It has been another two weeks since I’ve written. I’ve fallen off the schedule. The new job has thrown me off kilter!
For the last two weeks, at least, I have been struggling through the school’s delivery program as everything is electronic. First I had the wrong shell. I only got the new shell on Wednesday evening. I have also ended up having two 12-hour days this week as I was attending professional development workshops. I was supposed to attend a third this afternoon but my back is soooooo sore (most of you know the history there so I won’t go into it) I just can’t fathom sitting there another three hours when all that will do is make it that much worse. The staff is great and don’t care if I stand but that wasn’t working so well on Tuesday and Thursday… obviously!
To add insult to injury, I ended up catching a cold! The last few days I have had a stuffy and runny nose. I woke this morning to that feeling of ‘my head is going to explode’!! So, I am officially sick. Another, and probably better, reason to not go this afternoon. That’s okay, I have a year to get four of them in. I think I can manage two in the next eleven months.
As for my writing, well, you know that I published Confessions on New Year’s Day. That’s the last I have done. I do want to get it up on Amazon but that will take a bit more time.
I had one of my past campers send me a manuscript to read through. I did manage to get through about 10 pages of the 79 she sent!! It’s a long story. Her concern is there is no plot.
As we know, every story has a plot or it couldn’t be told. It doesn’t necessarily mean the plot is thick and multi-faceted though. It could be very thin with very little happening outside the plot. We all have those in our closet. Most likely, my first few books are written that way. There’s not much to put into love stories though I have tried my best to put some small occurrence in that leaves everyone shocked.
A plot can’t work without characters but characters can’t work without a plot. Another great way to look at it is to look at your own life and all the bumps along the way. What is the plot of your life? We never know the ending. Do we want to know the ending? And don’t forget that among the main plot line are all kinds of little subplots. Maybe it’s drama from parents or siblings and maybe it’s drama at work. All those little things have a profound effect on the main plot of our lives. Eventually they will all get wrapped up in a neat little bow. It will just take time.
So I will finish off what I need to do for my classes and spend a bit of time checking out this plotless story and see what I can come up with… I bet it does have a plot!
Today was back to work after what was a busy weekend. I lost Friday night and then proceeded to have heart palpitations through not one, but two, very close baseball games! Fortunately the Jays won and will get a single chance at making it further into the postseason. I hope they do.
It’s fun when you’re passionate about something. I’m not into football, or hockey (yes, despite being Canadian), or any other sport. Just baseball… just the Toronto Blue Jays. It goes back to when I was in my late teens and they won the World Series back-to-back. There was so much excitement in our household and at my grandparent’s. Everyone was into the Jays then. I lost touch for a while after that but my dad never did. He’d talk about it but the numbers were so low it was impossible. A few years ago I really got back into it. It’s the one thing I get to share with my dad. Talking about the players, talking about strategy and talking about what moves need to made… how they need to play the game… hit the ball on the ground. Advance the players around the bases and score runs!
Does any of that ring any bells? It should. It’s the sports version of writing a novel! You have your characters, you have your goal and your plot is how you get the characters there. You develop wins and you develop losses. You develop hurtles that your readers will cheer for and against. You will have that one (or two, or three) antagonist that your readers will hate (for me it’s four because as passionately as I love the Jays, I loathe Boston, Tampa, Texas and New York (Yanks)) and love to hate.
But comparing baseball to writing was not actually where I was going with this. I’ve done that before, I realize. Where I was actually going is the passion for something, anything. For me, the passion to write is the same as sitting down and watching a Jays game. I have to do it! I can’t not do it. Sure, I can easily turn it off if they’re losing and have no way to get back but I’m with them every step of the way just like I’m with the characters I develop every step of the way through their challenges.
Find what you’re passionate about. Of course it can be another sport, it can be anything. Find the comparisons to how you feel about writing. No matter what else you’re passionate about, the passion should be the same!
Pain, Characters & Other Complaints!
For anyone who has read my blog in its entirety over the years knows that I live in constant pain. Short and sweet, I have a 6th lumbar vertebra where there should be 5. Basically the top popped off of the sacrum to create this. That means that the pelvis can’t attach properly creating instability and, therefore, pain. And lots of it! I get pain in my legs during bad weather; I can’t sit for extended periods of time because it makes it worse.
Today, it’s raining outside. My pain is nearly off the charts for me and, yet, I have to go to work shortly.
When we write characters, we often give them the opposite of what we have (or don’t have). I have never given my characters pain. I don’t think it’s fair to them to go through life with pain. And why not? Many of us live in pain! For me, it’s part of me. There are many things I can’t do and even more things I shouldn’t do but it’s hard when you’re in your early 40s to not do some things. And yet I don’t even want to go grocery shopping right now!
Confessions in the Mural is the first character I thought I would try to go with Rheumatoid Arthritis. No, I’m not trying to be cruel. It’s a disease that has many more treatments than it used to. It starts off gradually in most cases and it goes into remission here and there. I thought of it because they are going to struggle with the thought of having another baby meanwhile she just had a baby six weeks before the book begins. So timing becomes an issue. Could she and should she take the risk of getting pregnant again? Sometimes it’s fun being a nurse and a writer… I get to do this with very little research!
We don’t “give” our characters issues because reading is fantasy. People read to escape reality. When I write, I do the same thing. I don’t want to my reality. I live my reality every single day of my life. I don’t want to put that in my books because, as a reader, I know the world doesn’t want to read about that.
What things don’t you give your characters? Money problems? Pain?
Reminds me of that old song Love is in the Air by don’t-ask-me-who! Same tune going through my head.
I know I wrote last week about my emotional breakdown on the verge of my daughter starting college and that still holds true. How can we not be sad but happy about the milestones of life? They happen to each of us from when we are born and say our first words to taking our first steps. Then some of us go to preschool, others not, but then there is school. Kindergarten, grades one through eight, then we venture off to high school. We decide what we want to be (sometimes), we go on our first date. We often experience our first kiss and then we graduate. We move on to higher level education (sometimes) or full-time jobs.
All are milestones and all create the base for who we become.
Tomorrow my baby takes her first steps into that post-secondary education. I hope she likes it. I hope she enjoys what she’s learning and it comes easily to her. After last year, she deserves that! It’s going to be tough because she will be adjusting to that, she’ll be adjusting schedules so she can still see her pony and she’ll be needing part-time work–or a few more lesson hours. All of this in a very short time frame.
She’s going to meet new people and try to find the balance between her old friends, her barn friends and the new friends. I think that will be incredibly difficult for her because she has such a huge heart. She wants all these friends in her life. I didn’t have that really because my boyfriend was also friends with my high school best friend. The rest of my high school friends ended up going their separate ways. We are all connected now on Facebook but how many years did that take? My college friends were pretty well merely that.
So wherever you are and whether you have kids or not, know that tomorrow is a big day for hundreds of thousands of kids around the globe.
And if you feel like it, write a bit about your own milestones. What makes you the person you are today. Maybe you don’t want to but just think how awesome a backstory it would give one of your future characters!
I can only ask myself if I’m EVER going to get back into the full swing of blogging on Sunday mornings! I was doing so well for so long… how come it’s always something and once it’s broken there’s no repairing it?
I feel the same way about my writing… I get into a groove and then something steps in and stops that and the whole thing falls apart. I can’t get back to it. It’s almost impossible.
So tonight I went to Chapters. Needed to see if there were any new writing magazines on the rack and, sure enough, a new copy of The Writer is out. While I was looking at that and at the shelves for writing books, this kid started screaming!! Top of its lungs, blood-curdling, curl-your-toes screaming!!! Put-earplugs-in-and-run-for-the-door screaming!!!
It actually sends shivers down my spine thinking about it. I tried really hard to make my way to the back of the store anyway and as I neared it stopped… a hush fell over the store and I proceeded through the discount books… only to hear it start up again! I’d had enough. I had also managed to find a writing book that actually has a CD with it… I’m intrigued… and I went to check out.
Yes, I lodged my own form of a complaint. I said that I couldn’t take it any longer and was in need of leaving. That my daughter is now 18 (birthday yesterday!) and I don’t have to listen to that anymore. Also added a plug that perhaps the parent should consider leaving. My thought, though not spoken, was that a staff person should have been gently asking this person to remove their child. That this is a bookstore, similar to a library where loud noises are not acceptable.
There’s no way I’m muting my phone next time I go in there! Deal with the insignificant chimes indicating text messages!
Am I getting old? I always feel that way around my own birthday which is a mere eleven days after my daughter’s. In the New Year I become hopeful; around my birthday, I become nostalgic. I look back on what was and, despite not being able to change it, wish I could.
I’ve been talking a lot lately about characters and it makes me wonder why we don’t see a lot of middle-aged characters out there. Do you notice that? To write a novel about where we have been and how that shapes us moving forward might be frowned upon but publishers but maybe readers would like that.
We always want to re-evaluate where we’ve been and what we’ve done. We always want to move forward better and feel more meaning in our lives. We all want to make a difference. Some of us don’t want to be the next Stephen King but close! Maybe not a household name but an-every-other-household-name.
I’m glad I at least got this post together and posted. I am feeling the lack of writing time again. It’s coming out in the form of agitation… again.
Pain… how do we express in our characters?
When we read really great books, like Harry Potter, we not only see the character’s pain but we feel it. I am not referring to the physical kind of pain either. I’m talking about the emotional.
Three weeks ago my 16-year-old calico died… probably a stomach tumour combined with old age. It was half expected and I found her in the morning and had to put on a face for work. We buried her that evening and though I felt the tears, very few actually surfaced. I don’t want to say that I didn’t want to cry, I just didn’t want to cry then.
Fast forward to this week. Over the past couple of weeks there was major weight-loss noticed in one of the horses at the barn. Because we did chores for a year and my daughter rode this horse and taught lessons with him a few times we knew him well enough. He was a sweet big guy. The diagnoses were lymphoma and a few others such as a bad virus. It was confirmed to be lymphoma. He was put down on Monday. That too got the tears started.
Then Tuesday we were informed at work that a patient passed away. This wasn’t just any patient, she was also my neighbour. She would message me questions about her son. I gave her son shots at home… you get the idea. She had cancer. She was 44, only three years older than myself. This is the first time in a decade that I will be going to the funeral home.
I actually texted my mom yesterday and asked who was going to die because let’s face it, it might as well be three in three days.
But it did get me thinking about how I would define the pain, the grief that I’m feeling right now. How could I put it into words to express to my readers how my character is feeling? And get that across… that’s the key!
How do you describe the heaviness in the heart, the constant thoughts of these individuals going through your mind day and night, sleeping less, and then there is the need to cry but not the time or place.
As we age, we deal with grief differently and I know that I usually take death with a grain of salt, it’s for the best, etc. but this time, I hurt. This time my heart aches. For those who are now at peace, for those who have been left behind to grieve, to find that new path in life.
My other cat is now alone and he certainly demonstrates that. He is needier right now than he normally is. He is grieving too.
So how do you find those words?
As I approach another birthday and the start of much change I ask myself where has the time gone? The past month, after my vacation, my time away from the day job, has gone by in a flash. From births to deaths, from the zoo to a horse show, it has sped by and is now a mere memory.
Many of us are experiencing this increase in time passing and wish to have it slow down a bit. How come the summer months evaporate and the winter months never seem to pass? How, in a world where time is speeding by us, do we slow down and get done what we want to get done?
I finished the edits on Confessions in the Mural over a week ago. The document has sat open on my laptop at home and for several hours at work this past week and I have yet to enter anything. Just that, in itself, is depressing.
I am on vacation this coming week and I already see the end of it. Tomorrow I will get much of it to myself. Tuesday I have an appointment at 1:00. Wednesday is the barn at whatever time we choose and, with the heat, it might be earlier than later. Friday, again, is my daughter’s lesson. So every day but Thursday somebody is doing something. I’d love the opportunity to hop on the train and go to Toronto and once again snoop around Casa Loma and, this time, visit the Aquarium… IF my back could handle it because it too has been creating major issues!
Once in a while I step back and I think of whether this type of lifestyle would make a good character or bad character? Is this something that can be written into a character? Is it too blase or is it exciting? Is a life this busy worth reading about? I guess that is the ultimate question. And how do you fit that into a plot of some kind? A woman who is too busy, too busy, too busy suddenly finds herself ______________… fill in the blank!
I take vacation time to get out of the office and slow down. I don’t have to go somewhere. I’m quite happy at home being able to split my time between getting house work done and trying to catch up on writing projects.
How about you? What things are you up to this summer? Could they all be put into a book? Would your life be an exciting read?
I was thinking about my blog the other day as Hope Clark offers guest posts. I was trying to figure out how to describe what my blog is about. My Writing Path is all about MY writing path. The twists and turns, the frustrations and the joys of a writing career interspersed with a full-time job, being a full-time, single mom, and having other family obligations. I think that summarizes it nicely even if it doesn’t cover everything off. Perhaps one day soon I will ask her to guest blog!
Well, everyone, stay cool. I will likely be posting a couple of times this week, but if not, you will know that I got too busy.
So this week I’m on vacation… YAY!!
When you work full-time any time away from the office is heavenly because it gives you more time to do things you just can’t do when you’re working. This includes planning months in advance to run a kid’s summer writing camp to only have a single registration.
So I made an offer to this young girl and her parents… two mornings this week to do anything and everything writing. She emailed yesterday to ask if she could print off and bring along some work she’s been having trouble with!
“By all means!” was my excited reply! I can’t do that with regular camp. I can’t give what is really needed to them when there is more than one!
She brought it this morning and three hours flew by. We hardly touched what I had done up for her–Deepening Plot, The Dark Side of Characters–but we did get more of her storyline dealt with. We made a plot planner for her and we outlined her main plot and subplots as well as the characters and which ones belonged with which subplot!
I’m hoping she spends this afternoon, this evening and all day tomorrow just writing up a storm before we get to our session on Thursday morning. That way we can iron out any remaining issues before she’s suddenly gone.
I too have been trying to get at things. I had to spend three hours yesterday cleaning my house in order for this young person to come over. I spent some time reading about writing but went to bed with an agitated tummy because I didn’t spend any time writing. I’m on vacation, I should be writing!
Anyway, I did manage to do some writing this afternoon. Not nearly as much as I wanted to but I tackled some at least. And, of course, this post. I think I was more excited about sharing the joys of sharing writing with another than I was about sitting and writing.
The weather is beautiful–it’s sunny, it’s hot and it stays light forever! Soon it will all be another memory. That’s the unfairness of summer… it seems to only give us a whiff and then it disappears.
I hope that my young student this morning has more success than I at sitting down and getting writing done!
Now, I must take my leave and go out to my daughter and her horse… ho hum… soon my week will be over and I will be sighing, wishing it was longer. Wishing I had a few more days. There are never enough hours in a day!
Ha ha! My laptop is sooooo slow that Levels in the title actually came out Leels for a moment!
Well this week has not been fun… things just seem to be spiraling downward.
Do you even get told that you have to relax, that everything happens for a reason and that God only gives us as much as we can handle??? I’m past that!! I’ve gone WAY past that!
And now I just had a power failure which knocked out my internet! Luck? What is that?
Anyway, I’ve resigned to a few things at this stage and this little voice in the back of my head (or perhaps it’s on the right side of my brain) is telling me that it can all be food for a character’s background some day… when I’ve managed to get through it and over it.
It’s true too. And it doesn’t have to be a part of the character in that moment… the moment of the story… but it can be part of her history and be part of why she is the way she is.
I read the start of a rude argument against authors… that we use friends and family and their flaws against them in our books. That’s not true. We use pieces of those people. Perhaps we use only the flaws because the flaws are really good ones. If our friend has been as such long enough we know the reason why. So we use that background and the flaws in our characters but does that mean that the character automatically becomes the real-life person?
Anyway, I just thought, since we were on the topic of characters that I’d put that out there.
I’m starting to apply for more jobs… this past week I applied to the local college as an instructor for Health Office Administration… I taught the equivalent from 2002-2004 at a career college and loved it. Here’s hoping.