Scribd

I just finished Ransom Stephens "God Patent" that he put on Scribd and then it got picked up by a publisher. It is now in print form and an excellent read. I'm disappointed to be finished with it since I became attached to the characters and I'd like the plot to continue...all the ingredients we writers aim for and Ransom succeeded with them all.

You can read more about Ransom's book on my June 19th, 2009 post. Or go to his website: www.ransomstephens.com

Anyone else on Scribd? I'd like to know more about it.

East of Eden Writers Conference

September 24th to 26th is the East of Eden Writers Conference in Salinas, California. I highly recommend going. There will be 48 workshops grouped into five tracks: General Fiction, Mystery, Nonfiction, Poetry, and the Business of Writing. I've marked my schedule to hear Penny Warner in the mystery and general fiction areas, Jana McBurney Lin's talk about scenes, Geri Spieler's Fact and Memory sounds great for nonfiction writing, and I won't miss Becky Levine who will tell everything anyone wants to know about critique groups.

Hope to see you there.

Checklist...a short one

Check lists to use for revising scenes and chapters have helped me lately. I found an article in an old Writers Digest that Nancy Kress wrote. Her three "Cs" checklist is a short cut and easy to remember: "cause, climax and change". Cause is what motivates the character to want or do what he/she does.

Climax is when all the characters' motivations collide and to use Nancy's analogy: "your characters should be out in the storm, not safe inside". And, most importantly, don't rush it. You've built up to the climax so give it more than just a few paragraphs...create a power-filled scene. It's what you've promised the reader and hopefully you do it with a bit of surprise.

The last C is for Change. Make sure you show how each major character has changed...how the situation is different from the beginning of the novel. Help the reader have closure with all the characters that have lived in the world you built.

I'm at the change part of Hada now and this checklist reminded me to be sure I didn't leave any character up in the air or forgotten. About one more month and Hada goes into third revision, finally.

Back to my checklist and maybe to find some more changes I can add for the other members of Hada's family.

HOOKS in Mary Buckham's online class

If you've never taken a writing on-line class with Mary Buckham at WritersU, I highly recommend it. In this two week class we're working on the first five pages only. For the first week, we've written and rewritten our first paragraph and a couple after that to increase our hooks so those editors/agents will keep reading long enough so we can get published and then the readers will keep reading.

Hooks sound so simple but I've spent many hours this week on three paragraphs--more time than I'd spend on revising three chapters of Hada.

I'm work-shopping the sequel to Hada that I wrote during the last NaNoWriMo. I must say, Mary's class has strengthened Lilli's character in just the three beginning paragraphs that I've pondered over this last week.

Another surprise for me: hooks not only hook, they deepen character!

Quote to Live Life Creativity

My friend, Grace, sent this quote she found:

"Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself."

"The wilderness of your intuition"...YES!

Teacher/Pupil Quote

Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

- Arthur Koestler


Someone sent this quote to me today, and I have found it to be true, especially the last two years I've spent working on the second and third draft of my novel, Hada, and editing several of my short stories. I've been the pupil as I learned from books, on-line and on-land writing classes, and from experience. The experience part is when I feel the teacher within me guiding the pupil that is within me too.

How amazing it is to be alive on this plane.

Reading on Cement

I've often wondered if I would like a Kindle or some such, and maybe I would. But I love the printed novel to hold in my hands.

Today in Berkeley, at nine thirty a.m., when I dropped Mitchell off at his office, I drove through the parking lot and there was a young woman, maybe in her thirties, dressed in jeans, a pull-over sweater, and a light scarf around her neck, sitting on the curb of the motorcycle parking spot (no motorcycle there). She was engrossed in a novel. At her side was a small bag from the Garden Bakery (downstairs from Mitchell's office) that she dipped into as she turned the pages, breaking off sweet tidbits to munch and to embellish her enjoyment of the book in her hands.

Somehow the scene wouldn't be the same with a Kindle.