Hi guys! Castiel here. Long time no update!

I’ve been pretty swamped with work (three jobs – what the eff am I thinking?!) and school (the official term hasn’t even started yet, but I’m sitting in a classroom – what the eff am I doing?!), but I’ve been managing to update a lot of the story.

Probably the greatest threat to my sanity right now is writer’s block. It’s a pretty mild case of it, which can be treated with an anti-psychotic and a case of Skittles, but it’s still frustrating nevertheless. The writer’s block in question is not so much as a symptom of not knowing what to write, but instead it’s not knowing how I want to put it on the page. One of those, ‘the words are there but they just seem so… BLAGH’ instances.

So – I’m going to take you through a journey of how I write! Maybe when I do this, I can grab my muse by the throat and shake her til something comes out for when I continue to write tonight. ^_^

 

First and foremost, I plan plan plan. As a screenwriter, I have a knack for visualizing something in a cinematic style and then transferring that scene to the page. Since I’ve moved into my new place, I’ve got my own room for the first time since I’ve moved out to go to university. Huzzah! However, since Emerald Kingdom is so complex in its characters’ relations, I can’t wait to turn my room into something like this:

A room for Dean Winchester to brood sexily.

That. And a crazy person wall of course! With yarn connecting relevant pages and all! Before that gets done though, I need to keep all of these things in order for the character’s voices to really find themselves on the page. I need to have my characters have a specific goal in each scene. Something they want. They either achieve it or they fail, even if it’s the smallest most unimportant scene. Even if nothing seems to be happening, I have to know what will happen next.

Secondly, I gotta have my music. I have such a weird taste in music from the bubbly Japanese pop, to the classic rock, to the Broadway musical. But when I’m writing, especially for all of my stories – I gotta have my movie soundtracks. It kind of sets the mood and puts my mind’s eye within the story, as if I’m giving it it’s own score. I have even made quite a few character playlists which I listen to if I’m in a rut.

But the soundtracks are usually from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Serenity, Code Geass, etc… Whatever it is, it has to be wordless and epic! After all, John Williams is the man. Otherwise, if it has words, it usually ends up making me dance. Which no one wants to see, ever.

Next, I need to have a routine. My best writing time is usually in the wee hours of the night or first thing in the morning on the weekends. I’m not bogged down by thoughts of what I need to do during the day and I’m not bothered by distractions. I can just sit in my bed and just do what I know best. I also need to have iChat open, or else for some reason I just feel like something’s missing. All great writers have said that it’s important to have a routine because it encourages creativity in the comfort of the predictable. I find that to be quite true especially since most of my day is hectic and insane.

After that, I usually focus on what kind of emotion I’m trying to convey. Most recently I had to kill off a character I liked – but most importantly, another character loved him. (This is for another story. But don’t worry, there will be much death in the game too! ^_^) While I was writing from her perspective about her love’s demise, I had to put myself in her shoes and watch the scene unfold from her eyes. I usually draw from personal experiences to depict the emotion felt by the characters and then heighten it. It ended up being quite taxing because I get emotionally exhausted after writing such scenes. My boyfriend needed to give me a big hug after writing that.

Finally, I just need to put everything down and let my fingers fly. It sounds easy, but it can be quite difficult. I always get mad at people who say to me, “Oh, you’re writing a script? It can’t be that hard.” I get all Hulk-ified and I come close to throwing a table across the room before I manage to say, my words dripping in sarcasm, “Thank you for your input. You’ve been extremely helpful.”

Your soul. I want it.

All said and done, there’s a lot more that goes into my process – such as practice, revision, and even more revision. But I’d rather not bore you guys any longer.

So here’s your question of the day: Do you listen to music while you work? What bands do you listen to?

 

<3 Cas