Motivation

/ cagedunn

There’s a #6WSP (that’s six word story prompt) for the above word for Saturday. Of course, I couldn’t do six word stories to save my life. Okay, I’d try, but I need more. Much more.

But I liked the word. Writers and words. So much intent behind a simple word. Motivation.

What motivates me at the moment is the new serial/series of novella stories. I’m not sure if it’s going to be necessary to read in order (serial) or if each story can be a stand-alone story. Or both — get the best out of the stories if read sequentially, but each one is a whole story in itself.

This series (I’ll call it that for the sake of simplicity) is about magic. I like magic. This magic isn’t witches or brews or wands or wizards. It’s a combination of forms learned through the works undertaken at each stage.

The first story is the opening stanza to introduce the paths, not the people. This is an unusual tactic for me, cos I write stories through people. And this one is, too, but not for the same purpose.

The first story is told through Aventi, who is on the path of Maiden, looking to move up to Muse. In order to do that, she has to bring in a novitiate to take her place.

What she gets is nine novitiates. There are nine paths that lead to the final stage. The nine novitiates are made up of three groups of three. This story sets up the forward progression of all the stories that follow.

The first story is written, but I’m not going to publish it for a while. The introduction is here, recently updated with edit revisions.

I need a cover that’s going to fit all the following stories to make it easier to associate/link the stories. I need time to write at least three more novellas in the series. Okay, how about two?

This is my motivation. Because I can’t stand to have a completed story on my hands and not do something with it. If I don’t get the next two stories done soon enough, my brain will bust with frustration.

The story is finished. It must be set free. To do that, I need the next two stories and a cover.

Wish me luck.

And tomorrow (check the date, cos I always mess up the date line) is Outback Horrors release, with my Itchy story (I think it’s one of my best, so far).

https://www.amazon.com/Outback-Horrors-Down-Under-Antipodean-ebook/dp/B08FD74XPK

Okay, I tried to add the link to the pic, but the block thingy didn’t give the option. Have a look anyway, especially if you like scary horrors.

23 thoughts on “Motivation”

      • I don’t know enough about warning labels and don’t really have anything to compare it to, so I will leave it to you to decide. The place they are in feels an awful lot like hell. Did Dante put a warning label on his stuff?

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      • It’s sort of based on Dante’s version of hell, and no, he didn’t put a label on it. But I don’t want to trigger people into a state of anxiety (even if story is a safer experience of fears than the real world)

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      • But wdn’t that apply to every story? What specific event would cause that anxiety? This is one area I feel overwhelmed because every story has something that hooks into the reader’s emotions and takes them inside themselves, and makes them anxious (usually for the character) so … I’m lost.

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      • Yeah. Sigh. But it’s how we (me n the fosters) worked through a lot of painful issues. Story keeps them safe, and what they say isn’t about themselves, but someone in a story.
        I may take your advice and ask in a separate post if it would be better for the readers to have trigger warnings on books. I don’t want anyone going in and suffering unnecessary pain.
        Thank you.

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      • You know a lot more about publishing, warnings, etc. and I’m sure you’ll do what you feel is best. I can definitely see some of the trials they are going through and how she responds to them as being real life situations that need to be worked to (even though taking place in hell.) Did you have the kids write stories and then process it with them?

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      • We’d write them together as a regular thing. I’d start with a specific idea/outline, they’d pick the people, their backgrounds, the problems, and we’d progress from the point chosen to the end. Not all endings were good, but even after that we could dig to find out why it couldn’t be a good ending and how to go back to the beginning to put in the changes to the journey to see if the outcome could be changed. Growth comes from understanding why we do things, how we hide, how we fight our instincts, how fear grips harder when we can’t see our inner selves.
        The story also comes from some of the Tao and Sun Tzu works. Life is a war, every day a battle, but knowing your ground and your goal enables tactics to change, strategies and allegiances formed and bonded … there I go, off on the preaching! Sorry.

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      • I love it when you preach! Towards the end of my time as a P.O. we started doing exercises with the kids to help them develop executive functioning skills. Your work with them sounds like exactly that. Your fosters were blessed to have you in their world. Have you seen that movie, ” Have you seen that movie, “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” yet? When I think of the horrible caseworkers and foster parents my kids had to contend with it haunts me.

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