Writing Through It

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! I hope you all had an awesome Memorial Day weekend. Having a Monday off is tough, but it did help me process some thoughts I've had concerning this blog. We'll be delving into punctuation this week and I wanted you all to have a head's up because, running in tandem, will be a contest for you to win some very cool prizes both here and over at INDIE Books Gone Wild. Today, I'm going to stress scheduling. Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

If you're at at-home writer with kids, your summer just got difficult. I beg you to do some re-scheduling. Lighten your writing load for the summer. As long as you're writing every day (some of you, like me, are sans weekends because of family, anyway) you'll still have forward progress. Keep that.

As I suggested in the post over on ChaBooCha, schedule your day down to the hour. Here are a couple of the images from that post:

As you can see, I had a lot of writing time. That's going to be cut by half because of the summer. I've rearranged my own schedules to only write for three hours in the afternoon.

You really should go read the post and see how scheduling can help you maximize your writing output. If you're writing at the same time every day you shouldn't come upon writer's block. Just make sure the people around you know you're not to be disturbed while you're working. They can give you three hours a day; it won't kill them.

Don't let the summer overwhelm you. Keep doing what you can to retain your writerly brain and write through it.

Do you schedule like this? Why/why not?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Cover Reveal - Chasing Memories by Tia Silverthorne Bach

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! I'm very excited to bring you a cover reveal for a good friend of mine and an amazing author. I give you the cover of Chasing Memories by Tia Silverthorne Bach.

About Chasing Memories (Tala Prophecy, Book 1)

There isn’t another way; not now. The others are coming. I can’t let them have you…

Seventeen-year-old Reagan has a problem: She can’t remember what happened the night her brother was taken. Now, the dreams haunting her from the incident are becoming more intense by the day. All the while, the lines between what’s real and what’s a product of her paranormal-obsessed mind are becoming blurred.

Is she losing her mind or has she just stepped into a world she thought only existed in books?

Caught in a web of worried parents, competing boys, Wiccan relatives, protective amulets, and psychiatrist babble, Reagan must determine the truth before it’s too late.

Expected Publication Date: June 10, 2013

Add Chasing Memories on GoodReads.

Cover design by Jo Michaels.

About the Author

Tia Silverthorne Bach is an avid reader, sometimes runner, involved wife and mother, and rabid grammar hound in addition to being a multi-genre writer. Her three daughters were born in Chicago, San Diego, and Baltimore; and she feels fortunate to have called many places home. She's the award-winning co-author of Depression Cookies, a coming of age story written with her mother. Tia's office is wherever her laptop takes her and any place that's conducive to allowing a wild imagination like hers to flourish.

Please visit her at her blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, GoodReads, and read more about her on INDIE Books Gone Wild.

I edited the book for Tia and I'll tell you, it's a delightful story that's going to leave you aching for more at the end. I do hope you'll check it out. You won't be sorry you did. Besides, check out that awesome cover design! You know you love to look at pretty things. Haha!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

When the Muse Steps out of the Room

Well, it's Thursday yet again, good people of the blogosphere! Today we're gonna talk about the Muse and what to do when she steps away from your side to go tend another author, songwriter, or painter. Tips and tricks to tempt her back, if you will. So, grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

What do you do when you feel the Muse upon you? Do you hurry to your computer and quickly boot up and begin to write? What happens when you're at the store or at church when she pays you a visit? Do you rush home and leave your buggy or excuse yourself from the chapel to go to your car and write?

Of course not. We don't have lives like that, where we can drop any task and write when we need to.

But what about when your Muse has abandoned you and refuses to return? There are a couple of things you can do to help yourself in this situation.

• Write at the same time every day. Muses are busy, they don't have time to hang around with everyone on the planet. Seriously, when you write at the same time every day, your brain will get used to the creative cycle you put it on and you'll find words flowing more easily over the course of just a few weeks.
• Read a book. Books are a writer's fuel. We consume them because they engage our brains and make us think.
• Exercise. Believe it or not, exercise stimulates your brain. It gets your blood flowing and your neurons pumping.
• Read a good writing blog (like this one!). Sometimes, just reading about writing helps you out of your funk and allows you to put down new words.
• Take a walk or call a friend. Walking and having a seat on a bench, watching people, can be a huge booster to your brain. Sometimes, you'll find an interesting character that way. Talking to a friend and letting them vent will also give you book fodder. Maybe not exactly, but you can pull from life.

Before you know it, your Muse will be right there with you all the time.

Those are just a few suggestions. I'm sure if you do a Google search, you'll find many more.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

First Visions Second Sight Book One Sale

Happy Hump-day, good people of the blogosphere! WOOOOOWEEEE do I have a deal for you today. If you remember my post from a while back, I listed my favorite reads of 2012. In it were two books by author Heather Topham Wood. Well, it's been about a year since I read First Visions (where does the time go?) and, as a birthday present, Heather has put the book on sale for the week. This offer is good until May 26th. I never posted my review of the first book on my blog, so I'll give you that to go along with the links and information. HAPPY READING!

Title: First Visions Second Sight Book One
Genre: New Adult Paranormal
Author: Heather Topham Wood
Page count: 231 printed pages
Price: $0.99

Description from Amazon:
Two years ago, 21-year-old Kate Edwards became deathly ill and slipped into a coma. While unconscious, she crept into the mind of a missing boy and awoke with the knowledge of his location. Friends and family were skeptical and wary of her new ability to see into the minds of others. Their fears prompted Kate to keep her psychic powers a secret. Feeling alienated, she dropped out of college and spent most of her days holed up at her mother's home.

Now another child has been abducted. Police detective Jared Corbett seeks out Kate for her help in solving the case. Reluctantly, Kate agrees and they must work together to bring 8-year-old Cori Preston home to her family. Although attracted to one another, Jared has a girlfriend with ties to the abduction case and Kate is sarcastic and guarded since her coma. With visions she can't control and an uncontrollable attraction to the detective, she wonders if she can leave the past behind and finally stop hiding from the world. Otherwise, Cori may be lost forever.

My review (copied from Goodreads):
Rating is 4.5 stars but I round up.

I loved the protagonist, Kate, in First Visions. She is a typical girl who never really got the chance to grow up due to her extraordinary ability and the reclusive life she decided to lead after the media circus surrounding it. Her reactions to situations are perfectly human. There were parts that had me laughing out loud, worrying, and hoping that Kate and Jared ended up together somehow.

I adored the fact that Kate experienced change from page 1 to page 250. I felt like I could really identify with her (even though I'm not psychic). Those are qualities of a great story. I read this book over the course of a week and am looking forward to the next installment of the series.

The only issue I had, and this may be no big deal for most readers, was that pronouns were oftentimes used incorrectly and the book could use a proofreader for tiny errors here and there (as most could). These did not hinder the reading experience to a point that I wanted to drop the book in a puddle, but they did throw me off the story now and again. All in all, a very excellent read that I would highly recommend.

The Second Sight series:
First Visions (book 1): Amazon and Barnes & Noble
New Revelations (book 2): Amazon
Dark Premonitions (book 3): Amazon and read the review here on my blog.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Structure for Life and Novels

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! What a crazy weekend. My internet was down because of a huge storm we got hit with and I missed my post yesterday! YIKES! Along with my eldest son graduating high school, we had quite a lot of excitement around the old household. Busy is as busy does, I suppose. Well, on to the post for today. We're gonna talk about structure. Both for your life and for your novels. Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

When you're writing that best-selling novel, one of the things you have to keep in mind is how you structure it. If it's going to be a trilogy, you have to have the beginning in the first book, the middle in the second, and the ending in the third. Like life, every novel has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is repeated throughout everything we do. Each day begins, has a middle, and ends.

As humans, we thrive on structure. There are a number of ways you can repair it when it falls out of whack, but one thing you have to remember: Something is only as structured as the person putting it together. I suppose you remember a while back when I wrote a post for ChaBooCha on how to structure your writing day. If you didn't read it yet, you really should. It gives you simple ways to plan things out so you're never caught with your proverbial pants around your ankles.

Of course, every day is different; just like every novel is different. But if you're a linear person, chances are you won't have much trouble writing a linear or three act novel. Play to your strengths. I'm not saying if you're a person who's all over the place, you'll never be able to write a novel. What I'm getting at is maybe you aren't a linear structure type of person.

I've read some pretty great books that jump forward and backward through the story. While it's tricky (and you bet your ass I couldn't pull it off), it can be done.

Before you start writing, just like before you begin your day, decide what kind of structure you're going to use and stick with it. Are you going with a straight beginning to end? How about beginning to end and then back to events that occurred before the beginning ever happened? I've even read a novel that was written backward.

Generally, you want your character's doorway to appear sometime in the first third of the novel. But what if you skipped the doorway and just went right into the chaos it caused? Wouldn't that be something?

If your story is good but no one is loving it, your cohesion may be off. What's the glue that holds a story together? Structure. Think very hard about it before you put down the first word.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Enneagram Types - Conclusion

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Today is the tenth and final post in my series on Enneagram Personality types. Rather than just have you typing your characters and following the Enneagram model, I'm going to give you food for thought today. You've been (hopefully) working through the dialogue exercises and have a pretty good grasp of how specific character types will react in certain situations. You can combine these types with an understanding of Human Nature and really dream up characters that make an impact. I'll show you how. So grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

Here's a recap of all the posts from the series:
Type #1 - The Reformer
Type #2 - The Giver
Type #3 - The Achiever
Type #4 - The Artist
Type #5 - The Observer
Type #6 - The Questioner
Type #7 - The Adventurer
Type #8 - The Leader
Type #9 - The Peacemaker

I used definitions of each type from a book titled: The Enneagram Made Easy: Discover the 9 Types of People. That's the link to the Kindle edition, if you choose to check it out for yourself.

So, if you've been following along, you now know what drives each type of person to do the things they do. You'll also have a pretty good grasp of how these characters interact if you've been doing the exercises at the bottom of the posts.

Let's talk about how to bring these characters to their knees, shall we?

Ones are perfectionists. This means they're a little on the OCD side and they try to push their perfectionism onto others. They enjoy dotting the I's and crossing the T's. Think for a moment about what would drive a One up the wall.  If you're using a One as a main character, consider putting them up against something they can't control or can't change the outcome of; no matter how much they want to.

Fives are watchers. Rarely do they get into the thick of things. They prefer to read about things to learn how to do them rather than learning by trying. These folks usually have the right answer. But what would drive them batty? Being wrong all the time, never knowing what's really going on, or even being forced to take control of a situation.

When you study the Enneagram, you're looking for a deeper sense of self. It will tell you what your pitfalls are and how to avoid them. Character insight goes from surface understanding to truly knowing what your character feels, thinks, and how they'll react in any given situation.

What else does understanding give you?

The ability to know just how to hit them where it hurts, make them sublimely happy, or change them in some profound way. Wait, change them? Why would you want to change a great character?

Every character is on a journey. They must change in some profound way from page one to the end of the book. Without the journey, you have no story. If you have no change, your character will seem like one that can't learn from their mistakes. They come off flat. Using the Enneagram will prevent unbelievable change. Know what they tend to when stressed or happy. Put it to good use.

You should think about what kind of character you're writing before you ever put down the first word. Now, there's a caveat to this! Maybe you have a great character and don't know yet what their personality type is. My suggestion is to use free-writing via dialogue. Sit down and have a conversation with that character. Let them show you just who they really are. Once you have that down, you're golden.

As writers, we tend to base our characters on people we know well. We don't even realize we're doing it half the time. But we're familiar with their personality so we're in our comfort zone. Keep this in mind. There's nothing wrong with doing it that way, just make sure you have the greatest understanding possible.

I hope this series has helped you in some way. Character driven stories are pretty popular. Think: Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, or the Percy Jackson series.

How will you use the Enneagram? For personal or writing purposes?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

The Peacemaker - Enneagram Type #9

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I give you the last of the Enneagram types: The Peacemaker. Tomorrow, we'll go into how you can use these personality types in a different way. So far we've been delving into the human mind and extracting what makes people tick. I'm gonna show you how to use that knowledge to create lots and lots of drama. So be sure you come on back tomorrow for the final installment of the series! Grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going.

As always, I'll begin with links to the first posts of the series:
Type #1 - The Reformer
Type #2 - The Giver
Type #3 - The Achiever
Type #4 - The Artist
Type #5 - The Observer
Type #6 - The Questioner
Type #7 - The Adventurer
Type #8 - The Leader

I'll be using definitions of each type from a book titled: The Enneagram Made Easy: Discover the 9 Types of People. That's the link to the Kindle edition, if you choose to check it out for yourself.

Today, we talk about #9 - The Peacemaker.
Definition: Peacemakers are motivated by the need to keep the peace, merge with others, and avoid conflict. Since they, especially, take on qualities of the other eight types, peacemakers have many variations in their personalities, from gentle and mild mannered to independent and forceful.

Nines are usually pretty easy to spot. They tend to try and diffuse a situation by offering some excuse for the other person or entities' behavior. Some of the more aggressive types might the Peacemaker as taking sides with those who behave badly. It will probably piss the other type off.

At their best, Peacemakers are some of the most pleasant people to be around. They always fit in with a group of people and are seen as the most understanding of the nine types. However, when they're stressed or having a bad day, you'll be face-to-face with one of the strangest people you'll ever meet. It's like a total personality change. Where you've had this calm, nice, understanding person before, you'll be faced with a roaring lion that can't seem to focus on anything and passive-aggressively attacks you.

Never will a Nine ask for what they want. They'll be so focused on you and your needs, they'll overlook themselves. But the dam breaks eventually and the Nine will begin to act a lot like a Four; bringing drama to the table you may not be able to handle. After their meltdown, they'll feel bad and try to patch things up.

Peacemakers don't make good antagonists because they desire peace at any cost.

This leads us to the exercise for today!

You have a Peacemaker that just broke up an argument between a Reformer and an Artist. Show how the Peacemaker acts when under duress. Use a lot of action. Have both the One and the Four yell at the Nine. Make them throw things. Create a hurricane your character must traverse. It's up to you how it all ends, but remember to have some fun with it.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for the final post!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo