The Confabulator Cafe

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  • Flash Fiction Week 2 – The Return (Week of 4 May 2012)

    The Confabulators are back doing what we love to do this week: telling stories. This time the challenge was to use a first line and last line devised by the Editorial Board of the Cafe. The Board consulted the Story Oracles, ran those suggestions through the Plot Device and then threw darts at the revised suggestions until they got the best lines.

    There was liquor involved. And blindfolds. And Godzilla. (You don’t want to know the details.) In the end, it came down to this:

    The first line that all of our writers must use is: “I think I got everyone.”

    And the last line is: “This is better than anything.”

    We’re pulling shots like crazy here at the Cafe, downing highly caffeinated drinks and consuming inordinate amounts of sugar. Don’t be surprised if we excite, thrill or devastate you with our tales. Be sure to go back and check out all our flash fiction here, too.

    The coffee’s hot and the stories are ready to go. Pull up a chair and settle in. We’ll do our best to entertain you.

  • The key to a productive writing session

    Writers know that a muse can be a very fickle creature. She can be scared off by loud noises, the smell of dinner, or the sight of a pile of dirty dishes. In her native habitat, the muse is at rest and feels welcome, but creating the right atmosphere to lure her in can be a difficult undertaking. The slightest thing can upset her, causing her to vanish for days.

    Here at the Cafe, we try to help each other capture by encouraging good conversation and consistent writing. So, we were wondering what our writers do to create the perfect atmosphere for their muses. Is it hot beverage? Quiet music? Soft morning light?

    Here are some of our answers:

    Muriel Green

    The less, the better. I do my best writing when it’s just a pen and paper and maybe a cup of coffee close at hand, but no computer or music or distractions!

    R.L. Naquin

    My mouse. I’m terribly uncoordinated and can’t function well without it. I usually have a bottle of water or a cup of coffee, but they aren’t always nearby. I have a tendency to get up, refill my drink, and remember an hour later that I left it in the kitchen. Good thing I enjoy cold coffee.

    Kevin Wohler

    My day job as a copywriter has allowed me to learn to write under a number of different conditions. I can write in a crowded room or a quiet one. I can write with music or without. At a desk, a kitchen table, or on a comfy couch. To be truly productive, I need only one thing — a deadline.

    Sara Lundberg

    I seem to work best when I have an inspiring beverage nearby — red wine in the evening, and coffee in the morning or afternoon. I basically need something to reach for when I get stuck, so I have an excuse to take a break. Coffee stimulates and wine inebriates, so that’s why I choose those particular beverages to help me write.

    Jack Campbell, Jr.

    The key to a productive writing session is my ass glued to a seat and my hands glued to a keyboard. Anything else is just window dressing. I am a firm believer that the only way to write is to sit down and do it. Is coffee nice? Yes. Wine, scotch, music? Yes. No distractions? It would be nice. None of that is really necessary. When you get down to it, the physical act of writing involves seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, and nothing more.

    Amanda Jaquays

    If I’m going to have a productive writing session I need my writing playlists — which might also mean I need headphones depending on where I’m writing. Caffeine, or at the very least a glass of water, is appreciated, but not required. Usually though, I can just plop down, prop my feet up, turn on the laptop, start up some music, and begin writing. Well, after I goof around on Facebook for half an hour, but that’s normal, right?

    Ted Boone

    Food and beverage are nice, but not essential. What I desperately need is an Intenet connection and access to Google and Wikipedia. Without them, I feel COMPLETELY lost during the writing process. Being able to look up trivia, locations, historical figures, scientific theories, etc. are critical to my process.

    Larry Jenkins

    I’m a mood guy.  I need music.  Most of what I write has a tongue-in-cheek quality to it, so I prefer songs that amuse me.  Flight of the Conchords, Infant Sorrow, Lyle Lovett, and Barenaked Ladies are all in heavy rotation on my playlists.

    Ashley Poland

    My most productive writing & editing days this month included a pair of earbuds and a tailored playlist. Earbuds are essential; if I don’t have them, I’m guaranteed to get distracted. Speakers make music a communal experience — my husband all my neighbors can hear it and get involved. Headphones I’m ambivalent about. Earbuds become an internal, isolated, often deafening experience. I can feel the music and relate to it without letting anything else in. Coffee helps, but not nearly as much.

  • Because I have no good excuse to not write

    Because of life.
    Because of time.
    Because of too little time.
    Because of too much time.
    Because I’m at a renaissance festival.
    Because I’m preparing for a renaissance festival.
    Because I’m recovering from a renaissance festival.
    Because I have to do dishes.
    Because I have to do laundry.
    Because I have to cook dinner.
    Because I have to do more dishes.
    Why are there still dirty dishes?
    Because I’ve been reading too much.
    Because I haven’t been reading enough.
    Because I’ve been reading the wrong things.
    (more…)

  • At Least My Friends Don’t Sit On My Face

    Prioritizing is a pain in the ass.

    There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. Something’s going to get pushed back until tomorrow… which comes with its own to-do list.

    Some things are easy to put first on the agenda. Obviously I’m not going to go into work naked because there just wasn’t enough time to get dressed after my shower—my office is COLD. (more…)

  • A Hole With No Bottom

    Ahahahahahaha.

    I only laugh because it hurts when I think about all the things I do when I ought to be writing. I’m terrible at task management. I tend to put things off until the last minute, or tell myself that I’m going to do one thing and then proceed to spend thirty minutes stalking that Ridiculously Photogenic Guy meme. (I was there when it was cool! I never get in on a meme until after it’s already lame, so that was a very exciting week for me.)

    The weird thing about posts like this, is that I’m sure in the preceding four days my fellow writers have cited legitimate reasons for not having time to write, and much more eloquently. So I’m going to go the immature little girl route: other things are cool, and writing is hard.

    I like to say that my work prevents me from spending as much time from writing as I’d like, but frankly I’m lying to us both. There are times, when I need to work more to make more money, where I don’t have time to do anything but work. But that is not my average day. My average day has tons of opportunities to write (and edit) in it, if only I were better at task management.

    These are the things I do, when I could be writing instead.

    (more…)

  • A Mostly-True Tale

    These would pop up on any normal day in my life.

    “I need to write tonight,” I say. I just got home from an extra-long day at work. “I didn’t get anything done this morning.”

    Well, that’s not strictly true. I did get a lot done: I exercised for forty minutes; put one load of laundry in the dryer, washed another and got it into the dryer, too; ate breakfast; washed the dishes from breakfast along with the cat bowls; started the dishwasher; and watered the plants outside. Oh, yeah, I took out the trash and recycling, too.

    Then my work cell phone rang. I had just opened my work in progress and the cursor was flashing at me. Ignore it, the screen says to me. Don’t answer.

    I have to, of course. There’s a problem and I have to go in earlier than I’m supposed to. I close Scrivener, log out of the computer and saddle up. Off to my work day.

    (more…)

  • The Redwood Retreat

    Once upon a time, in the fabled woods of the writing life, a quaint cottage nestled in the trunk of a giant redwood.  A magic garden provided food for its inhabitant(s) with just the tiniest bit of foraging; a fresh stream ran through the kitchen.  Inside the cottage stood a desk and many shelves of books, lovely novels that teased the imagination into ever-expanding realms. Endless stacks of paper remained perfectly aligned there by an array of fountain pens with all possible colors of ink and the smoothest tips.  Only the music of birds disturbed the air in that writer’s paradise, and the bold weaver of worlds woke up well-rested each morning, wrote several thousand words of brilliance before noon, and polished the previous day’s already-sparkling prose to greater clarity, humor, and communicative power in the afternoon.

    Ah, to live there.  Ah, to have no obstacles to writing–no time management problems, no distractions, no depression or cynicism, no other job, no basic human urges to satisfy, no human relationships tempting us away from the paper and pencil, no headache-inducing stress that makes you watch television mindlessly for hours rather than writing.

    (more…)

  • F’ing Insufficient

    When I initially started thinking about this week’s post, I had every intention of writing about the same mundane roadblocks that many writer’s face: the distractions of television and the internet, the necessity of work, keeping up with household chores, taking care of kids/pets/whatever, etc. It would have been quite the exciting post, let me tell you!

    Then I wrote my Worry Wart post, discussing what topics inspire my writing. And I realized while writing that post that Fear is not only a common theme for my writing, it’s also the most common theme for my not-writing. I write about things that worry me, but I worry that what I write isn’t good enough, and that prevents me from writing. Ugh.

    Then, fortuitously, I read a post over at Penny Arcade from Jerry Holkins that seemed to crystalize my thoughts on this topic perfectly. The post wasn’t necessarily about writing, but about any creative venture (in this particular case, DMing a role-playing tabletop game). In the post, Holkins notes that, when soliciting public opinion on your creative works, there is always the worry that the author, “Does not have it. The suspicion. There’s a way to find out, of course, but this carries with it the danger of verification.”

    And there it is.

    How do you find out if you’re writing is good enough? You put it out there and let people be the judge. Unfortunately, there is always the risk that, as you’ve secretly feared, your writing is NOT good enough. And rather than face harsh, soul-crushing judgment, sometimes it feels easier to not submit anything for evaluation in the first place. (more…)

  • Four horsemen

    Too much time on my hands. Not enough deadlines. No vision. Worries.

    These are the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

    “Too much time on my hands” is a tricky fellow. He appears at first to be a blessing. I think, “Now I will have time to finish that novel.” But no, it does not work that way. With all the time in the world I wind up not using any of it for anything of importance. Since I am a stay-at-home parent for this year, I could easily fall into this trap if I let myself. In order to combat “Too much time on hands,” I schedule each day with specific and accomplishable tasks so that writing time is a reward I grant myself after the chores are done.

    Not enough deadlines. This is not a problem now that I am writing every Wednesday for the Confabulator Cafe. I thrive on deadlines and my best work has been on self-imposed deadlines I took on in order to enter contests. That is how I combat this second horseman, by looking up writing contests where the deadlines are fast approaching then writing something specifically to be entered in that contest.

    No vision. This is the most ephemeral of the horsemen. It clouds my mind and makes me think things that aren’t true like “I don’t have anything important to say” or “All I know is what I DON’T want to do.” In order to counteract this horseman, I return to the basics. I ask myself “What do I enjoy?” and “What makes me happy?” Another phrase which works wonders is “What types of things do I like to read?” I make small projects that are just for me. The smaller the better. Specific and easy to maintain are also desirable qualities for these teeny tiny visioneering devices. Almost always they grow until they are large enough to show others, and I can’t even remember what my problem was when I had no vision.

    Worries. Stress is such a foe. It seems to suck the will to be creative out of a person. Stress leans over off his horse and says “Why bother with writing, you and I both know there’s no point. You’re just fooling yourself with these distractions.” It’s really insidious, because there are concerns that we have to be concerned with. But do they really need to take up every single waking (and dreaming) minute of our days (and nights)? There is always going to be stuff to wring one’s hands over. I can’t very well tell people to try to forget that they are going through medical stuff or that their financial situation is perilous. That is the sort of reality that hits one in the face like a frying pan. Someday I will learn how to be at one with the universe and not worry at all. In the meantime I am going to take walks, drink lots of water, empty my mind of thoughts, and minimize the things in my surroundings that give rise to the voice of that horseman of worries.

  • Writer’s Obstacle Course

    Chapter 1…

    *blinking cursor*

    First sentence, first sentence. Let’s see. Hmm. It’s got to be grabby. My main character has to be in the middle of something, something crazy and chaotic. Well, I can clearly see her in my head, rushing around with pillows and blankets, her house overrun by needy supernatural creatures of all sorts.

    All sorts? That’s kind of vague. Let’s take a minute and figure out all the different creatures and why they’re there.

    I need to organize this. Where are my index cards?

    *stares at pile of blank index cards.*

    It’s too soon to write anything down in permanent ink. Where’s my white board?

    Is it really ten already? I haven’t eaten anything yet. I should eat. I can’t think when I’m starving.

    Holy hell, that’s a lot of dishes. Well, I can’t do them until I empty the dishwasher.

    God, I’m so hungry. What’s in the fridge?

    Gross. I have to clean this out. There’s no real food, just a bunch of leftovers that need to be thrown out. I should clean out the fridge so I can go to the grocery store and buy real food.

    The trash can is full. Have to take out the garbage before I can empty out the fridge. Also, with all the dishes in the sink, I hate to add to it with the gunky containers after I throw out the leftovers.

    I’ll eat later. First, I should pee.

    While I’m in here, I should take a shower. The bathtub really needs to be cleaned. I could do that while I’m in it.

    If I shower, I have to get dressed afterwards. Do I have any clean clothes? Technically, yes. But they’re still in the washing machine from two days ago. Probably should run the washer again to freshen them up.

    No reason to shower, I guess, if I don’t have anything to put on.

    Crap. Is it Friday? I thought it was Thursday. I have to write a blog post. I’ll do that real quick. It’s already late. Then I have to post the link on Twitter and Facebook.

    Oooh, I just thought of a perfect first sentence!

    Chapter 1…

    *blinking cursor*

    I am so hungry.