I made a humbling discovery recently. For a blog series I’m writing, I researched the psychology of conflict and turned up four basic types of internal conflict. The labels in psychology for these four tensions are not understandable by most of us, but here’s my translation: choosing between two positive outcomes, choosing the lessor of two evils, the questionable goal, and the conundrum. If you want to know more, follow this link to the post on Monday, March 7, after it publishes: Inner Conflict in Fiction.
On a side note, what is it about the word ‘conundrum’ that makes me want to say it, over and over, just for fun?
You just did, right? Or at least you wanted to. Ah, but I digress.
Deciding to illustrate the post on internal conflict with examples from my own writing, I found the first type of conflict in DawnSinger (Tales of Faeraven, book 1). An example of the next wasn’t far away, in the same book–and the next, and even… yes, the one after that. DawnSinger contains all four types of inner conflict in psychology. I didn’t know about them until this week, so how did they wind up in my novel? [Cue spooky music, here.]
This begs another question: how much of my writing is really my own and how much comes from outside myself?
The word, ‘inspiration,’ comes from a Latin word meaning “blow into, breathe upon.” That is what writing is like, tapping a stream of living words. And if this is true, what is the source of these words, written in the wind?
A Bible passage comes to mind: “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4; World English Bible). God has breath and breathes life into me. And I, made in His image, create.
What I’m Writing Now
Book Projects
This week, I expected to finish editing Sojourner, Tales of Faeraven 3, since I only had 9 chapters left, but that was before circumstances intruded, in the form of separate technical demands at my websites which took up my entire weekend (and made me grumpy). Between that and putting together the monthly e-letter, I had precious little time to work on my story. I did bring the count down by one chapter. There are 8 left, and I’m not going to make any more projections.
Speedbo
This book-in-a-month competition began on March 1st, but I haven’t been able to participate much yet. Even so, I haven’t given up my goal to complete the first draft of Deceptive Tide, book 3 of the Islands of Intrigue: San Juans. I will hopefully have more to report next week.
Creative Worlds of Janalyn Voigt
I added a Fantasy Worlds post giving the background for one of the mythical creatures in Tales of Faeraven, a long-tailed fantasy bird.
Blogging
For Live Write Breathe, I continued the series on conflict in fiction with Tap the Psychology of Conflict in Your Fiction,and I released Readership Challenge #5 for subscribers.
