With my birthday, Mother's Day, a Brad Paisley concert, catching Grease up in Manchester, and 3 birthday parties in two weekends my days have been pretty full. Add to that a Game of Thrones book club all the season finales happening right now and it does not leave much time for writing.
Things have been slow but I continue to make progress. I think I have mapped out that dialogue sequence that was giving me such a hard time a while back and I am much happier with the scene.
I know I missed last week's blog but I was determined to write something this week and say Hi.
I would also like to thank all the members of the United States Military, both past and present, for sacrificing their lives and their time away from their own families to defend our freedoms. We can sometimes forget that this holiday means more than time away from work, the unofficial start of summer and backyard barbecues. It means honoring those who have giving everything so we can have something!
Happy Memorial Day!
Monday, May 27, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
I'm sorry, How many words?
One of the most terrifying thoughts for me was not knowing if I would be able to write enough to fill an entire book. The prospect of writing 85,000 words for a book sounded crazy!
That's so many, I thought to myself! How on earth could I fill that much. I only have a few scenes in my head.
Well thanks to my outline I have a rough idea as to where I want this story to go and I know about how far down the road I am on my story map. I came to the realization recently that I might actually have to start cutting stuff from my book to speed it up and get to the good stuff, cut to the chase, make with the interesting. It was pretty satisfying to know that from what I am looking at right now I can write that many words. The trick, however, is not in the writing of the words, the trick is in actually telling the story, and telling it in a way that doesn't bore people to tears.
A friend of my recently came across a writing competition held by NPR. They are currently in the 11th round, so I'm assuming this is a regular thing over there for them.
It's called 3 Minute Fiction. They take submissions from wannabe writers, but there's a catch. This has to be something that can be read in 3 minutes or less. So for writers that translates to 600 words or less.
That sounds like quite a bit, but just to give you a frame of reference as of this word right here, I have written 276 words, that almost half of my allotment to tell an entire short story!
Yeah, it was going to be challenging for me. I was getting used to filling a story out, making sure I could reach 85,000 words or more. 600 words is a drop in the bucket by comparison. Most writers would consider this a warm up.
So I thought on it for a whole day. I put out mental flyers hoping someone would pick it up and step off my mental bus and tell me a quick but entertaining story.
I was in luck. One spunky gal answered my call! So I had my idea. Now I have to tell it in less than a page and half of double spaced text in Word....
I did what I always do. I decided I was just going to write. I'll thin it out later. It would be easier to do that then try to compromise my story by worrying about the length as I went.
After I wrote it all out I thought it was pretty good, now it was time to check the word count. I use OpenOffice and lucky for me they put that option right up in your face in the tools menu. It's probably my second most used tool. Right behind spell check.
I opened the counter and I saw the number and I was shocked. In a quick 45 minutes I had written almost 700 words. And I felt like I was going light at that.
I knew that anything over 600 words would be disqualified so I had to reign it in with a few words to spare. You know, just in case.
So I started going through my story again, line by line, sentence be sentence. I was getting rid of any words or descriptions that were not absolutely necessary to the telling of my story. It probably took me almost as long to edit the doc as it did to write it.
I probably read it through about 4 or 5 times before I felt satisfied. My final draft had 594 words. After that I realized what a great exercise this was. It really made me look at each sentence and made me ensure that each word was being used as efficiently as possible. I had a story to tell, I couldn't waste words on things were not vital to the story.
The competition closed last night. So we'll see how I do. The theme of this round was "Someone finds something that they have no intention of returning."
The winner gets signed copies of the guest judge's books and gets published in the Fall Edition of the Paris Review.
They are going to announce the winner in early June but before that they will be posting a few of their favorites on their webpage as well as reading a few aloud on their weekend radio show.
One of the rules states that this cannot be published anywhere before they announce a winner to the contest. So once they announce the winner and I am free to post I will do so here. I want you all to be able to read a sample of what I have been learning all this time. I figured if you're still hanging around you deserve an award for your loyalty!
I'm pretty proud of what I wrote. It was a fun exercise and I plan to do round 12 when it's up. Even if I don't win I got a pretty good prize out of doing this. My new friend is fresh off the bus and told me a quick story for this contest, but she has a whole lot more to tell. I decided her story is going to be a really fun one to write. She's waiting for now, but I don't think she'll be waiting for long!
That's so many, I thought to myself! How on earth could I fill that much. I only have a few scenes in my head.
Well thanks to my outline I have a rough idea as to where I want this story to go and I know about how far down the road I am on my story map. I came to the realization recently that I might actually have to start cutting stuff from my book to speed it up and get to the good stuff, cut to the chase, make with the interesting. It was pretty satisfying to know that from what I am looking at right now I can write that many words. The trick, however, is not in the writing of the words, the trick is in actually telling the story, and telling it in a way that doesn't bore people to tears.
A friend of my recently came across a writing competition held by NPR. They are currently in the 11th round, so I'm assuming this is a regular thing over there for them.
It's called 3 Minute Fiction. They take submissions from wannabe writers, but there's a catch. This has to be something that can be read in 3 minutes or less. So for writers that translates to 600 words or less.
That sounds like quite a bit, but just to give you a frame of reference as of this word right here, I have written 276 words, that almost half of my allotment to tell an entire short story!
Yeah, it was going to be challenging for me. I was getting used to filling a story out, making sure I could reach 85,000 words or more. 600 words is a drop in the bucket by comparison. Most writers would consider this a warm up.
So I thought on it for a whole day. I put out mental flyers hoping someone would pick it up and step off my mental bus and tell me a quick but entertaining story.
I was in luck. One spunky gal answered my call! So I had my idea. Now I have to tell it in less than a page and half of double spaced text in Word....
I did what I always do. I decided I was just going to write. I'll thin it out later. It would be easier to do that then try to compromise my story by worrying about the length as I went.
After I wrote it all out I thought it was pretty good, now it was time to check the word count. I use OpenOffice and lucky for me they put that option right up in your face in the tools menu. It's probably my second most used tool. Right behind spell check.
I opened the counter and I saw the number and I was shocked. In a quick 45 minutes I had written almost 700 words. And I felt like I was going light at that.
I knew that anything over 600 words would be disqualified so I had to reign it in with a few words to spare. You know, just in case.
So I started going through my story again, line by line, sentence be sentence. I was getting rid of any words or descriptions that were not absolutely necessary to the telling of my story. It probably took me almost as long to edit the doc as it did to write it.
I probably read it through about 4 or 5 times before I felt satisfied. My final draft had 594 words. After that I realized what a great exercise this was. It really made me look at each sentence and made me ensure that each word was being used as efficiently as possible. I had a story to tell, I couldn't waste words on things were not vital to the story.
The competition closed last night. So we'll see how I do. The theme of this round was "Someone finds something that they have no intention of returning."
The winner gets signed copies of the guest judge's books and gets published in the Fall Edition of the Paris Review.
They are going to announce the winner in early June but before that they will be posting a few of their favorites on their webpage as well as reading a few aloud on their weekend radio show.
One of the rules states that this cannot be published anywhere before they announce a winner to the contest. So once they announce the winner and I am free to post I will do so here. I want you all to be able to read a sample of what I have been learning all this time. I figured if you're still hanging around you deserve an award for your loyalty!
I'm pretty proud of what I wrote. It was a fun exercise and I plan to do round 12 when it's up. Even if I don't win I got a pretty good prize out of doing this. My new friend is fresh off the bus and told me a quick story for this contest, but she has a whole lot more to tell. I decided her story is going to be a really fun one to write. She's waiting for now, but I don't think she'll be waiting for long!
Monday, May 6, 2013
How I started to feel like a fictional PI
I have people living in my head.
If you didn't know any better you'd think I was certifiable. Well, maybe I am, but not for hearing voices.
No, in my head I have people, living and talking to me. All kinds of people. Some of them are shy and I have to coax them out of hiding, others are very, very pushy and want to be heard whether I am ready to receive them or not. These people are most annoying when I'm trying to work...
I have no idea where they came from, or how long they plan to stay with me. Most of the time they just pop in like they got off a bus and they were looking specifically for me. Once they have found me most of them want to give me as much information as they can in very short bursts. Its like they have this story they need to tell and they need to do it RIGHT NOW!
This has happened to me so many times now I have taken to carrying a small notepad and pen in my purse. I would whip it out anytime I would start getting frantic messages from any of my new (or sometimes older) friends. Information is coming at me so fast I start to feel like a police officer trying to calm down a hysterical witness to a crime.
"Calm down, calm down, please. Take a deep breath. Now, tell me what happened."
It's at this point that I start to feel like a private investigator. I've been hired by my clients to figure out all the people involved, gather all the facts, and tell the story.
I would always start with the very people who would come looking for my help.
I had to know everything about them. What motivated them to come to me in the first place? Why is this story so important to tell? Is this person very forthcoming with the information I am looking for or do I have to interrogate them to get what I need? After they would finish with their compulsive verbal diarrhea, I got to ask questions, lots of fun questions.
For me, at the beginning its a lot like having a phone conversation with someone. I can hear their voice but I have no face to put with the sounds. They usually give me a quick description of themselves but as is the case with most people, the best descriptions I get for these people come from the other people involved. As time goes on, I start to get some pictures of the places in the story, the landscape, their homes, and finally the people. Sometimes I'm quite surprised by how they turn out. I had one picture in my head but when I finally see them, really get to see them, they may look completely different from what I envisioned.
Some of the people who come looking for me step right off the bus, push their way to the front of the line and demand to be heard. These are usually the people with the most and best information. Others will get off the bus and be content with hanging around the station until I get to them. When this happens I usually have to pull information out of them like they were teeth. Most often, I just explain to them that I understand that they are not ready to tell their story and I can wait for a little while but there is a statute of limitations and I will not wait forever.
I even had one case where a woman stepped off the bus dragging her brother and sister in tow. She was very interested in telling her story, which then leads to the story of her brother and then sister. I have heard their parts in her story, but they are as yet unwilling to share too much info about their own stories. Fear not, I have ways of making them talk and they will come around.
So far, no one has left, they are all still with me.
To date, all of the very pushy people in my head have been women. I don't know if that says something about them, or me... Who knows, maybe both.
To keep track of the people living in my head I had to start keeping records. I have a write ups on a handful of them. Others have nothing more than a quick description. Some go so far as to document what their favorite subject in school is and do they keep their house neat or are they messy. Each of the questions in my file tells me a little bit about the people involved in my investigation.
You may be reading this and think it rather odd. In fact, I felt very self-conscious about it at first. Then I started reading interviews and blogs from published authors and realized that a lot of them admitted to something very similar, if not exactly, what I was seeing. Some did indeed have the same experience I did.
One of my favorite authors got the idea for her wildly popular book series because she had a dream of two people fighting. She started to do her own investigation and things just started to fall into place. So much so, that the fight she dreamed didn't even show up until book two!
These people may be fictional characters, but to me, in my head, they are very real. I laugh and cry with them, I share their joy and their pain. I feel their hurt, get frustrated over their choices and feel their regrets. I cheer over their triumphs and feel pride in their accomplishments. These characters are almost like children to me. Though they feel to me like they are coming from somewhere out of the blue I know they came from me. Every last one of them.
I only hope I am worthy of their choice and that I am capable of doing their stories justice.
If you didn't know any better you'd think I was certifiable. Well, maybe I am, but not for hearing voices.
No, in my head I have people, living and talking to me. All kinds of people. Some of them are shy and I have to coax them out of hiding, others are very, very pushy and want to be heard whether I am ready to receive them or not. These people are most annoying when I'm trying to work...
I have no idea where they came from, or how long they plan to stay with me. Most of the time they just pop in like they got off a bus and they were looking specifically for me. Once they have found me most of them want to give me as much information as they can in very short bursts. Its like they have this story they need to tell and they need to do it RIGHT NOW!
This has happened to me so many times now I have taken to carrying a small notepad and pen in my purse. I would whip it out anytime I would start getting frantic messages from any of my new (or sometimes older) friends. Information is coming at me so fast I start to feel like a police officer trying to calm down a hysterical witness to a crime.
"Calm down, calm down, please. Take a deep breath. Now, tell me what happened."
It's at this point that I start to feel like a private investigator. I've been hired by my clients to figure out all the people involved, gather all the facts, and tell the story.
I would always start with the very people who would come looking for my help.
I had to know everything about them. What motivated them to come to me in the first place? Why is this story so important to tell? Is this person very forthcoming with the information I am looking for or do I have to interrogate them to get what I need? After they would finish with their compulsive verbal diarrhea, I got to ask questions, lots of fun questions.
For me, at the beginning its a lot like having a phone conversation with someone. I can hear their voice but I have no face to put with the sounds. They usually give me a quick description of themselves but as is the case with most people, the best descriptions I get for these people come from the other people involved. As time goes on, I start to get some pictures of the places in the story, the landscape, their homes, and finally the people. Sometimes I'm quite surprised by how they turn out. I had one picture in my head but when I finally see them, really get to see them, they may look completely different from what I envisioned.
Some of the people who come looking for me step right off the bus, push their way to the front of the line and demand to be heard. These are usually the people with the most and best information. Others will get off the bus and be content with hanging around the station until I get to them. When this happens I usually have to pull information out of them like they were teeth. Most often, I just explain to them that I understand that they are not ready to tell their story and I can wait for a little while but there is a statute of limitations and I will not wait forever.
I even had one case where a woman stepped off the bus dragging her brother and sister in tow. She was very interested in telling her story, which then leads to the story of her brother and then sister. I have heard their parts in her story, but they are as yet unwilling to share too much info about their own stories. Fear not, I have ways of making them talk and they will come around.
So far, no one has left, they are all still with me.
To date, all of the very pushy people in my head have been women. I don't know if that says something about them, or me... Who knows, maybe both.
To keep track of the people living in my head I had to start keeping records. I have a write ups on a handful of them. Others have nothing more than a quick description. Some go so far as to document what their favorite subject in school is and do they keep their house neat or are they messy. Each of the questions in my file tells me a little bit about the people involved in my investigation.
You may be reading this and think it rather odd. In fact, I felt very self-conscious about it at first. Then I started reading interviews and blogs from published authors and realized that a lot of them admitted to something very similar, if not exactly, what I was seeing. Some did indeed have the same experience I did.
One of my favorite authors got the idea for her wildly popular book series because she had a dream of two people fighting. She started to do her own investigation and things just started to fall into place. So much so, that the fight she dreamed didn't even show up until book two!
These people may be fictional characters, but to me, in my head, they are very real. I laugh and cry with them, I share their joy and their pain. I feel their hurt, get frustrated over their choices and feel their regrets. I cheer over their triumphs and feel pride in their accomplishments. These characters are almost like children to me. Though they feel to me like they are coming from somewhere out of the blue I know they came from me. Every last one of them.
I only hope I am worthy of their choice and that I am capable of doing their stories justice.
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