Life Is What Happens....

Life Is What Happens…. by Lynn Lovegreen

“Life is what happens while you’re planning something else.” It’s not clear who said this first, maybe John Lennon? But I agree with it, anyway. Whether you’re a plumber or counselor or homemaker, any role in life, you’ve experienced this at one time or another. It happens to writers, too.

It is now December 2015, and I was supposed to be done with my current work-in-progress long ago, so I could go on vacation and sit on the beach drinking a Mai Tai or whatever to celebrate. But, of course, that’s not what happened.

I have been working on my novel about the building of the Alcan (Alaska) Highway for over a year now. Last fall, my husband and I drove the Alcan on a research trip to clear up any historical questions remaining, and I revised the draft a few more times. Somehow, it just wasn’t jelling. In June, I talked with an agent who helped me pinpoint the problem: I had the wrong hero. So I wrote a new draft and revised that a couple times. But it’s not finished yet.

So my husband and I are on vacation, but the novel is simply on hiatus, taking a break like I am. When we get back to Alaska, I’ll go through it one more time, show it to a few trusted colleagues, revise a little more, and then, maybe, it will be finished. Perhaps if we take a vacation next spring, that will be the celebration trip. Oh well. That’s okay. I’m hoping this extra time will lead to a bigger and better book. Writers are usually optimistic about our work. :-) 

Happy holidays to you, wherever you are today!

Lynn Lovegreen grew up in Alaska, and still lives there. Her young adult historical romances are set in the Alaska Gold Rush, a great time for drama, romance, and independent characters. See her website at www.lynnlovegreen.com.

Revision and Editing

Hi everyone! I am YA author B A Binns , writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for teens. My tagline tells you what I am about - Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them. 


For this post, you're getting the infamous piece of free advice (you know, the stuff that's worth what you pay for it according to the old axiom). I hope you will find this useful even though it costs nothing, especially if you are a beginning writer.

To me, there's nothing like opening up a book and finding an error on the first page I look at. And then finding more on the second and third and every succeeding page. Nothing that kills my pleasure in reading faster, especially if the book was written by a  friend and I really, really wanted to like it. I would have loved it, if only the author had done a better job of editing.

I take that back, there is something that kills the pleasure just as fast, and that is the book that bores me more with each page and serves as a cure for insomnia. The story idea was great, that's why I picked it up, but the author never put in the revision effort necessary to make the story live up to it's promise. I'm not talking about the occasional misplaced comma or spelling error or even the character who turns from a blond to a brunette halfway through the story sans benefit of a trip to the beauty shop for a dye job. Either of these can ruin a story, but lack of continuity and missing character motivations are the worst.

Revision and editing are two separate processes. They occur at different points in the lifecycle of a manuscript and produce two different results.  Both are needed to transform your initial draft into something readers will enjoy and recommend to their friends. It's important for author to  understand what both processes provide to strengthen and improve a manuscript.

Revision

You know what you want to say. In many cases you can see the story laid out in your head on an internal storyboard. Then you go to write that draft and what seems so clear in your mind's eye makes little sense on the page. Worst of all, you discover that scene A really cannot happen before scene C, or even before scene J.

Revision deals with your story as a whole unit and makes sure you say what you meant for readers to get. During the revision effort you go through the whole manuscript to seek out and eliminate problems like plot holes and wimpy characters. During revision you may expand upon ideas that are not as clear on the page as they were in your head.  Attention to the story as a whole makes your writing flow and sparkle.


Look at things like:

• Scene order: Check to see if the all scenes have an emotional impact. Look for continuity errors. See if you need to move or remove entire paragraphs, scenes, or chapters. Or add new content.
• The way the character's inner journey's progress in relation to the plot and each other. 
• Word choice - (do characters speak softly or do they murmur)
• Sentence fluency: Are your sentences varied yet easily readable and organized? Do you start too many the same way?
• Ask yourself overall questions about your story and writing voice. For example: Do I really need all of these characters or can some roles be collapsed into one individual? Or: Is the motivation for my character's action clear to a reader?

Whether your theme is Love Conquers All, or Might Makes Right, revision helps ensure that message shines from your pages. Revision is often a continual process of writing and re-writing.

Word of caution - Revision means change and not all change is for the better. You may decide that what you wrote was better the first time, or you could decide that you really need a different change. Revision can be a very messy process. This is one situation when talking to yourself is valuable. Articulate WHY you need to make a change, why you think your story is not working the way it is and what you're trying to achieve before you make the change to reduce the possibility you will need to change yet again.

Editing

While revision is done by looking at the overall story, editing happens at the sentence level. Editing is the step that makes your story look better and improves the correctness of your message. Editing is for sentence-level details and changes. Do this after you have an acceptable draft - there is no point in editing a chapter and then discovering you need to change the entire chapter and/or  deleting it. Editing primarily involves checking for flaws in general grammar and writing conventions.

First of all, do not, not, NOT rely on spell check. (You might be surprised how many people take spell check as the ultimate authority and never question it's suggestions or changes.) A word can be spelled correctly and still be the wrong word for particular sentence. And, as one person who ended up typing U. S. Pubic Health Service can attest, autocorrect can be your worst enemy.


I always revise anything larger than a paragraph on a hard copy, on the screen I have difficulty seeing the big picture of a full scene or chapter.



No matter how painful it is, (and I admit to hating the editing process, especially around the subject of commas) this step can't be skipped. I find that reading the story out loud helps because my ear finds things like clumsy rhythms, repeated text or words, awkward and complex sentences, missing words, and similar problems that my eyes miss because they KNOW what I meant to say.

My Own Process

Someone once asked me how many times I edited my work. I realized she meant editing and revision, but I really couldn't tell her. I don't count. If I did, the number would be so high even I would become depressed. I revise,  edit, and revise again, rinse and repeat, time after time. I go through cycles when I absolutely hate my own words,  others when, in the words of the A-team's leader - "I love it when a plan comes together." I don't stop until the message is clear to beta readers. Because no matter how beautiful you think your babies are, you can't let them out in the world on their own until they are ready.

I usually revise and then edit, and then revise and edit again. And then I get someone else to look at my work, because I can't see all of Junior's flaws. A developmental editor can help during the revision stage. A line or copy editor functions during the editing phase. Really consider making use of these kinds of professionals, especially if you intend self-publishing.  To paraphrase an old commercial: Quality should go in before you attach your name.

Right now I am coming to the end of the cycle with my first MG novel. Literally, the last round of edits are almost over, there is one major scene that needs a revision/rewrite and then final edit, and then it's off to my agent (after almost a year of writing, revision and editing). To me the time and effort was worth it. I hope readers will say the same thing. As for you guys, please forgive any errors you find in this post. I know there must be something wrong, there usually is.

Now, consider sharing your thoughts and/or process with others. I'd love to hear from you about your editing and revision efforts.

What is Your Writing Process?

By Sarah Raplee and Judith Ashley

One of the first things writers should figure out is the writing process that works best for them.

We aren’t saying don’t take workshops or read books on what works for others, only that it is important to assess whether what works for that author works for you.

An example: Judith attended Cherry Adair’s plotting workshop at the first Emerald City Writer’s Conference she ever attended. Cherry has a fantastic plotting process involving note cards, color-coordinated by character, etc. She pins these cards up on a wall in her office starting with Chapter One. In this way, she can visually see the story progress. Where her characters are in each scene, setting, etc? Cherry is a best-selling author and this process works for her – and it works for many other writers.

However, Judith’s office has two walls of windows and two walls with doors. She doesn’t have a wall to lay out her plot in the same way. In fact, Judith isn’t a plotter. She isn’t even someone who edits what she wrote the day before at the beginning of her next writing session although she did try that early on. (It took her six years to write the first book in her The Sacred Women’s Circle series because it took her that long to figure out what her writing process was!) 

Judith is what we call an ‘organic’ writer. She has a beginning and an end in mind and maybe a couple of scenes along the way when she starts out. The story just seems to flow from beginning to end. If she comes to a place where something needs research or doesn’t flow, she highlights the place, makes a note to herself on the manuscript and keeps going. Instead of six years to finish a first draft, it takes her no more than six weeks.

Sarah writes her First Draft in Four Act structure, a storytelling technique that uses specific turning points to track the story line and character arc. A writer using this approach will be more focused in her plotting than an organic writer.

It wasn’t until she was halfway through her second book that Sarah finally realized she has such a strong Internal Editor that she can’t edit AT ALL until she has written the crappy First Draft straight through. Otherwise she’ll never finish the book! Like Judith, Sarah makes notes to herself when she needs to do research, needs to add description or emotion or needs to rework something for no reason she can put her finger on later. These notes keep her Internal Editor leashed.

Part of Sarah’s writing process is that she can write anywhere. She wrote the first draft of her first novel in longhand in a hospital cafeteria while waiting for her husband to pick her up after work. Whether she is at home, in a coffee shop or motel room, or on an airplane, if Sarah has her laptop or paper and pen, the stories keep on coming!

There are as many processes as there are writers. Processes evolve as you try different things and discover what works for you. However, before you publish, you need to have enough self-knowledge to make a reasonable guess as to how long it takes you to write a book—because readers, agents and editors need to know when the next story will be available. 

Trust us, you don't want to disappoint them!

JUDITH ASHLEY

Judith Ashley is the author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, romantic fiction that honors spiritual practices that nourish the soul. Hunter, the fifth book in the series, will be published in August, 2015.

You can learn more about her books at http://judithashleyromance.com.

Judith blogs about relationships at http://judithashley.blogspot every Monday and fills the first Friday of the month spot at http://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com

SARAH MCDERMED

Sarah Raplee is the author of half a dozen short stories and the soon-to-be-released paranormal romance Blindsight.

Learn more about Sarah at http://www.sarahraplee.com/ .

Sarah blogs the fourth Tuesday of the month at http://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com/ .

Shutting Up The Inner Editor

For most of us authors, when we first ventured into writing, we were aglow with unbridled creativity, and the story flowed unhindered through our fingers onto the page (or screen). I know it was like this for me with my first novel, and similar still with my second.

Then, by the time I started the third, something had shifted. I got stuck. A lot. I found myself second-guessing every sentence, every word, and--on the big picture level--the whole idea itself. What had changed from when I'd first picked up pen and notebook and just spent hours happily writing away?

Answer: I had started actually learning the craft.

Along with the (very necessary!) immersion in and acquisition of the standards of fiction writing, the rules and conventions, came a new filter in my brain, one that would come in handy at revision time. All that learning and honing my craft had awakened my inner editor. And don't get me wrong, she's great! So nitpicky, so discerning, so merciless, she slashes through the sludge of First Drafts with the ease of a hot knife sinking into butter. She's just what I need after I finish writing the story and start on the crucial polishing.

Problem is, she's exactly what I don't need when writing.

Photo by Laura Ritchie, available under a CC BY 2.0 on Flickr

In that initial phase of getting the bare bones of the story down onto paper/screen, the presence of an overly critical, persnickety, question-every-word inner editor is counter productive. It's inhibiting to the point where I will sit in front of my PC, fingers hovering over the keyboard, and discard every thought that pops into my mind as not up to par with the high-polished standards of my inner editor. I type something only to backspace the heck out of it the very next second. "I've used this exact phrase three times already. Gotta come up with something better." And then I'll sit there, pressuring myself to think of a more fitting description while the minutes tick by. If I'd just used the lame description I'd had before, I could have already moved on with the scene and gotten more of the story down. I could always edit it later--but you can't edit a blank page, as La Nora so succinctly put.

But such was my fate after having absorbed that much knowledge about writing--when it came time to write, it took me far too long to get anything down. I overthought everything. Ev-ery-thing. My inner editor wouldn't shut up.

Until I stumbled upon a method of shutting her up that's so easy it's mind-boggling.

To sum it up: It's writing in sprints with a set word goal. Yes, I know. It's ridiculously obvious. But I'd never written like this. I'd set myself word goals for the day, but not in combination with a set amount of time, and so I'd sit there, squandering away my time for writing because I didn't exactly have a deadline. Turns out, I work well with deadlines.

I saw a dear writer friend of mine--Melia Alexander--do these sprints of 15 minutes during which she had to write 250 words, and my first thought was, "I could never write 250 words in 15 minutes!" I really thought that was an unattainable writing speed for me. Until I tried it, and found--to my great surprise--that I could easily do this. With one condition, though: I had to forcefully shut up my inner editor.

Photo by Shawn Rossi, available under a CC BY 2.0 on Flickr

With only 15 minutes to write 250 words (that's a little more than 16 words per minute), I knew I couldn't stop to ponder the intricacies of "Is this too much telling?" or "What's a better word for 'thrust'?" I couldn't stop to edit myself, because I didn't have the time. So simple, and yet so liberating. Did my inner editor pipe up and start critiquing what I wrote? Sure she did. But I didn't listen to her. Every time she began speaking, I responded with, "No time. Will fix later." And I kept on writing.

Make no mistake, though, it niggles at me that what I'm writing isn't my best effort. I know much of what I jot down like this will have to be edited, but that's not important. I'm getting the words down, I'm getting the story out there, and I'm not mired in paralyzing self-doubt anymore. It's important to be able to write the whole story.

And once I'm done, I'll let my inner editor out to play and have her fun.

What tips and tricks do you have to outsmart your inner editor and be more productive? Let me know in the comments!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Following her lifelong passion for stories and languages, polyglot Nadine Mutas went from tangling with tongues at a translation agency to wrestling with words in her writing den. She pens wickedly sensual paranormal romances, and her debut novel, Blood, Pain, and Pleasure, which was published on May 28, 2015, has won several awards for excellence in romance writing. You can find more info on Nadine and her books on her website: www.nadinemutas.com

MY FIRST BLOG HOP by Sarah Raplee

I want thank my sister, Diana McCollum, for inviting me to my first Blog Hop. (It’s about the writing process.) I’d also like to give her a shout out at www.dianamccollum.weebly.com .

Diana is one of the authors of LOVE & MAGICK: Mystical Stories of Romance from Windtree Press.

What am I working on? 

                 I’ve set aside my paranormal romantic suspense novel, Blindsight, which isn’t due to my editor until summer, to write a pair of short stories—one due out in July at Free Reads from the Genre-istas (& friends), and one that I’m submitting for inclusion in a Valentine’s anthology from Windtree Press.

                So far, I only have a title and a hero for my Valentine’s anthology story. A Portent of Peacocks is a YA romance that takes place ten years after the events in Blindsight. My hero, Jake, was only seven when he used his psychic Talent to help free himself and the other prisoners from a drug lord’s camp for enslaved psychics. But life on the outside has not been easy for him.

His foster mother died in the escape. Jake still misses her terribly. His biological parents are afraid of him and his older foster brother is leaving on assignment with the FBI. Plus, there’s this new girl at school. She’s locked down, sarcastic, even scary when she wants to be—she’s an Illusionist—and none of his friends want anything to do with her. But something about her makes Jake seek her out, no matter how many times she cuts him off at the knees and twists him up inside.

This story is going to be so much fun to write!

How does my work differ from others of its genre? 

                Writing instructor Alicia Raisley told me I write dark comedy. I think she meant I don’t shy away from dark truths, but my voice is humorous and breezy, which keeps readers reading through the tough parts.

                I also like to push the boundaries a little as a writer. My heroine in Blindsight lost her sight in a car accident, but her blindness has nothing to do with her psychic Talent. It just makes life more difficult for her in many ways. My heroine in another book is an ex-con who was rightly convicted of trying to kill a man with a manure shovel. Contrary to what the so-called experts told me, I was able to make her a character my critique partners loved. I’m confident my readers will love her, too.

                And last, but not least, dogs play a role in almost every story I write, although when I started writing I thought I was a cat person. Go figure!

Why do I write what I do? 

                I write to entertain and uplift my readers, to restore their faith in happy endings and give them hope.

How does my writing process work?

            Wait. There’s a process?

Seriously, I spend time on what I call pre-writing before beginning a first draft. This includes figuring out my characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts; mapping out the story spine (inciting incident, turning points, ending.) I plot using four-act structure, and it’s easier when I have a TP to write each act toward. I also do obvious research during this time, such as researching the setting or a character issue, like survivor’s guilt.

I’ve learned to knock my internal editor out for the duration of my first draft. I need to go full-bore from start to finish. Once I have the rough draft in hand, I wake her up and get to work. I sketch out what I’ve got on a story board and then to story edits. This is also when I do a book collage.

SARAH & FRECKLES

The second draft is about adding description and sensory detail, and deepening the emotion.

Then I polish before sending the story to my wonderful editor, Kelly Schaube.

The next step is incorporating Kelly’s edits.

Then I send the story to my Beta readers.

I tweak the story if needed, and finally reach THE END of the process.

This has Blog Hop has been fun! Thanks for inviting me, Sis.  

Writing Process Blog Hop

By Diana McCollum

http://dianamccollum.weebly.com/about-the-author.html


I want to give a shout out and thank you to Kate Curran at http://katecurran3.blogspot.com who tagged me in the Blog Hop. Kate is the author of  “Only For You” and “Falling For You” two wonderful contemporary romances.

In February I published the “Love& Magick” anthology with Sarah Raplee and Judith Ashley.  What I am working on now is the story of Ella Stone.  She is one of the witches featured in the story “The Crystal Witch”, from the “Love & Magick” anthology.  I plan on doing a short story about each of the witches in the coven.  At some point, I’ll release the series of short stories as “The Costal Coven series”.

LOVE & MAGICK

When starting a new manuscript, I start with my characters and a premise.  In “Love & Magick” I knew I wanted Hettie to be a witch from the 1600’s who travels to the present day.  I started with that, added my cast of characters and began to weave the plot.

Now I’ve found I have to tell the stories of the other witches from Hettie’s story. 

They all want to be heard!

How does my work differ from others of its genre?  I don’t mind adding several different paranormal elements to my romances. For instance, Ella’s story will have witches and some mythological characters.  Individual authors each have their own voice and I believe this is the major thing that sets each author apart.  This is what makes one Vampire book different from the next Vampire book.  I always have to have a Happily Ever After.

I enjoy writing stories with magic or paranormal elements.  I find it entertaining, so it must be entertaining to my readers too.

I strive to write every day.  Some days are more productive than others.  I now follow an online group of writers through, Rose City Romance Writers, who all encourage each other daily and this accountability has increased my daily word count.

I try to do a straight write through to the end on the first draft.  However, I am constantly fighting with my inner editor, who wants to go back and edit the previous work.  I made a deal with the IE that she could only edit and re-read the previous two pages each morning right before I begin to write.  She seems to be satisfied with this arrangement.

After the first draft is complete, it is time for revisions, editing, finding stronger words, or a new way of saying something.  Another go through for setting, details, powerful emotions, make sure eye, hair color stayed the same.  Find weasel words like: that, as, it, just, very or any over used words and replace, and when I’m sure  the manuscript is the best it can be, off it goes to the editor.

When the manuscript comes back, I sit my butt in the chair, Internal Editor on my shoulder, and we work really hard on fixing what needs to be fixed.  This process can take as almost as long as writing the original draft.

Then off to Beta Readers.  Back for any corrections, and then it’s published.

I want each story to be the best it can be.  My readers should expect an escape from reality, and a love story to boot.

What comes first in your writing process characters, title, premise or ...?

  

Bio of next authors to share their writing process & Links:

 

April 18th- 

If you love a tale with courageous heroes and heroines, where their unconditional love for each other gives them strength to defeat their inner demons, Cyndi Faria, award winning author and best selling author of Short Romances, invites you to enter the pages of her romances and find happily ever after. 

Cyndi Faria is an engineer turned romance writer whose craving for structure is satisfied by plotting heartwarming romances with a dash of American folklore.

On and off her sexy romance pages, this California country girl isn’t afraid to dirty her hands fighting for the underdog and caretaking rescued pets. Find her helping fellow writers and leading readers to happily ever after at www.cyndifaria.com

Blog: http://cyndifaria.wordpress.com/

April 18th-

With sixteen published books, four novellas, and two anthologies, award-winning author, Paty Jager is never at a loss for story ideas and characters in her head. Her rural life in central and eastern Oregon, and interests in local history and the world around her, keeps the mystery and romance ideas flowing. She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it. 

Blog: http://www.patyjager.blogspot.com

April 22-

Sarah Raplee honed her love of adventure growing up on a tropical island. After high school, Sarah married her firefighter-cum-Coast Guardsman boyfriend, who is the inspiration for all her heroes. Paranormal experiences run in Sarah’s family, so naturally she writes paranormal romance stories. Her stories examine difficult issues with humor and insight. She writes to entertain, educate and uplift her readers. Plus, writing is more fun than most of the alternatives!

Sarah and her husband have settled near Portland, Oregon, with a cat who loves to fetch, a German Shorthair who doesn’t and a feline phantom who ignores them both.
Blog: http://www.romancingthegenres.blogspot.com

The 2 AM Art of Writing

When people ask where I get my ideas for a story my quick answer is I channel them from somewhere in my subconscious. I believe this because I get these 2 AM wake up calls with story ideas and whole outlines ready to go. The trick is getting it all down on paper before the inspiration passes. This happens to me all the time and I have a notebook filled with early morning musings to prove it. Once the idea and basic outline is on paper, I fall easily back to sleep.

The next day, I take a look at this “great revelation” and see if it can stand the scrutiny of the morning. If I still find the idea excites me then I will work on the outline, do a bit of research and then decide whether or not to move forward.

Oftentimes, I’m in the middle of another novel or project when these little brain storms drop their rain of inspiration, so I can’t start on them right away. So they will sit in my notebook, awaiting their turn at greatness. What this means is I always have a story or two waiting to be fleshed out. For me the biggest challenge is controlling that urge to abandon the current work for this new and exciting something! If I did this, nothing would ever get finished.

For example, I’m writing a new series of erotic romantic comedies. I finished the first book in the series and have just started book two, when suddenly the edits have arrived for book one. My love for my current project is so strong, that it takes great discipline to put book two characters on the shelf while I tidy up what was written months ago.

My biggest challenge is too many ideas, not enough time. Do you struggle with finding new ideas or with keeping on track with multiple projects?

'The writing will teach you'

‘The writing will teach you...’

In high school, I wanted to be a lawyer and perhaps go into politics. Of course, as a teenager, I also intended to be rich and slender.

I didn’t go to law school and now shudder at the idea of a life in politics. The odds are also pretty slim that I’ll ever make any “wealthy” or “best body” lists.

Regrets? Not a one. Well, only if I could somehow have the rich/thin option while still being a writer who adores every dessert known to womankind.

I switched from Political Science to Journalism during my freshman year at Northwestern University, shortly after my boyfriend’s best friend complimented my writing and suggested the possibility. The truth is I’d never considered writing as a career option, even though I’d always loved writing—well, at least, making up stories. (Thank you for the nudge, Bob.)

I guess the storytelling/drama gene ran in our family. Whenever my Aunt Kate tucked my sister and me in at night, she recited Macbeth as our bedtime story complete with plunging dagger scenes. I loved it. I also have a vague grade-school recollection of how much fun it was to dream up a fairytale that explained how a Frenchman, Dan de Leon, wound up as a weed (dandelion). Throughout elementary school, one of my favorite activities was to join neighborhood kids in our spooky basement where we conducted make-believe séances and tried to scare the pants off each other. And I always, always loved to read.

Shortly after switching to journalism major, I landed an intern gig at Medallist Publications and started earning money as a writer. I’ve made my living as a writer ever since. Mostly I’ve penned nonfiction. (I’m taking the liberty here of describing ad copy as nonfiction.) My anything-for-a-buck assignments have run the gamut—speeches for executives, newsletters and brochures, feature magazine articles for business, trade and travel magazines, website pages, billboard slogans, ad campaigns, Help documentation, etc. For the most part, I really enjoyed my assignments and never paused to consider authoring a book.

One day I was approached about writing an “as-told” book by some folks who had an intriguing story but lacked any notion of how to share their experiences. So I interviewed and researched, outlined their book, and wrote the opening chapters. We landed a well-known New York agent. Then, boom, my “clients” accepted a large settlement to keep mum on the material at the heart of the work-in-progress. They canceled the project. My efforts didn’t earn me a penny. But I’m oh-so-glad I accepted the challenge. It gave me confidence. Yes, I really could write a novel. It also convinced me that any future book-length project would be pure fiction, and a solo effort. Going forward, I would be the only one to pull the plug on a novel in progress.

At this point, I felt pretty smug. I took a fiction-writing course through the University of South Carolina-Beaufort, and I assumed I’d be the class star. After all, I’d been writing for years. As I recall my classmates included a lawyer and a veterinarian, a librarian and a retired FBI agent. The opening chapters of their books blew me away. I was humbled. They weren’t just GOOD. They were very, very good. That’s when I realized that people in all occupations have compelling stories to tell and active imaginations. Journalism training or even an MFA degree (which I don’t have) aren’t publishing guarantees. I learned that many of my contemporaries were quite capable of creating beautiful imagery and writing vivid passages.

If I wanted to publish, I realized I had to expect stiff competition and I’d better do all I could to master the craft.

Years have passed since I took that introduction to fiction-writing course. Did any of my classmates ever finish the novels they started? Most don’t. Or they shove their manuscripts under the bed after a few rejections. Life goes on.

Brewster Milton Robertson taught that fiction course, and the first thing he wrote on the blackboard was “the writing will teach you.” Now I think I fully understand what he was trying to communicate. If you want to be a writer, you must be driven to keep writing. With each passage you write, you learn something new about the process...about what fails and what works...what captures attention...which words are essential and which are excess baggage.

Being a writer means you keep writing through harsh critiques and rejections through spells where your muse takes a hike. You keep writing because you love it and you love what it teaches you about your craft and yourself.

"Write what you know!"

The first time I heard that quote it was an interview on t.v. with Stephen King and John Grishom. The show was on authors and their process for writing. John Grishom answered a question with "write what you know". Mr. Grishom being a lawyer, writes thrillers from the lawyer perspective, he asked Stephen King how that applies to him. Mr. King said "I keep a jar with a pickled heart on my desk".

After the laughter died down, Stephen King said that he writes about what Scares him.

The bogeyman hiding in the closet for instance. The closet door barely cracked open and two glowing green eyes visible from within the closet.

I would have to say my paranormals are written about what scares me. My imagination sometimes runs a bit rampant, and I have to rein it in. Scaring myself and the reader is the easy part. Figuring out how the Hero/Heroine is getting out of the situation, well, that's the hard part.

Scary things happen to ordinary folks in real life. Unexplained things. The haunted house down the block. The apparition in the garden. Try explaining the squeaky basement stair when no one else is home. The feeling that something is about to happen, and then it does. Do you really want to get to know the new neighbor who only comes out at night, drinks blood from a travel mug and she sleeps in a coffin in her basement?

Playing on the unexplained helps make paranormals seem real in real time.

What are some of the things that scare you the most?