Round Robin Blog Fest October 2020

 

Welcome back to another fun installment of the Round Robin Blog Fest!

While I'm writing this, there is a strong breeze blowing all the colorful maple leaves off the trees and my cat who is part Siamese is howling to get out there to chase them.

Today's question is:  "What is/are your favorite book(s) of all time in your favorite genre(s)? (You can include children's books or non-fiction or even magazines.)

When an extended family member learned that I loved to write, they gave me a lovely, encouraging book for Christmas 1993. "Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within" by Natalie Goldberg quickly became one of my favorite, most dog-earred books of all time. In fact, my copy is adorned with post-it notes, hi-lighter and pen marks and scrap paper notebooks.

Years later, and a move across Canada to Ontario, I discovered a little writing group whose whole framework was based on Natalie Goldberg's concepts. It seems a couple of the founding members had been part of a different group with a man who had studied in Taos, New Mexico with Natalie. They based their group on the principles of reading your work aloud and doing free-writing to prompts to get their creative juices going. Many of my novels were added to or started using the free-writing prompts.

Each meeting, we practiced doing these timed exercises. We set ten to fifteen minutes aside, as time allowed, chose a prompt from the list provided by the leader that day, then wrote using the following rules:

1. Keep your hand moving (don't pause to reread.)
2. Don't cross out (this is editing as you right.)
3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar (or lines or margins...)
4. Lose control (write what comes up.)
5. Don't think. Don't get logical.
6. Go for the jugular. (even if something comes up that is scary or naked, dive right in.)

Our first thoughts have tremendous power. They are the reason Julia Cameron suggests in her book "The Artist's Way" (another favorite!) writing Morning Pages to "prime the pump" and get writing. To get into the flow and get the debris out of your head before you get down to serious creating.

The chapter in "Writing Down the Bones" that I love the most is called, "Living Twice."

Yes. I am one of those writers who will walk in the rain. Over the years, my mind has become trained to "record" feelings, sensations, and experiences so I can relive them on paper. Because of the free-writing exercises and trying to write with three kids underfoot, I have learned to write in short bursts. My short bursts, however, usually generate more pages in novels or whole new short stories.

While I don't read "Writing Down the Bones" as often as I used to, I still drag it off the shelf from time to time when I need a little inspiration.

Let's see what books our other writers treasure, shall we?

Anne Stenhouse  
Skye Taylor 
Connie Vines 
Dr. Bob Rich 
Fiona McGier 
Victoria Chatham 
Helena Fairfax 
Beverley Bateman 
Rhobin L Courtright 

A Great Use for Writing Prompts

I have a new dust collector for my bookshelf. Okay, it's really not a dust collector.

I am pleased to announce that the rough copy for my YA novel The Mural is done aside from a quick revision before my junior and senior (I use that word very loosely) get their mitts on it. As with the three other novels I've written in the past three years, it was sewn together from several prompts written in my writer's group. As well as vignettes I've written while my kids were doing karate classes.

Writing prompts are wonderful things to get your imagination stirring so you can add to novels or just write to create something new. This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a Writing Reteat out at Eramosa Eden. It was fun to play word games and practice the art of alliteration - using repetitive initial sounds in adjacent words. In other words, writing a short story or paragraph in which as many words as possible start with the same letter or sound.

I have to admit, I was not very keen on the concept at first, but found it a good exercise in seeing how many different words you know that use that sound or letter. Who knew you could make an entire paragraph using words that begin with U? I do now and I'm very impressed that Clare could!

Now that I'm done procrastinating, it's back to revising. I'd like to print my new novel off for revision before the kids are out of school next week.
Keep Writing!