When Procrastination is Good

Procrastination hits all of us.

It doesn't matter if you're a bohemian creative-type, or a motivated power-drive type... some days you end up burning hours on facebook, youtube, wikipedia, IMDB, or just pictures of cats.

Sure you may have learned something about the Lost Roman Legion (which bunny-trailed you to Military Use of Elephants, then to Efforts to Clone the Mammoth, then to Mitochondrial DNA), but DANGIT that really important thing you really know you ought to do didn't get done.

Whether it be that book you're writing, the songs you mean to write or record, or that shell of a car moldering in your garage (that you keep telling your spouse will someday resemble a motor vehicle with tires and engine and everything!) -- if you don't do it, it doesn't get done.

Easy, right?

And every minute you're NOT doing the thing that must be done, you beat yourself up and guilt out, then drown your guilt in a bowl of apathy-ice-cream.

Or is that just me?

But sometimes we gotta take a break to do something that is worth doing. Something that recharges you, rather than something that just eats up time.

Play with the kids. Read a book. A paper one. Remember those? Go to that durn park that's been nearby the whole time you've lived here but you've never been. Built a rocket. Learn to play ukulele.

For each of us there are different things that recharge you.

For me it's playing music. Ask my wife, I pretty much have a stringed instrument in my hands at all times.

And recently I've gotten into BUILDING guitars. Or at least modding and assembling guitars from random parts, trying out custom wiring tricks, etc, etc.

Here is my baby. It's a 1990 "Partscaster" an old blues surfer guy in Hawaii made and sold to me. It was my first real guitar. But somewhere several years ago the electronics failed. Sad times.

1990 Partscaster, rebuilt 2014

But if I had made one, my new year's resolution would be "Learn to fix and build guitars." Because no guitar should sit in a closet unplayed.

Sometimes you need to put off doing the thing that requires huge amounts of brain energy and creative mojo... if only to have recharge time.

What's something you do to recharge?

Chiral Mad 2 Released

Ladies and Gentlefrogs, Chiral Mad 2 is out so get thee to Amazon and order yourself a copy.

Chiral Mad 2 on Amazon

My short story "Another Man's Bones" opens up the collection (a big honor for me)

I know I've mentioned it before, but the people I share the table of contents (TOC) with are AWESOME.
Some serious luminaries and all-around great people.

One aspect of this publication which may be of interest to other hungry writers out there: my story had been rejected by dozens of other markets before being accepted. I had several really positive personal rejections, but all rejections nonetheless.
I knew the story was solid. This isn't just vanity, I can tell when I write a stinker (usually after a few days of perspective). This story I knew was good. And I'd also put it through the wringer of my writer's group (The Illiterati) and it got their stamp of approval.
Point being, if you've got a story you believe in, keep submitting it! Every editor is looking for something different. Eventually you'll find a home for it.

The key word of the day is PERSISTENCE.

For us writers, with our perennial vacillation between soaring ego and crushing self-doubt, it is persistence and plain-old dogged cussedness that drags us through.

March Madness (in a non-sports way)

It’s almost April and the last time I posted was a month ago when my story “The Collector, or, Google It” went up at Wily Writers.

This is due to March Madness.

This is not a sports reference. In no way do I follow sports, nor do I endorse the following of sports. In fact, it was only after I typed March Madness that I recalled its use in the world of sports. I’m not sure which sport, or sports… but those sport people use the term for something. (Did I mention I don’t follow sports… at all?)

It was just the month of March. It was certifiably insane.

But lots of good stuff was crammed into that insanity. I hope I’ll get to share soon.

One thing I can and will talk about is the Fraternity ofFlash being put on by Grand Poobah Misty Dahl. In a nutshell, she’s crazy like a fox and decided to host her own, invite-only, flash fiction fest.

And that makes me happy. Not just because I’ll be rubbing digital elbows with some really fine writers (such as Mercedes M. Yardley, BradC. Hodson, Lisa Morton, John Palisano, Robert Devereaux, Jeff Mariotte, Jason Reinhardt, and many more) but because I love when people just take the bull by the horns and instigate something wild like this.

Why is she doing it? She had an idea and didn’t sit around wondering whether it would garner some huge pay-off or whether it was super-strategic-according-to-the-latest-marketing-strategy.

She loves writing and she loves writers. And she acted.

Inspired! Hence actually posting something on my jilted blog.

A Letter to my Jilted Blog

Dear blog,

You probably think I'm a jerk for running off and ignoring you for a few months. I admit, I'd feel hurt too if you did the same to me.

But I can explain.

I'm nearing completion on my supermegacomplex WIP whilst working full-time and raising two kids under 3, AND working on songs for the new album (you knew I was in a band, right? http://www.atlastakesaim.com/), and working on a few intense secret and undisclosable projects.

So, yeah, blog, I'm sorry I haven't been here for you.

See I brought roses... and maybe this picture will cheer you up...

Every Dragon Needs a Keytar

Rabbits and Catapults

Once again my blog is a repository for inane inside jokes.

Battle Bunny, one of the members of our infamous writers' group The Illiterati, failed to secure tickets to World Fantasy Convention 2011. Everyone else in the group got their tickets.

Battle Bunny did not.

To commemorate this tragic event I created this.

Photoshop you are my friend.

Coming Up for Air

Hello people in the blogosphere, it’s been awhile since my last post and I’m here to tell you why.


I’ve been writing. Writing like a super-star.

And while I wish I could say I’ve been working on my WIP, I actually have not touched it in more than a month.

“Boo,” you say, “Boo mason, why aren’t you working on your book?”

Well boo is right. I’ve actually been at something I’ve never done before: I’m ghostwriting a book.

I really can’t give you details on the book, but let me tell you fellow writers, ghostwriting is a strange and wonderful process. It is also hard work, and the deadline is tight. I put in anywhere from 4 to 8 hours a day writing and that is on top of my two other jobs.

But writing this project has given me all sorts of new insights into writing—in particular I’ve gained insights into the nature of procrastination and earned some secrets to writing on-demand instead of waiting for the ole muse to show up.

It’s taught me tons about working with deadlines breathing down your neck, about writing in a voice that isn’t really what I consider “mine”, and taught me that to be a writer you have to be able to suck it up and put in the time.

Stay tuned for some interesting stories from my adventures in ghostwriting… when I come up for air, that is.

I'll Smack You With This Blog Post

This falls under the tag: "Stop Procrastinating Dude"

Ok, allow me to do a few laps as a chicken with no head. This has been a crazy few weeks.

I've got two kids under 3 bouncing off the walls, a house that looks as if a tornado localized in each room, people asking me to book shows for them. I have a reading to perform this weekend and I've got to organize my back-up dancers and pyrotechnics. Not to mention the writing gigs are flying my way faster than I can juggle them: from my day job (freelance technical writer), to possible journalistic endeavors, to contests, planning committee invites. And the band needs to practice for our upcoming shows, I have to find a babysitter, I've got a few recording sessions coming up, I'm trying to remember if I invoiced for the last one...

It's all enough to make a slacker like me turn to the Playstation for a coupla hours of veg time.

But NO! I'm the one who wants to pile my plate up high. Life's meant to be lived to the fullest!
Slackers don't win. Heck, they don't even finish!

So enough complaining. I'm jumping back in with both feet. Next time you hear from me it should be about the things I've accomplished!

Writing is a committment. Heck, living is a committment. You can't just quit. (Well, you could, but I don't reccommend it.)

We are writers because we write, not because we dream about writing, or tweet about writing, or blog about writing. So time to stop procrastinating and get back to the grist mill. Time waits for no man, unless that man is sucked into a gravitational anomaly... that's different.

But if I ever hear someone complain about how they don't have any time to write I'll smack them with this blog post by the estimable Mercedes M. Yardley.

For those of you wondering why Mercedes and I are always talking each other up (or talking smack) it's because we both belong to the Super Secret Order of Interdimensional Wombats, also known as The Illiterati. It's a critique group, it's a writers' group, it's a superhero convention.

If you've not found a few like-minded writers to meet up with (IRL or online) you need to get on that. If you want help or have questions, or just want to vent about some of the crazy critique group stories you have, please drop me a line!

Don’t Wait for NaNoWriMo to Write



Dude, there's like, Viking horns!



Most of you know that November is National Novel Writing Month. (Can I get a holla from my NaNoWriMo peeps?) The main gist is to provide a kick in the proverbial seat and write a 50k (or more) novel from scratch during the month of November.



Awesome! Anything to get writers to write = wunderbar. It’s the hardest part. I’ve heard professional estimopinions that 90% of people who claim to be writers never finish a novel. Yuck!

So if NaNoWriMo is what it takes, by all means be a Nanite.

But I’m gonna be blunt here. Don’t wait for NaNoWriMo to write.

It’s not cheating to write the rest of the year. I promise. Heck, it’s not cheating to have written 6000 words of your novel from here to November. (Just make sure you hit 50k words written DURING the month to make NaNoFame)

So, enough blogging and twittering about how excited you are for NaNoWriMo, start writing… NOW!

Seriously. Open Word and start. Dude, why are you still reading this blog?

Stop Twittering About It and WRITE

Ask anyone to whom I ever talk writing and they'll tell you that I get a little crazy-eyed.

I'm a bit of an instigator. Mostly I instigate more writing. Sometimes I instigate things like the following photograph.



Back Row, Left - Right: Mason Ian, Mercedes M. Yardley, Hollan Johnson, billie "the girl" bundschuh
Front Row, with intense eyes and a sparkly tank-top of sparkliness: Battle Bunny



I'll let you look at that picture a moment longer.

Yes, I was responsible for that. These are the sorts of antics we get up to at our writers group.

The Illiterati, if you're not one of us, you've never experienced... well... just look at that photo again.

Anyhow, I'm an instigator. But more than that, I've discovered that I'm a motivator. I want to see people live their dream of becoming a writer. It excites me when I talk to other writers.

One of the things I'm always getting crazy-eyed about is: "If you want to be a writer, you've gotta write."

Sounds simple, but I can't tell you how many people I've heard say something along the lines of: "Oh, I'm a writer too, but I don't really have time to write. I used to write in high school, and my mom says it was really good. I'm just waiting until I have more time. I've been working on this novel for 10 years now. I've got a few chapters kinda done."

Among all of this I want to ask them how they have the audacity to call themselves writers.

See, writers write. NOW. Not, they used to write. Not they're thinking of writing, or telling everyone on Twitter or facebook that they write. THEY WRITE. Nothing can stop them from writing. They'd use a sharpened toothbrush and their blood for ink if they had to.

We're not talking about literary merit. That's something for the critics to argue. We're just saying, writers write. It may be dross, it may be plotless and full of Mary Sue characters, but it's been written!

*ahem. I just caught myself ranting. See? There's the proof of my crazy-eyed passion about motivating people to write.

So it was a fun treat to have my craziness quoted over at "Musings of a Scattered Mind" a blog by new friend and self-described geek chick going by the Twitter handle: Asheyna.

Let me finish by saying this: Writers write. They can talk about writing, blog about it, dream about it, and twitter about it. But they also do it.

If ever you find yourself doing more talking, blogging, dreaming or twittering about writing than actual writing, you might want to consider how serious you are about being a writer.

Also you can never ever ever complain about not having the time to write. I bet some of you would weep and gnash your teeth if you compared word-count between twitter and your WIP, or blogging and your still-unfinish-novel.

Do I walk the walk?

Heck yeah, once I click submit I'm turning off the internet and writing. Booyah!

I’m Ready Coach, Put Me on the Field

Way back when I was a lad I wanted to be a writer. And a director. And an actor. But mostly a writer. I never could understand the kids who had to act out a scene from the movie instead of making up a new storyline.

I wrote screenplays in crayon on scratch paper my dad brought back from the office, (on the flip side were ordering reports and interoffice memos) and I dragged the neighborhood kids out to our "studio lot" next to the garage. I learned firsthand that I’d never make it as a video editor.

But I learned that I loved to write. All through jr. high and high school I churned out short stories and half-written novels. Many exhibited some degree of natural talent; all were full of the melodramatic pathos of a greenhorn teen writer.

I learned a lot about storytelling, creating mood, characters, etc, etc, but I still wasn’t really a writer.

I could write, but it was frivolous, impulsive. My stories were muscled through on raw talent alone. There wasn’t a conscious honing of the craft or conceptualizing of themes and narrative arcs. I thought I was pretty good.

Then I wondered if maybe I could get published. So I started a critique group with a friend from another band. We met in a Las Vegas bar after midnight. So clandestine.

But the thing is: he challenged my writing. Actually challenged it! He didn’t immediately concede I was an unstoppable literary force who could do no wrong… No, he pointed out flaws, identified clichéd characters and plot points, noticed an overabundance of adverbs and descriptive purple prose. In short, he told me “You can do better.”

He was right.

Now our critique group has grown, I am privileged to meet with accomplished, dedicated writers, and we raise the literary bar every week. Now when I write I can hear their expert advice and foresee their possible critiques. “Why is the character doing that? Is that plot point strong enough? How many adverbs were you thinking of putting into that sentence?”

Each of us has a unique style. Each of us has a range of “voices” that we comfortably write in. But none of us are content to stay where we are. I want to grow as a writer, try more daring voices, experiment with style and characters and genres.

Now I feel, though I’ll always have room for improvement, that I’m ready to be a writer. Now I’m ready to get off the bench, put down the test pastiches of copying my favorite authors, not just dabble, but give it my real attention.

In short, I’m ready to write like I mean it.

Are you?