Get into the Habit
A good part of writing deals with habits. I recall "back in the day" when I worked for a newspaper and the news room was full of people who smoked. That was when people smoked everywhere, including the workplace, and if your co-worker didn't smoke and hated the stench, tough! Smoking was a writer's habit. You couldn't get cooking without lighting a cigarette, taking a drag, and then getting down to work. It was a habit. A bad one, but a productive one when it came to getting your work done!
Flash to today when smoking is not allowed in the workplace, but habits still persist. When I first started working full-time from home, I got down to business generally around 11 a.m., right when "The Young and the Restless" began on my trusty background noise TV. I usually stopped writing when the news came on, right after the Oprah show. I discovered that it became very difficult for me to write on weekends because the theme music to Y&R was not to be heard. That music made me want to write! Consequently, when the news came on, I wanted to quit writing, no matter if I had hit my daily quota of finished pages or not!
Ah, yes. Quotas. Another good habit. I set a daily quota of pages. When I reach the magic number (mine is 10) then I can quit for the day. If I hit that number at 2 p.m. I'm done. If I don't hit that number until 8 p.m., then it is a long, frustrating writing day, but I don't quit until I have written 10 pages. It's habit and that habit makes me produce writing every day.
Do you have habits? Of course, you do! What are your good ones that help you as a writer? Won't you share?
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Favorite Words
What are you three favorite (hardly used) words?
If you love to read or write, then you love words. Words can be fun, serious, painful, passionate, you name it! Most of us use only a smattering of the words we actually know. Everyone knows words that are loved but rarely used.
Today . . . and I say today because the list changes frequently -- my three favorite words that I hardly ever use are:
1. Indubitably (I like it because it is fun to pronounce)
2, Campy (It is too close to my name to use very often)
3. Ulula (Many years ago, I collected items that had owl motifs on them)
So what are your favorite three words that you hardly ever remember to put in a sentence? Post them here and let's keep it clean, folks.
If you love to read or write, then you love words. Words can be fun, serious, painful, passionate, you name it! Most of us use only a smattering of the words we actually know. Everyone knows words that are loved but rarely used.
Today . . . and I say today because the list changes frequently -- my three favorite words that I hardly ever use are:
1. Indubitably (I like it because it is fun to pronounce)
2, Campy (It is too close to my name to use very often)
3. Ulula (Many years ago, I collected items that had owl motifs on them)
So what are your favorite three words that you hardly ever remember to put in a sentence? Post them here and let's keep it clean, folks.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Fire in the Belly
In the Beginning . . .
When I first started writing novels with the intent of getting published (I wrote a few experimental stories when I was a pre-teen and teenager), I was obsessed. That's a good thing. Before you are published, you should be living, breathing, and dreaming about writing and getting published. I would work a full day at my "real" job as a newspaper reporter and then go home and sit at my dining room table and write until one or two in the morning. I stopped for dinner and bathroom breaks. That's it. Weekends were all about writing.
By doing this, I was able to complete several romance novels and they were all eventually published. True, I had no social life, but I had a plan. The plan was to be able to quit my journalism job and become a full-time novelist. I accomplished this eight years after graduating from college.
I actually wrote a novel in seven days. It was published. No, I won't tell you which one!
Today? Well, I couldn't write a novel in a week anymore, but I still have a fire in my belly and stories swimming in my head. I write 10 pages a day on top of my freelance writing work and my work with a local dog/cat rescue organization.
Sometimes novice writers who have received a number of rejection slips ask me, "Do you think I should just quit writing?"
I tell them, "If you are seriously asking me that question, then yes, you should quit because a writer who must write would never ask that of anyone."
Write well. Write often. Keep the fire burning.
When I first started writing novels with the intent of getting published (I wrote a few experimental stories when I was a pre-teen and teenager), I was obsessed. That's a good thing. Before you are published, you should be living, breathing, and dreaming about writing and getting published. I would work a full day at my "real" job as a newspaper reporter and then go home and sit at my dining room table and write until one or two in the morning. I stopped for dinner and bathroom breaks. That's it. Weekends were all about writing.
By doing this, I was able to complete several romance novels and they were all eventually published. True, I had no social life, but I had a plan. The plan was to be able to quit my journalism job and become a full-time novelist. I accomplished this eight years after graduating from college.
I actually wrote a novel in seven days. It was published. No, I won't tell you which one!
Today? Well, I couldn't write a novel in a week anymore, but I still have a fire in my belly and stories swimming in my head. I write 10 pages a day on top of my freelance writing work and my work with a local dog/cat rescue organization.
Sometimes novice writers who have received a number of rejection slips ask me, "Do you think I should just quit writing?"
I tell them, "If you are seriously asking me that question, then yes, you should quit because a writer who must write would never ask that of anyone."
Write well. Write often. Keep the fire burning.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Halloween Happiness
Nothing Like a Good Shiver!
It's coming! Halloween. My favorite holiday that features my favorite color -- orange! I have lovely memories of trick-or-treating as a child. Back in those more innocent (or maybe less informed?) days, packs of kids roamed the neighborhoods -- adult free! I even recall going inside a stranger's house where we plunged our hands into bowls of candy and heard a spooky story from the home owner about a guy being swallowed by a whale. Then she handed out tiny Bibles. That would NOT happen today. Parents would have to have their heads examined to allow their tots to trot into a stranger's home for some story telling.
I vividly recall running behind some kids and watching in amazement as they each fell backward onto the dewy grass as if ghost had knocked them silly. Much moaning and groaning emitted from them. I moved forward cautiously, waiting for the force field or powerful ghoul to whollop me. Then the moonlight stole across black panes of wire -- a fence! Practically invisible in the dark night. One of the fence's victims had red squares on the left side of his face the next day.
While the spookiness is upon us, try your hand at writing something that scares the pants off you. You never know if you have a knack or natural talent for something until you give it a whirl. Just start off writing spooky stuff during the day. Writing scary scenes at night takes nerves of steel.
It's coming! Halloween. My favorite holiday that features my favorite color -- orange! I have lovely memories of trick-or-treating as a child. Back in those more innocent (or maybe less informed?) days, packs of kids roamed the neighborhoods -- adult free! I even recall going inside a stranger's house where we plunged our hands into bowls of candy and heard a spooky story from the home owner about a guy being swallowed by a whale. Then she handed out tiny Bibles. That would NOT happen today. Parents would have to have their heads examined to allow their tots to trot into a stranger's home for some story telling.
I vividly recall running behind some kids and watching in amazement as they each fell backward onto the dewy grass as if ghost had knocked them silly. Much moaning and groaning emitted from them. I moved forward cautiously, waiting for the force field or powerful ghoul to whollop me. Then the moonlight stole across black panes of wire -- a fence! Practically invisible in the dark night. One of the fence's victims had red squares on the left side of his face the next day.
While the spookiness is upon us, try your hand at writing something that scares the pants off you. You never know if you have a knack or natural talent for something until you give it a whirl. Just start off writing spooky stuff during the day. Writing scary scenes at night takes nerves of steel.
Friday, October 12, 2012
October -- Falling in Love
Heroes of Distinction
What is your kind of hero? What kind of man makes you weak in the knees and tugs at your heart? I have always had a soft spot for the misunderstood hero. Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. In real life, it's the same. My first big crush was on a "bad boy" who was nice to me. I saw the kind side of him and fell madly in love.
Most (all?) of the leading men in my novels are misunderstood. The heroines get a glimpse of their soft hearts and begin to fall in love, even while warned by others to steer clear of the troublemakers. I don't like bragging, swaggering heroes. I like the quiet, confident type. A sense of mischief doesn't hurt either.
Men that rage and throw things and make idle threats also turn me off. I like a hero who can rein in his temper and only resorts to violence to protect others.
Creating the perfect hero to bring out the best in a well-crafted heroine is no easy task, but it is infinitely enjoyable. Usually I get it just right and on occasion I know I missed the mark by a smidgen. I hate when that happens. When I get reviews from readers that are polite and use words such as "nice" and "good read" I know that I could have done better. Only when reviewers and readers tell me that they fell in love with the hero and wanted desperately for him to win the heart of the heroine do I know that I got it right. Thankfully, that happens most of the time. It's a great feeling.
Almost as good as falling in love for real.
By the way, you can discover my heroes by going to Amazon. All my novels are available for Kindle readers there or you can buy them as paperbacks.
Let's keep in touch!
What is your kind of hero? What kind of man makes you weak in the knees and tugs at your heart? I have always had a soft spot for the misunderstood hero. Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. In real life, it's the same. My first big crush was on a "bad boy" who was nice to me. I saw the kind side of him and fell madly in love.
Most (all?) of the leading men in my novels are misunderstood. The heroines get a glimpse of their soft hearts and begin to fall in love, even while warned by others to steer clear of the troublemakers. I don't like bragging, swaggering heroes. I like the quiet, confident type. A sense of mischief doesn't hurt either.
Men that rage and throw things and make idle threats also turn me off. I like a hero who can rein in his temper and only resorts to violence to protect others.
Creating the perfect hero to bring out the best in a well-crafted heroine is no easy task, but it is infinitely enjoyable. Usually I get it just right and on occasion I know I missed the mark by a smidgen. I hate when that happens. When I get reviews from readers that are polite and use words such as "nice" and "good read" I know that I could have done better. Only when reviewers and readers tell me that they fell in love with the hero and wanted desperately for him to win the heart of the heroine do I know that I got it right. Thankfully, that happens most of the time. It's a great feeling.
Almost as good as falling in love for real.
By the way, you can discover my heroes by going to Amazon. All my novels are available for Kindle readers there or you can buy them as paperbacks.
Let's keep in touch!
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
September -- Words of Glory
The Death of Composition
I hesitate to write this because it makes me sound like a grouchy, old lady, which I am becoming, but I fear that texting is killing the beauty of words.
I don't text -- or, rather, it is a rare practice for me. I have probably texted someone three or four times. That's it, and it felt awkward because I knew I was supposed to chop up words like they were in a blender and spew them into the message like pureed thoughts that might sound cool to people who can't spell anyway. However, I could not follow the rules. I spelled out everything and made complete sentences with punctuation. I couldn't even bring myself to type "thx" at the end. I wrote, "thanks." Such a word nerd.
Yes, like an old guard, I feel it's my honor to fight to save the English language and the beauty and power of words. Not chopped up, misspelled, ill-used words. No. Whole, healthy, vibrant sentences that build upon each other to create beefy, wondrous paragraphs. Capital letters where they should be and periods to end sentences. Plain and plane, bear and bare, wait and weight, effect and affect where they should be and apostrophes and commas galore. If you are a writer or a reader, how can you possibly text? How can you insert numbers for letters without wanting to flog yourself? If we don't stand up for the marvel of whole words, who will? Surely, not the teams of texters happily churning out abbreviations that resemble less and less their true Latin roots. Rng me b4 u go. How could this be considered communication?
My feeble hope is that writers and readers will hold strong and refuse to destroy their treasured baubles. They will stand back and allow the poor spellers and hate-to-readers text until their numbers grow fewer as the lovers of words stagger back to the fold, beaten into submission by their own shame and desperate for the sweet nectar of a striking sentence or breath-defying phrase.
There is nothing wrong with texting. It is communication. What is wrong is allowing it to be okay to not know the difference between fore and four, bough and bow, and peek and peak. Our language is astounding and as rich as a ten egg custard. We should never willingly and wantonly water it down to frothy broth that can sustain nothing, not even a one-word message. Thx. God help us.
Stretch yourself this September and pen a description of your favorite autumn day.
I hesitate to write this because it makes me sound like a grouchy, old lady, which I am becoming, but I fear that texting is killing the beauty of words.
I don't text -- or, rather, it is a rare practice for me. I have probably texted someone three or four times. That's it, and it felt awkward because I knew I was supposed to chop up words like they were in a blender and spew them into the message like pureed thoughts that might sound cool to people who can't spell anyway. However, I could not follow the rules. I spelled out everything and made complete sentences with punctuation. I couldn't even bring myself to type "thx" at the end. I wrote, "thanks." Such a word nerd.
Yes, like an old guard, I feel it's my honor to fight to save the English language and the beauty and power of words. Not chopped up, misspelled, ill-used words. No. Whole, healthy, vibrant sentences that build upon each other to create beefy, wondrous paragraphs. Capital letters where they should be and periods to end sentences. Plain and plane, bear and bare, wait and weight, effect and affect where they should be and apostrophes and commas galore. If you are a writer or a reader, how can you possibly text? How can you insert numbers for letters without wanting to flog yourself? If we don't stand up for the marvel of whole words, who will? Surely, not the teams of texters happily churning out abbreviations that resemble less and less their true Latin roots. Rng me b4 u go. How could this be considered communication?
My feeble hope is that writers and readers will hold strong and refuse to destroy their treasured baubles. They will stand back and allow the poor spellers and hate-to-readers text until their numbers grow fewer as the lovers of words stagger back to the fold, beaten into submission by their own shame and desperate for the sweet nectar of a striking sentence or breath-defying phrase.
There is nothing wrong with texting. It is communication. What is wrong is allowing it to be okay to not know the difference between fore and four, bough and bow, and peek and peak. Our language is astounding and as rich as a ten egg custard. We should never willingly and wantonly water it down to frothy broth that can sustain nothing, not even a one-word message. Thx. God help us.
Stretch yourself this September and pen a description of your favorite autumn day.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
August -- Hot and Cold Editors
Editors -- Pain or Gain?
I have had some absolutely fabulous editors and I believe that all writers need a good editor. So what is a good editor? From my experience, good editors catch more than typos and grammar mistakes -- although those jobs are a big part of their contribution. Good editors bring focus to blurry passages, fix glitches in time and space, and let you know when your characters are inconsistent, weak, or irritating.
Now, these things are not easy to hear. I recently asked my best friend, who happens to be a fantastic writer, proof a partial for me. I told her to mark any places that she felt were weak and needed shoring up. I could tell when she called me back after a couple of days that she was dreading the phone call. I knew she didn't want to hurt my feelings. She started off by saying that it had been a long time since she had read an historical romance and she was probably all wrong about how they should be constructed. I told her to just give it to me. I could take it.
This great friend of mine saved my bacon. She pointed out what is a common error among writers -- thinking you had made something clear when you hadn't. When you write a novel, you carry a lot of things in your head. Almost the whole book is rattling around in your brain. All that research, all those character flaws, all those juicy snippets of dialogue you want to include in certain scenes -- all that is crammed into your head. So, it's easy to think you have told your readers something when, in fact, you have not. I had skimmed over important information that needed to be presented clearly so that the reader would understand the initial premise and the heroine's dilemma.
After a couple of rewrites, it was vastly improved and the partial is now with an acquiring editor for consideration. I don't think it would have had a chance in hell without my editor/friend's help.
On the flip side, some editors can do more harm than good. Editors who are frustrated writers and bitter that their works have not been published while yours have or will be can try to make you write the story they want to write. Or editors of publishing houses that have strict ideas of what will sell best can try to make every writer fit a small, confining mold. One of the worst times in my writing career was when a young editor at a big publishing house wanted me to put a baby and a cowboy in every romance I submitted -- even if my plot had nothing to do with babies and cowboys.
And yet . . . I would rather wrestle with an editor than do without one. Editors have made me a good writer. Editors have made me a multi-published writer. Without them, I would be a self-published novelist, telling myself that I don't need no lousy editor (and knowing, full well, that I really, really do!).
Write well. Write daily. Sweat blood.
I have had some absolutely fabulous editors and I believe that all writers need a good editor. So what is a good editor? From my experience, good editors catch more than typos and grammar mistakes -- although those jobs are a big part of their contribution. Good editors bring focus to blurry passages, fix glitches in time and space, and let you know when your characters are inconsistent, weak, or irritating.
Now, these things are not easy to hear. I recently asked my best friend, who happens to be a fantastic writer, proof a partial for me. I told her to mark any places that she felt were weak and needed shoring up. I could tell when she called me back after a couple of days that she was dreading the phone call. I knew she didn't want to hurt my feelings. She started off by saying that it had been a long time since she had read an historical romance and she was probably all wrong about how they should be constructed. I told her to just give it to me. I could take it.
This great friend of mine saved my bacon. She pointed out what is a common error among writers -- thinking you had made something clear when you hadn't. When you write a novel, you carry a lot of things in your head. Almost the whole book is rattling around in your brain. All that research, all those character flaws, all those juicy snippets of dialogue you want to include in certain scenes -- all that is crammed into your head. So, it's easy to think you have told your readers something when, in fact, you have not. I had skimmed over important information that needed to be presented clearly so that the reader would understand the initial premise and the heroine's dilemma.
After a couple of rewrites, it was vastly improved and the partial is now with an acquiring editor for consideration. I don't think it would have had a chance in hell without my editor/friend's help.
On the flip side, some editors can do more harm than good. Editors who are frustrated writers and bitter that their works have not been published while yours have or will be can try to make you write the story they want to write. Or editors of publishing houses that have strict ideas of what will sell best can try to make every writer fit a small, confining mold. One of the worst times in my writing career was when a young editor at a big publishing house wanted me to put a baby and a cowboy in every romance I submitted -- even if my plot had nothing to do with babies and cowboys.
And yet . . . I would rather wrestle with an editor than do without one. Editors have made me a good writer. Editors have made me a multi-published writer. Without them, I would be a self-published novelist, telling myself that I don't need no lousy editor (and knowing, full well, that I really, really do!).
Write well. Write daily. Sweat blood.
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