Critical Thinking

Kersley Fitzgerald
Three little things.

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First off, and this is not one of the things, sorry about last week. Nargles ate my brain.

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My friend, the Christian spec romance writer, and I were talking in her kitchen a few days ago. She has one book in the can and its sequel all ready to go. Just waiting to be typed in. But her agent doesn't want it. He wants something else. So she's writing something else. And she's not comfortable.

It's hard. It's different. The other book would be so easy.

I told her I know what she meant. It was because of her mother that I attempted to write a YA fantasy novel. I'd rather do adult hard sci fi.

Patricia Wrede addressed this shortly before our conversation. What are your defaults? How are you staying safe? How should you break out of your comfort zone and boldly go where you've never gone before?

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My other great love (besides Maj Tom, the Creature, my geetar, my bike...) is residential architecture. At one point, that's what I thought I was going to do. (In this economy, writing's much better. You lose way less money.) One of my favorite books is Patterns of Home. It takes a look at ten of the myriad concepts in architecture that make people feel comfortable. I once thought about taking those key issues--things like light and a view outside--and metaphoring them into something relating to writing.

In fact, it came to mind again today--in a slightly altered way. With the Creature at his grandparents', and Maj Tom taking a week-long staycation, we're painting the kitchen. I started wondering how I would equate painting with writing. Still can't figure out how scrubbing the walls with TSP fits in, but I imagine it could somehow.

Meanwhile, Bryan Russell beat me to it as a guest on Nathan Bransford's blog.

Is writing a story really like a house? What's your best, most ridiculous writing metaphors?

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Maybe I didn't skip last week because of fictional, imaginary mythological creatures. Maybe I was just following Rachelle Gardner's advice to partake in non-literary things.

Go me.