The HEA Cafe

It’s spring time. At least for now. I’ve learned not to get too attached to the season as it tends to be a little like a wandering dog—here today, gone tomorrow.
With springtime comes yard work.
There used to be three huge trees in the center of my lawn. When we moved here they had been reduced to three large stumps. I never minded the stumps. They served as a place to sit or to park planters. Others, though, are anxious to get rid of them and twelve years later, they are getting a little rotted so my son has attacked them with the chain saw and now I have three large holes. Yes, sooner or later someone will fill them with dirt and I’ll plant grass. It will look nice in the end.
It reminds me of what I’ve been doing with my writing. I got a revision letter a few weeks ago. Basically, I had to rewrite the whole story because one of the characters didn’t work. I felt like I had to chop out a stump and expose a big hole.
I worked very hard. Lots of bik-hoking. And I’ve rewritten the story. And like my lawn once the holes are replaced with grass, it really is a lot better.
Now for the polishing. I spend a lot of time going over my manuscript making sure it is as smooth and error free as possible. I use Autocrit (http://www.autocrit.com/), and a Textaloud (NextUp.com/) program. And then I read the story out loud to my hapless client. Poor man doesn’t have a choice but to sit and listen. (He does say he enjoys it but still….)  I have to confess that this stage—the polishing, fine editing—is my least favorite part.
How about you? What is your most favorite/least favorite part of the process?

But in the end it is all worth it when I see my baby in print. The Road to Love, my first Love Inspired Historical, hits the shelves this month.

I go through extremes of emotion while working on a story. It starts when I come up with a new idea. This is a GREAT idea. The best one ever. This one is going to be my break out novel. I’m euphoric. I’m energetic, outgoing, and deliriously happy.  

Then comes trying to shape an idea that is nothing more than bits of fog into a solid structure. Ever try building a snowman out of fog? That’s how it feels. Each writer has his or her own way of getting from idea to story and whatever way works for them, it’s the correct way. My way requires I have a rough (emphasis on rough) outline of the story. Which, in turn, requires I know the characters, who they are, what they want and WHY and how they get from beginning to end. Suddenly that beautiful, gold-tinted idea is nothing but mud. I know I’ll never figure out this story. I whine and cry and email every writing friend I have and tell them how HARD this particular story is. How stupid the characters are. How I’ve eaten myself out of house and home trying, trying, TRYING to make some sense out of all those quicksilver bits of ideas. Not even ideas, really. Just unshaped somethings in the back of my mind. It’s like trying to recall a name that’s on the tip of your tongue. And just like the name often comes at three a.m. and you sit straight up in bed, groan and slap your forehead in exasperation, so it is with many of my ideas. The solution hits me in the middle of the night. I’ve learned not to expect a lot of sleep during this phase of the story. And others have learned this is probably a good time to find excuses to be as far away from the house as possible.  

Once I have a rough idea of the story, I realize how brilliant I am. It’s the best plot ever. This stage lasts until I start chapter one and realize I will never be able to find the words and structure to write the thing in my head. Trying to capture it is like trying to bottle sunshine. It can’t be done. I might as well pitch the whole thing and do something productive. Like laundry. Vacuuming. Flipping burgers.  

I flip flop throughout the entire process. No, I’m not schizophrenic. Okay, maybe a little. You don’t have to be crazy to be a writer, but it helps.  

William Faulkner says, “I listen to the voices.” I just wish my ‘voices’ spoke up loud and clear instead of whispering behind their hands in the background. Maybe I’m more like E.M. Forster who said, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” Seems I have to write it down, no matter how confusing, in order to sort it out.  

By the way, my advice to anyone who wants to be a writer: Either accept bouts of insanity as part of the process and embrace it, or go flip burgers. Or am I the only who goes through this roller coaster of emotions? Or have some of you found ways of making the path more level?

Here’s the cover of my May Love Inspired Historical release. It’s called The Road to Love.

         It’s a question that is often asked. Where do writers get ideas? For me, they are everywhere. The challenge becomes to write them down if only on a scrap of paper towel before I forget them. (Where do lost ideas go? Does another author, quicker and with more memory storage get them?)
          When I think of how many ideas are floating around, I think of my father-in-law.
          Farming seemed a noble thing to do so he and his brother left Exeter, Ontario. The brother settled in the grain belt of Saskatchewan and my father-in-law found an abandoned farm in the desert of eastern Alberta and got possession by driving school bus to pay off back taxes.
          Farming may have sounded noble, but his heart wasn’t in it. All his life, he remained a frustrated inventor. There had to be a better, more efficient, quicker way to do everything and he would spend hours adjusting and experimenting while one of his sons gnashed his teeth wanting nothing more than to get on with the job of seeding or harvesting the crop or whatever was on the seasonal agenda.
          His philosophy was why buy new when anything could be repaired with a piece of haywire?  His fix-it bent drove many of his sons to tearing at their hair when the new combine sat idle in the yard while their father insisted he could not only fix the old one but make it run better than the new. And maybe he could but with winter hovering on the horizon, the sons wanted only to get the crop off.
Not that his efforts were in vain. He came up with some nifty ideas. Why waste time forking off hay? He rigged up a sling to pull the load off the wagon.
We bought the family farm and on trips around the yards I would often find myself staring as some maze of wire and belts. Upon questioning my father-in-law or one of his sons, I would be told it was how he pulled the pump, or created an automatic waterer (long before one could go to the nearest farm store and buy one), or that how he figured out a machine to bunch the bales for easier pick up. Any number of things.
          I suppose being a farmer and having to do the actual physical work required in order to survive, he never had the time to pursue all his ideas.
It’s the same with a writer. I see story possibilities everywhere I look—the headlines about a baby girl abandoned, the reunion of old lovers who lost track of each other, the report of a man who rescued a woman trapped in a car—I could go on and on. There are too many ideas. Not enough time.
What amazes me is how a great idea will wed another great idea and the two of them breed and reproduce until there are hundreds of ideas forming a story.
I can’t say exactly how it begins. It’s almost magical. It’s like Robert Frost says as he describes the dawning of a poem.
‘It begins as a lump in the throat, a homesickness, a love sickness. It is never a thought to begin with. It finds its thought and succeeds or it doesn’t and comes to nothing.’
Now in case somebody was hoping for a list of ways to get ideas, here goes:
1.     Talk to people. Everybody has the germ of a story idea in their lives. Sometimes a whole lot of germs. J
2.     Read newspapers, magazines and yes, even those unbelievable shockers at the check out counter have great story starters—depending on your genre you might or might not be able to use “My mother was an alien.”
3.     Read non-fiction books. I am currently sifting my way through a book written about the Depression in Canada called Ten Lost Years. It’s full of vignettes of people who lived through it and you can believe there are story ideas marrying and reproducing like rabbits as I read it.
4.     Brainstorm, alone or with friends.
 
I’d love to hear both how ideas attack you and how you keep track of them.
 
Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.
  - Howard Aiken

    Everyone knows how wonderful it is to be a romance writer (RW). The RW sits in a lovely garret overlooking a picturesque street with vendors who glance up and wave at her, mysterious (and handsome) men striding about and beautiful women hustling into the shops. Or perhaps you picture the RW in a cabana on the beach with waves breaking on the shore and seagulls crying. It’s all very romantic. Or is it? Is that reality?

     Okay, I admit I once spent a few days sitting on a beach in Hawaii as I plotted a book. It was very romantic. However, it’s a little pricey and quite impractical to do regularly.

  And I once had a holiday trailer. Is that close enough to a cabana? It was parked almost next to a tumbling river under some trees. I loved to escape there and sit in a comfie lounge chair and work. However, the price of parking the trailer became too steep, but more, everyone else decided it was a lovely place and wanted to accompany me. So much for solitude.     You hear of authors who set up shop in a coffee shop. That sounds kind of romantic. I once got happily abandoned at such a place and worked on a story idea for several hours. But close to home…well, I live in a small town and too many people stop by to visit for that to work.

     There are libraries. We have a college nearby and the library is a great place to work. No one notices or cares that you hunker down in a little cubical and scribble or type like mad. But it means dragging my books, my laptop, and my body from point A (my home) to point B (the library). And because I have responsibilities at home, I must take my cell phone and … well, you can guess what happens next.

     So this RW compromises. I have some favorite spots and I recreate them in my mind. After all, I have a rather active imagination. And I can do all this while holed up in my office. I have all my research books at hand. I can field phone calls, answer questions and take care of the life that takes places a few feet away—outside my office. It doesn’t sound very romantic until you take a look at the computer screen and see that I’m not here in this office, I am lost in the midst of a raging snowstorm, or sitting amidst spring violets on a picnic with the man of my dreams. Now that’s romantic.

     How about you RW? Where is the most romantic spot you’ve written from? What is your favorite way to create the romance in your writing corner? Do you need anything to put you in the romance mood? Remember this is for writing purposes only.

I’m a writer. Does that make me an artist? Or is the term confined to sculptors, painters, music, dance and drama? I think not. I think it includes writers. So I am a writer AND an artist. Or at least I’ve thought so on occasion.

However, I’ve been working on a fairly major revision and it’s forcing me to deal with the limitations of my ‘talent’. It brings me full face with the question am I an artist or a hack? (I haven’t answered that and don’t need an answer from anyone else, thanks.)

Creating is hard. Or at least, I can attest that creating story is hard for me at times. How do you take an idea, some imaginary characters and shepherd them on a satisfying journey? It might look easy to some, but give it a try and you might well change your mind. What I see in my head, how I hear my characters and watch them act and react falls flat on the paper. Where are the words that paint the picture? How can I make the story dance and vibrate like it does in my head? Is there a way to do it better?

In an attempt to learn how to make my writing closer to what I want it, I take courses. I read. I get critiques. I listen and read and watch in order to learn the craft but there’s so much to learn and learn and learn. And the more I learn, the more I see there is to know and understand about the whole process. It’s gone from simply writing down a story to thinking about Aristotle’s 3 act structure, the mythical Hero’s Journey, enneagram types, scene and sequel, motivational-reaction units, yada, yada.

The mechanical stuff is great and I need it, but the challenge is still to find a way to combine it with the creative part of story telling. Some say lock the internal editor away until the first draft is done. But no one has told me how. Besides, I appreciate that annoying little voice that whispers, ‘you really think she’d do that?’ It keeps me from chasing down paths in the wrong direction.

So I simply do the best I can. Never quite satisfied. Knowing I haven’t told the story as well as I wanted to. But there is something that gives me courage—I am not alone. Many artists (writers too) share the same frustration. In fact, Leonardo da Vinci said on his deathbed, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not achieve the quality it should have.” It’s nice to know I’m in good company.