Busy

It's been crazy at work. See, I work as a CAD drafter for a contractor to the government. The work they do is finished so they're working on shutting everything down. Yes, I'll be out of a job but I knew things were temporary from the beginning.

Because things need to wrap up, I've been very busy with changing drawings to reflect the constantly changing conditions of the plant. This means I've been too busy for anything else and pretty tired at home so not a lot of writing time for Scott.

I'll try to do more and work on an improved schedule. Must do B.I.C. (Butt in chair).

End of the World As We Know It; Dangers of too much world building

Originally posted on 2/7/10 for the

Charge of the Write Brigade.


Last time I wrote about the joys of world building. I went on to explain the fun of creating your own world and how to build on that for many future stories.



Today I’d like to touch on the dangers. Yup. There are dangers. Not danger in the sense of the word where your mouse will bite you if you click it again. I’m talking about distraction and procrastination.

Yes, those two evils that destroy a writer’s potential. Two of our greatest adversaries lurk within world building, waiting to strike.







A friend of mine has an amazing imagination. He’s inspired by many writers to sit down an pen the great American novel. He lives on the other side of my state, too far to visit. Because of this distance, we keep in touch through nightly chats on the phone. I respect him a great deal and expect him to soar if he put his mind to it.


Some nights we discuss writing and our mutual progress. When ever he speaks of his ideas I’m entertained to great concepts involving wonderful plot twists and well thought out characters. He tells me of histories and back stories and future plans where multiple novels revolves around generations of heroes and villains.







But in every story, on all the many worlds he’s discussed over twenty years of discussions (not always nightly, but that’s still a long time) I know there is one question that will always have the same answer.

“Have you actually begun writing this book?”

“Well no. It’s all just in the planning stages.”

Now to be fair, he did write two short stories and a chapter. But this makes it worse in my mind because I now know he can do it. I know all these great ideas are more than wishful dreams. I realize he can do something wonderful with them if he’s just sit down and do it.








As writers, we can’t help but create worlds. It’s in our blood. It’s a wonderful ability and our main super power. But there must come a time where we sit our butts down and WRITE THE DANG NOVEL. We need to call a time out, take these ideas and actually begin the sentences, paragraphs and ultimately the chapters of our projects.

We can get distracted in the big picture and caught up in our creations. We love how it all fits together. It’s so amazing! We want to take out outlines or notes and run right out and shout our incredible discovery to the masses.

But they won’t ‘get’ it. It’s raw. Sure, our friends, family, fans and support groups may even sit beside us in eager anticipation as we expound upon our creations, but it don’t mean jack if it never becomes an actual story.







Anyone who has actually written a novel knows that your plans change during the telling of the story. The characters’ voice alters things. Sometimes they won’t play as instructed. If you never begin, how will you discover these changes?

So why do we do it? Are we to afraid to start? Maybe. Is our time limited? Definitely.

What do we do about it?







Set a time limit or goal. Make a plan like “I will build for a week or a month, then begin writing this monster.”

Write something about your world. Start a scene to get in the flow. You don’t have to keep it and it doesn’t have to be in chronological order. Set a time and jump in.

So if you’re trapped in your own worlds, jump on to a chair and just write.

Working For a Living

Originally posted on 11/15/09 for the Charge of the Write Brigade.

Cindy Speer’s article on Friday really hit the spot. She wrote about Split Focus and I’ve got to confess I suffer from the same situation. Some days it’s so hard to focus on writing. I hear the kids in the other room or the TV. Maybe there are things in my life that I find myself dwelling on and can’t hear the muse.


It’s not like I don’t want to write. I still have my goals and dreams. I want to be a professional author whose tales entertain and inspire. Sure, getting the right agent or a publishing contract is harder than winning in Vegas, but I still must try.

Despite this desire, I find myself procrastinating. Why is it that it’s so hard to start writing and so hard to stop? I suppose it’s a demon I’ll always have to fight.

At any rate, I’ve got to put my nose to grindstone and my shoulder to the wheel. Sometimes writing is hard work. Yuck. Work.

Downstairs, while I continued in my relaxing activities upstairs, sewer water seeped into the carpet and soaked the walls of a few rooms. This meant work. Sure, a contractor removed the black water, and another has begun to put up new sheet rock to replace the old, but the wife and I need to help. We have a goal to get the ruined rooms replaced before Thanksgiving and we’ve got to jump in where possible to help meet that.

This means sheet rock dust in the eyes. Sometimes life blows dust and causes your vision to get blurry. I don’t like it but if I don’t put up the sheet rock, I don’t make my goal. So I jumped in and started at it. After some chalky mess I look around and behold, the room looks nicer.

Sometimes you need to set apart time to sit down and work. You might get dust in your eyes like discovering a scene wont work out how you want it too, but you’ll also find gems.

So how do I “jump in and work”? Friday I found myself with time to write and a desire to browse the web. I stopped what I was doing, opened Windows Media Player, and cranked up “Dies Irae (Requiem)” by Karl Jenkins. Suddenly I saw the big fight scene I needed to write. I opened my file and began to write.

Some days music doesn’t help. Some days a quiet walk inspires me. Whatever inspirers you, do it and get in the mood and write.

Good luck and remember my favorite catch phrase...

Just write.

Workin’ It Out

Originally posted on 9/20/09 for the Charge of the Write Brigade.


The other day I found myself alone on my day off. This is very rare in the Roberts household, I can assure you. We have in our home seven pets. We’ve got three dogs, three cats and one quiet rabbit. I decided that a morning alone was the perfect time to clean the rabbit’s cage.


Now to properly do this task, I needed to tie the bunny to the fence so she didn’t escape into unknown dangers abroad. Then I would take the cage to the curb to hose and scrub it clean. Yes, it was a vile job but the underlings (children) were at school.

The challenge wasn’t the hosing process. No, the true challenge of that morning had nothing to do with Hazel’s abode. We recently added to our six pets. We gained a new, annoying, puppy (hence the count of seven animals).Yes, we’re outnumbered.

While the other animals have enough knowledge to stay out of the street in most situations, Lily the pup didn’t. So while I lean over the curb, washing the cage, she wanted to run pass me into the street.

I couldn’t have that so I had to put her on the dog-run. Now I should mention that the difference between a relaxed adult rabbit and a nervous puppy is that one is content to party in the family garden near the fence (whoops!) while the other makes more ear-splitting noise than a cat in a washing machine.

The cleaning process isn’t very long. She would remain tied for perhaps ten minutes. If you happened to be strolling up my street at that moment, you would have sworn I was beating the puppy within an inch of her life. She whined and tugged at the strap with desperation.

If she could’ve understood that at after a short ten minutes she’d be frolicking in the house, terrorizing the cats or chewing on something important, she wouldn’t whine. It should be noted that when it comes to waiting for things, there is a strange chrono- spatial warp present. If you are the one waiting, ten minutes becomes an hour. This warp elongates with time. If you’re a writer waiting on that expected rejection letter, it could take years (months).

We whine too. I’m a big whiner. Ask my friends and family. They have stood by me during this whole writing dream and they’ve suffered with my frustrations. I’m tied to a fence, waiting (i.e. editing, revising, submitting and then start all over after enough ample servings of rejection). One day I’ll be chasing cats in the air-conditioned living room (published). Sure, it wont be Heaven. Everything I read informs me of all the challenges a published author goes through, but where I sit it would be better than wondering if I’ll ever get there.

Instead of whining about rejections and further revisions, wondering if we’ll ever be published, we could work on other books, send more queries, revise yet again and improve our web platforms.

If we could look at our situation from an outsider’s point of view from the future, we might learn that yes, we did get that agent and publishing contract. Unfortunately we can’t. We have to struggle and learn the hard way. And by doing that, we learn the things we need for that future time. Patience and faith. They’re hard to comprehend sometimes, but it’s worth it.