Writing and Self Hypnosis

A friend of mine who is a writer, and who sometimes peruses this blog, has mentioned to me on a couple of occasions that his wife is convinced that he puts himself into a state of self hypnosis when he writes. I wasn't sure about this theory, initially, but began to notice that when my writing begins to flow I've often achieved a state where I shut out everything else and I've put myself into the fictional world that I am writing about. At this point the words come easier and faster, and I'm no longer letting the critic inside me over-analyze every word that comes off my fingers.

Of late my writing time has been much more limited and so I need to make the most of it. I'm up every morning before the rest of the family so that I can slide in a half hour or, if I'm lucky, an hour of writing. The problem is that it usually takes me about a half hour to get myself into this state of immersion inside the fiction I'm creating and I'm lucky to grind out a paragraph or two in the meantime.

In order to maximize my time, I've purposely tried to induce this state, which is perhaps hypnotic, that we've been discussing. I find that if I put on some music that 95% of the time I can drop right into the immersive state I'm seeking and the words and story almost immediately begin to flow.

A quick search of the internet shows that other writers have indeed used self hypnosis as a tool to combat writer's block. My old method to beat writer's block was to keep grinding away until finally I write my way through the block; sometimes it took days.

I'm sure that there are other tools and methods of self-hypnosis that might be applicable for writers, but music seems to be quite effective for drawing me into that immersive state where the words began to slide out of my consciousness instead of me having to force them out.

Again Dark Worlds

Here's what Derrick Ferguson recently had to say about my recent appearance in Dark Worlds magazine #1. I thought it was quite amusing, and though I don't condone the robbery of the young or the old, I thought I'd share what he had to say:

Why am I peddling DARK WORLDS? Well, besides the fact that it's chock full of pulp-style tales it also happens to contain a certain story called "The Investment" which is written by Joel Jenkins, a writer of superlative talents that I have had the pleasure of being associated with for quite some time now.

"The Investment" is a space opera tale that follows the adventures and calamities of the crew of the Scavenger as they try to be the first to salvage a warp drive from a Kree spaceship abandoned on the jungle-covered planet of Arcturon VI. They get a little more than they bargain for when bounty hunters show up and the natives begin to get restless.

Now I'm not gonna lie to you and say I've read this story and that you should jack little old ladies for their gold teeth if necessary in order to buy a copy. But I have read most of Joel's stories and even had the pleasure of collaborating with him on a couple. So on that basis alone I'm gonna get out my ski mask, pliers, head out to the nearest senior citizen center and lay in wait.

So with an endorsement like that, I've got ask, "What are you waiting for?" Pick yourself up a copy of Dark Worlds #1 right away.

Burroughs vs. King

Recently I've been editing Lords of the Bitter Dark, a portion of Through the Groaning Earth--the sequel to Escape from Devil's Head.

While doing so, I pondered Stephen King's admonition from his book, Stephen King: On Writing , which suggests that during an edit a writer should tighten his manuscript by deleting approximately 1/3 of what he wrote.

Many of Mr. King's novels are quite lengthy, so I can just imagine how big those manuscripts were before one third of the words were tossed out. Perhaps Mr. King is so verbose that he can afford to toss out large chunks of his manuscript, but if I started doing that my stories would be missing critical parts and wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan and John Carter Warlord of Mars. When an editor asked him to revise a manuscript, he would always make sure that it came back 10 or 15 thousand words larger. You see, in those days, authors were often paid by the word--so by increasing the size of his story he ensured that he would get paid for the additional work he was putting into the novel.

My editing style tends to fall between that of Burroughs and King, leaning slightly toward the Burroughs end of the spectrum. Though I do delete a line here and there, I usually end up adding more than I'm taking out. I find that by doing so I'm able to clarify my writing and ensure that I leave all the necessary clues for my readers.

The Pirates of Xonira, Part 6

Check out Chapter Six of Dillon and the Pirates of Xonira, where Dillon captains the weapons-laden submarine, Morgan Adams, toward Xonira in search of pirates and in preparation for a confrontation with his old buddy, and the current High Chancelor, Murphy C'jai.

However, the beautiful Toi Lahayne appears to have her own agenda, and she's brought along a team of highly-trained and heavily armed professional killers to back her up. If that weren't enough, there is at least one other traitor lurking among Dillon's crew of criminals and rogues.

All this for free at the Pulpwork Press website. While you are there check out some of the other titles released by Pulpwork (including four of mine) and pick up some reading material.

And if you've been enjoying Dillon and the Pirates of Xonira do pick up a copy of Dillon and the Voice of Odin, which is available on Amazon.com.

Vacation Workaholic

Recently the family (me, my wife and 5 children) traveled over the mountains for a vacation on the sunny shores of Lake Chelan. We met up with my parents and my six sibling, their spouses, and their children and descended, like a ravening horde, upon the beaches of Wapato Point.

It was a great time and we all got lots of sun and sand. I did some waterskiing and kyaking and spent time with the family. However, I have a sickness that whenever I go on vacation I view this as "a great time to get some reading and writing done."

As it always turns out, my anticipated free time is nowhere near enough to get done what I had hoped. I got almost no reading accomplished (sorry Tour of Darkness and Necropolis I'll have to read you later), but thanks to the Alphasmart (check out my last post) I did manage to bang out about 4,000 words of Through the Groaning Earth (the sequel to Escape from Devil's Head) on beach and by swimming pool.

AlphaSmart 3000

I was completely unaware of the AlphaSmart until friend and fellow writer, Russ Anderson, mentioned it in his blog. Apparently it's quite popular with NANOWRIMO, the members of which attempt to each write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. The reason for its popularity is that it is inexpensive (I bought mine used for $80.00 on Ebay), durable, very portable, and it can store up to 100 pages worth of text in its memory, and it runs on 3 AA batteries. My Alphasmart came with half-used batteries still in place. I kept on using them and put another 15 hours on them without any problem. Some people claim to have gotten up to 700 hours of use on one set of batteries. If I get half that I'll be very pleased.

This text is transferable via cable into a regular old word processing file on your regular old computer. This way a writer can avoid writing a story longhand and then having to transcribe it onto the computer. I'm a big fan of not doing the same work twice.

"So why not a standard laptop?" you might ask. I'm not a big fan of paying out 600 plus dollars for something with all the bells and whistles when I only need something to write on. I recently went on a family vacation and had the Alphasmart by the pool (yes it got splashed when my son did the cannonball), on the beach (some heavy gusts of wind ensured that it got sandy), and my six year old daughter got a hold of it, typed a few words, and then she tried to erase the words by jabbing the screen as hard as she could with the eraser end of a pencil--multiple times.

The Alphasmart is a lot sturdier than a laptop, so it survived. If it hadn't I'd have been out $80.00 and whatever story I had typed on the machine. If a laptop falls in a pool or if my daughter stabs a pencil through the screen I'm out a heck of a lot more money.

Dark Worlds Released

Dark Worlds Magazine #1 is now available at Lulu.Com. It's 130 pages of unadulterated pure pulp goodness in a prestige paperback format. $13.95 for a hard copy or $4.99 for an electronic version (PDF-portable document file).

Why am I peddling Dark Worlds? Well, besides the fact that it's chock full of pulp-style tales it also happens to contain a certain story called The Investment, which is written by me.

The Investment is a space opera tale that follows the adventures and calamities of the crew of the Scavenger as they try to be the first to salvage a warp drive from a Kree spaceship abandoned on the jungle-covered planet of Arcturon VI. They get a little more than they bargain for , when bounty hunters show up and the natives begin to get restless.