Infinitesimal Rhinos and Sixlets the Candy

My 11-yo got braces this week, and I offered him carrot sticks for dinner.

This is an indication of the situational awareness level of his mother.

This is possibly due to the fact I've gone deep into my writing head again. I'm scratching together a whole bunch of outlining and characterization notes for NaNoWriMo.

What is NaNoWriMo? A minuscule rhino? No! It's National Novel Writing Month. November every year brings out the novelist in thousands of writers all over the world. According to Wikipedia, last year over 200,000 participated, but I bet those are the official numbers and many more participated but didn't do the official sign-up on the site.

The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month. If you've ever wanted to write a novel and never made yourself buckle down and just do it, NaNoWriMo could be the motivation you've been looking for.

About five years ago I heard about NaNoWriMo from my friend Colleen. She was participating. I didn't ever go do the real sign-up. I didn't want to be accountable! But I was a closet NaNo and created a novel that month. It was quite grueling. Because it was November, Thanksgiving holidays got in the way, so it had to be packed into a certain number of days (no Sundays. I don't do writing for profit on Sundays.) I ended up cranking out about 2,500 words a day, some days more. It was also quite a rush. In the end, I set it aside and didn't do anything with it for about three months. I was kind of sick of it by then. But I broke it out again after the new year and finished it up, edited it for ten months, and then it became my third novel, Delicious Conversation. Last I heard, it's still in print.


So, now I'm done tinkering with my novel that took two years to write and edit, and I'm ready for something fresh. Something came to me Wednesday night and I think I'm going to NaNo it. (Makes me think of Mork From Ork, Nanoo Nanoo!) Organizers suggest getting as many notes together as possible prior to the November 1 start date. Then crank out the words in one big Blaaaaat!

Should be fun. I love a writing rush! Like a good dose of Excedrin. I bet my braces-mouthed son could use one himself.

No candy news today, except they served Sixlets at the bridal shower I attended today. Only yellow Sixlets. I wish I'd been in charge of sorting them. Then I could have eaten EVERY SINGLE Sixlet of any other color besides yellow. Yeah, baby. Those little spherical doses of heaven are grand.

Thank You for Being a Friend (and the jeans fit)

Spent the day feeling like a crummy writer and hopeless and worthless and all those "-less" adjectives. Thought about hanging up my laptop. Thought about switching hobbies to ... something else. Maybe housework or weed pulling. (Okay. That's a lie.)

THEN...

I was scrolling through my blog roll and came across Joyce DiPastena's September Blog hop and noticed she was giving away a copy of my book Delicious Conversation as a prize and she had scores of entries of ladies *wishing* to win that book. They said things in their entries like, "Who wouldn't want to read about romance and chocolate." Et cetera.

And someone called Judy was the winner. Congratulations, Judy! I hope you enjoy the story!

And suddenly the clouds parted and a ray of sunshine shone through.

There are the ups and downs of writing and getting published and being a creative person. (Not that I'd necessarily ever describe myself that way.) It's probably pretty universal to get bummed when in the querying process. Rejection--not that great for the old ego, right? Seriously, I feel really lucky and blessed to have friends who happen to support me just when I find myself getting down.

Now, to return the compliment, I'd be ungrateful if I didn't give a little plug for my friend Joyce's writing. She has a style all her own, in that she writes Medieval Romance. She's a scholar, and the research that goes into her books is exhaustive and you can just feel the love she has for the period and the characters pulsating off the pages she writes. She includes a bibliography at the end of each book of the sources she researched for the story, and the romance is sweet but still compelling. Love it.

Joyce, thank you. You brought me back from the bummers.

I think I'll go have a gummy Vitamin D berry to celebrate. (Since I'm STILL curbing the sugar, if you don't count the three pieces of cinnamon coffee cake I downed yesterday at the family get together. Family get togethers are my nemesis. But my skinny jeans fit. No, they don't get tapered at the ankle, I am talking the JEANS that fit when my weight is DOWN. So, yeah. Back to the gummies!) And if the writing success (or lack thereof) isn't something to smile about, the skinny jeans are.

Summer Treasure Hunt--Giveaway!

Hey! I'm so excited to be a part of the 3rd Annual Summer Treasure Hunt: Dig for Clues and Win! There is a prize to WIN every single day in the month of June. My day is TOMORROW, and a lucky reader/player can win a copy of my most recent book, Delicious Conversation, mailed directly to his or her mailbox (within the U.S.). Cool, right? Plus there are a lot of other neato prizes, books, iPod covers, cool stuff. The authoress organizing the event is a friend of mine, Joyce DiPastena, a fine writer and a lovely person.

http://jdp-news.blogspot.com/2011/05/3rd-annual-summer-treasure-hunt-dig-for.html



Here's a link to her blog with all the rules and stuff. I hope everyone will play and blog hop and WIN. And any of you newbies to my blog, please feel free to follow and to comment and stuff. I always feel validated and special and stuff when I get new followers and nice comments. Mean comments, well, I probably don't need a lot of those.

Meanwhile, I'm still not eating sugar, but I am chewing gum. A LOT of gum. I bought a zillion pieces of sugar free Extra Dessert Delights Key Lime Pie. It's so much like candy I hardly notice I'm off sugar.

Guilty admission: cold cereal is getting too much of a free pass in this time of Lentish denial. I think I ate half a bag of Malt-O-Meal Blueberry Frosted Mini-Spooners (the knock-off of Mini-Wheats) yesterday. That's a lot of spun wheat, I tell you. But that blueberry flavored frosting on top of each wheaty bite was so yummy. I had to force myself to resist today. Maybe the kids will eat the rest of the bag at breakfast tomorrow and my temptation will have passed.



Now, where's my green gum?

PLOTTING--a tutorial (PLUS a big complaint about Cracker Jack)

I recently got a question from an aspiring author. She had a question many of us have when we are trying to complete a novel:

"I know the beginning, and I have some of it written; and I know the end of the book. It's the getting from here to there that I'm having trouble with."

She told me she knew her characters inside and out, she knew what they'd do in any given situation, and the story idea was compelling, but she was stuck!

How many times have we run up against this dilemma? We've got an idea of whose story we're telling and about their happy ending, but what happens to them along the way? What fills up the middle 2/3 of the book?

Great question!

And....I think I have an answer. Ta da~Here are my thoughts:

First off, we need to know what our character wants. If, like the author said, she knew that character inside and out, she would know what s/he wanted more than anything. The thing the main character wants more than anything IS the story. Desire drives every good story.

Second, we need to discover what stands between the main character and her/his desire or goal. Make a huge list. Make the list of possible obstacles exhaustive. Delve into the preposterous. Go for the obvious, and then go beyond. Ask yourself, "What's the worst thing that could happen to my main character?" and then ratchet it up.

Once you have that list, whittle it down to (about) your top 10 favorite obstacles. Sometimes the more unexpected the better. Surprise the reader! We read to be surprised, and surprise delights us and keeps us turning pages.

Then, imagine that each one of these becomes a scene in that middle 2/3 of the book. Figure out all the ins and outs of what could happen to the character when that obstacle arises. Make things really tough on the character. Imagine what all the possible range of emotions would be for the character when the obstacle arises. That's the reaction. Then, get the character moving toward overcoming it. Show how the character obliterates the obstacle. This gives the readers a chance to cheer. Then, hit us with the next obstacle--and end the scene with a cliffhanger.

Line up the obstacles in a crescendo. Arrange and rearrange them until the obstacles are paced just right. Then plop them down. Write the scenes, flesh them out. In each scene, as the character encounters and overcomes each obstacle, the ideal is if that obstacle serves to "reveal character"--to give the readers a further glimpse into what that hero is like on the inside. So...when you're choosing obstacles from your exhaustive list of possibilities, try to make the obstacles different enough that they'll expose a different facet of the hero/ine's character.

The final obstacle should be the worst. It should propel the main character into the crisis and the final showdown that leads to the triumphant ending.

It's okay to have lighthearted things along the way, but conflict reveals character, and drives plot, which is character. Character is plot.

Right now I have three or four characters in my brain. They are barely on paper, just a page or two, and I'm trying to decide which one needs to have his/her story told next. I keep thinking of it this way: I know this character. This character has a story, and it HAS to be his story. With the traits he has, the story really only has one possible plot. This is HIS story.

I'm not sure that makes sense. Maybe not. But I know what I mean, and I think I know what will happen to millionaire gone bust Ivan Potts (this oddball character in my head who keeps bothering me) when he makes this life-changing decision to take his friend Nils Jacoby up on his offer to go to England and start over after his (latest) bankruptcy. Ivan's story needs to be told soon. What's his happy ending? I think I know--and of course it involves finding love--and now I have to discover out what stands between him and his happily ever after.

This process can be really fun--creative crack. Er, Cracker Jack. Rarely in the novel-writing process is there such a rush as when brainstorming the middle section. I crack myself up. My husband is good for a few insane ideas. In fact, one of my favorite obstacles to happiness for my main character Susannah Hapsburg in Delicious Conversation came from my husband: the legacy Galapagos tortoise once owned by Charles Darwin himself.

When considering what obstacles to throw at the story people, it helps to really know them. Take their character traits into consideration. What do they love, hate, fear? These emotions are huge clues for knowing what to throw into their paths.

So. That's long enough for now.

I'm boiling all of this down from several books I've studied, conferences I've been to, etc. I think most of it probably comes from James Scott Bell and James N. Frey, which I've mentioned umpteen times on this blog. So, check those out for a more comprehensive study of the topic.

Speaking of Cracker Jack... mmm. I love that stuff. I love the popcorn, totally love the caramely crispiness of it, how it crackles in my mouth and tastes kind of burned and yet heavenly. However, the truly magical part of Cracker Jack is....

NO! Not the prize inside. (They've gotten disappointingly cheap. A foldy face of Thomas Jefferson? Uh, maybe not very exciting as a "prize." Whatever happened to the mini magnifying glasses, or even a butterfly stick-on tattoo? Sigh. Things just aren't like the good old days of a mood ring.)

It's the peanuts. Mmm. The total immersion of each peanut half in the caramely crispiness of the coating. Now that's a thing for a heroine (me) to desire. Are we all the heroes of our own story? Me, I'm the heroine of my tale--that of a woman on a lifelong quest to eat as much candy as possible...what could possibly stand in my way?

Egypt and Cookies and Fluff Writing

I have a cousin in Egypt.

That matters on a day like today. I can't stop thinking about her and what's going on and how tense things are right now. So many prayers for her safety, and the safety of her loved ones there, and, well, everyone there. Sigh.

It's been over 20 years she has lived there, and I've never felt anything but nervous about the whole thing. But she is married to an Egyptian man, a good man. Her daughter has kept us posted about what's going on with her at this tense time.

This afternoon I got an email that kind of shocked me, and it's relevant to the point I've been trying to make with this blog all along. In it, my cousin's daughter told me that Phyllis spent the day yesterday reading my book, Delicious Conversation, to keep her mind off what's going on in Egypt, and that now she is wanting to make "Grandma's Chocolate Chip Cookies," one of the recipes included in the book.

When I read that, I choked up. It shocked me that such a fluffy, pointless, cotton-candy nothing of a story could be just the medicine someone needed at such a time as this. I wish I could give copies to every woman in stress there.

So you can take all your Pulitzer Prizes. I'll just be thankful to the Lord that my cousin is safe and well and taking comfort in the gauzy sweetness of silly writing. It's a blessing -- so big I can't even count it.