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May 22, 2013 by writesbooks

Oops, I Dropped a Stitch!

This Post by L.Leander, Author of Fearless Fiction

Do you know how to knit? Once you’ve cast on a few stitches you follow a pattern to create beautiful works of art that are also useful and warm. But what happens when you don’t follow the pattern exactly? Will the structure fall apart? Or will it create something even more beautiful?

I learned to knit at a young age. We had a neighbor in our small farming community who was an avid knitter and her entire family wore the beautiful garments she spent long hours to craft. Fascinated, I asked her if she would teach she and me agreed. I was about eleven at the time and I was instantly hooked. The sound of the needles as they clacked together in my inept hands was music to my ears as I learned to cast on and do the garter stitch (knitting every row). My first work of art was misshapen but Mrs. Vipond cheered me on. Every Saturday afternoon became my favorite day of the week as I rode the two miles on my bike down a winding country road under a leafy ceiling of oak and maple trees that protected me from the summer sun.

Mrs. Vipond always met me at the door with a cool drink and her current knitting project and we sat on the porch to knit and watch the birds in the feeder fight over the seed it contained. An occasional fly or lazy bumblebee made its way to the table where our sticky drinks of lemonade sat but we paid them no mind

There was something about the feel of a skein of yarn and the needles in my hands that excited my young mind. When I realized that I could turn a piece of string into something beautiful it amazed me and I couldn’t wait to find out how my piece would look.

It’s from Mrs. Vipond that I learned a very good lesson. If your work is wrong, take it out. Believe me, I did a lot of that as I progressed to more difficult stitches and patterns! If there was a dropped stitch at the beginning my able teacher taught me how to weave it in so it wasn’t even visible. I didn’t mind the long hours because in the end I knew it would be worth it. My goal was to knit a sweater with deer on it. My teacher had made a beautiful one for her son and my goal was to learn to knit that type of intricate pattern.

This memory made me think about writing. Here are five things you can apply from knitting to your writing to make the finished piece shine.

Build a good foundation. Cast on the base stitches and make them even and neat so they’ll hold the story structure.

Learn to write evenly. Just like knitting, your work must be neat, with all the stitches spaced in like fashion so the finished piece pleases the eye.

Practice makes perfect. No matter how many times you have to take it apart, your work will be better for the attention to detail.

Find a mentor or teacher. None of us know everything about the craft of writing. Just as I sought out a teacher to teach me to knit, you can find someone to help you navigate the intricacies of writing.

Choose your tools wisely. Those who do a lot of knitting know that good needles and yarn make all the difference. Don’t be afraid to use grammar checkers, word processing programs or other helpful aids for writers. They can only make your work better.

The sweater with the deer was my goal and by the time I was fourteen I achieved it. I still remember how proud I was of that garment when I wore it to a toboggan party and got rave reviews from all my friends. Knitting is one of my favorite pastimes and as a writer I am glad to be able to use the skills I learned early on in life to apply to my writing.

What about you? Do you have a favorite craft or skill you learned as a child? Is it applicable to your writing? Do you use good tools to craft your stories?

Books by L.Leander:

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May 11, 2013 by writesbooks

WHAT KEEPS YOU FROM WRITING?

WHAT KEEPS YOU FROM WRITING?

When my precocious daughter was four, she decided she could ride my old bike which was designed for a seven or eight year old. Tall for her age, (people thought she was six), she could pedal and steer the unwieldy thing by standing on it, if she could just get her balance. She fell, got hurt, cried, and kept on trying.

In anguish myself, seeing her tears, I commanded her to stop.

“No, I have to ride it!” she cried as sobs coarsened her voice and Wyoming dust outlined tears on her cheeks. Eventually she triumphed, riding away—a victor.

Recently I watched a small beetle attempt to cross over a large twig in its path. It fell, it tried again, fell, tried again…you get the picture. Eventually it succeeded. It didn’t stop to look embarrassed (can bugs look embarrassed?), or appear discouraged; it just kept trying.

For fifteen years a story has been marching around my brain, irritatingly begging me to let it out. Encouraging this brain persecution is the conviction that there are women out there (somewhere, everywhere) who could grow a Christian faith and understanding of some struggles by reading this story. An inspirational romance, the hero and heroine must work through misconceptions, emotional and physical pain, and getting to know themselves in order to find love and rediscover their faith in God—if I can write it well enough. There is the rub—fear and pride are marching around in my head also! I now realize I learned from my daughter and the beetle—there is false pride and there is healthy pride.

Tears and pain sometimes accompany learning something that will eventually give us a healthy pride in ourselves, thereby increasing our self-esteem. We must ignore fearful self-talk and naysayers. Failure many times leads to success; it hones our skill. Thomas A. Edison said, “I’ve not failed, I have just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.”

False pride doesn’t allow for failure and embarrassment when pursuing our goals. It may keep us from pursuing goals. But who do I think I am to avoid looking foolish in my failures?

Many successful and now famous authors have been rejected multiple times. Among them are George Orwell, J K Rowling, Dr. Seuss, and Stephen King. The stories rejected by some publishers went on to become best sellers. While I am no one special, I am in good company if my manuscript is rejected!

“Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil – but there is no way around them,” said Isaac Asimove.

Realizing that part of my procrastination comes from feeding the wrong kind of pride has given me new insight and inspiration to finish, polish and begin submitting my novel. No, my tendency to procrastinate and delay work on my novel with the excuse that the flowers need watering, the dishes need washing, etc. has not gone away. But, I now face the real reason I fight myself on this issue, and remember the lessons a little girl and a bright shiny bug taught me. We are meant to try and keep on trying any worthwhile passion, until we get it right. Not only might we accomplish it, but we will be an inspiration to others on the journey. Portrait on side of Dr. Seuss.

Follow me at Twitter @nevabodin1, on Facebook, or http://nevabodin.weebly.com/ Continue reading →

May 10, 2013 by writesbooks

Motherhood: All Love Begins and Ends There. by Cher’ley

This Blog by Cher’ley Grogg

My Mom said she liked Mother’s Day better than her birthday because it celebrated what meant the most to her in life, her children. She was so giving and loving. She’d wear rags so her children could be dressed well. She’d eat scraps so her children could have the better parts of the meal.

Quote

My fondest memory is sitting on the porch with my Mom. We spent a lot of time there, spending quiet moments and talking softly. Here’s a poem I wrote about my lessons from Mom the original poem is on Yahoo Voices.

Mother’s Knee
By Cher’ley Grogg

I sat at my mother’s knee,
Her with her coffee and me with my tea,
Listen; hear the birds.
Observe carefully my child
And you will learn from the wild.

I sat at my mother’s knee,
Her with her coffee and me with my tea,
Feel: raise your face,
Savor the sun my child
And know there is warmth in this place.

I sat at my mother’s knee,
Her with her coffee and me with my tea,
Smell; lilacs and honeysuckles,
Breathe deeply my child
And allow the aroma to waft and tickle.

In “Stamp Out Murder” James’ adventure started with the death of his

mother. In his quest to get closer to fulfilling her dreams, he went in search of an antique armoire to complete her boudoir set.

In Chapter Nine James Freeman talks about his mother. James thought about saying, loving someone too much isn’t stifling them. He thought about his own mother; she’d loved him so much, and he had loved her just as much. He never felt like he’d given up anything to care for her. He sat quietly as the first witness, a shahadah to the healing taking place before him.

Cosmopolitan says you should buy your Mother a gift that you would like to receive. Not sure if she would want a tool box, a monkey wrench or a power saw. This link takes you to their suggestions. (I like several of them–just in case anyone wants to know).

Tell me a little about your mother. What is your favorite memory of your mother?

Sta mp Out Murder”.

“T he Secret in Grandma’s Trunk” This is an especially good book for your Tween Children and Grandchildren.

And please join me on my Facebook Fanpage, that’s managed by one of my most faithful fans: Cindy Ferrell

Grief and Mother’s Day: National Grief Expert’s 10 Tips to Remember Mom with Peace (prweb.com)

May 8, 2013 by writesbooks

Does Your Reader Need Sunglasses?

This Post by L.Leander, Author of Fearless Fiction

There is a segment on the morning news now about the need to wear protective eyewear in the sun. Being in a tropical country I well know the value of protecting your eyes from the rays that shine down unmercifully here.

But how does this apply to writing? Let me ask these questions.

Are there glaring errors in your manuscript? Do readers need to wear blinders as they navigate the story?
Is your book cover professional or does it hurt the eyes to look at it?
Does your photo say author or something totally different? Most readers don’t want to see a writer weeding her garden (unless the book is on that subject). Get as professional a picture as you can so readers will instantly recognize you for your work.
Do your characters shine?Are they so drab and devoid of personality that the reader can look at them with the naked eye? Or are they full of life and color?
What about your book title? Does it grab attention or say something boring? Make it sizzle.

These are only a few things you need to pay attention to as you seek to market your craft. There are many others that may cause readers to turn away because of the glare.

What can you do to make your writing better? Do you have a professional creative team in place? Can you add personality to your characters? Is your photo professional? This is a good time to fine-tune your latest book, don’t you think?

Books by L.Leander:

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April 20, 2013 by writesbooks

A Rose by Any Other Name

by Alethea Williams

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet…

Most writers will recognize Shakespeare’s lines from Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet is lamenting the fact that it is only Romeo’s surname of Montague which bars them from being together. Preceding these most famous lines about a rose, Juliet Capulet proclaims:

O, be some other name!

When choosing the name under which to publish my historical novels, I can’t say I had Shakespeare in mind. I’m not sure I would have had the courage to publish under my given name. I did feel like an actress, another, braver version of me with a version of my name could present my work to the viewing public. But there were more reasons than one that I chose to publish under a pseudonym. I didn’t want to use my first name as when it was combined with my surname the result seemed generic. Not quite as bad as Jane Doe, but close enough. And there were already at least five people on Amazon with published works under that name. So I thought I would use my middle name. There wasn’t anyone on Amazon publishing under “Alethea Williams,”so I was fairly sure it would be unique. I had never met anyone else named Alethea; it had to be uncommon, right?

Alas, I should have done a bit more homework. There might not be anyone else publishing under my chosen name, but on Facebook my sisters-in-nomenclature and I form a virtual throng: Wrong Alethea Williams? Why, here are at least eight more! Do a search of the name and eleven additional Alethea Williamses pop up.

DON’T HIDE YOUR IDENTITY Photo credit: ♥KatB Photography♥ / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

To make matters worse, I came to discover that using any other name than the one people knew me by for my whole life garnered some rather testy results. I wasn’t deliberately trying to fool them, but that must have been how it appeared. My naive use of a nom de plume in my home town turned out to be something less than a crowd pleaser.

When I asked my editor what worked best to sell books, she said, “Word of mouth.” There is a trick to that, however, and the trick is to try and see that people are saying good things about you. I’ve read advice on other blogs that discourages writers from using any name other than their own. Apparently, some people will not accept that Rose smells just as sweet when she is called Alethea. I think my experience with a pen name showed me that the people who personally know a writer feel a sense of ownership in that person and, as a consequence, in that person’s writing. Your old friends know you, they probably know more than a bit about your subject matter, and they can be one of your advertising advantages, just because they remember you from way back when.

So now, a year later, I’ve had a second novel accepted for publication. This one is contemporary instead of the previous historical. It’s sensual versus the sweet content of my historicals. I should have an easier time attracting readers to this new work, since I’ve already done the hard work selling Alethea the Writer, right?

MASKED Photo credit: ViaMoi / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Well, no, as it turns out. I’ve learned a different lesson. Many of those who read and told me they loved my first book are not those I think of as the audience who will read the second book without some kind of resistance. I don’t want to sell anyone a book under the false pretense of expecting what they got from the first book. To avoid anyone feeling cheated because they’re not getting what they now expect from the writer of historicals, Alethea, I made up a whole new pen name under which to publish my contemporary romances. And so I must start over building an audience for this persona, the Writer of Sensual Romance.

And I hope this third version of me is the end of branching out as a writer, and that I don’t take it into my head to start writing fantasy and science fiction, or horror, or YA. The last thing I need is yet another writer in my house. My desk already feels crowded with the three of us sitting here elbowing each other for our turn at the keyboard.

Writers aren’t exactly people…they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.
–F. Scott Fitzgerald
US writer (1896-1940)

For another, more courageous take on how to handle publishing in more than one genre, see Nancy Jardine on Writing Wranglers and Warriors blog. http://writingwranglersandwarriors.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/anonymity-is-it-worth-it/

The author of historical novel Willow Vale, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Jargon Media, Alethea Williams blogs on Actually Alethea about writing, writers, and Wyoming history. Follow on Twitter @actuallyalethea, or like Alethea Williams, author on Facebook. Friend her on Facebook, Goodreads, LibraryThing and Google+. Comments and honest feedback always welcome!

April 14, 2013 by writesbooks

Printing Progress

This post is by Erin Thorne.

Many people keep journals for various reasons. They use this medium to inscribe personal thoughts, vent difficult-to-handle emotions, and as a record of special life events. However, a journal is also an ideal place in which to track one’s writing progress.

I recently began to do this as an integrated part of my work. A writers’ group to which I belong has a feature that, once a week, lets us share with other members what we’ve accomplished in the past seven days. At first, my writing journal was strictly utilitarian. There was simply no way I could have remembered what I’d done if I didn’t write it down. By degrees, it became a motivational tool.

Some weeks are busier than others. During those that are packed with activities and obligations, I sometimes feel as though I’m not getting any writing done. This, in turn, leads me to feel badly about my lack of effort. To break out of this spiral, I take a peek inside the journal section of my day planner, which is where I enter my daily progress. Often, I’ve found more entries than I expected, and this has given my confidence a boost. On the other hand, I’ve occasionally been stared down by blank pages that I’d meant to fill. This has provided the impetus to do more, and to intentionally make time to write.

Overall, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the results. I have finished projects ahead of schedule, and kept a more positive mindset about the whole writing process. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I feel encouraged. I don’t dread sharing my week’s work with others, because I know I’ve done my best in spite of all the demands upon my time. I’d recommend this technique to others without hesitation; no matter what line of work you’re in, nothing lifts your sprits like seeing how far you’ve come. It inspires confidence, and gives you hope about how far you’ll go.

April 10, 2013 by writesbooks

Where’s My Stuff?

This post by L.Leander, Author of Fearless Fiction

I don’t like it when someone moves my stuff. I didn’t realize it until recently, although I’m sure I’ve made it known a few times. My husband, on the other hand, is very vocal about his stuff being moved. He wants everything right where he put it, no matter that it’s in the middle of the living room floor (where someone might trip over it) or added to the stack on his desk that threatens to topple over at any moment. Since I’m a bit of a neat freak and like things organized I am usually the culprit when his things go missing. I always put them in a safe place (the trash counts, right?) but often forget the item is in the witness relocation program under an assumed name and am unable to locate it for him when he needs it.

Hubby knows where his things are at all times. It doesn’t matter that it was 1977 and he put a dollar bill in a drawer under a pair of socks – he knows right where it is thirty or forty years later. Of course, he couldn’t have foreseen the night we really needed to make a run for ice cream and were a dollar short. (Hey, I always planned to put it back – I just forgot!)

My things stay pretty organized. I like plastic shoeboxes with labels, file folders and pegboard. It’s easy to keep everything at my fingertips without having to dig for what I need. My life as an author is hectic enough without spending hours searching for an article or research I did for my next chapter.

As writers we all have different ways to meet our goals. Some of us like an orderly desk while others work best with a mound of files and paperwork surrounding them. I’m a little of both – I need to start with the neat desk, can work with the mound of paperwork, but then have to return everything to normal (neat and tidy) when I’m finished for the day.

But what do you do when you move? Literally, I mean? I don’t know about you, but I’ve moved way too many times to count. In fact, today is one of those days. We are moving to a friend’s condo for the rest of our stay in Mexico. I’ve known this was coming for a month or so (actually, a few months but who’s counting?).

Granted, the concussion I suffered five weeks ago and the dizziness I’m still dealing with has greatly reduced my ability to pack and organize in my usual fashion. I’m unable to bend to pick anything up because the dizziness threatens to lay me out cold on the concrete and I end up hanging onto the nearest stable object while I regain my equilibrium. And, I have no idea how we have managed to accumulate so much stuff in another country that I now have to get rid of. Normally I pack everything in neatly labeled, taped and stacked boxes, ready to head for the new place and go in their respective areas. This time we knew we had to downsize and planned to end up with four suitcases (and a backpack with computers, a guitar, a fiddle and giant purse as carry-ons on the flight home).

But back to moving stuff. I write in a sunny area of our house on the second floor. Everything is arranged to give me easy access to whatever I need while crafting my stories. But piece-by-piece my world has come down this week until I’m relegated to a tiny table with one printer in a big empty room with piles of things threatening to tumble at any moment. No whiteboard for scheduling, no floor mat for easy chair rolling on the tile and no file folders – except the ones on my computer. Stacked around me are the vestiges of a life in transit. The furniture movers come today to take our things away to their new homes. You see, here we share with friends when we leave. In a way, it’s kind of neat knowing my favorite room divider with the big pink flamingoes will now live at the home of one friend while my pots and pans go to another and my plants to a sunny terrace where one of my closest friends will nurture them until we return.

What’s hard is finding my stuff. I’ve really tried to stay organized, but this dizziness won’t let up and I’ve not done my usual stellar job of packing. This is our last day in the house and I have no idea what I’ll wear today or where my clothes even are. Although I packed our four suitcases long ago, I now have a couple of additional plastic tubs, a bag or two of miscellaneous, some food and my knitting that has to make the trip to our friend’s condo. I figure I’ll sort the rest there (is that a bad idea?) and repack everything before we head back to the US in three weeks.

I am proud to say that a few things have remained visible. I’m sure they’re what we need most. My current embroidery project (because I like to work on it while I watch television in the evening with hubby), our coffee scoop (we brought it from home, but I seem to have lost the coffee canister), the telephone book (all in Spanish), and a glass full of pens (sans paper) are on the kitchen counter and ready to take to our new digs tonight. Of course, I may go over there in a pink fuzzy winter bathrobe (it’s in the 90’s here now) since it’s the only garment that I can see from here that I’ll be able to find after I shower. And the hubster was complaining a little yesterday that he couldn’t find any underwear (hey, I told him to keep track of his own stuff!).

My one happiness is that my current work in progress is on my computer and all the little files and folders are contained within. I’ll just get through today, go to dinner with friends (and hubby, of course!) and sink in a big oversized chair by the window and stare at the ocean. It’s my right – I deserve a break today. But I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep – I’ll be worrying about where my stuff is!

**Note** I plan to ply hubby with tequila this evening. Hearing about where his stuff is (or isn’t) is more than I can bear at this point. He’ll be happy, get a good night’s sleep and so will I!

How about you? Do you hate to see your stuff moved? Are there items you need next to you when you write? Are you adaptable or rigid about your writing space? Do you love new adventures or are you most happy in your comfort zone?

Books by L.Leander:

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