The writing challenge, she soldiers on, via ye old Tumblr! Catch up:
30 Day Writing Challenge, Days 4,5,6
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Category Archives: Writers Write
DIYMFA: Books on Writing, in which I confess…
A brief note before I post: Day three of the 30 Day Writing challenge is up on my Tumblr! If you’re participating by blog or Tumblr please let me know so I can follow!
So, today we are discussing building a library on the craft of writing. And I have a confession to make: I buy writing books all the time but don’t read them. I have several books of writing exercises but don’t really make use of them. It hasn’t been a medium that has been effective for me… it’s that feeling of flipping through a book and realizing it’s in a language you can’t read. In fact, I become overwhelmed and quite stressed out after reading them because I feel like I have no idea how to apply what I’ve just read to something I’m currently writing. I am much more of a writing blog reader than I am a writing book reader, though I do have a couple of writing books I like:
Tumblr Writing Challenge Day two
Is up! I’m tumblring.
30 Day Writing Challenge
Prompt: “S/he didn’t say”
DIYMFA: 9/16 Weekend Writing Prompt
For those unfamiliar with DIYMFA, it is a website that allows writers to use tools, exercises and experiences to design their own advanced writing program. The do-it-yourself approach allows each of us to flourish in our own ways and dive as deeply as we want (or need) to go to improve our writing and knowledge of the craft.
It’s our first Weekend Writing Prompt! The Starting Point:
Reading:
1) Do you read regularly? If so, how many books per year, on average?
Yes, I am an avid, voracious reader. This year my goal is to read 50 books or more.
2) What are your Top 3 preferred subjects or genres?
I’m a fiction reader- within that I like literary fiction, women’s fiction, some erotic romance and historical fiction (set in the US). I read some non fiction but not much- it has to be for a specific purpose. Right now I am reading memoirs of people with schizophrenia as research for a story I am writing.
3) List the last 5 books/magazines you’ve read.
*consults my GoodReads account* – Swallow the Ocean (biography, non fiction), The SisterHood of Blackberry Corner (adult fiction, women’s fiction, black author), Surrender the Heart (christian fiction, historical fiction), The Accident (fiction, thriller) , The Whispering Room (fiction, mystery, thriller)
Writing Wednesdays: Inspiration
Well, it’s another Wednesday, the hump that represents mid-week. By this point in the week I like to be knee deep in my weekly goals and challenges to myself. I have been reading and writing like a fool, so good going so far. I’m hitting a bit of a hurdle in my current story but I am making an effort to overcome it. I’m also doing a lot of reading for research on the topic of Schizophrenia. The stories are just… larger than life, you know?
I’ve also been keeping up on the blogs. The theme among the blogosphere lately seems to be inspiration. How do you get it? What sort of thing brings you the most inspiration? What person/place/thing/idea sends you flying to your writing corner and makes you bang on your WIP or scribble in your notebook? I like talking about things that inspire me, so I’ll list some of mine here.
GOOD WRITING
The number one, numero uno, primero point of inspiration for me is excellent writing. I love getting lost in another writer’s words, whether it be a published book or an online story or a great blog post. Writers who share their craft with others help me feel like I, TOO, CAN BE A WRITER!
LIFE
Life imitates art and art imitates life and it’s all such a never ending cycle. When people I know talk about situations they’ve dealt with, some of those stories stick with me. I tuck them away in my mental list of plot points and twists that I might want to use later. A witty conversation overheard in the elevator, or the way someone says something might get written down or emailed to myself as soon as I get to my desk. I take pieces of people and places and things and jobs and attitudes and store it all away in my head where an ever-growing monster builds and eventually must claw its way out, onto paper. Or computer screen.
ART
Of course art, because you know… LIFE! I rarely get inspiration from paintings, but photos can spawn a nice 3,000 word story about a rain storm. Or 1500 words about peppermints or a chapter in which my characters discuss Degas and whether or not he was perverted.
Music is probably my biggest inspiration, ever. Lyrics are like art, drawing such emotional scenes. So many songs are like soap operas set to rythm. I’ve written so many stories based off of song lyrics. I love an amazing lyricist, how they twist words and meaning and in 3.5 minutes, tell what can be a heartbreaking story. I love siphoning that emotion, that mood, the meaning behind the words and turning it into something that takes the reader on a journey. I’m writing a story right now based off of Alanis Morrisette’s Hands Clean. Her lyrics are amazng.
Your turn… tell me what inspires you? What makes you sit down and write?
A different kind of writing: Join me for the Bert Show’s Big Thank You
I heard about this last year but didn’t participate. This year will be different.
Now is your chance to say thank you to our troops! The Bert Show is collecting letters of thanks so every single soldier stationed or deployed outside the United States can receive a letter of gratitude on Thanksgiving Day. We want to give our troops a “Big Thank You” with a little taste of home this Thanksgiving.
In 2007, Bert Show listeners successfully wrote 375,000 letters to troops all over the world! This year, we need your help to express a BIG THANK YOU to 400,000+ U.S. soldiers. With less than two months to mail these letters, we need you to start writing your letters now!
The Bert Show can only do this with your help. Let’s pull together to make this project a success! Get your class or school to write letters. We want everyone in your church, civic group, sorority/fraternity, office, or neighborhood to write letters. Give our troops that much deserved show of appreciation by writing a letter of thank you.
Thank you so much for giving our service men and women a little connection to home this Thanksgiving with The Bert Show’s Big Thank You.
Here are the specs you need to know when writing your letter:
LETTER FORMAT
- Each letter should be heartfelt, handwritten, original, and free of any political statements. The purpose of the letter is to express thanks to the military personnel currently deployed outside the United States. We reserve the right to eliminate those messages that are political in nature and do not reflect a positive message in the spirit of Thanksgiving. Those letters will be destroyed.
- All letters must be on 8.5” x 11” paper or smaller. Do not use glue, tape, staples, cardboard, glitter or otherwise attach anything to the paper. Decorate using crayons, pencil, etc. Use both sides if you like, but use one page per letter only. Do not send cards or photographs. Feel free to include your mailing and email address, and you may get a response. Individual letters should not be sealed in envelopes
- Do not send anything except letters. We cannot accept donations of any kind, and they should not be included or attached to letters.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
- Every individual letter is important, but for organizational purposes, please try to submit letters in bulk whenever possible. Work with your school, church, civic group, sorority/fraternity, office, neighborhood, etc. and send all letters bundled as directed below.
- For group submissions, letters should be bundled in groups of 50, 100, or 250 and held together with two rubber bands: one wrapped lengthwise and the other width-wise. This will help tremendously with sorting. The top page in the bundle should indicate clearly how many letters are included. Do not bundle letters unless they are in groups of 50, 100, or 250. If you have a partial bundle of less than 50 letters, fasten them together with a paperclip. The top page in the group should clearly indicate how many letters are included. If you are submitting 10 or fewer letters, the letters can be folded to fit into a standard business-size envelope.
Mail your letters to:
The Bert Show’s Big Thank You
780 Johnson Ferry Road NE
5th Floor
Atlanta, GA 30342
I hope a few of my fellow writers will join me this year in providing a little cheer to our troops overseas! They deserve it and it will be one great big thing we do to support them!
Authors, writers, poets, bloggers: Will you join me in writing a letter and saying Thank You?
Today’s Indie is… me! ‘Try To Say No’ is featured at IndieInk.Org!
Lessons Learned From Writing Fan Fiction #5: Research is King (of the Time Suck)
In my quest to make the leap from fan fiction to original fiction writing, I’ve been noting some lessons I have learned from writing fan fiction these last few years. You’ll find Lessons #1-4 on the sidebar right… there —->
So we’ve come to Lesson 5 in my short list of the good stuff I have learned from being a fan fiction writer.
#5: Research is King (of the TimeSuck)
You know how it is. You sit down to write a story about… I don’t know. Harry Potter in Space. But you’ve never written about space. Nor have you ever written about Harry Potter. Let’s skip the part where this probably isn’t going to be a good story and note the steps taken. You’ve already figured out what’s supposed to happen in the story, who your characters will be, and where your story takes place (in space, DUH). The first thing you’ll need to know is what they call that thing that astronauts live in, and also how much oxygen is in there, and how big is one of those things, and how many people can you fit in a space ship, and how long would it take for a ship to travel from Hogwarts to Mars… and now it’s 5 hours later and you haven’t written a single word.
I’m BIG on research. HUGE on research. I want the details to be as exact as possible. In AIWD, my main character and his love interest are adopted. I have no idea what that feels like. Cue research. I sent them to Orlando, South Carolina, Baltimore, New York, Tennessee, New Orleans, Phoenix and Los Angeles and GREECE. I have only ever been to New York (but I went AFTER I wrote the story) and Los Angeles. Cue research. My male MC is a musician. He gets a guitar for Christmas. NOT ONE CLUE ABOUT GUITARS. Cue research. My female MC works in Marketing, something I know little about. RESEARCH.
When I am in the throes of a story, the #1 thing that can distract me is research. I will type something, want to be sure about it, and look it up. I need to describe a hotel, a street corner, a house? Google what I imagine in my head, do an image search, and base my words off of that image. I did this a lot when I sent my characters to Greece. But I would find that, an hour later, I am still looking at pictures of Mykonos and Santorini and also do they speak english there and are there tours and what is the temperature in April and how does a person get from Point A to Point B and how long is the ferry ride and does that fit in my story?
Is research important? YES.
Can it suck your time something fierce? YES.
Is it a great mode of procrastination? YUP.
Tips/Lessons Learned:
1. Write out my questions beforehand.
1a. Set aside specific time for research that is NOT my writing time. I know what’s coming ahead in each chapter and the details I am going to need to include. I set up some research time and go at it. GO HARD or GO HOME! And then once the majority of my questions are answered and I have my photos and websites bookmarked and information I need, I can start writing.
2. While writing, if something comes up… and it sounds hard to do and it IS.. I skip it. I leave a note to myself to look it up at my next research session. I am an obsessive editor, so likely when I pass it again a day or so later, I will fill in the blanks. This gets easier as time goes on and I lose my ‘it needs to be perfect the first time I write it or it’s CRAP’‘ mentality.
3. Get a good gauge for what is too much information and what is not enough. When I read a book and my eye starts to wander at the 3/4ths of a page description of a garden, I become more attuned to that in my own writing. I have gone from long drawn out imagery of a hotel room to a scant sentence and a half. And a good tip I have learned is that the scenery isn’t really important unless it’s part of the action. The chair sitting cockeyed doesn’t matter, unless the chair is NEVER cockeyed or your MC trips over it on his way to X location. Using words, imagery, description, just to use them is filler, IMO.
Tighten, lighten, less is more.
How are your research skills? How do you manage your research time? Is it a suck or do you have it down pat? Share your tips in the comments below!
HOLY SPUMONI (and other exclamatory utterings)! I’m going to be featured at Indie Ink!
Holy wow. Well. I just got some very good news, Blog People. I’ve been very shy about submitting work, but I finally got up the nerve to submit to Story Fix. I did not die or explode. This is good news.
At the same time, I must have sent the piece to Indie Ink. IndieInk.org is an online writer and artist collective. It’s a great place to shake off the extra and just read some writing and look at some art. I got notification this morning that my piece Try to Say No will be featured at Indie Ink. THIS IS EXCITING, OMG. It should be up first thing in the morning at Indieink.org! I will of course post tomorrow and send everyone to the live link. YAY!
I have to admit, I’ve had a bit of the jealousies lately. I see so many people who haven’t been “working on their writing” getting writing jobs. It’s really been sticking in my craw, lately. But it’s my own fault, because I don’t submit my work or writing samples to even see if I could write for an online magazine or sell my stories.
Things like this are so, so encouraging to me. I will definitely be writing more and submitting more!
And also, I will get to put this fantastic badge on my blog!
So YAY! \o/