The Help

My fridge was literally bare. Seriously. A half a loaf of bread. A cucumber. A few carrots.
Ummm... Ranch Dressing (maybe?).

But there were some Honey Nut Cheerios in the pantry. Oh, wait - that's right - no milk.

I took a three day vacation; soaking up every word in Kathryn Stockett's, The Help.

What children? You're Hungry? Go mooch off the neighbors.

What's that husband? You'd like some clean clothes? Just rub the baby food off one of the dirty shirts. See? Good as clean.

Yes. It was that good.

The Bachelor vs. Writing

Confession - I LOVE watching The Bachelor.

I mean, seriously. The cheesy shots of Brad Womack showing off his abs. The psycho
hairstylist - whose really an actress - from Utah. The sweetheart Barbie from the South. Really, she looks like Barbie. (I'd like to look like Barbie..... *sigh*)

If you've never watched it - don't. Its addicting.

Unless you want a mindless, guilty pleasure. Then watch it. Watch it. Watch it.

So last night I really wanted to watch it. But I hadn't written for the day.

Making it harder was the fact that I'm now working on my first draft. And its hard. Its hard for me to make up a whole life for a person. Create their world.

My rough draft was really just covering all the main plot points. It was really bare. The whole draft being just under 17,000 words. That's an itty bitty thing.

I knew I had a lot to add. And I was nervous. I'm still nervous. Can I actually create a whole other world?

Think of a puzzle. But, before you put the pieces together you have to decide what the picture is on your puzzle. A lighthouse? Two girls playing in a field of daisies? A dog show competition?

Right now I have the picture of a lighthouse drawn but I still need to add the rough ocean, the orange sunset, and the jagged rocks to make it a puzzle worthy picture.

So - anyway - back to The Bachelor. I didn't watch it. I wrote 733 words in two hours. Two hours, people!!! Only three double spaced pages. It was that hard for me.

But at the end of it, I was so happy. So very happy.

Considering how long it took me to write such few words I'm lowering my word goal for this week.

Weekly Words Written Goal - 3,000
Words Written So Far - 733

The Help - on page 126 of 451

As soon as the baby goes to sleep, I'll be folding my laundry and watching *drumroll* THE BACHELOR!

The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy Tale Detectives

I loved The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy-tale Detectives. There was humor. There was action. And there was growth for the main character, Sabrina Grimm.

While reading it I kept thinking, "I need to add the agent for this book on my To Query list for when I finish my book." So I was bummed when I googled the author, Michael Buckley, and read his publishing story.

He has no agent.

The Sisters Grimm was published in 2005.

That was the year that I went to my first Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference. Back when large publishing houses still accepted unsolicitated (non-agented) manuscripts. And contracting with an agent was more of a "if you want to go for it, but you might not need one" thought.

That's not the case now. At least from what I've seen.

You first have to sell an agent on your manuscript. And then the agent will (hopefully) sell it to a publishing house.

Oh well. I guess I'll just have to add Abrams (The Sisters Grimm publishing house) to my list of dream publishers.

Next book up for reading - The Help. I'm giving myself a week to finish this one since its a bigger book. At least compared to what I have been reading.

Sweet Beans - I Did It!!!

My very rough draft is complete! Please note that 'very' is italisized. There's a reason for that, trust me.

There are still a lot of words to be found & written. One, possibly two, subplots waiting to be woven. And boney characters that need some meat on their personalities. Not to mention the multiple rewrites that authors do to their manuscripts.

But I've discovered some things about my author self.

1. I have to be able to hear the main character's voice before I can begin writing. There are a couple of ways I have done this in the past- character interviews and freewrites. In crazy author lingo - I have to be able to feel the main character.

2. I need to have come up with three main scenes. One for the opening, one for the messy middle, and one for the end. However, if the character decides that they don't want to go down the path that would lead them to the next oultined scene I don't force them.

3. I write very short and bare in my rough draft. As I was writing I had scenes where I knew I needed deeper exploration. But I let it be. Instead, leaving myself notes of thoughts I had.

Writing the climax of my novel was fun and surprising for me. Because of my vague outline I thought I knew who my bad guy was and who my good guy was. But - SURPRISE! - my bad guy was actually the good guy and the good guy was actually the bad guy. It was a fun twist that I hadn't expected.

Do your characters ever surprise you? Do you like it when they do or would you rather they just did what you'd outlined?

Weekly Word Goal was - 4800
Words I Wrote - 5211

This post feels lame to me. I'm chalking it up to brain deadness and sleep deprivation. Sorry.

Avidly Reading

If you read my journal from Jr. High (and no, that is so not an offer) you'd think I'd done nothing but read. Every daily post talks about the book I'd just finished. I vividly remember my English teacher in 8th grade asking us to list the books we'd read over the summer, and I taking such pride in having the longest list.

I'll admit, I don't read like I used to. A mom of three boys doesn't have time to read a book a day.

However, when I do have spare time, I find myself flipping through my email, Facebook, and People.com like I would with the channels on T.V.

Such wasted time.

Linda Sue Park, awarding winning author of A Single Shard and A Long Walk To Water, has said to think of doctors, lawyers, and plumbers. Think how long they've trained for their profession. How many hours they've put into studying.

Reading, is an authors way of studying. Park credits her hours of reading to let her know when she's written a mediocre sentence.

So, I'm making another goal. To read two books a week. Unless, of coarse, its an exceptionally long book. Then it'll just be one book a week.

Goodbye obsessive checking of email, Facebook, and People.com. (I really love People.com)

Weekly Manuscript Writing Goal - 4800 words
Current Words Written - 3483
Reading Goal - finish The Sisters Grimm (Book 1) by Saturday night

Meeting My Characters

Meeting new people is not my forte. I get all insecure and even making small talk becomes as difficult as say - I don't know - holding my breath for three minutes.

Maybe that's why interviewing my characters is so much fun. I can skip the small talk and go straight for the hard questions.

Me - "So (insert character's name here), tell me about some of your childhood issues."

Character - "When I was nine I invited a bunch of girls over to have a sleepover. My parents had just bought a new VCR. Well, one of the girls (who I didn't like very much anyway. I don't know why I invited her) stuck a popcorn kernal inside the VCR. My parents were furious and got mad at the girl. I felt bad that she had ruined the VCR. But more than that I was embarrassed that my parents got mad at her. So now, years later, I don't like to have people over to hang out. I mean, you never know what could happen."

Me - "Wow. Umm, don't you think that's a little weird that you still don't like to have people over. I really doubt a 16 year old is going to shove popcorn into your VCR."

Character - *whispering* "You never know..."

Yeah, interviewing characters is much more fun. Especially paranoid ones.

What do you do to get to know your charaters better?

Reckless, by Cornelia Funke

I was dreaming I was an Egyptian slave (wearing Cleopatra eyeliner) washing my husband's underclothes on a 19th century washboard, when William woke up for his 4:45 morning bottle.

Now I can't go back to sleep. I blaim the washboard. I liked the eyeliner. It was hot.

Instead, thoughts about the current book I'm reading filled my sleepless mind.

Reckless, by Cornelia Funke.

Picking up this book based solely on reviews from Goodreads, I was excited when I brought it home from the library. Then I realized it was by the same author that wrote Inkheart, a book I had a very hard time getting into.

It made me hesitant to read Reckless.

So I was pleasantly surprised when from the first chapter I was hooked. Funke's opening paragraph is simply poetic.

The night breathed through the apartment like a dark animal. The ticking of a clock. The groan of a floorboard as he slipped out of his room. All was drowned by its silence. But Jacob loved the night. He felt it on his skin like a promise. Like a cloak woven from freedom and danger.

Beautiful.

The heavy conflict and action is immediate. It sucked me right in.

But having such immediate, dramatic conflict and action can be a double edge sword.

Now I'm to the middle. And although I'm still enjoying it, I am not at all attached to the characters. Which is making the middle drag.

Even with a plot's conflict rising, if a reader isn't emotionly invested in the characters there is only so far the stakes can go. And frankly, I feel the same way about the protagonist as I do the antagonist. Blah.

Will I stop reading? No. I'm still enjoying the story.
Will this book stick with me after reading? Probably not.

But that's the best thing about being an author. Experimenting. Playing with plot. Playing with the structure of a story. Playing with the characters. And that's what Funke did. She made the story how she wanted it. Bravo.

"Read - and be curious. And if somebody says to you - 'Things are this way. You can't change it.' - don't believe a word."
- Cornilia Funke

Now, maybe I can go back to sleep. If not, I'll play with my black eyeliner instead.



Words written last week - 4580
Word Goal this week - 4800