Warren Bluhm's Blog, page 17

Writers are silly sometimes

In one of Eugene Ionesco’s most brilliant plays, everyone starts turning into rhinoceroses. In one of Franz Kafka’s most famous novellas, a man wakes up one morning to find he has turned into a giant insect overnight.

What silly ideas!

What classic works of art!

Sometimes, you just have to let go and be silly. “Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do,” said Christopher Morley in the final message he had printed with his obituary.

Among our most beloved ...

Writers write what they love

The other day in one of the Facebook groups I inhabit, someone asked, “Which one of these stories would you want to read first?” and he went through detailed descriptions of four ideas.

I didn’t even read the descriptions. This was a no-brainer.

Write the one that excites you the most, I said. Don’t worry about whether anyone will read it, not yet. The reader will recognize the passion in your storytelling and glom onto it.

Ray Bradbury said, “Write what you love, and love what you writ...

Writers have fun

I would sit cross-legged on my bed, using my copy of The Great Comic Book Heroes as a desk, and write and draw and compose lyrics.

Enamored by Marvel Comics, I wrote and drew the adventures of Greatman, The Fabulous Five, Brink the Atomic Man, Moss Man, and JoBanner — the last a poor guy who turned into a monster that was two legs and a huge head (and I just now 50 years later realized that yes I stole the concept from the Hulk but — “Banner”?! I never noticed my scientist-turned-monster was ...

Writers show up every day

I am the poster boy bad example for the first rule of writing: Show up every day.

I have already chronicled the results of my failure to show up every day. All along my goal was to escape “wage slavery” and make a living as a full-time writer, staying at home to pet my dog, write what I chose to write, and enjoy the lovely surroundings not far from the shores of the bay of Green Bay.

I showed up every day at the “wage-slave” job. But I did not show up at my writing desk. Over the years my ...

BLUHM’S RULES FOR WRITING

Show up every day.Have fun.Write what you love.Be silly sometimes.Don’t think.

(None of these are original with me. I even chose to make it five rules because Heinlein did. But follow these, and you’ll be on your way.)

The Starting Line

To build some consistency into my writing habits, I said to myself in late July 2020, “I bet I could write a blog post every day from August through October. I did the math: 31 days plus 30 plus 31 equals 92. And thus was born my 92-day challenge.

If you search the internet, you will find times when I announced big plans. I will release a Myke Phoenix story every month. I will write a trilogy of novels about a kaiju (big monster in the tradition of Godzilla, if you don’t know the word). I...

Becoming Full

Full made a splash and then stopped selling. Or I tossed it in the water and watched the splash and then stopped talking about it.

The book is really three small collections around themes that are important to me: the human need to create, the freedom and uniqueness of each individual soul, and the encouragement to positive action.

Should I have expanded each collection until I had three separate books? No, I think not, because they are interconnected. Each individual has something to ...

The moose at the top of the bookshelf

There’s a moose at the top of my bookshelf,
His antlers are touching the ceiling.
He always looks warm with his sweater and scarf
And he sees everything in the room.
He never says a word, just surveys the scene
And reminds me to look to my whimsey.
He doesn’t mind if my poems don’t rhyme
And forgives when my words are too flimsy.
At least I think he doesn’t mind because, as I said,
He doesn’t speak. He just sits up there being cute
While I slog along forgetting he’s there
Until sometimes I look up: I r...

Step down from the bully pulpit

So I sat down before bed Sunday night and wrote a short burst about “write only what you love” and the futility of sinking into the mud time and again. Life is too short, I shouted to the heart of the world.

I slept better that night. I awoke Monday morning rested, or at least more willing and ready to face the world. “I wrote something important last night,” I said to myself, even though I was too bleary-eyed to remember the specifics. I read it back over coffee and said, “Yes. Yes, this...

Where angels dance

“Write only what you love, and love what you write,” Ray Bradbury wrote.

What would be the point of writing words of hate, or words that don’t speak love, no, shout love? What would be the point of wasting any moment of life on the mean, the small, the spirit-breaking nastiness?

Given a finite time to have any impact on this universe, spend every minute in love, in spirit-lifting, on big ideas, on generosity, on making every moment count for something positive.

Do you see why I do n...