INK SLINGER HAS MOVED

This blog has moved to Cheryl Murphy Writes: Chronicles of an Ink Slinger. It became too hard to mirror to this site. Lots of glitches and such. I don't do much to maintain this site anymore so if you're wondering why things might look a bit wonky, that would be it.

If you've navigated here and discovered this dead blog, using the "Subscribe via email" feature in the sidebar will subscribe you to the new site feed, so that's a plus. ;)

An RSS feed of the new site is embedded below.

I hope you'll join me at my new home!

RSS Feed of the new site: Cheryl Murphy Writes: Chronicles of an Ink Slinger

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Procrastination station


This is me.  I'm procrastinating so much. I have a lot of semi-legit excuses. But a big one is going to be running out in about 2 weeks.

I'm actually glad for that because well, I'd really like to write again but it seems like now, when I do have the time, I'd rather do something like relax and watch a TV show since my DVR is getting backed up because I'm too busy to watch TV. I think I've developed bad habits since undertaking my semi-legit excuses (husband out of the country for 6 months, kids and their activities, house, labor intensive graphic design class-yanno, that kind of stuff) where I just give in and do whatever else it is I'm thinking about because my time is so limited right now.

I've never understood how people can just write for 2 hours a day. I get it now. Sometimes life just demands that you write for those 2 hours and those 2 hours only whether you want to or not because it's not getting done any other way. And they become much more productive.

I think I get it.

Now I must get to disciplining myself to be strict about how I write. That'll be interesting. Every time I do sit down to write, I look around and see the dishes aren't done or the house is a wreck and all this work has to get done sometime and I'll get more done if I just do it now so I can write after and so on and so on and it all just amounts to a bunch of not writing.

So scheduling my time to write seems like a good idea to me. I just need to figure out what time I have - and that isn't easy either.

Suggestions?

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Crits, comparisons and Twilight



You know what really annoys me? Having a critter say they are reminded of Twilight just because there are certain commonalities. Like dark hair. Or family. Or a bit of a romance. It's incredibly annoying, as if no one ever had characters like Bella or Edward before.  It's like saying Romeo and Juliet is just like Twilight.

When the story is clearly not the same story, is it necessary to try to plug it into Twilight?  Can no one ever have dark haired, tortured characters ever again? Can no one ever touch the same themes again?

Grrr.

Seriously.

Sorry. I just saw a crit (not one for me - although I've gotten it and I've seen it said to several other people when their wips weren't anything like Twilight, either) and it's really annoying. The critter generally loses a lot of credibility with me when that happens because there are millions and millions of books out there. Not everything is Twilight because there are teens falling in love. There were books similar to Twilight before Twilight and there likely will be after.

Read the fucking story. Crit the story. Before you say it, please think really hard about it - is it really like Twilight?

There will always be characters that remind you of other characters. There are only so many personality types. And there will always be books that remind you of other books.  We wouldn't have genres if that weren't the case.  It would all just be called fiction.

Get over the Twilight comparisons unless it actually means something. If everything reminds you of Twilight, you need to read more books.

No offense to Mrs. Meyer intended.

P.S.
Mine isn't even about teens, vampires or anything else close to the themes of Twilight. Why?

Friday, May 13, 2011

Now a card carrying member!



Just got my evil library card. Get your very own card at evilreads.com
Sent from my EVO - these are not the typos you're looking for...

Friday, May 6, 2011

Free Comic Book Day 10th anniversary!


This is just too awesome not to share.  For those that are unaware, tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day!



To find out if there is a participating store in your area, click here and plug in your zip.

Can't wait to hit it up.