Kelly's Writing Rules

Look! I'm doing a blog post!  I've seen countless other writers, self-published or no, come up with their own set of writing rules or reiterating ones they hail as absolute truth.  You know, Stephen King says the road to hell is paved with adverbs, right?  I wanted to come up with my own.  I'm not a fan of those type of writing rules, like the one Mr. King gives us, because I believe they're so limiting.  I suppose we'll find out when I publish Archer how well MY writing rules work.  If they don't, then feel free to taunt about how wrong I was for not listening.  I was a very stubborn child.

Anyway, I posted these on Twitter, but I'll make a collective blog post every now and then on some and explain.

1. Don't choreograph your fight scenes to Carmen's Habanera. Unless you're awesome.

Should be self-explanatory.  Habanera, while I LOVE the piece (particularly by Maria Callas), does not go well with action or climactic scenes.  I'm at the point of developing the final climax of Archer, so as I was driving home one day, my radio played Habanera and I began visualizing the scene in my head.  While interesting, it just did not fit the mood.  I think, given a different scene or situation though, the result would be awesome.

2. Showers are a good place to think on plot development. But watch that shampoo. Quarter-sized dots come quickly.

I have a LOT of hair, and I do ruminate on many things whilst in the shower, plot development included.  Since I have a lot of hair, I've always taken the recommended amount of shampoo needed on the bottles lightly.  However, pay attention when applying soap or shampoo because after blinking at the amount I poured into my hand the other night, I realized I had way too much.

3. When writing in the employee lounge, avoid eye contact with every familiar who would approach you.

This is a problem I face quite often.  A good portion of my writing is completed while on my lunch break.  To allow myself enough time to concentrate on this task, I scarf down my food in a semi-timely manner and pop in my headphones to write, trying to look as unfriendly as possible.  Sometimes, I am caught before I put my headphones on, or I look up at the wrong moment.  Then people approach me and stay however long they feel they should which either cuts into my writing time or eliminates it completely.

4. When working with sharp instruments, do not slice your thumb that would make it uncomfortable to hold a pen.

I work with sharp instruments.  I cut open a spot on my thumb yesterday, and since most of my writing is done by hand, it has been very uncomfortable to support my pen while writing.  Overall, it becomes an unnecessarily uncomfortable experience.

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So, I would like to believe these writing rules are useful, and I've no doubt I'll come up with more as time goes by.

In the way of updates, I've created a new outline for my next project:

The Runewell Fairytale Outline

 I've purposely edited it this way so most of the text becomes unreadable.  Also, my handwriting!

Finally, if you would just look up at the list of tabs, you will see I've added new ones for my upcoming projects.  Runewell is still in the outlining process.  Under each tab you will see promotional covers, a term I've coined to mean as "viable to change."  Also, the Archer one will be ten times better, I'm sure.

The model for Archer is a friend.  I picked out the costume and I took the pictures.  I have over a hundred pictures total and I plan to use some of the amazing ones for more promotional things--banners and a book trailer.  Be excited!  More to come!