Tag: Rachel Wilder

  • The F Word

    I bet you thought I mean that eff word, eh?

    Uh-huh.  Busted.

    F Is For Friendship!

    I have been blessed by the internet.  No, not because I sent a hundred thousand spams requesting money because I’m a Nigerian prince, or because I offered to provide an enlargement product, and not even to act as a marriage broker for offshore women.  No, I’ve been blessed by the internet with some of the best friendships I’ve ever had.

    The amazing thing about the world of the internet is how small it is.  One of my friends lives in Israel, another in Plymouth, another in Hawaii, and even a couple in Toronto.  This doesn’t even count the circle of friends here in the States that is the backbone of this very website, and who have built it with me from a tiny little blog on Blogger to what it is becoming.  I’d say that “I can’t imagine life without the internet,” but that’s not true: I can, and I’d be very lonely.  My friendships aren’t virtual, they’re very real and very precious.

    What about you, Dear Reader?  How has the internet changed your life?

    And about that eff word:  it was my first swear word.

    When I was about two years old.

    I used it in a telephone conversation with my very gentlemanly maternal grandfather.  “How was the ocean?”

    “Oh, Grandpa.  It was wonderful.  We collected sea glass, and shells, and played in the sand.  But Grandpa.  That water was so effing cold.”

    Dead silence reigned for at least a whole minute.  Tick.  Tock.

    And to the day she died, my mother never forgave my father for using that word in front of me.  He, on the other hand, maintained it was the neighbor’s children.

    Since it’s his favorite word too, I think I’m my father’s daughter, at least in this sense.

    ~grin~

  • E is for Emergency

    A lot of my friends tease me about being a Doomsday Prepper because I grew up in hurricane country and tend to be prepared.

    2016-04-06 Pic 1

    For anything. Including, perhaps, zombies.

    But to be honest, an emergency can happen anywhere, anytime to anyone. And information can be vital. So some questions everyone should ask themselves is … if something happens to me and I am hospitalized who will take care of my children or pets? Does my family know what hospital I prefer? Do I? Which one is covered by my insurance?

    Do I have a list of important numbers that isn’t locked in my cell phone? Does the person I want to ‘be in charge’ know about it?  Even better, do they know and agree to be my ‘go to’ contact?

    2016-04-06 Pic 2

    You can go deeper and consider if you have a current will or a living will? Does family know your wishes if you can’t express them? The time to figure this out is before you’re unconscious. Might be easier- just saying. After all, when you get home you want to concentrate on getting better.

    2016-04-06 Pic 3

  • Writer Wednesday – The Sagging Middle

    Sunrise Over Evanston or, What’s the “O” For?  Oh, my God, it’s early! (Thank you Robin Williams!)
    Image Copyright 2015 A. Catherine Noon; All Rights Reserved

    So, those of you who are paying attention will notice that it’s actually Thursday.  Yup.  This may give you some indication of my state of the state, compounded to the fact that someone seems to have ripped May out of my calendar completely and it feels like it still should be early April.  Maybe March.

    This actually gave me my idea for today’s post:  the “dreaded middle,” or the “sagging middle,” take your pick.  Where I am in my life, the “sagging” is more apt on many levels, some of which I’m not prepared to discuss.  ~grin~ So.  Middles.

    Writers talk of the middles as being the hardest part of writing a novel.  Sure, crafting an opening that snares the reader, and finishing off with a bang, are all to be desired.  But once we have them, there’s still the problem of the journey.  Do we add layers?  Do we have too many characters?  Too few?  What about that plot twist that you weren’t a hundred percent sure of – now that you’re at the other side of the mountain, does it provide shade, or block the light?

    One of my buddies on Romance Divas, author Amity Lassiter, shared some motivation with the board that I think applies to how I’m feeling today.  I’ll share it with you, but first, a warning:  it’s loud, and rather startling, but very worth it – especially if you, like me, get stuck in the middle.

    We can do this.

  • R Is For… Research

    Of the team of Noon & Wilder, I am the ‘Research Queen’ and how I adore my job. Even topics that I originally thought wouldn’t be interesting, often turn out to be the opposite. I think it’s important to get the details right so the reader believes in your writing.

    On the other hand, a writer needs to be careful that it doesn’t turn out to be a distraction or overwhelming. You want to make sure it still flows with the story and doesn’t come across as an info dump.

    Though, allowing some distraction, keeps your own interest. An example is the Bear Creek Brewery that Noony and I created for the sequel of Sealed By Fire (yet to be published). We had a great afternoon at the Goose Island Brewery in Chicago.

    Took a tour:

    And a beer tasting seminar:

    All, of course, in the name of research. So make sure you’re having fun. Oh, and it helps to bring a pen or favorite pencil, notebook and camera.

  • O Is For… Opening!

    Openings.  They’re hard.  “You have to grab the reader in the first sentence.”  “If you haven’t gotten the reader’s attention in the first three pages, you’ve lost them.”  “The first three chapters are all you’ve got.  If you can’t take the reader by storm in the beginning, the you aren’t going to keep them reading.”

    No pressure, hah!  That’s heaps of pressure!

    Many times when I sit down to open a book my brain will go blank, because I’m trying to come up with a knock-their-socks-off opening.  Here’s how I get around it:

    I don’t try to start at the beginning.  Another piece of advice is, “get into the action as late as possible, and get out as early as possible.”  So when writing, if I see a scene but not the opening, I don’t worry about the setup.  I get into the scene and write what I do see.  In the process, I usually come up with an opening – or I worry about it during edits.

    What about you, Dear Reader?
    What advice do you like about starting new projects?

  • M Is For… Maps! – by Rachel Wilder!

    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?

  • J Is For… Just – and Other Garbage Words

    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

    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)?

  • F Is For… Fiction!

    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?

  • C Is For… Character

    So, I went to Google today to find a funny picture to use for today’s post.  So, I says, Google, give me funny character pictures.  And Google says,

    Well, I’m not actually sure what this says.  Isn’t he creepy?  🙂

    I totally lost my original train of thought.  It was going to be something magnificent, too.

    So, Dear Reader.  
    What has distracted you on the internet lately?