Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

Writing Muse

How Much Bad News Can Our Creativity Handle?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

(UPDATE: This post was written before the tragedy outside Oklahoma City. All the people of that great state are in our thoughts and prayers. We’ve got your back. Donate at www.redcross.org Today every American is Oklahoma Strong.)

When I’m going through a stressful time, I tend to be very careful about what I read, which music I listen to and what I watch on tv. We writers are influenced by everything in our world and sometimes the planet gets too pushy and freaks out our creative muse. That’s when it’s time for a crap curfew.

Very scary movie, as you can tell from the poster.
Very scary movie, as you can tell from the poster.

Don’t ask me how horror writers keep sane, or if they even are sane, but when the going gets tough I head for funny romance fiction, HGTV, the Food Network and my cable easy listening music channel without any commercials.  My muse needs good input to stay happy and creative. Positive brain food it might be called.

For folks who think it’s fun to get scared, more power to you. I still haven’t recovered from seeing the movie “Jaws” in the 1970s – amazing what I would do for a date. The Walt Disney movie “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” scared me as a kid. Maybe it still does today. Those of us with active imaginations do not need any help conjuring up weird things that go bump in the night; we’ve got a full-time freak-out factory in our heads with tons of odd characters running amok.

So how do we tame our internal jitters and not venture into the dark basement? Why do they always do that in the movies, by the way? Nothing good ever happens down there – where is Darwin’s theory of adapting when it comes to dark basements? But I digress. Give your muse a break when times get tense. Take your brain over to Animal Planet’s “Too Cute” show with kittens and puppies for recess.

The muse you save may be your own!

P.S. Link to first ten minutes of said scary movie below, don’t say I didn’t warn you! (You can actually watch the entire movie on YouTube. How odd.)

http://youtu.be/-VffXZ44_LQ

Would You Make A Good Writer Spy?

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by Kimberly A. Cook            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

One of the pieces of craft a writer needs to practice is the art of observation. By people and pet watching we get ideas, insights and entertainment, all for free. With the weather starting to get warmer, we are on the cusp of prime people watching season.

Stealth ducks hiding in plain sight next to my day job building.
Stealth ducks hiding in plain sight next to my day job building.

Walking into my day job building, there is a swale which holds run off rain water. Week before last a pair of ducks were swimming around in the pond six feet from the building. Day in and out I noticed most people didn’t realize the ducks were even there, hiding in plain sight every morning.

Outside my house the other day, a friend noticed a key was hanging from a tree branch. We figured out someone dropped their house key and with no identification and a Good Samaritan tied the lanyard around the tree to serve as a signal. How many great story ideas, characters or dialogue clips have we lost in the trees by not using our writer “Spidey” sense?

Eavesdropping dialogue gold mines for me are mass transit, lines at the grocery store, anyone on a cell phone in public, movie theaters before the movie starts and any sporting event. Malls are great too because not only do you see all kinds of people and outfits, you can snack and drink cocoa at the free viewing tables in the food court.

As a fiction writer I like to make up stories about the people I see, imagine what their “back stories” are and what their current mission might be. It’s a great way to exercise your mind and let your subconscious get some new input.

A piece on the radio recently talked about how doing chores or repetitive tasks can unleash your inner creativity. Great ideas come to me when gardening, washing dishes, in the shower and taking out the trash. Seems our grey matter needs a muse break too.

So it’s time for writer Spring training. Get ready to do chores and people watch. You too may discover some hidden drone ducks on a secret mission or a new mystery book series idea, hiding in plain sight. Get in shape now for writer summer RECON!

Got A Writer Pit Crew? Or Three?

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by Kimberly A. Cook                  (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

This past Friday I met with my author buddy and editor, Cindy Hiday, (www.cindyhiday.com) for one of our frequent staff meetings. We call them that because we write alone and need another carbon-based life form for creative support. These days I joke(?) it takes at least three NASCAR pit crews to keep me together, but one of those pit crews is full of writer and author buddies.

Bleeding Heart blooming in my garden today after surviving this weekend's thunder, rain and wind storms.
Bleeding Heart blooming in my garden today after surviving this weekend’s thunder, rain and wind storms.

Then on Saturday I met with my writer support group, a bunch of five authors and writers who talk about what is going on with our writing and our lives. We don’t critique each other’s writing, but we each get thirty minutes to tell what is happening with our life and art.

Turns out three of us had been through some pretty tough challenges in the last two months and the other two had been decompressing at the beach for seven months after moving to their dream location. We all support and help each other out. Writing is a craft we fit in around our pesky regular lives which keep intruding on our work. Personal and weather storms of all kinds don’t stop because we want to write our stories.

In these days of crazy news and even wackier odd things on tv, there is nothing like sitting with writer friends and really listening to each other. We unplug and open our ears to hear each others life stories. It always inspires and recharges me; like a camp fire without the smoke, flying embers and bats.

Writers need writer friends who support and encourage our work, plus hopefully bring snacks. If you don’t belong to a group like this, create one. That is how our group started, I needed one so I asked writers I was compatible with if they were interested. Now, several years later we are still at it meeting every other month for a couple hours.

No one understands a writer like a fellow writer. Let’s face facts, we can be an odd bunch at the best of times. Non-writers think we are in charge of our fiction characters and know what is going to happen. Ha! They also think we just whip out those non-fiction books and articles in no time flat. Nada.

One of my favorite sayings applies to writing, “If it was easy, anybody could do it.” True for both writers and Special Operations personnel; not everybody is cut out for the long gut grinding haul of these two professions. So whether you need a “staff meeting” or a “writer support group,” make sure you have writer friends and buddies to help you along the way.

It’s always a good idea to come out of our writer caves and interact with real people instead of screens and keyboards. Build your writer pit crew today!

Are We Ready To Spring Clean Our Writing Minds?

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by Kimberly A. Cook             (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Last Friday I spent seven hours in my home office cleaning and organizing. Actually, my real goal was to find the floor. Seems simple, but after piling different boxes and baskets and rearranging things, it had become a mess. Like the bees working hard in my backyard, spring is a time for new starts and saying goodbye to old projects and failed dreams.

Busy honey bee in my backyard on March 25th doing his pollen collecting job for Spring.
Busy honey bee in my backyard on March 25th doing his pollen collecting job for Spring.

It amazes me how much paper this can all entail. Not only do I hoard office supplies in case a meteor hit leaves me without OfficeMax, but my writer tendencies to squirrel away pieces of paper, brochures, newspaper articles and notes can overwhelm me. When my pile management system is at the point I can’t find anything, including the cat, it’s time for the big spring purge.

As a former journalist, I hold on tightly to what is called “source material.” For the digital natives of the Internet age, this means it is the actual document where something was first said, as opposed to being copied and remade in 8,000 versions by everybody on YouTube.  In other words, in a court of law or an IRS audit, you can pull out the source document and live to litigate again.

That is why one file cabinet drawer is full of all the source documents from the first edition of my book; those files are not going anywhere soon. But, the “this is interesting” and the “I should read this” and the “this would make a great romance story if I ever write about singing vampire cupcake makers” need to move on.

Our writing goals, dreams and desires change over time. That’s okay. I’m looking forward to finally getting my non-fiction work squared away this summer so I can get back to my first love, romance fiction. Military romance fiction that is, where there are storylines with veterans in every book.

But before that happens, all of us have to clean out our old, don’t like and ain’t never gonna happen projects so both our brains and surroundings are ready for new adventures and stories. A favorite de-cluttering book of mine says, “storage is sorrow.” So true.

Let the stories, clutter and paper which no longer work for your writing life loose into the cosmos so they can find the correct writer. We might all be amazed with what we find on our floors and in our minds. Happy Spring Cleaning!

Are You Using Details In Your Writing?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Spring is my favorite season, but it’s not here yet. Duh. Cleaning up the dead leaves in my backyard bulb box on Sunday, guess what surprises were lurking underneath? Bulb shoots! Very exciting. Spring will return again. I raced inside, grabbed the camera and snapped a few quick pictures before watching the Super Bowl.

They're alive! The bulbs will bloom again this year. Grow on.
They’re alive! The bulbs will bloom again this year. Grow on.

Writers must watch for and use details in all our prose. Small things make big impacts in stories. In life as in writing, small gestures count. Seeing bulbs break through to herald Spring, hearing a frog croak for the first time and the returning birds flit in the bushes all let readers know winter is coming to an end.

It is very easy with our busy lives and tendency to plug ourselves into tech things to stop observing our environment. What we do in real life transfers to our writing with both good and bad consequences.

Remind yourself to be a writing detective every day while you go about your adventures. Take time to observe and breathe in the sights, sounds, smells, taste and touch of your world. If we bring our observations to our writing we will carry our readers with us on magic journeys of heart and mind.

In Elizabeth Berg’s book, “Escaping Into The Open: The Art Of Writing True,” she has a great line about what is takes to be a good artist. “As a writer, you should have a sticky soul; the act of continually taking things in should be as much a part of you as your hair color.”

Today while we venture out into our day, look for clues and everyday magic moments to fill our creative notebooks. Like bulbs reaching up through the dirt, let’s all work on our sticky souls.

Are You Procrastinating Or Writing The Wrong Genre?

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by Kimberly A. Cook       (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

No matter what writing project we’re working on, the next one is always more fun and exciting. Much like Scrat from the “Ice Age” movies who is constantly in search of the golden acorn – there’s always a better nut on the other side of the fence.

So how do we know if the current writing project we want to shove in the shredder right now is our true calling as a writer or a diversion from our soul writing? Got me. Trial and error is what has worked in my past.

One trick I’ve tried on myself is to imagine I was going to be marooned on a desert island and I could only take one book, no Nook, Kindle or iPad. What book would I take? This can eat up hours of time thinking about it, try it.

But then what we might want to read for pleasure is not what we may want or need to write. So my other trick is to tell myself I can’t write that stuff anymore and see what my gut says. If I get a happy high-five and confetti throwing, I can pretty much deduce this was not a project from my heart.

Writing is work and commitment, so it’s best to date the right genre upfront if you can. One author friend learned to write with Romance Writers of America and then switched to fantasy, her true love. She’s had a great career with TOR.

One of my favorite authors, Janet Evanovich, built her career in romance fiction and then moved over to mystery. Not only did most of her romance readers follow her, we are quite happy that heroine Stephanie Plum has two men to choose from in her life. Viva variety!

Nora Roberts writes both romance and mystery fiction because she can and she’s a producing juggernaut of an author. Debbie Macomber found her romance fiction niche from the beginning and built an empire.

There is no magic test and sometimes we just need a change. I write both non-fiction and romance fiction to keep both sides of my brain happy and balanced; my inner journalist and hopeful romantic get along better that way. My friend Cindy Hiday published in romance fiction and is now veering into women’s fiction. If the genre fits, wear it!