I am Living the Dream

amazon.com/author/denisebarker

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue. You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

My Author Ideas Notebook

Okay, so it's not just a notebook. It has a related box of files too. But overall I've got stuff sorted into separate folders. "Stuff" here means pages I've ripped from my old magazines or catalogs, where the people are so striking, hitting a chord with me.

When I don't have a fix on my lead character in my newest book, I can look through my Characters manila file folder and search out the ones who seem to want to tell their story at this moment. Then, where before I had no one visualized to populate my story, now I have more than enough vying to be the main character. A nice problem to have.

Same thing goes for other authorial topics. Here's my list of things I collect, set aside, waiting for an opportune moment to be put to use:

Characters - See above discussion. If you just throw out magazines and catalogs, and aren't the pack-rat saver I am, then visit Pinterest. It hypnotizes me for days. I have to limit my visits for that very reason. I have one obit (somewhere) that reads like a Hollywood movie. That person really knew how to live each day. Inspires me in my real life as well as in my writing life.
Character Names - I've bought like four baby name books that I need to completely go through and compile my list of favorite boy and girl names. I've also saved an old Louisiana telephone book to get some great Cajun names from.
Places - this can be a magazine travel article about a geographic location on a map or a photo of a house that strikes my fancy.
Careers - give your readers a tale about someone with an interesting career.
Great First Lines - I love these, amassed from my own reading or via an Internet search for same. Sometimes they can be inspirational. Sometimes they make me feel insecure as an author. Ha!
Plots - Whether you subscribe to the one-plot theory or the thirty-seven plots or the seven or whatever, it doesn't hurt to have them somewhere handy to jog your brain. Try melding two. Try "upgrading" one with a new and different twist.
Clothes - sometimes an outfit can spur me on when developing a certain character.
Words - I'm a certified geek. I subscribe to two word-of-the-day offerings, plus I'm a copy editor with a daily relationship with Webster's. What can I say? Words speak to me. Single words even. So I keep three Brainstorming files. One is an email folder. One is a Word document. One is a physical file, in case the electricity or the Internet is down. These word entries can describe a person, a place, a mood, be used as a stand-alone title or part of a multiple-word title, not to mention in the blurbs and descriptions of my ebooks. Have you ever played that game with your writing buddies where you each pick one word, then all the selected words are to be used in one 250-word piece, written on the spot in the next five minutes? It's totally fun. And so illuminating. Each short-short will be unique. Because each author is unique.
Cars - I love cars of all vintages. So I save clippings of some. One, a picture of a Jeep, reminds me of this girl who drove past the DART bus I was riding to work. I don't have a picture to memorialize that, of course, but the Jeep does that for me. Even if I don't mention the vehicle in my latest novel, it helps me visualize the girl driving it. So I'm using it for characterization more than as a mode of transportation for my imaginary friends.
Themes - I gravitate toward the emotional resonance of a theme. So I love to find these to help me nail them in my own writing.
Emotions - I have a book regarding emotions and how to show them, plus lists of gradations of them, like anger, from miffed to murderous. Helps me to broaden my range of emotions expressed.
Scenes - If I happen to overhear a wonderful conversation, I get it down. For later.
Relationships - I save magazine articles touting relationships. I do have to weed through some cheesy ones to get to those that work for me.
Psychology - I happen to like the psychological aspect of things, so I've saved my son's psychology textbook for my writing applications.
Taglines - I save great ones to help me formulate one for each of my books.
Favorite Movies - I have a growing list, but I have yet to see a pattern as to why I like these movies. You know, something the author/screenwriter did to engage me, which I should be able to reproduce in my own works. To me, they are all different and special in their own way, so I get lost in the magic and can't seem to work on a formula that defines my particular viewing pleasure (other than generics, like a happy ending, some humor, some romance, some action, some intrigue, yet something that won't leave me in bed that night with the lights still on).
Favorite Books - Same thing here. I've been trying to find out the authors' magic touches in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and in Nora Roberts's First Impressions and The Fall of Shane MacKade. Again I get lost in the weave of the storytelling web ... which says something in and of itself.
Quotes - I'm a quotaholic. I have my own ebook compilations of quotes (Volume Four coming soon). Each are about ninety or so pages long with maybe ten quotes per MSWord page, so I've gathered nine hundred pithy sayings within each offering, times the four volumes to date, or a total of 3,600 aphorisms that are all my favorites. I also subscribe to a couple daily quote emails too. I love quotes. They can summarize a life's philosophy or a theme or a plot-in-the-making or a conflict with just a handful of words.
Archetypes - This list of various types also helps with character development.
Enneagrams - Ditto.
Astrology - Ditto. Plus gets into financial and social atmospheres too.
My Happy Places - These are good for inserting into random scenes, like an overpass interchange, a movie theater, a farmer's market, etc. I just keep a running list in my physical Brainstorming notebook.
Push My Buttons - This list is my particular collection of nemeses who I've had the misfortune to run across in my lifetime, such as manipulators, liars, con artists, bullies, coattailers (my own word to describe slackers who want to ride on the accomplishments of my hard work), scammers, judgmental people, yada, yada. Good for conflict ideas in the sagging middle parts of books.
List of Interests - I have myriad curiosities, so my list of things that interest me continues on. I find it helpful in career hunting for my characters.
Branding - Knowing about this helps with creating covers. I'm not a marketing guru, but I keep a few articles handy that help me out with this.
Cover Art - I love the Amazon emails that depict covers. Some I like. Some I don't. I keep a folder on each to help me sort out what to use for my own book covers.
The Best of the Best - I keep good notes of each writing book I've read and am compiling a Plotting Checklist for my own use, but I also plan to upload same to Amazon too. This won't encompass all the tips I've read and collected, but it will cover the ones most useful in plotting. Especially for someone like me. I'm actually a hybrid. I'm a pantster who, in general, has at least three or four of the seven main plot points figured out before I start writing a new book. Still, I've read enough about plotting versus writing by the seat of my pants to realize the final edit will be less onerous if I plot beforehand. Sold!
Marketing - Again, not my expertise, but I save other authors' emails promoting their work. They all have their unique points, but they all also promote their work via emails. Good stuff to know.
Formatting - I have a fellow author buddy who is no longer local and is (was?) a professional formatter, and she was kind enough to tell me that my layperson's formatting of my ebooks looked pretty good. She actually shared her time and expertise to walk a couple of us through her formatting process. Let me tell you, that is a tedious feat and involves downloading two (free) software programs. I'd have to relearn it all over again each season as I upload a new ebook. For my purposes, I'll stick with MSWord Styles and autogenerating tables of contents. When money is no object, I'll hire my friend (or someone she recommends).
Bios/Blurbs/Descriptions - I've saved some tips on each of these, mainly dealing with SEO, that I've run across over the years. More updated info is probably on the Net. I'd suggest you search there for help.
Hobbies - Make a list of those you enjoy or those you want to do more of or find out everything about. These are good to slip into a scene to add detail. They can even serve as your main character's occupation or for a secondary cast member's day job.
Music - Songs can be so helpful to inspire a mood or even a whole book.
Art - One writing class I took years ago had us searching the Net for artwork we loved that spawned a story to be told. Very appealing to me. I have an artwork folder that never ceases to invigorate me.
Poetry - I'm a wordy novelist, so I'm amazed and stunned that poets can relay so much with so few words. But, there again, those are well-chosen words. Something we authors can make use of too. Of course, the two artistic expressions are different as well. While poetry can be all about the flowery prose and euphemisms and ethereal communication, that doesn't work so well in a fiction piece. In little smatterings here and there of five words or less, maybe ... But we live in the seven-seconds-of-attention generation. Readers can lose interest fast if explosions, murder, sex, etc., are not happening on each page.
Cooking - I love to cook, especially when I have the time and the money. But we authors can parlay those things we love into our writing too. First it adds a layer of detail to our scenes. Second it nicely works into our writing the two oft-overlooked senses of smell and taste. I love Robert B. Parker's Spenser series anyway, but the nice touch that Spenser cooks is much appreciated and enjoyed.
Voice - I'm currently reading a book released in 2003 entitled Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing by Les Edgerton, which I am enthralled with. I'm savoring every page, and so it's taking me longer to read this one as I learn, get inspired and take note of the homework assignments that I'll do when I reread the portions I highlighted. And there are many of those. Exciting stuff here. Makes me happy to be an author.

I hope I've encouraged you to create your own stash of go-to ideas. Want to share some of yours?

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

NaNoWriMo Tip: Brainstorming

Are you like me, still floundering for an idea that would sustain 50K WC for your 2012 NaNo novel? How about let's do a brainstorming session, shall we?

1. List your 10 fave magazines.
2. List the top 3 fave sections of a bookstore for you.
3. List your top 10 favorite subjects that you can talk about for hours, research for days, weeks.
4. List the first 5 fave people who come to mind.
5. List the first 5 people you wish you had never met, or at least had confronted or said that witty comeback to.
6. List the top 3 adjectives that define your core.
7. List the top 3 things that tick you off. One of them is unsolicited solicitors for sure, IMO.
8. List 3 places you love or would love to visit for the first time.
9. List 3 people, living or dead, you wish you could spend time with. For me, I have a paternal great-grandmother that really made an impact on my dad and I would have loved to meet her in person.
10. List 5 of your fave memories.

That should do for now.

Then take your answers and circle at least one from each item that stands out the most.

You have your "top 10" list now but I want you to narrow it down to 5. Then study those 5 elements and see what kind of a story pops in your mind. Don't worry if it doesn't congeal right away. I know my brain needs marinating time for ideas, so don't despair. Two days from now, usually while unloading/loading the dishwasher, the beginnings of a wonderful story will hit me.

I hope the same for you.

Denise Barker, author + blogger + copy editor

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

How Do You Prepare for NaNoWriMo?

Today, October 17, 2012, is NaNo Prep day. I plan to peek at Twitter and see the many #nanoprep tips and find my particular favorites. But I could also get lost in that fun for hours, so...we'll see about that.

For me, a pantster, I like outlining scenes, from as little as thirty to the hoped-for eighty.

However, I need a clean space to work in, too. I had hoped to get to that pre-NaNo this year, but I've been fighting a bug for the last six/seven days which has severely cut into my house-cleaning time.

Then the use of Crock-Pot meals is perfect. Not only does it make the house smell great, but it keeps the food hot no matter when I stop to eat.

Last year, and again this time, I have no plot idea. But I've been gathering ideas from wherever and placing them in my Brainstorming/Mind-Mapping folder. Hopefully I'll get a story for a full-fledged novel out of those tidbits.

Have you ever done that writing exercise where you are given three words (or five or whatever), and you have to tell a story with X amount of words using those given ones too? Well, I'm hoping my folder will help me focus on the best of the best which I need to get me started on a really good tale.

My past ideas have come from a single thought that traipsed across my mind, from a magazine ad photo, from real life crimes, from a nameless face that spoke to me, even from philosophical questions such as why we are all here.

So take what interests you, what you really launch into when talking about, and see what gem hides beneath that curiosity which you can develop into 50K WC.

Good luck, NaNoWriMo authors!

Denise Barker, author + blogger + copy editor

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

How Long Are Your Chapters? And How Many Scenes Make a NaNo Novel?

I'm considering NaNo again this year. Last year I listed thirty-nine scene ideas on one sheet of paper (using both sides) which I used as a jumping-off spot to write my 50K WC novel. Some items morphed into others and only a handful didn't get used at all.

Not bad for someone who had no clue as of October 25, 2011 about what to write come November 1.

Fast forward another year. I'm again wondering what my new tale will be. Which is a separate task, on a more creative level. I plan to brainstorm and mind map my way through that.

But purely from a plotting purview, by a pantster no less, it got me to thinking. How many scenes do I need to reach the magical NaNo mark? So I decided to get some quick stats from my own creations.

First, I checked out how long my chapters were, on average, in my published fiction, one novel and one short story.

Eerily enough, both have chapters that average twelve double-spaced pages.

I find that fascinating.

This is hardwired in me. I didn't learn this.

I discovered it. Just today. Not an hour ago.

And I don't try to make all my chapters "even." I normally break text so it ends on a good hook or at a nice place in the action, not because it is twenty pages later. Now if it happens again on the next page, then I compare the two proposed endings and move my chapter ending to the one I deem "best."

So while I wouldn't create a single-page chapter, I don't usually worry about the length of one unless it falls in the extremely short or long category compared to the rest.

What about scenes? you may ask. That was the second thing I tracked. I found two per short story chapter, whereas I had four per novel chapter.

Which in NaNo-speak means I will need approximately eighty scenes to complete a 50K WC novel.

Good. That gives me something concrete to work toward as I outline this year's NaNo project. If I participate online, that is.

I still need the idea for the story . . . .

Denise Barker, author + blogger + copy editor