Phew...

"I got hurt feelings, I got hurt feelings..."-Flight of the Conchords, Hurt Feelings

Sometimes life gets so busy it's hard to write, let alone write about writing. Recent thoughts:

1.) Knee pain is no fun, and devilishly hard to find a way to turn into lemonade by working into my writing.

2.) Small things, like chocolate wafers that dissolve in your mouth after you suck cocoa through them, are amazing.

3.) One should never assume that one's camera batteries are fully charged before leaving on a hike.

4.) It can be difficult to write an episode that corresponds too closely to events in your own life too close to the events in question. Sometimes chapters need to simply be flagged "come back later."

It's Sunday in New Zealand and Saturday at home. This still amazes me. Work continues apace on Soulwoven, and all is well.

MARTIIIIIIIN!!

"Somewhere between Jesus and Huey P. Newton," The Flobots, The Rhythm Section

I had two great goals in coming down to New Zealand. Well, scratch that, I had many great goals when coming down to New Zealand, but two of them were to read more and write more. Unfortunately, the first very quickly got in the way of the second. I made the mistake of continuing George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire straight off when I got down here, only to realize that it quickly became very difficult to write in my own voice when I was exposing myself to his for two or three hours every day.

I suppose this was a rather predictable predicament, but it didn't make it any easier on me. I had to shelf my writing for a few days while I finished up the book, which was extraordinarily frustrating to me. That said, now that I have finished it, I was able to come back to my writing feeling very refreshed, and reminded of a few things that Martin's writing has taught me in the past about structure and world-building. So cheers to that.

You, out there in internet-land--do you also have trouble sticking to your own voice when reading an author with a very strong voice of their own? Do you even bother reading at all while you're engaged in a longer project? Tell me. I want to learn.