Fired-Up Friday

How Long Does It Take?

 

To write a story, or a blog, or a novel? For anyone who has never taken on that venture you might wonder if it’s a month long commitment (short story), a few hours (an article or blog) a year, or maybe years (novel). Many authors are able to write several shorter novels or books a year, while others work diligently on one longer book for several years. I have to confess that the book I am currently writing and hope to finish very soon has taken over ten years to get to this point. Even before that it started out as a short story that never sold, but apparently it was one that wouldn’t leave me alone.

When I decided to expand the story into a novel, it started out well and everything was working. Since I’d already written the short, I knew who the main characters were and had no problem figuring out what came next. But short stories and novels are two entirely different creatures. Most short stories you can get away with just two main characters and maybe one or two secondary. Not so with a novel. You need other people in the book for your hero and heroine to interact with, to cause trouble for them, and to maybe help lead them to the conclusion. Trouble is, you need to keep track of those other folks and make sure they also get some kind of happiness or comeuppance, whichever they most deserve.

It might have helped if I’d written out a complete synopsis or an outline to begin with, but from the get-go this book just didn’t want to behave; so even if I had, I think it still would have led me astray. It became quite a struggle and there came a day when I just didn’t know what was going to happen next. I couldn’t figure out what so-and-so was doing or why and what was worse, I began not to care. I could have gone on, beating my head against the wall, to try and finish the book, and for a while I did. Then came the day when I finally said, this is it, no more, and I shelved the book. There were other projects I wanted to work on that required much less torture and that were ready and waiting to be finished. So I moved on, and I let that book drift to the back of my mind. Chalk it up to one that just didn’t work.

What made me decide to go back and finish it this many years later? Not really sure, except as life changes you sometimes see things differently and new ideas begin to find their way in. Or perhaps it’s that your mind isn’t taken with dozens of life experiences and problems and you suddenly are able to concentrate on something that once seemed so difficult. Or maybe the characters just started talking again, and you realize that this time you have to give them their just desserts or their happy ending, and let them ride off into the sunset.

It’s still taken a while but this time The End is in sight, and most probably I will finally be able to write those words in the next week or two or maybe even sooner. What a trip it’s been and one I hope not to repeat, although the journey of discovering who these people are and what story they’re trying to tell me is one I’ve come to love. While it will be a relief to finish the book, I know I’ll miss them and already there is another story percolating, one that takes Shane and Allison to another place and new adventures. There’s even a line in the book that hints at a sequel. Yikes!

Fired-Up Friday

How Long Does It Take?

 

To write a story, or a blog, or a novel? For anyone who has never taken on that venture you might wonder if it’s a month long commitment (short story), a few hours (an article or blog) a year, or maybe years (novel). Many authors are able to write several shorter novels or books a year, while others work diligently on one longer book for several years. I have to confess that the book I am currently writing and hope to finish very soon has taken over ten years to get to this point. Even before that it started out as a short story that never sold, but apparently it was one that wouldn’t leave me alone.

When I decided to expand the story into a novel, it started out well and everything was working. Since I’d already written the short, I knew who the main characters were and had no problem figuring out what came next. But short stories and novels are two entirely different creatures. Most short stories you can get away with just two main characters and maybe one or two secondary. Not so with a novel. You need other people in the book for your hero and heroine to interact with, to cause trouble for them, and to maybe help lead them to the conclusion. Trouble is, you need to keep track of those other folks and make sure they also get some kind of happiness or comeuppance, whichever they most deserve.

It might have helped if I’d written out a complete synopsis or an outline to begin with, but from the get-go this book just didn’t want to behave; so even if I had, I think it still would have led me astray. It became quite a struggle and there came a day when I just didn’t know what was going to happen next. I couldn’t figure out what so-and-so was doing or why and what was worse, I began not to care. I could have gone on, beating my head against the wall, to try and finish the book, and for a while I did. Then came the day when I finally said, this is it, no more, and I shelved the book. There were other projects I wanted to work on that required much less torture and that were ready and waiting to be finished. So I moved on, and I let that book drift to the back of my mind. Chalk it up to one that just didn’t work.

What made me decide to go back and finish it this many years later? Not really sure, except as life changes you sometimes see things differently and new ideas begin to find their way in. Or perhaps it’s that your mind isn’t taken with dozens of life experiences and problems and you suddenly are able to concentrate on something that once seemed so difficult. Or maybe the characters just started talking again, and you realize that this time you have to give them their just desserts or their happy ending, and let them ride off into the sunset.

It’s still taken a while but this time The End is in sight, and most probably I will finally be able to write those words in the next week or two or maybe even sooner. What a trip it’s been and one I hope not to repeat, although the journey of discovering who these people are and what story they’re trying to tell me is one I’ve come to love. While it will be a relief to finish the book, I know I’ll miss them and already there is another story percolating, one that takes Shane and Allison to another place and new adventures. There’s even a line in the book that hints at a sequel. Yikes!

Fired-Up Friday

Back in the Day

          When I sold my first short story over 33 years ago, I bought two things: an electronic typewriter and a copy of Merriam-Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (copyright 1983). The Smith-Corona electronic typewriter replaced the JC Penney electric typewriter I’d been using, and when I saw all the marvelous things it could do, I thought I was in writer heaven. I could choose different fonts by changing a wheel. I could delete up to ten words back just by pushing the delete key. I could make corrections without using whiteout or those tricky little correction strips. I could type fast! It was amazing. The dictionary I bought was also top of the line at the time. It listed the year a particular word or phrase came into use as well as having its own Handbook of Style with punctuation and capitalization rules. I felt both the new typewriter and the dictionary were investments in my writing career and a good way to spend half the check. Those were the days.

            The typewriter served me well for a number of years and helped me sell quite a few more stories. It held up even when a glass of water got spilled on it. But needless to say, it has since gone on to the place where all outdated machines go. I never cried when computers allowed us to cut and paste and make corrections and move scenes around without having to actually get out the scissors and tape. Yet I sometimes wish I still had a typewriter to address an envelope without involving the printer or to fill out a form.

            The dictionary, too, has gone the way of the albatross now that computers can show us the correct spelling of a word (and even correct it) without us having to leave the keyboard. We can look up the meaning of words online as well as Google just about anything to find an answer. But I have kept that Ninth Collegiate, though I can’t say it’s the newest version anymore, and I use it on occasion to look up a spelling or word meaning. As you can see from the photo, it's showing its age, but it still has a place of honor among the research books I own. I know it will serve its purpose when I get around to writing the historical trilogy I have in mind, and I need to make certain a word was in use during that time. In some ways I feel like the old dictionary is a friend who, although coming apart at the seams, still keeps me company and remembers the days when we first started out on this adventure called writing.

                                                                

Fired-Up Friday

44 Years…Wait…What? How Can That Be?

                On June 17, 1972 I got married. I was 20 years old. The groom was 3 days past his 20^th. So from the beginning you could say we did everything wrong. I wonder what the odds were then that we would stay married? Probably not too good. But here we are 44 years later and to quote a song that has also been around for years, “You’re still the one.”

                That is not to say I haven’t on any given day wanted to cheerfully annihilate “the one.” To any long-married couple who can say, “We’ve never gone to bed angry,” I say, Good. For. You. I have. And I’ve gotten up angry and stayed angry for most of a day or until he called and asked, “What’s for dinner?” and then we started talking about that or some other issue that had nothing to do with what made me angry in the first place. Pretty soon you decide staying angry takes too much energy and you let it go.

                I once listened to a talk about different psychological personalities and how they match up. The speaker described these two: the one who gets mad, holds on to their madness, and remembers forever what they were mad about and why, and the one who gets mad, yells, acts pissed off, and then five minutes later is not mad, and ten minutes later does not remember being mad. When I heard those descriptions a light bulb flashed in my mind. That’s us! That is us to a t! I will let you guess who is who in the equation, but who knew we could be so perfectly profiled?

                Sometimes I wonder what it was that drew us together. We met senior year of high school when our two schools (small Catholic rival schools) merged and became one. I think our first encounter was when I gave him a ride home after some jerk from another school had popped him in the face and his buddies dumped him. My girlfriend and I put him in the back seat of my mom’s 1959 Oldsmobile convertible and took him to his house where we promptly left him before his parents could come out  and ask questions. At school the next week he sat behind me in some class, tapped me on the shoulder, and asked if I had any aspirin. His lip was still swollen, and he was wearing sunglasses to cover a black eye. I think I felt sorry for him. Is that when love was born?  

                You can’t go through 44 years without a lot of ups and downs, and we’ve had our share, but somehow we’ve always managed to stick it out and get to the other side. We have a lot of shared interests; we both listen to the Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, and Johnny Cash. We favor trips to national parks and have never been on a cruise. We don’t read the same books and we argue about gun control. We usually vote the same (thank goodness!) and we sometimes watch the same TV shows and movies. He got me hooked on Modern Family and Big Bang Theory. I’ve taken him to the darker side with Law and Order SVU and CSI. He goes to bed early. I stay up late.

                To any young couple just getting married, I would offer this advice. Make darn sure you like the person you are marrying. Yes, I know you love them but do you like them? Sometimes liking someone is enough to get you through the “I don’t know if I love him anymore” days. Conversely, loving is the thing that makes you care for someone when they’re ill and support them through job loss and loss of loved ones. Love is what helps you rise above the many disappointments that are sure to come your way. Make sure you grow enough of both emotions because that is what will carry you through 44 years. 

                Perhaps this is why I choose to write romance, in the hope that I can give this to the characters in my books, the hope that when I leave them at the end, they are going on to 44 years and more together. (Because you know, in my mind, they do go on, because they are real.)  I never promise them a happily-ever-after, because I don’t know if there is such a thing, but I do believe in working hard at something every day and making it last.

Fired-Up Friday

We Were Beach Girls

                Welcome to the first official Fired-Up Friday blog. It’s the beginning of summer, and although it’s been a little chilly this past week, here in southwest Michigan it also means the beginning of beach season. If you are familiar with this side of the state, you know that we have some of the best beaches anywhere and they are all on the shores of Lake Michigan. In the words of singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, Lake Michigan “steams like a young man’s dreams.” I’m not sure she’s steaming yet, but give it another month. Yet the temperature of the lake doesn’t seem to deter the people, both locals and visitors, who frequent the beach. It draws people like flies to honey, and on any given summer weekend beaches are the place to be. Visitors flock to the beach towns that line the sunset coast. People who have moved away come home to see their favorite beach, and local folk just pray for them all to go home so they can have the beach to themselves again. 

                When I was a teen-ager I was a beach girl. My friends and I would spend every available afternoon basking in the sun, playing in the lake, and hoping someone would have a beach party at night. We didn’t think about sunburns (although I’ve had more than a few) and baby oil was liberally applied to facilitate deeper tans. Who knew that in later years we would learn all that sun-worshipping could lead to skin cancer? The beach was the place to meet your friends and hang out, day or night. This corner of Michigan is blessed to have a choice of beaches, and we made it a practice to hit them all. If you had a summer job that you worked at night, it was great because then you could go to the beach in the afternoon. It was nirvana.

                Some years ago I read a book called Beach Girls by the wonderful author Luanne Rice. She writes of beaches but in a different place, from her view on the ocean. But the sentiments of her characters mirror those we felt when we haunted our Lake Michigan beaches. If you read any of her books, you will learn what it’s like to be a beach girl. I'm happy to say I also raised a beach girl, who always tries to spend one day of a summertime visit home at the beach.

                I don’t visit the beach much anymore. Mostly we just drive-by, but it’s always something to do on a summer evening—go drive by the beaches and see what’s happening, maybe stay to watch the sunset. A road trip up the Lake Michigan coast will take you to many a spectacular beach, and it’s worth it to check out every one. I sometimes feel we take our beautiful beaches for granted, but I have never stopped believing we do have the best. And even if I don’t lay out there and bake in the sun or dip my toes in Lake Michigan as I used to, I think I’ll always in my heart be a beach girl.

 

Fired-Up Fridays

Welcome to what I hope will be a new blog venture for me; blogging every Friday this summer of 2016. The first title I chose was Freaky Friday, but after a Google search proved there were too many other blogs with that title, I decided to go with Fired-Up Fridays. I'm hoping that by writing a blog every week I'll fire myself up for more writing and maybe do the same for you.

While commitment to writing a blog every week is a challenge, it's one I plan to do for fun and to try something different. Not sure what I'll talk about. Sometimes it may be about a writing topic or maybe a story that was in the news that week (though I promise nothing too political will cross this path!). I might talk about what is happening in my writing life, a book I'm reading, or how a song inspires me to write. I love to talk about favorite authors and will maybe feature a book or two. If I get too desperate, there are always stories about my cats and a dog named FooFoo. They can usually be counted on to provide a treasure trove of anecdotes.

So check back here next Friday to see what's up and to get fired-up to write, to read a great book, or just to enjoy the weekend. Or maybe to just take a nice nap.

Project Reissue--Part Three

When it came to buying a cover for my e-books, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. While I would have loved to have original designs done by cover artists, it simply wasn’t in my budget. I thought about trying to learn how to do cover designs myself, perhaps using photos I had taken, but that would be time-consuming, and I already felt I was putting a lot of time into this project.

Fortunately, I was turned on to a website called Fiver.com. It’s a crazy, amazing concept where people advertise what service they will provide for five dollars. Need a resume? They will write one. Need a book promotion? They’ll tweet news about your book for X amount of days. Need a book cover? They will design one using covers from the public domain. Of course the catch is another book could possibly have the same cover as yours, but I figured it was a chance worth taking.  Other costs can be added to the basic five dollars, such as a higher resolution, that’s another five, delivery within a shorter time, another five, and if you want to give the designer a tip (totally optional). You can also order a print cover, if you are planning on using CreateSpace. I ended up spending $20 on the first cover and was delighted with the design. I have been able to keep the same person for all five covers, and each time I’ve been very satisfied with the product. It’s a fairly easy way to order a book cover, if you are on a tight budget.

So this was the cover for the first e-book, and I have to admit, he is pretty cute. I thought it tied in well with the title of the book, too.

http://tinyurl.com/mvnxkqa