CONFESSIONS OF A MOM

Be Happy With Your Mountain. 

Conquer Your Mountain.

Don't Look At The Mountains Of Other People. 

Enjoy Your View. 

You're Okay. 

I'm Okay.

Life Is Good.

CONFESSIONS OF A MOM

I had the opportunity this last weekend to go to a writer’s conference in Utah. I’ve been going for several years now and really enjoy seeing those friends I only get to see face to face once or twice in a year. And this time around, I went with a different purpose in mind. It was very interesting to see what came of it.

I’m burned out. I’ve openly admitted that to several people lately, and to me that says a lot. So I took this opportunity to go to Utah with nothing big in mind. I wasn’t even sure I would attend any classes at all. I gave myself permission to just sit in the hotel room and do nothing, or write, or read, or whatever I felt like doing.

Life is just interesting in how things happen. I did end up attending classes and felt the spark to write again ignite. However, I decided to put my current work in progress (WIP), THE BLACK ORCHID on the back burner and begin something new that has been floating around in my mind.

With that in mind, a good friend of mind talked me through how to get more writing time in my life. And for shutting her down and coming up with excuse after excuse, I appreciated her persistence in helping me. Not many people would put up with the amount of closed doors I threw her way. :) By the end of the conference though, she had given me some good ideas that I did hear. I just need to see about implementing them now.

Then a surprise came. I had entered THE BLACK ORCHID in the first chapter contest a while back. In fact I had entered it in a Beginning of Book contest back in February and it took second in the Young Adult category. But for some reason I wasn’t expecting much this time around. Well, it took first place in the mystery/suspense category. That plus lots of encouragement from other people to keep working on it shifted my thinking about pulling it from the back burner.

Then . . . another good friend talked about a class she took on accountability partnership and by the end of the conference we had worked that out with us and one other gal. (I’ll get into the accountability partnership for a later post because it really is a great tool.)

By the end of the conference I was armed with great ideas and a ton of motivation. The partnership has been going great and I’ve been amazed at how my productivity level has increased. I was also amazed to see how quickly life intervened for each of us and our goals for the day were altered. It’s been fascinating to see, but at the same time very enlightening.

However, I found myself toward the end of the week, Friday in particular, feeling like a failure and feeling burned out again. It seems like by the time I get to the end of the week I’m burned out again. Somehow I need to snap out of it and work through it, but I haven’t figured that out. I know that’s part of life, but I guess I’m asking you guys. What do you do to defeat the “end of the week blues” as I’m going to coin it? Maybe together we can all get some great ideas and find what works best for us. I feel like this is an abrupt way to end a post but my brain just shut down. So once again, I sure hope this all makes sense and that you are able to see how I came to the conclusions I came to. And hopefully we’ll be able to help each other out. :)

What To Watch For After Your First Draft

It's amazing how quickly time and my mind goes. I thought I had this post figured out, but as I sit down to write it I'm drawing a blank. Oh well. This weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Northwest Writer's Retreat in Washington. Aside from being in a beautiful location with much cooler weather than I'm used to, great company, and great classes, I've been able to do some solid writing of my own. It's been wonderful!

One of the subjects talked about by our resident writer Heather B Moore was "Life After the First Draft." It's always nice to be reminded of what we need to watch out for. This was especially useful for me right now as I'm going through yet another edit. Here are some of the things to watch out for:

• Watch out for Dialog Tags. Make sure you have them when needed and substitute an action when you can.
• Avoid repetition of all kinds, i.e. words, name calling, etc
• Punctuation. Beward of too many !!!!!, know basic comma rules
• Verbs. Check your "ly" verbs, use more accurate verbs, watch was/were
• Pacing. Make sure your book is always moving forward, watch info dumps, are you skimming your own words?
• Sense of Setting. Keep each chapter to make sure you know where you are within the first few paragraphs
• Point of View. Make sure you stay consistent. No head hopping.
• General. Have your facts straight, use spell checker, are your actions physically possible?

All of these things are great to keep in mind while writing a first draft, but that doesn't mean you should get hung up on them. Just write the story, then go through looking for these things. Keep up all the wonderful writing and Happy Editing! (If that's the stage you're in.)

Internal Thought

I've been going through conference notes to refresh my brain as to what classes I have and have not taken. That's quite an interesting journey if you've never done it before. Fond and not so fond memories have been dusted off, and I've found new ways to use some of the things talked about. Here are my notes on a class I took about using internal thought to create characterization by Janette Rallison.

Using Internal Thought to Create Characterization

Janette Rallison

Reasons to use internal thought correctly

1. reveals characterization

2. reveals motivation

3. increases tension and stakes

4. is very often what editors and agents are referring to when they talk about “voice”

• your writing will suffer and be weaker if you don’t use it

What internal thought is . . . and why it makes or breaks your book. 

What is internal thought?—The moment by moment thoughts your character thinks

1. Internal thought reveals characterization

exercise

• write down 10 character traits your main character has

quick thinking, loyal, courageous, slow to trust, lonely, smart,

• How internal thought defines motivation

can use it to reveal the subtle things

Exercise

• your main character is planning on stealing something. Get into their mind, and write some internal thought about why he or she feels justified in stealing the thing.

dialogue

Action

description

internal thought

Happy Writing!