Award Time

Hello. I’ve recently received two new blogger awards. I’m honored to be thought of, there are so many blogs out there, it’s truly heartwarming to be chosen. I’ve actually been a bit of a slack on reviews these past couple weeks, choosing instead to run cover reveals while I prepare for surgery. Since I will have 6-8 weeks recovery time to go, I plan to hit the books again and come up with some to perhaps add to your to-be-read list as well as add more writing articles in the future. I’ll try to stick to my schedule of posting twice a week, preferably Tuesdays and Thursday, with the occasional third once a month done with the ladies of yaff Muse-wise. For now, here’s some great blogs to check out:

1. The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment

2. Julie Musil, Children’s Author

3. My First Book

4. The Blood-red Pencil

5. Cupid’s Literary Connection

Congratulations to the recipients and thank you all for stopping by!! Many thanks go out to Chandara for giving me these awards.

Read Full Post »

Fingerprints across the Pages

Image via Wikipedia

Fingerprints across the Pages

Traci Kenworth

 

What makes us toil at a job that is often beyond the limelight, looked down at by others with their snide off-hand comments, and generally takes our all? Love, plain and simple. If we didn’t care about what we put down on that page, the stories we have to tell, the driving inspiration behind them, we wouldn’t do it. Because we do face rejection after rejection, sleepless nights, scattered thoughts, shows us how committed to writing we are.

To an outsider, writing a book sounds easy enough. They don’t see us poised over our paper, computer, scratch notes, napkins even, scribbling away for just that right sentence or idea that will advance the plot. The starving artist has long been both a romantic and tragic figure though that’s not often the case. Nowadays, we work full-time jobs, raise kids, sneak a load of laundry and housekeeping in here and there to tame the mess, all the while tapping our fingers to the keyboard.

It’s a passion that drives us to crawl out of bed at 2 a.m. in the morning to write that latest scene. What would I do without this career? Be a lot less happy. To me, writing is an escape, my saving grace. I love to relay my stories to others, to bring a smile to their face, laughter to their lips, and terror to their hearts. It makes my day when I get positive responses. For years, I had to fight the wish to write because it wasn’t deemed “practical” or acceptable by society’s standards. But you can’t change the yearning inside.

Eventually, you find a way to stoke the flames even if only for ten minutes a day. I haven’t always believed in myself, but I’ve always known that what I put down on a page was good. Not great, at first, no, but there was a seed, a kernel, that told me what I was doing was right. True to myself.

Storytelling, I’m convinced comes from deep within us. If we don’t have the fuel to sustain it, we’ll wander away again. Listen to your dreams, those snippets of conversation that cause a spark, a billboard that catches your eye. They’re all kindling. I still study, study, study my craft. You have to, to keep up in this business. The more you learn the better chance you have.

I don’t have the answers to how to avoid the confrontations, glazed eyes, general contempt from others when you announce one day your intentions to write a book. But the longer you keep at it, the less those things will bother you. It’ll inspire you to write deeper, more in touch with yourself than before, if only to prove to the naysayers you’ve got a chance, what it takes.

So if you have the wish inside to write, but are afraid to pick up that pen, open that document, don’t bury it. Let it grow, build a fire inside. You can and will blaze a new path in your life, find the stepping stone that you needed to all along. Don’t doubt yourself. Writing can be a healing profession; it can also take you higher than the stars.

Read Full Post »

Life-Lessons Learned from Writing

Image via Wikipedia

Life-Lessons I’ve Learned From Writing

Traci Kenworth

 

 

1. 1.      Be confidant: One of the hardest things I’ve learned is to have confidence in myself. I felt lost in all areas of my life, struggling to find my way to the shoreline when it came to everything. But then I started to write and the pieces slowly came together. I could look at other places I thought I’d messed up and see that I hadn’t done half-as-bad as I thought. Writing made me happier too. My kids noticed it. My family and friends, even co-workers. I was in my element. With everything before me and nothing impossible.
2. 2.      Pride. Now this is a delicate one to handle. You don’t want too much of it to become overbearing to others. Just a tad is enough. But, yes, here was that piece I’d missed all my life when I turned around. A tragic marriage stole a lot from me. God gave it back to me in my words in a story. They stir my heart and make me see the dynamics in what I’m doing.
3. 3.      Hope. This brings us to the next stage of our career. Reaching out to others doesn’t seem that far away in the written word. I want to give back to my readers what I had taken from me. I want to show them they don’t have to live among lies and threats. I want to show them that there are caring, wonderful people out there who want to make a difference in their lives. Without hope, we’re lost. Let’s sprinkle that among our readers, dare them to believe the truths: that we can do anything through God that strengthens us. We are a country built on that fact. Let’s not lose it in life. Bring back the spirit of the survivors and the quest for a new life.
4. 4.      Faith. Now you might think it’s funny that I used that word when it comes to writing but faith is the companion of those above. When you have faith, you can do anything, succeed at anything, carry yourself through the heartaches and lean years. Our ancestors counted on such strength to push them through the hard times, we can do the same when it comes to the publishing industry. Just hang in there, do your best, and most important of all: send that material out.
5. 5.      Prosperity. I know, that’s sounds funny coming from someone with my income. But I’m talking about the urge to turn your bank account into a profit again, to save money, to cut your debts out. Writing has inspired me, even when things were bad, that they don’t have to stay that way. The challenge is to try and turn things around. And once you try, you set yourself up to succeed. So those are the lessons writing has brought into my life. They may sound strange to you, but every day I write I learn something new. Whether during my research, writing my story, or just taking notes, something strikes me and turns my life around. What are some of the lessons writing has taught you?

 

 

Read Full Post »

And the Winner is…

Image via Wikipedia

Congratulations to Tricia Heaven!! If you could send your email to the_old_canteen@yahoo.com, I will pass it along to Rebekah.

Thanks to all the participants and to the lovely Rebekah for being here!!

Read Full Post »

How to Breathe Life into Your Characters Par IV

How to Breathe Life into Your Characters

IV

Choosing Viewpoint

 

Okay, now we get down into whose “eyes” the story is told through. It should be the character with the most to lose. Is it Little Boy Blue hiding under the haystack? The Big Bad Wolf? Or Esmeralda? Sure, the villain has a lot at stake, but are readers going to identify with him/her? Or would they much rather fit into the shoes of the hero or heroine? The choice is going to be as varied and interesting as the author’s of the stories.

I would say that it also depends on who your reader is: young adult or adult? It is much easier to incorporate the baddie’s view in the adult novel. Teens want to embrace the characters they read about, not be repulsed, imo. That is why Katniss, Clary, and others are so beloved. They speak to a reader, they’re like old friends. You want to encourage that comfortably as much as possible. Give them something unique, quirkish for sure, but ultimately it’s their hearts that matter.

A good character, a strong-rooted one, will be followed by their fans through thick and thin. So what makes a hero/heroine? Is it their bravery? Their ability to function when the lights go out in a haunted house? Courage is a powerful motivator. What makes Jay Asher’s hero listen to the tapes of a classmate who killed herself? An inner need to know the truth, to go the distance, to know himself.

I think it is the journey, the obstacles thrown into our characters path, the quest to overcome them, to become a better person that keeps those pages turning. In real life, we may not always be the “star player” in our world, but in a book, we can soar to new heights, maybe even change a part of who we are, how we see things, when we finish it. A novel gives us hope that things might be different, that others understand and awaken courage within us. They explore all topics from depression, to suicide, cancer, and rape to name a few. Stories can teach us something at the same time they deliver “the goods.”

Can your book be written from multiple viewpoints? Yes. Often both the hero and heroine share in the telling. I, personally, prefer this method. It gives you a chance to explore events that happen when another character is off-screen. You can advance the story faster. Look at Maggie Steifvater’s linger series. The hero and heroine effectively play off the other’s last scene. Simon and Clary do this well also in the City of Bones series. Here, we have a slight variation on just who the “hero” is, Simon or Jace. But clearly, Simon has the “most” to lose.

So, when your exploring how to begin your novel, consider the viewpoint character/s. A rough coal can be chipped away at to display a diamond. Point-in-case, hush, hush’s fallen angel. A “good” guy can be hiding in our midst, a “shattered” heroine can learn to live again. And the Big Bad Wolf can be defeated.

Read Full Post »

Let Me Look in the Mirror Already!

How to Breathe Life into Your Characters

Part II: Let Me See in the Mirror Already!

 

 

A character’s looks. How important are they? Some say the less description the better,

but I’ve read in an agent’s recent blog(and I concur)that the readers wants to know what your character looks like, warts and all. I don’t say to browbeat him or her with endless descriptions of a character’s eyes or rosy cheeks etc. But there has to be a healthy balance between what your hero/heroine looks like and what the reader see’s in their minds.

Think of them as clues. Blond hair or dark brown? Green eyes or violet? All little details that drive home the character to us. I, for one, like to “cast” my characters. So on any given day before I start a book, I spend countless hours searching magazines, the internet, or television for that matter for the perfect match to what I see. Sometimes I don’t start with a clear image as to what I’m looking for but just scan until the right photo jumps out at me and claims the face of the character in question.

Sometimes I pick a popular actor/actress, oftentimes I go with an unknown. Because no matter whom they are to you, your reader is going to see someone different. We can only give visual tidbits to further the illusion. And the truth is, I’m going to describe an actor/actress in the way I see them. That means I might notice imperfections others don’t that bring the character alive. And I search for the flaws most of the time because who wants to read about a perfect person?

Really the picture is just a canvas that we need to enhance in our reader’s mind. Character traits play an important part of this. We can have a pretty heroine on the outside but inside she feels like a girl next door or plain Jane. A gorgeous guy can be the vilest person we know deep down. It’s all in how you want to layer them.

In my story, The Safe House, I take a well-known actress and give her body issues. To everyone else, she’s beautiful, to herself, she’s too thin, too little up top, too ordinary. I like to think this brings her down to our level. After all, who among us is comfortable in their own skin, especially at eighteen? The awkward, ugly duckling phase can be felt by all. And when we grow into that swan, it’s not because we suddenly became Julia Roberts, but we came to terms with ourselves inside. It lends a sort of confidence to who we are.

Likewise my hero finds a different sort of failing in himself. Outwardly, he is calm, resolute. Inside, he feels like a fake, an actor on a stage who someone is about to discover doesn’t belong as the lead. He is forced to take more and more responsibility onto his shoulders and yet, his doubts hinder his performance until at last, he breaks free of the insecurities and rises to the warrior he needs to be.

So, yes, as you see, there’s more to it than labeling someone with blond hair, blue eyes. And yet those looks help develop who a character is to our readers. Describing our characters too little can often leave them abstract, in need of an infusion of color, warmth. Balance is the key. Bring the emotions with the image. Reflect that back and you’ll create characters that are fully rounded and ready to spring from the page.

Read Full Post »

Writer At Work

Writer At Work

Traci Kenworth

 

So what do our days really look like? Where do they take us?

Well, for me, it begins after I get the kids off to school. About 7 a.m. if not sooner, I try

to be at my computer. I do the email and boards thing first then settle into whatever project I’m working on at the moment. Most weekend mornings, I try and write for the blogs I’m part of: Totally4YA, the YAFF Muse blog, and my own WordPress one. Once I knock these out of the way, I get down to business with writing.

Now, admittedly, all that “writing” time is not always spent doing so. Sometimes it’s research time. I’ve recently researched ghouls, Native American prophecies, skin-walkers, and Genetic Engineering. Research can take hours or days depending on what you’re looking for. Fascinating things catch your eyes, lead you off on a merry chase to discover more about the subject.

Those mentioned above are in reference to a horror story I’ve been working on initialed, SH. I wanted my creatures to be something different than traditional vampires, werewolves or zombies. So I’ve begun to blend, blend, blend the myth with new twists. I love re-working legends. You can take a creature’s fear of the sunlight and make it into so much more. How they came into being can be twisted to suit your purposes.

I’d say 50% of writing time is done researching for me, that’s how much I want what I’m doing to make sense, explore the impossible. The other half is meant to pull the research, characters, plotline etc. together. It’s hard to explain the “magic” that happens to a non-writer. You simply sit at the keyboard or with a pad and a pencil/pen and “listen” to the characters tell their stories. It doesn’t always happen right away. There are days when you fight to get a sentence out of them, and others when the flow can’t be stopped. But as you progress, you realize that you’ve really got something here: a story others might be interested to read/hear.

And so you keep at it, fighting, pushing, and sometimes shoving toward that ending. Is it difficult? Yes and no. But the joy of the finished product can’t be compared. A lot of people want to write a book someday but the truth is it’s harder than it looks and can take years of practice before you even get noticed. There are no short-cuts, no secret formulas. It’s mostly sit in the chair and work to apply what you’ve learned to what you still are learning. It never becomes stagnant.

A writer’s work like housework is never done. It keeps building into searching for an agent, rewrites, more rewrites, hoping to catch the eye of the elusive editor, rewriting again, and even after the books sees print there’s promotion to be concerned with. In today’s market, the reality is, you have to get out there and run the bases to earn your readers. And once you have them, don’t ever take them for granted. They support us to do what we love to do.

It all begins with that first page and carries on to the last. And then, even before you’re done with one story, you must begin the next. You never want to come out of the gate betting on just one horse. At the moment, while I’m re-writing SH, I’ve got Walking in the background, calling out for its rewrites. And then there’s a new story clamoring for my attention. Like I said, the Muse never sleeps. It may get rusty from time to time but it merely needs recharged. Watching a movie, reading a book, observing life can jog it.

Then the challenge begins again. Can I do it? Will it even see light of day? Sometimes it’s frustrating. The road to publication is paved with rejections but don’t lose heart. You came into this business to tell stories, to share them with others, if you never reach bestsellerdom, that’s okay. You did what was in your heart, touched lives out there, all in all, you did your job. And that’s all anyone can ask. Good luck with your writing.

Read Full Post »

More Read-a-thon Answers

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? 13
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Suzanne Collin’s Mockingjay
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? More mini-challenges perhaps?
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? I loved being able to inter-act with the contests and that, to keep you motivated.
5. How many books did you read? 9, but only a chapter each of 8 non-fiction ones.
6. What were the names of the books you read? Daughter of the Forest, The Lawmen, Getting the Word Right, How to Succeed at Being Yourself, Page after Page, Chapter by Chapter, The Breakout Novelist, Wallflowers Can Dance, and How to Write a YA Novel.
7. Which book did you enjoy most? Daughter of the Forest–it was haunting.
8. Which did you enjoy least? Getting the Words Right–a necessary evil though as a tool to help with my writing.
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? Very likely. Reader, perhaps cheerleader.

Read Full Post »

Update 6:

I finished all 410 pages of Daughter. Now I’m going to have to quit for the night. May take this up in the morning if I awaken early enough.

Read Full Post »

Update 5:

I’m on page 286 of Daughter.

Read Full Post »