Pencil Shavings - A Little Crow

Hello Lovelies,

Today is a little different than normal and is a bit on the light side. As you know, while I'm dedicate to my writing, I'm about as ADD as they come when it comes to creative projects and often get sidelined by small items that grab my attention. One of those, recently has been due to the fabulous work by MagicLoveCrow. If you're not familiar with her work, she does some pretty fabulous painted pieces and I'd really encourage you to take a moment and check her out.

With that said, I was inspired by MagicLoveCrow and her work and decided that I wanted to play around with the idea myself. While I'm about as artistically talented as a small child, my wife is actually an illustrationist who spends most of her waking time drawing (don't tell her, but I'm a huge fan of her bone works, Sherlock Bones in particular). That said, she helped me a little bit by encouraging me to walk before I run, I.E. try to sketch something before I try to paint something. Additionally, I got myself a set of fancy-fun pencils that go from light to dark? Didn't know that was a thing.

And standing before you is the product of my first try. I call him...well, he's a fucking Crow. What the hell else would he be called?

Overall I found the process fun and enjoyable and I'm definitely going to be doing more as time rolls on. I was a little dissatisfied because of the coloring, but unfortunately crows are stonking black and I kind of made do with the fact I was using pencils. I definitely intend to try my hand at painting some sometime in the future, but we'll see when that happens.

I hope you guys enjoyed this little glimpse. I promise that more Little Island Tales are coming here in the next couple days (Thursday, if I'm not a horrible monster unable to meet my deadlines). In the mean time, I'd encourage you to check out MagicLoveCrow's blog and see her much more talented works that inspired my own. Same goes for Fabulosaurus who doesn't have a blogspot but definitely has an instagram and a few other places you can see her wonderful artwork.

Here's hoping you all have a wonderful rest of your day.

- RB

Open Book Discussion / Writer's Reference - Main Page

Open Book Discussion / Writer's Reference

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Not all writers come out of the womb with pen and paper in hand. Actually,

 I dare say that none of us do. Instead, we have to learn, we have to share, and

we have to experiment to find out just what works. Here is a collection of reference

pieces and discussions about the art of writing. Maybe it can help you too.

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Inspirations - OBD

Why do you post Chapter by Chapter? - OBD

Your own Worst Enemy - WR

Words of Encouragement - WR

Character Descriptions - WR

Looking Ahead - Journal/DBTC

First and foremost, allow me to apologize. I know that we had no post yesterday and today isn't any new fictional content. Unfortunately, yesterday just proved that life happens and by the time I was able to even get near my computer, I ended up deciding that bed was the better option. The end result was no post and no research. How sad.

That said though, I was discussing the upcoming holiday with my wife, the beautiful and talented Fabulosaurus and she told me that she was considering doing "InkTober". If you don't know what this is, it's when some artists dedicate themselves to doing a new piece of art every day. Well, I'm already trying to do that ANYWAY, but this got me thinking to last year when I did "SpookyTober". If you weren't around, "Spookytober" is dedicated to writing nothing but spooky stuff for the entire month of October.

I'm thinking I might do that again.

As a whole, it added to the fun of the upcoming holiday. It was silly but a blast and really helped dedicate me as a writer. I had to focus my talents to one specific area versus letting them wander. Plus, at the end of the day, I really do love doing spooky and creepy stuff. So, I'm thinking that might be in the works come the beginning of October.

Anyone want to join us?

Inspirations - Open Book Discussions

Ever since I've started to try and rededicate myself to writing and creating, one of the major problems that I run into is having something to write ABOUT.

At a glance, it's very daunting to think "I'm going to try and produce SOMETHING everyday". You wonder if you will have the ability. If you're going to produce anything worthwhile. You stress whether or not you can even keep yourself going to do it more than a few weeks. 

I can say that one benefit I've given myself to ease my concerns is giving myself a day off on Friday so that I might have a bit more of a set schedule with a day I can rely on. Aside from that, providing myself the "Open Book Discussions" as well as the "Don't Break the Chain" posts gives me a way to break up my thinking so that I'm not dead set on HAVING to produce a constant flow of narrative every day.

Of course, the ironic part is that the more I fall into the habit, the less daunting it seems. In fact, I'm starting to experience something I haven't for a long time. Inspiration. Not twinges of desire to create, but a real, solid hunger to write based on something I see or hear.

Kaleo - Way Down We Go

Here's a great example:

Way Down We Go was a song I heard on the radio that got my blood flowing. The song is amorphous enough that I don't doubt many people might here different things, but the feel for it for me was "Bogs". Maybe it's because of growing up in the Southern United States, but the song makes me think of twisting, overgrown water ways and dark, moonlit swamps with hoodoo witches in the mist. It makes me think of longing and loss and night and monsters hidden in the deep places of the waters and woods.

To that point, it's got me currently beating around SOMETHING inspired by it. Not sure if it's a short story or a flash fiction or what, but you should see something come of it soon.

That brings us nicely to the whole point of the Open Book Discussion:

What are some things that really inspire or have inspired you to create?

It really could be anything. Maybe it's a song (as seen above), or a movie, a book, something someone said, something you saw...really anything! What out there has or does set your soul aflame and make you want to create something new? I'd absolutely love to know!

Six Word Story - 10.14.15 - No Light

 "No more light! He'll find us!"

(Hey all, hope you're doing well. So I've recently been kind of inspired by the success I've been seeing with the Two Sentence Stories. As such, my wife recommended I try an even MORE difficult writing exercise: Six Word Stories. Let me know what you think.)