Dirt Yields Gold

Today I'm pleased to welcome Elizabeth C. Main to Terry's Place. A Central Oregon author who writes mystery, romance, and young adult fiction, Elizabeth has discovered that writers shouldn't bury painful memories. Dredging up traumatic episodes from the past often produces the best writing.

“The flowers that bloom in the spring,Tra la,Breathe promise of merry sunshine--”

Do those lyrics from The Mikado make me long to hear the rest of the song? Not really, though I have nothing against flowers or spring, especially with sunshine to follow.

But beauty and warmth don’t cut it in chapter one, though they have their place. Something bad has to happen fast to snap the reader to attention, so skip the sunshine and muck around in the dirt.

Discover a dismembered body under the blooming flowers and you have the beginning of a mystery. Unearth a moldy stack of letters from the soil and a long-concealed romance emerges. A half-rotted sign pried from beneath your garden could provide words that lead to a poem.

An even more productive location to find dirt, metaphorically speaking, is in the sifting of your own memories. I’m talking about the distressing memories we all harbor, sometimes shielded even from ourselves. Those memories, though painful or humiliating, deliver the best stories . . . the gold we seek as writers.

Veggies or Dessert?

What I'm reading: The Professional, by Robert B. Parker

Like countless other children, I was encouraged—with the fear that children all over the world might starve otherwise—to finish whatever my mother put on my plate. Most of the time, I liked her fare, but like countless other children, there were some things I found less palatable than others. Veggies often fell into this category. Still, we were expected to eat them. Not understanding how not finishing Brussels sprouts could cause the death of children in China, but not wanting their demise on my conscience, I'd do my best to eat what was put in front of me. And there was no Food Network in those days; my mother's cooking wasn't all that creative until we were much older (Just watch, today will be the one day Mom decides to read my blog!)

My strategy was always to get the yuckiest stuff out of the way first, then move on to the good tastes.

When I was a young mom, the experts suggested not creating the "dessert as reward" mindset. Rather, they suggested that while youngsters were still being spoon fed, one alternate all the 'courses' so that strained peaches were no more important than strained peas. Once my twins were into solid food, I just stuck everything into those compartmentalized plates and let them at it.

I went the mixed vegetable route more often than not, and when one had picked out her favorites, I swapped plates and let them have the other's leftovers. One liked peas, one liked carrots. One picked out the corn. Okay, so I wasn't June Cleaver. My kids survived and were healthy enough.

Aside: I'm not getting into the basic reasons babies like sweets—that sweet things were 'safe' to eat and bitter things were often poisonous, so genetically, we're wired to like sweets, and not until we're older do we develop a taste for the more exotic flavors. That's a completely different topic, and I'm rambling enough already.

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What does this have to do with writing? Allow me to stretch the topic until it threatens to snap. When I write, I have to be linear. I go from appetizer to salad to entrée to dessert. The farthest I can deviate is to leave a scene not quite finished, knowing how it's supposed to end, but just not sure how to get that hook so the reader will turn the page. Or maybe there's a bit of research, and I'm waiting for an answer. I know where I'm going, so I skip ahead just a little and begin the next scene.

For the book I'm working on, there's a "secret" which happens to be a letter. We see it written in the prologue, but don't know what it says. Frankly, at that point, neither did I. But eventually, in order to make sure I had the right motivations for my characters, I had to write the letter. I did, then set it aside until my characters found it. But that's as out of sequence as I've ever been able to write. I fear that if I skip around, the characters won't be behaving the way they should at that point in the book, because they'll have changed by the time they get there.

What really triggered this post, however, is the way I read, not write. Although I love my cross stitch project, it's not really the way I normally live.

I was reading an anthology, which I got because I love one of the 4 contributing authors. I'd never heard of the other 3. And that favorite author's story was the first in the book. I read about 15 pages, then stopped, because it was dessert. It was a story I wanted to savor. I knew the characters, and I wanted to be able to know that when I finished that story, I'd be left with a good taste in my mouth. After a quick check to confirm the other 3 stories were definitely independent, with only the tiniest thread connecting one to another, I moved on and read the other three first (but in order). Then, I went back and had my dessert.

I tend to read dessert books at home, usually when I know I have a reasonable amount of uninterrupted reading time. These are not the books I take to the doctor's office. Even a long wait is still full of distractions. Or on errands, where there are a few minutes here, a few minutes there. Or at the hair salon, which is a noisy place, and the 'wait here while your color processes' chair is not comfortable. I like quiet, cozy surroundings with my dessert reads.

Day before yesterday, I got a meat and potatoes book from the library. This morning, I got a dessert read. Eager as I am to dive in, I'm going to finish my entrée before indulging in dessert.

What about you? Do you have different reading styles? Preferences?

Jump Start Your Writing

Today I welcome Gail Lukasik to Terry's Place. Gail taught writing and literature classes at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where she earned her Ph.D. in creative writing with a specialization in poetry. Here, she talks about three exercises she’s used in her writing classes.

Whether you’re a novice or a seasonal writer, there are times when the writing stalls. In my over twenty years of teaching writing at universities, nature centers, and libraries, I’ve used various writing exercises to help writers jump-start their writing. I’d like to share three of my favorite writing exercises. Each one offers a way back to the page.

Here and Now

Find a natural area where you can observe what’s around you without distraction. Leave all the electronic devices at home. Sit there for twenty minutes and let your senses roam. In your journal, make a list of what you hear, what the temperature is, what you see and smell. If you feel adventurous, walk around; run your fingers over the rough bark of a tree, feel the soft velvet of a flower’s petal.


This exercise is all about being present. Many of us rush through our days anticipating our next task, hooked into our electronic selves, not noticing the world around us. Writers can’t afford that kind of inattentiveness. Good writing thrives on the sensual details that draw readers into our scenes. The Here and Now exercise opens up your all senses to your environment. Many times we rely solely on visual descriptions in our writing. And because you’re merely making a list, the pressure of writing is lifted. Anyone can make a list.

I used this exercise when I canoed the Mink River in the middle of a downpour looking for a murder site for my latest mystery Death’s Door. It allowed me to jot down sensory notations without capsizing the canoe. The sensory experience of that cold rainy day went into my novel and added dimension to the scene.

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Writing From Photographs

Find a photograph that you’re drawn to. The photograph should talk to you in some way. It can be a photograph of a family member, a friend, or a complete stranger. The photograph can be a portrait of the person, or the person in a setting.

Write a literal visual description of the photograph. Don’t add commentary to your description, just describe it using your visual sense—carefully and in such detail that another person could read your description and choose your photograph from a slew of other photographs based on your description. Once you’re written your description go over it and choose the three details that most capture that person’s character.

This is an excellent exercise to flex your descriptive muscles. When we’re describing a character it’s crucial to choose the right details. As writers we pick and choose, but we have to pick and choose skillfully. I collect photographs and have used them as inspirations for many of my characters.

The “Best” Worst

Choose an object to write about. It could be an everyday object like a car key or an object of significance such as a wedding ring. Now write a description of that object using clichés, very general language, and vague details. See how “bad” you can make your description.

If you’re feeling energetic do another description of the object, only this time describe it using vivid language, specific details, and no clichés.

There’s something very freeing about this exercise because it gets the critic off your back. Whenever I have students do the exercise it never fails to deliver a lot of laughs as they try to write the “best” worst description. The exercise also supports my belief that sometimes you have to write the awful stuff first to get to the good stuff.

So the next time your writing stalls, try going for a walk, or looking at a photograph, or writing the “best” worst description. Let me know what happens.

Gail Lukasik is the author of the Leigh Girard mysteries, a four-part seasonal series, set in the resort community of Door County, Wisconsin. The second book in the series, Death’s Door, was recently released. Besides her two published mystery novels, she has a published book of poems, Landscape Toward a Proper Silence, and she was awarded an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award for her poem, “In County.” Learn more at her website.

Just Do It

What I'm reading: Contest entries: 4/5

What I'm writing: Chapter 26

Get off your ass and write something. I hear you whining and kvetching out there, "I don't want to... I can't... I don't have time... I'll do it tomorrow." Ha! You don't have the time... you make the time, if you want this badly enough. If you burn you will write because you can't live without it, because you'd surely go mad if you couldn't write. Everyone gets just 24 precious hours every day, and no one is going to give you any more than that because you're a suffering artist. Quit whining and write.
~Molly J. Anderson-Childers

I've spent the last two weeks trying to be a "full time" writer. I don't really know what that means. I know that many days, aside from my begrudging trips to the Y, I didn't leave the house. I know when I had a full time, get in the car and go to the office day job, there were schedules and routines. Arrive, check my inbox, get a feel for the day's workload. Do the work. A break for lunch. Do more work, then go home.

Writing doesn't quite work that way. I'm home, so there are all the distractions and chores. When I worked the office jobs, I had to take care of 'real life' either on weekends or after hours. Now, I can hit the grocery store and do all my other errands any time I want. To date, I've been unable to say, "today I will write from 10 until 2, and then again from 7 until 9." Instead, I try to think that everything I do is "writing" whether it's doing promotion --like last night's fight with Access to create mailing labels from an Excel spreadsheet that someone else formatted -- or wandering the house listening to my characters, or surfing the 'Net to find Australian sheep station terminology. Some days, the words on the page seem to be gravy. But without any self-imposed "have to get this done NOW because it's my "writing time," I've been cranking out at least a scene a day. Yes, if I sat and simply typed it, it would probably take an hour, tops. But one can't wait for the muse. I've taken several story detours, but my process is "write it and see." So, I don't necessarily mind spending four hours thinking about a scene, writing it, and then deciding it's not really going to work. Because once I know why it didn't work, the road congestion clears, and I can speed forward.

Another quote:

Don't loaf and invite inspiration. Light after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
~Jack London

Tuesday night, I finished a scene and had what I thought was a pretty good page-turner of an ending. This was reinforced by my daughter's comment that even though she knew where the story was going, she wanted more. NOW.

So, yesterday, I re-read that scene to get a running start, and began to move my hero and heroine that much closer to uncovering the vital clue to the mystery. But, somehow, they ended up in bed. I re-read it last night, and will look at it again this morning. Was I just trying to get something on the page, or was this a logical, significant to the story bedroom scene?

I'll read it again this morning and see how it looks in the clearer light of day.

Writing is WORK

If you like to sample new authors, Romance Excerpts Only has a straightforward blog where authors post excerpts of their work. During the month of September (okay, I'm a little late with the news), they're going to be giving books away. All you have to do is drop by their blog and leave a comment. No limit.

Yesterday's work seemed to fit another one of my quotes of the day:

You have to fight the stuff you work with, in addition to trying to build with it. Wood resists saw. Nails the hammer. Stone the chisel. Words the writer.
~James C. G. Conniff

Although my end of the day word count was well over my minimum goal, I think my delete key worked harder than it has in weeks. For some reason, my heroine started whining (unacceptable) and I realized she'd done what I absolutely hate to read in romance--repetition of inner thoughts. I know she was confused about her feelings for the hero, but it took a long, drawn out talking to before she'd listen to reason. I'll have to see what my crit buddies think of the pacing in that chapter. All I see is this dead horse, and me with a stick. I knew what I needed to happen, but we couldn't seem to get there, and I think my heroine was trying to help me kill time while I figured out which road to take.

Then I read this quote this morning:

Keep in mind that an outline isn't a blueprint; it's merely a rough guide. You can change directions at any point. In fact, you most likely will. As you get to know your characters, they'll develop minds of their own. Plots, too, are organic and will often shift course as they take shape. If you're not sure about something, sleep on it. If it still makes sense in the morning, it's probably the way to go.
~Eileen Goudge
The Writer, June 2007

Well, I wrote it yesterday. Let's see if it makes sense when I re-read it this morning.

More on Process

What I'm reading: Into the Fire by Suzanne Brockmann

What I'm writing: Chapter 21

First -- a bit of Happy Dance News: When Danger Calls is available for pre-order on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble. I was unaware of this until one very nice commenter pointed it out to me. And, at the moment, it's discounted at Barnes and Noble. You can read a little more about the book on my website.

My writing quotes of the day have been dealing with the process of writing lately. One common question is 'do you plot the book in advance?' I don't, not really, which is why this quote makes perfect sense to me:

Not only do I not do an outline, I can't understand how anybody possibly could. Because, at least if you're writing character-based fiction, you have to know a lot about your character before you can begin. So I write to discover my characters and, in doing so, feel my way through the story.

~Tom Perrotta

However, just because I can't understand how others can outline doesn't mean I think they're 'wrong.' Everyone finds his or her own way to get the story on the page. But knowing the characters is vital. If you don't know enough about them, how will you know how they'll react in any given situation?

Right now, my hero needs to keep someone out of the way for a few hours, while he goes in search of the heroine (of course – he's the hero.) My crit partners have suggested that he should allow himself a lot more time than he originally estimates he'll need, to show that he's sensible and a good planner. However, he won't let me do that.

First, because he's dealing with a two-bit thug, and not someone who's going to be blowing up buildings or wreaking other major havoc, he's not going to do anything drastic (Not to mention he doesn't need the cops involved). Although my hero is entirely capable of killing people if he has to, it's not something he does unless he's on an assigned mission.

Second, because his only course of action in this situation is to leave the guy locked in the covered bed of a pickup truck, and for personal reasons, that's something my hero considers a 'bad place'. At first, that's what I was going to do, just leave him there, but my hero wouldn't let me write it that way. He insisted on having someone else let the thug out after a 'reasonable' amount of time.

I have to hope that readers will see that my hero's character qualities would prohibit him from doing anything too inhumane to the thug, while still giving him what time he needs to find the heroine.

Right now, the solution is that other 'stuff' happens that delays him. Finding the right 'stuff' so it doesn't feel contrived becomes the challenge.

Which brings me to another quote:

Figuring out how all of it will fit together is always the biggest challenge, but I don't make that happen beforehand--I just start writing and see what happens on the page.
~Jennifer Egan

In the scene above, I found I needed a new character to do what my hero asked, and it turned out he was exactly that – a character. Sometimes these strangers who show up on the page turn out to be more fun than the ones you've invited.

That's still my process. I write it. Sleep on it. Look at it the next day.

Goals, Word Counts, and The Writing Process

What I'm reading: Hit Man by Lawrence Block

What I'm writing: Chapter 20

From my Quote of the Day file:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
~William Strunk

This makes me feel a little better. I've been working conscientiously to finish my manuscript. I'm over halfway through the first draft, and I know where it's going, so it's a matter of finding the best route to get it there. Without a deadline, it's important to find the right motivation to keep going, especially when there seems to be a huge mud puddle and a fallen tree along the path you thought your characters were going. You can see the goal on the other side, but you have to pick your way through the underbrush, careful not to trip on rocks or step on snakes in order to get there.

I set daily minimum goals for the writing, and try to do other 'writing' stuff if I'm not actually at the keyboard. I've got a book signing on the 20^th (Winter Park Borders if anyone's around—details on my website), so I have some giveaways to put together. That counts as "writing" but it doesn't get words on the page.

At any rate, at the end of the day, I have numbers in my spreadsheet. I click the word count tool in my manuscript, plug it into my spreadsheet, and the program tells me how many more words there are since the last entry. Admittedly, I find that I click that dozens of times a day, sometimes seeing my count go up by 25 words, others by 250, and the really good ones where I've written 500+ words without stopping to think. If I hit 1000 on a day, my minimum, I feel that the rest will be gravy. I hit that point at noon yesterday, so I treated myself to some reading time and even watched an episode of The Closers I'd taped way back when.

The next morning, however, is another matter. My routine most mornings is to get up, deal with email, then go to the Y. This morning I added a phone call to Universal Studios complaining that they'd started testing their roller coasters at 06:20 and that's NOT the way I like to be awakened. The darn things sound like Dorothy and Toto ought to be flying by, and we're 2 miles away. But I (as always) digress.

Once I get back, have my coffee, go visit a few blogs, I'll look at the scenes I wrote the day before. When I finish, before I move forward, I'll check my word count again. All too often, it's less than the night before. Most of the time, I find that I've put in way too many unnecessary details, had my characters babble on about nonsense (dialog in fiction isn't the same as listening to 2 people talk and transcribing it word for word). But, as Mr. Strunk has pointed out above, less is more.

And so, with that said, I'm off to look at what I wrote yesterday. My count was 1987 words. We'll see what it is in an hour.

Have a great weekend.