(C) 2020, JJ Shaun Looking back on my blog, I realize that my Sunday posts frequently regurgitate what I wrote earlier in the week. First Reader has pointed this out to me on more than one occasion. This observation has given me plenty of food for thought. As I ruminated on the issue, I made … Continue reading Watch This Space
It’s been a wild couple of weeks. With all that’s happening in the “real world,” I’ve had a difficult time concentrating on the characters tiptoeing through my imagination. But as things calmed down to a dull roar last week, I watched a scene unfold with the twins as they discovered a hidden cavern. In this … Continue reading Using Life to Create Fiction
(C) 2020, JJ Shaun Most of my ideas are set in some fantasy world or another. One notable exception is a story I wrote in college. The script I had penned for a class stayed with me over the decades. After reading It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis, a story idea began to percolate. … Continue reading When Characters Have More to Say
(C) Google Maps Now that I have my files back in place and the proper versions up and running, I’m able to get back to the twins and their predicament. I caught up with what Talbot has been up to and left the twins looking into the mouth of a cave that had an enticing … Continue reading Letting Characters Guide the Setting
(C) 2020, JJ ShaunPutting game tiles together to create a unique playing field. I’ve been getting more into the heads of my characters lately. The introductory tale of this series of short stories centers on three young members of an uber-rich family. They get caught up in a set of circumstances they never, in their … Continue reading Playing to Write
(C) 2020, JJ Shaun I decided to go back and take a look at some of my old fan fiction to see how I can use those ideas as springboards into something new and improved. So, I spent the better part of the week writing the background for that concept. I had a sense of … Continue reading Idea Mash-Up
(C) 2020, JJ Shaun I try to sit down to write every day. Lately, the time I set aside to write has gotten shorter, mostly limited to keeping this blog. Don’t get me wrong, I have a ton of ideas running around my head, it’s just my motivation is minimal. I decided to look at … Continue reading Transforming the Old Into Something New
I’ve been using Scrivener for the last month or so, looking for a way to better organize my larger projects. Part of the reason I’ve had to take this step is that I’ve promised the backstory of one of my characters to my Game Master. I had an idea some time ago about a sort … Continue reading The Tools We Use: Part II
For the last handful of years, I've spent most of my Friday evenings in the virtual company of a group of like-minded gamers. Now, none of us is too serious about the game that we play, and we tend to argue like siblings, but we (mostly) get the job done. I've mentioned this group before, … Continue reading Friday Night Gamers
When asked how he writes, author Stephen King answers, "one word at a time." And that is precisely how stories are built—one word at a time. I struggle to stay focused on my writing, partly because I get bored quickly and partly because I spend a lot of my day job staring at words on … Continue reading Write That Story
Tavern Tales
Poetry BLOG By Edge of Humanity Magazine
New Writing Engaging with the Sacred
50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong
J.J. Shaun 