Workshops are invaluable

I just wanted to do a quick post on what's been happening in the last few weeks. I am happy to say I am in a great workshop over at YA Adventures in Publishing They offer this once a month and if you're one of the first five entrants then this is an opportunity to really polish your first pages. Ive learned a lot in the last 2 weeks so far, and a fresh set of eyes on your writing is the best thing you can do when in revisions.

The advice and suggestions from everyone involved is to encourage the writer, bring out what we cant see.

So these next few weeks will have me revising, and contributing. and scouring my manuscript, again.

Have a great week!

Compulsion Trailer - cant wait to read this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afli_Tq34dc&feature=youtu.be

Go here http://www.adventuresinyapublishing.com/2014/12/book-boyfriends-alpha-males-and-danger.html to enter the giveaway. Don't wait too long!

Merry Christmas to all

Just sending holiday greetings and good wishes to everyone. I'm taking these glorious days off to write, daydream, read, and write more. Hope the season gives you oodles of inspiration!.

!!!!. is all i can manage at the moment. :):):) whew!

In which I come up for air

It's been..well..a while since I've blogged. So this is a short and sweet post while in between life, kids, reading...and writing. Ive come to the point in my manuscript that I'm tearing it apart like an animal left without food for months. I'm being merciless and it's both gratifying and sobering. My outline, (which I believe has saved me numerous times from veering away from the story), and my synopsis are in the process of being completed. What a task......But worth every minute I spend doing it. I can picture my book on the shelf at the BAM store up the road. I can see myself signing it, talking about it to strangers..you know...be the ball and all that. So, that's the progress update. I have all the good intentions of paying more attention to my blog, but you know what they say about good intentions.....



Keep writing, its what your meant to do.

Crafting the flow of a story

I recently read a book that sat with me for days after I closed the cover. I realized that the flow of the story was so eloquent, so streamlined, that I was pulled in and followed along without any 'hesitation. I didn't even skim...(which I'm guilty of doing). I recall some great advice from Elmore Leonard, his "10 Rules For Good Writing."

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

"My most important rule is one that sums up the 10," he wrote. "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

*Excerpted from the New York Times article, “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle”

So i sit at my keyboard today with that advice in mind. A story can only be as good as the writing allows. Allow it to flow, smooth and effortless to the reader, all the way to the end.

--SC

The art of preparation

The art of writing is not just sitting at the keyboard or writing in a journal. It's daydreaming, staring into an open sky, or your surroundings. Listening to music, watching a really really good movie. Its all these things. Inspiration has come to me while watching commercials on tv...yes, it has. So feed your brain, give it more and more. Look at everything in a different way, the trees around you, interactions of passersby. All of this observation and inner reflection is fuel for your writing muse.

What i find helps me is sitting outside in the evening, listening to the wrapping up of the day around me. And watching the light dim as the minutes tick past. Then the night comes, which brings the mind to a different and more introspective place. You'd be amazed what you can think of, and work out sitting alone and letting go of logical thought.

Try it, you might surprise yourself. :)

WRITE every day, READ just as much, WRITE more.

An excerpt..Sharing Sunday

I'm in the middle of revising...2nd time around. And thought I would let a snippet of a passage that still sits with me days after I read it. So, as I nibble on my tortured nail bed, I open my palm and let it fly into the world..thoughts and feedback are most certainly welcome.

The musty smell in my cage wafted around me like a thick smoke. Others had been held inside. I spotted hints of aged blood and hair in the crease of the window bars, someone had put up a fight, good for them. My eyes roamed the sizable cell and when they reached the corner to my left, a shadow of something took up the otherwise empty space. That's when I drew in a sharp breath and regretted making a sound.

      “Staring is rude, hasn't anyone ever told you that? Or has the orphanage fell short these last few years on teaching manner and etiquette?”

      The boys’ voice sounded amused, but held an underlying irritation to it. I was still shaky from the surprise of not being alone in the gypsy’s wagon, and a new concern sat with me, I was locked up inside the cell with him. I chose my words wisely.

      “I wouldn’t call it teaching. Obedience is the main subject there, the only subject. I’ve found that their beliefs on human treatment and mine don’t mesh, being that I’m not an animal. And as for manners, I’ve yet to meet someone who deserves the effort.”

     I'd never been good at filtering myself, I just spoke what I thought. Hence the scar gracing my neck. So I should have expected what came after. I heard the quick movement, the slide of fabric over the floorboard, but he was quicker and I hadn't the privilege of knowing my surroundings as well. The burn of a needle prick flooded my veins and I felt a moment of calm, a black shroud covered my vision and before I lost consciousness I swear I felt the brush of a delicate breath across my cheek.

So, that's my sharing for today, i hope you enjoy the excerpt. I'm in love with my story, and I believe that nothing out there has covered the premise. What  passages  in your manuscript send goosebumps across your skin? Im happy to say that i feel that often when reading what I still cant believe comes out of me sometimes.

I wish that for you writer, dreamer, temporary inhabitant of a fantastical world. Because if you don't love your story, most likely no one else will either. Get lost in silliness, playful childhood, that's where all the secret kingdoms lie waiting for you to return and discover their magic.

WRITE every day, READ just as much, then WRITE more.

And a funny on Tuesday

This, yes indeed.

The weekend seems so far away...

My take on Scrivener

A few months back I decided to try out Scrivener. My WIP was getting somewhat large and I thought maybe the software would organize things better than my gazillion post its and pages of notes.

And to my surprise it did. Now, don't get me wrong, it took about a week to get used to the program, but since then Ive worked with it exclusively, so i decided to purchase.

Pros:

Organization of characters, scenes, world building & background.

Research folder at my fingertips, I'm able to highlight something and refer to it instantly no matter where it is on the manuscript. Which I do a lot....

Cons:

I kind of have to be at my laptop to add new writing, i think there is a way to have the program on my usb drive,I've yet to figure out how. But im okay with that. Id be bringing it to work...and we know how that would go, I'd get no work done.

I haven't explored the whole of the program yet, and im sure there are many options available to me that I haven't explored, but as a whole, I like it. And I've written more words per day since Ive used it...i don't know if that's all in my head, but i feel good. And if I feel good, my writing takes on that mojo, and its clear skies.

So, in my opinion it is a good program and worth a look into at least. The price is fair ($40.00), but there are discounts available online if you search around. The 30 day trial gives you the chance to try it out. Now I by no means am trying to promote the program, it just works for me. And if something is working with your writing, its always a good thing.

Keep imagining, its our writing fuel.

 

 

New approach to writing

Most of last week i was in kind of a ho-hum writing mind state. I was putting the time in, but the quality wasn't there. So, after coming home mid-week to find that i couldn't use my laptop, (its purpose that day was to entertain the kids), which kind of threw a wrench in my writing schedule. But, I had to write, so what to do, what to do...Ah, yes!, I could actually WRITE....in my notebook. Funny how some simple things fade in time, due to our busy lives and electronic equipment. I hadn't written in my journal or used my notebooks for anything substantial other than note taking. But boy what a difference once I found a comfortable spot and put pen to page. The writing was intimate, completely different than typing away and hearing the click clack of the keyboard. (Which don't get me wrong, is a huge time saver), but parts of the story I hadn't even thought of yet were coming faster than I could write, and this was exhilarating!

To widdle this long-winded post down to a nugget of useful info, change things up now and then. It might surprise you what you've got stored in that creative head of yours. ;)

Movie Friday <3

I take a break every Friday after getting home from a long week of work, phones, work, phones etc. etc. And I watch a movie, or read the dog-eared book on my nightstand. Mostly we all watch movies, get pizza and settle in for the night. The best part is knowing I wont have to hear the alarm in the A.M....unless of course I want to get some uninterrupted writing in and need to wake up before the dawn. Which might be the case this week. My oldest is going to the beach and my youngest is oblivious to the ping of time. So...tonight we, or mostly I, will be watching one of my fav's (Pan's Labryinth). And most likely will be opening my Scrivener to work on that new idea flicking the back of my head for the last week. So here's to Friday's, endless possibilities and potential for writing a masterpiece or reconnecting with inspiration. Every good ending usually starts with a bumpy beginning ;).

Just a moment of inspiration...

 

It's the truth. I just takes that one word or sentence to get you past that awkward ..."Uh, Ive written myself into a corner", moment. And when that one page starts flowing, it's..magic. ;)

 

Keep writing, no matter what you do, how bad your day is, how tired you are, keep writing, even its if terrible. And it will be sometimes. But in the middle of all the rambling words on the page is a gem, that one phrase or action or spoken word, its there. It just needs a little polishing around the edges to smooth it out so it flows like a free flowing stream. Writing...it's what you wish you were doing when you aren't. The story is in your veins, flowing to your mind, inpatient to get out, we all just have to untangle the crowded conversations in our heads and weave them altogether to create something spectacular. SO..if today is a bad writing day for you, picture the pages you haven't written, the pages that bring you farther toward that time that you hold it all in your hands, the finished product, and can say with pride..I did this, I wrote this, this story...all from my extraordinary mind.

Write, its what your meant to do.

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Did you vote today?

The two new entries for Write Club 2014 have been posted and votes are rolling in, have you cast yours yet? If not, then sign in and read the two new entries here.

 

Good luck to both participants!

What's your muse for writing?

Although I can write amidst all the chaos at home--(toddlers and teens to be precise). My ideal environment is slapping on the headphones and blasting some great movie scores, along with Evanescence, Christina Perri..I could go on..Skyrim (though i don't play) also has a great soundtrack--as well as the classical composers. But I could spend hours listing all the inspirational music that sparks the flame in a writers mind, but I'd be writing this post for hours, and still wouldn't cover half of the options. What I really wanted to share is that when I'm in that mode, headphones and blasting music, I get lost in the story, especially if I really like the song playing. I picture the scenes in my head like I'm watching a film tick by, maybe I'm crazy. I've been known to talk about my characters as if they were real...I get the look, you know, the slight arch of the eyebrow from the boyfriend, or even worse, your teenage daughter.

My enthusiasm overcomes my mature responsible role as mother and  adult, especially if I think I nailed the last scene or had a revelation in the plot. I have, and probably will again, jumped up and down and eagerly tried to explain why everyone in the house should be as excited as me, that's when I usually get the look..I laugh as I'm writing this, because I honestly believe anyone that writes has those moments. Even if the excitement isn't shared by your victim - er family or friend, it's kind of like an acknowledgement, if i wasn't meant to do this, i wouldn't care what i just wrote, good or bad. And I care about both, it drives me to go further, excites me that at the end, I'll get to go back and untwine the story and mold it into what my mind sees. Here's to those wild moments of realization, and may they come often.

 

An excerpt of m...

An excerpt of my WIP. <-- Like it says there...Work In Progress, almost ready to revise...which is the best part of writing ;).

Scene - Tristan (MC) & Noelle (MC) after being thrust into each others lives.
     “What do you know of my soul?” he shouted as he walked up behind me and took my arm. “You know nothing of our people, of me, you're a mortal, polluting the world with your greed and lust. You have no idea what I carry inside me, and love? Ive loved so fierce that it tore me in two. Don’t speak of what I am little girl, you'll be wrong every time.”

     My heart hurt, like it had been torn out of me and replaced with a hollow center. I realized that I felt something for him, and I held back the tears that wanted to fall.

      “You're first mistake is letting your weaknesses control your emotions. What you feel for me is curiosity --nothing more." he said with a wave of his hand. "Not too long ago, a girl, like you, felt the same as you do. I made the mistake of showing myself to her and after that, I was as stricken by her as she was of me." he paused."But as you can see." he added with outstretched arms. "She isn’t with me now, she's rotting away somewhere in the ground.” He paused and I saw his eyes close, sorrow in his frown.

     “Save yourself the time of wasted thoughts on me, I can tell you with sincerity, I do not feel the same—and never will.” he added.

     Then I was angry.

     “For someone who is making it clear that you can't stand me, you sure do listen to my thoughts enough. Why don’t you stay out of my head and for that matter, away from me completely.” I said.

     “Surely—“ his grin took me off guard. “You don’t mean that? Your words are little lies spoken to protect your feelings. There's no need for that here, I know what your true thoughts are, and it is my kingdom, knowing the thoughts of my enemy is crucial to the safety of the people here.” He flicked his hand in the air toward the west of the forest. “We go there now, you'll be cared for, cleaned—“ he looked me over. “And dealt with when I see fit.”

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Fresh and airy

As you can see, Ive updated my blog. I thought a fresh look was in order, though I do tend to go toward the darker side of images, I thought a good dose of pleasant would go easy on the eyes. So there you have it. I'm still working out the kinks with all of this, being a newbie to blogging. Ive seen some eye-catching pages that really draw me in and keep me on the page, I hope mine does that as well. On a side note: Have you voted today for Write Club 2014? If not, here's your chance to make your choice from the first two entries here .

We need your votes! Every one counts. And congrats to the two entries posted today!

-till next time