Here....Comes....NANOWRIMO! Ready?

 
No, not ready and have no idea what story I'm going to tell. Could be anything at this point. 

Does NANO have to be fiction?  

    Why? The writer is in control so write what you want. Do you know how to calibrate antennas? Write a how to book. Love to cook and have a closet full of recipes? Write that cook book. (Don't forget the yummy photos) Got a life to tell us about? Write your memoir. Like making up stories and adventures? Write fiction. 

    I write fiction. So I'll think up some kind of murder, adventure or paranormal something. 

    I think it was the movie, The World According to Garp, where the man (Robin Williams 💔) sees a pair of gloves on the side walk and it prompts him to write a story.  The moral here; Ideas are everywhere. 

    When my kids were young and we'd go to a restaurant, or anywhere we had to wait, we'd play a What if game. I'd challenge them to find something in the room and I'd tell them the story about it. Pick up a spoon? Well, I'd say. This was the spoon that George Washington ate his oatmeal with on the morning he crossed the Delaware to fight the British in Trenton, NJ. In fact, since Martha gave it to him, after breakfast he put it in his pocket for good luck. He lost this spoon during the battle and it lay in the dirt for decades. Then when they were building this restaurant a workman found it and put it in the sink of the restaurant. And here it sits, on our table. George Washington's spoon. 

    The kids loved this game as sometimes the stories got pretty silly. (Don't ask how we time traveled and peeked in an outhouse to see Mrs Lincoln on the potty. Yes, some stories stay with you.) Soon the kids were making up stories and asking me to pick the item. Creativity explodes!

    The point is that there are ideas everywhere if you're looking. Remember to keep the "What if" in the front of your brain. Look around, take a walk, eyeball that stranger in the supermarket and think what secrets could be hiding in his closet. 

Okay! Don't scare people by staring at them! 

Be discrete. 

    Think of all the myths and stories there are out there. Can you bend them & take the winged Pegasus and make him human? What if? Or read the news and put something sinister behind the scenes. What if an angel lost his wings and was forced to earth to pay for his sin? (Wait, I already did something like that!) Someone gifts our heroine a plant and as she takes care of it she begins to see messages printed on the leaves. Magic or gaslight? 

    So look around, open your mind to the possibility that anything is possible and get ready for NANOWRIMO! 

  

Drop the Ego & Write What You Want

 It is said some people come into your life and quickly go, others stay a while and leave footprints on your soul. 

My late friend and writing buddy left a footprint I carry with me in my writing: Leave your ego in the back seat.

Translation? Don't let the worry of what others think stop you from writing your story. 

The ego is that thing between us and others. What will they think if I write this? Will they think I'm gross? A freak? Some kind of weirdo? To which writers should respond; who cares! 

Some will love your stories, some will hate them. You can't please everyone so don't let it stop you. Write what you want, critics be damned. 

My one book, Soul Mates (A different kind of love story) had a first review that stole my heart, "I laughed, I cried, I loved this book." 

A few reviews down, "this is about animal abuse." 

Note: it's not about animal abuse it's a story of a dog who goes through a tough time and get's rescued. I've worked in dog rescue for over 15 years and have seen a lot of sad stories and helped to save hundreds of dogs. I've seen and heard of more animal abuse than anyone should ever see and none of it gets any easier. Your heart breaks a million times as you bring in the starving, hurt and mentally damaged pups. We make them better and adopt them into good homes. I'll take that heartbreak because it keeps their hearts beating. 

Did I respond to that comment about animal abuse? No. Did I want to? Of course! First of all I believe the reviewer didn't finish the book because the dog wins in the end. Besides that? I'm not here for their opinions. I just here to tell a story. Many stories. If If I take that stuff as a hit to my ego, that ego might whitewash my next story. 

Who cares what cousin Suzy might think or how your Auntie might judge your book poorly. They didn't write a book and you did. 

YOU DID IT! 

First they judge you, then they laugh, then they're telling people how they know you. 

So toss that ego in the back seat and write on. 

P.S. The dog in that picture is doing great. Here's what she looks like now. God Bless the Rescuers.

6 New Short Stories Up on Amazon - Kindle Quick Reads

 

Kindle Short Reads - Let's Write!

  Did you know you can write and publish short stories for Amazon Kindle? 

I've been hearing about the Kindle Short Reads for a while but finally investigated. And tested. 

As far as my research took me, these can be a few different lengths, needs to be approved, and just like every other Kindle book has to have a cover. 

Word count categories: 

15 min read: 11 pages
30 min read: 12 - 21 pages
45 min read: 22 to 32 pages
60 min read: 33 to 43 pages
120+ min read: 65 - 100 pages 

To test this I went through a few of my dozens of short stories. (All saved and filed all over my computers - someday I have to get organized.) 

I picked a creepy old story I wrote about a year ago. Went to Canva and did a quickie book cover, and popped it up on Kindle Short Reads. Took maybe twenty minutes to a half hour.  

Two things I wish I had done; 

Picked a better background picture. Done better font. 

This cover was done in five minutes. I should have slept on it. 😝  

Escaping Pigwell was 14 pages in a Word doc, double spaced, Courier New. (Yes, I should have used Times New Roman - the standard) On Amazon this story came up as 10 pages/1964 KB. I did put it through as a word doc and not a pdf. Keywords I used the basic read tags like Horror, murder, etc but also added "short read" so Amazon would tag it appropriately. 

Pricing is your choice, of course, but I opted for .99 cents. 

Since this went up so easy and went live just a couple hours later, I'm going to put up more. Sometimes I have an idea and it never makes it to book length. Now there is an place for all our stories and people who look to read them. 

In my search of these short stories I saw some shorts by Dean Koontz, Debbie Macomber, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult. So know, if you decide to publish a short, you'll be in good company. 

So if you want a dark creepy read check out Escaping Pigwell on Amazon

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Editing without Screaming

That dreaded "E" word. The BIG YUCKO  of writing our brains out. 

Edit. 

Truthfully, I have multiple novels written, but not edited. They sit on a shelf, in a box or wasting away on the hard drive. Happy little stories, scary little stories, weird little stories. All just hanging out awaiting the edit. Every now and then I stumble across it and think it this was a good story. I should finish it. 

And yet it still sits in the drawer collecting dust. 

So, I recently made a deal with another writer to edit each other. We have a phone session every Saturday morning and beat each other up...er... I mean, talk about what the story needs. She reads my 3 or so chapters, I read hers and we do a basic spelling/grammar check but more importantly we talk about story structure and plot points. The building blocks of  fiction. 

Those structure/plot issues are the biggest. Did this make sense? Does the timing work? How could the MC not have seen that clue?  Some of this frustrates and we gently argue our points but mostly, in the end, the editing partner points out the weak points I didn't see in my head while writing. This is a big help. 

Got an editing partner?  How's it working for you? 

Using a Planner for Writing?

 Last time I bought a planner was 2020 and we all know how that worked out! Yikes! But that was for my business, separate from writing. A business covid crushed. 

I was almost afraid to purchase a new planner, but it's always best to look forward, right? 

Here's to 2023! 

Sending positive wishes 

for a great year to the Universe. 

What to use a planner for in writing? 

   Starting in January, one of my resolutions was to get 2 to 3 more books published on Amazon. Writing everyday. 

   Hard part?  Getting the time alone to write - yes, I need to be alone. (There's a reason King wrote in the laundry room with a typewriter on his knees in those early years -Recommending Stephen King's On Writing if you want to learn more)

Is this planner to set a schedule? No. 

Keep notes about the story? No. 

This planner is maybe 5 x 3" and would not fit the notes. 

I'm using this planner to track writing/editing days. Once I finish writing for the day, I print it and edit those pages. This is for two reasons. Editing the pages a day or two after writing them, and before going back to story creation, keeps the details fresh in my mind. 

With the planner I can see where creativity flows and how to keep it going. Its a bird's eye view of the writing process. 

 I have 3 printed chapters sitting her now and I've got to get to the editing process. 

Time to get to work (No matter what the cat on my keyboard says) 

Oh NANOWRIMO! Will I make it?

 Our beloved NANAOWRIMO is almost over. Eleven days and counting. Will you make it? 

Will I make it? eh, not sure. But I do have some good bones of a story to continue on with. 

I always thought NANO should be in January. I mean, half the country is snowed in and there is much more down time than in November, the month where the big holidays begin. 

But what do I know? It's kind of like dry December. If you are even a social drinker, that's when you drink the most. parties, get togethers, heck! I've worked in offices where they break out the wine and beer at lunch in December. People can't wait to start the party. Crazy month. 

Yet, here we are in November struggling to write that breakout novel. I did start on November 1st. I went to one of those plot generator aps and it gave me Mermaids and a person hunting. Hmmm, In my mind I made that a man who hunts mermaids. But the "why" question had me thinking he has to believe in mermaids before he can hunt them, right? So my opening scene had Paul discovering a fish-like woman caught in the sand on a beach in New Jersey in March. If you know New Jersey you know it's chilly at the beach in March, not swimming weather and beaches are pretty deserted.  So Paul sees this vision of beauty and scales on the beach just minutes before it sees him and flips back into the water. Now he might be a believer. Or headed to the nearest psychiatrist's couch? 

Okay, that went for about 500 words before I lost interest. Bah!

On my computer I have dozen's of story premises. When an idea come into my head I jot down the blurb. Those 2 or 3 paragraphs that give the idea some light then I just hit save into the abyss that is the "Ideas" folder.  It was to this folder I went next to find Soul of the Painting. I must have written the blurb over a year ago. 

I hit 3756 words this morning. Nowhere near where I need to be to complete NANO but it's moving along. I actually like this story so it might get completed. I can see the future scenes in my head which is something the Mermaid Hunter didn't give me.  

Let's do the math; To hit 50,000 words in the next 11 days I'd have to write 

4204 words a day. 

I laugh so hard I cry. Challenge or an unreachable goal? 

So how is your NANO coming? Share your word count and your challenges and on November 30th we'll pour the wine whether we make it or not. Because we tried and we have a great story still inside us that will someday make it out.