Boo! I’m a scary ghost!

I’ve been facing a great deal of writers’ block.  Actually, that’s not the case… writing hasn’t been a problem at all.  The ideas on the other hand, have gotten to annoy me.   I used to feel passionate about what I wanted to say, but I’m currently a bit stuck in the things I’ve been writing, and none of my other ideas are formed enough for words quite yet.

To save myself from falling into a wordless swirling pit of heck, I’ve decided to take on a few ghost-writing options.  Maybe ghost-editing and ghost-contributing.  I wonder what other skills ghosts have… maybe I can be a ghost-carpenter or something.  But for now, it’s writing.

Several people – you know who you are – have asked me for help with writing projects over the not-too-distant past.  Editing novels-in-progress, adding flavor text to their games, collaborating on short stories… it all seems interesting, but now I have to decide where I can commit.  I mean actually commit – not write four pages and then stop when I get distracted by a bright shiny object.

The novels should be a breeze… that’s just editing and tweaking – sure they take work, but not nearly as much as creating from scratch.  For the games… first I have to make sure I keep them separate.  That involves keeping records, which makes it sound like work. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be able to do it, but record-keeping sounds like no fun at all.  Then again, I s’pose it’s necessary.  Then come the ghost-writing bits… and those really interest me.  I’m not sure how it will all work out, but for now I’ve got some free reign to start on a few, so I’ll dive in and see what the idea people think.

And then there’s NaNoWriMo.  I’ve done it most years – though 2007 didn’t end well from a let’s-write-a-novel perspective… mainly because at the end of November I had not, in fact, written a novel.  This year I can accomplish that part – I hope – but I’m resistant to writing the same novel again.  Seriously – how many drafts do I need?  So maybe I’ll try another idea – take a short story and see where it leads, start with a character and figure out how he reacts to Plot, start with a butterfly beating it’s wings and follow the chain of events around the world… whatever.  Maybe it’s time to take the drafts and turn them into something… and maybe I can start now instead of November.  Or – let’s face it – December 1st.  Ghost-write my way through October, NaNoWriMo through November, and then get down to work.

Hey, it’s a dream.  Don’t knock it.