Check out "How to Unleash Your Creativity", an interview with four experts in Scientific American. It has the usual bogus title promising the absurd, but the content seems on target to me. Here's a brief excerpt ( after the cut, with commentary... )

A reading for Xander in "Partners" part 2, which turns out to be the story I'm writing for Oct 16. Which is good, because it also works towards my "finish the WIPs" goal for the fall and winter.

( Semi-random inputs into the creative process after the cut... )

( A similar reading for Giles in that story... )

A brief project survey:

( Cuttitty cut... )

Reading for Xander and Giles in my story in progress, concentrating on the last third of the story.

( The reading... )

Well! I have successfully burned a few precious writing hours learning how to write functions for the S2 style system. And in the end I didn't even bother to do it. A few customized CSS tags over Variable Flow, and done.

Have been tinkering with several background images along the same basic lines. The current one borrows/steals/appropriates a manipulation by khaoschilde, showing ASH being all crinkly-eyed. Cheekbones, jaw, and a hint of chest: tasty! More here.

Way simple approach: background texture masked to fade out fairly quickly from the left column. Solid color layer under that. Image of some kind laid over that, in the left column, preferably flush with the bottom. Then header text aligned & effected to look good on the texture, whatever that means. Another example. I <3 Photoshop 10.

And now back to writing.

I tantalize you by saying that I just planned out the three segments of Blackmail for the prompts 48. Cunning, 47. Top, and 53. Threesome. But they're far enough ahead in the timeline that it'll be a long time before I turn them from outline to fiction, and even longer before you read them.

Now see, this is torture of one kind to people who are reading that story, and torture of a different kind for people who aren't because [kink | prawn | Giles/Buffy | invisible elves]. Thus I spread the hate around!

I had a serious case of block earlier in the year. I was just looking over the dates on my complete story list, and observed that I completed nothing in February and March. I was taking it all too seriously. Deadly. (And possibly also fallout from anniversary-triggered depression.)

I'm liking having the short prompt stuff to work on as a break from the longer, more tangled stories I seem to want most to write. I work myself into a state sometimes with those stories, where I can't move because I'm trying too hard. Shorter stuff breaks me out of that trap, loosens me up. I've got just enough structure with that project that I feel comfortable: loosely planned overall storyline; more tightly-planned stories spanning five or so prompt sequences; the overall tone imposed by the prompt list. Not so much structure that I can't be spontaneous. There's no pressure to write at any particular pace, no pressure to finish, and no pressure to work on that instead of the more gen-ficcy projects.

So! Prompt table experiment a success so far! Yay.

And now, back to non-stop brooding action-action-action with Giles, Xander, and Ethan, with guest appearances by Wesley and Angel.

ETA: I just wrote out a list of pairings present, discussed, or implied in this story, and it amused me. So I share it with you now, in the spirit of tantalization/torture: Giles/Xander, Anya/Xander, Giles/Ethan, Giles/Jenny, Giles/OFC, Ethan/OMC, Buffy/Spike, Buffy/Angel, Angel/Cordelia, Willow/Tara, Spike/Tara. Poor Wesley.

psychoadept has pointed us all to this shot, found in Tony Head's TV/movies gallery, of what is obviously a young Giles in a spot of trouble. (And I'm not just referring to his hair.)



I am thinking: Ficathon/challenge. Write the story of how young Giles came to be in that spot. As always, pairings, ratings, AUness: everything is up to your discretion. Whaddya say? Should I pick a random date some time in the future and collect links?

Writers who use the Tarot to nudge them into motion creatively might also be interested in the Oblique Strategies by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt.

This is a deck of cards with "over 100 worthwhile dilemmas". Each card has a simple statement printed on it with advice for solving an artistic problem. You draw a card, wonder what the heck it means, strive to apply something like "go slowly all the way around the outside" to your current painting, or recording, or short story. And without you noticing it, your brain has started working on the problem, thinking about it in a new way. Ideas start fizzing, and you're in motion again.

For example, the strategy I got for the claim bond story is:

Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them

Which is uncannily useful advice for this story, because it got me thinking about embarrassing for whom? For the characters? For the author? What am I flinching away from writing? There's a scene I know involves a lot of embarrassment for Giles. Maybe I should push on it harder.

I keep the box of cards on my desk, because I like having the physical card propped up to look at. The Eno Shop sells decks. (I own a third edition deck, because I have been an Eno fan for ages.) Or you can draw a card online. I love giving the decks away as presents.