June 28, 2011

on saving a cat and and killing a phoenix

i must be coming out of my fog. i started reading AND commenting on blog posts last night. i haven't done that for weeks. i just haven't had the mental capacity to do anything but the bare minimum of thinking. it felt good to get back to reading blogs. it made me want to write a post of my own.

but then the lists started running through my head again this morning and the brain is going back to mush. so rather than write an original post, i'll tell you about a couple of posts that grabbed my attention...

---R. L. LaFevers over at Shrinking Violet Promotions wrote a post that describes and reviews a book on story writing called "Save The Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need." i read through the post, clicked on the link to the website that goes with the book and spent 30 minutes perusing the posts, especially the ones that applied the "Save the Cat" structure to movies. (the one on Avatar had my attention for quite a while.) not that i need another book, but i may end up using this to help jumpstart the work on my sequel.

---Deirdra over at A Storybook World described the Creative Phoenix Lifecycle. the part of the cycle labeled "Creative Murder" helped me understand why i haven't been able to write lately. i knew that the stress, fatigue, and unsettled-ness of moving have stifled the creative process in me, but i also realized that trying to write my novel for other people (a subject i'll expound upon in another post) has almost killed it. it's just nice to know my "creative phoenix" will rise again. ironically, that may be when i finally exit the City of Phoenix. (sorry. couldn't resist.)

5 comments:

Misha Gerrick said...

Welcome back. :-)

I get some of those days too. Thanks so much for the links. I'll definitely go check them out.

L. Diane Wolfe said...

Hi Michelle. I go in phases. Some days, I just don't feel like going online.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Save the Cat is a great book. I recently purchased the third one but haven't read it yet. Good to hear from you, Michelle!

Erin Kane Spock said...

Welcome back. Being in the fog is disconcerting.
I'm getting out of my fog now and doing the same thing you did -- reading and commenting. :)

Anonymous said...

I'm just getting back into the blogging world myself. Nice to know I'm not alone. Thanks for sharing the links - I'll try to check them out in the near future. :)