Just Chattin’ with K. A. Williams, Author of The Firebird Chronicles Watch Kristen Williams be interviewed by Molly Ovenden. Visit Kristen Williams’ blog and buy her books! https://k-a-williams.com/ Firebird and Olympus (Book 2 of The Firebird Chronicles) are available for purchase. In this video, Kristen shares her writing process and the creation of The Firebird Chronicles as well as tips and advice for writers who long to get their words out there. Join Kristen in her science fiction world with a full cast of strong women who lead the way on Mars in the year 3000. It’s a feisty, wild west, anarchy kind of place. Kristen loves following her characters down the darkened corridors of imaginative prewriting and really getting to know them. WriteSetting up a pattern of writing regularly trains your brain to be ready when the time to write comes along. Often people who want to be writers believe wrongly that writing comes as a muse and must only happen with the presence of the muse. Kristen says that it’s actually a habit of regularly writing that means when you come home from working your day job, you’ll naturally be thinking about writing your stories and mentally ready to work on them. Without the regularity of a writing practice, you may be inclined to plop down with pizza and a beer and make no headway on your special writing projects.Read Writing BlogsKristen says that learning about other writers means that inspiration can come from others’ perspectives on the writing life and process. She has loved Patrick Rothfuss’ blog, author of The Name of the Wind. Particularly beneficial, Kristen said, are his earliest blog articles. Reading how another writer (even the prolific, audacious, and resilient published authors) processes balancing writing with other aspects of life, writing to deadlines, carrying on conversations that feel real with their characters, dealing with imposter syndrome even after you’ve published, etc. can be exceedingly beneficial in the realization that the moments of madness that occur as a writer are normal, generally acceptable, and reassuring that you aren’t alone after all.ReadReading fills our creative cups. Reading voraciously and widely perpetuations imagination and creative thought. It ensures that you think about your own writing whilst studying others’. Reading with pleasure helps remind you of part of the purpose you have as a writer: to connect with others through the words you put into the world. Molly Ovenden is a creative writing coach, professional writer, teacher, and visual artist. Visit https://mollyovenden.com/ where creativity is a habit to find out more. Are you a published author who would like to be interviewed by Molly Ovenden? Complete this form in order to be considered. Are you a writer who feels stuck in their writing process or who would like help to make creative writing a habit in their lives? Book a Discovery Call with Molly Ovenden as your creative writing coach to determine whether hiring her would be your next right step to take in your writing life. Book your Discovery Call here.
SciFi Daily Prompt 2 This month, I’m participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. My goal? I have never written science fiction, but would like to because anything can happen! I think it’s really fun and the type I will be writing is silly and non-sensical…likely with made up science and technology because I’ve never understood that stuff very well. I am aiming to write 500 first thought words each day in the morning to put my own writing projects first and get all the creative juices flowing. I’ll be using my Science Fiction Prompts resource I created for my clients and students. I’ll practice free writing so I will not be editing afterward or during. The only things I might change are if there are obvious spelling errors as I’m going along. Otherwise, this is purely straight from my wild mind and onto the page…eek! Feel free to join me or follow along. Day 2 Prompt: The orbs floated overhead, pausing above each guest. They were smelling them and… Photo by Josh Sorenson from Pexels Daily Goal: 500Word Count: 431The orbs floated overhead, pausing above each guest. They were smelling them and…with each sniff, it seems, they were sending signals back to the mother ship. The mother ship, if that is what you could really call it was a giant orb, blue in color so that it hid well in the sky of Pacific California. The sunshine glinted off of the orb, but in such a way that it created the classic sparkle of a California dreamin’ day, not in an eerie or unusual way. That in itself was rather eerie and unusual. However, these orbs were a new development that came in the span of time of the change of seasons. It was the season of spring and as the flowers bloomed, it was as though the pollen brought upon with it orbs. Just a few at first, like spring blossoms de-petaling and the pink petals flowing freely and then being able to let go of their own expectations, but instead it was the need to settle. These orbs took up the fragrance of others and encapsulated it. That must be what they were doing. To the residents of Jordan Heights, up in the cliff hills, they were oblivious at first, only the birdwatchers began to notice, but it was clear that nobody believed them for their odd tendencies to observe unidentifiable flying objects except with their high powered binoculars, but they did bring it upon themselves to write down all of the details of when they began seeing these orbs. They also were the ones who noticed the mothership blue orb first, too. Ornithologists are the people who might seem the least likely to adopt the ideals of alien life forms, but they can on occasion argue for the existence of dinosaurs in the modern era, which they assert are their two legged winged friends. So, they were willing to detect the change. Their birds’ migration habits are a little different from last year as they are returning from a winter down south where it was warmer for them. A few trickled in earlier than usual. And then there weren’t as many birds returning in mass. It seemed like the birds were coming in a flighty and trickly pattern, which is unusual. Everything was unusual. Everything was unusual except for Herpert. Herpert was in his element. And it was Herpert who was doing the collecting of smells from the orbs when they thought that it was on its way to the mother ship. Herpert had been able to redirect the scents in his scent collector which was…
SciFi Daily Prompt 1 This month, I’m participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. My goal? I have never written science fiction, but would like to because anything can happen! I think it’s really fun and the type I will be writing is silly and non-sensical…likely with made up science and technology because I’ve never understood that stuff very well. I am aiming to write 500 first thought words each day in the morning to put my own writing projects first and get all the creative juices flowing. I’ll be using my Science Fiction Prompts resource I created for my clients and students. I’ll practice free writing so I will not be editing afterward or during. The only things I might change are if there are obvious spelling errors as I’m going along. Otherwise, this is purely straight from my wild mind and onto the page…eek! Feel free to join me or follow along. Day 1 Prompt: When the otter’s tail clicked into place with fine-tuned mechanical precision, I knew there was an issue. Photo by David Selbert from PexelsDaily Goal: 500Word Count: 940When the otter’s tail clicked into place with fine-tuned mechanical precision, I knew there was an issue. I had seen an inappropriately large amount of otters since I had moved into the area, but I thought it was simply because of the widely wooded area with swampy rivers. They need trees to build their dams and they need water to dam, right? That’s what I thought, at least. I had been minding my own business on a Monday morning, whistling my way to work, you know how it is. And I got to seeing that these otters then seemed on their way to work, too, which I thought was cute at first. I hadn’t had my coffee, you know? And then, I watched as they started to simultaneously thump their tails in time with each other. I saw that each thump of their tails seemed to call more and more woodland creatures and wildlife to the river, but now I don’t think that these were the creatures they appeared to be. I think that they are, well, I think that they are robots. I don’t know who to talk to and I am afraid that they are recording my cell phone, so I don’t feel like it’s safe to call anyone or text anyone about this. It feels like they are watching me all the time now. It’s been five days so far and it’s really creepy. So, that’s why I am keeping this journal. I’m glad I kept my dad’s NASA pen, I never knew where he got it from, but it helps to be able to write wherever and on whatever I can. The idea is that if something happens to me that at least there will be a record. Although I don’t know if it’d ever be found, at least I can write underwater. Come to think of it, I probably could write underwater since these otters can’t really live in water since they appear to be robots. Well, now that I think about it, I see that I’ve gotten rather confused and carried away with my words. These aren’t otters, these are beavers. Well, robot beavers. I know otters will hold hands with each other while they are in a group and that’s really sweet, which is what I thought I saw these otters, I mean beavers, doing. But, I wonder if there is some sort of network where they have to make a physical connection to be able to do something to upload data. So, I watched them from my walk to work at the local gas station. And then I saw how they slapped their tails, their giant leathery paddles of tails, but then one of them started to twitch after slapping some mud. I had discovered they were building dams on the sides of the roads after a couple days. I thought it was odd, but you know, I’ve never been an animal person. I think this might be better if I talk into a battery operated, portable, old-fashioned tape recorder things like I had when I was little, so I’ll switch to that when I get a chance to find it. It’s probably in an old bag in the cedar closet. Well, you see, I saw one of the beaver tails get all twitchy and off to the side, like it got all out of joint location. Then, after it did a buzzing of shivering motions, it’s tail just clicked back into place and then, my own body starting those buzzing, shivering motions, but I’m no robot, I was terrified. I tried to like, avert my eyes as soon as I’d seen it. Because then it turned toward me where I’d been in the gas station window and it fixed its beady little red eyes onto me and I turned away and began rearranging the cigarettes above the registers. Luckily, so I was told, there’d been an issue with shoplifting, so we had mirrors that faced outside as well as inside so no matter where I stand in the little cashier area at the gas station, I can see pretty much anywhere. So, I watched this little guy, after his clunky, thumpy tail clicked into place and he seemed to go back to normal. But, for me, watching him do that with his tail, or her tail, I guess, I can’t tell the difference between a man and lady beaver, but are they even beavers anyway? Robot beavers? It looks so stupid even to write it. But, I know what I saw. Well, I know that I saw something ridiculous, too ridiculous that it had to be true. Too ridiculous. I wanted to tell a couple of my buddies from the club, but now I’m not sure who I can trust. I’m just keeping my eyes peeled and I’m laying low to see what else I notice over the next few days. I’ll try my best to keep a record of what I see and learn. But, if it’s not safe for me to write something down, I won’t. I might try an old-fashioned voice recorder like I said, butttttt……oh no. Oh, no. I can see there are more of them. And what is that? What is that glinting in the sky? All of the beavers have stood up on their hind legs and are walking toward me. They are all walking, waddling in unison. They are moving toward the gas station. I have to act natural. I’ll just be putting my notebook in my inner pocket of my shirt. So, this is not how I thought today would go, I… Join my email list and get access to a free resource, “30 Science Fiction Prompts to Power Up Your Creative Writing Game.“ Happy Writing! Molly x
Flash Fiction Just For Fun Prompt: “Today is Monday…” This is a flash fiction piece of writing I did from a prompt in a creative writing online group I am part of. The group encourages short, daily writing by posing a prompt in the morning every day. The idea is that you write about 100-300 words (flash, or short) fiction in a few minutes of writing session and post your draft for accountability fun for others to read. The idea is to freewrite and get a mini-story out of your mind and onto paper. It doesn’t have to be perfect, merely out to live its own life. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels This prompt was for the first line: “Today is a Monday and tomorrow will be Wednesday.” Here is what I wrote… “Today is a Monday and tomorrow will be Wednesday.” The loudspeaker crackled. “Which particular Monday is it?” Gabby asked the air. “Because I really enjoyed the Monday when we took over the St. Louis Park Stellar Zone.” The bowl of popcorn nearly fell out of Craig’s laugh–he’d been stuffing his face. His new diet, he wanted to let people know, starts on Tuesday. “Does this mean that I can keep eating?” Gabby shook his head in her hands, trapping some popcorn crumbs between his puckered lips. “No, Craig. It means that we have to go to Master Cristoff to ask for the tagelator razor again.” Craig’s eyes widened. “I don’t like the tagelator razor.” “Neither do I, Craig. Neither do I,” said Gabby. They stood up together, Gabby taking Craig’s dull, scaly hand in her reddened left paw, Wednesday clipboard in her reddened right paw, and they sluffed over to the door labeled, “Tomorrow.” Just another day in the office. Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi from Pexels Would you like writing inspiration sent to your email inbox? Sign up here. Would you like something a bit more substantial? I have one year of daily creative writing prompts for sale here. You can hear from me daily in your inbox encouraging you to spend 10 minutes a day writing. Intrigued? Get your 365 Creative Writing Inspiration here and start your creative writing habit ASAP.