Why It's Important to Get Out of Our Comfort Zones when Writing...

Writing is such a personal endeavor, a journey into the subconscious mind sometimes. When it's happening, when the writer can get there, special things can happen. I've gotten lost in my mind writing. Quite literally. That kind of writing can take quite a bit of recovery time, to shake it off, to come back to reality, to focus on the now instead of the attachment to the imaginative world we had spent so much time in. It's emotional for me. And I rarely write short stories. I find it almost impossible to develop characters the way I like and must. My stories are character-driven, even more than plot-driven. I think that is why my emotions become so strong.

Recently, I wrote with a friend, Lucas Black, and it was a refreshingly different experience. We wrote a short story together, and the framework of the short story forced me to focus on the plot, that well-rounded plot story-line model taught in American school since the dawn of the classroom, that one climax model. I prefer multiple climaxes, but not in my short stories...

To continue reading and for the beginning excerpt of A Sonata for Maria, visit here: R.B.'s Website