I started writing by accident. I have commented before that I loved American Literature and English in high school. I had a wonderful teacher in both subjects who encouraged me with every assignment to do something more with my writing. If I ever publish she will be mentioned in my acknowledgements.

Writing has changed my life. I’m not the same person I was three years ago. I’m more confident, not only as a writer, but as a person. Discovering I could write was like polishing a diamond in the rough. With every word I write, I learn more. Every day I write I am a little more improved than the day before. I’ll admit, before I started writing, I didn’t use my brain to create anything. The only creative aspect of my life involved gardening. Writing opened up a new world for me, it allowed me to express myself, and at the time, I was starving for an outlet.

Writing empowers me. It makes me believe that I can do something beyond my day job; it serves as my light at the end of the tunnel.

More often times than not my writing relieves stress. I can vent frustration, sexual tension, and sadness through my characters. Writing serves as therapy for my soul.

Writing also opens new doors for me. I’ve met other writers, and made many lifetime friends. I’ve found critique and blog partners, and learned more than I ever thought possible about the kind of writer I can be with hard work and determination.

Writing gives me something to call my own. It’s a source of pleasure for me that I create without any help from an outside source. It’s a solo act, in which I direct, write and star.

In my day career I depend on a department director to hand down my orders, when I slip into my desk chair at home I am the CEO in charge. I make and execute the rules, and most of the time I do so in my pajamas.

Writing makes me more aware as a reader. I appreciate books more. My taste in reading has changed since I’ve become a writer. Some authors I appreciate even more and some I see in a whole new light. I remember the first book I read after I started writing. I dissected it like a pig in an anatomy class. Reading is one of the most beneficial resources I have as a writer.

I view the world through a writer’s eyes. I look at everyday life as a potential for a scene in a story. I listen to conversations. I watch people and their gestures, emotions, and reactions. I file observations of fashion, hairstyles, and automobiles in a mental file for later reference. The check out girl at Wal-Mart may be the next great heroine in my WIP.

So maybe I’m grasping for straws, but its Friday, so go with it.

Those are the words that popped into my email inbox last week.  If that isn’t an omen I don’t know what is.  See, I came into this writing thing a bit earlier than some but much later than most.  And to make matters worse, one year before deciding to write romance, I went back to college.  Not the best timing in the world, but in my life that’s pretty typical.

So in 2007 I really threw myself into this writing thing.  Joined RWA National and my local chapter.  Enrolled in some ecourses and attended some workshops.  Attended my first conference, entered my first contest and started blogging.  After all that, I should at least have a rough first draft, right?  Wrong.

While I was spending a great deal of time and money on the craft of writing, the writing went to the back burner.  But I’ve finally given myself permission not to feel guilty about that.  You see, life is messy.  And random.  And unpredictable.  But most of all, if we’re lucky, life is long and doing things in a hurry isn’t always the answer.

It’s not that I want to publish my first book after 50, but publishing my first book after 40 (which is much closer than I’d like) is not the end of the world.  Right now, I’m taking one day at a time, making some of the best friends I’ll ever have, and writing a story that makes me smile, albeit slowly.  Right now, that’s enough.

Did you come to writing a bit late?  Do you feel pressure to publish right away or are you giving yourself a chance to enjoy the ride?  How have you fit writing into your life and still managed to have a life?  Have you set a “getting published” deadline for yourself?

Oh, and here’s a little tidbit from the article for inspiration…

“And take inspiration from the Bangladeshi writer Nirad Chaudhuri. His first book, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, was published in 1951, when he was 54 years old. Its sequel hit the market in 1988, when he was 90. And his final book, Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse, was published in 1997—when he was 100.”

Determination is a good thing to have in reserve; you never know when you might need an extra kick in the butt to get you going. To make you stop feeling sorry for yourself. To make you stop making up excuses. A reason to downshift a gear and make it up that hill. Determination is mostly what a writer uses in order to make it through one book and onward to the next. Determination is all you have when facing a long dry spell. Determination shows what you’re made of, what you’re capable of doing when everyone has long given up on you. Determination is you.

I think the hardest thing I’ve had to come to terms with in my switch from writing fan fiction to write original fiction is character. I still write the same genre. I still stay within the same plot lines, the same story arc and pretty much the same timing. I write like I approach exercise. I put one foot in front of the other. I keep my head down; focus all my energy on the task at hand. I remember to breathe. I ignore the racing of my heart, the sweat beading down my forehead. And when I want to give up. I’m tired and can’t run that extra mile, I reach down inside and remember the only person who believes in me, is me. And that makes me determined to move just a little further. So when I write my characters, I have to remember everything I love about characters I’ve read before. Everything I hated and wanted to change. Everything I would’ve done differently (but not better, because we all do things in our own prospective) and use it as I would the stair climber. Take those steps one at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Remember to focus on what you want most out of the exercise. Remember to breathe through the frustration. And at the end, you’ll reach your goal (not to mention the end of the torture cycle) your main character. 

Building a main character is the most important part (well to me it is, besides the main plot) of the WIP. The main character is how you’ll draw that reader into your story. The main character shows off your voice to perfection, compliments your writing style, covers up your flaws. Since I write in first person and I write the female POV, I find that writing the main character is a little harder. Not as hard as writing third person, because that’s nearly impossible for me. Most main heroines have a dash of the writer in them. A lot of writers stick with the same kind of heroine, at least an echo of a heroine outline. Characters are what brings your reader back for more. Animated, lively characters, whose interaction with one another won’t let you put the book down. So how you do you find that formula? I’ve yet to find mine. It’s a harmony factor that I’ve been messing with for nearly two years. My male characters are good, but it’s all about the heroine. Once I mix up the right formula for my heroine, the story will flow like a river. It’s all about determination to get to that stage of the game.

Any advice you’ve learned over the years? Formulas for writing up characters? Any favorite characters you’ve read over the years that were a theme for the writer?

‘Ello me hearty mates and crew. Today we’re going to do a little elementary compass navigation and orientation. (No, Jack my love, not sexual orientation; you are prickly. And no, Sin, I’m not dumping anyone off into the middle of the woods and saying, “Well, see you at supper!” and then giving you a merit badge if you arrive back without being covered in poison ivy.)

No, I speak of: Writing Orientation. How to get your bearings in your book, head off again in the right direction (i.e. start writing again) and arrive at your destination (i.e. HEA) sometime before your supplies (i.e. the rum) run out. A handy device all pirates need if they find themselves marooned…or possibly in a hurricane in which they think their ship is going to sink.

First and most important, find due NORTH. You won’t get your bearings or headings or anything until you’ve got your center. Your due NORTH is two things: characters and goals. So if you’re ever stuck, flailing about, sitting in Doldrums and wondering if a brisk wind will come again, find due NORTH. Remember where you are going and put it in contrast with where you are now. Just like NORTH is the most important of the four, your characters and their goals are the most important part of your story. They are the story. Are your characters still behaving true to themselves? Are they pursuing their goals for all they’re worth? Like NORTH, are they bigger and bolder than everything else (i.e. plot, secondary characters)? Are you keeping your scenes (like your sails) trim? If the scenes you’re putting on the page aren’t necessary to the characters or the goals, then they’re most likely dross that’s weighing down your ship and sailing you the long way to China.

Once you’ve got NORTH, glance behind you to the SOUTH. Notice this. There is no North without South, no love without hate, no peace without war, no romance without heartbreak. Here in the SOUTH lies conflict and irony. While your NORTH is focusing on character and goals, the SOUTH should be raising hell on the NORTH, making everyone wonder which side is going to win. (Am I the only one hearing “Dixie”?) Conflict keeps your characters and their goals in sharp desire. And while you’re at it, make sure some of your conflict is of the ironic variety. If your heroine hates class reunions and hell would freeze over before she attended one, make her go to accomplish something that is very important to her, more important than her fear and hatred of confronting her demons. Irony sticks. Irony is conflict inflicted by method of laughing gas.

So we got the NORTH and SOUTH opposing each other; take a look over your right shoulder to the EAST. Venus the Morningstar is your guide. So our next important bearing: Love. Love is important since you need conflict for your Conflict, and nothing conflicts Conflict more than Love. (One of those ironic things again.) Clearly if you’re writing a romance, love is a main bearing. Make it big, make it count, and make it believable. We all need the Big 3: Faith, Hope, and Love, but most of all Love. John said it first; then the other John made a song about it. Notice, though, Love is not the sole focus of your story, nor the biggest focus—but it does shine the brightest.

Now look WEST, young man, look WEST. What good is the WEST? Why the ending, of course. We all admire the perfect sunset, and though it may be the same sun, no two are the same. The same is true of your happily ever after. Yes, it’s romance; yes, it’s a happy ending; yes, there are a 100 Regencies published a year—but your Happily Ever After is just as beautiful, just as unique as the thousand other sunsets across the world. Someone will enjoy seeing it; someone will be moved by it; someone will even remember it forever. And the thing about sunsets is you never get tired of seeing them and marveling at how beautiful they are—and how at peace with the world they make us feel. Write your happy ending; do it to make the world a little sweeter.

All right. Got your bearings now? Have you found your characters and goals? Is the SOUTH rising again? (Lisa, Sin, get your minds out of the gutter.) Have you put on that Beatles CD and a little song in your heart? Then start cracking toward that Happy Ending, mates. Head West to your destination.

What do you guys think? Any important headings I should have focused on instead? Anyone else dallied in filing their taxes like I did and are running to the post office after work like a chicken with its head cut off? Anyone else able to orientate themselves with a compass? (Me, I use the sun rather than magnets.)

Between the temperatures getting warmer and being out here on the water all the time, swimming will soon become a lovely diversion here on the ship.  Because safety should always come first (and because I don’t know how to swim), I felt having a swim instructor as part of the crew was a must.  I interview many applicants as usual, but this one stood out from the rest.  I’m sure you’ll understand why.  I mean, you can practically see his…skill, right here in the picture.  I’m happy to introduce Solomon the Swim Instructor.

And before you all jump the poor boy at once there are a couple of rules.  Yes – bathing suits are mandatory during all lessons and No – Solomon rubbing sunblock all over you is not part of his duties.

This Monday we welcome Harlequin Intrigue author Dana Marton to the Romance Writer’s Revenge.  Dana writes about everything from FBI Agents to Sheiks and in her latest release, 72 Hours, Ms. Marton brings us into the world of International Spy Parker McCall.  Make plans to stop by tomorrow as we bring a little intrigue to the decks.

No, I don’t mean that it’s Wednesday.  I haven’t gotten my days mixed up.

The hump I’m referring to is the dreaded middle of the book.  I’m in the middle of my book.   Right smack in the middle and I’ve been stalled there for three weeks. 

I’ve butted my head against this realization.  I’ve strong-armed my muse, I’ve tried to take a break and read, and I’ve cleaned out my garage.  I’ve even worked on something else just to try to get the creative juices going.  As a result of this, my muse is feeling harassed, I’ve read a couple decent books, and my husband’s stuff isn’t making it impossible to navigate through the garage.

However, I have written:  (drumroll please….)  Nothing.

Oh, fine.  My page-o-meter is two pages higher.  But, that is from editing and adding elsewhere and, though it’s all well and good, I won’t finish my book writing two pages a month.  Well, I would eventually, but I’m sure the math on that puts my completion date sometime in the next decade or something.  Pardon me if I’m a little more in need of instant gratification than all that.

Sin talked yesterday about what gets us inspired and I wish I knew right now ‘cause I’d be doing it.  If you told me I would be inspired by painting my toenails green and spending time at my local bowling alley, I’d be polishing up my ball and my toes.  If you told me I would write like the wind if I ate raw squid while standing on my head, I’d give myself the head rush and the bellyache.

Yes, that’s right, I’m desperate.

Yesterday, I tried to think of my story as a mountain I’m attempting to climb.  I’ve been working to get up the tough side of the hill.  As I climbed, I knew it was hard going, but I kept thinking that when I made it to the top, the way down would be easier because the end would be in sight.

This isn’t turning out to be the case.  I forgot that when you start down a steep hill, you have to make sure your momentum doesn’t get the best of you or you can topple over. 

I’d forgotten that going down can be just as much work as going up.

So, even though the end is in sight, there is still a lot of work left to do.  And now I have all the momentum, whether good or bad, behind me.

What do you think makes for good middles?  What keeps you going through the rough patches in your WIP?  What motivates you to keep moving from the shiny beginning, through the murky muck in the middle, to the glistening promised land of the end?  

Blissful silence. The sheets felt like heaven, the bed was softer than air. I breathed in as my head hits the pillow. I pulled the covers up to my chin, breathing in the faint scent of baby powder and vanilla birthday cake as I try to relax. Midnight came too fast and even as my fingers had flown over the keyboard, I found it wasn’t fast enough. It was never fast enough. No matter what I did; no matter how fast I type, it was never enough for them.

I took a couple of deep breaths and sunk deeper into my sleep pattern. Relax, I told myself. Just relax. There will be time tomorrow.

There won’t be time tomorrow but I frequently like to lie to myself just so I can sleep.

I closed my eyes to Conan hopping up on his desk and waving his arms in the air like a loon and finally find myself in dreamland.

“Wake up!” I heard. “I said, ‘wake up!’ I swear! You are the laziest of writers. How did I get saddled with you again? I could’ve been a Nora Roberts story if I just would’ve waited in queue for two more seconds.”

I take a deep breath, a sigh really, and roll over. “Go away,” I thought to myself. “It’s still dark out.”

“Hey.” The voice was velvet, wrapping around me like a decadent bathtub filled with dark chocolate. “Wake up honey.”

Still I refused to let him get my attention. “I’m trying to dream about you and you’re trying to wake me up. I don’t get it,” I thought. I peeped a blue eye open and glanced at the clock. “You realize there is only one reason I like to be woke up at 3 am and that’s not to have conversation.”

I heard a very unladylike snort and he chuckled. “I knew there was a reason why I loved you.”

“I knew it!” I heard in the background. “I don’t know why I put up with you!”

“Hey, c’mon,” he said. They were both stomping around in my brain and it took everything I had not to want to lean my head over the side of the bed and head bang to imaginary music. “I know how you feel about that sort of thing.”

She huffed. “Doesn’t mean you couldn’t try.”

“Just like a woman.”

Then there was silence. Oh, blissful silence. Dreamland here I come—

Suddenly my silence was interrupted with a steam of curse words so foul that even I reserve them only for desperate times. Road rage, excluded.

“Jeez, I’m up. I’m up.” I roll out of bed and snatch up my notebook. I stumbled into the wall, bouncing back and tripping over the bed. I get up. Listen for the tell tale sign of snoring and make my way back over to the door. I run into the door jam, stubbed my pinky toe, managed to close the door without waking up the rest of the neighborhood and shuffled into the cold bathroom smelling of peppermint toothpaste and expensive almond soap. I shut the door with barely a creak, and with a yawn, scribbled little circles on the paper to get the ink flowing.

“Alright, I’m here.”

Silence.

“Hey. You got my ass outta bed, start talking.”

“She stomped out on me.” His usual smooth talker ways put on a hold and it made my heart clinch. I hated doing this to him.

I leaned my head against the wall. “You expected something different from her? You know better than that by now. She hates admitting emotion. To admit that she has feelings for you is a trust issue and you know all about her trust issues. She can’t trust herself. She can’t trust you.”

“I wish you get inspired to give me a little love. This arguing shit is getting on my nerve.”

I sighed. “I’m working on it. I’m a little uninspired myself.”

“You got new music.”

“I know. It helped a little.”

There was silence again and I knew he was thinking. My hero was no dull knife- he was the sharpest in the drawer. Sometimes that was bad for me. “It’s because of him. You got her all twisted over him.”

“No. Correction. She’s all twisted over the both of you. You know what she’s got with Ash is just work.” Right now, I added.

“I heard that. You need to stop listening to that song over and over again and listen to something more cheerful, like Closer or something.”

“Closer? I’m not having this conversation with you at 3am. Go to bed. I’ll figure this out in the morning.”

“You better,” he said, and there was no question that he meant it. I enjoyed messing with him. More than Sadie. “Or I’ll have to take drastic measures.”

“You warning me ahead of time?” I almost laughed but then I realized I was having a conversation with myself and refrained. “That’s a first.”

I jotted a few notes down, stumbled back into bed. I dreamed of mid-summer with the sounds of hay balers and cattle, the rustling of leaves– dry from summer drought— in the big hickory trees. The sounds of laughter, little kids having fun. The taste of fresh lemonade after running outside in the hot sun. A younger Sadie with her long blonde hair floating behind her as she runs to the wood’s edge in search of her best friend. The feeling of being free, of climbing that hickory tree almost to the top and never being afraid that you might fall. And then I realize I know what I need to do.

The alarm goes off quietly, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and it reminds me I have another duty to do first. But I feel inspired like I haven’t been inspired in weeks.

So what inspires you to write? Especially when nothing is going right and you’re to the point of throwing up your hands and giving in. Do you get new music? Do you go out for a run? Do you go drop $400 shopping? Take a vacation? Here a conversation and that spurs up something you hadn’t thought of? What keeps you from going forward when you are stuck? Lay it on me.

I just finished reading Return of the Stardust Cowgirl by Marsha Moyer, the last of the Lucy Hatch series which I have devoured with all the enthusiasm of a Weight Watchers flunkie left alone in a room with a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, inhaling and savoring with hedonistic glee. In the first paragraph, Ms. Moyer offers this bit of deliciousness: “I thought Will Culpepper hung the moon, with his skinny gangster hips and his half-cocked smile, the strand of black hair like a comma separating the clauses of his steel-blue eyes.” I must have read that sentence a dozen times, marveling at the sheer perfection of it, wondering how in the world she was going to top herself in the next 350 pages. Her books have all the catchiness yet lyrical resonance of a Hank Williams’ song.

Undoubtedly her stories are character-driven with characters so alive they come off the page; yet her characters are bigger than that. They sit themselves on the couch beside you and start reading the book aloud so you can get the full picture and right inflections. I would love to drive to Mooney and sit with Lucy and Ash, have a couple glasses of lemonade, and listen to Ash sing. They are so real, they are like long-lost family. How? How did she connect with me on such a level? I’ve read a score of brilliant books lately, each one better than the last, but this one has lingered long after the song stopped playing.

I figured it out. It’s the language used in the novels.

Clearly Ms. Moyer and I have access to the same Webster’s Dictionary, and she’s not using any new or unusual words I’ve never heard of. But she is using them better.

Like those metaphors. That line about his stand of black hair being a comma–that was merely the first of a thousand she’s created and evoked memory within her readers. I would never think to use that, yet that is the most perfect thing I’ve ever read. It paints an exact picture; and though I’ve never been to Texas, and Mooney doesn’t even exist, I know I could find it if I were driving through East Texas. Her lyrical language envelops me in what I feel is the culture; I can imagine a small town where the language was simple but poetic. I would love to do that in my books, but I’m not particularly original in my phrasing of things. I’m a complete idiom girl.

In fact, out of curiosity, I printed a bunch of idioms and was shocked (and rather appalled really) at how many I used that didn’t even register to me as idioms. I’m surprised I’m able to have a normal conversation with someone outside of Missouri. You know how some people can’t speak if they don’t get use their hands? Okay, so I have that issue too; but if I were banned from using idioms, I’d be mute. Mute. I’m not kidding.

A few of my favorites are: “nature abhors a vacuum”; “beating a dead horse”; “grinning like a coon eating briars”; “shit-eating grin” (I mean, just exactly what does that mean? I know how I use it, but if I was being literal—if I were eating shit, I wouldn’t be grinning); “chaps my ass”; “death warmed over”; “give someone enough rope”; “everybody and their cousin” or “everybody and their dog” (hey, we’re Southern); “hell in a handbasket”; “ninth circle of hell”—actually I say, “tenth circle of hell” to indicate this is even worse than Dante’s Worst. And on and on. Honestly, it would be less blog-consuming to give you the idioms I don’t use.

Idioms are “colloquial metaphors”, which Wikipedia (oh, come on, I’m not the only guilty person, pulling her facts off here) says, basically reveal more about the culture of those using them than the person in general. Which is true. The small town I hail from would know all those expressions above and could one-up me in several instances. We lived to drive Ms. Yount barking mad using them (not my town idiom; I’ve picked up some lovely British ones since the Harry Potter phenomenon. Thank you, J.K. Rowling.)

Speaking of Ms. Rowling, she too has a gift for creating unique metaphors, as well as cautiously incorporating idioms into her characters’ dialogue. It gave a distinct feeling of immersion into the story, without having to use pages of description or setting. Just a few clever and thoughtful metaphors encapsulated the scene completely, and you simply couldn’t imagine a world without Harry Potter in it. Ms. Moyer does for East Texas as Ms. Rowling does for a magical castle in Scotland.

Therefore, I’m going to figure out a way to do something similar in my books, with my own metaphors, and undoubtedly abusing idioms at will. I think all I need is one good metaphor to get me started.

Anyone else metaphor-mad like me? Can you think of a sentence or passage from a book that stayed with you long after you put the book back on the shelf? What was it? (I’m out of Lucy Hatch & Harry Potter books; I can use new ones.)