Diabolical Dole-Drums

Today's title will probably not match the theme of today's post. However, I'm doing a mostly stream of consciousness type of writing at the moment. there's nothing particular in mind I really want to write about, but a blog post should be made this week, regardless, so here it is!

First thing that comes to mind is music. That's been inspiring me a lot lately, actually. When I was in middle school and first dreaming of writing a book as most kids do at one stage in their life, I used to blare music in my room at the back of the house, usually something rockish like Evanescence before the departure of moody, and pace. As I paced the length of my hamper strewn all over the plastic faux tile, I'd get ideas. These ideas came in a rush of images, events, scenes at various points in the project I wanted to work on. The music could have been from Radio Disney and it would somehow prove as the soundtrack to an epic, anime-esque fight scene. So lately I feel like I'm subconsciously getting back to my roots because I've been doing this more often. I've even broken out the ancient MP3 player and boomed the old school Amy Lee through my ears.

This is probably because my latest project deals with a mesh of the four first characters I ever seriously stuck with. Two of them starred side by side in a still bustling text based RPG site that never seems to change no matter how much I go back. The other two were a father-daughter duo who starred as the villains in the first book I ever finished.

So somehow my muse has been pulling out Evanescence, tortured roleplaying rejects, and cliche fantasy types from the dredges of my wannabe gothic stereotype tween years, and combined all those into a seriously fun idea. Go figure how all this stuff seems to work out in the end.

Have any of your nostalgic ghosts of writing past been influencing your work lately? How so? C'mon, tell me about it, eh?

Precarious Platforming

The whole school thing is going well. I straightened out transportation issues with classes and all that for those who are even remotely interested in my modest University life. I went to my first club this semester, and it was even a creative writing club! I had a lot of fun editing the crap out of this a screenplay one of the other members brought. Everyone was talking about a zombie movie he had made in high school and I sat and listened quite intently. It was all very fun...

Only I barely spoke.

You see, I'm not the least outgoing person in the world. I talk to people I hardly know every day, start up conversations out of nowhere, and I have a decent group of friends I keep in touch with on a regular basis. I have some eccentricities, but then again so does everyone. I don't try hiding them. My mental picture of myself is still hesitant around new groups of people, however. And even worse, this odd viewpoint of mine makes it harder to interact with people and therefore build some sort of platform for myself like what was mentioned in Nathan Bradford's wonderful blog post today about the subject.

My question is, then, how do shy or hesitant authors build that platform if they naturally aren't as social as required to generate a decent word of mouth campaign for their book? Take me for instance, I have a blog, a Facebook, a Deviantart account, and even more recently a Twitter. I have a modest supply of interested folks, however it doesn't seem nearly enough to turn out anything of a profit.

Then again, am I thinking in the wrong terms? I've always heard that good writing sells itself, yet how do people hear about it unless they see it somewhere? The entire process just seems elusive to me no matter how many books I've encountered in the library by chance or heard about from a trusted friend.

Also, there's the entire precarious idea of sustaining a good image. So many things offend certain people and there is such a fine line between seeming egocentric and spreading buzz about your own work. Then again, I could also be worrying my pretty little head thinking about so many things before my work is even published.

What does anyone else think, hmm? This could apply to any self purported product, whether that be marketing for a business or even your presence at a job interview. Some tips would always be appreciated.