Thursday, July 7, 2022
The Muse of Nature by Eileen O'Finlan
Saturday, May 21, 2022
My Travels in France by Diane Scott Lewis
Napoleon's Senate chair, Luxembourg Palace |
To find out more about her and her books: DianeScottLewis
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Tell M A Story by Janet Lane Walters #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #amwriting #stories
I probably drove my parents and grandparets crazy when I was a child. I had a grandfather with a great Cockney accent. He bgfan reading to me when I was an infant. Around the age of four I discovered library andgot my first card. Then I could read for myself. My cry became, Tell me a story. Of the adults in my life, my grandfather and father were the ones who were best at this. Then I grew up and decided to begin writing my own stories.
Each one of us has their own way of writing, a method that works for us. This became evident on Saturday at our writer's meeting. I watched my friends who read for critique frantically searching through their pages to add notes as well as accept those ones we wrote for them to take home. Most of them said when they arrived hom, said they would immediately rewrite the scene. I shook my head.
What I had read was rough draft and I said so. One of them made a remark about wishing her rough drafts made sense. All I could think about was they must be pansters. There are also plotters. I don't fit any of these categories. I am a planner. I always ahve my blurb written before I write a word of the book. every night when I go to sleep, I hone in on my world and ilently i shout, Tell me a story. My characters don't even have names or descriptions. When I do is dream of their adventures whether it's what they do, what's happening and slowly the story unfolds.
Then I write a chapter synopsis. I never now how long a book will be when I begin. My dreams at night tell me what the next event will be. Then I start writing focusing mostly on plot. There are two more written drafts after scribbling notes all over the printed out what ever draft I'm on. After the plot draft, I head to the setting draft and then the character draft. Then comes the final revision and the book is done.
Works for my but it's taken fifty plus eyars of writing to get this down to a system.
My Places
https://www.facebook.com/janet.l.walters.3?v=wall&story_f
http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com
https://www.pinterest.com/shadyl717/
Buy Mark
https://bookswelove.net/walters-janet-lane/
Saturday, May 7, 2022
A Little Help From My Friend by Eileen O'Finlan
Friday, April 29, 2022
Love, Madness & Mozart
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0089F5X3C
That persistent character who keeps coming back; I think most writers have a few of them. Sometimes they inhabit a book that can’t, or won't, ever be satisfactorily finished. These conundrums are in every writer’s desk drawer and on every hard drive.
My particular dark horse always returns around her birthday, at the end of April. She’s here, hanging around, just behind the curtains, even during day-light. I’m once again re-re-imagining scenes I’ve already visited many, many times. I’ve journeyed to her world for forty years now.
My Mozart is the first book I ever completed. A satisfactory ending, I think, still eludes me. Like Konstanze of Mozart’s Wife, this young heroine insists on speaking in the first person, which both narrows and deepens her POV. It’s like writing while pinned inside her dress.
I’ve heard authors talk about having a “channeling” experience with their characters. There are many accounts of automatic writing and spirit dictation, some sounding as if they should be taken with salt. At least that's what my day-light self thinks. However, after the experience of writing this initial, and, perhaps never-to-be-finished story, I believe other-worldly communications can happen. Ordinarily it takes a period of concentration and study to make your characters ("the dolls") get up and move independently, but in the case of a channeled story, they arrive fully realized, walking and talking.
So here's what I've learned, forty years after my attempt to tell this ghostly story. For a while, at least, after Mozart's death, Miss Gottlieb coped with her tragedies, until, in a final cruel blow, she lost her voice. After that, she appears to have lived on, among of the walking wounded, enduring a life of poverty until her death. Such was the fate of the first Pamina, pure heroine of The Magic Flute.
I'm glad I hadn't known her true ending before I wrote the one for this story. I was willing to follow the fantasy of a limited kind of HEA , not only for my sake, but also, the rational self argued, for marketing reasons. Any darker ending was too painful--for me, for prospective readers--and, no doubt, for my spirit informant herself.
~~Juliet Waldron
Thursday, April 21, 2022
How Far to Stretch the Truth in Your Writing, by Diane Scott Lewis
“A rich plot with building suspense, the writing is perfect and flows well. I loved this story.” ~History and Women~
Purchase Ghost Point: Ghost Point
To purchase my novels and other BWL books: BWL
In the beginning of my writing career I was certain you couldn't move events around to suit your story. But then I read a note in a Sharon Kay Penman novel where she said she moved a battle up six months for dramatic purposes. Then I knew if you listed your 'changes' you should get away with it.
Years ago I wrote a novel that takes place on Saint Helena during Napoleon's final exile. But I wanted a twist at the end where he slips away to America. This was the farthest I've stretched the truth, or changed events, though others have hinted at the possibility, or (later on) written fictional accounts of an escape. Now I've come across a few other novels in which the French Emperor escapes his island prison. I tried to write it to where it made perfect sense and it could have actually happened. Agents at the time were horrified that I would even attempt it. No imagination!
Years later, I reviewed a novel not listed as a fantasy set in the fourteenth century where the heroine is eating tomatoes in England. Tomatoes weren't discovered by Europeans until the New World of the Americas were explored a century later. I asked the author about it. She laughed it off and said she knew.
But no author note? I mentioned in my review that she purposely had anachronisms in her novel.
Could a man survive a ship explosion in the eighteenth century and be lost for years? And the Admiralty determined there were no survivors? Well, you need to make it plausible for the reader. And you're not changing history, only stretching the likelihood that this is possible. Check out my novel, Hostage to the Revolution to find out if you agree. But to get the full story, start with Escape the Revolution.
In my recent novel Ghost Point, I do change history by combining three years of the Oyster Wars over the Potomac River into one season. I needed the drama, the murder, that happened later to enrich my plot. I made certain to mention that events were compressed for dramatic purposes.
In Rose's Precarious Quest, a novel about a woman who strives to be a doctor in the 18th c., but discovers disturbing secrets in her new village, I throw in a touch of magic near the end, though most of the novel is grounded in reality. What powers does that stone ring contain? Did the ring glow that fateful night when the villain chased after Rose's sister, or was it the protagonist's overwrought imagination?
If you want to stretch the truth, or move events around, annotate it in your author notes for readers to see. Make it as plausible as possible.
Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund.
To find out more about her and her books: DianeScottLewis
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Focused on Story--Reading, Writing, Teaching, Listening by J.Q. Rose #BWLpublishing
Arranging a Dream: A Memoir by J.Q.Rose
Click here to find romantic suspense novels by J. Q. Rose from BWL Publishing
The title of my author blog is Focused on Story. I chose the title because I love stories!! Reading them. Writing them. Listening to them. Teaching how to write or record them.
JQ presenting a life storytelling workshop |
I broke into the writing business after we sold our flower shop and greenhouse operation in 1995. (uh-oh..that may be a spoiler if you're reading my memoir, Arranging a Dream!)
Pumpkins growing in our garden. |
I had written stories and poems all my life. My dream was to write those stories and share them with readers, hoping to enrich their lives with my words. After selling the shop in 1995 and being an empty nester, I had the time to make this dream come true.
I collected all of my courage to ask the regional newspaper editor, Rich Wheater if he would be interested in having some features on people and businesses in our local area. He asked me to submit an article, so I did. In October, I wrote about a local farm family who raised pumpkins and sold the plump beauties displayed in long lines in the front yard of their farmhouse. Rich accepted the story and many more that I penned about West Michigan.
I learned a lot about reporting for a newspaper and about writing crisp, to-the-point articles. I did not like it when Rich had to shorten the story to make way for advertisements! That's when I learned all the essentials, such as location, people or business names, time and dates for events, had to be at the beginning of the article. I always appreciated his editing the articles to improve their readability.
When we decided to make our fifth-wheel camper our home full-time in 1998, I wrote about the RV industry for magazines and newspapers as we meandered across the country. I also wrote for e-zines, now known as online magazines, as a garden editor. The internet became my go-to for research on my articles and for publication.
After a while, I tired of writing non-fiction stories and turned to penning fictional stories, a love of mine since I was in second grade. The result, so far, are three mystery novels and a memoir published by BWL Publishing, as well as self-published non-fiction books and lots of short stories. Making up stories reminds me of the joy of writing and sharing when I was 7 years old. Still a kid at heart.
I am a Life Storytelling Evangelist!
Several years ago, a member of our writers' critique group brought in her grandfather's journal he had written when he lived in London during the 1850s. I was enthralled with his account of life in that era. At that moment, I decided I wanted to record my life story for our kids and for their kids and so on.
5 Reasons to Tell Your Story |
Our lives are filled with extraordinarily ordinary
moments. Our souls are illuminated by
them. Sharing them around the hearths of
our hearts, we become tellers of sacred tales, artists of our lives.
--Dr. Susan Wittig Alberta, Writing from Life
Taking the advice I give to my workshop participants to sit down and write their stories, I combined my experience in non-fiction reporting and my storytelling skills in fiction, to write my memoir.
Arranging a Dream: A Memoir, the award-winning best-seller, published by BWL Publishing, is a feel-good story about the first year my husband and I purchased and operated a floral shop and greenhouse business in 1975-76. We had no experience in the floral business (or any business for that matter), no friends or family in the town. We gave up our two check income with no guarantee of success, and I had no idea how to design a flower arrangement!!
Reviewers described the memoir as "inspiring, fascinating, and heart-warming." The book was truly my "heart-work."
Listening to Stories
Do you remember listening to your teacher read a story to your class? Mrs. Beyer, my 8th grade, yes 8th-grade teacher, always read a story after lunch. Even at 13-14 years old, our class loved listening to her. I had to read the heart-wrenching ending to Charlotte's Web because Mrs. Beyer was so emotional, she couldn't continue. Have you read Charlotte's Web? You'll understand.
When I taught third grade, I made a point to read to my kids after lunch every day. Every year, I read Charlotte's Web, and we all shared a teary moment.
Audiobooks take the place of my beloved teacher reading the story. Instead, I can listen to amazing stories anytime I wish. I have discovered Libby, an app connected to your local library so you can download audiobooks on your device. I always wonder if I can say I "read" a book when I have actually listened to the audiobook. It makes no difference how I discover a story, just as long as I can read or listen to it.
****
Click here to connect online with JQ Rose through her author blog, Focused on Story.
****
Celebrate Earth Day on April 22, 2022
Earth Day April 22, 2022 Quote by Rachel Carson |
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
Ready? Set? How to Start a Book! by Vanessa C. Hawkins
I have so much going on this month I think my brain is going to spontaneously combust! Which, now that I think about it, may be for the better because it's been so cold here that a little inner fire may finally warm me up. Has anyone else been enduring the chill winter frost to the point that're holding out on the chance that they may randomly explode in a fiery inferno? Just me? Darn these Canadian winters!
HUR HUR... stiff... |
But during my foray into competitive writing, I was asked by a lovely individual-- who reached out to me curious about starting her first book--how to begin writing a story!
I'm so touched... |
What Would Picard Do? |
So I asked her first what she was writing. It helps to know what genre you're getting yourself into. Conjuring up stories on the John is all well and good, but if you're writing historical non-fiction, you may have to go number two at the library. Regardless, the best thing to do is to have some kind of outline at some point. I've talked about pantsers before, and how some people just write by the seat of their pants--
Ahem... Me. |
--but it IS good practice to at least write something down in terms of getting all your ducks in a row. I mean, compiling notes and character profiles and plot points is good, when you want to make sure everything is cohesive in the end. If Scarlet Fortune, the hard-boiled detective, is off to fight crime at the beginning of the book, it may be best to ensure she's not running off in Wonderland to find the white rabbit at the end.
I will spontaneous combust before I ever get to read Winds of Winter... |
So I suppose the best advice I can give about how to start a novel is to just start it. Write some stuff down, see how you feel about it. Write some more. Erase. Plan some--or not, if that's how you roll. Write more. Succub to your own self-doubt. Cry. Write a lot more. Be proud of what you've accomplished. Finish. Then gulp down a glass a wine of four to celebrate!
Shhh... I'm making art... |
So my advice is to just write. Whether you plot it first, have to do eons of research or compile photographs, the most important part of starting a book is making sure all 26 letters of the alphabet are levelled out on the page in some kind of pattern that is at least pleasing to you, the author. Worry about all the other stuff later.
Thursday, December 9, 2021
On Writing a Sequel by Vanessa C. Hawkins
Complete. Utter. Garbage! The sequel was C.U.G! |
We'll get George outta the way early this time... |
So what makes a good sequel? Well, looking at all the terrible content out there, I'd say it's important to stay true to the characters and themes at least. The original Indiana Jones' movies were pretty cool. They were also mostly stand alone adventures. Rocky I to V was good: a continuation but each with an individual plot point. As well as Terminator 2... which was just awesome.
#I'vebeenmarriedfor18yearsromancenovels |
Eh... not really. But the theme of the meme fit the context. |
I'm also trying to tie in some things from the first book. Reuse some old characters that may have been floating around the plot of book one. Facts and places barely used before, could be backdrops for more important things later on. The sequel is pretty much stand alone, I don't think you NEED to read book one to enjoy book two, but I mean, it's more fun if you do.
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