MONDAY MUSINGS—LETTING IT FLOW

The first Wednesday of the month is IWSG. This month mine will be on Monday, instead of Wednesday as I have Holly Jacobs visiting.

Holly’s topic will be on writing category romance. Category writing sounds easy to break into but ask any successful author and they’ll tell you a different truth. Stay tuned for her visit Wednesday and Joanne Kennedy and her cowboys on Friday.

IWSG:

I have great story ideas and a lot fun ideas of what if...?  I’ve played around with different genres to stretch and learn. I’ve also been challenged by writing friends to write in a different genre. The ideas are there. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t even have a problem verbalizing the story outline including characters. But recently, somewhere between orally sharing a couple scenes that have been living in my head as well as the general outline of that story and putting them in words on the page… I run into a problem.

I didn’t used to have this problem. I just told the story. It was like my fingers took dictation from the scenes in my head and I’d surface several hours later thinking, wow, what a ride! It wasn’t ever perfect, but who cared? I was totally involved in the story and having fun.

Most of my life writing has taken place in solitary. No writing buddies or writing conferences just me and the story.  Professionally, I’ve written for radio, newspapers, and magazines and had no problem with editors slashing my copy and no problem coming up with something good in a short period of time to meet a deadline. Meeting other professionals and pitching ideas or marketing a company? No problem.  Then I decided to go back to college. This was only exception to not being around other fiction writers. I had a solid English background (previous college) but needed current credits so I took various writing classes as electives for my English core. Writing has always been fun and easy for me, so why not?

I don’t say this as a pat on my back and oh, look how good I am.  It’s a matter of knowing your strengths and recognizing your weaknesses. Some of this is reflective thinking on what happened.

What changed? 

How did that dam get between my fingers and the scenes in my head and getting it on the paper? How did I lose that flow?

I have a good friend who tends to tell it like it is and doesn’t pull any punches. She’s writing professional and published. We go back a lot of years. She’s seen quite a few of my stories (and has harangued me for not going for publication). We were talking about my problem and I asked for her input. She’s one of those types you don’t ask unless you really want hear truth. What she told me was this.

You’re getting too bogged down with the rules of today’s fiction writing. It stifles you and you’ve lost your relaxed writing zone. The joy of the story. I actually want to strangle you because you aren’t writing how you talk it or like you wrote in story [A or B]. I loved your proposal which had zing and your rich voice was so clearly present. You're pushing too hard to make [your writing] fit into a nice little mold. Let it flow out naturally. I know if you wrote this story the same way you explained it to me, when you weren’t concerned about rules, it would be very powerful.  I think the worst thing you did, for your writing, was entering contests with all these wanna be writers critiquing and judging it.  These people have you writing like you're writing a textbook.

Sia, just tell the story and forget about the rules and making it perfect on the first draft. If you beat yourself up over every sentence you will never get the story out. It makes you stiff. Mistakes in grammar can be fixed later but you can’t fix stiff and boring. I want you to write this story without filters. Write it like you were telling me the story. Show me what you see in your head.

That’s a lot to think about. She made sense and I understand where she’s coming from. God knows, she’s seen a enough of my writing over the years to see the difference. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to turn off my inner critic and connect again with the flow of my characters and my story.

Sure. Got it.  Simple, right? (Cue maniacal laughter).

MONDAYS MUSING—ODDS AND ENDS

I’m late in getting this up and my apologies. Mondays are usually my day off but this morning wasn’t one of those Mondays. I had to work this morning and have two meetings a little later. Sigh

Nothing really exciting going on around beyond the back forty. We’ve been enjoying the unseasonably warm weather last week and this week.  Most of days have been sunny and in the upper 40’s and lower 50’s. As you can imagine, I’ve spent a lot of time outside doing some fixing of this and that and just enjoying the sunshine after weeks of little or no sunshine. Weather has been a seesaw with the beginning of this month in the teens and below and now we’re on the up side of that. I have to keep reminding myself that while it feels like March, it's not, and we are still in the middle of what are our biggest snow months and what goes up—sunny and warmish—must come down. No doubt with with a big snow storm and more icy cold. Ah, well.

  

This month is traditionally a new beginnings month. For those who write, it’s the month to get back to work after the holidays and for some it’s getting serious about writing or publishing that book of theirs.  I’ve shared several articles about gearing up for writing—pacing yourself so as not to be stressed out, goal setting, how to create back cover copy and this coming Wednesday, I have a small publisher weighing in on optimizing your chances of getting a contract. 

Next month I plan on having an editor visit and explain the difference and importance of editing. This will be more than merely making sure the words are correctly spelled or formatted. It will also cover the importance of using a content editor and what they do. I’m also working on getting input from an agent and cover artist. There is so much that goes into creating book besides clean writing. It has to look professional and able to compete with books in the same genre. This is especially so if you are indie published. As Kat Sheridan mentioned in her two part series on writing back cover blurbs, right or wrong, if the appearance of a book is sloppy or has errors, I tend to skip over looking beyond that—especially with indie pubbed books. That’s a sale lost when it didn’t need to be.

I’ve also had the privilege of reading two advance copies of stories from two of my favorite male authors. I read both when they débuted and have seen their growth as writers. Their stories are so much richer and joy to read—Matt (ML Buckman) and Alex Cavenaugh.  They write two different genres but both are worthwhile reading if you like stories that put you in the action and different worlds. I like the blend of romance, adventure, and danger. Both have created engaging stories and well developed characters. I’ll be sharing the reviews on their current stories soon.

Anything new happening in your world?

Looking Ahead.

Sorry I'm late. My scheduled guest was unable to make it today due to sickness. We've rescheduled for another day.

Up coming events:

Tomorrow, Thursday, March 14th, I'm being interviewed by romance author Tawny Weber. She's blogs at The Romance Bandits. That's a switch for me. Nice surprise to be asked. If you get the chance, stop by and say hi.

For those of you who love Elisabeth Naughton's books, she'll be visiting on the 20th, with the latest in her Eternal Guardians Series. I'm thrilled to see her contemporary, Wait For Me (I featured it on a hot reads), has made both the NYT and USA bestsellers list. Loved the story.

Do you like romance and time travel stories? I'll be having Gina Lamm visiting the 27th pitting a woman of today, a geek and gamer who loves wi-fi with a peer of the realm. Cover makes me smile.

April brings spring showers and A-Z Challenge. I'll be contributing some articles, quasi McKye style. I'm also Diane Wolf's minion which is a first for me. I can't always participate in the A-Z fully but I like being a part of it. Those that know me won't be at all surprised to be reading about dogs with my contributions. For example, did you know that dogs experience a runner's high? Did you know that there are marathons for dogs and their owners? How does one train a dog and owner to participate? 

Dog's are a man's best friend, but choosing the right dog isn't always easy and there are a lot breeds of dogs out there, and while they are gorgeous they don't always match up with a family's environment. How do you choose?  

Now that we've done the spring ahead with time I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. No, I still don't like the jarring to the inner time clock, but I'm functioning without murdering anyone. 

• How's it going for you?
• • Any news you'd like to share?

Taking A Much Needed Break

I'll be taking advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend to take a nice break. Plan on getting in some fishing (perfect time for thinking and dreaming) and a few other things to relax. I'll have my notebook and trusty pencils for writing. I'm having fun with this one. 


Wednesday, May 30th Lisa Brackmann will be my guest. Monday, June 4th will be my Insecure Writers article. Wednesday, June 6th historical author Donna MacMeans and on Friday, June 8th I will have Joanne Kennedy.

• Do you have any plans for this Memorial Weekend?

  

MONDAY'S MUSINGS: Adventurous Odds And Ends

Magic happens when you open a book...

This is going to be a quick post. Mainly because the brain just isn’t up to anything particularly entertaining and I think Theraflu, on the whole, isn’t conducive to clarity of thought. Or at least mine isn’t. Hmmm, maybe I should have added some bourbon or a good scotch…Nah, I’d probably fall asleep over my keyboard, or start babbling in a foreign language. But then given my week that might not be such a bad thing.

I’ve read a few really good books and will be posting some reviews soon. Some four and five star reads too. Like the laugh out loud Linda Wisdom story, Demons are a Girls Best Friend, or the fabulous love story from Olivia Cunning, Rock Hard. Elaine Coffman gave me a real treat with The Return Of The Black Douglas and I had a grand time visiting renaissance Scotland. Didn’t want to come home, either.

I also have some other *adventures* lined up to go on as well. And isn’t it a grand thing to have books take one to different points of history and introduce you to the culture and the people of the time. I love a well done, richly detailed historical and I’ll be visiting Renaissance Italy, with The Second Duchess, Elizabeth Loupas, and going back in time to visit North America of the early 1400’s, with The Dawn Country Michael and Kathleen O’Neal Gear—love their stories. Both Elizabeth and the Gears will be guests later next month.

Wednesday, you’ll want to stop by and visit a bit with Anjali Banerjee—and her darling cats. I’ll be sharing an excerpt of her latest adult fiction, Haunting of Jasmine. Friday, Jane Odiwe will be visiting with some discovered letters, which harbor some dark secrets in Mr. Darcy’s life— Mr. Darcy's Secret.

Your turn.

Where have you *been* recently via a good book? Any fun books you’d recommend?