Good question. 

My response: Taking a blogging break.   I don’t know for how long.  Probably for two to three weeks. 

Don’t worry about me.  I have some projects that need laser like focus and blogging and blah blahing keep me too frazzled to apply this focus. 

I enjoy communing with all of you and I will be by to visit you when I can. 

I was recently up in Northern Michigan getting pictures of fall color, fishermen, and yes, more barns. 

Fishing the Platte copyright Ellen Wilson

Lake Michigan Leelanau Peninsula copyright Ellen Wilson

Oak Leaf copyright Ellen Wilson

Nuthatch copyright Ellen Wilson

Barn Leelanau County copyright Ellen Wilson

And because I have that damn J thing going on with the Myers Briggs thing I just had to post today.  The little voice kept saying wait on it wait on it.  Who really cares?  Apparently my anal sense of puntuality does.

I’ll probably get around to it tomorrow.

Talk with you soon.  E

PS Oh and check out my RSS number since my last post.  It was up to 120.  Now it’s 108.  Hmmm.  I still haven’t quite figured this number thing out yet but I’m I’ll leave it up because now my curiousity is really piqued.

I just did the math.  You will be writing 6.66 pages a day.   That’s 1666.5 words a day.  I know you all can do it and I wish you the best of luck.  I’ll be rooting for you.  Yes, afterwards you can have a nice, tall, cold one. 

Maybe two or three.

No, I won’t be partipating this year because I have a novel to finish this month.  One that’s been around for a few years.  And while I planned to come to this post smirking, I realize I can’t.  Actually I have about as much time as all you NaNoWriMo writers. I have to get around 100 pages down to be done and over with it at the end of October.   And at around 15 days that’s about 6.66 pages a day.  So I’m going to rush through it because it needs to get done. 

The good thing about NaNoWriMo is you don’t have time for blocks.  You don’t have time for anything except getting your happy little fingers tapping on the keyboard.  You won’t have time for writer’s block because you will be blazing through it all.  Oh wait -  

There is one block that could create a wall.  A wall that either your characters will scale to reach estatic heights or it will stop them dead in their tracks. Frozen.  Or celibate.  Which is okay if your writing about monks.  But even monks have fantasies - or they just skirt the issue all together. 

I’m talking sex scenes. 

Now before you go thinking what’s she on about here?  That’s exactly it. What are you going to do when your characters want to get it on.  Because, quite frankly, sometimes your characters will take hold of your novel and run away with.  And that’s what you want them to do.  So give them the freedom. 

Sex scenes are the absolute hardest things to write.  Well. That’s why if you participate in the NaNoWriMo you won’t have to think about it.  Just throw your skirt over your head and your pants out the window and get on with it. 

Create some vivid images and seduction scenes.  Work your way up to it.  Or get right into it.  Either way you’ll learn something from it.  Natalie Goldberg talks about a writing workshop she attended where the teacher told the participants to write about their first sexual experience.  One women wrote down her first one.  Then the next one…and the next - long into the night. 

Tarkan Tevetoglu

Tired of the American pop scene I went overseas.  To Turkey, where I found Tarkan and this post idea.  Goodness gracious, Great Balls of Fire!  This guy is great at the romance and seduction scene.  Sizzling!  He makes it look easy.  But you have the hard part (no pun intended).  You have to write it all down and make it work. So make it work like this Turkish pop star.  And since we are translating pictures into words in our stories you would be doing yourself a favor by studying his moves. 

Watch his eyes, how he effortlessly moves his body.  The kiss he gives to  his soon to be ex-lover from the very depths of his being.  Yes, it is very sexy but I promise you it’s PG. 

I know some of the men out there might be kinda adverse to watching a male pop star in seduction mode.  But seduction is seduction and you can learn from everyone. 

That bit of film genius with the cat eye in the beginning is excellent. 

What you want to accomplish with your sex scenes is quite a lot with saying very little.  People usually either make one of two mistakes.  1.  They wind up sounding like a biology textbook, or 2. They go overboard with the euphemisms.  Euphemism - is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener.  So says Wikipedia.

This is why romance novels sound so outrageously funny. 

But really, don’t worry too much about that now.  Just get busy with the business of writing and leap over this last possible block - this last possible wall - that could stop your characters dead in their tracks.  I mean pants. 

Use the five senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing.  Euphemism - Get hot under the collar.  And see what happens. 

Work it like a Turkish pop star. 

Never too much Tarkan.  Enjoy. 

Photocredit:  Tarkan Tevetoglu - nicestarwallpaper.blogspot.com

I’ve been eagerly waiting the release of this ebook for some time.  Why?  Because I knew it would be good.  And if you have read Hunter Nuttal’s post on Introverts and Extroverts you know what I mean - this guy is damn good! 

I say this because I know a thing or two about psychology -at least a shelf full of books regarding.  And when I read this post I knew he was on to something.  He could explain the differences, and the subtleties and solutions to getting along with extroverts and introverts in the simplest of terms.  Better than most psyche professors, mind you. 

You know how it is when you find a writer you like. 

So while the extrovert introvert post was the appetizer to the main course, we can now have a full fledge pig out! 

Hunter distills complex information about the Myers Briggs into an essence we can all understand.  He explains things in such a way that makes sense and isn’t filled with too much theoretical rhethoric - boring rhetoric that slows things down.  You won’t find it here.  Not only does Hunter walk you through the tests that identify what your Myers Brigg type is, but he also discusses type dynamics, or in other words, why are you so weird and I’m so normal?

We spend our lifetimes trying to figure this out.  And we go through all kinds of programs to get it. 

This little volume speaks volumes. 

You have at your hands, your fingertips, all kinds of info that may help you relate to that irritating someone.  And they you.  Because it goes both ways.  Like Carl Jung said, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Let us get to know one another.  Let us realize there is no good or bad types. 

Transpersonal psychologist, Stanislav Grof says, “The main obstacle we face as a species is found in the present evolutionary level of our consciousness.”

Yes, let us leap forward for we are on the dawn of a whole new way of relating to one another. 

Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate and Presidential Candidate

Let us get to know how we all relate to this planet - this journey - together on our own terms.  Your terms and my terms.  And the sooner the better.

I’m an ENJF and share the same type with Oprah Winfrey and Ralph Nader. 

Oprah Winfrey, TV and Magazine Mogul

 So tell me, what are you?  Hunter talks about typewatching in his book.  Watch and study.  Can you guess what your closest friends and relations are?  Would you have guessed I’m an ENFJ?

If you would like to purchase this ebook there is a handy link in the sidebar.

Photocredits:

Oprah Winfrey - prayerwarriors.wordpress.com

Ralph Nader - www.maynoothadvocate.org

Happy Pig copyright Ellen Wilson

Shed copyright Ellen Wilson

Humans tend to get mired in the mud.  They let the past and the future hold them down and they can’t open to all that is. 

Buddha said said that a lotus grows in mud.  That the roots are deeply anchored in the mud and that this is what makes the flower grow. 

Pigs understand this.  They flop down in the mud.  They snort and they grunt.  They don’t have complicated theories of things. 

Baby Pigs copyright Ellen Wilson

That is why I like pigs.  And this is why I turn to pigs and other animals as teachers.

So when your tired and out of energy its good to get back to basics, back to pig mode, where you can be rooted in something simple.

Look forward to Monday when I will do a complete about face and highlight something special that is a bit more complicated. 

But right now it’s good to rest for awhile and be uncomplicated.  Like a pig. 

Pizza anyone?

There was a story about a writer who couldn’t write.  Who knows how the story got passed down because it wasn’t written down.  Because the writer couldn’t write. 

But, like those oral tales from the beginning of time when people would snort or grunt so came the idea of writers’ block.

I’m here to snort it isn’t true.

Does a stockbrocker get money block?  No.  They look for a way for the money to flow.  Does a plumber get plumber’s block?  No.  Plumbers are there to clean out the pipes.  And you are there to clean out your psych.  So let the words flow!  Clean out your pipes. 

If you care to build brick by brick a block for yourself then it IS true. 

But when you have to write, you just do it. 

Can you speaK?  I think so.  Then you can write.  Well, that isn’t quite right.  If you can think words, then you can write.  That’s a better description.

When I first started writing it was hard to give myself permission.  I constantly questioned myself. I thought, am I doing this right? 

And just who the hell is going to give me permission?  So I read articles about writers’ block.  Of course, it seems like a million years ago so maybe it was all etched in stone tablets.

Don’t wait for permission.  Just do it. 

Right now I have a million things to do.  To write.  Because I’m a writer.  And photograph.  Because I’m photographer. 

I don’t have the time to worry about it.  I have to stay focused in the NOW and do it.  Sorry if I sound like the proverbial Nike commercial, but it’s true.

We build the existential angst up in our mind because we think things must be perfect in order for us to create.  There is no perfect time when the angels will sing and whisper to you in that oh so angelic way that your time has come. 

Alright, sometimes they will.  Sometimes your muse will come to you and you will burn through pages like there is no tomorrow.  But usually?  No.  It won’t happen.  Sometimes you will come to the page and hate it.  You will dislike the fact that you write for a living and you will want to do something else.  Anything else.  Like pull beets in Siberia.  Alright, this isn’t quite right.  Usually our fantasies taken on a more exalted hue.  Like sailing the Caribbean in a 50 foot sailboat and cooking exquisite gourmet dishes that include ingredients like saffron and indigo.  Indigo is an ink! 

Usually if you cannot bear to write it’s because of a few things:

You feel too self conscious.

You are comparing yourself to other people who you feel are better writers.

So do this in the age of numbers and quick fixes:

1. Fuhgettaboutit.  Get over yourself already!

2. You be the judge of yourself.  Don’t let anyone else be.  Get on with it. 

Just do it.

But if you really want to read more about the block, please visit Graham Strong’s hilarious diagnosis and treatment of this existential disease that is bound to plague writers at one time or another.  Go ahead, innoculate yourself.   

Photocredit: © Ellen Wilson