Beating Linda Adams

I have recently signed up for facebook and with this new attempt to blog more have also tried to be more of a presence there. Well, Linda invited me to try the word challenge. It saves your friend's scores and so you can compete against them.

The first try I did okay but was still below Julia and Linda. With all my children behind me screaming out words, I beat Julia but Linda- ugh! Her score is so high up in the stratusphere that there is no way I'll get there. But did I give up? NO!

All night I kept trying while my children are asking for homework help and the kitchen is screaming for my attention. (Luckily my hubby is on a business trip.) I kept trying after the children went to bed and didn't keep the laundry chugging away (I'm still behind from last week.)

So I crawl into bed late last night and then get up at the crack of dawn to keep at it. When I started seeing repeats, I figured it is hopeless. So I finally have backed off and admit openly, for the world to know, that Linda Adams is better at Word Challenge than I am. Bummer!

Now I better get off my bum and get to work.

Day Three and Confining Prose

Okay, here I am at day three of consistently blogging. Wa-hoo! The key is to start a routine. So I'm trying one step at a time.

Like I said yesterday, I've started working on "An Angel in the Family." It's the story of the baby I lost and how he has proven to still be an active participant in our lives. I've got my outline and have started writing but the struggle is confining what I share to what feeds the premise of the project.

Journals and sometimes blogs just ramble and soon become boring but a work like this has to be concise and each chapter has to feed the point. I find I keep on taking tangents which I think are interesting but totally are sidetracking from the heart of what I'm trying to say.

In this way writing a concise memior is much more difficult than I ever imagined because so much more DID happen. Still, no one wants to read every moment. Man, this is hard! Well, the only way I know to do hard things is to stop whining and roll up your sleeves, so I better just get back to work.

If anyone has suggestions... they'd be appreciated.

A New Direction

So I promised myself I'd blog every day this week and if I don't get another goal accomplished (I've blown my diet and am still four loads behind on laundry) at least I'll get my blogging done.

While we were in the temple last week, my husband turned to me and asked, "Are you doing what the Lord wants you to?"

What a question???

I turned to him and shrugged. I know I could do better in every area of my life, but I think I've got the biggest rocks in place. I doing okay with cubscouts, the kids are thriving and a felt really guided to writing- so I guess the answer is yes.

But questions like that sometimes linger and this one did.

On Sunday morning I was lazing in bed late (we have eleven o'clock church) when I suddenly felt I should go a different direction. The last few weeks I have spent hours researching everything Herod in preparation for my next project, but this impression was so clear I didn't dare ignore it.

Three years ago I lost a baby and then four days later my father died. I had so many personal spiritual experiences and nothing short of miracles happen at that time that I wanted to write it out and share it, but stopped after getting about forty pages into it.

Well, out of nowhere I knew I needed to finish that project first.

Monday morning (yesterday) I started looking for my old file, but I've been through two computers since then. Greg gave me a backup disk, but it wasn't there either. I was ready to give up when he brought out a portable hard drive and sure enough it was there. So I started again.

I think my problem last time is that I tried to edit out the worst parts and so it wasn't really true. Who knows if I'll be brave enough to actually share it with anyone, but for some reason I'm writing.

A Long Cyber Vacation

Sorry.

For the last month I sort of went on an extended cyber vacation. No blogging, very little email responses (I was almost 200 behind at one point.) Instead I've been finishing homework assignments with my kids, preparing and living through Thanksgiving and then the week after running off to Utah for my nephew's sealing.

Now that I'm home again for the first time and the dust has settled, I've got more to do than you can imagine. Between house guests and a week of unsupervised teenagers the laundry is screaming at me, every corner seems filled with old homework assignments or gym clothes and the kids didn't do as good a job of letting out the puppy as I had hoped so all my rugs could use shampooing.

Will I ever get it all done or simply find myself crushed to death under the weight of all I should be doing? Only time will tell.

Maybe I should go on reality vacation-- or maybe that's what I am doing right now by blogging. Well, back to work.

This week I'm going to try to blog daily- just to get back into it. We'll see if I reach my goal.

Finally Done!

So last night at 3am I finished my final edit of Lipstick Wars: Another Visiting Teaching Adventure and emailed it to my publisher. It was such a relief to have it out and it felt good to reach my goal but all day I sort of wandered. Maybe that was because I was running on only three hours sleep- do you think?

When you're writing a story sometimes you get so caught up in it that you miss it when it's gone. I asked on LDS Storymakers what people do when they finish a manuscript- or any large project for that matter. Many go right into the next one but others take a break and clean up the projects they have let go while their whole heart and soul have been lost in their book. I haven't quite decided what I'm doing but I don't have to quite yet.

This weekend I'm going to San Fransisco to play tourist with my husband. I better be careful though with all the anti-mormon riots. I haven't been since I was a little girl and can't wait to ride a trolley and eat Ghiredeli chocolates. I'm not sure how to spell it and both Greg and I fight about how to pronounce it but it should still be fun. See ya.

It's A Wonderful Day and Novel Idea

Last night I was up until 2 a.m. finishing my initial edits on "Artemus and the Knights of Light." It's a cute story that's got a lot of good going for it but like many first novels (mine included) it has POV and story arc issues.

After my initial reading, I struggled with how to get my arms around the project. Sunday afternoon I was thinking about the writing process in general and did a quick search on how to write a bestseller. An article came up that I doubt I could find again but in it, the author suggested using a table or speadsheet to map out the scenes of your book.

One thing I've learned about writing is that its different for everyone. I could never do this before I started writing. I'm an organic author. I start with a basic premise and then sort of live through my stories and see how they grow from the seat of my pants. BUT for editing and revisions, what a fabulous tool.

With this story that was the perfect answer. As soon as I could see it simplified in front of me, I could figure out how to intensify and streamline the plot to add suspense and interest.

Now I'm going to do it on the final edit of my own manuscript.

Hooray for good ideas!!!

Critique Group, Attack! or What Should A First Chapter Contain

I don't know how many of you have ever been to a writing critique group but it's a fun experience. I love seeing people rip apart what I've written and excited to discuss my motivation and clarify if I really have a plot point or simply like this scene so much I'm misleading and boring my audience (which I do far too often.)

In response and perhaps because of this fact, I attack my fellow group members with the same gusto and in the end we find what is best in what we have written. Invariably I have left feeling that my work is better and hope I've helped those writer's around me. It's great!

So last Tuesday we had a new friend come to critique group. She is in her early twenties, just out of college and was a little hesitant to read. We did our pieces first and then she began. Jackie's work was wonderful! It is about a family of elves whose mother dies of a strange disease. Elves hardly ever get sick and the calamity forces these elves to go to the land of humans to find a cure. Great premise!

The only issue was that the conflict wasn't introduced until twenty pages into the story and you weren't sure who the main character was, his weakness or his obstacle. Maybe I'm going through the growing pains of a new writer but the more I read and write, the more formulaic I'm becoming, believe it or not. I hope Jackie comes back because we sort of drowned her in suggestions like simply dropping the first chapter and starting with the second but I hope she does because she is a great writer.

BUT I also wanted to clarify what a first chapter should contain:

1. Grab the Reader- Everyone agrees that the most important thing the first sentences of you book must do is to grab the reader. In the first 13 lines there should be enough action, unanswered questions or pathos with your main character to suck the reader in.

2. Introduce the Main Character- Books are about being given the privilege of living on someone else's shoulder for a while and vicariously experiencing their most challenging, thrilling or scary moment and watching how they overcome it through change. If I don't like the main character, sorry, I don't want to go for the ride. And if I don't know who the main character is, I'm done.

3. Introduce the Main Conflict or Hint at it- In romance the main conflict is will these two people fall in love despite some great flaw. Almost without exception the hero/love interest is either introduced or mentioned by one of the main character's friends ("Did you hear about the new CIO? He used to be a male model.) In other types of fiction where the conflict may be the destruction of a world or simply overcoming shyness, the conflict either needs to be thrown in the readers face through the first humilating scene or hinted at subtly as your character participates in something truly attention grabbing. By the end of the first chapter I've got to have an idea what the book will be about.

4. Plan on It Changing- I doubt that many writers ever keep their first chapter close to the same by the time a book goes to print and most first time writers' books don't really begin until the third chapter. That's okay but expect that your first chapter is going to be chopped up, revved up and slimmed down. It's the first chapter that sells your book and it should go through the most stringent editting. Have lots of people read it. Change it. Try new first scenes. Make it shine.

5. Don't Make it Too Long- I hadn't thought of this but it's true. That first chapter should suck people in. When they end it, it is the first feeling of satisfaction the book gives them and you want them to feel that as soon as possible. If there is information you can put into back story, take it out of that first chapter. Start in the middle, I'm not reading a diary of this person's whole life so you don't have to tell me everything up front. Give me the action, introduce your main character and conflict and leave me with a cliffhanger.

6. Yup, End with a Cliffhanger- NOT at the end of the book but definitely at the end of the first chapter. Does the last sentence leave me starving to read the next paragraph. What vital question have you left unanswered? Leave me wanting more.



Lastly, I have to admit that I think I did none of these for my first book. In my second I did a better job but I can see why this is important and as I reviewed my favorite authors I found that most did this perfectly. Wow.