Writing from the Heart #BYBin30

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I've had a rough day today; my emotions have been all over the place, from sad one minute and impatient another to smiling and feeling content in the next. Restlessness has hit me at several times during the day, as though my mind is telling me I should be doing something else, be somewhere else, but it doesn't tell me what or where.

I don't mind days like today though. It all feeds into my writing. It means I can truly write from my heart.

We've all heard the expression "writing from the heart," but what does it really mean? I've always understood it to mean that you write emotions into your story using your own experience of them. Or, if you've never felt them, then you write them the way you think they might be. But there's a power in being able to write about an emotion you've actually experienced. If you've never been infatuated, you might not be able to fully portray it the way people truly experience the feeling, or you might not be able to distinguish the things that make infatuation different from truly being in love with someone.

As readers, we can learn a lot about emotions from the books that we read. But as writers, it can sometimes be even more powerful to write those emotions into our stories by delving into the depths of those same emotions we've been through ourselves. Devastation, depression, love, joy, contentment, heartbreak, infatuation, desire, passion, anger, hatred - each emotion is experienced slightly differently by each person experiencing it. But it is the things that are universal about going through a particular emotion that will make it relatable and believable to your readers.

And, in writing these emotions into our characters' hearts and souls, we have the added bonus that, in doing so, it can sometimes be cathartic to our own hearts and souls, or to those reading our words.

Making your Story Unique #BYBin30

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

I mentioned an idea for a story that came to me in dream to someone and she pointed out that she had seen an episode on one of the shows she watched that had a similar plot. I looked it up, and she was correct. The plot was similar to the story that I had dreamed up.

It's actually quite rare to come up with a story-line that is truly unique. While you shouldn't purposely use someone else's story plot, it is nearly impossible to come up with a plot that hasn't already been done before. What makes the story unique isn't the plot itself but how you tell the story. Yes, you need to make the plot as unique to your story as you can. Add-in to the plot, give it different subplots, give it characters with personalities that you have imagined for them. Your story needs to show your ideas and use the ideas from your imagination, and those ideas will be unique to you.

Yes, someone might have already done a story, for instance, of a witch's spell that goes wrong that splits someone else into two identical people with two distinct personalities of good and bad. But what if the person split in two is a celebrity? And what if letting the "bad" personality loose on the world creates the risk of creating a scandal for that celebrity? And what if the witch isn't really a witch but a new-to-the-religion Wicca who found a very old book of spells of unknown origins and that spell book has a mind of its own? (Yes, this is an actual story plot I had in a dream one night.)

No matter what plots have been used before, your story will be unique to you and to your own imagination. If you feel the pull to write that story, then don't worry too much about what has been done before and write your story.

Music to Write To #BYBin30

Image by Bruno Glätsch from Pixabay

I often listen to music while I write, and I have heard from many other writers that they do too. I'm not sure what everyone else would say is the reason they listen to music while they write, but I sometimes listen to music while I write to set the mood for what I am writing, if I can find the right type of music to listen to for the mood I am trying to achieve.

Sometimes, listening to music just calms my mind and helps me to focus on my story, but with one caveat: if the music I am listening to is a song and sung in a language I understand, it doesn't help but instead hinders me in my writing. I am the type of person who, when hearing a song in my own language, I mentally start singing along (sometimes not just mentally but out loud as well). I can't shut off the story the song is telling me.

So when I listen to music, the music is either an instrumental piece with no lyrics or the lyrics are sung in a foreign language (one I, currently, have no hope of understanding). This kind of music can set the mood for me or help me focus on my story without interfering in my writing. It actually aids my writing. (The same is true for music I want to go to sleep too; it can't have lyrics that make me want to sing along or listen to the story the lyrics tell.)

I used to not listen to any music when I wrote, back when I only had a radio to listen to, because, if the music had the wrong mood to it, it would interfere with my writing in that I would start writing to fit the mood the music was creating. And there was no way to choose which songs would play from the radio station I was listening to. But now, I can select my music ahead of time and set it to play the songs I want playing while I write.

Do you listen to music while you write or do you find it more of a hindrance when you write? What kind of music are you most likely to listen to while writing, if you listen to it? Let me know in the comments!

How Your Dreams Can Feed Your Stories #BYBin30

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

I've been having some strange and interesting dreams lately. Sometimes, those dreams are more like wish-fulfilment and other times, they are nightmares I try to escape from. Sometimes my dreams at night are of the mundane variety, and sometimes they are magical. Often times, they make very little sense, and occasionally, they make no sense whatsoever.

But one thing every one of those dreams has in common is that they are fodder for stories. They can become whole new stories for me to write about, or they can give me new scenes to add into already forming stories. Sometimes, they just help me better pinpoint an emotion I am trying to portray (by letting me experience it in depth within the dream so that I can better describe it to my readers).

Just as our nightly dreams can sometimes help us work through issues we are having to deal with in real life, they can also sometimes give us answers to problems we are having in the writing of one of our stories. There are times when dreams are largely symbolic though, so we might have to navigate their meanings before we can find those answers.

Have your dreams ever inspired a story you've written (or wanted to write)? Have your dreams ever helped you with a story you were already writing? Let me know in the comments!

When Real Life Inspires Events in your Story #BYBin30

Image by Sarah Richter from Pixabay

Today, I am suffering from a horrible, horrible migraine. In fact, my head hurts so much, that I just spent the last two hours with soft music playing from my noise-cancelling headphones, resting in a room with the curtains drawn and the lights off. At this moment in time, I am still barely functioning, but I am determined to get this post written and posted. (Then I will go back to my resting, music-listening ways.)

I was a bit stuck on my story, but my migraine gave me an idea. My main character is in a world where she doesn't belong, with her entire being sometimes fading in and out of existence within that world. Why can't she, also, suffer with a migraine? Granted, it won't be a huge scene, but it will be a scene which can show the care and attention the male lead shows her and will also show the concern he feels towards her well-being. Her migraine might be part of the overall struggle she is having within this world as it tries to eject her from it. (No one knows yet if it is ejecting her back into her own world or completely out of existence altogether.)

I have to admit that I do, frequently, use real-world knowledge and experiences to add things to my stories. This is why my main characters are often mothers and also frequently middle aged. Although I have experience being young and single, I find that most books are written from the perspective of a young main character, so it sometimes makes me want to change things up for the stories that I am putting out there. (Faith, in this story, is young, single and not a mother though.)

Do you ever use life experiences in your stories? What kinds of experiences or moments do you or have you used before? Let me know in the comments!

Obstacles to Writing #BYBin30

Image by Pintera Studio from Pixabay

Today, I sat down to write, and it was yet another day where my laptop is not charging properly. It's been having this issue for over a year now. Some days, it charges better than other days. Today was one of those days where I had to hold it at a certain angle and put pressure against the cable where it attached to the charging port. This caused my hand to ache, but it was the only way to not lose charge on my laptop.

It had the unfortunate result in that it was difficult to write. I like typing with both hands. When I am limited to just one hand, it takes longer to type and, when the other hand has to hold the cable just-so at the same time, that hand starts to hurt which is a distraction from my writing.

I'm one of those people who will find a way to write despite the distractions. I will probably do some writing by hand tonight on a notepad and then type it up tomorrow, despite the discomfort. One benefit of doing this is I can catch typos, spelling mistakes and awkward or just plain bad grammar when I type up what I've hand written.

Obstacles to our writing can take many forms. And there is no one solution to getting past, around, over or through those obstacles. Perseverance is the only thing that matters.

What kinds of obstacles are you facing to your writing? What have you done to overcome your obstacle(s)? Let me know in the comments!

Time Off from Writing while Enjoying Other Creative Pursuits #BYBin30

I took today off from writing my story. Instead of working on my story, or even thinking about it, I enjoyed a new song that came out from one of my favourite singers, I practised my own singing (and got complimented on it by my kids, which, as most of the ones at home now pre-teens and teenagers is a BIG DEAL, because teenagers are begrudging when it comes to compliments), practised my Korean language skills, and worked on writing a new song.

I still engaged in creative activities, which kept my imagination in use, but I took a break from writing this particular story because I felt as thought I was blocked and I needed the break from it.

Tomorrow, I will write some more of the story, and, with any luck, this little break will help bring about some fresh ideas for it. Sometimes, when I am feeling blocked with a story, all I need to get writing again is a mini-break to refresh my mind.

What do you do when you are suffering with writer's block or a story is not coming easily to you? I'd love to hear about it in the comments! How is your story coming along so far?