The subconscious mind is an amazing thing. Have you ever been in the situation where you were trying to remember someone’s name or a word and a few minutes after you’ve given up, it pops into your mind?

Happens to me all the time.

I’ve noticed that my writing is being done subconsciously too at times. I get my characters in a bind and I can’t think of a good, logical way to get them out of it. I walk and I think and I try different things but nothing works. Then, out of the blue, an idea hits me that is so freaking awesome I wonder why I never thought of it sooner.

In the past I thought it was just my mind working from one possibility to the next until a good idea came up. That’s my conscious mind that I’m talking about. Recent events have made me wonder if that is actually true.

I have noticed a tendency where I sleep poorly if I’m working through story ideas. My mind just seems too active. When that eureka moment hits and I’ve written down the solution to my current problem, sleep returns. I never really gave it much thought.

But recently, I’ve been working on a story idea that is in a genre I’ve never written in before. It’s a genre I’ve read widely and love dearly, and maybe that love has added some pressure to write something decent the first time out. The genre? Comedy.

I love reading Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Robert Aspirin. They are each brilliant in their own ways and I really want to write something that reflects my affection for them. So after writing three drafts of my first chapter, each one brand new and each one not good enough (in my opinion), I was starting to wonder if I could do it.

And my dreams were becoming very bizarre (think moving around as a character in lego world bizarre). I was waking up exhausted knowing only that my dream was severely weird.

I would dispiritedly type a few more words for my story, but none measured up. Last night I finally had my eureka moment. The words lined up and made sense. The characters acted the way I wanted them too. I got a good night’s rest.

I’m convinced now, more than ever, that it was my subconscious mind working overtime that was responsible. I was dedicating so many brain cycles that I wasn’t resting even when I was asleep.

But, now there is hope. The story is progressing and I will start recording this coming weekend. You can expect to see/hear the pilot episode in my ‘Get Published’ feed very soon.

Personal Update

As mentioned above, the podcast story is starting to move forward. I also entered the flash fiction contest at Absolute Xpress last weekend. One more contest to enter this week and I’m good to go.

Tags: comedy, dreams, ideas, irreverent muse, lego, Michell Plested, mind, robert aspirin, subconscious, terry pratchett, writing

I’m working on a project right now that is stretching my brain and moving me into territories both unfamiliar and daunting. I am trying (note the word “Trying”) to write a Science Fiction Comedy.

I love comedy writing whether it is Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” series (yes, I know it is parody. It’s still funny), or Douglas Adams ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ or even Robert Asprin’s “Myth Inc.” series. Comedy writing is some of my favorite to read. It is also the reason I chose the title that I did for my blog.

But, darn it, it is a LOT harder to write than I thought. I’m about 5,000 words into the project so far. I’ve got detailed character sketches, most of the plot and some of the setting. I started writing and tried to come off with humor. The next thing I know, one of my characters is faced with a serious situation and I don’t feel much like laughing.

What gives?

So, I tried again. Once again, the writing started out light-hearted but quickly moved towards something more serious. I took a break a tried to reason out why this kept happening.

Then I realized, I made the characters too real. They all thought they were alive and were acting in ways that I thought of as normal. What I need to do is keep them real, but make there reality totally different from my own.

If you’re wondering what I mean, picture Cletus the yokel from Simpsons. He collects roadkill for food. Not because he has to, but because that’s the way he was brought up. It’s normal to him. Or how about Homer (also Simpsons). He and the rest of the family don’t think twice about his strangling of Bart. Again, normal behavior.

That’s what is missing from the character sketches I did. I have a clear idea of who the characters are, but I haven’t given them their normal yet. Their normal needs to be considerably different from what I think is normal and correct.

If I can successfully do that, I might be able to get the humor flowing again.

Humor doesn’t need to be about talking funny or slapstick. It can also be about characters acting in ways that make you say WTF? Now that I’ve come to this revelation I can move on with the project. Hopefully it is a revelation and not me fooling myself.

The results of this change of mindset will reveal itself shortly.

Personal Update

NaNoWriMo is over for another year and I am happy to say I hit my 50,000 words. I now have another book in my “Mik Murdoch” series (which I’ll be editing in the new year). Now that NaNo is over, I’m going to spend some time entering a few contests.

The first contest I’m going to enter is a flash fiction contest at Absolute Xpress (http://absolute-x-press.com/flash-fiction-challenge/). I’m also going to enter “Mik Murdoch, Boy Superhero” in a YA Novel contest that I’ve heard about (I’ve got to do some more investigation on that one).

I’ve also got the writing project (mentioned above) to work on. I’m going to be recording the first, teaser episode for that in the next couple weeks. I will put it into my “Get Published” feed. I’ve also got two episodes of “Get Published” to record and produce for December.

It’s going to be busy.

Tags: absolute xpress, blog, discworld, douglas adams, Get Published, hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, humor, irreverent muse, Michell Plested, myth inc., podcast, robert asprin, science fiction, science fiction comedy, terry pratchett, writing humor