Writing Is A Balancing Act

[LauraJUnderwood]

And there are times I consider giving it up for Lent...

Like I really could. Not!

The past few weeks have been a series of ups and downs. The downs have been the rejections (now five in a row), while the ups have included rediscovering old artwork I did ages ago, selling a story to a small press anthology and sending the final payment to those scum-sucking low lifes pretending to be legal debt collectors in Atlanta...

The latter is the largest cause for cheer since it means my income won't have such a large hole in it. Always something nice about not having to give money to jerks who gouged you for more than you originally owed on the card...

Interest should be illegal.

But all that aside, I have more money coming back into my pocket to cover household expenses now, and can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief. And naturally, that sigh has helped me to shake some of the gloom and doom, and get myself back into writing.

Stories are going out left and right. I finished my latest chapter in the ongoing ping pong game (aka my collaboration with Selina Rosen on our second Holmes and Storm Mystery, Bad City) and got it off to my writing partner. I charged into working on Songs of the Magister again, and at the same time, have been poking some unfinished Anwyn and Glynnanis short stories back to life.

Of course, part of that is due largely to finding old art I did quite a number of years ago. The picture that inspired The Oak King's Wrath (which appeared in an issue of Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY Magazine), a shot of Anwyn serenading frogs (which was incomplete, but I took time to finish the pen and ink version).

There was also a picture that represented the beginning of another story, The Shadow Wraith, a story that appears in my collection Song of Silver (Dark Regions Press), but it no longer works with the story, because I totally rewrote the beginning and the scene depicted went away.

Still, the picture itself has not gone to waste, because as I was sitting looking at the print that I colorized (it was another pen and ink drawing), I came up with a whole new story based on some objects in the picture itself, and suddenly had the beginning of an eerie storie about mushrooms.

Which would not be a first for me, since I wrote a story titled The Wizard of Mushrooms that became part of a collection with the same title...

But I digress. It is funny how one finds inspiration in the strangest places.

For the moment, I am trying to figure out one of the pictures I did ages ago. It has no date, so I can only guess from the style that I must have drawn it in the early 90s. It depicts Anwyn clambering up a cliff face, pursued by a pack of nasty looking hounds. The picture is just a pencil sketch on dark pastel paper, but for the life of me I have no clue what its purpose was...

So I guess I will have to write a story to go with it as well...

Or maybe I should look into doing a graphic novel to stop this constant interruption art has on my writing.

We will see.

Laura J. Underwood

[BookStop]

Or maybe I should look into doing a graphic novel to stop this constant interruption art has on my writing.

There is an idea. Oh, to be able to write well, and draw.....

I just picked up Life of Pi in a hardcover illustrated edition - it's really neat. Not exactly the same thing as a graphic novel, but the addition of pictures are nice. Maybe you could go that direction.

[LauraJUnderwood]

Life of Pi--will have to look that one up. Thanks for the suggestion!

Laura J. Underwood