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Ensemble Casts And When To Cut Those Characters

I love an ensemble cast. West Wing. The Wheel of Time Series. Inglourious Bastards. The Breakfast Club. Not only in film but Charles Baxter’s The Feast of Love is also a lovely novel told in vignettes. A type of storytelling I am still planning on using. Somehow.

Ensemble casts don’t always equate to woven plot lines, but I do love it when it happens. The Night Circus is still one of the most sumptuous and leisurely of books that brings it all round in the end.

I can hold room in my heart for all of it!

If you’ve read The Esau Continuum (if you haven’t, go do that NOW), you know I like me some meaty supporting characters. Point of fact, I expanded the role of a supporting character in book two after hordes of people (okay, maybe twenty) demanded to know more about him.

It can surprise a writer which characters people respond to emotionally.

The downside of multiple characters is the juggling act of keeping them all straight, not only plot lines, but who is actually in the scene. My current series is Science Thriller. There is a lot of traveling, a lot of planning, and a lot of fighting.

My scene plans often look like a strategic incursion on a foreign actor.

I’m steadily working on book three and at thirty-five thousand words, I’m just shy of halfway. I realized last night, as we often do when we’re trying to sleep, I need to cut my character list. There are too many by half. As much as I love them, some of them have got to go.

Ensemble casts shouldn’t only be cannon fodder for an author.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not killing anyone off. Mostly. I think it’s a bullshit move to have a cast of thousands simply so you can casually kill a character off to create agony for your readers. A la Martin. It’s a cheap way of upping the anty for the reader.

A character’s death, if it isn’t a Red Shirt, should be meaningful. It needs to serve a purpose for the greater plot rather than being a blatant show of how important the stakes are. Though loathe to use it, Dobby’s sacrifice cut to the heart. Whereas the Red Wedding was more of a WTAF moment.

I’m a leaf on the wind. WAAAAAAAA!

As much as I pretend it didn’t happen (yes, I rewrote that ending in my brain), Wash’s death opens a place for River Tam and shakes Zoe to her core in a way she hasn’t been. Meaningful death.

It might mean sidelining a favorite or two, but it will serve the story better, tighten up the pacing, and keep things from getting more complicated.

Ensemble Casts And When To Cut Those Characters was originally published on JC Lynne

#book series #character development #characters #editing #ensembles #plot #writing process

Epic Problems

I’m back at it. It’s been a while. Writing writing writing. That’s what I do. Well, I get stuck doing the laundry and cleaning the house, but writing is where I’m supposed to be spending my time.

The holidays are over. All of the offspring have launched, so now it’s just the dogs and me. And the cats. Oh, and The Beard.

We spent a lot of time reading and binge-watching. Epic storytelling is the rage.

The Influence of Mothers and How Mother's Day Is A Sham

They All Start Cute, So That We Won’t Eat Them.

Maybe I’m alone in this but Mother’s Day irritates the shit out of me. I understand that many women may feel a lack of appreciation from their families. Hell, I probably rant a couple of times a month about the location of the dishwasher and how it functions, so ya know.

Being A Parent Is Inherently Thankless, And That’s Okay.

#family #humor #Jovan Mays #Motherhood #NCW #writing

Querying And Online Dating

For any of us who have taken part in the process, it should come as no surprise that querying is a lot like online dating. You’re single and lonely, but it’s hard to meet people with whom you have something in common.

This has been a recent revelation for me. Not because I’ve never queried, I spent over a year pitching The Esau Continnum (at the time only The Esau Emergence) but I’m back at this harrowing juncture again, and I didn’t put two and two together the last time.

Pre-Tinder and the Left Swipe Dating Online Seemed Taboo.

I met The Beard online. Oh sure, he tells people we met in the drunk tank, but I’m not shy about using an online dating service to find him. I was a single mother with three small offspring at university for the second time. The only dating pool I had access to was twenty-five and under (and I’m generous with that twenty-five). If a man asked me out, I would ask two things, “Are you old enough to drink?” and “Do you know how old I am?”

I won’t deny some benefits to dating a much younger man while I was thirty, but that shit wasn’t going to fly for the long term.

By the time I was ready to date in serious mode, online dating seemed like a decent option. I discovered the pitfalls to the online scene quickly. Photos were sadly outdated. Biographies and “What I’m Looking For” were often a dichotomy to who the person was and what they wanted from a partner. And yes, many men were looking for a quick hook-up.

First World Problems.

In my search, I found a few of my former MARRIED co-workers with false biographies on a couple of websites. No lie. Oh, the shitstorms I could have caused. Who says I’m not a nice person?

The thing about online dating is it’s just a plethora of blind dates. And we know how much fun blind dates are. Over time, I developed a system.

No long courtships. No protracted emails or phone calls. If I learned anything from my Literature degree, I knew people could fall in love with someone they’d only met briefly or never met through the written word.

John Keats and Fanny Brawne. Franz Kafka to Milena Jesenska. Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas. Benjamin Franklin to Madame Brillion. The trick is not to take rejections personally and avoiding the emotional investment in each meeting.

Writers well know the power in the written word.

Being me, I crafted a mercilessly honest profile to weed out men who might not enjoy a savage Aztec Apache with zero tolerance for bullshit, and a make no bones credo of how my next relationship would manifest. I’d arrange to meet for coffee or lunch, and if things didn’t click right away, I’d cut bait firmly and as gracefully as I could. I steeled myself to be brutal because nine times out of ten there was such a chasm between the online profile and the person sitting across from me, it was astounding.

Wouldn’t you know The Beard won me over with words? We met for breakfast the weekend before I headed out of town for a two-week rural teaching immersion. He didn’t wow me. There wasn’t lightning or the song of angels, but I thought huh, I could see this guy again. I took off, and he spent the next two weeks making me laugh with his unique perspective of growing up in a small town via emails and Barenaked Ladies lyrics.

It worked.

And is still working so far. We’ve been together for almost sixteen years which is significantly longer than both of our previous marriages.

True Wuv.

I hear from a lot of writers about the agonizing torture of querying and I try to talk them off of the ledge. Just like the online dating process, agents create these biographies, profiles, reading lists, and descriptions of what they are looking for in a manuscript. Reading these sketches, I’ve shouted, “Eureka! This is THE ONE!” Okay, I haven’t shouted, but I’ve declared to the dogs with conviction.

And yet, these seemingly perfect fit agents have passed on my project. It’s all good. Sometimes what we think we want and the reality of what we receive is stark. Dare I also add the M word? Yes, marketability.

Marketability isn’t a concrete idea. It is dependent on the contacts an agent has in the publishing industry. Another factor is who they already represent and what projects they may have sold recently. Publishing is a subjective industry.

I’ve received notes from agents who do not contact authors unless they want the full manuscript. They have been gracious and encouraging when it’s their SOP not to respond to writers. They loved the concept but didn’t think they had the resources to sell it. Two wanted me to know how much they enjoyed my writing and asked me to submit again if I had a different project. Another agent offered a couple of names to query and tried to bolster my confidence.

Agents are people too.

It’s easy to become discouraged even when professionals are telling you not to be. We have to remember that agents get rejected on a proportionately larger scale than we do. They represent more than one author and their process is almost exactly the same as ours.

It’s not quite as random as meeting your future spouse in the drunk tank, but it can be as fortuitous.

Querying And Online Dating was originally published on JC Lynne

#agents #book sales #online dating #publishing #querying #romance #tinder #writing

Resolutions Schmesolutions

Where Do I Start?

It’s time to do the New Year’s reset to the wholly invented and arbitrary calendar. Just one more thing to blame on the friggin Catholic church. Who cares if Easter (a conscripted Pagan holiday) experiences seasonal drift? April was an utterly beautiful month to begin anew.

#Gregorian Calendar #New Year's #winter #writer's overload

If Hitler Had Children Or How Do I Hide My Porn If I Die

When a person dies are they absolved of their bad behavior? Who hasn’t asked a friend to hide their porn if they die? Other than me. I don’t care what y’all find in my closets. I mean, no one’s looking to clear Hitler or the person who invented high-waisted jeans.

But I imagine someone might have tried to say nice things about them at a funeral.

I’ve been struggling to reconcile Clint Eastwood’s haunting direction talent with his daft conservative rants. Admit it, some of you want to give him a pass for Two Mules for Sister Sara. It’s one of my guilty pleasures.

It becomes more of a sticky wicket when the deceased is family.

I’ve never enjoyed funerals because most of them laud their subject to the level of sainthood. Or families rewrite the narrative of the dead’s life to fit some preferable story. Tragically, a young friend of mine died in a car accident and a group of us, her friends, cleaned her apartment of pot, a bong, a vibrator, and some other items her parents might have considered illicit.

Her parents asked me to pick out an outfit for her open casket. I chose her favorite blouse and a skirt with butterflies. She was twenty-two. I arrived at the viewing to see her mother had her dressed in some horrific, pink polyester suit fit only for Dana Carvey’s Church Lady or maybe Nathan Lane’s turn in The Birdcage.

She looked nothing like the person I knew.

Isn’t that special?

At her funeral, the minister wove such a distorted version of our friend, a few of us felt we’d attended the wrong event. Her abusive ex-boyfriend spoke about their enduring love. I almost screamed. The entire thing was a sham. It infuriated us.

I understand the whole get rid of my porn request. But why do we bother? If our family doesn’t know who we truly are, why worry about it after you’re dead?

I had a variety of unused sex toys distributed between drawers specifically so the offspring would find them while searching for hidden car keys, Christmas gifts, and confiscated game controllers. It worked. One of them recently admitted being so horrified at discovering anal beads as a kid that he never looked in our room for anything again.

Motherhood win!

I’ve never had to embellish anything I’ve written about my parents or my childhood because reality was more entertaining and crazier than most of the stuff I could make up. I think if more of us were honest, we’d admit while we loved our parents, we don’t like them very much.

Being brutally honest, I’m considered a terrible person by some proper standards. Being polite hasn’t served me well. I strive daily for what Kiese Laymon calls an honest reckoning. The idea is the truth, conventional truth, reconciles with reality and facts, but honesty is an attempt at being forthright.

Coming from abusive relationships where historical revision and gaslighting were a regular occurrence, I cling to veracity. Of course, I’m a writer and so brandish my literary license with verve, but outside of my fiction and going for the punchline, I live transparently.

I’m not ashamed of the choices I’ve made. Some haven’t been great. That’s life. I do my best not to judge others, but if you ask me for my thoughts, I’ll give them to you. I’ve learned not to punch you in the face with them most of the time, but I won’t lie to make you feel better. I’m not the most popular person. Not everyone enjoys the truth, even if they’ve asked for it.

It may not make me the belle of the ball, but I’m complete and gladdened to be my authentic self. Understand my Truth was and is significantly different than my parents’ Truth. Perspective frames everything we know. It’s the honest struggle with reality, what is functionally correct, that is the reckoning. Reckoning isn’t reconciliation. It can be, but it isn’t intrinsic in the process.

It means I’m a bitch by most standards. I embrace it.

My goal has always been to be a better parent than mine were. I turned out fine after a lot of post-childhood work. Okay, it took almost ten years in a terrible marriage, a loss of career, and becoming a single mother to three kids under the age of six. A masters in Education and a certification in Love and Logic helped. It was liberating to put myself into a timeout.

I also spent thousands of hours and dollars on therapy, so I wouldn’t become my mother.

My mother made all of her decisions based upon how it benefited her. My father made all of his decisions based on her welfare. I’ve accepted that this aspect of their relationship took precedence over parental incumbency. It’s the singular basis on which I’ve acted as a parent.

Until they grew into adults, every life choice I made weighed the consequences for my offspring. Hence, I drank a lot of wine so they could grow into adults. I’m now practicing how not to be a mother since in an ideal world I’ve given them the tools to think about their choices and consequences. And I’m drinking a lot of wine so the offspring can remain living adults.

I’m a realist.

We’ve looped back to the original quandary. Death doesn’t sanctify the life. My last post was July 28th. My mother died on August 5th. My father didn’t call me. I heard it, as is typical in this damaged family, secondhand. It is so weird to say. My mother is dead. As my parents’ have kept me in exile these last few years, I’d already come to terms with her absence.

The paradox is her dementia, dementia she refused to acknowledge, was a symptom of a type of myelodysplastic syndrome. Testing for the causes of dementia might have led to an early diagnosis of the syndrome. Her red blood cells were abnormal and being critically low could not deliver sufficient oxygen to her system. Because the MDS wasn’t diagnosed earlier, treatment wasn’t effective.

I know I sound bitter. On this point, I am.

I’m relieved I didn’t have to visit her dying bedside. It means I don’t have to muddle my knowledge of who she was with the sadness of her passing. I’m sad she was the way she was and I’m sad she died. There’s no impulse to whitewash our relationship. The last words she said to me were, “I hope you die horribly.” Those words freed me of obligation to a parent.

When my father and I finally did talk, we agreed too much had passed between us to try to discuss. We would move forward without recrimination. So The Beard, Son 2, and I visited him. We laughed and drank wine. He asked if I knew she was a hoarder. Seriously. “She had fifteen open bottles of shampoo in her bathroom,” he said. “She didn’t have that much hair.”

Of course, I knew she was a hoarder. This wasn’t even the most she owned.

Fifty years together and he had never looked into a closet? That’s the secret to a happy marriage, I guess. He sent me home with photos, some paperwork, and the idea I’d have some relationship with him.

Going through those things at home, I discovered my mother had written me ten or fifteen little notes. Some were in a memory book. I found a couple of notes stashed between the ephemera of school records. Two or three I found in a hat box filled to the lid with photos.

She knew I was the one who would be going through her things at the end.

“You’re a horrible person.”

“When you find this know I hate you.”

“I’ve made arrangements with a lawyer. You will get nothing from us.”

“You’re going to burn in hell for being the worst person ever.”

“How can you live with yourself?”

“You are an ungrateful bitch, and I hope you end miserable and alone.”

“Everyone thinks you’re insane and evil.”

My mother addressed a few more notes to the offspring because they chose me over her. Those were too bitter and hurtful to repeat. The Beard’s fury is unquenchable. He wanted to scan every mean-spirited word as proof of her character in case anyone tries to romanticize her. I’m unruffled. I’m rather entertained.

I find it ridiculous and terribly small that she imagined this would be biting revenge. I picture her viciously writing these notes, there are splotches of ink and excessive use of exclamation points, and then strategically placing them in her cedar chest between the pages of her wedding album, or in my baby book.

There’s nothing to reconcile. Those notes reflect exactly the person I knew my mother to be. To a T. Against The Beard’s objections, I threw the lock stock into the trash. To what end? That’s what I think. To what end does keeping them lead? Despite people’s nostalgia and inclination not to speak ill of the dead, I know precisely who she was.

More to the point, I know precisely who I am and I haven’t been defined by my mother’s criticism for a long time.

Oy, those bangs!

I mean, my mother wasn’t Hitler, but she wasn’t Aunt Bea either. Though she did give me that haircut, and I liken that to high-waisted jeans. Comparable crimes in my book.

If Hitler Had Children Or How Do I Hide My Porn If I Die was originally published on JC Lynne

#death #family #finding the truth #Kiese Laymon #memoir #Motherhood #Nostalgia

Writing As Catharsis: Isn't That How Most of Us Became Writers?

Shit is going down in The Circus Big Top.

I’m recovering from pneumonia. Basically, the entire big top is in rapid free fall to Hell in a handbasket.

Son 2 officially announced what I have been dreading for a while now; he’s moving to Oklahoma with the Girl in a few months.

My grandmother is fading, and I spend part of my mornings texting and emailing family members to keep up with her status as she is in L.A.

I hear through the coconut telegraph my estranged mother is also fading.

I deal with this the way most writers do. I write.

Pneumonia sucks. And the recovery? Sucks even more!

I’m conflicted about all of these things. I hate being exhausted and having joint pain. Most days I need a nap by noon, and I haven’t had a glass of wine in WEEKS because of piles of medications. It also means I’m not in the best shape to deal with all of these fires.

Don’t get me started on why I have zero desire for my children to move out. Yes, I want a commune. I have a magazine article out on submission on the topic. If it gets published, I’ll let you know.

My Aunt Terri, the Dotter, My Grandmother, and Me at a funeral July 2017.

My grandmother is almost 96 years old. It’s sad, but it’s not surprising. 96 is a long life. I spent some time with her and the Dotter in April. We hung out, ate cheeseburgers, and kicked ass at Wheel of Fortune. Good times.

My family is a convoluted mess. To be fair, my grandparents started it, so even my grandmother’s situation has been complicated. And that brings me to my mother. I’ve poked at her in my posts because the humor was a way of dealing with her multiplicity.

The post I wrote about her dementia was hard to write because she was hard to quantify. At my parents’ request, I haven’t contacted them in three years.

This news of her downturn doesn’t surprise me. The Beard and I had a three-year plan worked out when we were moving my folks in with us. We would take on 80% of a mortgage on a larger place to accommodate an independent space for them to live and alleviate their financial expenditures so there would be a budget for the long-term care of my mother.

I already had appointments set up to have my mother screened for dementia. An MCI screening with a new doctor, blood tests, a rigorous review of her medications, all things to help narrow some treatment schedule to figure out the best course of treatment. We’d be on location to help my dad if he needed it and he wouldn’t be alone in the case of her passing.

And then I wrote about the dilemma of taking care of parents with dementia when your relationship with them was challenging. I wrote about the conflict, disappointment, love, and yes, the truth. I’m a writer. It’s how I process things. The truth can be a killer.

Survivors of incest and abuse can tell you the truth is a hard-won prize and we cling to it with fierce tenacity.

For me, the post helped to burgeon my empathy and anchored the principles behind my decision to help them. For them, sent by an indignant family member (my parents have never read anything I’ve published), it was ugly, insulting, and probably worst of all, public. Some of the family labeled me as Devil’s Spawn, liar, delusional, uncouth, trashy, and evil.

And most simple of all, neither one of my parents wanted to accept the reality that my mother might have some type of early onset dementia.

In response to the situation, my mother said, “I hope you die and rot in Hell.”

That statement encapsulated my entire relationship with my parents. As a parent of three fantastic offspring, who were also ridiculously challenging in their own ways, nothing . . . NOTHING in the expanding universe would ever induce me with the thought or the words, “I hope you die.”

Sure, I’ve said, “You’re lucky I haven’t killed you.” That’s an entirely different animal. Also, orange isn’t my best color.

When my parents said they’d never speak to me again, my mother’s statement allowed me to walk away absolved.

In three years, I haven’t felt any guilt or shame about my writing or my truth. They’re my parents. I still love them. I’ve worried. I’ve had concerns. My father is getting older. I knew from family my mother was deteriorating. At my grandmother’s behest, I tried to contact my father. No joy. At my aunt’s request, I decided to contact my father. No joy.

My half-sister, my father’s daughter, called me to tell me things with my mother had grown worse. In light of the possible severity of my mother’s health, I called my father. He hung up on me.

I admit I’ve been stewing. I’ve been processing the situation. I’ve been rethinking my article. I’ve been rethinking my childhood. I’ve been rethinking my parents’ behavior.

I’ve been talking to The Beard, the dogs, and myself. I’ve told the offspring I love them and even LIKE them twenty times in the last three days. I thought I’d call my father again and wrote bullet points to keep track of my topics. Bullet points turned into a draft of a letter. I reworked the draft, so it was tighter, on point, and less wordy.

Writing the letter, working the draft, the process of it clarified my struggle of the last few weeks. It sort of morphed into this post. I’m a writer. It’s how we get through the fog of life to the clarity. Or some approximation of clarity.

Have I mentioned I haven’t been drinking? Soon. Very soon.

Writing As Catharsis: Isn’t That How Most of Us Became Writers? was originally published on JC Lynne

Strong Female Leads: Really?

I published my first novel in 2013. Shit, it doesn’t feel like five years ago. Ah well, time marches on and in the words of Dolly Parton playing Trudy in Steel Magnolias, “Sooner or later you realize it marches across your face.” The Esau Emergence is a science thriller.

As genres morph and evolve, some have tried to label it as speculative fiction. My problem with that is no one’s trying to reclassify James Rollins or Michael Crichton as speculative fiction. I’ve come round to the theory in the wake of #Metoo this attempt to slide me out of techno-thrillers is in part because I don’t have a penis.

#METOO #book reviews #Male Gaze #Strong Female Leads

Reading Is Part of My Job

What I Say to The Vacuum Cleaner when I’m reading.

This isn’t new information. Authors are passionate readers. Ask any writer what books influenced them as a kid and you’ve taken a step into the slippery abyss. Reading is the ultimate joy for me.

On a recent SUP yoga training, the paddle board expert asked what books I’d recommend. Between the librarian and me, the conversations spiraled into the night. It didn’t help he asked movies next, oy.

A Little Reading for Work.

Sure, I’m reading The Emotion Thesaurus, Get Known before the Book Deal (at the behest of my agent), and Yoga Body as part of my writing gig along with several others. I’ve specifically set time aside to read for the sheer joy of it.

Harkens To My Love of Scooby Doo.

I’m currently knee deep into Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero. Think of the Scooby Doo gang grown up, dysfunctional, and plunked into a Lovecraft mystery. It’s laugh out loud funny and a nostalgic homage to those quirky crime fighters. It’s one of those books that makes me as a writer think, “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?”

I’m savoring each chapter the way I would nurse an everlasting gobstopper. Each layer brings me new delight.

In between murder mysteries, more homework, I’m slowly moving through Gabriel Tallent’s My Absolute Darling. My tentative progress with this novel is twofold. As a survivor of sexual abuse, this novel presents like a sore tooth. You can’t stop fiddling with it. Tallent has drawn the complex relationship between abuser and victim in such a way that it’s nauseatingly real.

The second fold that keeps me reading through the troubling bits is the lyrical and verdant writing. Tallent’s deft work fuels my self-doubt as a writer. I’m plagued by feelings I’ll never write as beautifully as he does.The other engaging layer to this novel in the characterization of two teenage boys who become friends with the protagonist.

Tallent has channeled the goofball and endearing patter precisely, it’s like I’m eavesdropping on my gaggle of sons and their friends. I can’t help love these characters. I’m drawn into hope beyond hope they help redeem the main character.

Stephen King said writers must read. How can I refute his advice? No matter how messy my house is or that I have fifty pages of a murder mystery due or a yoga platform to build.

Pardon me, I’m going to read for an hour, maybe two.

Reading Is Part of My Job was originally published on JC Lynne

#book reviews #Edgar Cantero #Gabriel Tallent #Meddling Kids #My Absolute Darling #NPR books #reading

I'm Always Working

A Little Light Reading for the yoga project.

I’m a writer. That’s not new information for anyone who has been here before. I’m always working and the thing is it’s hella work.

Writing Is A Job, A Talent, But It’s Also The Place to Go in Your Head. It Is The Imaginary Friend You Drink Tea with in The Afternoon. -Ann Patchett

I’m also a yoga teacher and fitness instructor. Doubling my schedule and picking up a fitness class and a cycle class seemed like a good idea at the time.

#good reading #good writing habits #humor #theeffingyogablog.com #time management #writing is work

Nostalgia Hurts: Writing Fluff

Gilmore Girls: A Year in The Bleh

Okay, we all know who we are. Those of us who were drooling over the new Gilmore Girls: Year in The Life special. I’ll admit to being one of those avid Gilmore Girl watchers in the day. I loved the goofy cultural references and felt especially validated when I understood them without looking them up. The verbal patter….oh man, the witty repartee between Lorelei and Rory over giant mugs of coffee. As a person with a difficult mother, I particularly related to the backhanded stabs and pointed barbs Emily used to draw blood. I related. Through six seasons, I related.

The entire ‘I slept with Christopher’ thing pissed me off. I quit cold turkey.

Season seven held zero allure for me, and once the series popped up on Netflix, I watched the very last episode. Just that one episode and you know what? I didn’t miss a thing. So when A Year in The Life was announced, I harnessed my inner Grinch several weeks early. Humbug.

BUT then, and I’m squarely blaming this on April Moore, on a trip to Sonoma to drink copious amounts of wine and visit fabulous friends we arrived for our return trip home too many hours early at the airport. Oh, I’ll blame that on the liberal imbibing of wine, but the Gilmore Girl thing is squarely on April’s shoulders. She was revisiting episodes in preparation for the special.

Oh man, nostalgia is a terrible thing.

Let me be clear, I can binge watch with the best of them. Sick in bed, folding laundry, sick in bed. Usually, I turn on Netflix or Amazon on while I’m cooking or doing boring things like accounting. Bleh. Background noise, you know, keep one side of the brain occupied while the other is busy doing something onerous. The more I thought about it, the more that bitch Nostalgia niggled my ear. I succumbed. Mind you, I should be digging into research on fungi and pharmacology, but hey….taking a stroll into witty TVland was more appealing.

I’m going to digress for a moment, bear with me. I’ve always advised students to go back and read books they read when they were younger. Hated books. Beloved books. Boring books. After my stint as an air traffic controller, I returned to university to finish my abandoned English degree. Required, in my desire to teach literature and writing, to dive into deeper reading waters I had to revisit books previously shelved. Pun intended.

Catcher in The Rye. Still hated it. To Kill A Mockingbird. Loved it more. Two literature surveys: Arthurian Legend and Jane Austin. Rocked my world. I also took a few film courses because I thought about a Film as Literature class would be fun to teach. It was.

Going back to books of the past can be a mind blowing experience.

The adult you can experience a completely different book than the younger you did. Of course, a life lived can also ruin things for you. No big surprise. Gilmore Girls is a dilapidated ruin for this author. Oh, the sharp banter and cultural jaunts still entertain, but I had to face facts. Lorelei Gilmore and her daughter are a couple of train wrecks.

Static characters who repeatedly choose the same terrible paths with zero growth or wisdom from the last terrible path. Given the trope of a teenage mother made good on her life, we should be offered more from the character. I know. No, I wasn’t a teenage mother, but I did have to deal with three children under the age of seven while broke, going to school, and dealing with difficult people in my life. You grow. Because you burn.

I hate characters who end up in challenging circumstances because they’re stupid, no matter how charming, fast talking, or stylish they are. Bad things happen to smart people too. Ideally, intelligent people don’t make the same mistakes over and over….believe me, there are plenty of new gaffs out there to knee-cap you.

I know some of you are ready to come at me with torches and pitchforks, but take a good hard look at the ‘new’ special. Same ol’, same ol’. It’s essentially four, two-hour rehashes of a seven season series that should have ended two years before it did.

Don’t get me started on the cast of characters who barely made an appearance because, frankly, their careers are on fire currently compared to some of the actors who don’t have anything going on at the moment. I’m not knocking gainful employment, but give us something worth our time. I will say bless Kelly Bishop, who proves actresses CAN age gracefully without being sucked and tucked and plumped unlike another actress who will remain unmentioned here…come on, it’s been TEN years people. Lorelai wasn’t in stasis.

I certainly include silly characters in my stories. Silly characters can be fun. I just don’t like reading, watching, listening to hours and hours of them getting into the exact same trouble they stumbled into the first hour. And if you haven’t watched the new run yet? Can you say sucker punch?

Nostalgia Hurts: Writing Fluff was originally published on JC Lynne

#character development #Gilmore Girls #good reading #Nostalgia #static characters #story ideas #witty banter

Guest Blog: Five Things a Writer Can Count On

By Patricia Stoltey

I’ve been around awhile. A long while. I had already worked in the real world for over twenty years when I started writing my first novel. I was the greenest little novice you’ve ever met.

I thought I would write a book, get an agent, see my book sold to a major publisher, make the best seller list, and make enough money to spend the rest of my life as a full-time author of best-selling novels.

Sound familiar?

I described my journey not long ago on Northern Colorado Writers’ Writing Bug blog, so I won’t bore you with the details today.

Instead I would like to talk about five things a writer will discover during this amazing journey called the writing life.

Here we go.

One: Life will always (100% of the time) disrupt any goals you set for your writing life.

Your plan, your To Do List, your schedule, your writing time—every single one of them will be interrupted by your spouse who wants to chat, a sick kid, a political robo-call, the dog’s need to go for a walk, the cat’s need to be fed, a power failure, or an overwhelming compulsion to go scrub out the toilets because they’re icky.

It will be 100% up to you how quickly you can resolve the interruption and get back to writing.

Two: If you sit down and place your fingers in the proper position on the keyboard, the story will come.

If you’re one of those clever sorts who prefers to use a notebook and a pen, sit down, take your pen in hand, place it just above the right spot on the page.

I didn’t say how long it will take. Just sit there with those fingers or that pen ready, close your eyes, and let your unconscious and your subconscious figure it out together.

Wait, here it comes…

Most of the time, you’ll wonder where on earth (or in the Universe) that idea came from, but if you’re smart, you’ll run with it and see where it goes.

Three: Spending time on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest will not help you become a better or a more productive writer.

Even if you’re promoting a book or networking or stalking agents, it’s not writing.

It’s not. It might be a marketing activity if you have a new book release, but mostly it’s just a fun thing to do when you are trying to avoid Number Two on my list.

Stop it!

Limit your social media time to about 15 minutes twice a day. The rest of the time, log off those accounts. And that goes for games too.

Four: Creating an outline for your project, aka work in process (WIP) will not hurt you or your creative process.

You want to write by the seat of your pants? Fine. But you’ll waste time later when you need to fix your timeline or plant the clues and red herrings you skipped as you merrily followed your main character’s dash around town pretending to solve a murder, or maybe commit a murder.

It’s not a big deal. You can wait until you have a few chapters down so you have a sense of your characters and where the story might be going.

At that point, at least lay out a chapter outline – a short synopsis of plot points. If you change it a later, that’s fine. That outline is a road map so you don’t get lost.

Five: You’re going to break all the rules when you write.

You’ll break the rules if you’re the kind of writer who wants to push the boundaries and create your own style. Don’t we all?

Break the rules from knowledge, not ignorance. And that means first learn all the rules.

You should already be a master of grammar and punctuation. There’s more. Whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, academic or layman articles, literary or genre fiction, there are things you need to know.

Read books and take classes and workshops. Absorb all that conflicting information. Then write it your way, armed with knowledge and intention.

If it deviates too much from all the rules, label it “literary.”

My perspective is a little skewed and perhaps even warped from old age, but this cynical senior citizen in jeans and tennis shoes has met a lot of writers in the last thirty years. Whether you’re a beginner or a veteran writer, what do you think?

Patricia Stoltey has three published novels and has one on the way. She lives in Northern Colorado with her husband, Sassy Dog, and Katie Cat. Visit her website/blog

Track her down on Facebook and Twitter .

Guest Blog: Five Things a Writer Can Count On was originally published on JC Lynne

7 Tips to Help You Write When You Don’t Feel Like It-Colleen M. Story

Colleen M. Story writes imaginative fiction and is also a freelance writer, instructor, and motivational speaker specializing in creativity, productivity, and personal wellness. Her latest novel, Loreena’s Gift, was released with Dzanc Books April 12, 2016. Her fantasy novel, Rise of the Sidenah, is a North American Book Awards winner, and New Apple Book Awards Official Selection (Young Adult). She is the founder of Writing and Wellness, a motivational site for writers and other creatives. Find more at her website, or follow her on Twitter.

You know you’ve come to the culmination of your writing career when a client asks you to write about poop transplants.

This happened to me a couple weeks ago. As a health writer, I’m often asked to write about the latest advances in medical science. These things usually interest me, but sometimes it can be a little tough to get started.

Turns out that the area of poop transplants—officially called “fecal microbiota transplants (FMTs)”—is actually fascinating. It involves all this new stuff we’re figuring out about the good and bad bacteria in our systems, particularly in the digestive system, and how much it affects our health.

But it’s not exactly the topic that gets you running to the computer with your fingers eager for the keys. Thing is, when you make your living writing, it doesn’t matter if you feel like it or not. You have to produce, as that’s your bread and butter.

And some days, it’s just darned difficult.

Fiction is usually easier, but not always. Some days even when we’re working on stories that are precious to us, we just can’t seem to get excited about them. We have deadlines on the calendar, but when we think about sitting down to work, suddenly almost anything else—even washing dishes or cleaning the bathroom—seems preferable.

After 20 years of full-time writing for a living while writing fiction on the side, I think I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out how to get it done even when writing’s the last thing I want to do.

Here are seven tips to help you over the hump. Try them out and you may find yourself producing more than you thought you could.

#good writing habits #health and wellness #writer's block #writing inspiration #writing process #writing tips

I’m A Fan of Fan Fiction

Hi, my name is Carol, and even though I’m a professional science fiction and fantasy author, I’m a big fan of Fan Fiction. There; I’ve said it.

Fan Fiction is, according to Wikipedia, “fiction about characters or settings from an original work of fiction, created by fans of that work rather than by its creator.” The article says it started in the U.S. in the late 1960’s, driven heavily by the cultural phenomenon that was the original TV show Star Trek (1966-1968). The internet made it much easier to share the stories with anonymous strangers, via forums, websites, etc., and to comment on them.

U.S. copyright law protects fan fiction, up to a point. I suspect that if Paramount’s lawyers had known how much Star Trek fan fiction was being written and shared, they’d have worked much harder to quash it, but they didn’t, so here we are. SIDE NOTE: Maybe they were smart. Paramount’s lawyers would’ve had to sue a lot of teenagers for copyright infringement, and that business model didn’t really work out for the music industry.

Very little fan fiction is golden.

Until not too long ago, it was written by amateurs with ideas, but little story craft (or even grasp of basic sentence structure). But perfectly written, professional quality literature isn’t the point. Fan fiction is driven by inspiration—the desire to explore a fictional universe—and the deep human need to tell stories.

No, I Don't Play By the Rules

I’ve taken on a new part-time gig. I’m excited about it. I’m working with Northern Colorado Writers, and things with the group are energized and have movement.

This job means I am mingling more. My face is out there, and I’m a little public figure in this small pond. Not my preferred status, but I believe in the new Director, and I’m having fun.

In a casual group meeting, an acquaintance stated I didn’t like following the rules. You’re damn right I don’t.

I followed the ‘rules’ and spend ten years in a dysfunctional and abusive marriage. I followed the ‘rules’ and stood up to say no against a system while other people were nodding and toeing the yes line even though it compromised safety and ended a career. I followed the ‘rules’ as a teacher and colleague to have the rules shift with the ground under my feet.

In my experience, the rules suit the folks making them up and who are invested in the rest of us following them.

The ‘rules’ we’re speaking of are what the general population considers proper form. Keeping your thoughts to yourself. Nose the grindstone. Nice women don’t have tattoos. Honor thy parents. Don’t talk about unpleasantries in public. Ladies speak softly and don’t use profanity.

The list goes on and on. No one really knows who makes the rules, but we all are familiar with them. And if we’re honest we would acknowledge they don’t serve us well.

I broke the rules and spoke out about abuse. I broke the rules and earned a masters degree. I broke more rules and found The Beard. I broke more rules and raised our children to think for themselves. I broke another rule and quit a full-time job to pursue writing.

I’ve never been happier.

I may be brazen, but better uppity than fearful and dishonest. I could be called resolute, but better to be unswerving than unreliable and disloyal. I may be self-assured, but better strong-willed than meek and faltering.

People know where I stand, who I stand with, and exactly how long I will stand there. And the people worth their salt appreciate my particular brand of mutiny.

I don’t lie, except to improve a story. (I’m a writer after all.) I don’t steal. I don’t cheat. I judge a little, but I tell people I’m doing it. I believe in the goodness in others until they prove me wrong. And finally, most importantly, I don’t live my life to please anyone but myself. It is mine in the end.

I used to tell my students I taught to entertain myself and the minute I wasn’t having fun I wouldn’t teach any longer. I didn’t.

And every time I’ve sacrificed or suppressed for others, it’s come back to bite me in the ass. It doesn’t make those people any happier either.

The other thing I’ve discovered is a lot of those people envy my brass. At the same time, they’re calling me audacious and cheeky, some of them are secretly wishing they had my nerve. They’ve confessed to me in whispers as though admitting it would rouse the beast.

Here’s another secret, I like me. I’m a rockstar. I’m a terrific teacher, a super bomb mom, and a fabulous person. Flawed? Of course, but my mistakes are simply mistakes. We all flub and stumble. Self-doubt? Sometimes, but I’m surrounded by amazing people who can talk me off of that ledge and remind me of who I am and what I’m capable of. Over the top? Sure, it’s where the fun is.

At a recent writing conference, I think I surprised Grant Blackwood, best-selling author and legacy writer of the Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler brands.

After I walked him to the front of the drink line, because he’s a best selling author after all. He said, “You don’t lack self-confidence, do you?”

I smiled and shrugged. “I’ve learned humility is overrated.”

If I waited for the people in my world to acknowledge me, I’d be old and dusty and still not hear a damn thing. We have to nurture and support ourselves the way we would a dear friend. Who is going to be with us to the very end? Sure my kids love me, but it’ll be a long time before they’ll say, “Gee mom, you were amazing.” To be fair, the dotter has said that a couple of occasions. The boys….one can hope.

A couple of days ago in the tattoo gallery, one of my former students was getting some ink. I was working with Shawn McDonald on his art show write-ups, and I didn’t see this person, but Matt Evans told me later the students recognized my voice.

“Is that Ms. Lynne?” he asked.

Matt shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s Julia. I don’t remember her last name. It could be.”

“No way, that would be impossible,” the student said. “But man, she was AWESOME!”

Here’s a rule of mine, if you’re thinking of something complimentary about someone, say it. Don’t wait. I tell store clerks they’re adorable. I tell random strangers their eyes are beautiful. I make coffee for the contractors working on the house. They become confused at first, and then their faces light up.

When I called Perry Weissman, my Expository English teacher, in 2004 to tell him he had been an inspiration to me and one of the most formative influences on my life, he was stunned. “You’re the first student in my thirty year career to ever call and tell me that.”

“I’m going to be a teacher because of the kind of teacher you were,” I said, filled with joy.

“You can’t ever sue me for damages,” he quipped.

In thirty years, not one former student thanked him for being who he was and teaching us to think…to really and truly think. How sad. I couldn’t be the only one.

So look in the mirror and say it with me, “You are awesome!” Practice until it feels true and then pass it on to someone else. Thank you Kid President!

In the meantime, read my spy, action thrillers written by a woman who couldn’t possibly write them well because she’s a WOMAN and have patience with the most important person in your life. YOU.

No, I Don’t Play By the Rules was originally published on JC Lynne

#breaking the rules #confidence #conscientiousness #creative non-fiction #humor #rules

Marketing Basics for Writers

By Amy Rivers Amy Rivers was born and raised in southern New Mexico and currently resides in Colorado. She had an idyllic childhood despite a severe visual impairment and, perhaps because of her disability, she learned a lot about compassion and empathy from a young age. Her keen interest in social issues and violence…

Marketing Basics for Writers was originally published on JC Lynne

#authors #marketing #social media #writing

My Daughter is Married. WTF?

My daughter married. She’s the oldest of our three children. Twenty-three, twenty-one, and nineteen. I’m not going to lie. The last few years have been tough ones. Their transitions toward adulthood have been the most difficult I’ve had as a parent. Including ten years in an abusive marriage, four years as a single parent on food stamps, and the first five years of their breaking in a step-father.

I’m surrounded by friends who have younger children. They struggle with napping and potty training. I long for the days of those concrete parenting challenges. Dropping out of university, grave and debilitating illness, stupid mistakes resulting in irreparable legal snags, and suicidal depression all loaded on top of the typical ‘you know nothing and I hate you’ stage have left me adrift in the parenting sea.

I’ve worked hard to be the best mother I can. Sure, I’ve chased stoned teenagers out of the house with crutches, but I’ve also faced down police officers and sent compass spinning offspring to London to find True North. We’ve done four rounds of braces, twelve wisdom teeth, and six or seven broken bones, all a breeze compared to the rest.

Now I’m sitting in a Hollywood hotel room wrapping my brain around the fact my daughter just got married. Her husband…my god, her HUSBAND, is a great guy. He’s level-headed and practical. He’s working toward his dream and between the two of them they have a good plan. She’s happy. All of those things don’t negate the hollow anxiety plaguing me.

It’s a parent thing. Letting go of the bicycle the first time without training wheels. Sending them to their first day of school. Watching them drive away after earning their driver’s license. The sick vortex of powerlessness as they move out of your reach. Multiply it by moving out, heading to university, and moving across the country and add a dose of vertigo.

The minute a child is born, parents spend every waking and some non-waking moments clinging to the illusion of control and security. It becomes so deeply ingrained into our cells the paradigm shift of independence is so cutting we suffer phantom limb pain. Sure, nature tries to soften the blow with little rebellions and small skirmishes, but nothing prepares you.

I’m not a big wedding fan. I’ve always thought the bigger the wedding, the messier the divorce. After a little civil ceremony at the courthouse, I understand the pageantry of a traditional wedding. It isn’t for the couple. It’s for the parents. The preparation, the anxiety, the myriad of tiny details all serve to distract parents from the crushing tempest about to strike.

A wedding offers time to process the transition. Not only does wedding hubbub serve as a diversion, but you’re also surrounded by people reminding you of the symbolic hope the matrimonial chaos represents. You’re completely preoccupied. It’s a win all the way round.

As it is, I’m reeling. It’s not the dotter’s fault. It’s a flaw in the system. It’s a glitch in my software. As the Beard would say, I need an update.

The Beard and I had a destination wedding. His family tradition involved marrying in Carson City, Nevada. His parents married there as did his two older brothers. We compromised because the church they all married in changed its ‘ceremony central’ policies and required counseling at the church before the wedding. As if that was going to happen.

I did the next best thing, marriage license in Carson City with a ceremony on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Logan Shoals Vista over Zephyr Cove offered surreal views. We only officially invited six or seven people and of course, my parents crashed our lovely little cabin on the shore despite being expressly told to find their own lodgings. Our wedding provided the kids with a sense of unity, a sense of validity. We were a family.

October 14, 2006

I’ve convinced the dotter and SON-IN-LAW, who is averse to crowds, to participate in a casual gathering, a pseudo-reception for the Colorado people who will undoubtedly express their happiness and hope for the new couple. I told the S.I.L if he didn’t enjoy a throng he should’ve married an orphan. My aunt is wrangling the entire west coast contingent for a July gathering.

It’s not about the size of the event or the expense. It’s the pageantry and observance that helps us process changes in our lives. It’s tribal and our tribe is congregating to jubilate and to help me anchor the idea of my daughter’s marriage in my mind. To allow me the opportunity to let go of one idea of her and manifest this new, grown-up concept of who she is.

Oh, and there’s cake. Wedding cake.

My Daughter is Married. WTF? was originally published on JC Lynne

#ceremony #daughters #family #marriage #Motherhood #tradition

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