I’m feeling better after spending time doing the self-care I needed after the fall of America’s civilization. I wrote a 100-word Christmas story and learned a new CGI tool to make an image of the main character and her dragon in my current project.

The Christmas story gave me a new theme. I am enthusiastically adding it to the story.  Also, the image helped me better visualize my characters and setting. While I paused, ideas kept pouring out. I collected them. Now I’m deciding what to use and how to use them.

I’m back to writing, and I think the story is getting better and better.

It’s Appreciate a Dragon Day!

From my current writing project, Hope and the dragon she calls Baby.

With the events happening in the nation, and the fact that writing is hard, I have taken a pause to recharge. My mind minions are still flooding me with ideas, and those notes are piling up, but for a break, I’m making images of my main characters. This has been relaxing and is sharpening my mental image of the characters. I will return to the story soon. Those ideas my mind minions have shared with me are desperate to be included in the story.

As the name implies, the Midpoint marks the halfway point of the story and is its most significant beat. This is when the protagonist moves from being reactive to being proactive and thus is the moment that decides the ultimate fate of the story.

In my current project, Hope encounters a moment of truth at the midpoint when she has to stop passively caring for the dragon and begin being more bold with his nurturing, has to stop simply surviving and begin actively improving her life, has to stop living day-by-day and begin living for the future. This is a significant emotional moment for Hope that changes her as a person and sets her on the path to her, and the dragons, future.

Moreover, as a part of my continuous learning efforts, I learned about research into how brain changes induced by adversity can lead a person to prioritizing immediate relief over planning for a future they don’t think will be any different than the present. I realized this is why things happen that cause Hope to say, “I should have planned for this.” These events would obviously happen, but she had ignored them. Her dislike, and even fear, of change is tied to this behavior as well. The midpoint of the story is a challenge to Hope’s tendency to only think about surviving the present and not to prepare for the future. The midpoint sends Hope and the story down a new path.

Years ago, circumstances and opportunities led me to begin writing fiction. Then, I learned my technical writing skills did not transfer to writing fiction. Thus began my journey to build my fiction writing skills.

I read every book I could borrow or acquire and followed a multitude of websites and podcasts about writing fiction. I practiced by writing hundreds of thousands of words. Even as I learned and improved, I was not achieving what I felt I needed to achieve.

Gradually, my understanding and implementation of story structure improved, which boosted my confidence. The magic came when character change arcs clicked for me. That was a life changing moment. Everything I’ve written since has been driven by character change arcs.

There are several types of archetypal character arcs each of which mirrors the experiences of the various stages of a human life. The most famous archetype is the Hero’s Journey Arc. I discovered most of my stories follow the Maiden Arc, which are coming-of-age stories that touch my heart and soul.

My stories aren’t made of words and sentences. They’re made of heart and soul.

An addictive aspect of writing are moments of intense satisfaction. The right words in the right place. Perfect words that bring perfect emotions. The dopamine rush caused by these moments triggers reward-seeking behavior. I’m addicted and want to do it again.

Writing the following at the end of a scene when the baby dragon had been chasing his tail, caught it, bit it, and then needed Hope to comfort him triggered the dopamine.

Hope hugged the baby dragon. She had spent so much of her life merely surviving, she hadn’t actually lived. Now, she felt like she was living.

Sometimes, I must pause to allow my mind minions to ponder details of a scene. In the next scene, the main character is assaulted by a group of bullyboys. The scene is essential for the character to accept needing to learn skills used later in the story, and to accept that changes are coming even if they don’t want to face those changes.

The scene is difficult because I don’t like violence. However, the story requires it. Knowing that, my mind minions have given me an answer that meets the need of the scene, creates the setups for later use, and still keeps me from a fit of depression because of the violence.

I owe a lot to my mind minions. They often save the day.

As an additional note. My submission for the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Older Writers Grant made it into the second round of jury deliberations. While I don’t expect to win, the fact I made it to the second round is one of the greatest validations I’ve ever experienced. That is as good as a win.

The dragons in my stories don’t have “hoards.” They insist what they have are “collections.” The baby dragon has an instinctive desire to collect something, but I couldn’t think of what. The only source of collectables is the piles of refuse in the alley. What could he possibly find there?

Researching the subject of collecting, I created a list of 240 items, but none of them were appropriate in this context. Flagging the scene for updating later, I pushed on.

Then, as I wrote, the main character hid behind an abandoned, busted crate in the alley behind an old warehouse where many busted crates had been dumped. That’s it! My mind minions had finally come through with a solution.

Rusty nails.

When I searched the internet for “rusty nail,” I learned it’s a cocktail made by mixing Scotch whisky with Drambuie. That was all I could find about rusty nails, although I did eventually find a picture of actual rusty nails for visualizing.

I am happy the baby dragon now has something to collect.

Writing is magic.

As I expanded my main character’s backstory, I had a “creating from the heart” moment.

The character is an orphan child living in a dystopian society. She finds discarded items she thinks are useful, cleans them, and sometimes fixes them, then trades them for food. The adults accept the items and give her food. They never tell her the items aren’t actually useful.

Tears came to my eyes. I had hit something lost in deep time. I had flashbacks of doing this sort of thing in my childhood. I had forgotten. Now I remember. The memories hurt.

One of the risks of writing is sometimes you discover things about yourself. It’s moments like this, as I keep wiping tears off my keyboard, that I feel my writing is most powerful.