To Read or Not to Read #IWSG

 
October 2 optional question:
It’s been said that the benefits of becoming a writer who does not read is that all your ideas are new and original. Everything you do is an extension of yourself, instead of a mixture of you and another author. On the other hand, how can you expect other people to want your writing, if you don’t enjoy reading? What are your thoughts?
 
The awesome co-hosts for the October 2 posting of the IWSG are Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Mary Aalgaard, Madeline Mora-Summonte, and Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor!
 
Full Disclosure: I am a reader. I’ve been a reader since I first figured out the meaning of those weird shapes in books. I used to read a book a day. I love to read. I’ve slowed down, but I still read. I can’t imagine not reading.
 
Now, I have made the decision to not read books in the same genre I am writing in. That satisfies my need to keep my books fresh and original.  But I write in two different genres, so I can trade off, and there are plenty of books  still out there that I can read.
 
And the concept of ideas being all yours- I can’t fathom it. My ideas are a conglomeration of things I read, things I see, people I talk to … you get the idea. Sure, I try to put those ideas together in a new-to-me way, but I don’t downplay the influence of the world around me. After all, we all know there’s nothing new under the sun.
 
I find no shame in building upon the legacy of our ancestors. Sure, the language has changed and vocabulary shifted, but isn’t that what we, as authors are still doing? Sitting around a campfire and telling our stories?
 
So, read on, fellow authors. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Combating Writer’s Block #OpenBook Blog Hop

September 30, 2019

How do you move past writer’s block?

It happens. I’m sitting there staring at the screen and the words won’t come. I know where I want the story to go, but I don’t know how to get it there.

Writer’s Block. What’s the cure?

It was worse back in the days when I wrote poetry. There would be days when the words flowed without effort and then weeks when the words vanished. But poetry was a passion and I understood the ebb and flow. I had other creative outlets to fill in the voids. Until I realized that it had been a year since I’d written a poem and I panicked.

At the same time, I was involved in classes for a very logic-driven career field, and I think the right and left sides of my brain were at war. The left side was winning.

That’s also about the time when I first tried my hand at writing a book. The first one stunk, but it was a learning experience. And I got hooked. It also appears that both sides of my brain contributed to the effort and allowed the words to come. 

That’s not to say I still don’t go through brief periods of being blocked.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Sometimes I just don’t know where the story wants to go. And sometimes the stories don’t want to go where I want them to. We’ve talked about this before.

But with my stories, I have a different way of dealing with the dreaded writer’s block. I go back and edit. Normally I don’t do any major editing in one of my works in progress until I’ve completed the first draft. Why put a lot of work into editing something I may get rid of in the end?

But minor editing helps to clear my mind and reminds me of where the story is going. It puts me back in touch with my characters. It helps me see what is going right and what is going wrong. And that, in turn, helps me see where the story is going so I can get back to writing.

So far, I haven’t had to deal with not having ideas for my next book. I’ve got enough ideas tumbling around the back of my head to last for several years. Heck, I’ve got a whole new series I’d like to start. Or two. Maybe three. 

The other thing that can help me is reading. Sometimes getting my mind off my own story and into someone else’s is what it takes. A vacation, of sorts. Because I think my love of writing developed from my love of reading, it’s not so much a break as it is a reminder of what got me where I am in the first place.

So, there you have it. The two major things I do to break writer’s block. Or three, if you count totally changing what I write!

Now join me, please, as I head to the tiles below to find out how the other authors on this hop combat writer’s block. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you are so inclined!

September 30, 2019

How do you move past writer’s block?

Rules:1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 


The Real People of P.J. MacLayne #OpenBook Blog Hop

 

September 23, 2019

What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters?

As I say in the copyright notice for each of my book “XXX is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events and places found in this book are either from the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons live or dead, actual events, locations, or organizations is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.”

And that’s true, with one exception. In Her Ladyship’s Ring, I created a character based loosely upon the winner of a contest. As it turned out, it was one of my cousins, (Hi, Jane!) and she became Harmony’s cousin Jane in the book. We were friends growing up, so you can bet I gave the character Jane all the love when I created her. Jane has received mentions in some of the other books of the series as well.

But for my other characters, I can’t point to any one that is modeled after a real person. When a character ‘finds” me, they are their own person. I may not even know what they look like until after I’ve written them into the story. Their personalities develop as they reveal themselves.

Sure, they may pick up small pieces of what makes them an individual from people I’ve known. But the same character may get characteristics from five different real-life people. Another five characteristics come from thin air or are borrowed from a book I read somewhere in the distant path.

But here’s the trick: as far as I’m concerned, as I’m writing the story, each of those characters is a real person in my head. Yes, it gets confusing in there. My head, that is. I have to keep all those characters straight so the reader doesn’t get confused, unless I want them to be confused. I’m like that!

That also means I try to give my characters the same respect I’d give a person in real life. At least, that is, until I figure out what shenanigans they are up to. My bad guys sometimes disguise themselves as good guys until I figure them out. Then I have to switch gears and make them as bad  as they need to be.

In real life, I look for the good things in the people I meet and tend to overlook the not-so-good parts of real people until they become unbearable or unforgivable.  I can’t do that in my books, because then the characters would be boring. So, I try to give each of my characters faults to make them more life-like.

But back to the original question: To everyone I’ve l know throughout my life, or met for a moment, or listened into your conversation in a restaurant, thank you. Some part of you may have become some part of one of my characters. As they say in every award acceptance speech ever, I couldn’t have done it without you!

Now, let’s head over and find out how other authors feel about using real people in their stories. Just follow the links below.

P.S. One of the characters that gives me the hardest time understanding him is Jake, Harmony’s ex-lover. He’s based on no one but himself. I’m still not sure if he’s a bad guy pretending to be good or a good guy pretending to be bad, he won’t reveal his secrets. But, I have found pictures that I think represent him perfectly. So, just for fun, here’s Jake!

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

September 23, 2019

What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters?

Rules:1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

 


Finding a Place to Write #IWSG

 
September 4 question – If you could pick one place in the world to sit and write your next story, where would it be and why?
The awesome co-hosts for the September 4 posting of the IWSG are Gwen Gardner,Doreen McGettigan, Tyrean Martinson, Chemist Ken, andCathrina Constantine!
 
There’s this little lake I know, not exactly in the mountains, but in the high plains. The altitude is about 8000 feet. It’s got a wonderful view of several mountain ranges, depending upon which direction you look. On a normal days, there’s at the most, three or four people there- more cows than people, but they are on the other side. The cows, that is.
 
Ducks, geese and the occasional seagull swim on the lake’s surface. Along the shoreline, songbirds play hide-and-go-seek among the bushes. Their songs mingle with the lowing of the cattle.
 
There’s not an electric plugin to be had, so once the battery on the laptop is dead, it’ll be writing with pen and paper. The nearest town, population under 600, is fifteen miles away. 
 
But to sit there in the shade of one of the few trees (or bring my own) and write! No distractions, no cell phone service, no internet, no one bothering me. That would be heaven.
 
So I’m not going to tell you where it is. You know the song…you call someplace paradise, you kiss it goodbye. I’m not ready to for that.
 

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list...


Egos and Writing

September 2, 2019

Does a big ego help or hurt writers?

I don’t know if my ego is big enough to answer this week’s question!

Here’s the deal: A writer has to have a bit of an ego to think they can take words and and mold them into a story that others will enjoy while, at the same time, doing justice to their characters. But that ego has to be small enough to allow the characters to tell you their story the way they want to. It’s a constant balancing act

Take my book  Wolves’ Knight as an example. I’d planned out a romance subplot for Tasha, my main character, and even  started writing the scene where she and the planned romantic lead got hot and heavy with each other. And promptly got stuck, because she started fighting me. She had a different idea about how things should go. I had to set my ego aside and swap up the plot to satisfy her.

 

 

A similar thing happened with The Baron’s Cufflinks. I’d written what I thought was a great chase scene, but something didn’t sit right. The action was great, the words were fine, but it just didn’t work. Then Harmony, my main character, convinced me it was because I’d told it all wrong. That wasn’t the way it happened. I put aside my ego, scrapped the scene, and rewrote it the way she wanted. I have to admit, it was better her way, but I still liked mine! It involved the sheriff and the highway patrol, a bad guy or three, and Harmony throwing her shoes at one of them. Thankfully, I was able to use pieces of it in the revised version.

On the other side, you have to have a healthy dose of ego to get out in the public and sell books once you have them written. To engage total strangers in a public setting and ask them to buy a book isn’t easy at first. I’ve gotten better at it, but I still have to psych myself up for each public appearance. There’s always the fear that no one will want to talk to you. Even on social media you need to interact with people you’ve never met.

(If you want to check out my books, you can start from my front page, here: http://www.pjmaclayne.com )

I hope you’ll take a moment to check out the other authors on the hop and see how their egos hold up to writing. You can follow the links below. But before you go, feel free to leave a comment.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

September 2, 2019

Does a big ego help or hurt writers?

Rules:1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.


Have Some Fun :)

Do you like jigsaw puzzles? Here’s a quick one just for fun.

(Hint-if you want to start from scratch, choose the dotted linebottom left and hit restart.) 

 

And here’s what it should look like when you are finished. Enjoy!

 

 Thanks to jigsawplanet.com, the source for this. 


Giving Up on a Book #OpenBook Blog Hop

 

Aug 26, 2019

Why would you, as an author/reader, abandon (stop reading) someone else’s book?

As I mentioned in a comment a few weeks ago, I take pride in reading  completely almost every book I start. Almost is the key word here. Every now and then, I run into a book I just can’t handle, it’s so bad.

I won’t be naming any names. Most of them are wiped from my memory. But because of the bad books I’ve run into, I’m pickier about what books I buy. I’ll even take the time to read the reviews for freebies to escape my pet peeves.

The first and biggest reason is bad grammar. Typos, words spelled wrong, the wrong form of a word used, incorrect punctuation. Sure, a few errors here and there happen, even in books by traditional publishers. But when I pick up a book that has several a page, it makes it hard to slog through the entire story. If it’s a terrible, horrible,  no good, very bad book, I’ll erase it from my ebook reader. (Thanks, Judith Viorst)

Next up would be boring characters and a boring plot to match. Ever run into a book where you ask yourself why the author even bothered to write it? The characters are flat and nothing happens. The main characters go to work everyday and that is somehow an existential crisis. I’ve never read one of those books the whole way through.

 

How about unrealistic story line? Let’s say in the story it takes an hour to get from point A to point B and you know in real life it would take three or four. Or it’s a mystery and the author has no idea of police procedure. I’ll let one instance pass, but if the book is full of similar mistakes, I can’t finish it.

What do I do with really bad books? It’s easy to get rid of an ebook. It’s a little harder to get rid of a paper version. I feel guilty passing it on to a charity and inflicted the pain on someone else. And it breaks my heart to put any book in the garbage. I have to weigh the end results and usually the garbage can wins.

I did a quick poll on Twitter to see what would cause other people to stop reading a book. I only got a few responses, but the clear winner—or is it loser?—was bad editing.

I’m curious-what’s your number one reason for not finishing a book? Even if it’s already been mentioned, feel free to chime in. Consider the comments section as an informal poll. I suspect there will be a lot of repetition in the blog hop posts this week.  But I’m going to go check, anyway. Follow the links below to join in.

Aug 26, 2019

Why would you, as an author/reader, abandon (stop reading) someone else’s book?

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.

2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.

3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.

4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.

5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter


SpillingInkShow

 

I was recently honored to participate in the Spilling Ink podcast, where we discussed our books, writing, and life in general. By the way, I hate my camera setup, and I’ll have to change it up the next time I participate in one of these. Anyway, it was great fun to do. Many thanks go to Jason LaVell and Katie Salidas for the opportunity.

And I apologize, but there must have an issue with my internet connection which ended up making my voice garbled. (LAG!) 

 


Literary Success #OpenBook Blog Hop

Aug 19, 2019

What does literary success look like to you?

At one time in my life, I would have defined literary success as getting my poetry published in a major magazine. I never accomplished that goal, although my poems got accepted by a number of smaller literary magazines. Each publication felt like success.

Then I started writing books. And to me, literary success felt like writing one good enough that I was willing to share it with the world. I wrote Wolves’ Pawn, decided it was ready, and released it to the world. While the world didn’t buy the book, each sale felt like a success.

Next came The Marquesa’s Necklace, and from the moment I published it I felt like a success. I wasn’t a one-book wonder.  I’d proven to myself that I had more good books in me, and they weren’t all the same plot over and over. And that was success.

Each time a reader takes a moment to wrote a good review, and buys more of my books, that is success.

Once upon a time, when I was running a paid aid, The Marquesa’s Necklace made it into the top 100 for its genre. It only lasted for an hour or so, but that was definitely success. 

Now, with each new book I write, success seems harder to achieve. I’m always shooting for more and for better, and it’s harder and harder to achieve. I’m an addict, searching for my next literary high. Maybe it’s a compliment from another author. Or selling enough books at an event to not only cover the cost of the event, but to make a small profit. Or gain new subscribers to my newsletter, or get more views on my latest blog post.

Would I like to write a nationwide best seller? Absolutely. Do I expect it to happen? Expect-no. Hope-yes. That would be the ultimate literary success.

In the meantime, I’ll remind myself to take joy in the small successes. Writing a line or a paragraph I know is way above average. Finishing my next book. Cheering a reader on as I see the books in a series being bought one after the other.

That’s what I define as literary success. Now, I’m off to find out how everyone defines it. Follow the links below to come with me.

Aug 19, 2019

What does literary success look like to you?

Rules:

1. Link your blog to this hop.

2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.

3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.

4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.

5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter


The Hardest Part #OpenBook Blog Hop

 

August 12, 2019

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

When I first read this question, my thought was “But it’s all hard!” However, that wouldn’t make a very good blog post, so here we are.

After giving it some thought, the answer was simple. Beginnings. It’s hard to find the right place to start, whether it’s a book or a blog post. Often it takes me three or four tries to write the beginning of anything. (It took me three tries to get this far!)

Unlike the advice in song from The Sound of Music, Do_Re_Mi, stories don’t always start from the beginning. They need to start at some point that will draw the reader in. How bad would it be to have every book start with the birth of the main character?

 

Sometimes, it’s finding the right ‘voice’ to tell the story. When I wrote the prequel to the Harmony Duprie mysteries, I wanted to write in from Jake’s point of view. I tried four different beginnings, but none of them worked. Jake just didn’t want to reveal his secrets. Once I switched to Harmony’s point of view, the story came easily.

When I wrote The Marquesa’s Necklace, the first book in the series, I wrote an entire chapter that ended up being deleted. But it wasn’t a lost effort, because it helped me to develop Harmony’s personality. Plus, I used parts of it in my reworked first chapter.

In fact, I pulled out the first paragraph from the first draft. You’ll see why I got rid of it!

It was another quiet day in the library—just the way I like it. As an ex-librarian, I appreciate the times when only a few patrons are scattered in the stacks or perusing the racks of periodicals. Back then it gave me time to shelve books or straighten out the magazines. Now that I spend much of my time doing research for a writers’ co-op, these times are when I am most productive. None of my old coworkers object when I accumulate a large pile of books on the table I stake out as my territory for the day. They know I will put them back in the proper place before I leave. I don’t necessarily need all these books, but they create a wall I can hide behind.

The same is true for my Free Wolves series. Although the prequel to Wolves’ Pawn came to me a dream, writing the first chapter wasn’t easy. And I wrote it with pen and paper, so while I have the original somewhere, you aren’t going to get the original opening paragraph!

Each book I write, it gets a little easier to write a good first chapter. That doesn’t mean they don’t go through numerous revisions, only that I don’t end up having to delete the whole thing and start over.

By the way, endings can be hard, too. But I’m just going to leave this here and head over to check out what the other authors have to say.  You can come with me by following the links below. 

August 12, 2019

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

Rules:1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

 

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/p/eeae40