Okay, so I’m rereading chapter two, and I like parts of what are showing up. Intro to Mayden’s friends, good start on Anna… but what about MAYDEN? That is what is screaming at me.

Who is she? Who, Who, Who? I’m going to create some videos from her point of view, which will help me know her, and I’m going to need a few other tricks, too. For now, this very cool excercise got me going! Read the rest of this entry

So…. We started this with a video edit, but it didn’t have great sound~ so back to the drawing board on those videos!  In the mean time, here are my thoughts in writing…

1) Mayden chapters needs to be about 1600-1800 words for a 40 chapter book to have the length I’m shooting for, about 70,000 or so. This has 1200, so it is a little shy.  I’m not worried about it at this early stage, but it is something to keep note of.  Whatever I do, I have to leave the reader wanting more… Read the rest of this entry

Okay, so I wrote chapter two after about 2 hours of dreaming/musing, and three hours of actual typing, reviewing, and rough “first blush” editing. (By the way, it took me 20 years to be able to write a chapter in three hours. Not I can pretty much do it on demand, in just about any location, so long as I have a keyboard I like–my laptop is no good for this.) If the first draft  isn’t up to par, let’s blame it on the fact that I broke the glass coffee pot this morning (thank you Nan for just having to happen to have an extra you wanted to get rid of–no new purchase required–go green lifestyle!). Yes, I wrote that without Saturday morning coffee. Crazy, to be sure.

Now, looking at the chapter, I just want to say a few quick words. Later this week I’ll do a longer video edit post. Read the rest of this entry

I’m stuck.

Not where I should be, out in the woods with Anna. But right here on the third floor, hallway B, of the Sun Heritage Village’s Pine Crest building. Dr. Garcia, who happens to be making a house call, stopped me on my way out the door. Since she also happens to have been a  nurse here years ago, which is how her daughter came to be one of my two best friends, I kind of have to talk to her.

My hands are in a sweaty grip around Anna’s wheelchair handles. There’s a sick feeling in my stomach, and an urge to turn around. Dr. Garcia could be a witness, now. I get a flash image of Anna’s normally absent family yanking me into a courtroom for doing something terrible to their feeble old grandmother, with Dr. Garcia reluctantly standing up to testify against me. Read the rest of this entry

As her tag lines says, you’ll find Cassandra, the dark-hearted-rose, where reality meets fiction! She is a college student in California who is “in a near-constant state of flux.  Sounds like the writer’s life to me!  Check her out.  And thanks, Cassandra, for offering the world your writing. 

NOTE: We will feature a teen writer post each week.  Know one?  Are you one?  Let me know in the comments section and maybe you or your friend will be next!

The video I just posted with Charlie Rose interviewing author Malcom Gladwell, author of “Tipping Point,” “Blink,” and “Outliers” is so rich!  You want to know what it takes to be an exceptional writer? It’s all there, matching my sentiments on the process.  Here are some key thoughts:

Summarizing Billy Joy,  computer genius: “I have found the thing that has captured my imagination and I have the faith that will take me somewhere meaningful.”  That’s it! If your writing captures your own imagination, it will take you somewhere meaningful! Read the rest of this entry

Want to be an exceptional writer? Charlie Rose gets the goods from Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers. 30 minutes, but very worth applying every morsel to the writing process. I’ll comment in detail in another post.

Whew… a first chapter, first draft. Though I wrote it in about 90 minutes, a lot goes into being ready to start. I could write pages and pages on this process, but I’m going to just start with a few pointers, and add as we go along. (NOTE: I’ll put italics on lessons that are generally true for every book and writer.)

First, we have to know something about the characters we are going to work with. Often, I don’t know much when I begin to type. The typing is what tells me. I know something about the characters, which I’ve listed in the “Characters” link at the top of the page, but there is a lot more to know. Read the rest of this entry