They are good kids, no, really...

I can honestly say that I know my characters very well. I write a list of their traits, likes and dislikes, genealogy, traumas, description…the list can go on and on. But does the reader really care? Most of the stuff I write down doesn’t even get into the manuscript. It’s good for me to know, but I’m not the one that needs to be convinced to care, the reader is.

The question then becomes: do the readers know what you know about your characters? When I talk about my kids to friends at work, I tell them, well, they’re good kids. And they nod, but for some reason I know they don’t really believe me. Maybe it’s because I’m their mother and what mother doesn’t say to the world that their kids are, well, good. In writing your characters, we need to remember this. The reader may not feel what we feel for our characters, not yet anyway. This leads to, not only motivation, but characterization. What is it that we are showing the reader? In researching, I found this good website that describes characterization and how it relates to screenplays. I found it useful.

Developing character and motives
"We can know the characters so well that we forget to let the audience in on what we understand about them."

Pictures ARE Worth a Thousand Words

A while back, I started a short story based on a single illustration I found on the internet.  It was a beautiful fantasy picture of a young man crouched, looking out in the distance to a cavernous terrain where a temple was hidden. This had allowed me to use my imagination to fill in the gaps. Who was this man? What was the temple?  Why was he seemingly hiding?  I examined the picture and was intrigued.

A story was born. 

I realized that I didn't have to stop with looking for pictures, but I could take my own pictures of landscapes, or scenes or even people that caught, not only my eye, but my imagination.   I realized that I love looking at stills.  When movies are released they come with a website, in case you didn't know. On the website, they have still photos.  I realized that I can skip the trailer but that the stills always drew me in.  That frozen moment in time can provide an endless possibilty of characters, settings, dialogues and plots.  And the best thing is, you can take that picture yourself. 

Living in the Moment

Living in the moment is not easy. With four kids, a husband, working outside and inside the home, living in the moment is quite a challenge.  Throw in hobbies and fun stuff and my writing and reading and it can seem overwhelming.  I can only thank my lucky stars that I can keep up.

In my quest for self fulfillment I cannot ignore the moment.  It is these small moments that make up who we are.  It is our choices in the moment that ultimately define our past, our future and our present.  In honest, I always believed that I needed a quiet place to be to live in the moment or to just be.  I love the lone drive to work. I love the night when everyone is in bed and silence reigns and I can finally think.  But what is there to think about in the silence?  It is not who I am.

I have realized that I have to learn to live in whatever moment the creator has bestowed upon me, whether in chaos or silence or somewhere in between.  It is who I am and I no longer have to search for the silence to be able to truly live in the moment.  Living in the moment means just that.  Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, just live for the now and enjoy all around you. It is the simplicity of living.  It's not easy but there is always hope!

Multi-Tasking in Action

I’ve recently had an overload of possible plots for books. Where do I begin? I’m already working on WIP #2 and WIP #3 where could I fit all these possible works? Do I let them dwindle away to faded memories? Do I write only snippets of information in hopes that my memory could provide the rest when I’m finally done with the others to sit down and write them? I wish I could believe that my memory will hold, but it’s not likely. So, I read somewhere that a famous writer (please don’t ask who I can’t remember) kept different stories in different typewriters. He would continue the story he was most interested in when he was most interested in writing it. Thank heavens we’ve evolved to computers. I’ve decided to give this a try. Hopefully my aged mind will endure it and not explode. Wish me luck!

The End. Now What?

I’ve reread, edited, revised, and recorded my first completed manuscript, now what? I would like nothing more than to slide it, along with all the research materials, outlines, drafts and audio recordings, under my bed and be done with it. Or better yet, hire a more experienced someone to read it and write the perfect query and synopsis and send it out. Hire someone to work their magic and make it possible for those words to reach out into the general populace with my name printed, stamped, etched as the author. Well, isn’t that what an agent does? And we all know how hard it is to get one of those.


At present, I’m fighting the pressing need to sign my name in blood on a contract written by Christopher Walken (only because he freaks me out) in a desperate effort to publish. Where is that magic pill? Where is the instant gratification that so many Americans, humans actually, strive for? Not here, nope. You will receive no magic potions, elixirs, or remedies only truths. And the truth is it isn’t easy. It’s a lot of work. And heart can only take you so far before the passion begins to wane. So after I’ve completed my first manuscript, I have to remind myself of something more that strengthens my resolve and keeps me moving forward. I have to remember my oomph.

When I feel like this, I take out my list of why I write. If you haven’t written one, I would suggest you do so. Write it now while you’re still getting your feet wet in this field. If you are not a newbie and have been doing this for a while, then find a time and a place where you can filter all the outside stressors and take a deep in-depth look at why you began writing. Believe you me that will save you when your morale needs just a bit of a boost. That will remind you of your oomph when you need it most.

What I Have Learned in Writing

Happy New Year!

It’s important for me to learn as much as I can of the craft of writing from, not only books, but from writing communities. These are a few things I have learned while writing and completing my first manuscript in 2009. I would like to share them with you.

1. Develop a plan with goals and write it down. Make sure it is realistic to your life. Be sure it’s obtainable and date it. This has helped me immensely in designing a schedule that works for me. Remember time is but a perception, it doesn’t exist. Okay so I have to be at work at 8, home by 5. I have boy scouts, school activities and laundry to do and all that takes time. But I also have to take care of me. And writing, believe it or not, keeps me sane. So my perception is this…Time is not tangible. Time is what I perceive it to be because I control what I do within those twenty-four hours that constitute a day. Though at times it feels like I don’t, I do.

2. Organize your thoughts when writing your manuscript. When I get an idea I have to rush and write it down. What I end up with is a very long outline. With this first manuscript, I just viewed it as a layered document. Okay, I remembered Shrek and his onion. I went through the first crude draft and started elaborating more, then again, then again. Each time the layers moved the story forward. Well guess what? If I continued layering the document, I would never finish. I needed to strategize. I purchased  Book in a Month and used the guides in organizing the story and it helped. Though with the second manuscript I still wrote the first draft as I did the first, I also included an outline, scene cards, character description cards etc. It made going back much easier.

3. Don’t rush to send your manuscript off! I don’t know about you, but I’m the type of person that if I don’t do something while I still have the nerve to do it, I usually won’t do it. I finished my first manuscript and I revised, had a few family members look at it and revised again and said Okay, I’m done. It is ready. It wasn’t. I’m glad I only sent a handful of queries. Revision and editing requires different skills. You are no longer the writer while in this stage; you are the critic, the grammarian, the researcher etc. Creativity goes out the window because it takes more than just a great idea and creativity to get published. I’m sure you all know this already. It took my critique group to inform me that I needed work with my grammar, duh. It took my own learning and understanding of the craft for me to realize that there actually is a structure in writing fiction. Nothing is random. Now remember, you are the only one that can determine when your little angel is ready to spread its wings. When you decide, remember that it needs to be perfect. It took me over two years to write this one, why rush it?

4. Flexibility. You may not be able to change your husband, your kids, or the size of your house, but you can make changes to your manuscript. Be prepared to contemplate that very real possibility. Don’t take it to heart. It isn’t that Emily and Richard’s travels through dangerous country isn’t important; it’s just not relevant to the story as a whole. And so what if you have written such a great fighting scene, and have intensified their love story so that later on it is clear why they got married, Emily and Richard are not what the story is about. Yes, I cut a substantial part of Emily and Richard, about 5,000 words, because it just didn’t move the story forward. And so, I learned that I should not fall in love with my incomplete manuscript. It is the completed version, when I’m able to put “the end” and mean it, that I will love. Whenever I have to cut such beautifully written prose (yes, I am giving myself kudos), I save it with the hopes of resurrecting it in another of my manuscripts. It helps me sleep at night.

5. Read, Read and Read some more. Don’t only read because you enjoy it, but read to learn. Read with a writer’s eye. Look for POV switches, active verbs, tense, etc. What I have done is photocopied random pages, or pages with scenes similiar of the one I am trying to write and highlighted POV switches, character thoughts, when the author was telling and when he was showing etc. I’m a visual learner. It gave me a reference I could work with.

6. And finally, I have completed an audio recording of my manuscript and would highly recommend it. During the recording sessions, I picked up on some errors. If the sentences didn’t flow out of my mouth easily and coherently as I read them, then I made sure to go back and change it so it does. I was also able to catch words I tend to repeat. I realized that I tend to overuse sighed, smiled, bear, smirked, cried, perfect, unsure and “ing” words. It really is lazy writing, but with a manuscript of 127,000 words who can blame me? Excuses, excuses, I know. It goes back to that state of being that eludes me, perfection. And believe it or not, you know when your manuscript is iffy, at best. You can feel it deep inside that something is off, missing, just not right. Go with your gut. The recording also helped me in connecting with the characters on an emotional level. After all, why is it that reading the book is better than watching the movie? It’s that deeper connection you have with the characters that a movie can never duplicate. A good story is not just about a bunch of characters doing something thrilling and allowing us to tag along, it’s about drawing us into the characters and bonding with them. It is through their senses that we see the world and we have to care.

I would like to know what you have learned. If you have the time, please share. Thanks.

Living in the Fast Lane...Not Really

After the mad shopping rush, the planning, the cooking and entertaining of family and friends we now get to sit, rest and breathe.  Well, not really.  Life is too short to let it go to waste. Who said that anyway?  My mother probably.  Life has become so fast paced that sometimes we forget what makes us enjoy it.  Life has become a juggle of mounting "to do" lists.

I wrote a post last week that made me realize how fast paced my life truly is and how many things I seem to juggle at once.  It's a hard life but I wouldn't change a thing. Okay, maybe the bigger house.  My life experiences are what made me into the woman I am now.  For better or worse.

Life is too short.

With that said, I started thinking about pacing in writing.  Anne Mini wrote a post on her blog about pacing in writing and I have to agree with her.  We live much different lives than our parents.  Writing, too, has to meet the needs of our busy lives.  When I read the first page of a book it has to jump out at me, it has to make me feel something for the characters or events that are unfolding in order for me to keep reading.  I just don't have the time to risk reading a slow opening to be disappointed at the end.  Like my life, my choice of books are just as fast paced. In writing, every scene has to have a purpose and every word has to be necessary.

With that in mind, don't forget to take a moment to enjoy the silence.