N is for… New Experiences!

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Wednesdays during the summer my brother and my cousins and I would spend the day with my aunt.  We were primarily interested in the backyard pool at my aunt’s house, but my aunt committed herself on those days to making sure we had a “new experience.”  We “had a new experience” at the top of mountains or in unfamiliar restaurants or down winding country roads – any place my aunt could think of to take us out of our routine.
The phrase “have a new experience” inevitably drew eye rolls from our teenage selves back then, and it is still guaranteed to pull a chuckle from our forty-year-old selves today.   I’ve heard my cousin use the phrase with her kids. None of us have gone on to be globe trotters or wild adventurers, but there is no denying that the idea of new experiences as valuable has stuck with us.
Having new experiences is a habit that has to be learned just like exercise or healthy eating.  The important thing to remember is that a new experience does not necessarily mean going to extremes.   Certainly backpacking through Africa would be a spectacular experience, but visiting a new museum in your hometown can be pretty amazing, too.  Just starting at the “finish” of the path in your neighborhood park instead of the beginning can show you things from an entirely different perspective.
My latest new experience is happening this weekend.  Next Monday is my birthday and rather than our usual dinner out my family has agreed to get up early on a Saturday to go visit Maryhill Museum on the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge.  Technically we have been there before, but it’s been at least 30 years so it really will be new again for all of us.  I can’t wait!

Pushing outside our routine doesn’t just open our mind it feeds our inner artist too. I hope you will have a new experience this weekend.  Try a new restaurant or buy a shirt in a bright color instead of a neutral or join an exercise class you haven’t been to.  It doesn’t have to be scary or give you a stomach ache – it just has to be new.  

M Is For… Maps! – by Rachel Wilder!

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My partner in crime, Rachel Wilder, has some thoughts about maps for you. Rachel, take it away!

This turned out to tie in with the previous post. I guess great minds think alike!

Maps are great in preventing you from getting lost and are also useful in that respect, when an author is writing. Engaging characters and a well thought out plot are huge factors for a successful good story. Setting is right up there in importance and maps can help in that regard.

I love road maps for many different things when I write. From telling me how long that car trip is going to take, to where a side street is for our hero to rush out and rescue our main character. Another useful tool is a simple, pencil drawn home-made map for a setting.

This is from Burning Bright, a male/male romance penned by A. Catherine Noon and yours truly.

Sasha approached the street corner. This side of the brick building housing the Factory lay quiet and unoccupied, its exterior lights out. On the other side of the narrower street, empty windows stared at him. Too rattled to read the name of the business on the placard, he turned right and glanced back after discovering no parking lot with his Chevy waiting.

“Hi.”

The voice startled him and he stopped short of running into the muscular chest of a man, who stepped out from a doorway. He wore a leather trench coat over jeans, Russian gang tattoos visible on the naked skin of his upper torso.

“Fuck,” Sasha blurted.

The sketch above was invaluable in keeping us- and the action – right where we needed it to be. Don’t worry about the level of your ability, just have fun and grab a pencil.

So, have you ever gotten lost?

L Is For… Location! – with Guest, Grace Kahlo!

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Please help me welcome Grace Kahlo, one of the newest members of the Writer’s Retreat.  Grace, take it away! 

No matter which genre you write, location is a fundamental base to your story. The setting complies of more than time and place. It goes along with culture, architecture, vegetation, dialect, and everything that makes your story world complete and unique.
The fun thing about location is that how you go about it depends on you. Some writers choose to write about a location they know, some travel especially for research purposes, some writers enjoy couch traveling, and some invent everything from scratch.
Personally, I prefer to spend less time researching, and more time writing. I’m currently writing and editing a romantic high fantasy, and planning a contemporary romantic suspense. 
For the fantasy, I pretty much invented every aspect of the setting, and even drew a map of the world. I decided I wanted a mountain ridge, with each mountain belonging to a different type of magical being. On the lower grounds, I have a city for wizards, city for witches, and basically there are different beings on every piece of land. 
Why?
Because, in my story, the land chooses its caretaker.
Now what would happen when different beings want to live on other lands? It’s gonna get messy, and that’s part of the fun. 🙂
That’s just scratching the surface. Because every caste of magical beings have their culture, their dialect, their approach to the land. And the weather is different on a mountain’s peak—colder, fresh and biting—than the warm, moist weather of the lower grounds.
So, setting is an integral part of every story.
For the contemporary, I need to research. My starting point is that I need a woodsy area with wild animals to heighten the stakes and make the scenes heart-thumping with worry and danger. I decided to go with Florida. Now I need to set a trail, because there’re going to be lots of running away and chases in the book. 

How about you? How do you go about deciding the location and all of the details of your setting?

K Is For… Kibitzer – Flash Fiction Word Prompt

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Karl shook his head. What an unfair nickname! He wasn’t really Karl the Kibitzer, was he? Sure he liked to joke around, but his wisecracks weren’t disruptive like the Yiddish word implied.
At least he got off relatively light. Those jerks around the water cooler called some of their colleagues much worse. He figured Lester the Molester should file a lawsuit, in fact. Finished drying his hands, Karl tossed the paper towel in the trash and squared his shoulders.
 I’ll show them, he thought. They won’t get a word out of me the rest of the day.
Five minutes later, Karl interrupted an important conference call to tell about the squirrel trapped in his fireplace last fall. After all, who didn’t love that story? Oblivious of his coworkers’ eye rolls, Karl felt certain he heard their customer laughing through the speaker.

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J Is For… Just – and Other Garbage Words

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We all use them.  They’re the little words that don’t really need to be there, like “really.”  They come from colloquial conversation and pepper our writing because it’s how we talk, but not necessarily how we write.

Here are some examples of “garbage words” that I look for when I’m editing a manuscript:

  • So
  • That
  • Then
  • And then
  • Just
  • Really
I literally use the “find” function in my word processing software to look for these words.  This helps me tighten up the writing.  So, you really just have to find the words that make your writing slow down, then remove them, and then you’ll really have something that’s just worth reading.
See?  Easy as pie.
What about you, Dear Reader?
What is your favorite editing tip?

I Is For… Initiation

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When I attend prompt circles and other writerly groups, one question that keeps cropping up is, “How do I get started?”  It’s usually asked by someone that, to my eye, is quite ready to get onto the page, they just don’t know where the page is.  My answer is always the same:  open your journal and start writing.  Set a timer for ten minutes.  Write whatever’s in your mind.  If you totally can’t think of anything to write, then tell me how you got here, to this moment, today – start from the minute you woke up this morning.

That’s it.  Start with where you are.  Right here.

Now.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What’s the best advice you have for getting started (in anything, not just writing)?

H Is For… Holes – As in Plots (get that mind out of the gutter ~grin~)

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I tend to write without outlines, character sheets, or even much of a plan. Sometimes this approach fails utterly because the stories can go off on a tangent and then sputter out.  Or, as referenced in the name of this post, the plot ends up full of holes. That is at least fixable. Other times, however, something clicks for extremely satisfying results.
For the month of April, I’m endeavoring to rewrite a story that faltered back in November of 2013 during National Novel Writing Month. The Office of Letters and Light is hosting a similar challenge called Camp NaNo, so it’s full steam ahead once again.
Some new ideas have since cropped up for my contemporary gay romance tale, and that feels good. As of today (actually April fifth as I type this), the tale has not advanced far but I am hopeful. The whole idea came about with a silly opening line. Then I thought of an interesting name and just ran with it. We’ll see how it goes as the month progresses.
If you’re a writer, what tools work to help you create a cohesive story? Inquiring minds want to know. ~grin~ Happy writing!

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F Is For… Fiction!

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I adore fiction.  I always have.  I wrote my first story at the age of nine, and I devoured books upon books from the library, booksellers like B. Dalton and Waldenbooks, and when I discovered my first Barnes and Noble I thought they would have to drag me out of there kicking and screaming because I never wanted to leave.  ACRES of books.  I discovered the (sadly defunct) Brandeis Used Book Sale which was an annual event, SEVEN CIRCUS TENTS full of used books – paperbacks, hardbacks, rare books, sets, books, magazines, books, tapes, DVDs, and did I mention books?

I love the smell of books.  I love the feel of them.  I love the novel as an art form.  But above all, I love fiction because fiction allows you to tell Truth.

Which brings me to Professor Josip Novakovich.  If you are a writer, or want to be, I urge you to wander through his book Fiction Writer’s Workshop and add it to your personal library.  His pithy explanations of how to get to story will have you reaching for your pen.

But my favorite quote from the whole book, which is full of quote-worthy material, is this:

“You might want to become a non-fiction writer, and yet at every turn you distort things, exaggerate and embellish them, and even introduce characters, places and events that had nothing to do with the original material.  In that case, you are a born fiction writer, which is much nicer than saying you are a born liar.”

Hoo-rah, baby.  Yeah.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What’s your favorite medium?  Novel? Poem? Non-fiction essay? What?

E Is For… Event – Camp NaNo

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Besides posting some A to Z entries here and the entire alphabet for my Darla M. Sands blog, I am also endeavoring to meet another writing challenge. The Office of Letters and Light, hosts of November’s National Novel Writing Month, provide still more opportunities for writer’s to test themselves. Camp NaNo happens in both April and July, I believe (can’t stop to research details now!).
The rules are much less strict than for NaNoWriMo, and contestants can even set their own word count. I, however, decided to go for broke and attempt another fifty thousand during the month just as in November. Wish me luck.
What are you writing today?

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D is for…Distraction

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Case and point…I’m late posting today, because I was distracted.  Granted, I was distracted with family events and a bit of exhaustion.

Many days, when I’m writing I have to fight distraction.  A. Catherine Noon pointed out yesterday that she was distracted by the Internet.   The Internet is where I spend hours in the name of research, however I often end up in the weeds looking for some minuscule detail.

I’m writing a steam punk novel currently and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wandered off into costuming in the name of research.  I’m sure my search engine thinks I have some sort of Corset/Weaponry fetish. 🙂

Distraction may be a good thing too.   I imagine if we sat at our desks and weren’t occasionally distracted, we would suffer from some sort of burn-out.   If you can’t write because you’ve turned off the Internet and you spend thirty minutes staring at a blank screen, your lack of productivity may be a sign you need a distraction.