Knee Pads and Buckets

Since Sherry and I are pretty much interchangeable, here's a picture of us. Sherry has long hair, Laura's hair is red---see how well we mesh? LOLOLOLOLOL

Because we're In This Together, we've both joined the ranks of Contest Contestants. (Is that redundant? I'm worried I'm repeating myself.) Luckily for us, we aren't competing against each other (perish the thought!), we've entered two different contests, but we're both wishing we had knee pads for huddling over the hurk bucket.

Nervous?

Us?

Whyever would we be nervous? With our e-publisher closing doors, we're back to hitting the pavement, as it were. What's so nerve-wracking about that? Rejection? Seeing other entries that we know are Better Than Ours? Have another neurosis. What's a little insecurity, obessesion/compulsion, and angst amongst friends?

So, here are the knee pads and some extra buckets. (I call dibs on the pink one, because it will clash with my hair.) This is going to be a long, delightful, nailbiting year.

2009...

Ready For The New Year?

First of all, lemme get this out of the way.

Sherry? TAG! YOU'RE IT! Next post is yours. Yes, I think this counts towards daily word count goals.

Daily word count goals? Holy shades of White Board Mania! If I'm ready to set goals, who knows what else is coming down the pike? White boards. Dry erase markers. Planning. ACK. Actually writing something to SUBMIT.

Thunk.

So, in avoidance of meeting any goals this fine New Year's Eve, I googled myself. *Ahem.* What did I find? A whole bunch of webbies I've started up over the years. Now, ask me, do I remember how to get into all these webbies?

Um. No.

But somewhere, I have a little book where I wrote down log in information, and just as soon as I get my hot little claws on that, I'll be able to have many ways to procrastinate meeting my goals.

In looking at one site, I found some writing tips---things I've learned along the way. Naturally, I thought to myself, "Self, you should review what you've learned along the way and see what you can add to that list." (This list is at the very least, 2 years old.)

So, here goes. The Original List:

1. Showing vs Telling. Active voice shows the reader. Passive voice tells the reader. To truly engage your readers, the Show/Active pairing is best.

2. Character growth. I like to show that my characters have learned and grown on their journey to their Happily Ever After. I like to think this brings my characters to life.

3. Identify and define/clarify your characters' Goals, Motivations and Conflicts (GMC), and use this as you're crafting your story to bring realism and believability to your work, and makes the characters come to life. This helps make the characters as real for the reader as they are to the writer.

4. The hero and heroine should be people the reader can fall in love with, identify with, and root for.

5. Word choice is as important as developing the characters. Strong, active, vivid verbs bring the story to life and convey the story better than weak, passive verbs. You're less liable to rely on adverbs to modify your verbs if you chose strong, active and vivid ones. Make sure you're saying what you *think* you're saying.

6. Critique partners are, in my experience, one of the most essential tools an author can have. Find a good cp, form a good, solid, friendly relationship. I can't imagine writing without my cp.

7. "You can never have too much emotion."

8. Your voice is unique to you. It's how you phrase things, it's how your personality leaves it's mark on what you write. Don't get hung up on the notion that the mechanics of writing are your voice. Don't forget... writing is an "art thing" as much as it is also a "technical thing."

So, what would I add to that? A few things.

9. Be teachable. I have no idea why I didn't include this in the first list. Mystery to me. What do I mean by "be teachable"? Just because writers aren't required to take courses to keep up their credentials doesn't mean that we don't need to continue learning and growing in our craft. There are so many ways we can do this. Experience, of course, is a great teacher. Take those rejection letters and learn from them, if you're lucky enough to have received one in which the editor told you what he/she didn't like about your work. There are articles and groups all over the internet devoted to the craft of writing. Listen to what your crit partner(s) have to say---there's little or no point at all of having a crit partner you aren't going to listen to her/him. (Sorry, my crit partner is taken. She's mine. All mine. Not sharing, even if you threaten to tell my Mommy that I'm not playing well with others and sharing.)

10. Have fun. Have fun? Yep. Have fun with what you write. What's the point if you're continually banging your head against a brick wall, which leads me to...

11. If you're blocked on your current WIP (WIPconstipation), there's likely to be a very good reason for it. Speaking for myself, from the perspective of being a panster, I've found that blocks can have several causes. To list a few: you're rabbit trailing (in other words, you've veered off the path, you need to turn your keyboard around and go back); you've lost sight of the story you want to tell (yes, this is very possible for pansters. Just because we don't outline the plot unto oblivion, doesn't mean we lack vision); you've written the wrong words (this means you need to go back to find where you think the problem started, read it through and then remove all the wrong words to a Wrong Word File, then go back and pick up where you left off). Ultimately, blockage is a state of mind that can be overcome. It may take a few days, or, heaven help us, longer, but there's usually a good reason for it and it's fixable.

12. Goals are important. Yes, even to pansters. Which leads me to...

Goals. I'm setting writing goals for 2009, and I'm putting them on a group I just started to keep them out there before me. My virtual white board, if you will.

Goals, not resolutions. Resolutions are too easy to break.

So, here's to a bright, fresh, happy, goal-meeting, joy-filled 2009!

Ear Worms

I don't know why, but late this afternoon, while Sherry and I were writing together (Okay, picture two women in two different states, in different houses, at different computers, linked by the wonderous Internet and chatting via instant message while they write and that's us. See us waving?), it occurred to me that the theme song from Laverne and Shirley might be an appropriate theme song for us and our endeavors. So, here I am, trying it on for size. And, of course, stuck on Nostalgia Road, thinking about this show and how funny it was and how even now, "Lenny and Squiggy" are still "Lenny and Squiggy" even when I see them on different shows/movies.

Laverne and Shirley Theme Song Lyrics
Title: Making our Dreams Come True
Written By: Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox
Performed By: Cindy Grecco

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Schemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated.
We're gonna do it!

Give us any chance, we'll take it.
Read us any rule, we'll break it.
We're gonna make our dreams come true.
Doin' it our way.

Nothin's gonna turn us back now,
Straight ahead and on the track now.
We're gonna make our dreams come true,
Doin' it our way.

There is nothing we won't try,
Never heard the word impossible.
This time there's no stopping us.
We're gonna do it.

On your mark, get set, and go now,
Got a dream and we just know now,
We're gonna make that dream come true.
And we'll do it our way, yes our way.
Make all our dreams come true,
And do it our way, yes our way,
Make all our dreams come true
For me and you.

WHEW!!!!

Okay, so it's really been over a year since last we posted?

Where did the time go? We'd like to file an official complaint.

Have we forgotten our goals? Heckadoodle no! Yanno that pesky li'l thing called "Life"? Well, it intervened. However, we are now ready to put it back in its place and proceed as planned.

Er...what was the plan? I'm the panster, not the plotter (planner). Sherry's the one with a plan. I'm sure anything I've articulated via phone calls or IMs, she'll remember. After all, she's the one with that scary white board and all those dry erase markers. (She's actually very skeery when she's wielding those dry erase markers. I think she gets high on the marker fumes, which can understandably happen when one takes the lid off the silly thing in preparation of using it.) But I digress.

Our biggest news: 1) Laura moved. Yep. Moved. Hence our absence. Do you know how hard it is to post a blog when your computer is PACKED AWAY IN A STORAGE UNIT SOMEWHERE and you're at the mercy of using library computers, along with every other computerless individual in town? 2) Our e-publishers, By Grace and Moonlit Romance, are closing doors at the end of this year. Sorry for the short notice. (See #1 above, and guess who does the majority of the posting on this blog, when it gets posted?)

While we're saddened that our publisher is closing, we've decided that it's The Sign. We'll expound upon this at a later date, after I've brow-beaten Sherry into getting back into the swing of things with this here blog. With some Metamucil for our (posting) regularity problems, and more time on our hands (after the holidays), look for this blog to be active again in the New Year. IN THE MEANTIME, if you're so inclined, what are YOUR goals for the New Year?

Trials and Travails of the Journey...

Laura:

I’ve wrestled with the WIP I’d hoped was destined for the Big Girls. Tried out Jennie’s suggestions (excellent for figuring out character arcs), tried other suggestions, and finally last night, decided, “Yanno, I’m struggling. I’ll set it aside for the moment. Work on something else.” So, I pulled out a couple of old WIPs and found myself re-enthralled with one of them, and re-intrigued by another, and laughing at myself because one is clearly a romantic comedy and the other is a paranormal.

This morning, while I was climbing into the shower, still half-asleep (the ol’ bod knows what to do in the mornings, even if my braincell isn’t engaged yet), it occurred to me what was wrong with the “Original WIP.” Still more asleep than awake, I IM’d Sherry first thing this morning with, “I figured out what was wrong with it!” Of course, Sherry knew exactly what I was talking about as we’d spent a couple nights chatting on IM, with me whinging about having lost that lovin’ feeling for the story.

Now the conundrum: which WIP to work upon?

Heh. Well, I do know now what I need to do in order to “fix” the original WIP, but the lovin’ feeling is gone, gone, gone... ooooh-ooooh-ooooh. So, I’ll just sideline it until the lovin’ feeling comes back.


Sherry:

I absolutely know how it feels when you lose your thrill (On Blueberry Hill?) for your WIP. *stares pointedly at the large number currently cluttering up the ole hard drive* Sometimes, though, after a few months (years?) that thrill returns, along with the plan to breath new life into a former love (in this case, a WIP gone bad). A case of absence and the heart growing fonder.

I’m in love with my current WIP. The subject matter has haunted me for a long time. I have no idea why it took me so long to think to build a romance novel around it. So far, by using writing tips (which we have dubbed The Method) gleaned from Julie Cohen (Waldenbooks bestseller for Harlequin Special Presents and Mills and Boon), I’m finding my thrill again with nary a blueberry hill in sight.

And the journey continues.

Taking shape....

Laura: Yes, as I admitted in the guest post intro, Jennie’s method scared the panster in me into a curled up mass of whimpering writer. I mean, this takes organizational skills (if you could see my desk, you’d understand that “organizational skills” is a foreign concept to me.). This takes more colored paper than I have on hand. This takes printer ink. (Guess what I managed to forget again today, on my trip to Wally World? G’wan. Guess. You’ll never get it. Heh.)

So, the other night, as we drove to watch a minor league baseball game (the home team was... well, in a word... trounced. The only reason we stayed ‘til the end was for the fireworks, but I digress...)...Where was I?

Oh, yeah, so there I am, without a computer, a laptop or even any caveman tools (notebook and pen), and I started thinking about my current WIP. I’m on chapter four, and it just wasn’t working for me the way I was trying to take it, and I KNEW it was wrong, but couldn’t quite see a way to fix it.

“Try thinking just about the hero’s arc,” said a little mutant voice in the back of my head.

So I did.

Wow.

Let me just say, when I focused in on what my hero wants and needs to do, I saw several things unfolding: the heroine’s BIG conflict, and how his actions will contribute to... get this... the BLACK MOMENT! Yes! (Panster does a li’l victory dance here, because the BM’s don’t usually unfold this early in the story for me.) I can *see* where this story needs to go, what needs to happen in order to fuel all the conflicts and growth necessary towards bringing this couple together.

I’ll admit, I didn’t use the color coding method when I finally got my hands on caveman tools, but I got my points written down, and will have them on hand as I finish writing this story. And Sherry’s fainted from the shock of my announcement via IM: “I’ll have you knows, that I used a portion of Jennie’s method... well, in my noggin, on the way to the b-ball game, and wound up PLOTTING some of my hero’s arc for the WIP.”

I’m excited about the direction I discovered this story would take, and I don’t feel like I’ve traded sides here, and gone to pitch for the Plotters, either. Nope.

I’m still firmly planted in the Panster’s dugout.



Sherry: Here I sit with my stash of colored paper and find myself also sans printer ink. (whimper). I will be rectifying that lil oversight posthaste.

Not that the need for the printing part of Jennie’s method is anytime near for me. I still have to do the identification portion. And I will. As I might have mentioned before, I have the perfect, most imperfect story just begging to be scrambled into pretty colored strips.

In the meantime, as I pondered the methodology involved, I also began to mentally focus on yet another story that I have brewing. Using Jennie’s method, I began to “think” the story into the appropriate colored sections. Being only in the beginning stages of the story, this was fairly easy to do.

Right away, I could tell where I needed to concentrate my efforts. How exciting!

Keep checking back as I begin using Jennie’s Big Breakdown method. The plotter in me is simply all-atwitter to begin. I’ve read Jennie’s books and I know how well plotted and executed her stories are.

Go find out for yourself if you haven’t already.

Now, off to get that ink!