Friday–What’re We Gonna Write Today?

#20

You spend 24 hours with your main character.

What do you do?

What do you talk about?

What do you notice as quirks?

How does she make you cry?

What stories about her past does she tell you?

You go shopping. What does she buy?

What does she eat?

Can she cook?

Name three nice things she does for you.

What does she want you to do for her?

What does she read?

How does she surprise you?

Worry you?

How does she sleep? On her back? Curled up? Does she toss and turn? Snore? Talk in her sleep?

Does she want breakfast?

At the end of the day together, does she thank you for telling her story or curse you?

 

 

Frozen Friday

Just a moment to say what I would have said on Monday if I hadn’t had a daughter in the hospital.

This new year?

I have so many hopes for what’s to come.

Last year was so hard.

We started the year off losing our sweet and amazing Debbie and ended the year losing hilarious and wonderful Rick. Before and after those terrible days, more people we loved left this earth life and moved on. It’s been a long, hard time.

Today, though, I’ve been thinking how I’ve already fallen behind with my goals.

But each day is new, right?

Each day I can stretch and reach and hope.

That’s how I hope to treat each moment in this joyous new year.

Ann Dee, Kyra and I hope you have a perfect 2017. Sure, there’s going to be hard times. But there’s going to be a new moment, a new chance, and always we’ll have the opportunity to write for the love of words and kids and ourselves.

Happy weekend!

15 Minute Monday

These past few days have been really good for me.

My agent, Steve Fraser, was here. He gave a terrific talk on Wednesday night to a crowd who sat on the floor and up the stairways and all around the room (INCLUDING sitting in chairs!). He spoke of joy. It was lovely and inspirational.

I’ve been thinking of my writing life. What I want to do with it. How I need to change things or not change them. What is important to me.

And there has been this other stuff.

And the other stuff has gotten into my very heart and stabbed at it with ice picks and as the stabbing has gotten worse, I’ve begun to build this wall around me and how I feel.

Can a writer do that?

Well, yes, they can. I have.

Should they?

I’ve got all these new, weightier things to think about. Personal things.

Most times I don’t want to think about them. Feel them. Hurt from them.

But

but the deal is, all this stuff, will, in the end, influence my writing.

So I have to be available emotionally. Not just for the good of my life and the people in my life, but otherwise, what good am I as a writer?

We write Truth. That means we have to be willing to feel all things icky and hard and gross and awful and happy and joyous and amazing because our readers need that Truth.

As I have peered sideways at things going on lately, even when I see I don’t like me very much as I gaze on these weightier things, I can see that this has been a good few days.

Sad. Hard.

Emotional.

Yes. Good.

Dreams

I’m mostly a nightmare gal. Have far too many bad dreams. Several a night.

Wake up screaming at a man in the doorway, or by the window, a lot.

Elevator-with-no-sides dreams. An elevator that’s tilting.

Zombie dreams. My aunt’s head in a watermelon. My girls missing.

The dreams where I’m walking from room to room in house. Searching. Hurrying. Worrying.

Knowing something bad is behind a door.

Being lost.

Oh, and the cloven hoof dream that Kyra wants me to share on FB.

But last night. Last night was good.

I haven’t written now in a month. Not at all (except an editor rewrite).

And last night I dreamed of the books that are waiting for me.

Wanting to be written.

There was that feeling I have when I sit down to write and things are going well. A feeling of being content.

When there’s hope.

A new world coming to life.

Like the way I feel because there are a few moments when I am in control, ’cause I know what’s happening a few pages ahead.

This morning, I woke up smiling.

Woke up with an email almost fully formed to my agent.

Woke to a whole list of books that were calling for me.

With thoughts of really writing.

This morning, I’m ready.

To find a few new characters.

Clean up a few scenes.

Investigate a few possibilities.

This morning is full of promises.

Way better, I tell ya, than that man in the doorway.