Ridding myself of the deadwood

After a wonderful vacation, which included a lot of driving, I came home to nearly a hundred emails - most of which I deleted. From those emails, I got the sense that I was being sent things that I shouldn't have been sent. Disagreements between other people that I was being indirectly involved in. I decided to lighten my load and rid myself of two volunteer positions that were dragging me down and taking away from my creative time and energy effectively giving me Writer's Block. One of these positions, I was unclear about cutting ties from until today.

Earlier today I was in the local library and stumbled across a copy of Psychic by Sylvia Browne. I read it in pretty much one sitting. One passage she wrote particularly jumped out at me:
As sometimes happens when I'm overwhelmed, I begin sinking into a deep depression. Since I know that's not uncommon, it's worth mentioning that I later learned to call it a "psychic attack." Please don't let that conjure up an image of me on a rampage through Cleveland with a machine gun. The term refers to an attack on the psyche when we involuntarily begin hearing and believing all the negative, debilitating, confidence-shattering "tapes" that play over and over and over again in our minds when we're exhausted, ill, and/or far too busy for our own good. The tapes are the insults and insulting thoughts aimed at us by the dark entities we've let into our lives.
She goes on to say that everyone has those same tapes playing in our heads and they all sound remarkably alike.

This paragraph struck a chord with me. I've been miserable and suffering "psychic attacks" for a long time now. From both volunteer posts which have nearly driven me to drink and a friendship that I've been struggling to free myself from. As fate would have it, one of the volunteer jobs came to an end of its own accord. The other I was driven out from out of sheer frustration. And the friend is moving. To help life return to a better balance, I have a permanent post at my job which lets me work two days a week and spend the other three pursuing my dreams of being a writer.

Sometimes Writer's Block, isn't a block at all. It's a sign that something has to give to make room for the creative self.

Lazy Days of Summer and Fall Resolutions

Wow, what a crazy summer! Between taking my oldest to Sudbury for the 2010 Ontario Summer Games, working, keeping my kids amused and trying hard to get some writing done, summer is nearly gone. The leaves are starting to fall for heaven's sake!

On the plus side, Fall brings me more time to write. My work schedule will be more routine this year and the kids will all be at school. At our HWG meeting Sunday, someone asked how many books I've written. I couldn't give her an exact number. I ballparked it at ten. Sounds about right. This year, however, they are almost ready to go.

Ready for what? Ready to be polished and queried. I have one that is ready, The Secret Life of the Bookstore Lady. The next book in that "series" is called Date with a Dead Guy. It still needs some edits and a good query letter. Once it's older sister is gone, it'll be close behind. The third book, Padded Walls, I have to take another look at. When they do get published, I will be indebted to my wonderful editor Laura LaRocca forever!

But before I get into all the intensive edits and rewrites, I'm taking a vacation.
My brain is distracted by a new story that won't leave me alone. This one takes place in the southern US where I plan to go soon. Nothing like a little research! I'll give you more details later and maybe even post a chapter.

In the meantime, if you are on Facebook, check out the new HWG site! My friend RichardGoodship set it up and it's already getting a few members. Just search for Headwaters Writers Guild and you'll find us!

Enjoy what's left of summer!

The Roads We Travel and Towns we Build

I'm going to Sudbury this week for the Ontario Youth Summer Games. My oldest son is competing and I am taking the opportunity to do some research. One of my novels has a section that takes place in Sudbury and, so far, I've been stuck researching vicariously via the internet and maps. Now I get the opportunity to go there and see it for myself.

There is something to be said for accuracy. When you create your own little town, like I have for my series, you can build and remove whatever you want. When you use a real city or town, like Sudbury, you have to remain true to what is there. Of course, if you want to use your creative license to build an imaginary building on an empty lot that's your own perogative.

Creating a whole new world for your characters isn't always easy. I've had to map it out since more than one book takes place there. And I still make mistakes! For towns in the real world, Google Earth and Google Maps can be your best friends. (Aside from going there in person.)

Have fun playing and building new worlds as well as new characters. Look what it did for J.K. Rowling.

Hearing Voices

I haven't had a lot of time to write anything over the past week. My job in the real world has a bad habit of caging the little voices that compel me to write and stifling them. I have to force myself to think in a linear fashion, not in my usual whirlwind of creativity. The job I currently have, however, introduces me to characters that even I could not make up. When my friends say those "characters" are stereotypes, I beg to argue. I've met them! They're real.



Do I really hear voices? Technically, no. But I do get whole scenes, lines and even stories flashing through my head. Some are gone before I can write them down, but others haunt me until I do and insist they be given their own life.



Remember way back when to a show called "The Facts of Life"? Mindy Cohn's character Natalie Green was a writer and insisted that she needed to work a variety of jobs in order to get to meet people and gain experience in the "real world". The one that comes to mind is when she drove a hearse. I can't say I have ever driven a hearse, but I have held a variety of jobs and met a variety of people.

Watching and talking to people is one of the best ways to find characters. Or to make composites of characters. It's like mixing paint. You take one part of Aunt Minnie, two parts of your good friend Sandy and a dab of Uncle Sal and get my wonderful character named Mimsy Lexington. Okay, just and example. I really don't know who Mimsy is a composite of, but she's a fun character to get to play with!

Characters appear everywhere and in everyone. Your boss, your spouse, your kids, the old lady who lives across the back alley and keeps rabbits in her garage . . . even parts of yourself that you would rather no one know about. The one who hears the voices.

What's in a Name?

Our latest discussion in the HWG was about naming our fictional characters. I am a big fan of baby naming books and grabbing names that I hear out in the real world. Much like I grab tidbits of conversations or incidents that happen to use in stories.

I have to admit, I tend not to use trendy names, mostly timeless ones. Victoria is one of my YA characters, her cousin's name is Cameo. Lucy is my leading lady in Date with a Dead Guy, her leading man is Jad (short for Jaidev).

Kathryn Dean once gave me a critique on a chapter from The Bookstore Lady's Secret Life (also known at Take the Money and Run). Her main focus was on the name I had chosen for one particular character. The character's name was Jewish and I'm not. She starts off as an evil person which Kathryn was afraid could make me look anti-Semetic. Okay, I gave into that one even though the character had her own issues and perfectly good reasons for being nasty. (For the record, in the end she turned out to be a good person once her troubles were behind her.)

Another person who gave me a critique on the same book told me that one character's name was too close to a popular actor's name. It was, but the thought had never crossed my mind. Funny part was, he was the nasty woman's husband!

We did an interesting exercise in our HWG meeting yesterday. Richard gave us slips of paper with names on them and we had to make a character description and a bit of a plot around them. The first name I got was Robert. Robert Redford. That was where my imagination took me and stalled. I traded names and got Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth Manley...stuck again. I didn't get any writing done until everyone else read their pieces. What did I end up with? Another Stereotype.

"Elizabeth had been groomed from the time she was a baby to be perfect. Her hair and makeup were flawless before she left the house each day for her job at Theodore, Eugene and Finch. Daddy always wanted her to be a lawyer. Mother tried to steer her into acting. Becoming a lawyer for actors was her version of middle ground.
On a shopping trip to Rodeo Drive, Elizabeth is taken hostage by Bill, a former client. He drives her across the country and she learns that perfect isn't always good enough."

And so ends our lesson on naming characters. I have a new story to write!

My Bucket List

I celebrated my birthday this weekend surrounded by family and friends. Last night, I sat up late watching The Bucket List and crying my eyes out at the end. Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson were amazing. If you are not familiar with it, the movie is about two men dying from cancer. The Bucket List is the list of things they want to do before the die.

What possessed me to watch something so morbid on my birthday?

Actually, I found it very uplifting and inspiring.

I have my own Bucket List. Most of it is not written down anywhere but on my heart. At the top of my list, is selling my paintings and publishing my novels. Last night before the movie, I did some painting. I am going to be part of a large show put on my the Orangeville Art Group in October and need to complete 5 paintings. So far, I have 4 and 1 nearly done. I finished two last night, fuelled by a glass of wine and birthday cake! That alone gave me a sense of accomplishment and peace. The same feeling I get when I write a novel and send it to my friends to edit.

Each thing I do is one more entry on my Bucket List that I can cross off. I
One less thing that I won't look back on with regret.

Perspective

Over the past week I have been shocked by the resignation of two members of two different groups I belong to. One was a long-time member who is disillusioned by the changes in a group he has been with for years. The second was a recent member who was insulted in outrageous fashion. Both are people that I highly admire and respect. Now they are gone.

Life is such a matter of perspective. The whole glass half-empty/half-full thing.
Monday was a glass half-empty day for me. Everything that could go wrong, definitely did:
The cat sprayed in the front entrance (ruining my 15 year old son's favourite fedora), then vomited all over the floor. On top of grocery shopping and floor and wall washing, a brand new bottle of fuschia nail polish broke all over my tiled kitchen floor. That was all before I went to work at noon. Work was ridiculously busy and nothing but problems. I came home to find out about the two resignations - at the same time. Then took the kids to a 2 hour karate class.

Looking back, however, I had missed all the blessings in the day.
We went shopping for a new hat for my son. He found one he liked even better for 1/3 of the price of the old one. The new bottle of nail polish was also on sale. I stopped at my friend's work for my youngest son to use the bathroom and she treated me to a cold drink. Not to mention that she usually doesn't work at that time and I hadn't seen her in a month. Work was filled with a lot of laughter when I told them all my woes and we laughed about what could possibly top off my day. Nothing seemed as bad as finding the soaked hat and vomit on the floor and I got to spend time with friends.

The best part of the day was coming home later and printing off a copy of my new YA manuscript called The Mural for my friend to edit. It was a reminder that no matter how bad things get, there is always a silver lining somewhere. Even if you have to strain to see it.