I wanted to take a fresh look at how to research novels. I polled some of my writing buddies both unpublished and published and got some great ideas for researching.
Home Improvement?
If you’re trying to write a home improvement scene and are totally repair challenged, try Youtube.com.
Crazy Psychopath People?
This is obviously for people who write suspense. The FBI website offers research for you to profile your villain(s). Not for the faint of heart.
Local law enforcement
You know what I re-discovered after last month’s blog? Not only must we do the next thing to pursue the writing dream, sometimes that means jumping hurdles. Some large, some small.
My son Caleb is running track this year. Ask me about basketball and we can converse. Track? Not so much. Needless to say this Momma is learning a whole new sport. One of the races Caleb’s coach has him running hurdles is the 110m Hurdle race.
I was amazed to watch him jump the hurdles. The first miracle? That this chick has a son with legs long enough to run jump hurdles (I’m only 5’1″). He picked up speed and kept jumping them one after another. Some he sailed over, others he clipped.
It made me think about the writing journey. I want consistent victory–to sail effortless over every hurdle. Every. Time. But it doesn’t work that way. While parts of the writing journey, seem effortless. Others? It takes work and determination. For instance, editing was never my strong suit and it still isn’t. Those I tend to hit the hurdles on.
The important thing is to stay on track, focus and run your race. You probably won’t master every aspect of writing, especially if you’re like me, starting out. But you will eventually.
Here are three things to
I’ve been buried under an avalanche of frustration due to a software conversion. Have you ever been through one of those? During the first week of the conversion, the phone rang off the hook with questions and snags between the old software and the new.
I know having a sprinkling of gray hair is considered elegant, but I think I grew a whole new patch of gray hair in the last three months. (Seriously, ask my friends).
When we started this conversion I knew it was going to be difficult and I thought I planned accordingly. But I didn’t. Before I knew it, all of my writing time was lost because of the unforeseen problems that developed.
One day in the midst of pulling out my hair – a wise friend asked me.
“What is the one thing you can do to reach towards your dream today? What’s the one thing you can do in order to have forward motion?”
I looked at her at like she was crazy. Certifiable.
“Um, write?”
“Good, then go do
I’m at the Deep Thinkers Retreat in Destin, Florida and it’s beautiful. We come to the beach every year in February and I help facilitate the conference for the week. My main job during the conference is the care and feeding of the attendees. But I’m also watching, listening … and yes, sometimes I hear things.
Today I wanted to share some of my observations:
Eat Well, Write Well. Sorry, a steady of diet of chocolate chip cookies and malted milk balls are not conducive to clear thinking and well developed plot lines. Although they do help stabilize emotions, at least at the moment. When all else fails, have a malted milk ball instead of a melt down. For the record, I resisted the temptation this year and only succumbed to two. (Although we have two more days to go!)
Battle Uncertainty. I’ve heard, “I thought I had my story down, but now I’m not so sure.” It’s so easy to doubt yourself and question the validity of your writing.
I’m so thankful for friends like Beth Vogt and Edie Melson who took the time to answer my “newbie writer” questions on craft/critique partners.
Here’s the first question for this segment.
(AAT) Now we’ve got this fast draft and we have a craft partner. We have an established relationship with a craft partner. When is a good time for someone to look at your work-in-progress?
(BKV) When I fast draft I usually like to set it aside for a couple of weeks. I’m usually worn out and it’s good to give distance for a couple of weeks. Then when I get together with my craft partner, I usually let them know what I’m looking for.
As far as I’m concerned there’s two ways to critique a book.
You can be looking for big picture edits. You just want to know; Is this scene working or are you feeling the emotions? Or you can be looking at fine-line edits, where you are really trying to polish a scene. You have to let your critique partner know what you are looking for. There have been times where I’ve gone into a critique group and said, “Your welcome to read this scene. I want you to know I’ve had a rough week, and I really don’t want feedback from you all.” I have been that honest with them, because I couldn’t even handle them telling me a word was misspelled. It was just that bad of a week. I think that in a really good critique group you can be that honest with them. They’ve gone ahead and read it and said, “Loved every word of it Beth.” They just left me alone for that week.
(EM) I like to be able to brainstorm before I start a book and get things laid out. I generally have an idea and it sparks my creativity to do that. When I’m in a midst of a first draft, its not a time I want craft partners chiming in. I have to have a big picture of the whole book before I start listening to other people’s suggestion, even good suggestions. I need to get my arms around it first. I do what Beth does and let it sit for a couple of weeks before I go back in. Yes, there have been times where I’ve said. “Look guys, if you can’t say something nice don’t anything at all.
(AAT) Do you think you should have two partners, one person to help brainstorm your plot and someone else to help with critiquing? What does your process look like?
