A Stage Mama's Epiphany on Technique and Execution

Since I see just about everything in my life in terms of writing, it's no surprise that I can turn a stage-mama moment into a lesson on the craft :)

My 6 yr old had her first gymnastics competition this past Friday. Well, it was an exhibition - she's in the pre-competitive team program that is designed to give the girls a taste of what being on the actual team and doing competitions will be like. If they like it and make it through the program, they move up to the competitive team. Well, my daughter LOVES it. And she's good at it.

She's not the best. She hasn't been around as long (just started about 7 months ago) so she isn't as experienced as some of the girls who are older or came from the advanced class. But she's pretty dang good. And while one or two of the other (older and more experienced) girls do the actual routines better, my daughter NAILS it with her form. (Stick with me...I promise I'm not going to go all psycho-proud-mama on you...too much :D )

She might flub a move here or there, the other girls might complete the routine without as many mistakes, but my daughter's execution of the routines is really beautiful. Her form and technique are clean, solid, totally crisp, muscles taut, toes pointed - really, just fun to watch, even if there are mistakes the other girls may not have made.

And it made me think of books and getting published (because seriously, most things in my life do lol).

I know I'm not the only one to pick up a published book and think "if this got published, why can't my book?"  Or maybe you finish reading an absolutely amazing book and just feel like you want to hang up your pen because you'll never write something as awesome as that.

I feel like that a lot. Especially when I'm struggling with a particularly stubborn project that feels like I'll never get it done (to my satisfaction that is) :) I finished reading a book just last night that sort of gave the "oy, my current wip will never be this good" vibe.

And then I got to thinking. If I break it down by elements, the story I'd read really wasn't any better than the story I'm writing right now. I think my story just as interesting, just as compelling. But the form, the technique, with which the published book was executed is better than mine at the moment.

I think sometimes, when I run into issues with my books, I tend to focus on the storyline. I try to think of new elements I can add, new characters or new situations. And then I over-complicate things, bog them down with unnecessary additions. When I might just need to focus on executing the elements I already have better. I don't need to make the plot more complicated or throw in a dozen new twists. I just need to weave better, transition smoother, flow better - hone my technique and make the story I have really shine.

So in the spirit of that, I'm off to polish up a manuscript :)

How are you all doing with your projects? Do you ever have "I'm gonna hang up my pen" moments? What gets you past them?

Odd Inspiration Moment

I love love LOVE when something about a WIP finally clicks. I was struggling a bit figuring out the backstory of my book, and since the backstory is a HUGE part of this particular book, this was kind of a problem. There were several things I was struggling with:

• why my MC had ended up where she had
• why her love interest was also there
• how he got there, and how he came to be her love interest in the first place (I needed their families to be against their being together, but I didn't want it to be too Romeo and Juliet with all the hate and family feud issues going on)
• and there were several other issues about my MC and her family/background/personality/character, etc that I just was having a really hard time figuring out.

So, needless to say, work on this WIP has been pretty slow because I needed this stuff worked out before I could really dive in. Oh, and add to all that the fact that I've been toying with making this book a partial verse novel (and hence needed to decide when and where to use poetry...and what type of poetic form(s) I wanted to use) and yeah...issues LOL

And then last night, I was sitting there watching Drop Dead Diva (awesome finale, can't wait for next season!!) and all the answers just fell into place. And I'm not really sure why. There was a murderer on death row on the show. He'd killed somebody = he was bad. But he loved his sister, wanted her to have his heart after he was executed, and he seemed genuinely sorry for what he'd done = maybe he wasn't so bad. 

And something about his character sparked an idea and everything about my story that I was struggling with just fell into place. I'm not even sure what it was because I'm not going to make my MC (or her love interest) a murderer or anything like that. It wasn't in any way a literal "ooo I'll do the same thing." 

But something about that character's story, the conflict in him, tweaked the right creative thread and the issues I was having in my manuscript were suddenly clear...as were their solutions. 

I grabbed a notebook and wrote out 2 pages of notes. And for the first time in a long time I am excited to start writing :D

Have you ever had a weird inspiration moment? Where something totally unexpected inspired an idea or made that problem area you'd been working on suddenly fall into place?

What Happens When A Writer Gets Bored?

First of all, hello everyone! Thanks so much for the warm welcome back. Honestly, it was nice taking a week or so off from everything. But by the end of week 2, I was going a little nuts.

Hence my topic today. What happens when a writer gets bored? And I mean really, really bored.

Here I was, sitting in this big, old empty house. No chores (as there was nothing in the house to wash, pick up, dust, vacuum, move, or even look at), no errands to run (there was nowhere to put anything, nothing to put it in, no bills to pay as we had just moved in, no kidlets to take places as they hadn't been signed up for anything yet), and, horror of horrors - no books to read and no computer to play on, work on, or write on.

I hit a couple book sales (I now live 5 minutes from a Borders!!!!) but those lasted me about a day a piece and I only had so much money to spend on books.

With literally nothing to spend my time on, my mind (crazily spinning on the best of days) went into overdrive. Oh, and let me tell you, I am SURROUNDED by some awesome inspiration.

We moved into this big, old farmhouse in PA - out in the country, a farm to one side of us, and fields all around. And across from the field directly in front of us, an old, red-brick church that was built in 1791 (rebuilt in 1863) that is surrounded by evergreens and a small cemetery with yellowing headstones. It is beautiful, incredible, and just begging for a story to be written about it.

So I went out and bought a notebook and a pen and started writing. And there was WIP #1. As this is a ghost story, I only write it during the day :D Cause, you know, I am a chicken with an overactive imagination and I prefer not to torture myself by freaking myself out with my own stories :D

Which left my nights free.

Which left me time to reflect on the move we had just made and all the fun things that happened along the way...and after we arrived. Including, (but by no means limited to) the many wonderful things that can happen when you imprison a dog, a cat, two kids and two parents in a car on a four day trip, or finally arriving at your destination to have the heating system in the house break two days after you get there (in freezing temps), or finding out a week after you get to your new home that your moving truck won't be there for another three weeks.

Which left me thinking about all the weird stuff that tends to happen to me on a daily basis. Which left me thinking of 33 years of weird/strange/funny/interesting/awesome or just plain "you've-got-to-be-kidding-me-you-have-the-worst-luck-in-the-world" type things.

And WIP #2 was born :)

Then I remembered the WIP I had started for NaNo...my whopping 2213 words. I thought it might be a good idea to add to it, as I still like the story I was working on. And I had some time on my hands :D

And WIP #3 was on its way.

Now, I didn't get very far into any of them. I did have two very bored children (running around a big house scot-free is only fun for a week or two). But I quite enjoyed myself, scribbling away in the corner of my empty living room.

My notebook is hilarious. I have a page or two of WIP #3 followed by half a page of WIP #2 and 4 pages of WIP #1, and so on. I just couldn't make my brain focus on one story. Apparently I had denied it too long and to punish me it started shooting out words willy-nilly and woe be to anyone who got in the way of the pen.

My husband looked at the notebook and asked, "Are these short stories?" And I said, "No...just the product of very bored writer."

What happens to you, my fellow writers, when you are unbelievably bored? Does your brain go so far into withdrawals that it starts spinning out of control and spewing random stories at any piece of paper that will hold still? Or does it shut down completely, so traumatized by lack of exercise that it freezes at the very sound of a word?

I hope I am not the only writer in the world that starts staring at blank napkins with a mad gleam in my eye while my fingers feverishly search for a pen...cause that would just be embarrassing :D