Enriched by Words

WYMJ Weekender 7.18.09

-- B J Keltz — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:00:40 +0000

Here we are, another weekend. The weeks drag by and the weekends are gone in the blink of an eye…or is that my advancing age talking? Well, ah, let’s move along, shall we?

The plan is to switch the site to new hosting this weekend. Wish us luck and grant us patience. Hopefully down time will be minimal.

Process & Method:

Victoria Mixon did a great guest post at Nathan Bransford’s site titled Everything You Need to Know About Writing A Novel in 1000 Words or Less.

Qualified to Create is Sean Platt at his finest. Also check out How Do You Use Your Creativity from The Naked Soul. Then, go read When People Don’t Get You (which is the story of my life…ask my mom).

Amber Argyle gives a hands-on example of adding tension to a scene. I think the scene is great, and her explanation is wonderful.

Creating Fictional Characters, Part 5 and Part 6 (from Lillie Ammann) are out.

Lynn Viehl’s post on conceptual planning, construction and development struck a cord with me (I own and use architectural software for fun) not just through the metaphor but for the content. I really liked the Design Appeal and Concept Construction sections for putting a story together.

How Not to Write a Story (JA Konrath)

I don’t know when this post was queued, but I wrote Friday’s post on Thursday night. Another facet of the same subject and worth the read.

Life with Words:

My friend Cassie has an insightful post regarding reader disappointment. Besides being well written, it does call to question how far is too far in the quest to be fresh and new.

Remember to Write

Rachelle Gardner got inside my head and perfectly explained why I can’t allow myself to open up TweetDeck during the week, why I don’t comment on as many blogs as I would like, why sometimes my posts are short. My reader is a monster at 1200 plus a day, but you never know where the good stuff might come from. Even it has time limits.

Quit It With the Rules Thing! Oh, I agree!

Write Club…the first rule of Write Club…

Industry:

Booksquare has a good discussion on Ebook releases and how it affects the market. She makes a good case.

Celebrating with others:

Okay, I don’t know Aprilynne Pike personally, but I feel I know her because I lurk at her blog a lot and got folks (teachers, middle school girls, moms, and literary people) in my town really excited about Wings and its release, and browbeat my local bookstore about getting her books onto the floor. So she doesn’t know me, but I think she’s living the writer’s dream and I’m ridiculously happy for her and proud of her. And she has more good news…Wings has been optioned for a movie (with very good producers, my opinion) and a good shot at a real headliner. How cool is that?

One Character’s Character

-- B J Keltz — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:00:49 +0000

So my current main character is Anna. I’m still exploring Anna’s personality and she’s still surprising me with bits of background and quirks she had forgotten to mention, like her fanatical love for speed.

Whenever I’m in doubt about details, I hop on the web and start looking. Only the car really mattered; the rest was for my benefit. It took some time to find her speed delivery system, but I think I have one selected.

Just thought I’d share a bit of method in case you ever get stuck on aspects of your character’s…well, character. None of these things are described in detail in the story, but they are fleshed out in my mind, which makes them more real as I move characters around on their stage and write what they do.

The Saleen S7 is a 2005 model year. The story takes place circa 2020, so this car is fifteen years old. It’s a bit offbeat, known to sports car junkies but not everyone else, and fits her love for speed. The S7 has been clocked at over 200 mph.

Anna doesn’t care about clothes (and wouldn’t be caught DEAD in the dress above). She shops out of catalogs. She hangs out in long sleeve t-shirts with a flannel thrown on over blue jeans. I’ve tired to dress her in a skirt. The best I can get is a laid back L.L. Bean kind of business casual with loafers. That’s Anna when she’s dressed to the nines.

Anna’s cat loves to purr…for other people. It’s not the cat’s fault. Anna is away a lot, leaving kitty with the lady next door (who takes good care of her) or boarding in a kennel for short periods. Anna met her kitty, Amber, at a local shelter in a moment when aloneness was overwhelming. She thinks about Amber every time she’s gone and knows that her responsibility to the cat has brought her through times when she’d rather have given up.

I know so much more about this woman on the job, and of course that’s why I spent a few hours researching the rest of her life. I wanted to get to know Anna better. She is so different from me. Her house even took me by surprise. I expected urban or modernist. I did not expect slightly outdated contemporary. Her condo was probably the height of fashion when she first moved in (and her sister decorated it). She hasn’t changed a thing since, leaving the atmosphere as sterile as a hotel room.

And no, none of this is crucial. But now I can move Anna around her world in a bit more realistic fashion and find I add little details without thought that help the setting or her character come alive. Minimal detail, but rich and consistent.

Ivy League and Romance Novels

-- B J Keltz — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:00:25 +0000

I had to grin when I saw this headline in today’s Tennessean. Women’s lib derided the genre and intelligent women were expected to look elsewhere for their literary escapes. But the romance genre has come a long way. It is now being written by Ivy League Ph.D.’s and taught by Ivy League professors.

I bet the naysayers were a bit shocked.

I find I want to quote extensively from the article on behalf of my friends who write exclusively romance, on behalf of those who bowed their heads in shame when Germaine Greer said romance novels encouraged women to “cherish the chains of their bondage.”

I want to quote from the male professor who borrowed his wife’s copy of Bridget Jones’ Diary and had his eyes opened. Now he also teaches courses in the romance genre as well as organizing a conference on romantic fiction at Princeton in which romance authors were invited to speak.

I will quote a bit about Mary Bly (pen name Eloisa James) because it’s just too good to pass up. I’ll refrain from the rest for one simple reason. I really want you to read the article. I want all writers to understand that every novel has an element of romance and writing it well is a skill worth cultivating.

Like the overflowing bosoms on their paperback jackets, romance novelists have burst out — bold and unashamed — led by writers such as James. James is the pseudonym of Shakespeare scholar Mary Bly, a tenured professor at Fordham University whose résumé includes Harvard, Oxford and a Yale Ph.D. cherry on top. Last month, the highbrow The New Yorker ran an admiring profile of Nora Roberts.

Not too shabby for a genre that, in 1970, feminist Germaine Greer claimed enslaved women, encouraging them to cherish “the chains of their bondage.”

Today, that attitude is as hip as your mom’s mood ring. Frothy fiction, it turns out, empowers women.

“Romance novels insist that women’s physical desire is significant,” says professor Bly.

Bly, 47, has faced more obstacles on the road to romance respectability. Her academic adviser begged her to keep secret her career as romance writer Eloisa James until she received tenure at Fordham in 2002.

As Eloisa James, she’s known for her rakish aristocrats mixing it up in licentious London in the late 1700s and early 1800s. She has had 14 USA Today best sellers, and last month, her latest, This Duchess of Mine, entered the list at No. 29.

Bly comes from a famous literary family. Her father is Robert Bly, a poet and the author of Iron John. Her mother, Carol Bly, was an admired short-story writer. Carol Bly died in 2007 unreconciled to her daughter’s best-selling career as a romance writer.

“It was like growing up in the Bach family and you’re Simon & Garfunkel,” she says.

Didn’t see that one coming…

-- B J Keltz — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:00:32 +0000

Author: You. Are. A Dumbass.

Supporting Character: How do you figure?

Author: You just let her walk away from you.

SC: Well, things haven’t been going well. I’m not happy.

Author: You let the best thing to happen to you just walk away.

SC: She expected too much! She–

Author: She loves you. You love her. The two of you compliment each other.

SC: So you say.

Author: So says the plot outline, you idiot. Go after her and get her back.

SC: Nah. Let her stew a while.

Author: Seriously, go after her and patch things up.

SC: I don’t think so. C’mon, Author, let’s just move on with the story, okay?

Author: You want to move…You actually want to move on with the story?

SC: Yes. Where do we go from here.

Author: We don’t. See ya.

SC: Wait! Where are you going? What about me?

Author: You didn’t think you were the main character, did you?

SC: Well, um, yeah.

Author: Sorry, but the woman you just broke up with is the MC. You were a supporting character, and now you are just a minor character. See you in the edits.

SC: Well, hell. I didn’t see that one coming.

WYMJ Weekender July 12

-- B J Keltz — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:24:08 +0000

Life with Words:

Writing is my lover….from Writing Roads

The Art vs Craft Gap - A Writer’s Paradox

How to Reap the Rewards of Online Collaboration from Collective Inkwell, has me thinking (again, I know). My attempt at collaboration is turning into a solo effort and I’m not sure what to do about that.

Here are some words of wisdom from my friend Cassie’s mom. It’s great to see such support, and the words are very wise for writers and artists of all types.

Advice on creativity from Charles Bukowski, via Lateral Action. Does this concept divide or unite writers? Hopefully it will foster good discussion.

Method & Process:

Amber talks about what attracts us to villains. She’s right, I like the complicated villain much more than the stereotyped.

Unclogging Your Creative Space is going to cause me trouble. Seriously. I’m looking around the den I share with my husband, eyes narrowed in speculation. And the dear man is clueless.

Reading Influencing Writing: Common Tastes provides food for thought.

5 Things You Absolutely Need to Know Before Writing a Novel, from Men with Pens

Do You Really Want to Clean Up Your Writing? from Terri Tiffany…an observation of common writing/grammar mistakes.

Industry:

Despite criticism, “free” is very powerful, from Brad’s Reader

For writers and bloggers: Being Compelling

Indie Publishing vs Indie Music, Part II

Resources:

I’ve watched this blog for a while, and now want to recommend it to new writers of crime, mystery, and procedurals (the established writers already know him). The Graveyard Shift is helmed by a veteran police investigator who is integrated into the writing community.

eReads Ten: Ten things with free eReads from PBW

Tidbits:

Mindfulness and task persistence: Not all self-awareness is a good thing.

Life…Don’t talk to me about this thing called life.

-- B J Keltz — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:00:27 +0000

I was writing. In fact I’d gotten off to a great start. And then life happened. So, I work, sleep, and scribble notes. Soon (I hope) I will have a weekend off or evenings free to work on my notes and resume my WiP.

I sit here at the computer, torn. I’m not totally driven to work on the WiP but it is my first thought when I have access to paper or keyboard. I want to be laying concepts and characters into the mortar of words. I should be sleeping. I should be feeding myself. I should do laundry. I should do a great post. I should do a lot of things. I start them, but it isn’t long before the characters are revealing some new tidbit or facet of their world, personality, or problem. There I go, scrambling for a pen again.

This is the best and worst part of being a writer. I love being the conduit for these characters, and I resent the demands of life that get in the way. So, I have a plan.

Ten of us will each win the next ten successive Powerball drawings. We’ll pool our money, buy an island/neighborhood/luxury cruise ship/insert your dream here and we will all write when the mood strikes us, work when the stories are sticking, and spend evenings with our families. Ahh, lovely plan.

In light of reality, however, I will take comfort in the fact that I am not alone, that all writers cope with this, and we all survive it. We squeeze in the odd minutes and keep plugging away. It’s what we do.

Brain Tease

-- B J Keltz — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:53:47 +0000

I am driving this writer crazy. It’s even kind of fun. Why would I, a minor character with only a few paragraphs in the spotlight, enjoy torturing a writer so?

Because it makes her write better.

She catches glimpses of me now and again out of the corner of her mind’s eye. Like vapor or gossamer on the wind, I am gone before she can turn. She knows I’m part of the main character’s secret. She suspects I could blow her character’s world open, but even that suspicion is vague and unformed. She tried to pin me down for a few days; now she tries to ignore me.

This writer is convinced I’m cruel, and I’m okay with that. The tension my unformed presence causes drips through her fingers and onto the page. She questions her main character. She foreshadows unaware. She is laying down words that her eyes will caress when she begins revisions. Not knowing is putting tension in her draft.

I will step from the wings into my brief spotlit moment when the time is right. The main character will never be the same. I will never be the same. I think perhaps the writer will never be the same either.

I am a sleeper character.

WYMJ Weekender July 4, 2009

-- B J Keltz — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:26:55 +0000

Happy Independence Day, USA.

I have more links to add to this or put in the post on Wednesday. I think this is long enough for now and I’m trying to beat the thunder and lightening headed our way. I feel so bad for the little kids with fireworks. It is twilight and they need to be set off now or they will be soaked in a bit.

Horror Freewriting gives a glimpse into what weirdness can result. I still say it’s worth it. I’ve gotten both the truly wild and the truly intriguing. I am always amazed what weirdness comes out.

The Twenty Novel Guy speaks to me. How many novels will I have completed before I start looking for an agent?

The Truth About Writers from the L.A. Times

Creating Fictional Characters, Part Four

Write What You Know?

On the Path had a nice pair of posts this week on Nurturing Our Babies and Ready to Fly? I’ve always thought pregnancy or childrearing were good metaphors for the writing process.

Here’s an interesting quote:

William Faulkner once said that writers needed to “kill their little darlings.” It’s a message about how, in order for inspiration to enter, we need to let go of the ideas we’re so in love with to make room for something better. It’s a willingness that everyone in business needs these days.

Now most writers believe Faulkner was talking about the parts of our prose that we loved but didn’t serve the story. Interesting to see another interpretation.

Is Memory Identity? This is a must read article for writers with memory-related plots or scenarios.

Here’s a new application to facilitate brainstorming from Becoming A Writer.

Techniques to get you writing Part I: The psychology of failure

You Had Me at “Hello” (about first sentences, paragraphs and pages of books and their importance.

I was SOOO happy to see this post: Grammar Police: Too much I and not enough Me because I’ve seen it everywhere. I’ve seen it in works I’m beta reading, in things that have been published even, and all over the internet. Here is the very simple rule. If you can eliminate the other name and have it make sense, it’s right.

John and I are going to dinner. (I am going to dinner). Correct.

She’s coming to get John and I. (She’s coming to get I). Incorrect.

Use it with only the personal pronoun to see if it makes sense. It’s a common slip and one that I always notice.

What do you write when you don’t know what happens next?

I Thought. I Did!

-- B J Keltz — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:00:36 +0000

It’s so easy to get caught up in routine and practice, and that’s not a bad thing. I write every day in one form or another. Sometimes I forget I also need at least brief periods away from the pen.

Why? That’s when I’m thinking.

There’s something wonderful about leaving the pen and keyboard for a day or two. Housework gets done (no, really!), movies get watched, books get read, art gets absorbed, and conversations happen. All the while, my little writer brain is feverishly at work creating concepts, characters, or seeds of ideas. In a short time my mind will grow gravid and heavy. The next time I pick up that pen, all kinds of interesting things develop.

So, while I’m looking like this:

it is a useful pose to help me do this: