Writing Surprises

I plan out my books. I create emotional story arcs for my characters. I work out all sorts of details in advance. Then I start writing and my characters start surprising me. And I love that! It means the characters are coming alive—for me and therefore for the readers.

Right now, my black cat of the family is discovering things he didn’t know about his bride and I’m discovering those things at the very same time! The bride, meanwhile, is cooking up schemes to bring her new husband back into line and about to have some surprises of her own.

One of the things I love about writing is that element of surprise. I think that if I knew everything that was going to happen in my books beforehand I’d never end up writing them. Other writers can plan out all the scenes in advance and write from beginning to end with the characters doing just what they should.

That’s the great thing about writing—there’s no one way that everyone has to write. We all get to do it in whatever way works best for us! And thank heavens for the diversity—both in what we write and how we write. Wouldn’t it be a boring world if all books were the same?

Wishing all of you happy reading and the writers among you happy writing!

April

Grief

Grief comes in odd moments, at odd times. We can go months, sometimes years, feeling as if we’re fine with something and then have grief over a loss hit us again.

I don’t regret getting divorced. We were hurting each other too much to stay married. My life is better and happier and I think his may be better too, now. I hope so. And yet...

And yet, last week I got hit by a wave of grief over the hopes and dreams that died with my marriage.

If we’re writers, it’s important for us to understand that emotions don’t always play out smoothly and neatly. We can create characters with greater depth if we allow for that and use it in our writing.

It’s also important to understand just because we’re human beings and will face times in our lives when we feel what we don’t want to feel.

Why did it hit me last week? A number of reasons, I suspect. One may be that a friend is going through a divorce with issues similar to some of what I dealt with and so I’m reminded of the sadness of accepting that what I always thought would be happily ever after didn’t turn out to be.

Another reason may be that as I work on my latest manuscript, I’m laughing and remembering how good it can feel to be connected on so many levels with another person. As my hero and heroine play tug of war over something each of them feels they should have, I’m reminded that in healthy relationships people can disagree—and not hurt each other in doing so.

Or maybe it’s recognizing all the changes in my life and knowing those changes are good ones so that I’m able to take time to grieve the losses I didn’t let myself grieve when all my energy went into building a new life for myself.

Life is complicated. If we recognize that and give ourselves permission to feel what we feel—as we take the steps we need to take—then we are likely to always keep moving forward. And as writers, when we let our characters be human and feel emotions at times when no one would expect them to, we bring those characters to life in a way that not only can make the story more compelling but also perhaps help provide a kind of roadmap for readers coping with unexpected emotions in their own lives.

April

Heroes

What makes a great hero—in real life or in writing? I’d like to know what you think. In the romance field, it is the hero who will make or break a book. It is the hero an editor or agent looks at first.

When I’m coaching writers I tell them for romance it means a guy the female reader wants to take home with her and keep in bed for, oh, say a month or so!

But what else matters to you? My own take on heroes in romance novels is that:
1) The reader wants to know the hero can and will keep the heroine safe. (One of the appeals of the “bad boy” hero is that often he can do that better than anyone else.)
2) The hero lives by an internal code of honor. It might not be the same as anyone else’s, but it’s his and he lives by it. If he’s perceived as or thinks he’s bad, he’s still got that internal code and part of what the heroine discovers is that he’s really good at the core—or can learn to be.
3) The hero is sexy and adores the heroine’s sensuality and helps her accept and adore her sensuality as well.

Of course, in real life, I’d add a few things. In real life:

¨ I believe that kindness and respect are part of true/real love.
¨ I believe that it’s important to find someone with whom we are the people we want to be. (As in the poem: I love you not only for who you are but for who I am when I am with you.)
¨ I believe in partnerships—neither diminished by love but each helping the other be more than either would be alone.
¨ I believe in lovers helping each other achieve their dreams.
¨ I believe in fidelity and commitment and honor.

Hmmm, not so very different from most of my books, after all. But that’s part of the fun of being a writer—I get to share what matters to me, the vision I have for what true love could be like, the ways men and women can support and enhance rather than diminish each other!

Who are your favorite heroes and why?

April

Home Decor

For those who have been following my home décor saga and journey of growth over the past year (or more!).....

IKEA is opening a store near me months ahead of schedule. I am so delighted! I’m looking forward to adding some more touches to my home including some sort of bed for the guest room. Ideally it will be a couch of some sort during the day but be able to become a bed at night.

Did I mention that I’ve set up a sewing area in my home? At one end, my bedroom has bay windows that overlook the garden. I put a couple of wooden tray tables (thank you Goodwill!) there side by side and set the sewing machine on them. One of the swivel chairs (Craigslist) from the kitchen set is my sewing chair. I love being able to sew and look out at the garden. No, everything doesn’t come out perfectly but several things look really good and I smile every time I wear them.

The other night a friend of my daughter came into town with her mother. The young woman is moving to Austin. It was lovely to have them over for dinner and be able to share with them resources and places I love and think she might find useful, too. We talked and laughed and even ate fresh bread I made with the bread maker I got at a yard sale across the street.

The young woman commented that I have the same laugh as my daughter and said I must hear that all the time. I never had before and realized it’s because when she was growing up, I’m not sure her friends ever heard me laugh.

I say all this because I know some of you out there are going through transitions of your own. It can be scary, not knowing what the future holds and wondering if you will make it. But if we go forward, if we constantly ask ourselves what good could come out of each moment, then our lives can and will become better and better—even when there are dark times, too. You will make it, you will be able to laugh again, you can create a life that brings you as much or perhaps even more joy than the one you thought was going to be yours forever.

Now, climbing down off my soapbox.....

In a few days I’m going to post a post for writers. I’m going to be talking about heroes.

Hoping all of you find ways to smile or laugh this week and moments to treasure—no matter what you may be going through.

April

Contest Finalist

Well, I’m feeling pretty good today. My entry in the PASIC Book of Your Heart contest is a finalist in the paranormal category. (The PASIC contest is either the only one or one of the very few for unpublished manuscripts open to published authors.)

Why did I enter a contest instead of submitting directly to publishers? One reason is that my agent retired a year or so ago and I haven’t gotten around to getting another one. What with moving and working on building my coaching practice and other work and the emotional fallout that’s inevitable with divorce, I wasn’t doing a lot of writing. In other words, life happened. That plus a gap in publishing due to a couple of years of LOTS of life happening, I had that inevitable bout of self-doubt that all writers go through.

If you’ve ever been to one of my workshops you know that I talk openly about that—the fact that all of us who are writers go through moments of self-doubt with every book we write.

I share that with fellow authors (and would-be authors) because I think it’s important to realize that feeling those doubts does not mean they are accurate. We may be really good writers—no matter how we feel!

The manuscript that finaled in this contest is one that has been so much fun to work on! If you’re a writer, then you know the joy of those moments when you surprise yourself and laugh out loud at what you’ve written. It’s been that way with this manuscript. I always fall in love with my characters and even so, these two (hero and heroine) feel special to me. As I’ve worked on this manuscript I’ve found myself thinking: I can’t wait to see what they say or do next!

It’s not that I hadn’t planned out the manuscript; it’s that this is one of those ones where the characters came alive almost at once and started writing their own dialogue and action. If you’re not a writer you’re thinking maybe the men in white coats should be coming for me. If you are a writer, you know exactly what I mean.

Anyway, I wanted to share with all of you my delight that the manuscript is a finalist in the PASIC Book of Your Heart contest.

April

Interesting Exercise

Here's an interesting exercise that can enrich both your life and your writing:

What are your daydreams? If you’re a writer, what are your characters’ daydreams?

Some people think of daydreams as wasted time but my view is that they are clear indicators of both who we want to be and what we want to have in our lives. Often, they are things we want to have in our lives but don’t believe are possible.

If you’re a writer, then daydreams your characters have can help cue readers into the character’s true internal goals and how that character wants to live his or her life. When the inner daydreams match the character’s outer world in some significant way, the reader will know that the character has found happiness. Unless, of course, when it happens the character realizes that it isn’t what he or she wants, after all. In other words, there are lots of ways to use your character’s daydreams to craft an emotionally satisfying and powerful story.

Does your character put his or her energy and focus into daydreams rather than taking action to make changes in his/her life or does he/she use the daydream as motivation to go after that goal? Is a character in your story bitter because he or she chose not to go after his/her goals and now only has daydreams instead? Does or did a character use daydreams to get through impossible situations that had to be endured and couldn’t have been otherwise?

See? Lots of story potential right there.

In my own life, I’ve lived out some of my daydreams, not gone after some of the others because I didn’t think they were possible. But the last couple of years have shown me that what seems impossible often isn’t—if we find the courage to try. Like living in California, in the Bay area, for a while. Like traveling across country and seeing things I always wanted to see. Like starting a coaching practice for writers. Like buying a house with a fireplace and bay windows. Some were as good as I thought they would be, others turned out to be something I needed to achieve and then, after a little while, let go of.

Funny how my daydreams have become starting points, now, for my life rather than something I did to escape from it.

Wishing all of you daydreams that enrich YOUR lives and if you’re a writer, the lives of your characters as well.

April

Identity

One of the really useful questions for a writer to consider when creating a character is: Identity. Who is the character as perceived by others and who is the person as perceived by the character him/herself?

Sometimes these two images are the same. Often they are not and much of the character growth in a story can involve bringing the two images closer together in some way.

This gap can be a powerful emotional element of the story. Think about how you feel when your internal image of yourself does not match how the world perceives you. Think about how you feel when your image of yourself does not match your perception of who you ought to be!

Just as these have a profound impact on YOUR emotions, they would have a profound impact on your characters’ emotions and therefore it becomes one more tool in creating both the person growth arcs within your story and the plot itself.

Why do I bring this up now? In my own life and with people I coach, this issue comes up over and over again. There is always a gap between who we believe we are and who we believe we ought to be and in how the world perceives us. Those gaps create tremendous emotional frustration at times.

Part of what I do for myself and for my clients is remind myself and them that:

1) Life is a journey, a process, a series of steps toward our goals.
2) The ideal strategy is one that honors who we are RIGHT NOW and the steps we take toward achieving our goals of who we want to be and how we want to be perceived by the world.
3) The optimal strategy is one that maps out steps to achieve those goals and builds fun into the process.

The irony is that the easier we make the journey for ourselves emotionally, the more likely we are to achieve the goals.

What steps will your characters take to achieve their goals? What steps will you take to achieve yours and how will you build laughter or fun into the process?

Happy writing everyone!
April