Tips on Tuesday: Distractions and Writing

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

Last April 21, AnnDeeCandee wrote a blog for Throwing Up Words (if you don’t follow this blog, and you’re a writer, you should). She’d been on vacation and was trying to recuperate from . . . the vacation. Of course. You know the drill. She was finding all kinds of reasons not to write — don’t we all? But she suggested three things to do:

1. List five things that distract you from writing.
2. List what you are going to do when these things try to distract you from writing.
3. List all the things you are going to work on with your WIP. Make a plan.

I did all three. As suggested. I even went back to her blog and made a comment thanking her for the suggestions.

Below, I’ll list the five suggestions with my answers which I wrote on April 22 (when I first saw her blog), and a follow up as to where I stand now on all points. Thanks for reading, while I try to be accountable:

1. Money worries: I should pay what I can online or with checks, stop thinking about the rest, and turn on to my story file. Current: paid all current bills, paid extra on the one that was bugging me the most and which would help the most to pay down in the long run: A+
2. Internet: stop checking the Internet first every day. Did work first, for about 2 days. Current: back to checking the Internet often — and first too many days: C‑ to D+
3. Trapped/ Confused/At a Standstill in my story: Read story aloud (R.A.) to myself and talk to myself (fingers on keyboard) until something comes to me. Current: Did not R.A., or talk to myself, but did begin writing whatever came to mind while holding off my “inner editor.” B‑
4. Clutter: desk & house: Clear desk nightly; get sufficient writing done to devote 30‑60 min to the house per day. Wrote daily, though mostly blogs and answers to emails. Current: probably giving the house the 30‑60 min. most days (though not my desk ! ! !) — but still spending more time writing blogs, journals and email answers than my books. Never fear: I have a deadline coming up and it starts now: WIFYR (Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers), and we already have assignments to do before the June 16‑20 workshop. C-
5. Appointments/interruptions to “schedule”: Get to appointments on time, keep phone, family & meals from interrupting writing flow and plans. Current: appointments have been kept (or deleted, which also needed to happen). Right about the time I read the Throwing Up Words blog referenced above, the IRS threw us a curve (which had to be dealt with), two separate family crises happened which took up a long week‑end and more, plus a long‑distance family event, with which we could only commiserate on by phone and email, caused some angst for a couple of days . . . but hey, it’s family: A‑

In all my years of public school, getting a B.A. degree, an M.A. degree, another academic endorsement and two more certifications, would I have been happy with the “GPA” displayed above (approximately a 2.5 or B-)? Not At All!!! But I am happy about some of the progress: I worked on each item to some degree. I can see where to spend my next major efforts. And I let family come before personal Plans and Goals. And that’s as it should be!

Accept the challenge to write your own worst five distractions to writing, and what you can do about them. Make your plan. Try it for a week or two, and report in — let me know how you’re doing!

See you next for Thinkin’ on Thursday!

Thinkin’ on Thursday: Still Thinkin’ About Mashups

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

Yep, still thinkin’ about mashups. And the fact that I’m writing one. And that I challenged you to try it as well, last Tuesday. LINK BACK TO TUESDAY’s

All that was based on Brian A. Klems’ 4/17/14 guest blog at the Writer’s Digest by Paul Cicchini — school psychologist, humorist, and sports journalist.

Why would I, or you, or anyone want to write a mashup? Cicchini suggests:

1. Mashups are a lot of fun.

2. He actually looked forward to revising & editing! Because he could look for ways to make more and more plot connections between his two very different constructs.

Any hints on how to get started? Cicchini had ‘em:

A. Start with two genres or two topics that you love: say stamp collecting and police dramas. “Put them together and you have a story about a serial-killing philatelist.” Possible tag line: “He makes stamp glue from his victims!! Okay, that may not be a best-seller, but you get the idea.

B. If your two pet subjects don’t mesh together well, find two you’re are at least dying to research. “With this genre, research is key.”

C. Examine your topics exhaustively until you are “almost an expert” in them. Your readers deserve good, reliable information.

D. Besides, when you do the investigating “you may be surprised at how much the subjects are truly interrelated.” Only six degrees of separation, I guess.

E. Go the extra mile in fact checking. “Don’t be lazy. Use several reliable sources.”

F. Don’t limit your background reading and research to the Internet.

G. Read other books and novels for “inspiration.” [See Tuesday’s blog for a few suggestions within the genre “mashups”.

H. Read a lot. Want people to love reading your book? You have to love reading books, too.

See you next for Spellbinder Saturday!

Thinkin’ on Thursday: Where ARE You?

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

The other day, one of the participants in a regional writing blog wrote in that he had just “pushed the button” and sent off a query to an agent. It sounded like he was still shaking. ;‑) He was congratulated by other readers of the blog, and said he thought, now that he’d sent the first one, “tomorrow,” when he sent out a whole bunch of queries to other agents, it would be much “easier”. That’s actually a good, big step toward publication.

What I’ve read is that, far too often, possibly in all our excitement, we readers make ourselves “hard to contact.”

If an agent wants to find YOU, how accessible have you made your email address? Do you keep it hidden for privacy reasons? According to Chuck Sambuchino, author of Create Your Writer Platform (available from Writer’s Digest Books), publicity for books is extremely valuable and often hard to come by. The last thing we should be doing is “hiding from editors, reviewers, etc.” Instead, we need to give ourselves the best chances for success.

Chuck suggests the following:

1. Create a website, even just a simple, free WordPress blog of just one page is a help — if you’re “Googled,” you’ll show up. Include a little info about you and your book, so they’ll know they have the right “John Doe.” Even Twitter will do if you’re on it often and respond quickly. If you have a crazy “ex” or boyfriend, and need to keep info off the internet, that is different, but don’t keep your info locked up for no reason. Remember, even your fans may want to reach you for interviews, information, etc.

2. Check your email daily — though, of course, you needn’t respond to everything. Just make sure there’s nothing “pressing.” Editors and agents have schedules, deadlines. And, like the rest of us, they may procrastinate too often. They may need your reply right away.

3. Trying to avoid spam? When posting your email site, spell things out, like JohnDoe(at)yahoo(dot)com. If you’re well known and have a big fan base, or write for children who contact you, add a note which tells readers you do read all emails, but cannot respond personally to all their messages. “Sorry.”

4. Chuck also says that only listing your publicist’s contact info on your site is not good enough. They may be quicker at returning emails, but they get sick, or too busy, may not work weekends. Include your own info, in case something is urgent.

One, two, three — go for it! But don’t get “lost” where editors, reviewers, fans can’t find you!

See you next on Spellbinder Saturday!

Monday Moans: Newspaper Nonsense

EASY AS A, B, C . . . from BB

In this day and age, with newspapers closing one after another all over the country, you’d think everyone who works for a newspaper agency would be trying to keep them alive.  Yes, even the “paper delivery person” (to be Politically Correct) who so faithfully delivers it to your doorway.

Yes, I still subscribe to a newspaper.  No, I don’t get it every day.  I subscribe for the “week-end,” which includes Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays (when did Friday constitute “week-end”?).  And Mondays, when there are big sales on, like for Mother’s Day, Christmas, etc.  So you’d think, as a matter of job security, my “paperperson” would be sure that I not only get my paper every day, but that it would be readable when it arrives.

We used to have a wonderful “paperperson.”  Actually, “he” was a whole family.  It looked like this to me: the oldest brother, 19 or so, drove the family vehicle.  Three to four kids would jump out both sides of said vehicle, papers in hand, run up to the doors and place the papers on the sidewalk immediately in front of each one.  They’d run back to jump in, grab more papers and jump out again, while Big Brother kept toodling very slowly down the street.  In good weather, the carefully folded paper was held together with a rubber band.  Inclement conditions?  The ubiquitous orange plastic bag cradled the contents.

I want my old “paperperson” back!  Our new “paperperson” throws the paper, willy-nilly into the bushes, the snow bank, the wet grass (with or without the plastic bag), and—occasionally—with what must be Killer Aim, to rest softly in the small cement trough which lies in front of the house just below the water spout from the roof.

Now, both the sun-room and living room doors are on the east side of the house —and are seldom used by family members, as we invariably come in from the garage on the west side of the house.  It’s not like we can see a newspaper lying out there in front of the house.  Nevertheless, when we’re expecting a paper and don’t see it outside by the doors, we generally do think to look for it: traipsing through snow, ice, heavy-duty salt crystals (in bare feet) to retrieve the lost soul.  There are times I truly consider refusing to sign up again.  I’ll even put off paying up when the subscription runs out.  But they keep delivering.  When I’m sufficiently “in arrears,” I finally pay up out of guilt.  I actually get plenty of news from the internet and TV.

But I like my paper on week-ends!

A while back, we hit a new low: we had a moment’s reprieve from winter.  It was COLD out (in mid-April!), but the sun broke through for a few moments, and I stepped out through the sun-room door, barefoot, and stepped the three or four steps to the corner of the house and another two or three steps along the front of the house.  There, adjacent to the rain “trough” at the front was a sodden, dark newspaper.

Oh, dear! I thought.  They must have—finally—realized they’d missed the right side of the house and, lazily, just tossed another copy out!

 I knew this had to be so, because I’d already been out earlier and retrieved the day’s paper.  Not wanting to leave a mess, I picked up the sodden lump, which ran water in a stream from outside and inside the orange bag.  I couldn’t even put this in with the other papers for recycling.  They’re funny about not taking wet paper in for retrieval.

Without really noticing what I had in my hand, I carefully unfolded the various sections and hung them out to dry.  Imagine my surprise, a few days later, when I looked at the date on the front, crinkled, darkened, but finally dry, page: Dec. 24!  A Monday, when I had not expected a newspaper!

I want my old paperperson back!

See you day-after-tomorrow for Wednesday’s WIPs!

Tuesday’s Tutor: As Promised—Three Days of Noveling Crazy (Crazy Like a Fox!)

EASY AS A, B, C . . . from BB

Last Friday’s Friend, Lesli Muir, was kind enough to regale our readers with her take on writing a book—yes, a whole 60,000 word book—in only 3 days, after having led an LTUE (Life, the Universe and Everything) workshop on the subject.  Having been one of her excited participants, I looked up further information on the sources for her ideas:  Michael Moorcock and Lester Dent.  While she’d made a bit of a mash-up of the two, I’d like to give you a little more detail on them.

The following Michael Moorcock material was culled from Tim Dedopulos’ interesting site www.Ghostwoods.com

1.  Set-up or prepare everything you’ll need beforehand, 1-2 days [or more!]

2.  Model your Basic Plot on Dashielle Hammett’s Maltese Falcon (or any other Quest story, like Tolkien’s ring, Mort D’Arthur’s Holy Grail, El Dorado’s gold) where many people seek the same thing

3. Design the Formula: the human (or other) protagonist is fallible against a super-human force—Big Business, supernatural evil, politics, etc.  He’s always ready to give up, but something involves him personally

4.  Make lists of things you’ll use—when I tried this the first time, I made lists in categories: characters, appropriate place, tribal, and character names (many unassigned); agriculture, architecture, history, clothing, crafts within my focus area;  religious and cultural mores; family life, food, housing; travel, war and peace; etc.  Include a list of images, fantastic, paradoxical or whatever, which will fit within your genre.  This imagery will come before action (which is the less important part, as opposed to the object to be obtained and the limited time to obtain it).  Refer to lists whenever you’re stumped during your Three-Day Novel.

5.  Assign the essential element: Time.  Action/adventure will come from your Time frame: “We have only 12 hours to find _____!”  The ticking clock or time bomb will set up your structure.

These plans will help you during the Three-Day because when you’re stuck you’ve got something within your lists/plans which will tell you what to do.

Now you’re ready for the Three-Day adventure to begin:

Turn off the phone, internet, etc.

Lock everyone out (or go to a cheap motel out-of-town—no human contact for 3 days!)

Start writing:

Reveal your “mystery” a bit at a time

At every reveal, do something to increase the problem/mystery: “Ah, so that’s why the upstairs maid said . . . ”

Look at your lists for mysteries you haven’t explained to yourself yet

Divide your 60K into four sections of 15K each

Divide each 15K into 6 chapters at no more than 2.5K each

Hero: “There’s no way I can save the day within 12 hours, unless I . . . ”

(find the sidekick I need, reach a special place, get the (first of several objects). etc.  This gives you an immediate goal, immediate time element, and the over-riding 12-hour deadline.  BTW, sidekicks are great at making responses the hero can’t because he’s so driven.  Driven people can’t have common sense.  Think Lord of the Rings with Sam deciding to carry Frodo to the conclusion.  In ancient times, they used the Greek chorus.

Note than when you’re stuck, and your lists aren’t helping, or are played out, how about using one of your minor characters to keep the narrative moving?

Each of the six chapters must contain something which moves action forward and contributes to the immediate goal.  Thus every chapter and/or event will give the reader information, with all contributing to the narrative function.  Caution: never reveal something that isn’t already established, like revealing a murderer at the end whom we haven’t met earlier.

* * *

Lester Dent’s Master Plot Formula, around for years and years and in many places, is found at this uncluttered source: http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html

Start with

1.  A different murder method for the villain to use

2.  A different thing for the villain to be seeking (see the connection to Moorcock?)

3.  A different locale

4.  A menace which is to hang like a cloud over hero

[When he says “different,” you may think odd, peculiar, outlandish, etc.—what-ever fits your genre.  Could do all the above within Moorcock’s “lists”]

5.  Divide the 60K into four 15K parts

1^st 15K

A.  1^st line (or close to) intro hero and swat him with fistful of trouble.  Hint at mystery, menace, problem to be solved—something hero must deal with

B.  Hero pitches in to cope with fisful of trouble (fathom mystery, defeat menace, solve problem, etc.)

C Intro all other characters ASAP – bring them on in action.

D.  Hero’s attempts land him in physical conflict near end of 1^st 15K

E.  Near end of first 15K, create complete surprise twist in plot development

CHECK: Is there SUSPENSE?  MENACE to hero?  Happening logically?

HINTS: Action should do something besides “advance the hero over the scenery”“ He should accomplish something in his tearing around

2^nd 15K

A.  Shovel more grief on hero

B.  Being heroic, he struggles; his struggles lead up to:

C.  Another physical conflict

D.  Surprising plot twist eo end the 15K

CHECK: SUSPENSE?  MENACE…GROWING?  HERO struggling?  LOGIC?

HINTS: Include one minor surprise to printed page (keeps reader reading).  Some can be misleading.  Then what made that happen = more mystery.  Characterize story actors by tagging them with something: an odd scar, way of speaking, personality flaw, etc.

3^rd 15K

A.  Shovel the grief onto hero

B.  S/he makes some headway; corners villain or somebody in—

C.  A physical conflict

D.  Surprising plot twist where hero gets it in the neck, bad! to end 15K

CHECK: Still have SUSPENSE?  MENACE? Hero in h*** of a fix?  LOGIC?

HINTS: Physical conflicts in each part should be different: fist fight, poison gas, swords, etc.  If quirky, something might be used more than once.

SHOULD BE’s: ACTION: vivid, swift, no words wasted, create suspense

READER should see, feel action.  ATMOSPHERE: hear, smell, see, feel, taste.

DESCRIPTION: trees, wind, scenery, water, weather, etc.

4^th 15K

A.  Shovel difficulties more thickly upon hero

B.  Get hero almost buried in troubles (Figuratively, villain has his prisoner, framed for murder; girl presumably dead, everything is lost, different murder method/threat about to dispose of suffering Hero)

C.  Hero extricates himself using HIS OWN SKILL, training, or brawn

D.  Mysteries remaining—one big one held over to this point will help grip interest—are cleared up in final conflict as hero takes situation in hand.  YAY!

E.  Final twist, big surprise (villain is unexpected person, “treasure” a dud, etc.)

F.  The snapper: punch line to end the adventure

CHECK: SUSPENSE held out to last line?  MENACE too?  Everything is explained?  All happened logically.  Punch Line leaves reader with warm feelings?  Did “God” kill villain . . . or did the Hero???

WOW!  That’s a lot to do in a Three-Day Novel . . . but now you know!  I’ll be trying it again in November, and the beginning of the National Novel Writing Month (see http://www.NaNoWriMo.com) and MAYBE in August for Camp NaNoWriMo, a slightly lesser version of the same thing.

PLEASE join me, if you’d like to give it a shot—send me your name and/or NaNo Code name in a comment below and we can sign up as “Writing Buddies”—or you can “friend” (Writing Buddy) me on NaNo!  See you soon?  Oh, yeah, I’ll . . . (see below)

See you day-after-tomorrow for “Thursday’s 13″

Have questions about writing (grammar, punctuation, getting published, etc.)?  Brenda Bensch, M.A., a teacher of multiple decades’ experience in Utah’s university/high school/community ed. classrooms (English, fiction/non-fiction writing, study skills, drama, humanities, debate, etc.), invites you to “Ask The Teacher” at  http://BenschWensch.wordpress.com