*sniff* I smell cookies!

Hey readers!
  

  I'm back, and I am not an impostor. Like I promised, I am keeping this blog updated. So, here's another post!

  Let's face it, I think over the coarse of every writer's career we all have one problem in common. Despite the wonderful idea we have in our heads, it is sometimes impossible to get the story into words on paper (or computer). Most people call it writer's block. Personally, I don't believe in writer's block. It is all in the head. If the story is there, all it takes is an atmosphere to get that story out. Most people who claim to have "writer's block" really just have a lack of that--atmosphere.

  That perfect story is bubbling over in your brain. You have the characters, the plot--the whole nine yards. You sit down ready to pound out the story on your old-fashioned type-writer when it happens. The neighbor's dog starts barking. A police car blares its siren. The baby starts crying. A guy with a chainsaw down the street decides that he should cut down his tree. Someone comes to your door to sell you cookies. An earthquake strikes. Suddenly, that story that you were so ready to write is pushed, no, shoved out of the way and replaced with all of these distractions. Yes, some of them are important (Who knows the next time you're going to need a quick snack while writing, so be sure to buy those cookies!). However, at the same time, if that story is to ever be completed, those distractions need to be eliminated. Don't go out and shoot the neighbors dog, or give up your child for adoption. Really, please don't do that. Buy a shock caller, so the next time the dog barks it's hit with enough electricity to power your electric car, find a time when your baby is sleeping to get some writing in, and if earthquakes continue to distract your writings, for crying out loud, MOVE!

 There are many times that I sit down and have the urge to just whip up ten pages of my story, but as soon as I sit down, I can hardly get a paragraph out. My problem is not writer's block, its that I don't have the right atmosphere to do it. I make sure I change that. I have found that I do my best work later in the evening. My body is calm and relaxed without too much energy, the sun is close to setting (or if in the Iowa winter it has set 6 hours before!) and the only light is now my computer screen and a candle. To keep noise out, I have ear buds blaring my favorite country songs and I am all set to let my imagination roam free. Each writer has his or her own personal preference for the best atmosphere to write in, and I am sure that all of you will find yours. If you have "snipers" that come to eliminate your writing time, find ways around them. As soon as you have that perfect place, the words will start to flow and your story comes together. Trust me, it will.

Be sure to just keep at it, and like always enjoy...hey, is that my doorbell? Gotta go, someone is selling cookies! ;) Until next time readers!

-zjh


"Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol." -Steve Martin

See even Steve agrees, writer's block is all in the head.

Passion behind the words

If you have ever read almost anything I write you will most certainly notice that I make mistakes. Grammar mistakes. Spelling mistakes. Missing words. Added words. Pretty much if you name it, I most likely have committed it. I try to do my best to make sure that my grammar is correct, and the same with spelling, but things still fall through the cracks. You may be thinking, 'Maybe you should try harder,' or 'What's your excuse for that?' You are probably right, I could try harder. My excuse? If I was homeless, had the worst appearance on the planet earth, or was so amped up on energy drinks that I couldn't sit still, my excuse would be simple. I'd tell you, 'I'm a writer. That's why.' However, as a writer, I should have correct grammar and such, so I can't really use being a writer as an excuse. Or can I?

Show of hands: How many of you have seen the movie Finding Forrester? That's odd, I don't see a single hand raised. That's beside the point. Back to my point. For those of you who haven't seen it, it came out in 2000 and stars Sean Connery as a famous recluse writer named William Forrester, and Rob Brown who plays a young basketball player/writer named Jamal Wallace that stumbles into Forrester's life. I won't get into more details of the plot, if you are really interested in it, you can just watch it. The reason I am bring up this movie, is that somewhere in this great film Sean Connery delivers a line that I have come to live by. Forrester is teaching Wallace about writing and he says to him, 'No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!' I absolutely love that line. Thinking gets in the way too much. Sometimes, as different or difficult it may be, we must not think, instead just write. Let the words flow with the passion of the heart. I've found that the heart has so much more to say than the brain anyway. In fact, I believe that it's the key to writing a good book. A person doesn't have to be a magnificent writer in a way that they have great grammar skills, or are a literary genius. If they did just that they may write something dull. There needs to be passion behind the words.

So the next time I am imperfect and have errors in my writing, and someone asks what is my excuse. I'll be sure to tell them this: 'I'm a writer. I write, I don't think.' Saying it kind of sounds funny, but in reality it is true. Mistakes will be made, and to make it bearable for the reader, corrections should be made, but let they come later. After you are done writing. Rewriting may be something that I should work on, but until then, I will continue to write from the heart, and leave writing from the head until later. I hope my readers will learn to do the same.

-zjh

Renovations...

Hey everyone,

      If you have been following this blog, you probably have noticed a few things. One: I haven't had a post since January (sorry about that), two: my layout is a bit different, and three: my web address (URL) is different. I apologize if that causes an inconvenience, but it was time for some renovations. Moving on...

     I am making these changes, because I am no longer just writing about my J.A.C.K. series. I am also going to write about any other books that I am working on, as well as, any fun tidbits about writing, tips, or books that I care to share. I'm broadening my horizons. Yes, I know what you are thinking. How will that help with me actually having posts on a consistent basis? More range of writing options to explore, means a higher chance of me blogging. It will also mean that I might have something interesting to say! Nonetheless, I shall do my best to blog more consistently and often.

 Now, before I sign off, a quick update on my writing adventures. In my last post, I talked about how I was just getting ready to start a new novel. Well, I have started it, but I haven't gotten far into writing it. It pains me to think that I have been so busy working and traveling that I have had very limited windows to write. The last of the summer looks busy as well, but I am determined to make time to pound out some pages. Wish me luck. Until next time readers.

-zjh

Update

Hey!

    Typical me, I write a couple of posts then I fall off the face of the earth and nothing is heard from me in several months! No worries, I'm still around. I actually took a bit of a break from writing over the month of December. However, in January, I did start doing some research for my next project. It is not apart of the JACK series, but I figure I can write about it anyway! The writing of that will start soon. I am really, really looking forward to that.

  Anyway, Book 2 is still untitled. I haven't found a title that has just hit me as totally awesome that I like. Oh well, there is still time. I have been querying for Calico's Gold, and haven't heard too much feedback from that. The little I have heard, have been denials. I am not too worried. At some point the perfect agent will read it and love it!

  Well, there isn't too much more news to post. I do hope that everyone's writing is going well (those of you who are writing :) ). Until the next time minions!

-zjh

Classifieds: Titles Needed

I can hardly believe that it has been a month since my last post. Life has been super crazy lately, and the time went by so fast. In case you are wondering, no, I did not finish my NaNoWriMo. I wrote one afternoon and got about 3,000 words. I was planning on continuing to write, but since I had a major blitz to finish my last novel, I was too exhausted to be able to concentrate on writing the NaNoWriMo. Oh well, lesson learned. Next year, I will be sure to have my project finished, my novel already planned out, myself well rested, and all ready to go!

As far as editing goes, I have only done some minor things. The rest of this month I have set aside to do that (probably the project I'll start this week). I am still trying to come up with a title to Book 2. I have only gotten one suggestion. However, I have thought of a couple. Here are a few:

'The Death Triangle'

'The Bermuda Conspiracy'

'The Arena'

'Surviving the Triangle'

I, personally, like the top two options the best. They catch my attention the most out of the four. Please let me know what you think. I am still open to other suggestions to titles as well! Thanks for reading! Until next time minions!

P.S. You know how I was talking about my peice of paper with my characters on it that I lost? Well, I found it! Some how (I think while unpacking) it slipped into a tiny crack beside my desk! If only I would have known that a month ago! :)

Lost characters!

So, in my last post I told you that I had finished my novel. Well, in this post, I am going to share with you a very amusing story about that novel. It was a couple of days and around ten pages before I was done when I noticed that I had a big problem. A little back story first.

When I started the book, I was keeping track of all of my characters that I was using on a little piece of paper. I wrote down their names as they entered the story, and I crossed them off if they left the story. Well, when I went on vacation in the middle of August I took that list with me, just in case I had time to write on the trip. I didn't have any time to write, so bringing the paper was pointless, but I always like to be prepared. When I got home after the vacation about a month later, and was ready to start writing again, I realized that I was missing that piece of paper. I searched through all of my stuff, but it turned up nothing. I guess from then on I would have to wing it. No big deal--or so it would seem.

I was getting close to finishing, and I wanted to bring a character that I had used in the beginning back into the story, well since I didn't have the piece of paper that had my characters, I had to scroll back through my story to find the character. Along the way I noticed something, something very important. I had four characters missing!!! I was tantalizingly close to finishing my novel and then this comes out of nowhere! Frustrated, I searched through my story to find where I had lost my characters. Two of the characters were easy to remedy, they were close to being pointless, so I opted to eliminate them entirely from the story. A simple solution. The other two characters were a bit more challenging. They disappeared later in the story and I had issues finding them. I figured out that one of them had been sent somewhere, and that I could just say that he was going to stay there. Another simple solution. The final character was the worst. I ended up finding where he had disappeared from my writing, and I now had to add him to where he was supposed to be for the next 40 pages! Slowly, I ended up getting him where he was supposed to be, and I could finish the final pages of my book.

I told a few people about my writing misstep, and, upon hearing it, found it highly amusing. The moral of this story? Be sure to write your ideas down, and don't lose them! Or, just have a photographic memory, like my character Krista! I hope your writing doesn't have some of the same snags as mine! Until next time readers!

BOOK DONE!

If you could all see my face right now, you would see a giant grin pasted across it. The reason behind this grin? There are several reasons, the first of them being: I realize how much I don't keep this blog updated! My last post was in July. :) I deeply apologize for not writing posts as often as I should. Hopefully, it can become a good habit.

The other reason that I have a major smile on my face, is that the other day I finally finished the novel that I had been working on for ages. It took a lot of determination to grind out the final 20,000 words, but I got it done. I still haven't thought of a title yet, that I need some help with, and honestly, it can wait for a while. My plans are to let the book sit until December. When that time rolls around, I will diligently edit it so that it is polished to the best of my ability. In the mean time, I have another project to work on. You may have already heard about this, but it is national writing a novel month (NaNoWriMo). The goal is to write 50,000 words in November of whatever topic you choose. I encourage all of you to give it a try. Even if you only get to 20K by the end of the month, at least you gave it a shot. Writing a novel is a challenging thing. It takes major commitment to get it done. However, there is something very satisfying in finishing a book. If you don't get it finished, at least you will learn something about yourself. I have heard from many people that they despise writing anything, but I think their mindset would change if they gave this a try. I know I just said that writing a novel is challenging, but it is a lot of fun too. To develop a story in your head, and then get it all out in words can be very enjoyable. You are the author, you can make characters do crazy things that you are too afraid to try or aren't able to (i.e. bungee-jumping, scuba diving, high speed driving *please don't try this one*, travel to the moon, travel to a foreign country). If you don't know something, you can just make it up; there is a lot of freedom in writing a novel(with some exceptions). Like I said, I am going to do this. It is already Nov. 13, and I haven't wrote one word for my novel, and to be honest, I am not entirely sure what to write about, but I feel no pressure in this--not to pound out page after page to get it done, or to come up with some stellar plot. I am just doing it to enjoy all aspects of writing. I want all of you to feel the same joys. So, before I put you to sleep with any more ramblings, I will wrap this up.

Give a novel a chance, more importantly, give yourself a chance. You may be impressed with what evolves. Take the next month and write what is in your head and what is in your heart. Good luck! I would love to hear that someone gave this a shot! Until next time, readers!