Attention: Inner Critic

I will no longer allow you to dictate my writing behavior. I will break the barriers and conquer my personal battle against perfectionism. I've taken the leap and enrolled in Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways writing course. Thus far, I'm finding it rather challenging to fit in the homework between my day job and my daughter. I thought it might be easier to work through Holly's exercises by trying out my first blog. Yay! It's official: I'm up-to-date with the times; a cell phone in my purse and blog on the Net. This'll be sort of an initiation into the possibility that strangers will inevitably read and reject my writing. I have yet to show anyone other than writing instructors (and one ex-boyfriend) my completed stories. The instructors were very encouraging, the boyfriend, not so much. That's a long story better saved for a different post.

I named this blog, Unleash the Flying Monkeys! because I love fairytales and fantasy type stories, and truly appreciate the imagination it takes to invent and write about such outlandish characters as flying monkeys. I want to embrace all my creative potential instead of stuffing myself into what I assume is my destined "genre"--horror. Don't get me wrong, I love horror stories, movies, photography, etc. I am drawn to the dark and depressing aspects of the human mind and soul. However, I want to explore the many avenues of fairytale, fantasy, supernatural and crime thrillers as well. I have idea after idea, many of which I lose forever simply because I'm too apathetic to grab a piece of paper and jot it down before it's trashed by short-term memory overload.

I hope to master clustering and finish up my Sweet Spot Map very soon. Or, at least make more progress than a few doodles with the main thought just floating in the center, seemingly drowning in the empty white space, crying out for me to tie it to something, a single syllable word, anything besides the little black butterflies that look more like lumpy hearts, really. Needless to say, I'm a couple weeks behind many of my classmates, but writing is a very personal experience so I suppose the process of improving one's writing is also quite personal.

I'll end this post with one of my favorite writing quotes, "Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else." - Gloria Steinem