Priscilla Brown lacks discipline

For mechanic Billie, repairing cars is easier than perking up her love life,

until a chance encounter with an old friend

races her under-nourished hormones into overdrive.

Find details of this recently-released contemporary romance and my other novels at

http://www.bookswelove.net/authors-brown-priscilla-romance

and visit Priscilla Brown at your favourite e-book store

I like to participate in writing workshops and meeting other writers there; last month I attended a three-hour class designed for fiction writers at any stage of their careers. The presenter asked us to consider whether we spend time on reading and on researching which could be allocated to writing, and to evaluate whether our reading and researching habits are normal or addictive, whatever is normal may be normal in this context. The learning outcome was to develop a strategy to overcome reading addiction and/or over-researching a writing project.

We were given questions to decide how much time we spend reading material not connected with current writing, and how much time we take on research for this. My responses indicated that I spend too much time on both these, plus that I don't feel guilty as apparently I should.

Yes, I am addicted to reading for pleasure. Yes, I'm aware it does sometimes hinder my writing processes. Do I plan to reduce this amount of reading time? I'm not convinced I should do this; although I've always been a slow writer, this is the way I work. Do I over-research? Yes, I do. I love browsing in lending libraries for books to borrow, and in the State Library for reference books. I don't particularly enjoy researching on the internet, but this has become a necessary source of information (hopefully accurate). I've collected reams of hard copy notes, some of which had no bearing on the subject I was researching but are interesting anyway, several were marginally useful, and others definitely required. I still have these notebooks and associated printouts, photocopies, pamphlets, newspaper and magazine clippings long after the novel they were used for has been published. Perhaps if I didn't spend so much time reading, I'd find the inclination and hours to clear out this pile!

For Finding Billie, I needed to check several aspects. She's a mechanic; I'm ignorant about anything to do with cars except how to drive and how to re-fuel, but I didn't need to know anything specific about their innards. I did need to be sure that her workshop and shop area appeared authentic, and checked out repairers and service stations large and small. Zac is a professional photographer; being in the aim and click category myself, I investigated camera stores for details. Neither of these occupations involved research either in print or on the internet, being simply tasks that must be done physically on site. Other essential elements entailed various research sources, but the piece of research I truly enjoyed was generated by a handsome century-old two-storey building in perfect condition (currently used for a library and offices) which I discovered during a road trip in country New South Wales.

I had rough ideas for Billie's story, and suddenly I wanted a similar building to become a crucial plot point. It was constructed from limestone, something about which I knew nothing and so set about researching. This became the material most used for buildings in her fictitious historic country town; mainly on the internet, I learnt about its properties, quarrying, building construction and restoration. There's no limestone where I live: I revisited my original building, and located several other limestone areas and a quarry. All this took a long time, and was it over-research? Probably, and I had such good time doing it.

Back to the reading/researching addiction. I failed to develop a strategy to overcome this, and can't summon the discipline to attempt to do so. And in the end, does this matter? Writers are individuals with differing time availabilities, priorities and interests; as long as we get the job done to our and our publisher's  satisfaction, let us read and research as much as we want, not necessarily only as much as we need.


Enjoy your reading! Priscilla

http://bwlpublishing.com

https://priscillabrownauthor.com

Total Immersion Research

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?Query=Juliet+Waldron

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http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/waldron-juliet-historical-romance/

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Why write historical fiction? This is a question that, for me, goes back a way. The 1980’s, when I first started writing, was a low point for the genre. I remember querying ever so many agents and getting replies which said “only a small market for historical fiction.” That was discouraging enough, but not so much that I stopped working on those novels, driven by the writing demons as I was.   

Like everyone else who will reply to this question, I started young reading historical fiction, following the books my mother took out of the library. She was a voracious reader of both history and science fiction, and I became one as well. I began early, and remember writing a short story about the Princes in the Tower back in 8^th grade that got an “A.” (My story successfully creeped-out  the class, too, which was even better.)

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http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/waldron-juliet-historical-romance/

I could say that my love of history happened because I’ve often lived in old houses—several with disturbances of the kind that are often labelled “ghost.” I could talk about the love of my important elders for history, their familiarity with the past, and the way the past was always present in discussions about politics, or about how trips were taken to view gravestones, battlefields, Indian mounds, and museums. 

I could dwell on the lit professor grandpa that I adored. His study fairly breathed old books, tweed, leather, pipe smoke and things past. A large oil painting of the Canterbury Pilgrims overlooked his desk, a beautiful obsidian spear point that had emerged during the spring plowing at the family farm in upstate NY sat beside his typewriter. All of these objects had stories, and he shared them with his children and grandchildren. At home, that wonderful quote of William Faulkner’s “The Past is never gone. It’s not even past,” was a reality. 

The truth is that I’ve never felt truly comfortable with the noisy, gasoline era into which I was born. Cars were something to get around in, but not by me, as a class of objects, beloved. Every time a tree falls in the creation of a road or a new development, I feel a terrible sense of loss.

I’ve often spoken of what I write as a kind of time travel, because for me that’s what it is—a way to be present in another place and time, to smell and taste that world, to deal with the hardships and the inevitable dirt and sweat, the blood and the loss, that is the genuine past.  The “romance” died quite early for me because I read and read and read, ever deeper into my chosen subjects. 

Living inside another time and place, and/or inside another culture, is truly an immersive experience; I love the scuba sense of diving in and swimming around inside the deep waters of history. Originally, I wrote from my own European-American perspective, and my books were set in 18th Century Europe or England or the colonial US.  The time shift alone caused me to change my perspective. I sometimes get nasty reviews because the 18th Century characters about whom I write do not behave up to the highest standards of the 21st Century. I always want to reply to these folks that I don't write these stories to make them comfortable. I write to show them as much as I can of what I've learned about what was--the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth--to the best of my ability.

Maybe I'd be richer if I sugar-coated, but taking the trip into the past and taking my readers along with me is always far more important than whatever is currently P.C. If you want to read about the 18th Century people, expect to meet  men who have "patriarchy" firmly entrenched in their heads and women who have no other recourse than to accept or attempt to circumvent whatever their menfolk, their churches and their society dish

out. Englishwomen, as every reader of Jane Austen ought to know, could not inherit property until quite recently.

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In Genesee, and, later, to a far greater extent, in Fly Away Snow Goose, I had another experience. To write Snow Goose, I had to shed the Euro-based colonizer culture into which I was born so that I could inhabit (as far as I was able) a life-way with a totally different outlook. The Tlicho tribe in Fly Away Snow Goose were historically a nomadic, communal people, living in small groups that, for survival reasons, became even smaller in winter--who shared food with one another. They disapproved the kind of willful ignorance of their environment, the braggadocio and "me-first-ism" that is  rampant in the capital-driven European cultures which almost overwhelmed them. 

Instead of "conquerors of nature," the Tlicho strove to always to be in "right relationship" with the earth and her creatures, to eat and/or to make use of every piece of any animal they killed. They saw the spirits in the sky and in the earth and water all across the enormous terrain they traversed every year, as they followed the caribou migration. The land under their feet was holy. Everyone had to pull together, or the group would not survive the extreme winters where starvation was a very real threat. 

Telling this story, and the experience of immersion in the words and stories of my "subjects", has changed my outlook on the day-to-day world around me in a fundamental way.  This time, the research worked a sea-change. After studying the Tlicho, I've got on an entirely new pair of spectacles.  

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https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/752162

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fly-away-snow-goose-canadian-historical-brides-collection-book-8-juliet-waldron/1127581811?ean=2940158604010

~~Juliet Waldron
www.julietwaldron.com

Exercising You Literary Muscles Through Free Writing by Connie Vines

Free writing—Improvisation, or raw writing – is a good way to loosen up, to renew or maintain a writing practice.  One writes without a particular plan.  Free writing encourages a pouring out of ideas or ways of expressing them that one may not have produced before.

If one theme keeps surfacing, in free writing that theme can be developed further.  Of course, to improve the craft, writers need to read and study the craft of writing by enrolling in workshops, writers’ groups, and receive input from other writers.

This can also be practiced in your plotting group, or critique group.  When I was a new writer I attending monthly workshops and met weekly with a critique group at a local coffee shop.  Often, we practice free writing and would look over each other’s work and give feedback.  I can’t say that these sessions resulted in finished pieces.  I did begin a short story that was later published and I began a number of projects that I was able to incorporate in later novels.

I still have several folders with my free writing papers.  When I pull out my folders and begin reading, more than a few surprised me with word play, sharp descriptions, or a twist and edge to some ideas. 

These are my rules for free writing:

Write whatever comes to mind without censoring, and keep the pen moving (pens let you write more quickly than pencils). One may use a keyboard; however, studies show that the pen to paper stimulates creatively in a different manner—which is true for me.

If prompts help, many books offer them, although I’ve found that when given too many choices I cannot settle on any. 

Often my free writing seems bland.  Then I remind myself that I had to get those works down in order to think and write my way to something more promising.

How to Improv Your Short Story

• Start with a black paper/ screen and start writing the first story idea you get, and then keep going. Don’t edit in your head; don’t block your creativity. Where will your story go if you let it develop naturally? Will you have a badminton racket in your story? A flying cat?  Or are you clinging to a run-away horse?

• “The key to great story, as with great improv, is to take the ideas that are there and build upon them rather than thinking the ideas won’t work.

• If you prefer to plot your story before you write, use the same approach to your plot outline. Allow your creativity to flourish and see where your story leads you. (Notice I said where your story leads you, not where you lead your story.)

Have fun!  Enjoy the ride.  This is how I work out my Fantasy novellas. 

“Here Today, Zombie Tomorrow” Sassy & Fun Fantasy

Chapter One

“You and Elvis have done a great job on this home,” Meredith said as her older sister led the way down stairs toward the kitchen where the tour began. “Sorry I couldn’t get over until now, but…well, I’ve been sort of. . .well, busy.” Slipping her Juicy Couture tortoise-shell framed sunglasses into a bright pink case, Meredith crammed them into her black Coach handbag.  She hoped her sister didn’t ask her to define busy.  Becoming a zombie, and dealing with the entire raised-from-the-dead issue over the past six months, was not a topic easily plunked into a casual conversation.

I hope you have enjoyed my blog post and the snippet from my novella :-).

Happy Reading & Writing,

Connie


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