Standing still

If we lay down on the earth and let our brains just take in the sky throughout the night, this is what we would see.  In a carefully chosen spot on Mount Teide aboard the island of Tenerife in the Atlantic Ocean,  one would see the stars moving across the night sky. The procession of stars around the north celestial pole creates an other worldy scene. Would our mind's eye be able to see this image, recreated from the slowly etched impressions on the film in our brains? Or does our mind sift through and retain only those fleeting snapshots that make an instant exposure? I don't know the answer, but it's food for today's thought.

Credit to Daniel Lopez http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100618.html. 

Forecast for writing

Yesterday's weather was partly awful. Today's weather forecast is dire. Tomorrow's is worse. The day after continues poorly. The time is ripe to write.

I find joy and glee in a dire forecast. It means I won't be tempted to go outside and garden or romp in the fields. No. I will write. Yesterday, today and tomorrow, too. I may even finish the first draft of my first fiction book.

Writing productivity ≧ Weather x Duration / Speed + Creativity

Nom de plume -- why a pseudonym?

Many famous authors throughout history have written under pseudonyms that became vastly more well-known than the authors’ real names — Konrad Jozef Korzeniowski wrote under the pen name Joseph Conrad, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson wrote as Lewis Carroll, Eric Arthur Blair wrote as George Orwell, Alisa Zinov’yevan Rosenbaum wrote as Ayn Rand, and Samuel Clemens took the name of Mark Twain. They all had their reasons for choosing a different name.

What's in a Word Count?

Counting words seemed to me initially to be a counter intuitive concept. After all, is it not about the quality of the words rather than the quantity? Yet the guidelines for first-time authors to be accepted into established categories are rather strict. A novel must be over 40,000 words, but most publishers need 80,000-100,000 words to charge a standard amount of money and compete on a bookshelf. Thrillers are even longer at 100,000 to 175,000. I suppose it is a value per word marketing proposition.

Classification	Word count
Novel	over 40,000 words
Novella	17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette	7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story	under 7,500 words

Inspiration

I've had several sources of inspiration recently which have spurred a period of creativity like I have not experienced in some time. Three were book signings with readings -- one of a novel, one of a collection of short stories, and one of poetry.  In each case, the authors/speakers inspired me to feel rather than write again.

I have since written two short stories, two poems and one piece of flash fiction, as well as adding another 10,000 words to my novel, The Naked Truth -- all in the past week. My husband calls it verbal diarrhea. I call it inspiration. Whatever it is. I love it!

Bring it on.

Finding inspiration in the weather

I am a firm believer that you have to experience the bad to appreciate the good. And I believe that changes in mood inspire creativity.  Ergo, a change in the weather should induce a change in mood, thereby inspiring creativity.

When Joseph Conrad may be your uncle

My birth name was Daria Olena Korzeniowski. I was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1954 to immigrant parents who left their country, a part of Ukraine at the time ruled by Poland, during World War II.  The town my parents hailed from was near Lviv, called Yaroslaw. But my father, Marian Korzeniowski, originally came from Peremyshl.  Przemyśl in Polish [ˈpʂɛmɨɕl] ( listen) (Ukrainian: Перемишль, Peremyshl, German: Premissel) is a town near where Joseph Conrad was born and raised.