Sometimes inspiration can come from the strangest places.  Hiking around a local wetland area for instance can give you such nice symbols like the one pictured here.  From the wooden bridge I found this on, I looked out, observed the dragonflies buzzing about, and I stared at the murky water below.  That my friends is when the muse kicks it into overdrive and earns her keep.

Really, it’s that simple, I find something that grabs me and my twisted mind takes over.  Who drew the symbol, what’s with the dragonflies, and what’s under the green algea floating on the water?  Once those questions dig and worm their way into my brain, they don’t just go away or vanish.  No, they fester until they are released from my imagination and onto the page.

The journey between the head and the keyboard isn’t easy though…

I’ve been thinking about how I develop my ideas lately and I think I need to refine it more.  When I write, I just let it go and have everything hang out.  I picture the beginning and the end, but the middle comes when I sit and begin typing.  In the past couple of years, that is how I approached a story.  So far it hasn’t treated me too bad, but in the last month, I’ve rethought how I do things.

For example, Southern Devils has really become the bane of my existence.  I love the story and I know people want to read it, but I’ve gone back and forth on it so much it kills me.  The layout for the complete arc has gone from 3 books, to 3 novellas and a novel, and last week I settled on 2 novels.  I struggled with the story and where the breaks would be until I wanted to delete the story files.  Seriously, I was at the end of my rope.  In my head, I had it all in the beginning and all of the end.  Driving through the middle…it got me.

Now, I jotted some things down to narrow the focus and I find the scattered writing has been contained.  There might be some rough spots in the first draft and I apologize to my pre-readers.  I promise to clean it up before you get to see it.  I’m going to try sketching out the stories in my head before I start writing and see where that takes me.  My first story doing this is about a pet rock going on a rampage through town.  Don’t ask, but maybe you’ll get to read it later this year…

Updates!

2013 has started pretty good for me.  I already have 7 stories due at this year and there will be more to come.  Two were accepted this year and in a few months you will be able to enjoy the ghoulish delights of “Winds of War” in Hazardous Press’s Horrific History anthology and I just found out “Tears From Heaven” will be in Grinning Skull Press’s From Beyond the Grave.  In short order, Neon Moon Press will unleash the dogs of war in the long-awaited The Blue, the Grey, and the Scarlet with my new take on the undead that spawned Southern Devils in a tale titled “Stonewall”.

In closing, I want to thank everyone again for the support, kind words, and the following that is slowly, but steadily building.  Without you, I’m pretty sure I’m just sitting here talking to myself.  I also want to thank all the editors for their acceptances and rejections.  While we all want to get the ‘yes’ letters, we get the ‘no’ ones more often.  The work an editor does wading into the slush pile, the hard choices, and the work it takes to pull a book together is immense.  So to them and all they do, I thank you.

And to close, you get one update for the “Counter of Responsibility”!  Southern Devils Book 1- 27,000 of ? (It will end when it does, I’m not putting a hard fast word count on it).  Really it’s not too bad considering how many times I’ve ripped huge chunks of the story away and trashed it.

Goodnight…