I pulled the story out again

This weekend I had the urge topull out and look at my main story that I've shoved into the closet for a while. It was a joy to let the character come to life again. I decided to hack out a few parts and concentrate on the story line with the main character. I"ll not bring in the side characters until they are needed. It's easy work allowing the flow of the story to pick up its pace.
Another change was in the name of a character. His name was okay, it worked, but I tried another and it fits my mental picture better for the character. He has more of a toughness about him, broader shoulders to hold up his responsibilities. I think it will bring out his drive and determination. We'll see.

city layout

The layout of the story's city is important. The landscape must fit the storyline. I like it when a book has a map at the front so you can get your barrings on where the characters are located or moving to. I'm working on a story that must have a college campus close enough to the oldest section of a town, yet still have restaurant row, a city park and golf course close enough but not cut off by the creek and a railroad. I can picture the city and university I attended as the perfect place, but getting the haunted house in the right spot is still haunting me.  Keep those street names lined up and straight.

Goals

I've had to face that fact that my goals in life are not lined up as they should be. I'll no longer be pushing to be published each year as a resolution. I'll keep learning, but teaching the boys through high school will be my main purpose for now. If writing is to be, it will come when the boys are leaving the house for their own careers. By then I hope to have made leaps and bounds in the character development, plot design and every other part of writing that needs to be perfected.

Too many hats makes for a headache and heavy heart.  I sent the writing program back today. I believe it was the same lessons I did five years ago with them.

Lets get our goals in life straight before we continue on. God, Husband, kids - these come first. They encompass a whole lot of activity at this point in life.

writing course

Iget to take a writing course. Whoohoo!  It is one offered through the Christian Writer's Guild. Instead of the year long Journeyman course, they now have a 4 month fiction writing session. It centers on the main lessons. I'm excited to work through it, learn a great deal more and see if "Death by House" (possible book name) will take off and get published.

The snowflake is building

I mentioned that I was using a program here at home for writing. THe program is Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Pro. I'm having fun with it. Last night, I stayed up after midnight in awe of how the progam took the synopsis  and turned it into a scene by scene outline.  Today I'll start building each scene.  This program has been a great help so far in organizing this new story. I'll definitely have to plug my young reader story into this program, later, to see if it helps me finish writing that one for publication.

Building a character profile

I'm working on a new story - writing small bits of it while on break at work, using a computer program when at home. Last night, I worked on character profiles. The program asks for height, eye and hair color, favorite book, movie, music, political thinking, religion, etc.  I really noticed a difference in building the character with this program,  it was easier. By defining the character on paper in more detail, I'm able to visualize the person better. By connecting the character to a friends physical attributes for the time being, they are in the room with me living the story.  It reminded me of  building a Wii character on the boys video game.
I think one of the problems with the story I've worked on for eight years or more is that I don't see one of the main characters the way  I wrote her. The red hair is supposed to be an important part of the story that shows her lineage to the first king. I don't see her with red hair in my minds eye. I think this has been more of a stumbling block then I realized.

How about your characters? Do they come to life in your story looking different then you described them?

the collection of ideas

You don't have to be sitting at the computer or with pen and paper in hand to work on your story. Most of my ideas for scenes come as I'm falling asleep living through a small section of a scene. Then theres all that time while walking behind the push mower, or on the rider, you can't talk to anyone, so let the characters talk in your mind. Any of the household and outdoor chores are great times to let the mind wander over a scene. It helps to mentally edit before you write it down.
Sometimes the day is so busy, that I have to use chores for mental writing and then use the 15 minute breaks at work to speed right it all down. 

Use choretime today to help you improve your story.

Researching for a novel idea

So tell me, how would you rig a house to blow up with a gas stove in the kitchen, propane tank in the basement, and the heroes of your story have to survive the blast to escape the haunted house? I've got my characters into a pickle. Can you imagine typing that criteria into the search engine. The FBI would flag my computer in an instant. 
That's one of those things that goes right up with my oldest, at the age of six, walking out of the kids section of the library. When I asked him where he was going, he replied, "I'm going to ask them where they keep the books for making a homemade bomb." All the faces that turned to look his way and mine. He had just started watching Myth Busters blow things up and really wanted to experiment. Needless to say -we didn't stay long in the library that day.

We spend all that time teaching the adverbs and adjectives

As a homeschooling mom, I'm getting English grammar for the second, third, and fourth time. This time around finding adverbs and adjectives has been easier and 'understandable'. In seventh grade it made no sense, and I had to make extra credit posters to pass.   Writing improved sentences always includes adding adverbs and adjectives - dressing up the sentence.

Now, as I practice the craft of novel writing, I shake my head at all the dispensable words writers should not use - those adverbs and adjectives for instance, or cutting out prepositional phrases.
Writing for publication is like training for the Olympics, it's a whole different ball game from recreational sports.  Some days it wears you out and you wonder why you go through all the struggles, then there is that flash of hope and it's worth it again. Oh man, I just ended with a preposition. Uh.

Have fun this week.

A little simile

Rapture simile at Price Chopper


In April, Price Chopper, one of our local grocery stores, came out with a new discount card. It has more perks, they also count points for 2 months and you get free groceries depending on how much you spend. As a cashier, we ask almost everyone who hands us an old card to up date to the new card. We even send the application paper home with a few hoping they will bring it back. We also have been telling the holdout customers that the old card will eventually not be any good - no discounts.

The old cards died at midnight Tuesday.

Today, I had a ladie complaining when I asked if she wanted to sign up for her new card, she really wanted the discounts - she'd already stressed that point. Then she got mad that the old card was no longer helpful.

"Did they put it in the paper that the old cards would no longer be useful?"

"Ma'am, we've been switching to new cards since April."

"They told me last week it was still good."

"It was good, until Tuesday."

"Well did they put that in the paper? No one told me they would end."



We can change this scenerio just a bit.



"Jesus Christ is coming soon. Repent and be saved!" said Saved.

"I'll do it later when I have to." said Toolate.

Jesus Christ is coming soon. Have you repented and been saved, yet?" asked Saved.

"I'll take a Bible home with me and maybe think about it." said Procrastinator.

Did you hear? Jesus Christ came last night." whispered Toolate. "My friend Saved is gone."

"Why didn't Saved tell us Christ was coming last night?" grumbled Procrastinator. "If I'd known, I'd been saved yesterday."

"Why didn't they put it in the papers, and on TV, or at least the radio. We didn't have a chance to be saved." whined Toolate.

Posted by Eat, Fart and Bark at 12:29

W.L. 2

In the past, I'd get upset if I couldn't sit down and write on one story each day. It just doesn't happen with raising three boys, homeschooling, teaching classes at church, and working a part time job. My husband then bought me a hard back journal. I take it to work with me and use my 15 minute breaks to work on scenes. During skeet lesson, horse riding lessons, soccer, you name it - when I'm waiting for the boys, I can write. The time just flies, especially the 15 minute work breaks. When I get home, the computer has my other story waiting for me. That's the hard one to get to, especially now with summer chores. When I do sit down to the computer, I have fresh eyes for the story.

Keep writing, even if its on toilet paper.

Writing lesson 1 - read

I've been reading almost everything in the Christian fantasy, young-adult area for the last five years. I have three boys and I read what they read. I want to know what they like to read. We pass series after series between us. One of  my stories will fit that genre perfectly.  Recently though, I've had a hankering to do something more on the horror side.  Trouble was deciding which character's POV to build. I picked up a Stephen King novel from the library for the holiday weekend - not my usual catagory, and found the path for this next book.
Lesson 1 - Read. Read from the genre you want to write, but also pick up different genres.

Thanks for stopping by. I'd love to hear from you.

Let's get started

Hi,
I like to write and try to write daily. I will one day be a published author. That doesn't mean to say it will happen this side of the grave, but I'll keep working toward that goal. I hope you will join me on this journey.