My Favorite Things (cue Julie Andrews)

My grandkids look at me as if I've lost my mind when I tell them to take care of their books, because books are their friends.  For me, growing up as an only child, books were my friends, especially when all the other kids were busy with something else.  Books opened up the world around me, whether fiction or non-fiction or even encyclopedias.  Is it a wonder I started wearing glasses in second grade, after reading books by nightlight?

It was no accident in later years that when I had an answer or a problem that I would go out and search for self-help books.  From being a better person and uncluttering my house to pregnancy and child-raising and everything in between, I had a book on it.  So when I came to the point of deciding that I wanted to be a writer, it was books that I turned to.

I still have one bookshelf filled with writing how-to books that contains one book that actually put me on the road: You Can Write a Romance...and Get It Published! by Yvonne MacManus.  That's where I found information on Romance Writers of America and the date of an upcoming National Conference.  I joined immediately, rented a car, and purchased plane tickets...all in one day.  That day changed my life.

Although You Can Write a Romance... was the book that put me on the path to--well, not stardom, by any means, but learning and happiness and new friends and more--it was only the beginning.  I discovered Debra Dixon's Goal, Motivation & Conflict, boosting my writing skill to a new level.  I met and became friends with author Elizabeth Sinclair, who penned The Dreaded Synopsis (A Writing and Plotting Guide), and have nearly worn off the cover.  I've not only used it for writing a synopsis, but for plotting, too.  The one book that is always within arm's reach is The Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale.  It's basically a thesaurus, but contains only synonyms, and is nearly three inches thick.  I'm on my third copy.  The first two copies were only well-worn, but worn out.

But the best thing about all of this is not the books, but the people I've met along the journey.  There are my WARA friends and the Ditzy Chix, a group of 10-12 authors that came together in the summer of 2001 to share the ups and downs of being writers.  My friend Kathie DeNosky has always been my guide and inspiration, keeping me from throwing in the towel, many times.  In fact, we became best of friends at that first RWA conference in 1996 in Dallas, Texas.  We still laugh about the day the lightbulb lit over our heads when we realized at the same time what the difference was between Harlequin Temptation and Silhouette (now Harlequin) Desire.  The other who makes up our triad of craziness is Kristi Gold, who makes me laugh and makes me think.  Listening to one of our three-way phone calls as we brainstorm would leave most people dazed and confused.  But even with the three of us talking at once, we understand and help each other, whether it's brainstorming or sharing the trials and joys of life.

So that's it.  Books, books, and friends, none of which I could live without and am eternally grateful to each and every one.  Without them, I'd be sitting in a corner, gibbering senseless stories to myself.  Now I get to share that gibbering with many, many more.  What could be better?

Need a Jump Start? (Penny Rader)

Since we’ve been discussing writing resources and inspiration this month, I thought I’d share what helps me jump start my brain.

Pictures and Collages

One of my favorite pastimes is flipping through magazines, looking for pictures I can use for characters and settings. I also like to clip out motivational words and pictures and fix them onto my writing notebooks with clear contact paper.

I’d also like to make a collage for a series I’m planning. Since I haven’t done one yet to show you, I found this site with some great examples and how-to info: http://belleenchanted.com/pre-writing-with-collage/
The links she gives for the Jenny Crusie collage don’t work, but this one does
http://www.jennycrusie.com/more-stuff/book-collages/ .

Soundtracks

I love to listen to music, especially songs with a story. I’ve heard many authors say they create soundtracks for their stories. I’d love to try this, but haven’t quite figured out how to go about finding the songs that would fit the story I’m working on. I think it’d be a helpful tool, sort of like a habit maybe, where I’d get used to turning on the soundtrack and the story would leap into my mind and out my fingertips.

Books about Creativity (As many of you know, I love writing exercises!)

Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide to Igniting the Writer Within by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. Turn fifteen minutes a day into productive sessions that get and keep your creativity flowing. Here's an exercise to try: " Detail the senses by writing for fifteen minutes on a certain food...for someone who has never tasted it. Write about a visual scene for someone who can't see, and write about a piece of music for someone who can't hear."

A Writer’s Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively Muse for the Writing Life by Judy Reeves. This book has writing prompts for every day. For example, one for today is “Returning takes too long.”

The Writer’s Retreat Kit by Judy Reeves is a workshop in a box, with a guidebook and interactive cards. An example of one of the prompts: “It’s what whispers your name at night.”

Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True by Elizabeth Berg. Here’s a quote: “You feel the call…Now answer it as fully as you can. Take the risk to let all that is in you, out. Escape into the open.” This book has exercises that unleash creativity and fire passion/emotion into writing. Here's an example: "Write a description of something you look at every day in three different types of light (e.g., morning sun, dusk, lamplight)."

Panning for Gold in the Kitchen Sink: Everyday Creative Writing by Michael C. Smith and Suzanne Greenberg. This book has 40+ exercises based on daily life. For example, “Invent two plausibly odd remedies for whichever ailment you wish to cure…Begin a poem, story, or essay that incorporates one of these ‘cures.’”

Pencil Dancing: New Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit by Mari Messer. “Fun…is a central element of creativity.” Try this exercise: "Do something a kid would do. Walk in the rain and splash through puddles, play with bubbles in the bathtub, leap into a pile of leaves, run on the dewy grass in your bare feet. Write about how this experience felt."

If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland. I found two chapter titles particularly intriguing: “Why Women Who Do Too Much Housework Should Neglect It for Their Writing” and “You Do Not Know What Is in You—an Inexhaustible Fountain of Ideas.”

Room to Write: Daily Invitations to a Writer’s Life by Bonni Goldberg. Here’s an example: “Today pick a stranger who fascinates you. First, describe the person’s spirit, soul or energy, without relying on physical appearance. Then begin the physical description.”

The Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspirations for Writing by Monica Wood. This is a book of prompts, exercises, and illustrations. Here’s an example: “Write about your earliest superstition.”

The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron. “…writing is best broken down into a one-day-at-a-time, one-page-at-a-time process. We do not need the courage to write a whole novel. We need the courage only to write on the novel today.”

Writing toward Home: Tales and Lessons to Find Your Way by Georgia Heard. “My notebook…always reminds me I’m a writer, and it helps me live a considered life that doesn’t spin by focused only on groceries, dinner, and car repairs.”

I’d Rather Be Writing: A Guide to Finding More Time, Getting More Organized, Completing More Projects and Having More Fun by Marcia Golub. Prompt: “Something is lost, not long ago but now. What is lost? What does the character do?”

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. There’s a chapter about giving yourself permission to write “shitty first drafts” and one about writing what you can see though a 1” x 1” picture frame instead of worrying about writing the entire book right now. Or something to that effect. :D I don’t own this book and it’s been a while since I read it, but these two things are what stick in my mind.

~~~
So…what works for when you need inspiration? Care to try your hand at any of the prompts and exercises listed above?

Well, bite my steaming, swollen toe!

I’ve had a lot of favorite writing books over the years. Fiction Is Folks by Robert Newton Peck, Shut Up, He Explained: A Writer’s Guide to the Uses and Misuses of Dialogue by William Noble, The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes and Heroines by Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever, and Sue Viders, Goal, Motivation and Conflict by Deb Dixon, Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women edited by Jayne Ann Krentz, Sun Signs by Linda Goodman, Color Me Beautiful by Carole Jackson, and 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt are just a few of them. One was a small book bound in light blue paper that I got from Beverly Wadsworth that had been written by an author she represented. It was an informative little piece of work that had one of the best character sheets I’ve ever seen in it. I can’t remember either the title or the author of it, and I lost it during one of our many disasterous moves.

So you can see it would be hard for me to pick just one book. These days, like everyone else, I rely a lot on Internet websites for assistance and information. The two I use most are Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/) and Seventh Sanctum™ (http://www.seventhsanctum.com/). Dictionary.com has a dictionary, a thesaurus, an encyclopedia and a translator all on one site. It’s good for spelling, short information on a subject and synonyms and antonyms. I use the thesaurus section most often, particularly when I’m stuck for a word or stuck on one.

Seventh Sanctum™ is a collection of “generators.” These generators are programmed to randomly create names, characters, plots, ideas, items, or just about anything you can imagine. If you need a name for a minor character in a hurry, try the Quick Character Namers. It generates names based off census data for America. It uses common names only, so you won’t get something like Grail Steelreaper or Ginger Lustflame. However, if you need a name like one of the afore-mentioned, you can certainly come up with it on the Weird Name Generators.

Two of my favorite generators are the Romance Stories generator and the Cuss-O-Matic. The Romance Stories generator will give you a romance-oriented plot and pair of characters complete with extra details and plot complications. For example: This story starts in a small city in the Antarctic. In it, a silly professor is in love with an unwise project manager - all thanks to a murder. If it does nothing else, the generator will certainly get you thinking.

The Cuss-O-Matic is found at Serendipity(http://nine.frenchboys.net/). If you need a colorful epithet, try generating one like, “Oh, pinch my pestilent, pogo-sticking rump!” One of my favorite all time exclamations came from the Cuss-O-Matic. It’s fun to use Seventh Sanctum™ or one of the other generators links on its page. The only problem is you can get caught up in the whimsy and adventure of generating that you don’t get much writing done. But if you need a quick writing boost, Seventh Sanctum™ is the place to go.

The Art of Seduction

The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene, (also the author of 48 Laws of Power) if taken for its purported purpose of getting anything from anyone, is rather creepy and chilling in its constant use of the word “victim.” It takes seduction at the worst meaning of the word and often made me think of stalker. Here, however, I present it as book with information that can aid in developing and understanding your characters.

The book is presented in two parts. The first part gives a straight forward, in depth explanation with historic and or literary examples of Greene’s arbitrarily set of nine types of seducers:

1. The Siren—ultimate male fantasy figure who offers a total release from daily life. Symbol is water, liquid and enticing.

2. The Rake—provides a mix of danger and pleasure. Symbol is Fire, a Rake burns with a desire that enflames.

3. The Charmer—discussed below. Symbol is the mirror, reflecting what the other person wishes to see.

4. The Ideal Lover—reflects fantasies and desires. Symbol is the Portrait Patinter—under his eye all imperfections disappear.

5. The Dandy—creates an alluring presence that stirs repressed desire. Symbol is the Orchid, odor sweet and decadent, prized for rarity.

6. The Natural—has the qualities we left with childhood: spontaneity, sincerity, unpretentiousness. Symbol is the Lamb, soft and endearing, a pure innocence we want to possess.

7. The Coquette—grand master of the game of alternating hope and frustration with the lure of total satisfaction. Symbol is the Shadow, it cannot be grasped.

8. The Charismatic—attract by radiating a confidence and contentment they keep mysterious. Symbol is the Lamp, an invisible current that turns cadescent.

9. The Star—uses the desire to escape into fantasy and dreams. Symbol is the Idol, the eye of the worshipper fill the Idol with life and imagine it to have real powers.

Each type also has a “Key to the Character” section and “Dangers,” a connotation Greene never applies to his “victims.” In the margins are a great many historic and literary quotes which are interesting in themselves and are used as mirrors of the author’s ideas. The second half of the book is given to the “process of seduction” which Greene divides into four phases, the first being “Choosing the Right Victim.” It is a disturbing dissection of social power but can provide motive, means, and modus operandi for your characters.

How so?
Take the seducer type “Charmer.” Greene states, “Charm is seduction without sex. Charmers are consummate manipulators, masking their cleverness by creating a mood of pleasure and comfort. Their method is simple: they deflect attention from themselves and focus it on their target. They understand your spirit, feel your pain, adapt to your moods.”
We all use characters that are charming. This book gives an in-depth analysis of how to charm—be it your hero or, if followed to the conclusions of the book, the vilest of villains. The main facets of a charmer, according to Greene, are that they are keen observers and truly listen. By keying in on what is important to their “victim” they tailor their responses and bolster self-esteem. Greene includes paragraphs with these headings in explaining how a Charmer works:
1. “Make your target the center of attention
2. Be a source of pleasure
3. Lull your victim into ease and comfort
4. Show calm and self-possession in the face of adversity
5. Make yourself useful.”

One of the examples given to support the Charmer is a telling of how Averell Harriman came to marry his second, and much younger, wife Pamela. It makes fascinating reading as well as suggesting several plot lines.

If you are hunting for a different or unusual way for your hero to gain your heroine’s heart or vice versa or a way to make your villain truly despicable The Art of Seduction may be for you. Check it out from your local library and see if you find it useful.