Life's Little Instruction Calendar

I bought "Life's Little Instruction" calendar by H. Jackson Brown in January. This calendar is small, square and stands on its own and can sit on your desk or anywhere. I read the daily phrase when I get up in the morning. When I especially like the phrase or thought of the day, I keep it in my writing folder. Some of them can be motivational/inspirational and so true. I find these to be thought provoking and can give me ideas on something to write about.

Defining Moments

I was thinking of the defining moments in my life. Times that I choose to do one thing over another and then wondered if I made the right choice or knew I had made the wrong one, but there was no way back. These defining moments have brought me to where I am today. In thinking about what to write about I thought it would be a good idea to make up different stories about what my life's path would have been like if I had made a different choice in these defining moments.

Two resources on writing

I have found a website that I listed under my blogs list, Editor Unleashed, to be very useful to writers. It has links to a lot of things a writer will find useful such as 10 free online resources for writers. The administrator of this website used to be the editor of the magazine, Writers Digest. Also, I have wondered how some of my favorite authors get their start, what did they do, how did they come up with some of their stories. I am a fan of Jennifer Weiner (she wrote In Her Shoes which they made into a movie), her website is http://www.jenniferweiner.com/, and she writes down 10 things on writing and how she got started which I found very interesting and inspiring.

Location

Google has this feature, called Goggle Earth, that lets you find out where a place is if you know the actual address or you can search by city, state, country. It gives you different views: satellite view, map view, and it marks the surrounding sites of interest, streets, businesses, etc. I thought, what a great way to research different cities and pick out one or more to use in a story.

Who is Your Hero?

Okay, now I have my idea of a heroine, how about my hero? My thoughts are to write down the names of the men that have been or still are in my life, and by each of their names I will write a word, phrase, sentence or a list of things that I liked and disliked about this person, as well as if I know their likes, dislikes, fear, education, occupation, pet peeves, etc. After I am all done, I can pick and choose which of these things I want to use to create the hero of my story.

Yourself as a Character

Since my last post was about finding characters to write about from people you have met in your life, I thought, what about making yourself the main character? Who better knows you, than you? The heroine of a story is very important, and at least for the first novel you write, it is good to write about someone that is very close to you: yourself. Of course you can embellish the character, add things or take away things to how you are today. I went back to my old evaluations from past jobs and wrote down all the comments made from my past supervisors and came up with six pages worth of good stuff I can use in my story to tell about myself as an employee.

Connect With Yourself

I am having a hard time making up characters in the novel I want to write. In the books I have read on writing, they all say that you have to connect to your characters, live through them, be them throughout your story, so that readers can also relate or connect with them. In thinking about this I set out on a quest to reconnect with my past, and keep connected to my present, and set up a network for my future. I want to cultivate my past and presenf family and friends, keep in touch more often. I am trying to find old friends of my childhood and adulthood, whether it was in places that I worked, my past schools, going all the way back to elementary school, old neighbors, church, associations, etc. In my mind I am trying to think of anyone out there that I connected with that I have lost touch with and would like to reconnect again with. There are things you want to forget of course of your past, mistakes made, etc., but I feel that to get your characters you have to find yourself again and relive your experiences, (and make up characters from people you knew or know) whether good or bad. I feel this will make you whole again, so that in your writing all of you comes out, not just the you from 5 years ago, it will make you more credible to your readers in the long run. I am also recounting my life in my mind and making notes about things I remember that I might use later in my writing. I find it to be a liberating experience.

Categorize Your Writing

I thought of this the other day: to categorize everything I have ever written. I have written poems based on my emotion of the day or experience(s), short thoughts on something that has happened or is happening in my life, two short stories when I was a teenager, words or phrases that I connected with that I have seen on tv, movie, magazine, newspaper, etc. I now have everything in different journals and not in any order. I thought automating my writing to my computer would be a better way to organize everything. I know this is time consuming but I can find any of the things I have written faster if they are categorized: Poems/Words/Thoughts/Phrases/Short Stories/Novel/Characters/Names for Characters/Favorite Quotes/My Own Quotes, etc. Everything will be in one place and of course I will make a back up of anything I put in my computer.

Setting The Stage

I became interested in writing, more specifically, poems, creative writing, when I was in my teens. I started writing short poems, I preferred writing poems that rhymed. Also, lyrics for songs, usually related to love, since I grew up reading fairy tales and had an idealistic view of what love was. I wrote two short stories relating to growing up at 15. I have to go back and reread those and edit them. As I got older I wanted to learn more about the creative writing process, so I took classes, some good, some bad. In the last 3 years, I have been reading about books on writing, especially romance novels, to learn what is involved in this whole process and so that it would not be such a mystery. So I suggest reading books on the type of writing you want to do, (horror, mystery, romance, science fiction,etc.) Usually, these type of books will suggest novels for you to read in that specific genre. Read the type of book you want to write, in my case, romance/romantic suspense, I enjoy reading Sandra Brown, Nora Roberts, Elizabeth Lowell, Tami Hoag, to name a few. Next, subscribe to magazines that deal with your type of writing, I recommend The Writers Digest, The Writer, Poets and Writers. These magazines also have contests and this is an excellent way to start submitting anything you have written already. Also, many genres: mystery, horror, romance, screenwriting, have associations you can join and get much valuable information. I am looking into joining the Romance Writers of America, the cost is $100.00 to join. I have listed on this blog a very helpful, insightful, book, (I will be posting more books I found useful as well) suggested by a writing teacher I had, "Writing Down The Bones", by Natalie Goldberg. It is a great resource and gives you many ideas on the art of writing.