15 Monday Aug 2011
Posted in Uncategorized, Writing a Novel
If you read my previous post, you know I am heading to a Bed and Breakfast for a little writer’s retreat. Hoping to grow my page count on my current work in progress. It’s a treat. Most of the time, I am either writing in my office on my desk top pc or on my netbook in an easy chair in my formal living room. (I am the only person who actually uses that room.) So where do you go to write. I really want to know.
14 Sunday Aug 2011
Posted in What I'm Reading, Writing a Novel
Today was the first day of my vacation. I am planning to take off mid-week with a critique partner to stay in a Bed and Breakfast for a little writer’s retreat. This is a picture of where I will be staying. Before I can go, I need to clean the house, catch up with laundry,water my plants, make sure there is food in the house for hubby and son, charge up my net book, and pack. Now you see why I wanted a little time away to write. Seems like when I am home, I feel like there are so many other things I should be doing. Just a couple days without distractions sounds like bliss to me.
I raised my kids during the time that women were expected to be super women; work, keep a tidy house, clean clothes on the family, run the kids around for all their activities and then if there was any time left over, we could pursue our own dreams. Granted I don’t have that excuse anymore. My kids are adults and my husband should be able to take care of himself by now. As a couple, we have consciously tried to encourage each other over the years to do the things that we each enjoy. Me with my writing and him with his cars. My little hobby is a lot less expensive than his and I am sure that makes him happy. That is why he doesn’t care if I take some time to attend a conference or like this week, take a few days to get away and write. He knows that I know that he has spent way more on rebuilding his little 63 Nova than I will ever spend on my writing.
But why is it that when he has a chance to go to say, the Daytona 500 is it possible for him to just pack a bag and go? Granted he does make sure the lawn is mowed but other than that, he knows that I will take care of everything else. After the kids were grown, he told me I did a great job raising them. It isn’t as if he wasn’t here. He was here every night but that was when his career took off and he spent hellish hours leaving early and usually coming home late. He focused on his career and even though I worked too, I focused on raising the kids. Now he is usually home before me and I still feel compelled to take care of everything. I don’t think that my situation is unique. I think that every female writer has this juggling act with her life. You have probably already heard this but it kind of reminds me of Fred Astaire. Everyone used to say how he was such a wonderful dancer but no one stopped to think that Ginger Rogers had to do the same thing as Fred Astaire but backwards and in heels. That’s how I feel my writing career has been. I can be running along everything going smoothly – sneaking in my writing time by getting up early, hurrying through dinner and right before bed just to squeeze in a little time and someone calls. They need something that only I can handle and I’ve lost my focus and what little time I had for the day is gone.
Well this week is going to be a little bit easier. I will have a couple days to focus on my writing, no cooking, cleaning, laundry, errands, absolutely nothing else to worry about, except maybe whether the old Victorian we are staying in is haunted. Since I am working on a paranormal mystery. That could be a good thing. I’ll fill you in on my next post about my stay.
How do you manage to do everything and still find time to write? What are your secrets to staying productive and not neglecting yourself or your family?
Currently I’m reading ‘Love Lies Bleeding‘, a little story that does have a ghost and it’s also written by another critique partner Jess McConkey. If you like women’s suspense you should check it out. I also listened to ‘Cemetery Dance‘ by Preston and Child. I discovered these authors with ‘The Cabinet of Curiosities‘ and have been a fan ever since. There is always a little paranormal going on in their stuff. ‘Cemetery Dance’ was about Voodoo and Zombies.
10 Wednesday Aug 2011
Posted in Novel Writing
My critique group decided a few weeks ago to set goals between meetings. We thought that would help us push through to the end of our project a little better. We didn’t just set a goal, we also decided that if that goal wasn’t met, we would have to put $10.00 into kind of a swear jar. I think you can see where this is going. If we didn’t make the goal, we would swear and then owe the money. Well even if we don’t swear, we owe the money.
The first time around, I was the only one who met my goal. My writing went well those two weeks, remember my honeymoon period? I worked every day pushing myself through writing two chapters. At that time, we were meeting on Sunday. I worked until 11:00 PM and finished my writing but then I still needed to critique two chapters for one critique partner. I stayed up till 1:00 AM and I did get it done. Don’t feel sorry for me, I tend to be a night owl and actually like staying up till that time. At least that night I had something constructive to do.
I felt great the next day when we met until I found out neither of my partners had met their goal so had to divvy up. I don’t know what happened for sure to get me off track this past week because after meeting yesterday, I too had to contribute. The money will be for a good thing, down the road. We plan to use it next year to help pay for a writer’s retreat.
Because our group was short a third person, we decided to forgo our goals until out next meeting when we can all be there together. I have set my own goal of a chapter a week, even though it is just for me. I will have a much better chance to accomplish it because I will be taking vacation next week and have scheduled a little mini-retreat with one of my critique partners at a Bed and Breakfast for a couple of days. Two days of writing without any distractions.
I did finish reading ‘The Help’, and I think it will be another Classic. If you enjoyed ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, I do believe you would enjoy this book. I am planning to go see the movie this weekend, another goal for this week.
Happy writing,
Virginia
02 Tuesday Aug 2011
Posted in Writing a Novel
Yeah, I know. I’ve been neglecting my blog again. It hasn’t been a deliberate decision. It’s like exercising. Once you’ve missed a day, it’s hard to get back into the routine. Writing isn’t physically difficult; unless I counted the time I broke my elbow.
Sometimes the problem isn’t the writing, it’s the getting your butt into the seat to do it.
That hasn’t been my problem. I have been putting plenty of seat time in working on my novel. My current work in progress is a mystery with a little paranormal storyline. As my friend Sara put it, I have been riding the wave with my enthusiasm. I think about the story off and on during the day and I get up early to write before work. I hurry with supper and dishes just so that I can escape to my office to write. I am experiencing the honeymoon stage of my first draft. I can only hope it will continue to be a good marriage until I reach the end.
I don’t like to share too much of my story at this stage. If I tell people about it, it takes the steam out of writing it. Why should I get excited about a story I’ve already told? For now I will share my working title – ‘Foul Whisperings’. It’s from a line in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. My story involves witches and rumors and that is all I will share for now.
At this point I’ve written a few chapters and the story is still fairly fluid. As I write, I’m nailing down more of the specifics as well as developing the characters and storyline to give it a few more layers. I am pushing myself to get the first draft written while I am still in this glorious honeymoon stage. I would love to hear from other writers about how they complete that first draft.
If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you have probably already figured out that when I am not writing, I am reading. Just to catch up, I recently finished ‘Witches of East End’. I have been focusing on stories about witches just to see how others have used the subject. So far I haven’t read anything similar to my story idea – and for that I am thankful. I enjoyed the book but have to admit it wasn’t exactly what I had expected. It was good and would recommend it to others with similar interests. I liked the premise but felt the end lacked something and I can’t really put my finger on what didn’t work for me. I know that it is the first in a series, so will probably read the next to see where it is going.
I also finished ‘Haunting Jasmine’. It’s the story of a woman whose aunt asks her to come take care of her book store while she takes a trip back home to India. It sounds simple, until she realizes that the bookstore is haunted by the ghosts of dead authors. It is a story of relationships between both the living and the dead. The characters are well developed and the author has a soothing writing style that did keep pulling me into it. This was one that kept me up late the last night to finish.
Currently I’m reading ‘The Help.’ Want to see the movie but I also want to read the book first. Hope to get into a routine with my blog, at least once a week. Would love to see what you are reading.
Virginia
15 Friday Jul 2011
Posted in What I'm Reading
Tags
Just finished ‘Witches on the Road Tonight’ by Sheri Holman. It was interesting. Not exactly what I thought it would be. The story jumps from the past to the present and sometimes in between. It is the tale of a dying weather man, Eddie, who also hosts a weekly horror movie night on a local television station. He grew up in the Appalachians in a place called Panther Gap. It’s the 40′s and his mother is a reputed witch. He is ostracized by the local kids and while running away from a beating runs into a car driven by a man and a woman who have been hired by the Federal government to map the state and write stories with photos of different locations. They stop to help Eddie who refuses to go to the hospital, so they take him home. They should have dropped him off and ran as far and as fast as they could. But of course they don’t.
It is a tangled story about those people and Eddie and his own family in the future. I finished it because curiosity about what was really happening kept me going. I can’t say I really liked the characters. None of them were really likable. All of them seemed to have a death wish. I was hoping it would have more mountain lore and less fantasy. I never really understood what the witch was doing, or why. I guess I never really understood that character’s motivation, other than she wanted to fly. Endings don’t always have to be satisfactory but when everything was tied up at the end, it left me wanting further explanation. I was left too unsure about some of the story lines so felt unsatisfied. I do think this author is a good writer. She is able to tell a story and weave the story lines. This one just felt like it ended with too many knots going no where.
I would give it a 3 out of 5 stars and recommend it to those who like a little fantasy with their mystery.
Virginia
09 Saturday Jul 2011
Posted in Developing a Story, Novel Writing
I would like to say I got more done with my story this week but it wouldn’t be honest. I am still working out the kinks of my characters. Protagonist is shaping up well but I think that is because the idea started out with her. I have a skeletal plot and know that because this is a mystery there has to be at least one murder but I don’t have a good grasp of my villain.
This weekend, I am working on the villain. I have ideas for how the victims will die but I need to know the killer a little better. Who he/she is and why he/she would want to kill a bunch of little old ladies. So to work on this, I pulled out another reference book
to help, ‘Bullies, Bastards and Bitches’ by Jessica Morrell.
I think the hardest part about the villain is that you have to be able to create someone the reader will fear and hate but they still have to have some quality that is unexpected and makes them if not likeable, at least human. Just as the good guy has
to have some flaw, there has to be something good about the bad guy. If the protagonist is perfect and the antagonist is totally evil, the reader knows exactly what to expect, there are no surprises, and the story becomes predictable. So that is my assignment for this weekend.
Today is also the first day of my vacation and I do plan to put in many hours of writing. I also need to have a little fun, as well. A cookout this evening with family and I’m meeting with my critique group tomorrow about 45 minutes away. None of our group lives in the same town. Because we are scattered within the central part of the state, we picked a city in the middle and try to meet there twice a month. We usually do lunch and then head to a local bookstore for a nice chat and critique, depending on what each member needs.
As far as reading this week, I am working on ‘Witches on the Road Tonight’, by Sheri Holman. It is for pleasure but also for a little research on how this author writes about witches in the Appalachia’s. I am about half way through and it is an enjoyable read. I
will plan to review it later.
Hope you too have a great week – reading and or writing.
04 Monday Jul 2011
Posted in Mystery Novels
‘A Murder is Announced’ Trivia
Just finished reading ‘A Murder is Announced’ last night and I would like to review but because it is a book my local chapter of Sisters in Crime is discussing, I don’t want to review it until those followers have read it.
Still I thought it might be kind of fun to do a Trivia quiz for the meeting. I am going to post the quiz here and find out just how many of our members read my blog. Granted, I am not giving the answers but anyone who reads this will have a chance to find the answers before our meeting later this month. Anyone else is welcome to play along as well. After our meeting, the third Saturday of the month, I will post the answers for anyone interested.
Again, have a happy 4th and enjoy the fireworks – along with a good book.
Virginia
02 Saturday Jul 2011
Posted in Mystery Novels, Write a Novel
I have been counting down the days to another long weekend. It seems that there are too few of them. I am planning to work on characters for my
current work in progress. Trying to get to the point where I can actually start writing when I have my week of vacation starting on the 9th.
When I write, I like to have a bit of an outline without filling in all the gaps. Not knowing everything seems to make the whole process more fun but I do need to have some direction. Developing characters is one way I work on developing my story. It’s more than deciding what they look like. It’s about discovering who they are and what they would do. Creating a past that will help determine the character’s present and future. It’s like meeting someone new and sitting down for a chat but this character isn’t afraid to tell me everything. The more I know, the more I can predict how this character would react if dropped into different situations. Someone who has a fear of the dark is not going to wander off into the woods alone at night unless they have no other choice. If the reader is aware of the character’s fear it makes them want to stay with the story to find out what happens.
It’s easy to make the protagonist too much like yourself. You know what you would do in a given situation but the character is not you so you have to create someone who would react differently than you would as the writer. You have to decide what the character wants most, what they are most afraid of, what their goals are, and what motivates them. Do they have flaws and what are they? What is their background? Where do they come from? What have they done? What has happened to them to make them into the person they are now?
Because your story has to have more than one person you have to populate your book with several characters. Some are major characters, some minor, and some who just walk-on to the story. It is also easy to create a flawless character. Everyone has flaws.
No one likes a perfect person, they’re not interesting. To shake it up a little, even your good guy has to have some faults. The same can be said for
the antagonist, he can’t be all evil. He has to have something good about him; otherwise you end up working with paper doll characters. They need a little more depth. By creating fully developed characters you make them three dimensional. You make them people want to read about and spend some time with.
I always turn to books as references while writing. The books I am using currently to develop my characters are ‘Plot versus Character’
by Jeff Gerke and ’45 Master Characters – Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters’ by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. I plan to write a review about my reference books at another time so won’t go into detail for now. Besides the weekend is wasting away as I blog so need to get back to my project.
Currently I am reading ‘A Murder is Announced’ by Agatha Christy. It is a book my Sister’s in Crime group is reading to discuss at our July Meeting. Now that I am further into the book, I am enjoying immersing myself into that time period. If you haven’t read Agatha’s novels, it’s never
too late to start. Would love to hear about your writing process, I am truly interested in that aspect of writing. How do you create your characters? Do you use detailed information or do you just have them fully developed in your head? What are you reading right now? Feel free to comment and share. There is nothing better than visiting with writers and readers.
Hope you all have a happy and safe 4th. Spend some of it outside away from your computer. As writers you can’t expect to write about life unless you experience some of it.
Virginia
26 Sunday Jun 2011
Posted in Uncategorized
I’ve been participating in the giveaways at Goodreads and Librarything and have been chosen to
read and review a few. Decided this might be a good place to share those reviews. ‘Very Bad Men’ by Harry
Dolan is coming out in July and if you like contemporary mysteries with lots of twists and turns and quirky characters, you should check out both of this author’s novels. I had read the first one ‘Bad Things Happen’ because I was drawn to the cover – a fountain pen with blood dripping off the end. Then I read the back page blurb and was pulled in completely. The protagonist is David Loogan, a man of mystery in the first book, who becomes the editor of a mystery magazine. How can that not be interesting? I won’t spoil that first book but will suggest you read it first. It is available now and will get you primed to read this second book when it comes out in July.
Dolan writes concisely. He uses simple words but just the right words. He has a knack at making you think you know the answers and then throws something else into the storyline that comes from left field but fits perfectly in the situation. His characters are likeable and believable. His quirky characters are not limited to secondary ones, his protagonist has a mysterious quality that makes you suspect him in ‘Bad Things Happen’ but because it is resolved his part in ‘Very Bad Men’ is more acceptable. Just as a teaser, the beginning of ‘Very Bad Men’ introduces a killer with a piece of paper with three names listed on it. He intends to kill them. The first problem he encounters is that one name is of a man in prison. He knows that if he kills him in prison, he probably won’t be able to escape himself. Don’t get me wrong, this guy is a bad man but by the end of the story you may be confused as to who the very bad men are. I found myself staying up way too late to read this book. For me, that is a really good thing. I wish you a very late night.
I know I will be looking forward to future books in this series. Harry Dolan’s are keepers.
Virginia
27 Wednesday Apr 2011
Posted in Uncategorized
I was thrilled to see that Anne Lamott would be a speaker for the Des Moines Public Library AVID program this year. Her book, ‘Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life’, has been an essential in my writing reference library. Whenever I need a little motivation, I pull it out. I have had some success with shorter pieces but novel length fiction has eluded me. I have to admit, I find the whole experience intimidating. I crank out 1100 words each month for my article in Women’s Edition without fear but even thinking about writing anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 words can make me freeze. So I try not to think about it. That is what ‘Bird by Bird’, is all about. Anne’s brother had to write a book report about the birds in the area. He didn’t say anything to anyone until the weekend before it was due and then he confessed to his father that he didn’t know how to do it. His father told him to focus on writing about one bird at a time and that is what he did.
I have been struggling with my current project for way too long and I know I have to get going or it will never happen. So far, I have a rough outline of the major plot points and I have written a couple of scenes in the beginning. What stopped me was that after I started writing, I started seeing the holes in my plot that really weren’t there while I was developing it. Well, they were there but I just couldn’t see them until I actually started writing. Instead of concentrating on that single scene, I shifted my vision to the whole story again and my internal editor clicked on to make my writing life difficult again. Even with holes, I know it’s nothing that I can’t fix but it was enough to make me question my ability again. I am not giving up. In fact I have scheduled a long weekend with the intention of spending time specifically working on my novel. I felt a little better when one of my critique partners admitted that she had the same experience with her current work in progress. The fact that she has eight books out already, made me feel better. If she still struggles, it isn’t just me. The big difference is that because she has written so many books already she knows that by pushing forward she will get it done. As I sit down to write, I will focus on one scene at a time until I reach the end.
If you’ve had the urge to write and need some inspiration, I would suggest picking up a copy of Anne’s book. Don’t ask to borrow mine though, I managed to get that original book autographed. It now sits in a special spot on my bookshelf – until the next time I need a little motivation.
