Come to Your Senses

This morning as I was reading a chapter of Lawrence Blocks Spider Spin Me A Web, A Handbook for Fiction Writers -- I am nearly at the end. All the articles are ones that he has written way back when - but they are still as current as new fallen snow. What impressed me was one where a young woman was worried about the decline of the publishing market. The midlist was shrinking, only the big names could get contracts - and so on. Well, that article was from back in 1980 something. Guess what folks, it hasn't changed - at least our perception of it.

Block says, "What advice do I have for you? The very best advice of all Stop Writing! Quit wasting your time. Instead of postage, and envelopes and typewriter ribbons [Author note: you can tell this is a tad old]put your money into something sound, like lottery tickets and Czarist bonds. Come to your Senses!" He does go on to say the only reason he would dare tell us that is because he knows we are writers and we can only continue to write, we cannot stop. So it fits even yet - instead of printer ink, or just your time when you send e-submissions - get a "real" job. LOLOL

Isaac Asimov still echoes in my mind "I write for the same reason I breathe, for without it I would die," I say Amen to that.

So Write Like the Wind, Write on, just write until you can't write anymore, and let it be it's own reward.

Snow Use Procrastinating

"Ideas are a dime a dozen...it's the passion that publishers are looking for." Says one writing guru. That is so true. If you start your story out with and idea and six little key points you will be ready to roll.

What are those key points? Do you remember the journalist questions you were told to answer? try this on your story before you begin writing.

Who

What

When

Where

Why

How

That's it. And after you get that written you just fill in the holes. Sounds easy doesn't it? I have written three books that will help you do that. Put them on your Christmas list and you'll be ready to roll by January 1st.

Writing Wide, Exercises in Creative Writing

ISBN 1-4137-0092-6 [Filbert Publishing.com]

Characters In Search of An Author

ISBN 978-1932794151 [Filbert Publishing.com]

Spice Up Your Writing! Write to Entice

ISBN 978-0-6151-7533-1 [LuLu.com]

These are sure to get you started and help you keep going. So all you need to do is add your own passion by writing about something that moves you deeply. It may be a mystery that has other reasons for being, domestic abuse, drug abuse or some other social ill. It may be a non-fiction book, a cookbook, a how to craft or garden book, it may be a poetry book--but if you add your need, your zest, your personal fingerprint to it -- it is a sure fire winner.

Good Luck!

Nano WHAT?

Nano – What?
by Billie A Williams

I mention NaNoWriMo to my friends or family and they say “Nano WHAT? I tell them it’s the National Write a Novel in a Month challenge – and they roll their eyes and say “right”.

It may sound funny, but its some dead serious writing with a lot of fun thrown in. Can you write 50,000 words in 30 days? Sure you can. You could take the dictionary off your shelf and copy words steadily until you reach the magical 50,000 words and then you could cut and paste it into the NaNoWriMo challenge submit page. Since you scramble the page anyway, it might work. I haven’t had the time to test that theory. But hey, all the words you’ll ever need you’ll find in the dictionary – so you could conceivably do just that as long as you formed them into sentences and paragraphs. Question is, why would you want to. That would be like writing the worst trash you could think to write in the length of a novel manuscript and submitting it to Publish America just to see if it would go through. Or doing one of those lovely graffiti paintings on the box cars you see going by. Why not instead channel that talent and make it pay off. Do the real thing and test yourself against -- who? Your own self of course.

I learned a lot from my fourth year of doing NaNoWriMo. The most important thing is that I can do anything I set my mind to. I also learned to let the editor sleep late while I get the words down on paper. I learned that I can compose at the computer; I really don’t need to write it all out in long hand first – which cuts my writing time nearly in half.

Is the writing as good or better? I haven’t edited the first 54,000 words yet so I can’t say for sure. What I can tell you is that it felt incredible when I got the letter from Chris Baty (whose dream child this whole program is) that says CONGRATULATIONS you made it. The whole letter makes me want to giggle. It does a lot of saying you are one of a kind, you beat the odds when others didn’t. He’s right! Not every one who entered made it to the end, some didn’t even get half way—I did. That says something about my responsibility, my commitment, my perseverance—that says I have what it takes to do what I say I am, to do what I really want to do. It says I AM A WRITER!

I’m guilty of having an inferiority complex, an introverted sense of myself and I’m shy beyond all belief. NaNoWriMo gives me courage. I’ve had two books published from the three years I’ve done NaNoWriMo so far. I plan to submit the one from this year too as soon as I finish it. That should take me a couple more weeks.

If you don’t do the NaNoWriMo challenge, try this instead. Challenge yourself to write just one page a day. Do you realize that in 365 days you will have enough pages for at least two novels or one 365 page Harry Potter or regency romance type novel. Pick up the gauntlet, challenge yourself. If you are a writer, put your fingers to the keyboard and prove it.

A writer writes, that’s all there is to it. A writer doesn’t talk about what s/he’s going to write. A writer doesn’t say s/he has this great idea for a story s/he’ll write when the kids get bigger, the weather is better or worse, the job slows down. A writer writes over, above, around, under, beyond, or through whatever is in her/his way. If I did it you can too! WRITE ON!

Tomorrow I will post an unedited chapter from The Capricorn Goat. My novel from NaNoWriMo this year. Come back to read it and let me know what you think.

Billie

November Madness

Happy November Everyone!
Brand new month, brand new chance to make me number one best seller for the month of November and beyond. I read about Amelia Earhart (pronounced airhart)today when I was reading my Biography of 100 Most Influential Women of All Time – was her name a foretelling of her future – her destiny or a coincidence? A woman of many firsts , especially in aviation, it makes one pause to wonder.

Then there was Murasaki Shikibu first woman novelist from Japan in C. 978 – 1030 Deborah G. Felder says of her...masterpiece is the crowning acievement of a period in Japanese history notable for the predominance of literary women. It would take another eight hundred years before the distinctive voices of women would again be heard as clearly in fiction as was Murasaki Shikibu's in The Tale of Genji." She compares Shikibu's efforts to other great novelists that deserve to be read such as Proust. She had a dream, she had a vision, she stepped toward it.

Fascinating how these diverse individuals made their mark in history. It would appear they never planned for any notoriety only finding ways to do what they wanted to do. Perseverance, determination, vision all of it directed their steps. They did not leap the Grand Canyon in one step – they knew they needed to take that first step and the next and the next in order to get where their vision was.

I also received my boxed set (in a treasure chest type box) of Harry Potter books. Never Mind what JK Rowlings announced about one of the characters, the fact that she wrote these books and the mind boggling sky rocket to the top of the charts that these books took--is enough to amaze anyone. I have not read any of the Harry Potter books yet, but I plan to. I have a friend who hates to read and wants to be a writer (she has since published two books) She has read very few books since she left high school--but she read these cover to cover, beginning to end, book one through book seven. If JK can do that, I must discover her secret - I must read them. And so I will as soon as...my small step to becoming famous is over.

Today my small baby step was to begin my novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo – to those in the know) a 50,000 word novel in a month. That’s only a little over 1,600 words a day for 30 days. It’s an exercise in commitment. Not being committed to an insane asylum for daring to try, though during my first attempt three years ago I thought I was vying for that option. {grin} As it turns out, I could do that and more.

So far I have published two of the novels I wrote during former NaNoWriMo challenges – So this year January Flannel (Working title of the book and name of the accidental sleuth) will unfold as the owner of the small gift shop The Capricorn Goat and mystery writer writing under two pseudonyms Dixie Dakota – and Amber G Store. I’m off to a good start.

If you are interested in the challenge check out http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and see what you are facing. There are only 90,000 other writers participating according to my last visit. Imagine all the incredible energy put forth by such a large community of writers. My 1,989 words today is a drop in the bucket, but I’m still counting and one drip at a time that bucket will get full. WRITE ON! I say.

Atlantic City; Ewando, South Africa, Ironwood Michigan,

ATLANTIC CITY; EWANDO, SOUTH AFRICA AND IRONWOOD, MICHIGAN
(What do they have in common?)
by Billie A Williams
Reading one of Eric Maisel’s Sunday newsletter/notes is always an education, always interesting and mind opening. Today Eric is visiting New York City. From describing the rental unit he is rent/borrowing from a retired doctor on a trip of her own to another part of the US – to his trip to other parts of New York he intrigues, enlarges your life, and provides fodder for thought. I dare not miss his inspiration for the week. Here is a tidbit of what he had to say today

“…Atlantic City. We walk into a pitch-dark casino where a five-storey-tall animated vulture is saying something. The boardwalk is broiling and you can't actually see the ocean, as the boardwalk is separated from the ocean by dunes; and between each casino is a strange patch of shanty housing that you aren't supposed to notice.”

I don’t know about you, but that absolutely had my visual creativity on edge – the part about the “strange patch of shanty housing,” reminds me of so many places where the locals have become so used to a particular eye sore that they no longer see it. Is the shanty housing slums? Are they squatters? I’m curious right away. What is Eric’s picture of shanty housing? Is it the same as mine? If I wrote to ask him, I’m sure he would answer right away, but I’m stubborn that way—I want my vision. I want it to match what I wrote about in my South African Adventure Novel,Tung Umolomo. Or, at the very least, the shanty town under the bridge in my Knapsack Secrets. (You can read 1st chapters of each on my website at http://www.billiewilliams.com/ )

You see the shanty town in South Africa’s make believe space beyond Ewando are tin and cardboard hovels that the locals working in the city have constructed because they aren’t allowed to live in the ‘white’ housing. They must commute to work for minimal wages, in jobs that no one else will work hard enough to fill. The picture of these shanty towns with children playing in the dirt streets in stagnant water puddles – where no central plumbing is available, makes me cringe. My heart nearly breaks for these children.

The shanty town in Knapsack Secrets is under a highway overpass. Motorists, oblivious to the shattered lives below, race past to their day to day ‘important’ stuff while below, people are starving, people are hurting with no health care, children are playing in the dirt and learning their lessons from parents too stressed and too distraught to concentrate on anything but where their next meal will come from. These sights break my heart too.

They are both fictional, but they are both also very real in our world. As is the case for many, if not most homeless people—it was chance, not choice that put them in these circumstances. If my books can spark a tiny bit of empathy in people’s hearts to try to help make these conditions disappear – I will have fulfilled my purpose in this life.

As for Eric Maisel – look him up at Amazon or wherever good books are sold or do a Google search on his name. He will make you think, challenge your beliefs and goad you, very gently and almost without your knowing, into making a difference in some small corner of your world.

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Feel free to use this article in your newsletter or magazine as long as you keep the resource box with it. Thank You!
Billie A Williams is an award winning mystery/suspense author.
http://www.billiewilliams.com/
http://onewomansgarden.blogspot.com/
http://printedwords.blogspot.com/
www.YouTube.com/basbleau43

Perseverance

Perseverance
And your first line
by Billie A Williams © 2007

Spending a lot of time on that first line, that first paragraph — the hook of your story-- Is it worth it? Compare what you have come up with now with that of a couple authors and we’ll look at something that speaks of perseverance and polishing, and pushing through to get there.

Michael Crichton wrote State of Fear, here is the first line from that book.
“In the darkness, he touched her arm and said, ‘Stay here.’ She did not move, just waited. The smell of salt water was strong. She heard the faint gurgle of water.”

We talked about that first line before. Well ,what we didn’t discuss before was Michael Crichton’s career. He won both Emmy and Peabody awards. Crichton created the TV show ER and his books have sold over 100 million copies in 30 languages, 12 were made into films and he directed 7 of them.

Crichton’s books and films include: Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Twister, and Westworld to name a few. He was the only person in the United States to have the number-one book, the number-one movie and the number-one television show all at the same time. That is some kind of record to emulate, wouldn’t you say?

“Books aren’t written—they’re rewritten,” Crichton says.

That may be true. Ernest Hemmingway wrote Farewell to Arms 39 times (or should I say re-wrote) before he was satisfied that he had ‘gotten it right’. Let’s look at his first sentence in that book.
“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.”

Is that enough to pull us in? Sure, we think 'so what?' and 'What year?' But is it enough? Hemmingway probably knew it wasn’t. But the rest, the first paragraph, speaks to us further, let’s read on.

“In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white [emphasis mine] in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.”

This paragraph presents a nearly ominous feeling of troops marching and leaves falling early. Is he hinting that the men who marched by were too young to fall like the leaves off a tree early—early in their lives? He starts and ends the paragraph with the “dry – and white", then bare and white”—neatly packaging what he wants us to see and feel.


If Hemmingway could rewrite A Farewell to Arms 39 times to get it right, what makes us think our first draft is perfect, what makes us think once is enough? Not that we should be paranoid and never let go, never finish tweaking. You need to be satisfied at some point. But working on it is never a waste of your time.

Another example of going the extra mile, persevering, for your career is M. Scott Peck – his non-fiction book—The Road Less Traveled — he believed so strongly that it was a good book worthy of being read and re-read he invested himself in the marketing and promotion of it by being interviewed on 1,000 radio shows in the first year after it was published. Did he stop there? No, for the next 12 years he did at least one interview a day at the minimum on radios wherever he could.

His book hit the New York Times Best-Seller list and stayed there for over 540 weeks (a record) selling 10 million copies in over 20 languages.

I venture to extrapolate that the messages here are perseverance pays off whether it is in tweaking your story for the 39th or 100th time, or getting out there and hawking your wares once it is published.

If you want to succeed in this game of becoming a highly successful author you have to walk the walk and talk the talk, but then you have to get out their and promote until you make it. INVEST IN YOURSELF! As Mark Joyner would say “Hit it until you hit it!” or put another way “Fake it until you make it!” as Wayne Dyer says.

LIVE LIFE INTENSELY/FULLY

LIVE LIFE INTENSELY
by Billie A Williams © 2007

“For your writing to have depth, you must experience life to the fullest.” [Rob Parnell, www.easywaytowrite.com ]

Does that mean you have to go out and sky dive even though you are afraid of heights just so you can write well? I think not! I doubt even John Grisham or Patricia Cornwell have sky dived. Your background can provide a rich tapestry from which to draw or intense fantasies provide varying degrees of depth and intrigue to your writing.



For instance fantasy author Brenda Kleager isn’t satisfied to sit and dream up fantasy worlds – she is continually experimenting with new ideas, new venues—researching and developing her worlds, her characters. And, when she is not designing characters or worlds, she designs jewelry and book thongs and more for authors [ http://www.treasuredsecrets.info ], or she is writing books on natural/holistic topics. She is a teacher, she is a mother, she is a student, and she can move across town or across states without taking a second to pause for a breath. In my book, she is a prime example of living life intensely, going for the brass ring every day in everything she does. She is the Literary Specialist (Little Professor) at
www.word-mage.com/ offering her abilties to help others.

As writers we come to discover, writing itself seems to add intensity to our lives. The very act of thinking on the page, developing characters to people our stories, designing plots to wrap around the guidelines of the genre we are patterning our story to fit, personal growth, achievement and spiritual fulfillment help to develop the writing and the person/author.

Dealing with rejection takes a certain kind of chutzpah and writers become adept at handling it and moving on. That takes intense living. Believing in yourself enough when some others don’t seem to, takes a certain kind of courage and perseverance. It is an experience, it is growth and it is living without walls when you defy that rejection and dare yourself to try one more time.

Think of yourself as Einstein – not 10,000 failures but 10,000 experiments that didn’t yield the desired outcome—yet! If dyslectic Einstein can be an inventor of great things, how could one little rejection stop you who are living intensely, while wringing every drop of power out of every second of life?

Becoming a successful writer is the ultimate gamble as you risk your self-esteem, your livelihood, your ego on the belief that you can succeed. Living life intensely doesn’t need to be living recklessly; it just means challenge yourself to do the thing you fear. Stretch yourself, to do the thing that helps you grow, helps you gain experience that can be used in your career. Fear is the energy for change that fuels your growth. Fear nothing.

There is a saying around that “nothing is wasted on a writer” and I think this is true. What other profession lets you use every single thing that— rules your day, or spoils your mood, or elates you, or crashes your dreams, yet allows you to further your career? Live it for all you are worth, whatever the day may bring and you will be living your life intensely. Look at those dreams in your background while you were still young enough to dream, before someone told you you couldn’t, that it was a foolish waste of time – dream again—it isn’t a waste of time – it’s time moving you to stretch and try and be all that you can be! YOU’RE UNSTOPPABLE! Live your life that way.