Weekend Workshop Sunday Edition

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

To recap:  I am starting a new feature on the blog, the weekend workshop. Yesterday I summerized Chapter One of Story Sense by Paul Lucey. Now for the exercises at the end of that chapter.

1. Find news items that might someday be developed into a story idea. These are three I found in less than five minutes.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/can-reading-make-you-happier

This is an article about bibliotherapists. ie, they assign you a reading list based on your issues to help you cope or change or grow. I love the idea. And I can imagine an entire beach read about a 20 something who wants to be a bibliotherapist and is an intern, the hilarity she endures, etc.

http://news.yahoo.com/possible-sighting-us-hunt-escaped-killers-214146530.html

It has potential. What about a sociopath who wants to be a film maker so he commits crimes in a grandiose way and films them for his reel?

http://i.imgur.com/AOCqg5j.gifv

This is just a video of two black holes merging, but what if? What if your planet was in the middle of those two holes merging, could you stop it, or would you have to evacuate? What if those black holes were actually worm holes to other dimensions and now hundreds of dimensions are being merged when the black holes merge. Shrug. I’m not a sci fi girl but I could be.

2. Select your four favorite books and summarize the idea you feel organizes each of them.

I can’t do my favorite, it just paralyzes me, four FAVORITE, oh no. So I’ll  just do four books I like.

Size 12 Isn’t Fat, Meg Cabot. Heather Wells is an ex-pop star who only wants to get a college degree so she can support herself after her record label drops her and her mother runs off with all the money she earned singing. Fortunately, her job as an assistant dorm manager comes with free tuition, unfortunately, people keep dying in her dorm, and rather than go to class, she solves the crime.

Star Wars Jedi Academy, Jeffrey Brown. Roan wants to go to the pilot academy so he can be a pilot like his dad and brother but he gets accepted to the Jedi Academy instead. Part cartoon and part diary, Roan explores the complications of growing up and learning to use the force.

Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie. A man is murdered on a train buried in a snow drift. The killer must be among the exclusive passengers. Hercule Poirot must solve the crime without the benefit of any outside information.

Title Withheld, T.A. Henry. In post WWII London, an ex-military nurse must find a way back to the soldier who stole her heart. The ensuing adventure leads her to find herself.

3. How do these novels display dramatic contrast, humanism, and writerly perspective?

Size 12, forces a pop star to become a dorm manager. She goes from a pamper and insulated life to one of no prestige and little power. She is struggling to function in society when she was never given the skills to do so. This makes her lovable.

Jedi, Roan is extremely late to the academy, most children starting years before him. He is behind in all the skills he needs to excel. He makes all the mistakes young adults do. It reminds us of our own adolescent foibles.

Murder, Catch the killer. I tend to feel more for the suspects in this novel. They are all so desperate.

Withheld, Rich, upper crust young woman thrust into the movie industry. She is frequently blind to the reality that you as a reader see.

4. Select two novels and note how the locations add to the effectiveness of the stories.

Murder, without the train this could be any other Agatha Christie. LOL. But in reality the train draws a net around the situation. You know it must be one of these people because they are trapped. It heightens the psychological aspect of the work.

Withheld, Based in London post WWII, the location adds that level of reserve one wouldn’t find if it was based in say, new york in the present.

5. To which audiences do the books appeals?

Size 12, women age 16-45, looking for a light read.

Jedi, young adult 8-18, or anyone who likes star wars and can relax into the youthful ambiance.

Murder, adults who like complicated plots.

Withheld, women 25-45 looking for a beach read.

6. Are the stories done in a real, unreal, or surreal style?

Size 12, real.

Jedi, unreal.

Murder, surreal.

Withheld, real.

7. Briefly describe two characters from each novel selected. Explain why they are interesting.

Size 12. Heather Wells, overweight ex pop star with a wry sense of humor about life. She picks herself up every time life knocks her down, dusts herself off, and writes a song about it. Cooper Cartwright, the love interest: active PI, tries to contain Heather but frequently helps her in her investigation.

Jedi. Roan, young boy who unexpectedly ends up at the Jedi Academy, artist, struggles with the class material. Yoda, comic relief. I love the way this book merges the struggles to survive being a tween with the struggle to learn the force. Reality meets sci fi.

Murder. Hercule Poirot, detective, brilliant, aware of it and possibly even over estimates his own brilliance, “tortuous mind.” To describe anyone else would give away too much of the plot. Read this even if you don’t read mysteries or Agatha Christie.

Withheld. Molly, ex nurse, budding writer, adventurous, determined, not constrained by societal concerns when it comes to the big things in life but attempts to maintain in all other aspects. Her brother, cohort in crime since they were young children, secretive.

There you have it. Consider doing this for your own work or books you like to see what makes them tick. It’s a great way to get in the practice of distilling what you are working on down to a couple of sentences. You never know when you have 30 seconds to charm an agent or editor or someone in the business with three lines about your own work.

Weekend Workshop Saturday Edition

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

I am pleased to welcome a new feature for my blog, the weekend workshop. This little idea was born out of a fortuitous collection of events that happened to come together for me this week. A) I was noticing people really like to read about the craft of writing in my blog. B) I pledged to myself I would start working on my craft by getting a book from library each time on craft as well as one for research. Then finally C) I was going to lay down with my kiddo one afternoon and needed something to read. I grabbed the second from the top book from my box o’ books (long story) and settled in with it. The book turned out to be Story Sense by Paul Lucey. I’ve had this book for eons, it was assigned reading for a script writing class I enrolled in back in my early twenties but which I promptly dropped when the prof dissed Robert Altman in the first class. What can I say I was young and idealistic. Anyway, I never got around to reading the book.

I am reading it now and in the opening section the author suggests one spend one week per chapter as to really digest the information and ones time with the writing exercises. So I will be doing that here. Saturday I will summarize the chapter. Sunday I will answer the exercises in my blog. If this turns out to be something we all enjoy, I will continue the process after this book but for now let’s consider this a 12 week experiment.

So Chapter One: Selecting An Idea

-a simple plot which puts interesting characters through complicated situations.

-use dramatic contrast to create tension(s) and reveal your characters

-think carefully about your audience, you don’t have to cater to them but a children’s book that ends darkly, isn’t the best combination, for example.

-provoke an emotional response

-adapt stories by changing the characters, the location, the time line, or give it a fresh emotional thrust or perspective.

-truth is stranger than fiction, we’ve all heard that. So use it, peruse news stories or even reality shows for that kernel of the bizarre you can build a story on.

-pay attention to the people around you. Invent story lines for them. Ask what if? Add a new character to your gallery each month so they are there waiting to tell their story when you need them.

-It might be a worth wild exercise to figure out which archetype your story is destined to follow; the Hero(brave souls who take on a dangerous task), the Buddy(two friends against the world), the Impossible Quest(noble adventure), Breaking Away(old order must submit to the new), Medea(independent woman), or Faustian(the extremes to which people will go to get what they want).

Somerset Maugham said there were only three rules for writing a novel but unfortunately no one knows what they are. Let’s figure them out together.

Wednesday Writer’s Cafe – Special Edition

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

Good morning Internet! Welcome to my usual Thursday morning post about the writing I didn’t get done at the Wednesday night Writer’s Cafe, with a twist. I only got about 350 words written last night. That spy novel is just dragging on me. I like the characters, I do. But the plot is just wearing me out. sigh.

Ok, on to more fun things. I need to pick an author photo. And marketing photos. And maybe a new shot for my blog. My cohorts at the Cafe helped me narrow it down to six. You, yes, you, get to have an opinion too.

Quick Disclaimer: This is not the way I wanted to do this but after three hours of wrestling with the limitations of WordPress, my laptop, and my software, this was what I needed to go with before my kiddo self destructed.

combowithwords

Image One: Am I pushing you away or being arty? You decide.

Image Two: I’m too distant they say. Hello, I’m writing under a pseudonym. I like distance.

Image Three: Yes, my lips are too shiny. I’ll have it edited if it gets picked.

Image Four: We had so much fun with this picture. S and V thought this was the quintessential me. I don’t know about all that.

Image Five: This was debated. Heartily. So, some thought it was too blurry. Others thought it was arty. What say you?

Image Six: More debate. It’s not very authory. Like I care. LOL. Do you?

Vote in the comments. Tell me what you like. What you hate. Or just post a number. I’m easy and I’ll wait on posting my decision until next Wednesday’s Writer’s Cafe update. You have time, but not too much, don’t dally.

Brilliant Read

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

I just read an amusing and insightful little number on Long Reads this morning. You can find the whole article here http://blog.longreads.com/2015/06/16/internet-cold-turkey/.

Let me sum it up for you though….

Man leaves the internet, his cell phone, and almost all human contact behind to spend a week in a shack, no running water, no power, in the Scottish highlands. He finds himself on the edge of madness before he manages to embrace himself as a person worth knowing and spending time with.

I loved it. But then again for the most part, I love time without people. It was my birthday last weekend and people keep asking what did you do. I smile and tell them my husband took my son to the pool for several hours both days. This confuses people. But for me 3 hours of time all alone….magic. Two days in a row? Miracle.

My favorite line from the article is this one,  “or else, in moments when dystopian visions of us slowly morphing into robots feel horribly prescient, staring dumbly at a screen trying to remember whether I had any reason to look at it other than to bask for a moment in its warm, comforting glow.” I could relate to this. I find myself checking my wordpress stats page several times a day to see if anyone read me, liked me, or commented. It doubles if I’ve asked questions.

Tomorrow I will be posting 6 possible author photos for my book. You get to vote. So why not practice the art of opinion now and tell me if you’ve ever gone without internet or cell phone for a period of time and how you coped or reveled in the experience.

Monday Book Review: Wedding Night

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

I rarely read fiction anymore. I feel like even the leisure time I carve out to read should be useful, non fiction research I could incorporate into my current novel, my next novel, or the novel I might write some time, some where. But since I had a lot of hours to kill on my 3000 mile plus road trip I grabbed this late work by Sophie Kinsella. She is astoundingly well known as the author behind the Shopaholic series, but to be honest I always liked her off beat books better. Undomestic Goddess, for example, about a lawyer who hides from her “ruined” life as a housekeeper.

So, Wedding Night. A quick note about the audio book. Both of the voice actresses had an annoying habit of dropping their voices very low and then getting very loud again rapidly, cycling low again, then loud, etc. Since I was driving all the volume adjustment got very wearing. So I may have missed some of the nuanced words as they were so low I couldn’t change the volume in time to catch everything.

The book follows two sisters, Fliss and Lottie. Lottie is the younger sister, every time she has a break up she makes an “unfortunate choice,” according to Fliss. I couldn’t relate very well to Lottie. She was flighty and irrational and had the most unreasonable expectations of every one and every thing. She was constantly going on about every thing being perfect or needing every thing to be perfect. Her current unfortunate choice was to marry, on the spur of the moment, her gap year boyfriend, who turns up out of the blue after 15 years.

Fliss on the other hand I overly related to. She spends the entire book trying to “save” her sister’s life while ignoring the issues in her own. (I used to be this woman) She goes to the most amusing extremes, I laughed out loud several times, to keep Lottie from making her mistake bigger than it already is. Her plan is to keep Lottie and Ben from consummating their marriage, so they can get an annulment as soon as they realize their mistake in marrying.

I didn’t like how neatly the book winds all the ends in. For example, on her gap year, Lottie stayed at a student guest house that had a fire one night. She had directed everyone how to get off the second floor veranda safely. She had always considered this a huge turning point in her life. The “one time” she did something right. Late in the book she finds out the fire was started by someone leaving candles burning. She assumes it was her fault, as she was always leaving her candles burning. This is such a huge chance for the author to allow real growth in a character. What does one do when you discover something like this? That the huge disaster you helped others avoid, you actually caused. Well the way Sophia Kinsella addresses it is by having a third party ride up on his white horse at the eleventh hour, investigate, and tell her, it wasn’t actually your fault, someone else left their candles burning and caused the fire. Sigh. Disappointment.

The romances predictably work themselves out. Although to be honest, I don’t think anyone is as forgiving or magnanimous in real life as they are in this book, but it is fiction after all. Perhaps a work of fantasy. I did feel compelled to finish it, so that is something. LOL.

I plan to make this Monday Book Review an ongoing feature, let me know what you think about that…

856

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

Today I drive 856 miles home through 4 states.

The good news for you is a new book review come tomorrow. The bad news for me is the week is almost up, week three, and I’ve only written 1000 words. Sigh. All done in one afternoon while watching two six year olds make up a whole world and catch bugs in the back yard.

But I’ll be home tomorrow. I can get back in the groove, get words into schrivner, make up for delightfully wasted time.

See you soon.

Book Review: The Murder Room

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

I just finished audio booking The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World’s Most Perplexing Cold Cases by Mike Capuzzo on my drive to Park City, Utah. I have to say on those long hours across the very boring Nevada desert this book was a god send.

Capuzzo broke the book into several sections, talking first about the three men who found the Vidocq Society, the early cases, and their big successes.

Will Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter founded the Vidocq Society over lunch one day and continued the tradition with the societies monthly luncheon meetings. The society is named after Eugene Vidocq who is considered the father of modern criminal investigation and was the first head of the Surete.

Fleisher, Bender, and Walter limited full membership to 82, one for each year of Vidocq’s life. The society works only cold cases, where the detective, or in rare instances a family member of the murdered cold case victim, presents their case at a luncheon. Members ask questions and if the society can’t solve the situation on the spot, a team will form based on interest to take on the case. The society boasts a 90% solution rate but they rarely ask for press or acknowledgement of their good work.

Capuzzo used a chronological format for his novel which was at times irritating. For several chapters I would hear about a particular case and I would become quite invested. Then the case was gone. On to a different case as it occurred chronologically. I found this jumping around somewhat diminished my enjoyment. I also felt the book was somewhat repetitive. For example, every time Walter was mentioned, it was repeated he was the thin man or a thin man. By chapter 45 I was desperate to feed him just so I could stop hearing about his thinness. I heard the same speech by Walter many many times. Did you know for a sadist the murder isn’t over until the murderer says so? Well I did, quite well by halfway through the book but that didn’t stop Capuzzo from repeating it, ad infinitum.

All that said, it was an intriguing listen. I enjoyed the specifics of the back side of cases, why they don’t get solved, how easy it is for a small mistake to lead police in completely the wrong direction. I enjoyed hearing the way these detectives thought. How a a crime scene can talk to someone with adequate experience and give a completely different perspective from the norm. I particularly enjoyed the case at one of their luncheons where the presenter was a civilian trying to find the murderer of a good friend. As the meeting wrapped up, after the members had asked their questions, Walter finally has his say. He declares the friend presenting this case is actually the murderer and this seeking of help from the Vidocq Society is a way to keep the pleasure going. After all the murder isn’t over until the murderer says so.

Silence is Golden

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

Or so they say. Have you been enjoying my radio silence? Say no please. Lol. My ego needs the love.

I’ve been traveling northern California visiting the friends and family we left behind when we moved to the Pacific northwest. Spending not nearly enough time with the only thing I miss about California, my people.

I have managed to get some words into Scrivner, (500) although I’m still behind. Shrug. 18 weeks to make it all up right?

Soon we’ll head across that sandpit known as Nevada to see friends in Utah. No they’re not Mormon but her husband enjoys having us visit because he has two women cooking for him and refilling his wine glass. Lol

I’d like to think I’ll get more writing done there but somehow I doubt it. At least I spent some time playing with my pics in Photoshop. And I settled on both a title and a cover design for the spy novel. All good progress in my book.

Just smile

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 9 Comments

so I spent a good part of this weekend struggling to take author photos. Yes, that may sound ridiculous, and I guess maybe it is but it is also the reality of who I am. I do not like to be looked at. I do not like the way I look. I am most comfortable, when I am invisible physically, and can be just me.

The very act of taking an author photo defies all of the emotions I just attempted to explain. And because I am female there is an inherent suggestion that I should be beautiful. And I am not. And I am aware of that constantly. In fact when anyone tries to suggest I am attractive in any way, there is this huge rift in my time space continuum because my brain refuses the suggestion. It’s like those mystery spots where things roll up hill and you know it can’t really be defying the laws of physics so your brain struggles and you get dizzy? That’s kind of what happens to me when someone says I have beautiful eyes or whatever.

This whole thing has actually been a three step process. First pictures with me doing my own make up. Picture hearty laughter from the photographer. Then after she and her assistant had hit me with half the contents of Mac and again with something in the middle. Each time paring down the poses. Paring down the clothes that photograph well.

Each time forcing me to smile or not smile, suck it in, let it out, show some cleavage, cover it up, toes pointed, toes relaxed, shows on, shoes off, pretend, pretend, pretend…

I am exhausted.

774 miles

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday I drove 774 miles with my six year old. And I’m alive enough to blog about it.

Kiddo and I have been doing road trips for years though, so I thought I knew exactly how it was going to go. I thought I knew so well in fact, that I wrote a blog post about it Thursday night that I could tweak just a little and post up last night when I got to my destination. Except I was wrong. Thank god for growth.

I assumed kiddo would sleep in because I wanted to leave early. He did.

I wanted to leave at 7AM and jokingly suggested in my blog that we would leave at 723. Frighteningly enough we did.

Then I wrote copious amounts comparing traveling with a small child to water torture. Except, it wasn’t this time. I gave kiddo a DVD player, my kindle, his tablet, a bag of snacks and an ice cooler of food and drinks and he barely said a word for 700 miles. It was glorious. I listened to a fluffy Meg Cabot audio book ( I love her ) then dove into the Murder Club, an intriguing non fiction book about detectives from various agencies coming together to solve impossible cold cases. A formal review to follow in the next week or so.

I will back up briefly and say that Thursday night my husband was like “you need a good night sleep, tomorrow will be a long day.” I agreed it was a long drive, then he said “and you’re going to Missy’s, that means a long night of drinking.” I told him they had plans and that I was just going to get there, put kiddo to bed, yoga, shower and hit the hay myself but I still accepted his offer of massage.

Turns out he was right. They bailed their plans, invited mutual friends over, and we drank and played Phase 10 til one AM. ROFL

Update for the week: 647 words on my spy novel. (19 weeks and 39, 353 words to go) I am behind. boo. and I’m traveling for the next two weeks with the kiddo. I’ll have to find a way to make it up. Although once I leave Missy’s on Monday, I’ll have some time. Going to the in-laws. They just want to see the kiddo anyway. I’ll smile, nod, and tinker on my laptop for a week.

So tell me, do you try to write while traveling or just leave it? And if you do write while traveling, how do you squeeze it in?