writing books – Linda Ford

Writing’s Gifts

Linda — Sat, 22 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’m one of those people who considered my writing to be a gift.
This glass paperweight is how I see the gift of story– a beautiful object that defies description.
A wonderful book that made me realize the value of this gift is WRESTLING WITH YOUR ANGELS: A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY TO GREAT WRITING by Janet O. Hagberg.
As a gift given to me, I try to do it justice-honor it- by learning craft, using all the tools at my disposal and generally doing the best I can as I write. I don’t often think about the fact that not everyone wants to, likes to or can write. It’s just part of who I am. I haven’t always written my stories down but I have always made them up for my own enjoyment. I can remember as a child sitting in the branches of a maple tree in our yard and creating imaginary worlds.
But I have learned to appreciate the gifts my writing has given me.
First, writing is my escape. No matter how crazy my life is, how unreasonable the people in my house are acting, my writing has been a place where I could find sanity, order and control. I can disappear into my imaginary world and enjoy myself. Never mind the dreadful things certain people are saying or demanding in my real world. I love this gift from my writing.
Secondly, writing has given me characters who act and react, who love and respond in ways I have found foreign to how I want to act. In other words, through my characters, I am learning different and, hopefully, better ways of being me. For instance, I deal with a grown child who is acting like an emancipated four year old. I want to scream and rage. But instead, I remember a character I’ve created who deals with difficult situations with grace and kindness and even finds the right words to say, the right questions to ask. And I suddenly know how to behave better. Or I am buffeted on every side by demands (unreasonable ones many times) and feeling out of control and then I remember another character who manages to find humor is similar situations and suddenly I find I can too. Or life throws me one of those wicked curve balls. It seems to be too much. Again, a character who turned to faith and trust in her difficult circumstances reminds me I, too, can do so.
Maybe I write the characters I wish I could be. And in doing so I learn a little more about how to be such.
When I think about it, writing is a wonderful gift. And if my stories end up encouraging or helping a reader, I am doubly blessed.

REVISION/RENOVATIONS

Linda — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The time has come to renovate the bathroom. The tiles are falling off the shower. The pipes leak inside the wall. There is mildew visible along the ceiling. It’s way past time to have it done.

But I hate renovations. The mess. The choices to be made. The compromises. The mess. The delays. The trips to town to find things. The mess.

I can’t help thinking it’s like revising a story. First, you deconstruct. Then you fix the basic structure. From there you put things in the right place. Then you fill in the cracks and paint (polish).

As Dwight Swain says in his very good book, Techniques of the Selling Writer, “A first-draft story is ordinarily a lumpy, awkward thing. To shape it up, you must rework it.” It’s a messy process.

Alice Orr in No More Rejections says, “A positive attitude toward revision is essential to becoming a professional writer. …Too many authors think of revision as a chore and approach it grudgingly.” I’m sorry, Ms. Orr, but I don’t think I will ever rejoice over revisions but I’ll be happy when they are done.

Just like I’ll be happy when my bathroom is done.

RULES OF WRITING

Linda — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve begun work on a new series. Actually it is the second half of the Eden Valley series that begins with a prequel in the Christmas collection–THE GIFT OF FAMILY. My novella, MERRY CHRISTMAS, COWBOY, is set in the pioneer town, Edendale, which is close to the Eden Valley Ranch.

Every time I start a story I a)forget how I do it, and b) wish I could find a magic way of getting from airy-fairy ideas to a sound, solid plot and motivated characters. Oh I have charts and lists. I even have a pink file card with a list of things I must know before I have a solid story structure and can allow myself to proceed with writing the story. They are basic things like have clearly definable goals, motivation and conflict.

But I’m always searching for more. Something that will make it easier.

So I look up stuff on the internet. I found some rules of writing. Some of the rules are truly funny.

Margaret Atwood’s 10 Rules for Writing Fiction

1 Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the plane, because you can’t take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.
2 If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.
3 Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.

4 If you’re using a computer, always safeguard new text with a memory stick.
5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.
6 Hold the reader’s attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don’t know who the reader is, so it’s like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What fascinates A will bore the pants off B.
7 You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there’s no free lunch. Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ¬essentially you’re on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.
8 You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.
9 Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.
10 Prayer might work. Or reading something else. Or a constant visualization of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one This site has a number of author’s rules of writing.

Twain’s Rules of Writing

(from Mark Twain’s scathing essay on the Literary Offenses of James Fenimore Cooper)

1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.

3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.

5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.

7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it.

8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.

9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausably set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.

11. The characters in tale be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.

http://www.mamohanraj.com/Writing/twain.html

“On Writing” by Robert J. Sawyer Heinlein’s Rules http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm

Rule One: You Must Write

Rule Two: Finish What You Start

Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order

Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market

Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

Rule Six: Start Working on Something Else

I think my favorite quote about rules is from W. Somerset Maugham. ‘There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.’

No wonder I feel like I am lost in the dark most of the time.

More rules. If you want to read these, you might have to click the picture. Good advice from the experts.

ABOUT MY BOOK

Linda — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

It all began with an idea. It always begins with an idea. And then more ideas cluster around it. Then the hard work of nurturing those ideas into a story form begins.

This book began with the idea of a cowboy—maybe he was a loner. Or was he raised an orphan? My notes say this: An orphan who has worked for a living since he can remember. Taken in by a farmer at age four he soon learned his only value was in how fast he could do the chores. He ran away several times before he was eight and each time received a severe beating and starvation rations as his reward. At 8, he managed to escape by stowing away on a passing freight wagon.

That was as far as that idea went.

There were several more ideas that just might blossom into future books. A cowboy left money who wants to start over without reminders of his past. A woman struggling to survive on her own with three children. Or he discovers a long-lost brother.

So what became of the ideas? Which ones grew to maturation? I used the man finding his brother idea and combined it with a widow and three little girls.

Jake is my hero—In my notes he looks a little like this.

My heroine—the widow with 3 little girls looks like this. She’s trying to trust God. She’s said she’ll trust Him no matter how hard it gets but she didn’t expect it to get so hard. Jake showing up and camping on her doorstep is the last straw. He didn’t know about her. She always believed he was the bad guy. But she must trust God. Who else can she depend on? Certainly not any of the men she’s encountered. Jake doesn’t want to tell her the truth and ruin her memories. He can’t leave them to manage on their own even though she doesn’t trust him.

This story is full of secrets. Revelations. Surprises.

If you want to read more and discover how my ideas turned into a story go to http://www.amazon.com/Lasso-My-Heart-ebook/dp/B00854W7JU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345327672&sr=1-1&keywords=lasso+my+heart and download a copy of LASSON MY HEART for $3.99. It is a western historical romance.

I’d love to hear what you think of my story.

HERE’S WHAT’S NEW

Linda — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I have a new book cover for my book–2 novellas, one by me, one by Karen Kirst. This is a Christmas collection coming out, I believe, in Oct. What do you think of the cover? I think it’s very Christmassy.

This month, I have the third in the Buffalo Gals of Bonners Ferry series out.

Joanna and the Footloose Cowboy. I haven’t received my copies yet and am looking forward to them.

In the meantime I have sent away the complete manuscript for an upcoming continuity–three stories about an orphan train. Mine comes out next June and is going to be titled THE BABY COMPROMISE. No cover yet.

I am working on another story for a second series in THE COWBOYS OF EDEN VALLEY. THE COWBOY’S SURPRISE BRIDE is out next Jan. THE COWBOY’S UNEXPECTED FAMILY will be released next Mar.

Sometimes a picture sparks an idea. This is the picture that sparked the idea for the next Cowboys of Eden Valley story. Does it pique your interest? I’m looking forward to working on this story and coming up with this man’s story.

What comes to mind when you see the picture?

Whoops! I almost forgot. An older title–DARCY’S INHERITANCE-is now available for Nook or Kindle readers. Check it out.

HERE COMES NOVEMBER

Linda — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

All that’s left of October is the costumes and candy. Which means we are into November. For some it’s Movember and moustaches. For writers, it’s NaNoWriMo. Yup that’s a writerly term. It means National Novel Writing Month.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Hundreds of writers sign up with the goal of getting a first draft done in one month. A noble goal … especially if you have a decent product in the end. It isn’t enough to get 50,000 words on paper. It needs to be 50,000 words of a sensible story. That means there has to be some preplanning. I am not one to say only ONE method of preplanning works. But for me, I need:

1. A solid concept

I like Dwight Swain’s method in Techniques of a Selling Writer for this part. He lists the story elements as:

character
situation
objective
opponent
disaster

Then he says to put these five elements into two sentences.

Sentence 1. A statement containing situation, character and objective.

Sentence 2. A question containing opponent and disaster. This sentence is so framed it can be answered with a yes or no.

2. Interesting, sympathetic, motivated characters.

My favorite chart for this is found in another book–Alice Orr’s No More Rejections.

3. A plot structure.

There are probably as many of these as there are writers… Aristotle’s incline, The Hero’s Journey, etc. My favorite and the one I use all the time is the W plot. I learned about this in a workshop taught by Karen Doctor.

http://www.karendocter.com/workshop.php

4. Some Idea of Scenes

Again, there are so many ways of developing this. And noone can tell you how many you need to start. I often have only a vague idea of most of the scenes–allowing them to develop as I get the characters acting and reacting and emoting. Other writers, like my writing buddy, Carolyne Aarsen, likes to have a lot more of them figured out. Her favorite way of developing them is using a beat sheet from Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.

One of my favorite blogs is written by Larry Brooks. During October he has given a hint a day to help people prepare. He uses the term beat sheet in a slightly different way than Blake Snyder, but it’s every bit as helpful.

The question you’re all dying to ask (I know you are)… Am I going to do NaNoWriMo and write a book in a month. No, I’m not. For several reasons.

1. First, I don’t have a story ready to write and am knee deep in edits and revisions.

2. I write this way with every story. Once I have it figured out, I vomit it on to the page. It’s like the whole story is sitting in my brain and I must get it out before I lose any part of it or forget my plans for the plot. I took a course years ago (I’m not confessing how many) on writing a book in a week. I believe it was by April Khilstrom

http://www.sff.net/people/april.kihlstrom/biaw.htm If so, I was likely one of her first students. By the time I’d completed her course, I was convinced this was the way to work. No doubt it fit my OCD tendencies.

Read what another writing partner of mine says about the process at Debora D’Alessio’s blog How Writer’s Write (right click on link)

I guess the point is we don’t need to wait for the perfect time and place, the exact details, or the muse to move us. In fact, here’s a picture from Facebook that is right on.

Just do it.