Posted on

WFMAD Day 15 – Friday surprise!

Busy times here in the Forest!! I watched the Pitt/Arizona game last night while answering email, and was a little bummed at halftime, because OfficeMouse (aka Daughter #3) and I had arranged a halftime phone call to go over the first half of the game. And she didn’t call. But, I know…. she’s all grown up now…. living her own life…….. about to start her teaching career…….. and she lives almost six hours away…..has better things to do that than talk football with her old Mom…….who really misses her….

So yeah, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

That’s when the OfficeMouse and her boyfriend Perceptor walked in. A surprise visit for the weekend.

There was much rejoicing in the Forest!!!

But there is still writing to do.

Ready…

Today’s advice: This is what Joyce Carol Oates says: "I have forced myself to begin writing when I’ve been utterly exhausted, when I’ve felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes . . . and somehow the activity of writing changes everything. Or appears to do so."

Set…

Today’s prompt: Do NOT scroll down to read Part 2 of this prompt yet!!.

Part 1 – Write the next scene in your WIP or, if you are in-between projects, write about what you did yesterday. Write enough to fill a page or so.

Got that done? Excellent! NOW you can scroll down…..

Keep scrolling…..

Yes, I know it’s hot. It’s August…..

If I’m trying not to whine, you can too. Almost there….

Part 2 – You made it without melting! Good job! Take your one-page scene and introduce the most unexpected character in the world into it. How is your character going to react? If you find that the introduction of this character does not jolt your main character into an unanticipated response, keep raising the stakes. The goal is for YOU to learn someone new about your character.

Scribble…Scribble….Scribble!

Posted on

WFMAD Day 13 – a dousing rod for your soul

I tried to make a poll this morning, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. Instead, I’m posting some questions below. Please answer in the comments section. If you feel the need to write an essay about any of this, mail it to laurie AT writerlady DOT com.

How many days a week do you write?

How do you claim your writing time?

What is the biggest distraction from your writing?

Do you have a Bubble Buddy?


Ready…

Today’s advice: You don’t have to know exactly where you’re going on your next adventure, but having a couple of maps will probably prevent a screaming death match in the car.

Set…

Today’s prompt: Find the biggest piece of paper you can. If necessary, tape together four our more pieces of notebook paper into a very large square. Now get out pens, crayons, markers, and/or colored pencils.

Draw a map of the neighborhood you lived in when you were a kid, or the neighborhood your character lives in. Start outwith roads and houses. Identify who lives where. Add in gossip about the different families when it pops into your head. Any stores? Where’s the bus stop? Cracks in the sidewalk? What happened on that corner? What did the air smell like? What was the best time of year to live there? Why? Keep writing and drawing and writing and drawing until you have not only a neighborhood map, but a memory map, too.

Scribble…Scribble….Scribble!

Posted on

WFMAD Day 12 – Let’s talk about it

August is a wistful month for many reasons, including the fact that it is when the SCBWI Annual Conference is held in Los Angeles. Le sigh. I really need to go back soon. Until I can, I will have to content myself with reading the official blog about the conference.

That’s enough wistfulness. I woke up with the sun and harvested a bunch of green beans that will soon be on their way to the freezer. I planted 10 plants, but that’s not nearly enough, given that green beans are a staple here. Next year I think I’ll plant 30. The tomatoes are starting to ripen and my popcorn plants have tasseled.

Has anyone ever frozen kale?

From the garden to the writer’s desk. We’ve been doing a lot of character development this month, so it’s time to mix things up. Are you listening? Good, because today is all about dialog.

Dialog should carry one of the two burdens of Story: a) move the plot forward, or B) add to our understanding of character.

Beware the temptation to load dialog down with backstory blathering, as in this Draft 1 Example:

Narrator: "You know, it’s funny you should say that, Drake. Remember the time when we were kids and our house burned down because Cousin Ichabod tried to repair the stove with a blowtorch and how he forgot to turn off the gas and remember how after they let him out of the hospital he got on a bus to Las Vegas and was never heard from again? Well, sure as heck, he came home today – thirty years to the day after destroying our house and family."
Drake: "Do you think he knows that Ma and Pa have been scheming to kill him every day since and they put all the insurance money into the finest weaponry and land to hide the body?"

Yeah, I know. Made of suckitude.

But we all write like this, when no one is watching. I think ::lowers voice to whisper:: I think it might be part of the process. Don’t tell the people who give standardized tests. They enjoy the delusion that first draft writing is always polished prose. (Silly bureaucrats!)

I have a cure!

Prepare yourself!!!  Get down on one knee and bow your head.

::raises staff of oak and ash:: I, Madwoman of the Forest, do hereby grant thee the First Draft Exemption For Writing Bad and Pointless Dialog. 
::bonks assembled writers on head with staff::

OK, get up now. Don’t you feel better?

I find that I NEED to write banal and blathering dialog in a first draft because it help me understand the characters and their backstories. The trick is to have the courage to admit how bad it is when it comes time to revise. And cut out everything that is useless.

Example, Draft 2:
Narrator: "Ichabod’s back."
Drake: "I know. Ma has the cannon ready. I’m supposed to dig a hole."
Narrator: "Already did it."
Drake: "Then I get to cover him up."
Narrator: "Fair enough. But don’t tell Pa."

(Yes, I deliberately created a question with that last line. It’s supposed to move the story forward.)

Ready….

Today’s advice: Mystery author Robert B. Parker said, "Say a lot in a little. Put the most meaning in the fewest words."

Set…

Today’s prompt: Today you eavesdrop. Sit next to people who do not know you are listening and write down as much as you can overhear. Stop before the police are called. Read over what you’ve written, paying special attention to how often they spoke in fragments and how quickly information was conveyed. How does the way they speak differ from the way your characters speak?

Extra Bonus Points: Rework some of your dialog from your WIP. Be merciless – what can you throw away?
 

Scribble…Scribble….Scribble!

Posted on

WFMAD Day 11 – choices

Writing anything requires that you make thousands upon thousands of choices for your characters. This is why it can feel like so much fun to start a book, but once you are a hundred pages into it, you are ready to pitch it onto a bonfire. If you made a wrong turn on the path of choices, you can find yourself hip deep in tangled plot with no easy way out.

One of the common mistakes I make in early drafts is to let all of the rotten things that happen to my characters come from the outside. I think I do this because I like my characters, or maybe because, in an early draft, I don’t know them well enough.

I’ve found that letting my characters mess up leads to all kinds of fresh plot paths and story energy.

You can probably see where I’m going with this.

Ready….

Today’s advice: It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t even have to be good. Yet. But you must get something down on the page today.

Set…

Today’s prompt: Put your character in an ordinary scene: babysitting, making lunch, texting friends, whatever, and allow her to make the absolute worst decisions possible for the scene. You’ll need to motivate her decision – let your mind run free. Make it a spectacular screw-up with ugly consequences.

TUESDAY EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS PROMPT!

Someone leaves a half-full bottle of tequila at the bottom of your driveway. Write about who left it and why.
(This is based on something that happened to me yesterday. Honest.)

 


TUESDAY SUPER-SPECTACULAR EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS PROMPT!

Combine the two prompts above.

Scribble…Scribble….Scribble!

Posted on

What the WFMAD Day is it? Day 10 maybe?

Thanks to all the kind souls who gently pointed out that I got my days messed up last week. This is August the 10th (June the 71st for some) so we’ve been working on the Write Fifteen Minutes a Day Challenge for ten days now. Only 21 days to go.

I spent all day and half the night Saturday staining the cedar boards for the exterior of my writing cottage. Yesterday, we finally took a fun day at the Sterling Renaissance Festival.

Yes, turkey legs were devoured.


And there was much kissing and making of the merry. Huzzah!

Ready….

Today’s advice: "I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk. " H.L. Mencken

Set…

Today’s prompt: I’m going to give you a magic phrase. Write about whatever that phrase conjures up for either you or a character.

Imagine you (or your character) are alone …. at night. You select the setting. Think about your (character’s) emotional state BEFORE you scroll down to the phrase. Visualize what you are wearing, what is feels to wear that. What can you hear? Smell? Magnify your emotional state, ramp it up. Why are you feeling this way?

Do you have all these details in mind? Has the dog been let out, kids are busy, phone and email are turned off?

Then you can scroll down for your phrase….

Scrolling……

Keep scrolling……

Almost there!………….

Magic phrase = HEAT LIGHTNING


Scribble…Scribble….Scribble!