Tips for writing consistently – by Rita Karnopp

Tips for writing consistently – by Rita Karnopp

You’ll never finish a book until you set a deadline.  Once you do that – choose things that will keep you on-track to reach that goal.

 

How can you do that?  Once you’ve set your book deadline – you need to make a couple of important decisions. 

Pick a special place where you are comfortable writing.  A place where other people or distractions are not going to disturb you.  Could be your office – or the upstairs window seat, or even your bedroom.  Make sure you have privacy and those around you respect that.

If you don’t have privacy – have you considered a coffee shop or even a library.  I love writing when my husband and I are camping.  I find a shade tree with an incredible view, a lawn chair and then it’s time for my characters to talk to me.

Make your ‘writing place’ somewhere you can go consistently – and soon the minute you’re in those surroundings – your brain will automatically shift to a writing state-of-mind.

It’s important to set a time-period to write.  i.e. 30 minutes a day / an hour a day/ 3 hours every Saturday and Sunday evenings, etc.  Many writers suggest it should be at least 90 minutes because it can take some time to get yourself into the mood. Many writers say they never write for more than four hours at a stretch.  I let my mood and the characters decide when it’s time to take a break.  I’ve been known to write at stretches of 7 or more hours.  Sometimes only 1-2 hours.  It depends on how it flows. 

Consistency is key to setting a book deadline date.  Figure out what time works best for you to write – and stick to it.  I write best from 8:00pm to 4:00am – yep – and it seems the later it gets (or in reality - the earlier it gets … 1:00am - 4:00am) the more alive my characters become.  I get lost in their story. 

Some writers never write at a certain time – they hold themselves to writing x number of pages each day.  This never works for me, but I know many writers who find this commitment gets their book finished by the deadline date.

For me – demanding a certain number of pages would shift my focus to the number of pages – creating anxiety and frustration.  I would lose my mood and lose concentration on what’s important – my character’s story.

Now is not the time to ask, “Can I write a book?”  Just write.  Let the characters take over and tell you what they want to say, do, react, decide, etc...  It may sound left-of-center – but my characters have created some of the most unpredictable situations – I would never have thought of them myself.

I never stop and read a chapter after I finish it – deciding if it’s good enough or what I wanted it to day.  I re-read my last page from the night before – get back in ‘the mood’ and go from there … staying in that creative state-of-mind.

Be confident in your ability to write your story.  Remember – ideas will come to you as the story progresses.  One day you’ll be blasted with ideas … write them down as they come to you.  Other days things might slow up – you have all those wonderful ideas you jotted down to fall back on.

If I’m struggling and forcing things – I stop.  Yep.  I stop writing.  That night when I go to bed I bring my characters to life in my mind.  I go to sleep running my characters thru scenarios … and literally fall asleep.  The next night when I sit down to write – those sub-conscious ideas spill onto the page – and my characters once again come to life.

Remember, you want to be a writer because you love writing. You love bringing your characters to life from page one to page 451.  Don't take the fun out of it with self-doubts and pressures.

Don’t write in a genre you don’t like – it will show in your story.   Embrace what excites you.  Be enthusiastic and determined to reach ‘the end.’  

Write what you love – and love what you write.  Stick to that rule and your readers will love your stories and you.

 

Criminal expressions - part 1 by J. S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo BWL Author Page

I'm fascinated by expressions & idioms. They are colorful and interesting, and they often stump me as many of them cannot be translated word for word in my first language.

I write romantic suspense, so there's always a crime being committed in my stories...and a dead body or two hidden somewhere. I often use expressions and it got me curious to know where they come from. So, here are some of them:

- To cover one's tracks (1898): to conceal or destroy evidence of a shameful or nefarious act. The expression stems from "hiding one's footprints".

- To get caught red-handed (1432): to get caught in the act. It comes from Scotland, and it's an allusion to having blood, which is red, on one's hand after the execution of a murder or a poaching session.

-  To keep one's nose clean (late 19th century): to stay out of trouble, to avoid doing anything shady. It originates from "to keep one's hands clean", an expression widely used in England in the 18th century which meant to avoid corruption. When it crossed the Atlantic, the "nose" replaced the "hand".

- A red herring (18th century): something designed to distract or throw someone off a trail. A herring is a fish that is often smoked, a process that turns it red and gives it a strong smell. Because of their pungent aroma, smoked herrings were used to teach hunting hounds how to follow a trail, and they would be drawn across the path of a trail as a distraction that the dog must overcome.

- A whistleblower (19th century): a person who exposes someone involved in an illicit activity. The term attached itself to law enforcement officials because they used whistles to alert the public.

- The long arm of the law (1908): the far-reaching power of the authorities. It began in 16th century as "Kings have long arms".

- A wild goose chase (1592): a futile search, a useless and often lengthy task. The original meaning is related to horse racing, as a 'wild goose chase' was a race in which horses followed a lead horse at a set distance, mimicking wild geese flying in formation.

- A skeleton in the closet (early 1800s): a dark or embarrassing secret that is best kept unrevealed. It stems from the dissected corpses that British doctors kept hidden for research purposes.

- The third degree (19th century): intense interrogation. In Masonic lodges there are three degrees of membership, and in the third degree, the member undergoes vigorous questioning.

- A cat burglar (1907): a burglar adept at entering and leaving the burglarized place without attracting notice. First used by a reporter to describe a burglar who operated in London.

- A stool pigeon (19th century): a person acting as a decoy or informer. It stems from the use of a decoy bird (often a pigeon) to lure birds of prey into a net.

Now I need to stop googling and go back to writing a special children's book for my granddaughter.

Happy reading!

JS

 J. S. Marlo's Website

Tombstones Tell A Story by Eileen O'Finlan

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Click here to visit Eileen O'Finlan's website

My mom will be 93 in October. Feeling her abilities diminishing, she decided she wanted one last trip to her hometown of Bennington, Vermont. So in August we made the three hour drive north for a long weekend. There were several places Mom especially wanted to visit – places that had meaning to her from her youth – the town library, her old high school, the clock in the town center, the former Hotel Putnam that, among other things, once housed her uncle’s pharmacy, and the Old First Church. She also wanted to visit the graves of her parents, brothers, and other relatives.

I’ve always had a fascination for cemeteries so the burying grounds are of particular interest to me. Depending on their age and condition, they may be creepy, haunting, peaceful, or beautiful. In any case, they draw me in. The tombstones themselves are a special source of beguilement. I love studying about the correlation between the change in tombstone engravings and the layout of cemeteries and the changes in societal views of death and the afterlife between the 17^th and 19^th centuries. These are most fully on display when a cemetery spans centuries as does the one at the Old First Church.

There is much more to read in a tombstone than just the inscription. The shape, size, and substance of the stone and the images engraved on them give powerful hints as to their age and the outlook of those buried beneath them.

In our Bennington travels we visited two final resting places. One was the burying ground owned by and adjacent to the Old First Church. The Church’s congregation was first organized in 1762 and the current church was built in 1805. Its extensive burial grounds are the interment site of soldiers from the American Revolutionary War, both American and British, as well as Bennington’s earliest mayors, Vermont’s early governors, and other prominent citizens.

In one section, the four sides of a stone pillar tell the stories of the burying ground’s Revolutionary era inhabitants.

One side of pillar honoring Revolutionary soldiers buried here

American Soldiers believed buried in Old First Church burying grounds

Hessian (Brunswick) Soldiers believed buried in Old First Church Burying Ground

David Redding - Executed Loyalist

Details regarding Redding's Execution

It is also the final resting place of the great poet, Robert Frost and many of his family members. Fittingly, an elegant birch tree stands watch by his grave. Visitors are invited to reflect on our attitudes about death through the medium his poem, “In A Disused Graveyard”.

Grave site of Robert Frost and Family Members

Mom and my cousin, Patty, reflect near the birch tree at Robert Frost's Grave

Frost's Poem "In A Disused Graveyard"

Closer to our own time period, was our stop at Park Lawn Cemetery where my grandparents, uncles, and other relatives are buried. Compared with older tombstones, I find the more modern ones a bit boring – no disrespect to the dead intended. It’s just that most contain a name, dates of birth and death, and not much else. Unless one expends an enormous amount of money, it’s likely the only viable option, so I quite understand. It’s just that it feels cold and uninteresting to me. However, I did see one grave marker in this cemetery that told a compelling story. It is pictured below.

Grave Marker of William Halford Maguire

The inscription reads:

William Halford Maguire

1911 – 1945

Lt. Col. U.S. Army

West Point ‘32

Chief of Staff, Davao, Mindanao, P.I. when Japan attacked, 1941

Japanese prisoner of War 2 ½ years.

Survivor of three shipwrecks

Subjected to extreme brutality of Japanese captors.

Died Feb. 9, 1945 in Tokyo, Japan, weighing less than 59 pounds

Among awards: Silver Star and Legion of Merit

1933 – Married Ruth Felder, San Antonio, TX.

Children: Mollie Maguire Qvale

William Halford Maguire, Jr.

Imagine all the inspiration for a story to be gleaned from this one grave marker!

As it happens, I am able to add a bit to this story as the above marks the grave of my mother’s cousin. Hal, as she knew him, was captured and forced to walk the torturous Bataan Death March. The fact that he had dwindled to 59 pounds is astonishing in any case, but even more so when one learns that he was well over six feet tall.

Mom remembers Hal as a good-natured fellow whose company she enjoyed. Beyond the grave marker and the little my mom has been able to add, I know nothing about Hal or his life and death. Though it would have to be highly fictionalized, his story is certainly one worth telling.

As writers, we never know when inspiration will strike. Often it comes from the most unexpected places. But if you let the tombstones talk to you, you may come away with the bones of great story. All the better, perhaps, if the story is that of a person who resides in your heart and memory or that of a loved one.