Posted by M.R. Merrick on May 23, 2017 in Matty Says, Random, Writing |

In my lack of attention to the blog, I realize reviewing the comments section here that I receive a lot of spam. I deleted well over a hundred comments that were garbage links. It reminds to use this space more constructively. Disappearing for months at a time helps no one, myself included. Which means I need to think of ways to use the blog that work for me. It’s not a place simply to talk about my books, because let’s be honest, there aren’t that many of them. It isn’t a place to promise more books, again, because I don’t write full-time anymore. But it is a place for me to write. To tell the bits of story that fill my mind but don’t have a place in a book, at least not yet. Perhaps one day. Today, after a short hiatus I took to educate myself on a few things, I emerge from the dim light of my reading nook a new man, or, at the very least, a man reminded of all the beauty language holds. In these moments I rediscovered a many great things. First, I don’t read nearly enough. That’s a sad truth; I love the written word, and the story writers produce with little more than a recognized language and an understanding of vision. Second, I don’t keep myself spurring forward with creative output. When I’m not writing a new book, my mind wanders aimlessly from one Fantasy world to another. I dream of fire and magic spurring in skies that dance with Northern Lights, and I find myself elsewhere. To an ancient forest, the dirt padded with the footprints of soldiers. Their gods abandoned them in a time of need, and the mythical forces behind their demons overpowered their armies. It’s fun, that is for certain, but a world uncreated is left in the imagination. Therefore, going forward, I’ll be using my blog as a creative outlet to spit ideas. Some will stay here and live for as long as the website is running. But a few might hold the potential as the hunting grounds for new stories I plan to tell. Only time will tell. One of the more important things I’ve learned the past few weeks is that whether reading fiction, or a book on craft, I have much to learn. This is a fact I refuted for no other reason than arrogance. I didn’t want to have much to learn. I wanted greatness fresh out of the gate, and as I look back on some of my earlier works, I realize they could have benefited from knowledge I didn’t have at the time. That’s not to discredit them, only to say going forward I have new tools to work with. I find myself, even when stepping away from books on writing, language, style, and craft to discover someone else’s fabricated world, learning. I’m taking things away...