Chapter Seven

[Actually the last chapter was chapter Six this is the REAL chapter Seven]

Chapter Seven


Jamie was allowed into the property, not that anyone, but the rookie questioned her right to. She needed to get to Ben, hear from him, what he was thinking.

"I'll come in and talk to you and Ben soon as I corral these bees and move them out." Sherriff Hale waved a hand toward the army of the various law enforcement personnel.

Jamie knew they would leave a few to watch the grow until they could harvest it, and plow under any roots—at least she assumed they would. They wouldn't dare burn it. She almost chuckled at that thought. Depending on the wind direction, a bunch of happy folks wasn't necessarily a bad thing…she groaned at her private joke, must be the drive made me slap happy.

Ben sat slouched in his favorite thread-bare easy chair. He didn't look relaxed or comfortable. He jolted to his feet when she entered. His face went from happy recognition to overwhelm with the shadows of trouble. He held his hands out to her.

She didn't know what to say to comfort him, instead she wrapped her arms around him and just held on. "What a mess, hey?" She said finally as she released her grip. Ben backed away nodding his head.

Certainly is missy, and I—" He slumped back into his chair leaving the sentence hanging like laundry on a clothes line blowing in the wind.

"I don't know, I never seen, this mari—weed—whatever –growin. In all my years, I never—well, you know."

"I certainly do know Ben." She sat on the arm of the easy chair and draped an arm over his shoulders. "They'll figure it out. Don't you worry."

Jamie could see slight relief in his demeanor, but he was going to worry. That's what Ben did was worry over everything until he had it resolved to his satisfaction.

:Who found it?" Jamie asked the question she had been wondering since she arrived.

Ben stood up again. This time he began pacing, pinching his lips between forefinger and thumb. "How would he know what it was?" He questioned, the question burned in his eyes a she stared through Jamie—for some unknown answers.

"Who?" Jamie felt she already knew, but where was his nephew if he was part of the investigation?

"B.J. He's the one done found it. He was riding fences, checking the ditches—He--." Ben stopped and turned to gaze out the window. Lost in his own thoughts.

"Where is B.J. now?" Jamie wanted to know if he turned in the find, how could he leave his uncle to face the music alone—BJ wasn't stupid—arrogant maybe, but not stupid she decided.

B is For Basics--Background is Basic

You can’t beat a good character for making sure your readers get involved in your story. Not only that, but it gives you proper motivation for your story goals.

For instance, if you use the zodiac signs to chart your character traits—the simple ones that give general traits without worrying about sun signs, moon position and all that. You can find the perfect character with the traits you need to give your protagonist so she can act in appropriate ways. And you can find the perfect opposite to drive her crazy, create the conflict in a romance and/or the angst with the right villain.

While your protagonist is water (Pisces, Cancer, Scorpio) your romantic interest/or even your antagonist could be a fire sign (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius). The traits of those people, both strengths and weaknesses should give you enough individual conflicting traits to weave a great story.

Once you determine your characters’ Birthdate, you can dig further to define him or her. There are references to birthdates tied to tree charts. For instance, Aries birthday falls somewhere between March 21 and April 19, so we will pick April 3 (out of a hat) that makes her a Rowan Tree (The sensitivity) who is full of charm, cheerful, gifted without egotism, likes to draw attention, loves life, motion, unrest, even complications and the list goes on. I can pick and choose which traits I want to portray for my character. Certainly you can find an opposite for most of those characteristics, not that you need to use them all.

Another consideration for backstory would be where they grew up. Both parents alive living together or raised by a single parent, adopted or foster parent(s)? What about home life? Siblings, or an only child, what state, country, large or small town/city?

Look at your own background and that of your friends, and someone you dislike—even the choice of careers helps shape your character. An adopted daughter of a multi-millionaire family, living in Hollywood, California will probably have a completely different outlook on life than a girl born as the fourth child in a family of seven children in a small farming community in the Midwest where the land and the life challenges by the weather, amount to survival for the strongest. Throw these two together even without or in spite of their birthdates, they will exhibit different traits and may be polar opposites.

Your character’s background is an important part of your story worth telling. It makes him real. It helps your reader relate to him or her. Even if you don’t use all the information you have laid out in your character chart, you need to know it so your character behaves appropriately in every situation and hooks your reader.

===============

Billie A Williams is an award winning, multi-published author whose

characters are

accidental sleuths who solve crimes with

wit, wisdom and chutzpah.

www.billiewilliams.com

Characters in Search of an Author

ISBN 978-1932794151

Available anywhere or www.filbertpublishing.com

Count Down to Book Release Date

Whew! Without giving much thought to my finished novel since it was accepted for publication by Wings ePress, Inc. I proceeded to write other things, began another novel and basically went on about my business as usual.
This week end I got my edits for Small Town Secrets release in January 2008. I already had the cover - fantastic as it was, posted it on my website been bragging about it all over the web--now I had my baby back with editor's remarks and correction.

The editing process is revealing. You see the story with a whole new eye now that it has been snuggled away in the editors in box for more than six months, perhaps even a year. You see things you never remembered putting in there, you realize things you left out that needed to be included (your editor spotted those and made a note to you about it in the text) at some point you may even be asking yourself -- "Did I write that?" or some variation of that -- maybe even "Wow this is good, I can't believe I wrote that." Those are the best revelations. As I worked my way through the edits, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, I hoped my characters were as alive as I thought they had become to me as I was reintroduced to them. Sometimes a tear came to my eye over one problem or another for my protagonist. I didn't will them, they just came as my heart went out to Chaneeta Morgan in her despair over her only child. How dare I put her through this kind of torture?

The editing process opens your eyes, it opens your heart, and in the process gives you renewed confidence in your writing While there are mistakes to be corrected, while there are flaws in the whole, the basic story is good--it's readable--you can empathize with the characters--you wonder or you are amazed at what you know and what you've learned through the writing process. You also see how you've grown as a writer since you untied your apron strings from that novel and moved on to the next.

I have a supreme desire to thank my editor, Leslie Hodges, as her gentle red pen tweaked and strengthened my story. What remains after twelve hours of reading and making choices to accept or decline her red penciled edits, I chose in nearly every case to acquiesce to her expertise and judgment. That is what a good editor does--she tweaks she doesn't tamper. She leaves the story better for her footprints in the shadows but never pushes herself to the forefront--like an author who doesn't intrude on his/her story a good editor is invisible, never imposing her way of writing, just adjusting the way you get to the point you want to make.

For sure the first edits are a heady and exhausting experience. Would I skip it? Not for the world. I learned from every comment, every correction and every thought provoking decision made. The proof is in the Pudding, and I await the next task on this way to publication with enthusiasm.
www.billiewilliams.com

Random Musings

A quote in Julia Cameron's Walking in This World hit me as so appropriate for writers and readers.

This is from Shakti Gawain, "We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open." This applies to readers as well as writers. Rather then be lemmings we are better being ourselves because -- who will be us if we aren't and for writers who will write our story if we don't. No one can interpret it better then we can.

There is another quote I can't remember who said, I paraphrase here - Other people's opinions are none of our business. A bad review, a bad critique, a Top Ten Book List - these are someone else's opinions. We should write the book we want to not because it's popular. We should read the book we want to--not because some one else said we should, but because we want to.

So When we as writers interview one of our characters to make them come alive to our readers - we are in that skin. We are that person at that moment. In Small Town Secrets, due out next month, Chaneeta Morgan is the owner and operator of a cafe as well as the town chairperson of this small town. She is a composite of many people I know or have known, but then aren't we all? We are the experiences we have lived, we are the people whose lives have brushed against ours. So in allowing Chaneeta to just come to life, I hope readers will find bits of themselves in her, or at least bits of people they know.

I live in a small town, I work at a small town cafe - the town chair person here happens to be a man, but it could have been Chaneeta. I'm sure this small town of Amberg, Wisconsin has affected this story in ways I'm not even aware of myself.

I say look for the author and her life whenever you read her books. Whenever you encounter a hero looking evil in the face you'll know what kind of hero you are by your own reaction. If something makes us uncomfortable our escape is a good read or a good writing session. That makes us all connected.

Snow Fall and Writing

As I was shoveling the 7 to 10 inches of snow from my walkways this morning, I thought how like writing that was. One shovelful, one small chunk at a time. I could see where I needed to shovel to - the road, the driveway, the house--just as with a story goal {which you should always have before you start to write} you know where you need to go, all you have to do is get there. One small shovelful, one small word, sentence, paragraph, page, chapter at a time.

If there is one thing I learned from NaNoWriMo it's that when its large its hard [your goal 50,000 words] - when its small its easy - [1,667 words a day]. Like the snow, one shovelful at a time, one walkway at a time, one job done in fine style in no time at all.

So even if it's drifted, there's away through that drift. Even if you are feeling blocked, there is a way through that block. One tiny step at a time.

"Art is made from talent and character. Adverstiy strengthens character and can strengthen our art as well," says noted writer, artist, screen writer, musician Julia Cameron. She used a phrase to describe one of her acquaintences that absolutely makes him visible. "With a face like a ravaged cathedral and a shock of snow-white hair to top his alpine height..." Do you need to see a picture - or does her magic with a pen, give you a sense of the man...can you see from the tiny shovelful of snow how she is building the snowbank while she cleans the walk? Her person becomes a living, breathing human being before your eyes, one word, one phrase, one sentence at a time.

Don't believe me how completely one step at a time does the job... look at a blizzard. How does it start? One tiny, beautiful snowflake at a time falling in just one place. As it perseveres adding one snow flake after another it grows - soon you have 2, 4, 6, maybe 10 inches of snow. It still is only falling one tiny snowflake at a time in that one spot. Build your writing the same way. Put one word after another until you have a clause, add more until you have a sentence. Make another one and add it to the first and soon you will have a paragraph. String some paragraphs together and you'll have a page, then another page until you have a chapter. If you keep going one word at a time, you'll have a novel in no time.

Somewhere it was said that you can't see where you are going at night, well not any farther than your headlights can illuminate. But you can make the whole journey by following as far as those headlights can reach - and just keep doing that all the way to your destination whether it's a mile or a couple hundred miles. Same with snow flakes and shoveling snow or books and writing them it gets done one bite - or byte at a time.

So get the pen to the page - write the first word--that's all it takes. Happy shoveling!

Excuses Don't Make You a Writer

Last week we interviewed two writers. We got in touch with how they work. You can bet they don't make excuses for anything. With that I had a few thoughts about "Real" writers and excuses that don't make you a writer.

Neither, do writers make excuses. If you are serious about the craft of writing you must internalize the phrase, “Writers Write.” Above all else they write every day. Never allow yourself to say you are too tired, too busy, you’re waiting for inspiration or you’ll do it tomorrow. If nothing else begin with a double spaced page of I can't write now because - keep writing until you talk yourself out of all those silly excuses.

A real writer won’t give up because editors, agents, readers, critics and publishers are unfair and they just won’t give a new writer a fair shake. Think of all the breakout novels that have hit the stands lately – oh sure everyone thinks Harry Potter or Eragon, or any other list that includes a new author is just a lucky break, the author must have known someone. The truth is the break out author, or the over night success has paid the his or her dues, writing through problems of single parenting, home schooling, and a myriad of other things they could have used as excuses. If they weren't writers. Remember excuses don't make you a writer and writers don't make excuses.

Oh I’m too young, old, or I come from a poverty background that doesn't allow me to be able to “waste” my time sitting around writing everyday. (what about J.K. Rowling) Or my family always interrupts me with something I “have” to do, so I don’t have “time” to write. You are creative, that’s why you want to write; so, create a plan that lets you write at a time when interruptions are minimal. If that means late at night or the wee hours of the morning, if you really want to be a writer —you will find an appropriate time and place to write. You will ask your spouse or significant other to deal with things for an hour while you write. You'll tell your children you need a few private minutes to write and you'll play a game (or whatever is their favorite thing) with them if they will give you an hour. Set a timer so they know you mean business.

“Writers write; everyone else makes excuses,” says Jack M. Bickham the author of more than sixty-five published novels and a plethora of other publications on the craft of writing fiction.

Pick up your pen and write! I challenge you to this: buy a calendar – a cheap one with large squares you can write in. At the end of each day write down how many hours you actually spent writing—-[no research is not writing] follow that with how many pages of product [page]you have. It doesn’t have to be a polished manuscriptpage; it can be rough a draft page or several. The important thing is that you produced some writing. Do you realize if you wrote one page a day for a year – you would have the equivalent of a 365 page novel? So what are you waiting for?