The first round of Camp Nanowrimo is set to start June 1.  I'm very excited by that because I need all the help I can get when it comes to improving my writing.  If you think you've hit the top of your game when it comes to writing and expressing yourself creatively then you're probably kidding yourself.  I know I'm not at the top of my game yet.

Script Frenzy is in April and for those of you who write screenplays, more power to you.  I tried and failed with an epic greatness all my own.  Novels I can do.  Screenplays I leave to the experts.  If you're participating in Script Frenzy, my hat is off to you.  Obviously you'll focus on that before Camp starts in June.

For me, I'm planning my next Nano novel and trying furiously to finish Resurrection on time as well as getting query letters written for Prophecy.  The Nano novel is the easy part.

I've had an idea floating around in my head dealing with Norse mythology and a teenage romance that turns deadly and it all being a game in the end.  I've been playing with it for years now.  I think I just might write it out this summer.

What ideas have you been kicking around that you haven't written yet?

Yes I took this idea from NP over at the Coffee Stained Writer (www.coffee-stainedwriter.blogspot.com). I'm giving her credit where credit is due. I just started reading her post and I couldn't stop myself from thinking. It happens when your friends have good ideas right?

I managed it. It was very hard, but I managed it. I cheated (a LOT) but I did it. I managed to only finish one book this week and that was only when I had absolutely no other option but to read or go insane.

I've been on sabbatical almost a full week now and while I'm happy for the time off because of all the stuff I've had in my personal life, I'm starting to itch.

No I don't have a rash. My mind is itching to go back to creating.

I'm so ready to get back to work, but I know that I can't yet. Why can't I just end my own sabbatical? I mean, I'm the one in charge of my career, how am I not in charge of my time off? It's a bit more complicated than that.

Back in July (I think it was July) I took a week off, intending to take more, but I cut my time short because I wanted to get back to work. I thought I was inspired and ready to finish. Then two months later, I'm wondering why I didn't take more time off. This sabbatical now wouldn't be necessary if I'd taken all the time off I should've taken back then. Besides, the edits for Forbidden aren't done yet, and Coco's pups aren't very old. It's better to have this kind of time on my hands instead of wondering how I'm going to cram my writing into the schedule I have right now.

I'm actually thinking about staying on sabbatical until November 1st. Then I'm ready to go for Nano and I'll have another month before I start worrying about what I'm going to do with Legacy. A whole month without creating any kind of story line. It's scary and exhillarating at the same time. I want to write, I've got all these ideas bouncing around my head. But what happens when I work through them all and have nothing new?

Sometimes in life we all need to take some time away, time to step back and evaluate our lives. While I hate having to do that with my writing, it's necessary to make the writing the very best it can be. I don't want to look at a manuscript later on and realize that I have to start from page one all over again because I wasn't writing well.

Don't be afraid to step back and let your mind breathe.

I'm concerned about how my Nanowrimo novel this year is going to be received by my friends and family. One of the cardinal rules of writing to write what you know. I want to make sure that no one is concerned for my welfare because of the novel I'm writing.

My nano novel this year is about infertility and suicide. Since my husband and I have been struggling with infertility for awhile now, you can see where my concern is warranted.

This year, I'm taking on the story of a woman who attempts suicide after struggling to have a baby with her husband for almost twenty years. I'm throwing in her husband (I would be remiss to keep him out of the story right?), her psychiatrist, and her post partum best friend. Since one of my very good friends just welcomed her first son in August, my concern is increased.

For the record, I'm not suicidal or depressed. Well, maybe a little depressed, but nothing to be concerned for. I'm merely writing what I know this year.

When you have a difficulty in your life, there's nothing wrong with focusing a story around it. Most people won't lose a parent in a tragic accident at eleven years of age, struggle through an abusive boyfriend at 14, start doing drugs and drinking by 15, and attempt suicide three times in their lives. Most people won't have to endure the pain of rape and sexual abuse for five months of their lives or survive two miscarriages with most of their sanity still intact. By the way, that's my life story. See what I mean?

When you're blocked, when you question your muse or your calling, this is what you can look at. Everyone has something unique in their life that other people may have never experienced. Even if you don't think you do, your perspective on your life is unique to you. Start there. Sometimes it's the cathartic writing experiences that kick us off to something beyond ourselves.

*sigh* My husband is at home while he looks for a job. He's been home about a month now and to be completely and bluntly honest, he's driving me up the wall. It's interfering with my creative process and I just about can't stand it anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I love him dearly and wouldn't trade him for the world. Without him in my life, I wouldn't be the well balanced and perky person that I am now. Well...maybe I would, but I doubt it.

The problem is the fact that when he's home, I feel like I have to entertain him or something. I'll be bent over my little netbook, typing up a storm with my earbuds in, and I can feel his eyes burning into me. I look up and I see his mouth moving but I can't hear him because I have Muse blaring in my ears and my train of thought is derailed with lots of fatalities. It's very frustrating, especially when I'm mid sentence and then come back to finish it and can't remember where I was going with it.

So how do you manage to work through distractions? What I've done recently is institute work time. When my computer is on, the earbuds are in, and my fingers are flying over those keys, do not interrupt me for anything short of a fire or other natural disaster. When I come up for air, then you can tell me whatever you were thinking about an hour ago that wasn't important enough to stop me mid sentence. My husband also knows now that I try to work between the hours of 9AM and 12 Noon. During that time, unless otherwise stated, I'm working. When I'm taking my break in the middle, then bother me.

The other thing I decided to do was stop noticing him sitting there, looking at me with those bored eyes. I pretend he's not there and he's agreed to forget anything strange that I do while listening to music and letting my muse inspire me.

Just like when you're working a lot of hours outside the home and aren't sure when you'll find the time to write, you have to decide what's the most important to you. Is the distraction worth it? If it's a child (or a pregnant Shih Tzu two weeks away from delivering), it probably is. If it's a bored husband who should be out doing something else with his time? That's not worth derailing your writing over. If you have the passion to write, you'll be able to work through it.

If you're writing a novel with supernatural characters, you have the hardest job in fiction in my mind. No, I'm not just saying that because I'm writing novels with supernatural characters either. It truly is hard to do.

When writing a romance novel or a sci fi novel or an adventure novel, you have somewhere to go. There are source books for romance, science texts for sci fi, and do you really need help on an adventure novel? There's books out there for the Chick Lit writer, for the contemporary fiction author, the mystery writer. But for the supernatural writer? Nothing.

When deciding to write about vampires, I had to turn to other books about vampires to find out what the traditional myths were. Thank goodness for the folklore section of my library. When researching werewolves, there was little to nothing serious out there. How about shapeshifters? Forget it.

If you're looking for help in creating the powers or special abilities of your supernatural character, you need to go on what you already know. To explain those abilities, try to be as real as you can.

My vampires have special abilities based on their DNA. Werewolves can only be men (but I'm going to be messing with that one later on). Shapeshifters come in two classes. What's the difference between a werewolf and a shapeshifter? You'll have to wait and see.

If you're interested in writing a book with supernatural characters, it doesn't hurt to read what other people have written with similar characters to your own. I've read the Twilight saga (many, many times), the Dark Hunter series, the Vampire Diaries, the Sookie Stackhouse Novels, and I've watched just about every vampire movie ever made. I also read a lot of manga like Millenium Snow and Vampire Knight. You have to do what you have to do.

Don't get discouraged when using characters that aren't human. Remember one powerful thing: If you can't find research material on it, then it probably doesn't exist yet. What's better than an original idea?

I'm very blessed to have the coolest little netbook on the planet (yes I'm biased and I don't care). Sure, I had to fry the hard drive on one to find out just how cool this little thing really is, but I'm fully able to appreciate what I have now. (Once I figure out how to shrink a photo to upload on here, I'll put up a picture of the new computer and the nice little external hard drive that I have hooked up to it constantly)

However, I do remember the days of being restricted to my desktop with my rear end going numb in my desk chair as I wrote for hours a day. Those days were good and bad, just like having a laptop is good and bad now.

Do you work exclusively on a desktop or do you use a laptop? Are you carrying around a laptop that's got a 19 inch screen or do you use one of these handy little netbooks?

Surprisingly, this little Acer netbook that I have is more powerful than my desktop ever was. Now they have dropped below $300 at Walmart, so it's definitely more affordable. And it has Windows XP. I refuse to change over to Vista. Plus I have the portability factor, which is great when I'm sitting at Fireworks and feel the itch to write.

The good thing about the desktop was that I was chained to it. I had no choice but to sit there and work. I had more room too, to lay out notebooks full of character or plot notes or research. But the bad part was that I was chained to it. I couldn't go to a new place to sit down and write. However, the desktop was more durable than my laptop is now.

If you need a change of pace, I hope you're writing on a laptop. If you need consistancy, stay at home on the desktop. It depends on your schedule as well.

But if you're in the market for a new laptop, don't discount the netbook. It's a powerful little machine and it fits in the inside pocket of my messenger bag. And it's pink. That's always fun.

Right now, I'm sitting at the best coffeehouse in the world watching people paint pottery (you can do that here while you're drinking your coffee. Isn't that just cool?). If I had the time today to paint, believe me I would be. Sometimes words on a page can't express how I'm feeling as well as paint on a ceramic plate can.

Do you find that sometimes you need to break away from your computer and do something else that's just as creative as writing?

Sometimes, I just have to take a break from my computer and paint a piece of pottery. They make great gifts and I get to branch out a bit. For other people I know, it's photography that calls them from other pursuits. One of my brothers-in-law works as a waiter full time, but he paints in his spare time. He takes pictures to get his mind away from a canvas. My other brother-in-law is a musician. I'm not sure what he does when he's not playing music, but I think it has something to do with drawing. Or beating my husband at metroid prime.

It's okay to branch out from one medium to another to make your brain more effective at your primary pursuit. After I paint, all of a sudden the scenes in my head that I'm writing down are clearer and more vibrant. All of a sudden I can explain what I mean so much better.

If you're getting bogged down in everything else going on in your life and your writing is suffering, go do something else that's creative. You'd be surprised how rejuvenating that is.