I love A-Zs – Don’t you?

This post is by Nancy Jardine

An author friend of mine at Crooked Cat Publishing commented that he was having a ‘go’ again at the world wide April A-Z Challenge Blog Hop. He’d done it last year for the first time and recommended it. A number of ‘we’ fellow ‘Cats’ signed up.

image from http://www.123rf.com

Rules are simple. Blog for 26 days of the alphabet on anything of your choice so long as your post is centred around the letter of the day (Sundays off for good behaviour) Try to visit at least 5 other blogs each day – lots more if you can is very welcome.

Main idea – ENJOY reading/viewing everyone else’s posts.

Why did I decide to fit this into my already busy life? Good question and my answer is for lots of different reasons. There are 1942 people signed up on the linky list. I’m sure I will meet some new people during the hop who will hopefully remain cyber friends. I’m also learning something new every single day when I visit other blogs, and most of that has little to do with writing.

This year they’ve put up a category listing, so if you choose to you can sign up for one of these and post about that subject eg. LI posts are about Lifestyle. There are classifications for photographers, artists, gardeners, politics minded people – lots to choose from if your posts are themed.   If you don’t want to enter a theme category you can post anything so long as your daily post is centred around the letter for that day.

I’ve chosen to do all my posts about Celtic/Roman Britain AD71-84. What? Loads of you might say – that’s nuts! Why have I restricted myself to historical posts like that for 26 days?

Food fresco from Pompei – Wikimedia Commons

During the last 6 months, when not doing my full time babysitting of said cherub who is my granddaughter, I’ve been writing the sequel to my historical novel, THE BELTANE CHOICE, which is set in Celtic/Roman Britain AD 71-84. Surprise, surprise! I’ve amassed a huge amount of historical data that will never sneak into my novel- though I do that whenever I can!

The A-Z Challenge is a superb way of ‘airing’ that knowledge and finding a practical use for my time researching. Since I love history and am obviously steeped in Celtic/Roman Britain I’m loving the CHALLENGE already.

What I’m sure would be far too difficult would be ‘winging it’. I’m more inclined to be a ‘pantser’ in my writing but I’m sure I’d be spending all day long chopping and changing my mind if I had no theme to work to. So, does that make me more of a ‘plotter’. Oops- I guess I’m that too!

Whatever…  the challenge of posting an A-Z entry forces some discipline on me. I intend to complete the challenge… and get my sequel completed this month.

Apples, pear, plum, cherry!
-image acquired from http://www.123rf.com

Oh… did I forget to say I got 5 fruit trees as a birthday gift a few weeks ago from my daughter. (mother of grandchild) They arrived a couple of days ago and since the snow outside has now melted, and we’ve had a couple of nights almost frost free, I guess I’m spending my day planting my trees in patio containers.

 Roll out that compost!

I’m delighted to do that since, around AD 84, there were possibly as many as 10,000 Roman soldiers encamped about 400 yards away from my garden. (Yes I really do mean that number as recent evidence has proved the camp to have been very large) My fruit tree garden compost was possibly trampled down by them. (Spurious- I know but the thought makes me smile a lot!)

Any guesses why I love my Celtic/ Roman history posts?

If you’re interested my post today is all about the Roman food my Roman character might be eating in Northern Britannia.

Roman food

(NB. When I added my HI for ‘history’ as my A-Z Challenge theme it has been posted as AC for ‘Adult Content’. This is because my blog is set to that in case I’m posting a risqué romance cover when a guest blogger comes to visit… or as in today’s case a risque historical image from Pompei! My blog is, otherwise, a safe one.)

The Beltane Choice is available from:

Amazon.com   

Amazon UK

Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/221383

View my Youtube trailer http://youtu.be/igJmfBoXRhQ

Nancy can be found at:

Amazon UK author page for all novels  http://amzn.to/N6ye0z  
Amazon.com author page for all novels http://amzn.to/RJZzZz  http://nancyjardine.blogspot.com  http://nancyjardineauthor.weebly.com   http://on.fb.me/XeQdkG   Twitter @nansjar  http://about.me/nancyjardine http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-jardine/3a/9b0/a91/   Google+

Enjoy your day! I’m sure I’m going to enjoy mine.

 

 

 

 

Where Does a Story Start?

by Alethea Williams

Most of us who write have had the experience of someone wanting to tell us their story so that we can write it down and make lots of money.  The two things I have trouble conveying to people who don’t write are:

1) I have enough story ideas of my own.
2) If they dream the story from beginning, to middle, to end, with a little discipline they can write their own story.

So where does your story start?

Characters: Do you see your characters first? What do they look like? What are they doing? Are they talking to you? (If you’re hearing an imaginary conversation between characters you know you made up, you’re not losing your mind. You’re a writer.)

Loving Handsome Couple Relaxing by photostock at freedigitalphotos.net

Stylish Lady Standing With Trunk by sattva at freedigitalphotos.net

Setting: Do you visualize a situation first? What’s happening? Where is this action taking place? Is it day or night? What’s the weather like?  Can you smell anything?

Sunrise by dan at freedigitalphotos.net

Plot: Does the story occur to you beginning to end? Or does the middle slump so you have to scramble to come up with what comes next? Do you outline? If so, do you stick to your outline or does the story insist on taking off in its own direction? (When the muse is visiting, I find the plot unrolling like a movie in my head and myself typing as fast as I can to keep up.)

My Spring Garden Notes by Simon Howden at freedigitalphotos.net

Theme: Perhaps you have a message you want to convey through your story and build the entire story around your theme. Is there a lesson in what you have written? Do you mean for readers to take a moral to heart from your writing? (Readers have said that they were hesitant to start reading Willow Vale because it seems like a sad book. It’s actually a very hopeful book, so I am grateful so many have stuck with it and finished Francesca’s story!)

Writing is half hard work – the willingness to sit butt in chair and persist until it’s done. The other half is magic – watching the story unfold as our characters and start talking, with us writing as fast as we can to keep up!

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 visit Alethea Williams: author on Facebook.  Comments and honest feedback always welcome!