Back from Planet Brain Freeze

This is sort of an update/continuation of my last post about musings on writing.

The weirdest thing happened to me last night. I was heading to bed when it hit me. The unfreezing of the brain. Some of my fellow writer friends and I are doing some writing challenges over at Cafe Goodreads (second home, if it were real I'd keep ordering a cafe mocha and never leave) when I posted my mini excerpt. With the intent to post later when the mood hit me, it was like a light went off. Suddenly I could write the next few scenes and, considering it was so late, I think my left brain was asleep so I wasn't getting that critical part that stifled my right brain's creativity.

The brain is a weird thing but I've heard of authors using a playlist to write as they envision scenes in their mind like a movie. Last time you guys left some awesome comments about this. This is one thing that helped because my MS features a violinist and I used a real life violinist as an inspiration so I listened to his music while writing.

Another thing that helped is casting my stories. Going in I usually have an idea of how my characters look and if I can find a real world equivalent, all the better! I personally love to search for inspirations of my heroes and sometimes I have to dig deep to find that perfect pic that represents the yummyness of the hero. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do I guess. (I'm currently prepping a skinwalker romance submission which explains the random Julian Gil pic as my hero ;-)).

If you can pick up the latest edition of The Writer, there are some good points in there to help against brain block. It's an article geared toward freelance burnout but for us fiction writers, it's very much applicable. Good points included are: Making a list of the pros and cons of freelancing (or being an author) to see the balance of the work, Mix Up Your Writing to get excited about writing again (maybe your current project isn't working out just for this moment but hop on another and it may spur some ideas for the previous one), Plant Seeds For the Future bu taking some time off and just forgetting about writing (I came close to quitting many times and that's when it suddenly came back to me later), Make Every Minute Count by planning ahead a time to write while still enjoying days off and lastly Blance Business With Pleasure which basically stresses balancing work with personal time. The article goes into more detail with each and offers up a better summary so I definitely suggest picking up the June 09 edition of The Writer mag.

Although I did like the book a little more, I'll probably pop on Blood and Chocolate tonight. I'm not too jazzed about the vast changes in the story and it seems they sucked out most of the heroine Vivian's personality (while in the book she was a little too in your face, the movie was the complete opposite) I did like the overall mood and the world building they were attempting (and you know me, I'm a complete fan for the intricate building of spec worlds). That potential made it an entertaining movie to me but I do consider it in a different universe than the book (which I did happen to enjoy as well). Plus if you're writing a paranormal, it's an awesome to watch to get in that sexy paranormal romance mood.

The soundtrack is awesome and featured a lot of great music that was in the movie but not on the actual soundtrack. Happy happy joy for youtube because a kind soul made some goodies available.

Here's one that's been on replay as I wrote this post.




Maybe I'll have a paranormal movie night or something. Anyone have any fave paranormal romance/urban fantasy movies you like to watch while writing?