I have to admit something. I have a huge crush on Captain Morgan. You know, from the Captain Morgan ads? I never really liked the campaign where regular folk pretended to stand with their leg up on something that wasn’t there – that’s just stupid – and I tried it after drinking Captain but I kept falling over. But these new ads…

Okay, so he’s not Captain Jack Sparrow – but I think he’s cute. But there’s something very naughty in his gaze. And he’s funny. And he uses a designated rower. That’s hot.

So here’s what I propose – unless someone else has proposed it. We need to capture him. I think he needs to hang out on the Revenge with us. Let’s face it – Jack Sparrow’s been REALLY tired lately. But this guy – he’d take some of the pressure off ol’ Jack (and from the rumors flying around…a certain undead monkey too – but what do I know?)

I do claim first dibs – I selflessly volunteer to “break him in” for everyone. But how hard can it be? The man does flips off the gangplank to turn a war into a party and keeps the maid from a beating by throwing his glass on the floor. I don’t think he’ll be a problem.  And if he is, we have the Kraken.

So, we add him to our “collection.” What say you?

Assassin

Many years ago I read a novella by Vicki Lewis Thompson about an interior decorator heroine who uses Feng Shui to design the hero’s home. The hero is a cowboy and the home is a ranch and a large, erupting fountain is involved. To this day, hardest I’ve ever laughed while reading a book.

But the point is, that was my first introduction to the ancient Chinese art of placement.

Though Feng Shui is still a mystery to many, most people have heard terms such as “Ch’i”, “Yin & Yang”, and “Tao”. Today we’re talking ch’i and how to get it flowing in our working area, with the positive result of the words flowing right along with it.

I have issues with clutter. My house is not spotless and will never be, but when the piles of clothes and paper and whatever else get to be too much, it’s as if giant speed bumps have popped up in my brain. Until the clutter is abated, I can’t concentrate and creativity is out the window. Every time I buckle down and clean my room (which is where I write) the speed bumps magically disappear.

Why? Because the Ch’i is flowing!

According to Skye Alexander in the book 10 Minute Feng Shui: Easy Tips For Any Room, “[t]he goal is to direct ch’i – a vital energy that animates all life – through your environment so that its movement resembles a gently flowing stream or a pleasant breeze.” If something is blocking the ch’i from flowing freely through your home, then it’s also blocking the ch’i in your life.

By using Feng Shui, we can arrange furniture, incorporate shapes and materials and even colors to balance our living space. Achieving balance in the space will help achieve balance in our lives and our minds.

What writer wouldn’t like to have more balance and an abundance of flowing creativity? Now you see where I’m going.

For those skeptics out there, I’ll give you an example of a Feng Shui issue in my home. Again, according to Ms. Alexander’s book noted above, all the systems of your home are a reflection of the systems in your body. The electrical system is a mirror of your neurological system. (As writers, we kind of need this one to work at full capacity.)

I bought this house 15 months ago and the electrical system isn’t exactly right. The light switch that turns on the stairway light cuts off all electricity to half of the living room, including the outside light, if switched down. Also, if the two switches that operate the living room ceiling fan are not in the correct positions, the fan does nothing. These positions are non-negotiable as far as I can tell.

Did I mention some outlets don’t work at all? Yes, it is an understatement to say my home electrical system is out of whack. If that isn’t the best way to describe my neurological system these days, I don’t know what is.

I can’t concentrate, get motivated, or stay focused long enough to get any real writing, or what I need these days – revision, done. My wires are crossed and for all I know all the good words are currently flowing into my pinky toe. Or out somewhere else but I really don’t think we should go there.

At this time, I can’t afford to hire an electrician to rewire my house. However, I can rearrange my room and apply Ms. Alexander’s suggestions to my work area in order to get things moving again. I hope.

The condition and even positioning of your work area “describes your attitudes toward money, your ability to attract wealth, your career goals, and your overall work situation.” It stands to reason that too much clutter on or around your desk could be holding you back. Here are three suggestions this author makes to help get that working ch’i flowing:

1. Face front!  – You need to feel relaxed and not as if anyone could wonder up behind you without being seen and startle you while you’re working. I haven’t figured out exactly how to make this work in my bedroom, but I plan to try it this weekend. I know when I’ve had my desk in an open space facing the entrance to whatever room I’m using, the words flow much better. (Wish I’d made that connection before.)

2. Bring up the lights! – The better the lighting, the better you can see. If you can see clearly, then your mind can also see clearly. The added bonus is that more light means more ch’i and ch’i is what we want. Time to start using that desk lamp again!

3. Cut the clutter! – Getting those piles of mail, receipts, story notes, and empty candy bar wrappers cleaned up and organized is going to, as Ms. Alexander says, “make room for money and opportunities to come into your life.” Oh yeah, I’m on board with this one.

Now, if your desk is covered with clutter, you have books scatted around the floor, and your desk faces a corner but you’re turning out the words and feeling good, by all means don’t change a thing. BUT, if you’re struggling (as I am) to get the brain working in the “write” direction, what harm would it be to try this?

What do you think? Are you interested in learning more? Think it’s bunk? Let’s talk writing spaces and tell us what works for you.

This year, I thought we’d expand the family participation. I’ve been posting little Dad Updates on Facebook and have been receiving lots of positive feedback from cousins who love the Dad Stories. The man is funny. Apple does not fall far from tree.

For his birthday, Dad got every kind of pie he could ever want, and he ate about three pieces or so, washed down with some coffee. He got to talk to nieces and nephews he usually only gets to see at the June family reunion. Dad was gobsmacked by all the attention and fuss. After all, it was only a birthday. “We didn’t celebrate birthdays when I was a kid,” he explained. “It was just another day.”

But the thing is a lot of things feel like that. Graduating college. Getting married. A job promotion. Hell, probably even getting published. It’s exciting, but I’m sure it feels a bit surreal…and ordinary. You’re still you, after all.

And then there is writing. Sometimes being a writer is shameful. I spend a lot of time feeling sheepish and apologetic that I’m not more prolific, consistent, or making money hand over fist. I also feel like I should apologize for being eccentric and not quite sane. Having this attitude tends to carry over to other markers in your writing life, probably because like birthdays, you’ve been writing long enough not to be emotionally invested in the outcome or expect too much. You finished a book. You might squee to yourself; you might share with a few knowing friends; but it’s unlikely you’ll share it with the general population who’ll immediately start peppering you with questions like when it’ll be published and can they borrow some money from your big advance.

This year, I want to make more of a fuss. About everything. Celebrate it all. Not everyone writes a book or enters a contest or makes presentations. It’s not the end result (getting published) that is the only thing that matters. It all matters.

At Weight Watchers, we talk about why we come every week. I always say I’m there for the stickers. I love being rewarded for the little things—like sticking with the program, losing 5 pounds, losing 5% and losing 10%. And what’s great is that they’re “little” things, but they’re not little things to Weight Watchers. They’re important things and they’re worth celebrating. You’re worth celebrating.

Positive reinforcement—from the pats on the back from the group support and the success you see in the mirror or feel in your jeans—it feeds your motivation to stick with the program. I’m learning that Positive Reinforcement earns me more of the results I’m looking for than punishing myself and mocking my goals when I don’t do things. Shame and guilt are clearly demotivators. I need to stop feeding them.

So this year when you’re thinking of your resolutions on what to improve in your life, do try to focus them in a positive way. Positive begets positive; and negative mainly finds you next December 31 working out a new resolution for the same old thing.

The other thing I learned this week: set small measurable goals with small measurable time limits. Like lose 5 pounds in a month. That’s reasonable, realistic. Basically eat your elephant one bite at a time. It can be done. Break it down and keep with it.

This year my goals are to focus on the positive, make a fuss over the “small stuff” because it does matter, and keep with it because eventually you will get there. And I think I’m going to start printing pages of my manuscript just so I can see the pages pile up. It’s not the same to see the pages in the word document. A lot of the time I think “Oh, it’s only 50 pages or maybe 100…” but that’s actually a nice amount of paper. And there are your words on the page. You wrote them! Yeah, I think that is another thing I’ll be doing this year.

What are your goals this year? Do you work for stickers? Fan of diet plans or “lifestyle changes”? Favorite pie? Any and all conversation is open today. Let’s go.

She’s a cop from a city on the East Coast. She’s running from something. I’m not sure yet. But she started driving, and she drove until her car broke down, which happened in some dinky little spot-on-the-map town.

He runs a sports tournament/camp type thing. He’s the son of a small town doctor, with two brothers. One’s a doctor too, the other is a fancy-schmancy lawyer. The reminder he’s not “living up to his potential” is constant.

Somehow they hook up. I think she needs a job and he gives her one. And then maybe her past catches up.  I have a feeling it’ll get dark because that’s what happens to most of my stuff. Maybe it was a serial killer she was chasing that drove her to run.

I love this stage. I love all the “maybes” that are floating around in my  head. I’m trying to capture all the emotions, and seize all the fragments I’m seeing. And every idea I get leads to new ideas.

When I was reading Jenny Crusie’s blogs about making collages, it seemed she bought most of her items/pictures for her collages during this stage. She looked for items that represented an emotion, or pictures that evoked a tone, while the story developed in her mind.

I tend to free write during this stage, to develop the ideas and emotions I’m seeing. I’ve heard other people draw pictures, and others start making outlines.

Do you do anything creative to capture ideas in the new-story-idea phase? Do you focus more on the characters, the emotions, the tone, etc? What do you love about this stage? Anybody have any ideas for the scenario above?

I’m in a training session all day today, but I’ll respond as often as I can!

For a little background on me, I’m in the process of writing my first draft of that first book. And it’s been hard. Really hard. Three years worth of hard so far and I’m getting so close to the end I can smell it. Um…well maybe I should shower more often…

Bo’Sun recently talked about setting big goals and Hellion followed up with a post about breaking that down into smaller 5% size goals. But what I want to talk about is how many goals do you have? I’m not just talking about just writing goals because although we pirates are writers one and all, our lives are filled with other areas we have dreams for.

I have career goals, relationship goals, health goals, etc and I realized that although it’s not bad to have set goals in each of the areas of your life, the key is to find a way to be moving toward your goals in tandem. I’d been treating each area of my life as a separate entity and that made it impossible for me to give any one of those things enough attention. Something always had to take a backseat and for me it was easy for that to be writing when I was doubting myself. Plus, writing really is a time hog!

My health goals, while also a major time suck, are really important to me so I’ve tried to test out ways to make my workout time do double duty. The power of technology allows me to read blog posts, tweet and read books while I’m on the treadmill. Which is great, but none of those things are writing. What to do?

A Treadmill Desk. Yep, you heard me right. After reading some blogs and hearing other writers rave about them, I decided I could make my own cheap (read: $12 total for supplies) treadmill desk that would allow me to write on my laptop while walking slowly on the treadmill.

Now this won’t replace my regular workouts completely, but I will be able to do long slow walks for cardio now and be writing the entire time! Check out the photos to see my lovely DIY skills. I have plans to do some upgrades as I use it more and see what I’d like to add. Attaching a notepad and velcro for a pen are on the list.

The best thing, and what I’m so excited about, is that I was able to take two separate goals and find a way to make them work together. I’m moving forward with both without feeling like I’m sacrificing one part of my life for the other.

What goals are highest on your priority list? How do you set those priorities? Does writing seem to be the one goal that always takes a back seat? Take a look at your life goals/dreams and see if you can come up with some creative ideas on how to merge your time to knock out two goals at the same time.

It’s no secret I’m revising.  I sent off my Golden Heart entry and when “whew.”  Like that was the end of it.  Um, yeah.  That’s just the first fifty pages.

Face. Palm.

So, I’m revising.  More.  What feels like endlessly.

Granted, it’s the holidays.  I’m ho-ho-hoing all about, preparing and hiding things in exhaustive, I-have-small-children-who-are-too-smart fashion.  Therefore, I’m not doing as much revising as I’d like.

To break things up (or add to the chaos), I’m enrolled (read: silently lurking) in Louise Edwards’ RWA University class on the myRWA forum.  (If you belong to RWA, get thee to sign up for myRWA.  Lots of good stuff on their new forum set-up and more to come, I hear.)

Anyway, Louise Edwards is a lovely lady who writes contemporary romance about hunky chefs.  Yum.

But before that, she was an editor at Berkley.  She’s talking about what she learned about writing from being an editor.

Her first lesson was about how we must be true to our voice.  She suggested writing in multiple genres to try to find your voice.  She said that editors and agents are first and foremost readers.  They might not always be able to define what’s wrong with a work but they can feel it when they read it, that something’s missing or rings false.

In fact, I’ve heard this twice since I’ve started writing.  My second manuscript, the only one I shopped as my first one is embarrassing to me, garnered a few full requests.  I didn’t get much feedback on one, but the other two said the same thing: I write well but the story didn’t pop. Contact me again when you have something new.

I had no idea what that meant.  Hal and I discussed and I think we ended up thinking it was something to do with the characters or plot holes.

But now, I think it has something to do with voice and truth.

When I read, I can tell if a story has that “thing.”  I can tell if the writer is pulling punches, shying away from emotion or going too far for drama’s sake.  I can tell if it’s authentic or not.  I don’t know if I’ve ever revised with that in mind before.  In fact, I’m not sure if I’ve ever thought about it before.  I’ve never revised as a reader before.

We all hear the clichés.  Write what you love.  Be true to your story.

I’ll add, “Revise like a Reader” to my stash.

How about you?  What advice can you give about being true to your voice?  Have you tried writing in different genres to find your voice?  Any ideas about making a story “pop?”

Since today will be a slow day, I have an exercise for us. (Yes, I can hear all you pirates groaning and bitching about overtime, but on Monday, we all acted enthusiastic. So buck up!) 

I’ve been reading (yet another) book on revisions. And I came across some great advice that has been a useful little trick for me.  And that is, poke your structure with a stick and see what happens. You know when you poke a snake? You find out pretty quick if it’s alive or dead. Either something happens, or nothing happens. But either way, you KNOW if that snake is alive.

So today, I’d like to talk about two stick-poking exercises, and see if you guys want to try one, and see if it works.

First is a cause-and-effect experiment. Think of a character (secondary might be easier if you don’t have the WIP in front of you) and list out the actions in order. Not necessarily the scenes or whole plot, just the actions.

For example – this is for a secondary character in my WIP:

1. Ahmad travels to Belfast to purchase black-market weapons from Kersey, and brings Naomi along as his negotiator.

2. Ahmad receives a picture, showing him that Naomi is undercover British intelligence

3. Ahmad kidnaps Naomi’s daughter

4. Ahmad holds Naomi captive

5. Ahmad gives Naomi’s daughter to Kersey,  to prove that he’s serious about the weapons

6. Ahmad gives Naomi to Kersey for 12 hours, with instructions to use the time wisely to work out a deal for the weapons, or lose daughter forever

7. Ahmad watches Naomi die, realizes he now cannot get the weapons, and leaves

8. Ahmad sees Naomi’s picture on TV and realizes he’s been played

9. Ahmad returns and attempts to kill Naomi

Note that the cause-and-effect linkage here. Every action is clearly linked back to the action above it, and the linkage itself shows motivation, and cause and effect. This tells me something: that the motivation is clear, and I could probably pull out some of my meandering scenes of them deciding what to do, because from this, the next step is obvious.(Except the link between 4-5-6. That might need much more clarity).

It also tells me something else: I have a lot of passive verbs here. Ahmad receives,  Ahmad sees, etc. Ahmad isn’t all that active. All he really does is kidnap the little girl, and that happens off screen. Though the scene with him holding Naomi captive is nice and disturbing. So this tells me I might want to adjust so that Ahmad is doing more, and reacting less.

In other words, I poked the structure, and it is in fact alive, and perhaps needing only slight first aid.

Here’s the second tactic for poking your structure with a stick:

Draw a circle and include all your character names:

Got it?

Okay, now draw lines for every relationship between your characters:

Mine won’t make much sense to you, unless you know the characters. But what you can see from this circle is that some characters have lines going all over the place, and some characters are only tangentially connected. There’s room there, to make sure every possible connection that could be made has been made.

Are there any other relationships you hadn’t thought of? Any past or secret relationships between characters?

Are there any characters who don’t have a line? Anyone just hanging out on the fringes?

Any characters that are static? Notice I have “young soldiers” and “other cops” on my list. They’re necessary to the plot, but they aren’t very interesting. Could I have another character who’s more flushed out fill that role? Could I flush out “young soldiers” better? Could I connect those young soldiers to additional characters?

Willing to give one of these a shot? Try doing a character circle on paper and tell us what you got. Or list out the actions of a character and see how the cause-and-effect looks, and what that tells you about the plot. Basically, when you poke your structure with a stick, is it alive or dead? (and if you do so while wearing a bicycle helmet like the guy in the picture above, tell us that too

*DRUMROLL*

BO’SUN!

Congratulations, Bo’sun, just contact Enid with your mailing details and she will get your prize to you!

It is that time again! National November Writing Month is just around the corner. Can you feel my budding excitement?

No. Seriously. I’m excited.

So I decided to do a list of my top five things you must have to finish the race by 11:59pm on November 30. I’m hoping this will motivate you writers out there to join me on November 01 at 12:01am to start your own epic race towards the finish line.

1. Must have all your ducks in a row: This means if you don’t plot, outline, grow characters, live and breathe conflict, at least try to do some leg work ahead of time. This will allow you to write freely when you start at 12:01am on November first. I’m not what you’d call a plotter- I’m more of a pantser- but I’ve learned over the course of a few years doing NaNo that prep works helps you get a couple of restful hours of sleep a night during NaNo.
2. Calm work environment: We all have our writing quirks. Movies playing epic scores in the background. Children screaming outside in the yard. Heavy metal screamer bands blaring through your headphones (Okay, that might just be me) but we need a place where we can drop our computers, pull out the keyboards and just pound the keys. If there is a stack of bills sitting beside you, you’re going to be focusing on that. Not writing your story. So you need to clean up your designated computer space before the clock starts ticking away at the month of November.
3. Chocolate- or whatever your snack of choice is- and massive quantities of caffeine: This is probably the most important. When I get stressed out or I put myself (and my characters) in a delicate and difficult situation, I need to think. I do this by sitting back in my chaise lounge, head back, eyes closed, and munching on a Blow Pop. This is my assumed thinking position. And you must have your stress relievers on hand.
4. Procrastination is not your friend: Usually procrastination and I are hand in hand dancing through flower fields and blowing up mole hills together. We’re like this *crossing fingers*. I tell my BFF Procrastination to take a hike during November and you can too. Be determined. Be prepared to fight. And believe in yourself. Procrastination is usually stimmed from when we lack confidence in our abilities to put the right words on the page. During NaNo there is no such thing. The beauty of NaNo is the free spirit of writing for the word count, not the overall quality. Worry about that in December.
5. Remember you’re human: And that means don’t pressure yourself. Fifty K in 30 days is a helluva push for the most seasoned of typers. Sometimes we get swept up in the thought of writing, and we no longer enjoy the process. I think why I enjoy NaNo so much is that it allows me to enjoy myself. My random tangents. My quirks of writing out of order, or no order at all. NaNo is meant to be fun. Allow yourself to have that fun and enjoy it for what it is- a reason to gather your friends and see who’s the fastest BSer while writing that great American novel.

So there you have it. My Five things. What’s your one thing you have to have while writing? What’s the one thing you want to do differently this year during NaNo that you didn’t accomplish last year? And to those of you who haven’t joined us for NaNo, what are you waiting for?! Come have some fun with us!

If you’d like to friend me for NaNo here I am: christietaylor

Ashley March is giving away a copy of her recent release, ROMANCING THE COUNTESS, and the book goes to. . .

beebs!

Please email me at allaboutthewriting at hotmail.com and I’ll get your mailing info forwarded to Ashley so you can start reading this great book!