Blog Neglect due to Stresssssss

Sorry for not hunting and posting updated blogs for a long while, but job hunting took priority in my life. In order to continue my addiction to writing, I must have a day job to support the addiction.

However, I have been keeping the "Links" updated whenever I find a good one. Tonight I stickpinned a new link under "Elements of Style" and also on my website under "Author Resources" Grammar Divas. There is another author listed on my website. An author and a teacher, James Scott Bell, seems like a great resource for learning the craft.

Anything to make our journey towards publishing success a little easier...

As soon as I get employed, I plan to turn the fire up on those WIP on the back burners, and to post a blog more often. Until then, please be patient and don't wander too far away. If you find a website that has great advice or ideas about writing, please post it to this blog or shoot me an email.

Thanks for dropping by...

Are You Your Own Character?

For actors to act their parts, they must come as close to being the person they are representing by their acting. They must put themselves into the mind and heart of the character. If an actor allows himself to show through, then he is not acting, but merely memorizing script and reciting words. Great actors become great by studying the character to a point that they seem to lose their identity and take on the character’s identity.

Same as with writing, if we keep coming in, injecting our thoughts and our personality into the plot, characters, and interaction between the characters, our characters will be flat and our plot will be boring. I am not saying that we are boring, but be realistic and honest with yourself. Would you want to read about you? Honesty? Unless you are a celebrity or great inventor of great things, most people get bored while reading ordinary life experiences.

We read the exceptional, the exotic, the strange, the bizarre, romance, and anything that will help us take our minds off ourselves for a few moments. If we write only how WE feel, how WE would react in a certain situation, then the character has no chance to break free from us. Get to know the characters – be daring. Inflict some pain on them, see how THEY react, not how YOU react.

Read a riddle to someone and watch their reaction to the hidden, but so obvious answer, and watch their face light up when they hear the answer. People thrive on the unexpected, the twist or uncommon reaction to a situation. If you are like most people, those quick on your feet responses normally come way passed the opportunity to say them. Heroes are born when they react in uncommon ways. Even your antagonist can grab the reader with his wit and charm.

Last week, I read about a man who got a job by his answer to a riddle. No one else interviewed for the job answered it quite as he did. There was no wrong answer, but his answer made him stand out.

If you were driving along in your Mercedes and saw three people were waiting at a bus stop, an old woman needing to get to the hospital, a friend who once saved your life, and the future love of your life. There is only room for one passenger in your car. Which one would you give a ride, the old woman to save her life, the friend to whom you are indebted with your life, or the mate meant for you?

His answer: I would give the keys to my friend, thus paying that debt, and while he takes the old woman to the hospital, I would stay with my future love of my life.

I couldn’t find the exact wording of that interview question again, but I think you know what I am getting at. He created his own options, a fourth choice outside the expected answers. People love characters that can do the unexpected, say the unexpected and react perfectly to situations that come their way. I feel it must be that we normally look in our own mirrors and say, “I should have said that.”

People don’t read books for the ordinary. They read them for the extraordinary, the sensation of victory over weakness, villains, and obstacles in ways we could never imagine. They want short and to the point dialogue without a lot of boring explanation or rambling. The most remembered lines are those that are very short with a punch of a thousand words. Make your characters a picture worth a thousand words.

Lucy

If you have a favorite link to writing memorable characters, please share.

Free Samples of my Works

Sharing makes the world go round a little smoother. Therefore, I updated my website to include free excerpts of my books, novels, and poetry. Included on the sidebar of my blog are links to each of those pages.

The non-fiction book that I am working on now will be among those soon. Check the list often because I will add or change them from time to time.

I welcome any comments about them. Yes, you can be brutal. (but please be gentle in your brutality - smile) If you don't like something, please tell me why you don't. If you like something about what you read, please share with me.

Have a great day - and write

Lucy

You Tell Me. Writer? or Author?

Is a Writer an Author?

Although the titles are similar, and have a few things in common, one being that they both write normally for pay, there is a distinct difference further in Webster’s definitions.

Both are writers, who write books, stories, and articles professionally for pay, normally.

A writer can be as simple as someone able to write and has written something or is engaged in literary composition as a profession, an author, a writer of novels. A writer can be professionally engaged in a wide range of occupations from insurance to operation manuals. A writer is also a title of rank in India (not quite the definition we are talking about).

An author, though a writer, is the beginner, a first mover of anything, a creator, an originator. An author composes or writes books and is distinguished from and editor, translator or compiler. Yet, Webster’s also includes two additional definitions: the editor of a periodical and an informant.

I have often thought of a writer as someone writing for a living, but never fully engaging in completion of novels or full-sized books. And for a long time, I thought of an author as someone published. However, I now realized that upon putting The End at the end of a novel qualifies for the title Author, whether or not we are published. If we are published, then we get the honor of adding to that title with, Published Author.

You tell me. What are your ideas on this? Know of any great links we can tack to the bulletin boards?


Lucy

Fine Tune Writing

So, you’ve written a novel.

What an accomplishment!

Now what? What’s next?

Publishing, right?

Rushing out “there,” novel in hand, visions of sugar plums and castles in the air make your feet float across the ground. Then it happens…

Static!

Think of writing a novel, short story, or other form of writing intended for an audience, (Diaries don’t require such intensity) as turning on an old transistor radio.

First, the premise is the radio wave blasting through the air unseen, unheard, and unnoticed; nonetheless, it is there, everywhere. When an idea for a novel first hits our thoughts, it seems our minds will explode if we don’t write the next best seller. However, if we tell someone about it before we write it, the air fills with too many “other” broadcasts. No one else can hear our radio signals quite as we do.

Second, the first writing is finished. It is the best ever written, a real classic. Turning the knobs of the old radio to find that perfect signal, we listen to our favorite tunes ignoring the static around the edges. (younger people today may not appreciate this analogy) While ignoring the static, we get lost in the words of our ingenious creations and cannot comprehend why others don’t hear them as well as we do. However, we can’t give up now; if we adjust the knob on that old radio a little more, it will be perfect. This is the realization of the need for a re-write.

Third, sometimes we fiddle with the knob too much and loose the signal. No problem. The radio is still on; we can find another station, maybe come back to the old station later. Turning that knob to refine the station is much like our efforts of re-writing, editing, and begging for input on our writing. Some advice causes us to turn the knob too far in one direction while other advice clouds our editing into thinking we have the next best seller already. No matter what, we can’t seem to turn the radio off once we turn it on.

Fourth, calming that inner hunger with reality, we focus on the fine-tuning with determination to remove all the static by reverting to grammar school basics. Reviewing basic writing rules, the do’s and the don’t’s of grade school through MFA degrees, is where we discover the way to remove most of the static. Where to place that comma (if at all), word choice, capitalization, passive voice, tense, and all the tiny details surrounding our wonderful creation becomes static until the station we are listening to becomes a full-blown job.

Grammar Guide

Fifth and final, one more adjustment. Just one more…until we have fine-tuned that old radio until there isn’t anymore static only to discover…HD Radio.

Good luck in all your endeavors in getting published – either traditional or self-publishing.

NOTE: The world has been buzzing lately about traditional publishing verses self-publishing. Blogs, Twitter, and news articles banter about which avenue is best. Peeling away all reasons discussed, boil the cabbage down (as the old saying goes), and one aspect rarely talked about emerges…perfecting the craft. Self-publishing on your first book removes the hoops, those fiery hoops required to jump through in traditional publishing, and gives a smooth, well-paved highway for putting your novel in print regardless of its imperfections. Without critique and editors, without hearing the static of imperfection, how can we grow? How can we perfect our talents if we don’t realize they are not perfect? For those who have beaten through the wilderness, carved the highways (built solid platforms) for fans to easily find them and love them, self-publishing is a good way to go for they have already fine-tuned the old radio. Seeking traditional publishing helps us improve our writing regardless of our base knowledge of the craft.

Writer's Flowchart by Kate Hart

Kate Hart has a great flowchart that would make a great addition to any writer's corkboard or taped to their well-organized writing desk.

This is one link that will help you know what stage of writing you are currently working your way through…

FlowChart

Just in case you lose the link or forget to anchor it to your favorites, I have included this link in the sidebar of my blogspot under in “Great Resources for Writers,” which is where I am putting valuable links for improving our writing.

If anyone has Links to add to this list, that is what my blog is all about…finding all the Missing Links.

tnx

Why Write

Recently, on twitter a hash tag #whyIwrite tweeted all over the place. One writer answered numerous times, while one author, Jason Pinter, wrote some awesome reasons for writing.

Giving it a little thought, I wrote one. Then more thought, I wrote another. Now, I have slept on it and thought about it some more.

Why do we write? Why do you write? And why do you read what others write about writing?

Some answers in the hashtag as well as answers I have read on other blogs and writer forums, say they are compelled to write as if they have no choice. But why such a compelling drive? What happened in life to cause such an unquenchable hunger to create worlds with words?

So, I am taking that question on step further…

Why do you write?
What does writing do for you while you are writing?
What motivates you to write?

Are we all really addicted to it? Are we insane, obsessed, or demented?

Some days I feel like I am losing my marbles, so I keep them in a drawstring bag in my armoire just to prove I still have a few of my marbles left.