Good Morning Everybody,
It's Friday! Yes, we all made it to Friday. :-)
Today it's a busy day. I go over to my parents' house, then pick up my son's God-sister from school (my high school Alma mater, if you can believe it :-) ). then she's going to spend the night, which will be fun. My son absolutely adores her and she's so good with him. It's fun to watch them...especially fun to watch my son laugh at her silly antics. (She likes to make him laugh).
This is the "other side" of a writer's life. The life outside the words upon the page. And a writer's real life is important, too. Some of us have families, and they are center stage. Some of us have "day jobs" that help us pay the bills to afford the things we need for writing.
Some of us have children that need our help with things.
This is all right because it gives us a chance to let our ideas "maranaide". You never know what might come of it.
Have A Fantastic Friday!
YA Author, Bethany Averie's Blog
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
In The Zone
Hello One And All,
Welcome to Thursday's post! Just one more day then...
IT'S FRIDAY :-)
So...question for you:
What's your ultimate writing set up? What is it that helps you write the best?
Is it a big comfy chair? Your favorite songs in the background? Background conversation? Chocolate? Coffee?
Whatever it is, have it when you write. It's something I reminded myself of while I was listening to a song that I listened to a lot while writing Surreal (it was Chris De Burgh's "Missing You" by the way).
I almost never listen to music while writing... however I remember when writing Surreal, I listened to songs by Chris De Burgh, Ramones, Lowen & Navarro, REM, Kci & Jo-Jo, Bonnie Taylor, Savage Garden, Neil Diamond, Righteous Brothers, Paul Anka, Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Optional 2, They Might Be Giants, "Trumpet Voluntary" by Henry Purcell Clark.
That music helped put me in the right mood to write Surreal.
So I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should go back to listening to music that puts me in the right mood for whatever story I'm writing.
Give yourself a break...set yourself up to be the right mood for whatever story you're telling. What you're writing...if there's a particular music that suits the mood of the story, put it on and let yourself go...if you can't write with music in the background, figure out what helps you be "in the zone" so you can write, write, write.
Best wishes!
Have A Tremendous Thursday!
Welcome to Thursday's post! Just one more day then...
IT'S FRIDAY :-)
So...question for you:
What's your ultimate writing set up? What is it that helps you write the best?
Is it a big comfy chair? Your favorite songs in the background? Background conversation? Chocolate? Coffee?
Whatever it is, have it when you write. It's something I reminded myself of while I was listening to a song that I listened to a lot while writing Surreal (it was Chris De Burgh's "Missing You" by the way).
I almost never listen to music while writing... however I remember when writing Surreal, I listened to songs by Chris De Burgh, Ramones, Lowen & Navarro, REM, Kci & Jo-Jo, Bonnie Taylor, Savage Garden, Neil Diamond, Righteous Brothers, Paul Anka, Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Optional 2, They Might Be Giants, "Trumpet Voluntary" by Henry Purcell Clark.
That music helped put me in the right mood to write Surreal.
So I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should go back to listening to music that puts me in the right mood for whatever story I'm writing.
Give yourself a break...set yourself up to be the right mood for whatever story you're telling. What you're writing...if there's a particular music that suits the mood of the story, put it on and let yourself go...if you can't write with music in the background, figure out what helps you be "in the zone" so you can write, write, write.
Best wishes!
Have A Tremendous Thursday!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Let The Writer Write!
Howdy All,
Every writer has those times when it seems like you're just barely eking out your story. It's annoying and frustrating, yet, despite having ideas, every time you try to put them on paper you feel like you're at a dead end. You're so worried it's bad, that you can't even squeeze it out of your brain and put it out there. Yet, you know, that if you keep this mind set it's going to cripple you.
I sometimes struggle with this. I'm working on my dragon story and I have to push aside my questions about what works and what doesn't and let the ideas flow.
We have to have this conversation with ourselves...something like this:
Self, you love to write. You have creative ideas. Other people have liked your ideas. Cut the crap and just let yourself go...let your imagination run wild and worry about the details when you edit.
The thing we all have to remember is when we're writing, we write. When we edit, that's when we say "This sentence works, this sentence doesn't, this needs to stay, this needs to be changed, delete, insert..."
When we write we have to keep it going like this: idea, idea, idea, idea, idea, idea, idea. Paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word.
We can't sit there thinking "Is this good? Does this work?" We have to think "Okay, now what happens? Does she throw a frying pan at him or does she run into his arms saying 'where have you been all my life?'"
We have to remember when we write, it's about getting the story out. When we edit, it's cleaning it up.
When we mix the two too much, we cripple ourselves because we're editing rather than letting it flow.
Best wishes!
Have A Winging Wednesday!
Every writer has those times when it seems like you're just barely eking out your story. It's annoying and frustrating, yet, despite having ideas, every time you try to put them on paper you feel like you're at a dead end. You're so worried it's bad, that you can't even squeeze it out of your brain and put it out there. Yet, you know, that if you keep this mind set it's going to cripple you.
I sometimes struggle with this. I'm working on my dragon story and I have to push aside my questions about what works and what doesn't and let the ideas flow.
We have to have this conversation with ourselves...something like this:
Self, you love to write. You have creative ideas. Other people have liked your ideas. Cut the crap and just let yourself go...let your imagination run wild and worry about the details when you edit.
The thing we all have to remember is when we're writing, we write. When we edit, that's when we say "This sentence works, this sentence doesn't, this needs to stay, this needs to be changed, delete, insert..."
When we write we have to keep it going like this: idea, idea, idea, idea, idea, idea, idea. Paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word.
We can't sit there thinking "Is this good? Does this work?" We have to think "Okay, now what happens? Does she throw a frying pan at him or does she run into his arms saying 'where have you been all my life?'"
We have to remember when we write, it's about getting the story out. When we edit, it's cleaning it up.
When we mix the two too much, we cripple ourselves because we're editing rather than letting it flow.
Best wishes!
Have A Winging Wednesday!
"One Man's Trash Another Man's Treasure..."
Morning Everyone,
Ever wrote something that you thought wasn't very good, but you ended up showing it to other people and they gushed over it?
I'm sure we've all done that at one point or another.
After all...you are your own worst critic. That is something I've heard over the years, and have to remind myself. No matter what anyone else might say, you've probably said worse about your own writing.
Same with books you read. Something you might not have liked much, other people absolutely love.
That's one of the great things about writing. There's generally something out there for everyone, so until you put yourself to the task of scribbling your story upon pages (or, rather, typing it up) you have no idea how many or who will go crazy over your story and who will say "That's great, but you know, not really for me."
You can't know until you put yourself out there. That's something we all have to remind ourselves about at least once in awhile.
The simple fact is, treasures are often hidden from our eyes until we take the time to unearth them. If you don't put yourself out there (in a professional way) then how can your work be unearthed and shined up as a piece of wonderful reading treasure?
Have A Terrific Tuesday!
Ever wrote something that you thought wasn't very good, but you ended up showing it to other people and they gushed over it?
I'm sure we've all done that at one point or another.
After all...you are your own worst critic. That is something I've heard over the years, and have to remind myself. No matter what anyone else might say, you've probably said worse about your own writing.
Same with books you read. Something you might not have liked much, other people absolutely love.
That's one of the great things about writing. There's generally something out there for everyone, so until you put yourself to the task of scribbling your story upon pages (or, rather, typing it up) you have no idea how many or who will go crazy over your story and who will say "That's great, but you know, not really for me."
You can't know until you put yourself out there. That's something we all have to remind ourselves about at least once in awhile.
The simple fact is, treasures are often hidden from our eyes until we take the time to unearth them. If you don't put yourself out there (in a professional way) then how can your work be unearthed and shined up as a piece of wonderful reading treasure?
Have A Terrific Tuesday!
Monday, January 25, 2010
"Tomorrow You Will Find Me A Grave Man."--Shakespeare
Morning All,
A subject I haven't touched much on:
killing off your characters.
Shakespeare did a lot of that (Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, et cetera). In fact, for him it worked, especially when it was characters we come to care about.
However, I read somewhere that it's generally discouraged it kill off your main characters. (I can't remember where I read it, but I did read it somewhere).
Readers often come to really care about those main characters and don't like you messing with them.
How do I know? Well, besides being a reader myself, I was once writing an Inspirational type fiction and I was thinking of what to do with one of my characters and I said to a friend of mine, "I think I'll kill him off...have him die in the story." She said "Noooo!" I said, "Why not? You didn't like him originally." She said, "Well, I like him now."
As your story changes, the opinion your readers form of the characters can (and often does) change.
Case in point...I was reading the 3rd installment of the Jennifer Scales novels, The Silver Moon Elm: A Jennifer Scales Novel. Originally, I had liked this one character and thought it was kinda cool that he and this other character were together. But as the story went on and I found out more about what he was doing in the background when the story wasn't focused on him, and I stopped liking him as much. In fact, I was disappointed with him.
Sometimes a death of one of your characters plays an essential role in the plot line, which I read in that same place (that I can't remember what it was) and the author said if it plays an essential role in the plot line, that was different.
In Lurlene MacDaniel's novel, When Happily Ever After Ends, the main character's father is a Vietnam War Vet and can't handle the post traumatic stress of his memories and commits suicide. This event shapes what happens in the latter part of the story.
So, what about you? Does death push your plot line along or do you prefer to keep your main characters (and those closest to them) breathing?
Generally I don't have any of my main characters die, but depending on the story, sometimes might have someone close to them die to help shape the rest of the plot and their motivations for doing what they do.
Have A Mourn-LESS Monday!
A subject I haven't touched much on:
killing off your characters.
Shakespeare did a lot of that (Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, et cetera). In fact, for him it worked, especially when it was characters we come to care about.
However, I read somewhere that it's generally discouraged it kill off your main characters. (I can't remember where I read it, but I did read it somewhere).
Readers often come to really care about those main characters and don't like you messing with them.
How do I know? Well, besides being a reader myself, I was once writing an Inspirational type fiction and I was thinking of what to do with one of my characters and I said to a friend of mine, "I think I'll kill him off...have him die in the story." She said "Noooo!" I said, "Why not? You didn't like him originally." She said, "Well, I like him now."
As your story changes, the opinion your readers form of the characters can (and often does) change.
Case in point...I was reading the 3rd installment of the Jennifer Scales novels, The Silver Moon Elm: A Jennifer Scales Novel. Originally, I had liked this one character and thought it was kinda cool that he and this other character were together. But as the story went on and I found out more about what he was doing in the background when the story wasn't focused on him, and I stopped liking him as much. In fact, I was disappointed with him.
Sometimes a death of one of your characters plays an essential role in the plot line, which I read in that same place (that I can't remember what it was) and the author said if it plays an essential role in the plot line, that was different.
In Lurlene MacDaniel's novel, When Happily Ever After Ends, the main character's father is a Vietnam War Vet and can't handle the post traumatic stress of his memories and commits suicide. This event shapes what happens in the latter part of the story.
So, what about you? Does death push your plot line along or do you prefer to keep your main characters (and those closest to them) breathing?
Generally I don't have any of my main characters die, but depending on the story, sometimes might have someone close to them die to help shape the rest of the plot and their motivations for doing what they do.
Have A Mourn-LESS Monday!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Blank Pages
Hello All,
Years ago, in high school (senior year) I worked on the school newspaper. I interviewed one of my favorite singing groups Lowen & Navarro. When I asked Dan Navarro about writing songs he said something like "...the agony of the blank page..."
That's stuck with me ever since.
What is it about blank pages that scare writers?
We just can't deal with blank pages. We have to fill them up with our ideas. Sometimes it's easy and things flow and we have ourselves a ball...other times writer's block creeps in and we feel like we're in a corner being punished.
There's nothing wrong with a blank page in and of itself. It means there's potential. There's anticipation. The sense that something is coming...even if we don't always know what that something is at first.
Sure, as Dan Navarro pointed out, blank pages can be agonizing. Especially if we sit there feeling like we're ready and nothing comes. It's enough to cause hyperventilation if you're not prepared.
So let's prepare ourselves. Let's get our minds right so that the blank pages aren't sources of fear:
1. Tell yourself blank pages are your friends
2. Start with a glimmer of an idea and go with it. See where it takes you
3. Delete what you have to.
4. Remember: Good days and bad days happen. Don't let the bad days ruin the memory of the good days.
Okay, I've succeeded in surprising myself. I honestly wasn't sure what I was going to write for today (Friday's) post. The blank page stared at me. Then all this came.
See what I mean about never knowing what might happen? About possibilities?
Now, since I showed you, you don't have to be scared of the blank page, either. This is one of those little successes along the road of writing. Best wishes to you in conquering your blank pages and blinking cursors.
Have A Fantastic Friday!
Years ago, in high school (senior year) I worked on the school newspaper. I interviewed one of my favorite singing groups Lowen & Navarro. When I asked Dan Navarro about writing songs he said something like "...the agony of the blank page..."
That's stuck with me ever since.
What is it about blank pages that scare writers?
We just can't deal with blank pages. We have to fill them up with our ideas. Sometimes it's easy and things flow and we have ourselves a ball...other times writer's block creeps in and we feel like we're in a corner being punished.
There's nothing wrong with a blank page in and of itself. It means there's potential. There's anticipation. The sense that something is coming...even if we don't always know what that something is at first.
Sure, as Dan Navarro pointed out, blank pages can be agonizing. Especially if we sit there feeling like we're ready and nothing comes. It's enough to cause hyperventilation if you're not prepared.
So let's prepare ourselves. Let's get our minds right so that the blank pages aren't sources of fear:
1. Tell yourself blank pages are your friends
2. Start with a glimmer of an idea and go with it. See where it takes you
3. Delete what you have to.
4. Remember: Good days and bad days happen. Don't let the bad days ruin the memory of the good days.
Okay, I've succeeded in surprising myself. I honestly wasn't sure what I was going to write for today (Friday's) post. The blank page stared at me. Then all this came.
See what I mean about never knowing what might happen? About possibilities?
Now, since I showed you, you don't have to be scared of the blank page, either. This is one of those little successes along the road of writing. Best wishes to you in conquering your blank pages and blinking cursors.
Have A Fantastic Friday!
Fire Breathing
Morning Folks,
Wow. I didn't realize how popular dragons actually were until I reported on the Jennifer Scales series by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi. (Click here to go to the official website of the series) yesterday.
So I thought we'd go ahead and talk more about dragons today.
I am actually writing a story involving dragons. I found out some interesting things about dragons clicking on Wikipedia (I looked up Japanese Dragons).
I found out some other interesting things, as well...
In Asian cultures (at least in Chinese and Japanese legends) the dragon was revered as a deity. Generally something of good fortune. (Maybe I had a clue about that, but I don't know for sure).
Another interesting thing you can find on this Wikipedia article is that dragons with 5 claws were imperial dragons (if you didn't know that, now you do :-) )
I saw a glimpse of this whole imperial 5-clawed dragon beliefs in Cameron Dokey's Wild Orchid: A Retelling Of The Ballad Of Mulan, where she describes the Emperor being the only one allowed to display the 5-clawed dragon. (Another good book, but not completely about dragons).
Makes me wonder where and why 5 claws on a dragon came to denote royalty or a high deity. Maybe it has to do with having more power, or showing a caste system. (As in my story, the number of claws the dragon has denotes where in the caste system a person is--5 claws being the royal family, 4 claws nobles, 3 claws those below them and 2 claws common people or servants).
Most stories seem to agree that dragons are generally of the serpent persuasion, thus, reptilian, although in MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi's books the dragon are more closer related to birds--like the dinosaurs.
It's pretty cool how dragons have so many options, which means if you're writing a dragon story your imagination has several options...pretty cool, huh?
What do you know about dragons? Are you writing a story with dragons?
Have A Thrilling Thursday!
Wow. I didn't realize how popular dragons actually were until I reported on the Jennifer Scales series by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi. (Click here to go to the official website of the series) yesterday.
So I thought we'd go ahead and talk more about dragons today.
I am actually writing a story involving dragons. I found out some interesting things about dragons clicking on Wikipedia (I looked up Japanese Dragons).
I found out some other interesting things, as well...
In Asian cultures (at least in Chinese and Japanese legends) the dragon was revered as a deity. Generally something of good fortune. (Maybe I had a clue about that, but I don't know for sure).
Another interesting thing you can find on this Wikipedia article is that dragons with 5 claws were imperial dragons (if you didn't know that, now you do :-) )
I saw a glimpse of this whole imperial 5-clawed dragon beliefs in Cameron Dokey's Wild Orchid: A Retelling Of The Ballad Of Mulan, where she describes the Emperor being the only one allowed to display the 5-clawed dragon. (Another good book, but not completely about dragons).
Makes me wonder where and why 5 claws on a dragon came to denote royalty or a high deity. Maybe it has to do with having more power, or showing a caste system. (As in my story, the number of claws the dragon has denotes where in the caste system a person is--5 claws being the royal family, 4 claws nobles, 3 claws those below them and 2 claws common people or servants).
Most stories seem to agree that dragons are generally of the serpent persuasion, thus, reptilian, although in MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi's books the dragon are more closer related to birds--like the dinosaurs.
It's pretty cool how dragons have so many options, which means if you're writing a dragon story your imagination has several options...pretty cool, huh?
What do you know about dragons? Are you writing a story with dragons?
Have A Thrilling Thursday!
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