Magical Story Telling Cubes

01/17/201410/29/2014 | Casey Wyatt

Writers are often asked – “What inspires you?” In the past, I’ve shuddered at the question largely because, to non-writers, we seem to have some kind of magical powers. That the universe has blessed us with a special gift that enables us to come up with more ideas than everyone else.

Well, surprise. We don’t have magic powers or a special gift from the gods. Most of the writers I know don’t suffer from a lack of ideas. In fact, we often have too many ideas zipping around in our heads. Why is that? I’ll get to that in a second.

For me, I have loads of ideas for stories. Tons of them. Sadly, most will never see the light of day. There isn’t enough time to fully explore them all. And not all of the ideas are good ones. So, the stories that do get written are the ones that stay with me. The ones where the characters rap me on the noggin’ and say, “Tell my story. Or else.”

So back to the earlier question – why do writers seem more inspired than the average bear?

Here’s my theory – everyone, and I do mean, everyone, has ideas all the time. Most people are afflicted with “adulthood.” They’ve repressed their childlike sense of wonder. There are too many reasons to list why this happens (life happens: family, kids, work, or they have loads of doubt or maybe they don’t care – take your pick).

One of the things I had to learn was to not ignore ideas. To seize them no matter how crazy they sounded. To not over-think them or talk myself out pursuing the idea. Hey, it’s okay to let your imagination run herd. Just do it!!

With that said, while I have no problem with coming up with an overall plot, I can get stumped with actual circumstance (i.e. scenes). And I’m always worried that I might repeat myself and rehash the same ideas over and over. And, really, who wants to do that? Not me!

Then one day, Chuck Wendig (Terrible Minds) ran a blog post about Christmas gifts for writers. One of the gifts was Rory’s Story Cubes. Designed to be a game for kids, it’s basically a set of dice with pictures. You roll them, then make up a story. And the best part, anyone can play. Anyone (yes, even us jaded adults).

How fun does that sound??

I think it sounded pretty cool. So when I happened upon a set in Newbury Comics, I ponied up the $9.99 and brought them home. And if you don’t want to have physical dice, yes, there’s an app for that. Rory’s and other story dice apps are available at iTunes, Amazon and Google Play (just search under – story dice).

My plan is to use them whenever I find myself trying to spice up a scene or re-work a plot point. So, while writers don’t invoke magic powers, we can roll story dice and see what comes up.

Who wants to play?

I’m rolling four dice . . . and go! Tell a story that connects each dice, starting with Once Upon a Time or In a Land Faraway or whatever floats your boat. . .

(In case you can’t see the images – frowny face, bridge over water, sheep, alien).

Have fun!

Why Books are Like Babies

08/02/201307/26/2013 | Casey Wyatt

First off, can you believe it’s already August? Where has the summer gone? There’s something about this time of year (and around Thanksgiving) where I feel like I’m on time’s roller coaster ride.

One minute it’s May and then suddenly August is here and I feel like the whole summer has flown by. I suspect the school calendar plays a part in this phenomenon because younger son would always start whining about having to go back to school (the infamous countdown would begin).

Well, not this year. Steady readers of this blog, may recall he graduated in June (my baby, my baby!). This year he and his older brother will be attending college together. So while they are still going to school, there is no complaining involved (well, except for the ridiculous cost of college texts).

All this thinking about time, combined with the recent birth of the royal baby (HRH Prince George) got me to thinking about how books are born in my brain. While pursuing two books at once (Mystic Hero is pulling to the lead, so by the time you read this, it might be the only book I’m writing), I’ve noticed that the story is often born while I’m writing it.

What?!? But what about all that talk of plotting and planning?

Oh, those things still happen. But like any story, I leave room for new ideas to hatch. I also rely on the characters to dictate how they react to the barriers I toss out. There is no way I can script every waking moment of the story. I decide on the big events and let the rest fill itself in.

So like a baby, sometimes a book can take forever (Mystic Storm – almost ten months) and others are done in less time (Misfortune Cookie – two months). The Undead Space Initiative poured out of my brain like there was a big hole in it and I could barely keep up! (Note: this is writing time. Not the time it took for me to plot and plan.)

And like babies, nature can’t be rushed. Some characters, like Zephyr, in Mystic Storm, gave me nothing but trouble. I think it may be because of the whole “cursed to be a woman by day” thing (which I am not apologizing for!).

Not to be too graphic, but any woman who has gone through labor knows that babies don’t just come out in one easy push. And neither does my writing. I can have a week of super productivity and then another week where I have to flog myself to sit down and write. However, I will add a caveat. I did have younger son in my bathroom (in under a half hour of going into labor). He was apparently so eager to enter the world, he couldn’t wait!

Just goes to show – you never know!!

Has anyone else had this experience? Do you have some books that just take forever to come out of your head?

Daydreams and First Drafts

12/07/2012 | Casey Wyatt

Today, I’m over at the 7 Scribes where I make the case that daydreaming is required – Do Not Disturb – Daydreaming in Progress.

On the Mystic Storm front – I’ve read through the printed first draft and yikes! I still have some work to do to smooth it out. So I will be diving back into the writer’s cave to clean it up.