Update on current Work In Progress ~ When your characters go AWOL by Nancy M Bell

 

to learn more about Nancy's work click on the cover.

The progress on this book has been slow. For awhile, my characters refused to speak to me which was frustrating. I depend on them to carry me forward. I finally figured out why they had disappeared into the Ontario bush of 1917 and refused to come out. 

I was so tied up with historical timelines and who said this and where this other person was at such and such a time that I forgot about the underlying story I was attempting to tell. I finally pulled my head out of the rabbit hole and said "to hell with timeline etc."

I got back to my main character, Harriet Agnes St. George, and turned her loose on Canoe Lake and the Algonquin bush. One of the things which has plagued me is that this is based on actual happenings and Tom Thomson's death has never been fully explained. There are many and conflicting accounts of the events leading up to his death and those following the event. I have been sunk in a conundrum of what to use and what to disregard as not fitting with my storyline.

As this is a work of fiction, both historical and a mystery, I need to have a satisfying conclusion to the mystery. But as there is no clear indication of who the murderer was, or if indeed it was murder and not an accident, it has caused me some pause.

Clearly, I can't say such and such a historical figure was the murderer and to the best of anyone's knowledge, there were no eye witness to the attack/accident. So I have invented Harriet who tells the story in her own words from a unique perspective. I think the reader will find the conclusion and the wrap up of Harriet's story both surprising and satisfying. 

I'm not going to reveal anything more about that. Just say, keep an open mind as you follow Harriet through her journey to discover who killed her friend and fellow artist Tom Thomson.

In closing, just let me say, I hate hate hate writers block and I hate when my characters desert me and then suddenly show up in the middle of the night waking me up with "hey lady, about your story line- how about this...."

Until next month, stay well, stay happy.

Writer's Block? Find a Friend to Write With! by Vanessa C. Hawkins

 Vanessa Hawkins Author Page

Big news readers! 

Did you hear about the author that went to jail last month? If not, I'd suggest tuning into Live at Five because apparently they put him in the writer's block when he couldn't get past his first sentence... 

 

Wait, you heard that one before? Oh... you're just sick and tired of my tremendous sense of humor! Well, that's okay because this month we are going to talk about how I managed to get past my writer's block, pump out a story, all WHILE birthing and raising a child during the covid pandemic!

What did this $%@! just say?!

It's true! And no, I didn't neglect my child, lock her beneath the stairs OR hire a nanny to take care of her with all my big author-made bucks... (heh... heh... *cough*) What I did do however, was ask my friend for a little bit of help. 

Okay a lot of help...

Okay we co-authored a story.

And it's true! Scroll up! I'm only one name on that sexy, art deco cover page! The second one is just as important because without it, Ballroom Riot would never have made it to shelves, or on Amazon, or... well, anywhere books tend to be in your house...

Next to the toilet... for reading and when tissue is scarce!

But as a result, I've had LOADS of people ask what it was like working with another author. What was it like to actually hear a voice in your head that was REAL and able to tell you when your writing was crap! What was it like to have someone as invested in something as you were that you could bounce ideas off of? Obviously, it was pretty good for a ton of reasons. 

1. All those people swimming around in your head are now in the head of another person who KNOWS them. 

2. That other person is JUST as excited as you are to talk about them and what your writing and that time Scarlet had to fight off the Goblin Brother's at the dragon bar to protect her then boyfriend from...

3. When you get writer's block they totally motivate you.

Sometimes she was the one holding the *squirtgun filled with pee*
and sometimes it was me.

Now that last one is a biggie. Because if you've ever written anything in your life, chances are you've encountered this block. It sucks! It more than sucks! And getting past it can make a nice, happy hobby/writing career into an ugly mess of paper, and dead words that you have no faith in. There are writer's who have given up! Cold turkey! They've been unable to shoulder the burden of their block and continue on and I don't blame them. Writing can be a very thankless hobby. But! Writing with another person can be fun, because at least then your not alone? 

That's not true. Please sit with us! You can read a few pages!
You can... wait, where are you going?

I know there have been times where my co-author and I have been brainstorming and instead of doing any writing at all we just laugh at all the meaningless and hilarious stuff we'd like to insert into the plot. A few characters are hers to write, and a few belong to me, and it's a lark discussing how best to put them into awkward situations. 

It's also inspiring. Because not only are you bouncing ideas off a real human person, they know all the minute details of the book and how said ideas may, or may not fit into the story! 

Pros: 

There's someone interested in what you're writing

They encourage you because you have to set a time and date to meet/write via zoom 

They're an extra set of eyes when editing

Cons?

Well... there are some

It can sometimes be hard when you don't see eye to eye on things. I've known my co-author from the time when I could stay up past ten o'clock in the evening, so we are pretty familiar with each other. We've also written together before--just for fun-- That's not to say that we didn't sometimes have to throw down over some small plot point we disagreed about...

Always pick rock... nothing beats that!

... but we were able to be open enough with each other to figure out solutions when problems or disagreements arose. Also, because we had written with each other before, our styles weren't vastly different. 

Tara: This makes it out to be that one of us sucks...
Me: Leave me alone, I have low self-confidence!

Of course there is always the issue of splitting the royalties and the such, but I mean, if you have writer's block and can't write anything, chances are you aren't going to be making much money anyway. And come on, try it out! All the famous authors are doing it. Even George R. R. Martin let the guys at HBO give it a go on his Song of Ice and Fire series. Like Batman, "it may not be the ending we all deserve, but it was the ended we needed..."

Wait, scratch that! Where's Winds of Winter?

So if you're struggling with writer's block and have a friend--who likes you enough to write with you... and can also write semi-decently... or is even INTERESTED in writing or things you like to write about--give it a go. The worse that can happen is a disjointed story full of plot holes and meaningless drivel. The best that can happen is... well, Dragonlance was written by two authors... And I'm sure Terry and Neil had a blast with Good Omens! 

Between here and the end of the universe there's [...]Loads of buggerall, dear boy."
"But it gets there anyway," Crowley persevered.
"How?"
"It doesn't matter!"

 

**Quote from Good Omens

What do you do when the words won't come? by Nancy M Bell

Click on the cover to learn more about Wild Horse Rescue and Nancy's other books.

Writer's block is without a doubt one of the most frustrating things a writer of any type of material can encounter. Whether you're wracking your brain to produce commercial text, a poet with no words spinning into rhymes, or a fiction author chasing their absent Muse, writer's block is not a welcome visitor. If you're in the midst of just such a crisis, take some comfort from the knowledge you are not alone. Being at a loss for words is an issue every writer deals with at some point in their career. So rather than beating your head on the keyboard or re-booting the blank screen with your shoe, let's explore some solutions.

Keep in mind every person is different and what works like a charm for some will fail miserably for others. For myself, staring at the screen or out the window rarely works. I have found that taking a break works well for me. I take the dogs for a walk (I once came home with a poem singing in my head that come to me while walking the mutts), doing something mindless like watching a soap opera will take my mind off my recalcitrant characters and Muse. Reading a new book or a new author is another method I use. Often re-reading a book I have enjoyed in the past frees up the jammed cogs in my brain.

When I return to the computer and look at the either blank screen or the flood of unfinished thoughts often the characters will shake themselves awake and obligingly continue to tell me their stories so I can share them with others. Alas, sometimes they stubbornly refuse to even look at me from their suddenly two dimensional flatland and nothing will coerce them to join me in the story I'm trying to tell. This usually calls for drastic measures, especially if there is a deadline involved. Eeek! The dreaded deadline combined with writer's block will raise any author's blood pressure and produce a doozy of a headache. Deadlines actually tend to help spur me on to conquer writer's block, for others it is the final nail in the coffin.

One method to break the block is to sit down at an appointed time every day, which ever time of day seems best for you. Write anything that comes to mind, don't judge, turn off your internal editor and internal critic. Just write anything no matter how trivial. Set yourself an attainable goal of how many words you will produce. For some that will be 200 words for others 3,000, it doesn't matter how many or how few, or how many your writing partners or other friends are producing. It's not a contest.

I often find sitting quietly by the garden (in the warmer weather) and just letting my mind drift will often find my characters tugging at the fringes of my thoughts and offering up snippets of their previously withheld stories. Doing something you love that you find relaxing often allows your mind to unwind and the words to break free. I often go and spend time with my horses, brushing them and just being with them helps to loosen the log jam in my head.

Music will help, not head banging stuff (at least not for me, but maybe for some), songs from when I was young, songs with memories attached (both happy and sad depending on what I'm working on), classical music. As an aside, I used to play classical music in my hen house and the hens always laid better than if I played other types of music.

Exercise will help empty and reset your brain. If you're a gym person, go and have a hard workout. A run or a walk will work just as well for those less physically inclined. I like to walk where I'm close to nature, walking barefoot under trees, or just leaning against a tree, will often do the trick. For more urban folks, walking through your neighbourhood or familiar places works. Even a walk through the local mall can be cathartic.

Make a list of keywords which you can use as prompts to jump start your creative juices.

Look at art that inspires you, or even random images brought up in an internet search can be helpful.

There are tons of self-help books and articles on the internet, but honestly, there is no miracle cure for writer's block and we each have to fight our own way through to the other side where our Muse awaits us tapping his or her foot and asking what took us so long.

I hope this helps a bit. Good luck with your writing and above all else --keep writing!

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Getting Through the Rough Times by Victoria Chatham

For writers, writing is usually a compunction, something they have to do, like breathing. Even before I really knew what I was doing, I wrote.

Yes, I’ve joked about my writing with crayons on the wall not being appreciated by my family (for obvious reasons) but making my mark by writing something, somewhere has, for me, always been a tangible expression, like prehistoric handprints on the wall of a cave, of my being here, on this planet, now. The now has shifted considerably over the years from childish drawings and weirdly shaped letters, to short stories about ponies and dogs, to prize-winning essays at school and onwards and upwards.

image courtesy of Shutterstock

Writing, as an art, was something I took up when I learned calligraphy. It came out of an art class where we were encouraged to illuminate the capital letter of our first name or surname. I chose V for Victoria, not H for Hammond as I was then. I liked the look of the letter V, and very early on also liked the fact that Victory and Valor both began with V. They seemed strong words to me then as they do now.

Combining the art of writing with the craft of it was something that came a lot later. Although I loved English classes, both literature and grammar, writing in my family was a serious business. It had to impart knowledge and instruction and, consequently, fiction and fun writing didn’t enter much into my education. However, at age thirteen I read a book whose title now escapes me although I can see the cover clearly. Anyone who remembers Douglas Fairbanks, or maybe Douglas Fairbanks jnr., would recognize the look of the handsome pirate wearing a bandanna, an open-neck shirt and swinging from a rope on some ship or another. If you’ll pardon the nautical pun, it opened up a whole new horizon for me.

I wrote short stories which friends enjoyed and encouraged me to 'send to a publisher.' I showed one short story to a well-respected children's book editor who suggested I submit it to a long defunct UK short story magazine called The Argosy. It was rejected but I persevered. After all, I had many more stories to write. However, my family was far less enthusiastic than my friends so I kept writing mainly for myself. When I started writing novels, erroneously thinking writing chapters would be like writing one short story after another, I very quickly found a whole new world within the writing world. 

But getting stuck in the writing is also part of a writer's life. It happened to me more often than not in the early days but books like Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg helped a great deal. 'How To' books from the Library were replaced with Google searches for ideas to jumpstart my work all over again. Tools like doodling with words and going for walks, listening to music, or washing the floor all got tested.

So, what does keep me going when the words won’t come, or won’t come in the way or order that I want them to? My best tried and true trick is to stop writing. I return to my favorite books, the ones that have left vivid impressions over the years and have had me sobbing my socks off or laughing out loud. My favorite go-to read is Georgette Heyer’s Frederica. I know that when I’m done reading it, I’ll go back to my writing with more energy and enthusiasm and then everything seems to flow again.

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Victoria Chatham

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