once, during NaNo of 2010 and it was fantastic. I wrote it for pleasure, I wrote it for myself, and I wrote because it had to be written. I started writing at midnight on November 1, and had my 50,000 words within a week. Then I proceeded to write about 50,000 more words to complete my novel. Words cannot describe the euphoria I felt when I had finished, both the 50, 000 words and the completed novel by the end of the month. It was so inspirational.

I am now on track to write another novel in November of 2011 and this time I have started with Character Development and Character Sketches. I realized how much fun it is to write, imagine, develop, and get to know my characters and I am going to be sharing some of my characterization exercises that I do with all of you.

These are tried and true and I have used them with both high school and university students. They are a nice way to get to know your character without having to pin a character down at the beginning. The most fun is that they are not set in stone and you can always change them depending on where your character leads, and where you follow.

They are a perfect companion to Scriveners, if you use that for organization, or for any word processor. Just copy and paste and modify to fit your needs. And if you come up with something way cool, please share, I’d love to have it in my archives.

Con un pan y cafecito, seguimos adelante!!!

Zulmara

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Pampering Your Muse

After completing NaNoWriMo 2010, I am ready to write another novel in 30 days this year. As I gear up for NaNo 2011, I will be sharing my journey and my tips for staying inspired and keeping my muse well fed, happy, and ready to go.

I have found that food, music, artist's dates, morning pages, small steps, and rewards keep my muse happy and going. Last year, chocolate and wine were AWESOME!!! Artists dates to Carmel was a must, time off of work for some spa pampering, and lots and lots of support from my WriMo group...Our Build-a-Muse day was the most fun, and our writing at the Disney Grand Californian...was as inspiring as it gets.

Stay tuned to this blog for writing tips, pampering tips, and quips and quotes and anything notes.

I will be giving away a 'tina Tote full of fun and inspiring writing tools to one lucky winner at the end of the month. Just post to this blog and you will be entered as many times as you are entered.

Like my friend page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/zulmaramaria#!/ for an extra entry and you can leave comments there for an entry as well.

Gracias for joining me on this journey...
Con un pan y cafecito, seguimos adelante!!!
Zulmara