Writing About What You Know by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

       

       I took many writing courses and bought just about every book I could find on writing when I was an aspiring writer. In the classes and in most books I was told to write about what I knew. I had to experience life before I could write about it. I also found out that to compensate for lack of knowledge many writers do months of research to get an understanding of the subject they want to write about. They learn what a lawyer would say in court or what a pilot would do in a certain situation.

       But it is the hard emotion that goes with any experience that is hard to duplicate. We have all been scared, but how many of us have felt a deep-seated fear that is immobilizing? We have all felt sadness, but how many of us have had our sadness lead to depression and suicidal thoughts? Experiencing the emotions make it almost effortless to write about them in an authoritative voice.
       Plus, living a certain lifestyle makes it easier to describe that way of life. Many writers do dredge up life’s trauma to make their writing more believable. And many authors have turned their unusual upbringing into bestselling fiction and non-fiction. Take for example, the non-fiction bestseller Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. To make up a childhood like Frank’s would be tough for someone who has not lived it.
       When I was doing my assignments for class I tried to write about what I knew but it was hard to make something exciting out of something so boringly normal. So I wrote the following poem.

 

What I Know

 

My parents never divorced, they
seldom even fought. I was not
abused, not emotionally,
physically, mentally.
I was never raped.
I was not kicked
out of the
house.
I
did not
live on the
streets. I do not
smoke. I don’t do drugs.
I’ve never had a merciless,
pounding hangover. I have not
been in an accident. I have not had a
serious, debilitating, life-threatening illness.
                    I am no minority.
                    I am not disabled.
                    I have no physical
                    deformity. I have
                    not been a victim
                    of a crime, nor am
                    I a shady criminal.
     I have not been discriminated against.
              I am not a lesbian. I am not gay.
                      I am not too skinny nor am
                           I overweight. I have not
                               loved and lost; I have
                                  not lost a loved one
                                        I am not too tall
                                               or too short.
                                                                 I
                                                    certainly
                                               do not stand
                                           out in a crowd.
                                         I have not, at all
                                  been very noticeable
                  With such an ordinary, tedious
           mundane, uneventful life, how will
I ever be able to write about what I know?


       My first published article was about an injured hawk my son and I had found alongside the highway and how we looked after it for a few days until it was able to fly away. Then I tried historical and travel articles. I progressed into travel books, writing seven about what there is to see and do along the roads of British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon, and Alaska.
       I have loved reading mysteries since I was a child so I decided to try my hand at a mystery novel. Since I knew about travel writing, I made my main character a travel writer. She gets drawn into solving murders while researching places for her travel articles.
       So my experiences have made it possible for me to write about what I know.

 

http://thetravellingdetectiveseries.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/writingsbyjoan

 

Books of The Travelling Detective Series boxed set:
Illegally Dead
The Only Shadow In The House
Whistler's Murder

http://amzn.com/B00KF07FQM


Gold Fever

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PEOSJR8

DRAMA IS ALL AROUND YOU BY RITA KARNOPP

Have you ever noticed there is drama all around you?  Pay attention!  There are always people who wear their problems on their sleeves – as the old cliché goes!  But that’s great for us . . . listen to their passions, their dramas, their dilemmas, their successes and failures, and even their sorrows.  You can even pick up drama in newspapers, magazines, and the news.  It’s all around us . . . start jotting down notes of inspiration.

You might see an interview on TV – the guy is a sole survivor in a war-torn country.   Don’t you really want to know how he survived when no one else did?  How about a mother who takes her life . . . and that of her daughter – why?  Aren’t your story-telling feelers asking you ‘what would make her do that?  If you see a guy that is trying to survive in the desert, no modern help-just him and the elements – don’t you wonder what on earth brought him to make that decision?

You hear about a priest who leaves his devotion and suddenly marries.  Wow – doesn’t that spark your creative spirit and make you wonder why?  What would bring him to this decision?  How difficult was it?  What does his family and friends think about this?  How does this affect his life now?  Does he regret it? 

There are the numerous, horrendous killings and sad disappearances in real life . . . that could spawn hundreds of books. 

So why don’t we write about them?  Well . . . we do!  There's drama all around us and if you’re one of those smart authors – you’re finding material for your stories every time you listen to the world around you or you open your eyes – drama unfolds at every turn. 

What sets one writer out from another is their passion to write the story.  They take the ardent fervor for life and fill in the blanks that take the reader on a journey.  Sometimes it’s uplifting and other times it’s nitty-gritty and even devastating.

The drama all around us results in the birth of innumerable ideas that becomes the basis – the drama – for yet another wonderful read.  Key here is to tell your story with passion.  Your reader will believe every word as though they heard it on the news or read it in a paper or online. 

 Rita Karnopp
Author ~ Romancing the West

ritakarnopp@bresnan.net

http://ritakarnopp.com

http://mizging.blogspot.com

Waiting for Downton Abbey by Karla Stover

Waiting for Downton Abbey, by Karla Stover

     We are eight weeks away from the next season of Downton Abbey and many viewers are hoping the eldest daughter, widow and born-to-the-manor, Lady Mary will find romance with her widower brother-in-law, Tom, the Irish Republican and the family’s former chauffeur. Tom has settled in above-the-stairs fairly well, and is accepted by most people, but in real life that was not always the case. Take Margaret Powell’s autobiography, Servants’ Hall, for example. Ms Powell worked for the Wardham family at their Redlands estate. In the book, she recounts her life as the family cook, along with the marriage of parlor maid, Rose to the son-of-the-house, Gerald. The fact that Rose insisted on maintaining her friendships with the staff after her marriage didn’t bode well.

     I’m a sucker for well-written memoirs. When I want to binge on a particular type of book, such as life-below-the-stairs, I go to Alibris and plug in the title of a book, such as Servants’ Hall. When the book comes up, there is a spot on the right side labeled,” More Books Like This.” Thus, I read Rosina Harrison’s book, Rose: My Life in Service, which led me to her biography of the Astor’s butler, Edwin Lee and that led me to Eric Horne’s What the Butler Winked At. Though pretty tame by contemporary, tell-all standards, Mr. Horne’s book was a sensation when it came out, as those above the stairs panicked for fear of what they might read about themselves.

     When Call the Midwife, a series based on Jennifer Worth’s books, started showing on PBS, I found her other books on Alibris and read them all. That’s not to say, “More Books” doesn’t sometimes go off on a bit of a tangent. It also recommended Belle de Jour: Life of an Unlikely Call Girl. Maybe the anonymous who wrote it needed a midwife.

     And now I seem to be off on my own tangent. Here I sit, reading Mollie Moran’s, Minding the Manor while I wait for Downton Abbey to start. I sit knowing full well Lady Grantham will soon be simpering over Lady Mary; Lady Mary will be swanning around, and poor Lady Edith will still be looking for a man.

                                                                 Author of A Line to Murder