My friend, Audrey Bandley, who just happens to have one of the most amazing voices ever, and has her first CD out, is giving away 5 copies of "Behind Every Good Man" on her blog. So go to her blog and become a follower by clicking here, and you can enter to win. :)
I'm thinking about starting another fiction writing project, and I'm wondering to myself, how did I actually write a whole book before? If the truth were known, as it should be because I consider myself to be an honest person, each time I have written fiction, it has come out differently, and I've decided that each of these ways have their own benefits. They are as follows:
1. The I've-never-written-a-novel-before-so-I-really-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing method. My first ever novel started with a wisp of a story line. I had written the whole story, everything in my mind from start to finish, and it was only 74 pages long. Well, I knew that novels were longer than that, and if there was any hope to getting it published, I needed to make it longer. Then a subplot idea came to mind, and I worked that in through the pages. By the time I was done, it was around 70,000 words, and it took roughly six months to complete it. (However, it never did get published.)
~Pros: I was able to crank this work out because I first focused on the base plot, then subplots.
~Cons: I feel less creative when I write this way because so much of what I write just comes as I'm typing.
2. The I-can't-type-the-words-in-my-head-out-fast-enough method. My second novel just came to me one day, and I had all these scenes rolling through my mind. I jotted them down on paper, then started typing at the beginning of the story and worked my way up to those scenes. It took about a year to finish it. I say finish, because I thought at the time that I was. In reality, it was just a rough draft I had completed, and it took a great chunk of time to learn about editing and other tools to turn my draft into something publishable.
~Pros: This worked well for me because there was a great deal of passion to help me get the story out.
~Cons: I fear that I was almost obsessed with this story while writing it, and probably bored many a people in my family with talking about it all the time.
3. The This-is-a-really-cool-story-but-I-have-no-idea-how-to-develop-it method. When my third story came to mind, I had a rough idea of some scenes and where I wanted the story to go, and I began typing, again, jotting down specific scenes so they wouldn't be forgotten. But this one was really different for me because so much of the story, subplots, character quirks and other things, just fell from my fingers as I typed. Often times I would sit at my computer at the designated writing time, with absolutely no clue what to write, and the words just came. I still don't know how.
~Pros: Allows for a great deal of random creativity. I was guessing how it was going to turn out. It was almost like I was reading it, only I was more actively involved.
~Cons: I still don't know how to end it just right.
4. The My-brain-is-aching-from-thinking-about-how-to-work-plots-so-I'm-going-to-write-with-two-other-brains method. My fourth fiction work was different than them all, because I wrote it with my two sisters. It was pure fun (something that's an absolute must for me in writing.) While writing it, we would each take a turn creating and typing a chapter, then we rotated through like this until it was complete. It was so interesting to see a plot and subplots unfold as we wrote and added onto what the others had written.
~Pros: There is no brain wracking, trying to think of a way to finish things off or tie them in.
~Cons: If you are stubborn about how you want the story to go, then this method won't work. But if you can create, type, and let go until it's your turn again, it's wonderful.
Now with this new work I would like to start, I'm thinking of typing up certain main scenes, kind of like a skeleton, then adding muscle and flesh with subplots. It's very similar to the first method I used, when I didn't realize that writing that way was actually a method.
So, what works for you?
This morning, right when I was getting home from taking my kids to school, the sun was just coming out from behind Mt. Nebo. So I ran into the house, grabbed my camera, and dashed out to take this shot. It was so fun to capture this moment on film that I didn't even care that I was standing in the gutter wearing my pajamas that make me look a bit like Elvis Presley. (Thankfully, there's a law in my town that says it's okay to take your children to school while wearing your pajamas--even Elvis resembling ones, and you can still be a good, ambitious mother, and that afterward it's okay to take pictures of the sunrise, still wearing said pajamas.)
Of course, taking a picture of the sunrise reminded me of the song "Sunrise" by Duran Duran. "Reach up for the sunrise, put your hands into the big sky. You can touch the sunrise, feel the new day, enter your life."
This song, and sunrises in general, remind me of being thankful, and when I'm feeling thankful and in an attitude of gratitude, I'm happy, and I like to be happy because it's really cool and way better than feeling sad or grouchy.
With that being said, and with Thanks Giving just two days away, I would like to share thirty of the many things I'm thankful for, in no particular order.
1. My family (husband, kids, parents, siblings, in-laws, nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, grandparents, ancestors etc.)
2. The Savior
3. My house
4. My pajamas
5. Hugs and kisses (not the chocolate kind, the calorie free kind)
6. Food that tastes really good
7. Learning
8. My house
9. The gospel
10. Good books
11. Computers
12. Shoes
13. My car (legal and everything)
14. My talents
15. Socks to keep my feet warm
16. Walking outside barefoot in the summer (except when I keep stepping on a hornets in the grass)
17. My garden
18. Fruit trees
19. Clothes
20. Creativity
21. Chairs to sit on or I'd be standing all day
22. Fireplace to keep me warm
23. Spring
24. Autumn colors and harvest
25. Music
26. Nature
27. Friends
28. Good people
29. Freedom
30. Makeup (sorry, what can I say?)
31. Exercise (I tried to keep an even 30, but this one popped into mind.)
32. Oh, and when my kids obey
33. Just one more. Sorry. Forgiveness
34. Okay, this is the last one. I promise. Love
35. The stars in the sky (Might as well make it 35, it ends better than 34.)
I hope you can take a moment and write down those things you are thankful for and feel your gratitude for them in your life. :) Happy Thanks Giving!
Seven years ago, I wrote my fist novel. It is still sitting on my desk in manuscript form, collecting dust, because it was rejected by publishers. There are many reasons it was rejected, and one of them was because the main character had a huge flaw. She was perfect.
She was perfectly beautiful, perfectly behaved, perfectly everything and it was rather boring and maybe even a little annoying.
So when I wrote my second novel, I gave my main character, Lexi, some imperfections, something to make her relatable and approachable. She came alive and seemed very real, experiencing embarrassment, fear, insecurity, bravery, anger, and other emotions that we all experience in our life journey. This, in my opinion--because I created her so of course I would feel this, made her seem loveable, relatable, and unique. And if there is one thing I have learned as an author, it's that you want your reader to relate with your main character on some level, because when they care about the character, they care about what happens to them throughout the rest of the story. (You can read all about Lexi in Deadly Treasure. A novel based on the real life mystery surrounding the Lost Rhoades Gold Mines.)
So why is it hard to look at our own imperfections and flaws and feel loveable, relatable, and unique? The song "Freckles", by Natasha Bedingfield, was awakening for me. Some of the lyrics are: "A face without freckles is like a sky without the stars, why waste a second not lovin' who you are." Now, "freckles" could easily be changed to "wrinkles" for the aging, or even "pimples" for the youth. In any case, "those little imperfections make you beautiful, loveable, valuable, they show your personality inside your heart, reflecting who you are."
Not only are we still loveable despite our little imperfections, but maybe we're more loveable and valuable because of them. (Unless, of course, it's stealing or something like that. But then that would be a major character flaw, not a little imperfection.)
So take a step back and picture yourself as the main character in your life novel. What quirky little imperfections do you posses? I bet most of them make you unique, relatable, and loveable.
Listen to "Freckles" on YouTube.
