Eccentric (Quirky) Writing Habits? Yes, I Have a list. By Connie Vines #BWLAuthors Blog, #MFRWAUthor, #WritingTips

Most authors, of course, have personal eccentric writing practices. Fueled, no doubt by his or her personal muse. 

Agatha Christie munched on apples in the bathtub while pondering murder plots, 

Flannery O’Connor crunched vanilla wafers.

Vladimir Nabokov fueled his “prefatory glow” with molasses.

Then there was the color-coding of the muses:  Alexandre Dumas, for decades, he penned all of his fiction on a particular shade of blue paper, his poetry on yellow, and his articles on pink; on one occasion, while traveling in Europe, he ran out of his precious blue paper and was forced to write on a cream-colored pad, which he was convinced made his fiction suffer.

 Charles Dickens was partial to blue ink, but not for superstitious reasons — because it dried faster than other colors, it allowed him to pen his fiction and letters without the drudgery of blotting.

Virginia Woolf used different-colored inks in her pens — greens, blues, and purples. Purple was her favorite, reserved for letters (including her love letters to Vita Sackville-West, diary entries, and manuscript drafts. 

Lewis Carroll also preferred purple ink, but for much more pragmatic reasons: During his years teaching mathematics at Oxford, teachers were expected to use purple ink to correct students’ work — a habit that carried over to Carroll’s fiction.

So how do my little eccentric (or never before mentioned) writing practices measure up?  Is my personal muse quirky, dull, or out of control?

Since my quirks are normal for me, I had to think about this for a bit.

• I always drink coffee that is part of my current ‘setting’.  When my setting is New Orleans I mail-order my coffee from my favorite spot. If I'm writing a story where the season is more than a backdrop, like my current novel, I drink flavored coffee.  At the moment, it is Pumpkin Spice (Starbucks limited blend). 🎃

Café du Monde.  I have my cup and saucer, and a portable mug when I am writing outdoors.   I have a blue coffee pot and matching tin cup when I am writing westerns (yes, the coffee is VERY strong and black).  And of course, a Starbuck cup, Disneyland/ Club 33 mug, or Snoopy (Peanuts) mug when my novels take place in SoCal.

• My music and my menu planning also is linked to my settings.  All within the range of normal.  Though I have more than my fair share of coffee mugs and cups.

• I listen to diction videos on YouTube so that I am not relying on my memory for the sound of a Cajun accent, Texan’s drawl, etc.

• I visit areas on Google Earth and Zillow.  Even if I have lived or vacationed there, I may have forgotten an interesting ‘something’ I can insert into dialogue, or find a way to describe a scene.

• I talk to myself.  Oh, not simple little sentences.  I’m talking about a two-way conversation: “Do you think that might work?”  “No.  Would you do that?” 

 “How about. . .”  This is about the time my husband walks by to find out who’s on the phone, or if I’m asking him a question.  The dog even pokes her head in from the doorway to see what’s going on.  I’m guessing this is not in the  ‘normal range.

• When I write, my workspace is in perfect order.  I have colored folders/pens/notebooks that match and are exclusive to the story I’m working on at the moment.

• I never enroll in an online class when I’m writing—it’s guaranteed writers’ block.  I never talk about my WIP . Why? If I talk about it I think I've added that 'tidbit' to my story.  Then I find myself reading through my draft over and over wondering where the scene went!

• If I'm writing a contemporary story, I only read historicals or fantasy novels. I never read in the same genre I'm writing

💖Whatever story I’m am currently working on is always my favorite.

• I survive on 3 hours of sleep when I am deep in a story.  I know I drink coffee, but I seem to run the story in my mind when I sleep too.

• I also pick up the quirks of my heroines.  I have several friends who are in theater and said it’s a bit like ‘method acting’. 

Fortunately, I’m back to my state of normal a couple of weeks after typing THE END.

I believe all of these little quirks are part of a writer’s voice.  It is what we, as readers, look for in a story.  

Hopefully, it is what my readers, enjoy about the novels, short stories, and novellas that I write too.

To include a bit of personal history: Anton Lada was my granduncle.  (My personal blog, Dishin' It Out, features him in my "Random Thoughts, Scattered About" Monday.

Arkansas Blues by Anton Lada & Spencer Williams for your listening pleasure 🎵🎹🎤

Happy Reading!

Connie

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Rodeo Romance Series and Sassy and Fun Fantasy Series
by Connie Vines

Calling all Muses, Dead and Alive, by Sandy Semerad

As a writer, I’m always searching for a muse, and when country music superstar Merle Haggard died recently, I became reacquainted with his story and found him more inspiring than ever.

Haggard grew up dirt poor and became a hellion. He was sent to reformatory schools, but no school could reform him.  At 20, he robbed a restaurant. After he was arrested, he broke out of the county jail, was recaptured and sentenced to San Quentin. In prison, he gambled and brewed beer and was thrown into solitary confinement. There he conversed through an air vent with a death row inmate.

This conversation changed him, he said, and when Johnny Cash performed at San Quentin, Haggard was inspired to become a musician. He taught himself to play the guitar, and after his release, he worked in the oil fields, as he wrote and performed music. He eventually composed 38 number one hits.

I find his story amazing. He overcame impossible odds to achieve great success, and he found his muses in unlikely places.

Going for a simple walk can bring out a muse for me. I love to walk on the beach near where I live. Nature created the white sands from crystal rocks. The gulf sparkles like emeralds in the sunshine. I sometimes hear music in the gulf’s roar. The other day, Larry and I were walking our dog P-Nut, and I started to sing a tune I was hearing.

I asked Larry if he’d heard the tune before. He plays the piano and has performed with many musical groups. He also composes music.

“Sounds different,” he said.

I explained how the tune flowed through me. He didn’t think this was strange at all, but creative.

In thinking about the creative process, I remembered the time Larry asked me to sing, “If I Can Dream,” at the church where he plays piano. This song was written for Elvis Presley. Elvis was the only artist to record the song, as far as I know.

On the morning of my performance, I walked to the podium to sing, but then I flew into some kind of unconscious zone. The congregation clapped afterwards, so I figured I did okay.

Larry said, kindly, “You nailed it.”

The preacher smiled and said, “You wiggled your hips while you were singing.”

“You channeled Elvis,” Larry teased me.

But all joking aside, I’ve had many strange things happen to me, mostly when I write. I can never predict how my characters are going to behave. I think I know them. I have created their back story and outlined extensively, but then when I start the writing process, my characters always surprise me. They’re like jazz musicians. They know the structure and the rules, but they want to jam and do their own thing.

My characters eventually return to the story line, but I often have to figure out how to rescue them or not. Sometimes they create such a mess I must call on my slumbering muse. She’s the one who appears in my dreams after I go to sleep while thinking about the problem. This muse seems to have the ability to provide a solution by morning.

Most of the time, I draw from my own experiences, as a newspaper reporter, columnist, broadcaster, political activist, exercise enthusiast, wife, mother and grandmother. I’m more comfortable writing about what I know. Some of my favorite authors do the same. John Grisham, an attorney, writes great legal thrillers, and many of Stephen King’s protagonists are authors. In fact, King is considered one of American’s most prolific authors. Also, my fellow authors at Books We Love write tales on subjects they're passionate about.

In two of my novels (Sex, Love & Murder and A Message in the Roses), my protagonists are reporters. However in Hurricane House, the lead character is not a journalist, but a catastrophe Investigator (CAT, for short). Creating this unique protagonist seemed to make more sense. Luckily I know a CAT, and he generously shared his knowledge with me. As to describing the hurricane, that was easy. Larry and I have survived a few of those.

I created A Message in the Roses, from a murder trial I covered as a newspaper reporter in Atlanta. But even though I lived through this trial, I had to immerse myself in 80s music again and read news accounts from that time before my muse decided to resurface.

While working on the sequel, I’ve tried to set reasonable writing goals, allowing for my day job and family responsibilities. This time around, I’ve had to call on a variety of muses, alive and dead. Will they lift me to a higher plane and help me write my best novel yet? I hope so.

To read more about my writing, please visit my website: www.sandysemerad.com

          

Here’s my latest novel, A MESSAGE IN THE ROSES:

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