*headdesk*

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This is Cinnamon. He is vividly illustrating my frustration this week. For the last few days, real life has been sticking its sneaky head into my writing time, and work that should take one day is taking two or three. Grrrr. That's when I become especially vulnerable to distraction, like waiting for Cinnamon to fall asleep in a faceplant, then grabbing the camera.

Now that Cinnamon has had his few minutes of fame, I'm going back to work, and perhaps I'll get finished before Daylight Savings Time starts in March. ;)

In orbit

Some days you feel like good ol' Mother Earth, solid, grounded, and intuitive. Other days, you're Skylab, tired, broken, hurtling toward the dirt and making people on several continents duck, then wait for the boom. This has been a Skylab week, where my worries have become space junk circling around me, before we all go plunging to the ground, making a dent in some foreign country. Yesterday I hit a major writer's roadblock; the words simply would not come, even when I squeezed my head like a tube of toothpaste. Fast forward to last night's stress meltdown, and today's achy nerve hangover. Luckily, there's one bit of shiny brightness; I've been tagged by Wordsmith, and must concentrate on something other than the entire state of Ohio, and how best to describe it.

So, without further ado, here are the rules:

Link to the tagger and post these rules on your blog. Share five facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. Tag five people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. Random fact: I am left-handed, although no one has ever called me 'Lefty.' My left-handedness is a direct gift of individuality from my father, who passed away when I was eight. My first-grade teacher wanted to force me to become right-handed, and he said absolutely not. His grade-school teacher forced him to become a 'righty' by tying his left hand behind his back when he was a kid, and that experience made him stand up for me and my unique quirks. Thanks, Daddy.

2. Weird fact: I eat with chopsticks or plastic forks, because I really, really, really hate the sound of metal utensils scraping teeth. I do eat with regular forks, spoons and knives when we eat out, but I'm very careful.

3. Factoid: I have no children, but many pets, including cats, dogs, and one spider. I haven't dressed any of them in cute or humorous clothing.

4. Fact-a-chicka-boom-boom: I've always wanted to be a writer, except for a brief period in my teen years when I wanted to be a sex therapist. Actually, I wanted to write books like Dr. Joyce Brothers, so I guess my budding hormones just kicked the writer thing up a notch.

5. Factling: I used to attend UFO conferences, and collect story ideas. Really, this is one of the best ways to hit a sci-fi jackpot; just sit in the lobby and listen. Wait until you get to the car to take notes, though. It makes the attendees paranoid to see a lone person scribbling away in the corner.

Hmmm, who's left to tag? I tag Nita at Nita's Notes; Greg at A Cranky Engineer; Jen at Creatif; J.R. at Walksquiet (maybe he'll update his blog now!) and Jenn at Working Writer (since completing this helped me forget my worries for a while, hoping it'll distract her, too.)

I did it! Bwah-hah-hah-ha!

Gimme more, more more! Four fave free tools for writers

Writers and free stuff: it's a natural relationship. For a writer, feast or famine isn't just a saying, it's a life cycle. Whether you're going through the lean times or just remember them vividly, these free online tools will help as you toil in the word mines, hammering together those manuscripts.

1. iGoogle. How did I live without this for so long? This handy tool allows you to create your own pimped-out homepage from hundreds of widgets, including a preview of your Gmail. Writers will appreciate many of the add-ons, including Literary Quotes of the Day, Shakespearean insults, a Dictionary.com search box, or the excellent and handy Writer's Unblock prompts. Also add any flavor of news, from Fox to NPR, weather, horoscopes, moon phases, and nearly anything else you can imagine. I tried out the Office Paintball game widget, which was great fun but a bit noisy, but the Magic Trick of the Day shows promise. Tired of searching page after page on Craigslist for writing jobs? Add the Craigslist search widget, tweak the settings for your needs, and gather job leads whenever you have a spare moment between queries. Having all the widgets on one page saved time for me, because now I don't surf over to three or four sites in my usual procrastination routine, and I actually start working a little earlier in the day.

2. Project Gutenberg. All the fun of a book sale, without having to cart heavy boxes home. Sure, you're familiar with all your favorites here: Poe, Twain, Austen, Dickens, Joyce, Kafka, and the rest of the gang. But have you ever searched for writing texts? I was thrilled to find an early book on freelance writing, originally published in 1920, complete with example essays ripped from the current publications of the time. It was a fascinating read, and so much of the advice remains the same. Do a bit of digging, and you'll find books on short story writing, screenwriting, American literature, Italian poetry, and many other treats, all free for the downloading. An extra bonus for the holiday season: the site has an online advent calendar, with a different children's book under each day that you and the munchkin can read together.

3. NaNoWriMo. Yes, November is over, and most people consider this an event. But I truly consider it a great writing tool; each year, I'm amazed that I've finished this truly crappy novel by December 1. Writing a crappy novel in a month teaches you all sorts of things about writing, including how to just get the words out on a page, and how to wrangle characters so they do what you want. Starting this year, sign-ups for NaNoWriMo will be available all year long, so you can sign up, hop on the message boards, and get involved with writing and editing, or jump straight into procrastinating for 2008. Each regional lounge is also open so you can communicate with other writers in your area. The NaNofather, Chris Baty, has a knack for inspiration, so when you're dragging a bit, check out his pep talks, or peruse this year's pep talks from Neil Gaiman, Sue Grafton, Garth Nix, and other notable authors.

4. Rainlendar (and other software). This program is a writer's dream. It will display several months in advance on your desktop, a great thing when your body is in December, but your mind is in March or April planning queries. The free version also has to-do lists and alerts, and you can customize it with skins. Bump up to the paid version if you want Rainlendar to network with Outlook or Google Calendar. Other freebie must-haves that get a brief mention: OpenOffice, a free and very handy office suite, and FoxIt PDF Reader, which takes up a lot less room and works faster than Adobe Reader.

For a bonus freebie, I'll mention another calendar I can't do without: the annual Free Writer's Planner from Julie Hood and Organized Writer. Even though I never make it through step one of her five-step daily checklist, I still love her newsletter, and print out the planner every year in a burst of New Year's-resolution-I can-do-it frenzy. I try to carry it in the car with me at all times, so when I'm stuck waiting on the hubby I can whip out my planner and make a few notes. Thanks to Julie, and when the wind is just right, I almost feel....organized. Then the universe notices my self-satisfied feeling and drops a dab of chaos right on my head.

Even if you've seen some of these free tools before, take a second look and get the most out of them. After all, you can't beat the price.

Coming back into the light

For more than a year, I lived in some dark times creatively. The fire that fueled my writing had petered out to little more than a weak ember, something that wouldn't even burn your foot if you accidentally stepped on it. I kept writing, I had regular gigs, but the fun was gone. Getting up and heading to the computer in the morning had that same, dungeon-y feel as waking up for my old day job, trudging into the office. After a lifetime of writing for business and pleasure, I started to seriously worry that all my ideas were used up, the words fading away, and it was time to fill out an application at Wal-Mart.

I tried to rally, I really did. 'C'mon,' I'd say to myself (and drawing oh-so-strange-looks from passerby) 'You can beat this, and then you can write an article about it.' But my muse wasn't tempted; she had dried up, resembling those pitiful sea monkeys kids used to order from comic books. I isolated myself this summer, reading tons of books, and taking walks. It resulted in a few book ideas, but nothing spurred me to get up and actually start writing.

Then, a few weeks ago, the universe tilted. My neighbor's son, who is 13, started writing stories. They weren't too bad, and I wanted to encourage him to keep going, keep striving for success. I told him that if he wanted to keep writing, I would help him find markets. Problem was, what he really loved to write was scary stuff, horror for the YA set. I took my quest to the folks at Absolute Write horror board, and they were so kind in their responses, ideas, and suggestions. Basically, there wasn't much between writing kid stuff, and writing for regular horror publications. It got me thinking.

I am working on creating a new horror writing contest for kids, with the help and guidance of other writers. I plan to have it all worked out by early next year, so winners can be announced on Halloween 2008. It's been a blast, I'm putting up the prize money myself, and it has inspired me to do more for young writers, like contact area schools and get them interested in the Young Writers Program at NaNoWriMo (I'm an ML for my region) and also sponsor a local youth writing contest in conjunction with a local festival for next year. I want every young writer to have the opportunity to see their work in print, or win a contest, or be critiqued, or just be recognized. I want them to hear, 'that's great, keep going!' because those opportunities just weren't around when I was their age.

After I started working on the horror contest, I felt something. At first I thought it was heartburn, or acid reflux, or just the previous night's pizza catching up to me.

Then it dawned on me.

The muse was back.

I was back.

Ideas were bouncing around in my head like mutant jumping beans, demanding to be written down. (Write catchy slogans! Write about thrifty gift-giving! Start a blog!) Every time I look at a market newsletter, I'm filled with query ideas. Every end of the spectrum interests me (but can I really write quizzes for kids' magazines and light erotica for lingerie websites?). It's like having no appetite, then suddenly, you're hungry again, and there's yummy food all around you.

I had tried all the advice in the magazines to get my mojo back: write somewhere different, don't write at all, make deals with yourself, set a timer, just do it, etc., etc., etc. Now I realize that all those bits were about me; once I focused on someone else, helping others, the writer's depression lifted. It wasn't about me, it was about everyone else.

Helping others ended up helping me the most, a very happy byproduct of the process. I recommend it to anyone who's in the dark, struggling. Get out of your own head, and make a difference in another's life.

BTW, watch for the 2008 FangMuse Horror Contest for Young Writers next spring.