Plotting

How do you plot your stories? I figure out what's going to happen to my MC. Usually that's not good. I don't want them to have an easy time of it. They have to plan how to defeat whatever problems come their way.

The pressures of time constraints, force characters to do what needs to be done. My novel Seventy Two Hours is a book that lasts that long. Actually a little longer, because the epilogue happens two months later. You definitely don't want your characters having all of their life to make their decisions. Wouldn't that be a slow moving read?

Put your characters in as much trouble as possible. Ramp up that tension. Tight. Restrain them. Do everything you can to hinder their chances of a happy ending. Your reader will love you for it.

Make sure that all forces work against your characters. That's good reading. And a book worth writing. :)

Ain't life grand?

As I go into unplug week I thought I'd leave everyone with this little slice of life, guaranteed to make you smile. Live life, my friends! See you next week. :)

Shakes Fists At Storms Part Two, or could be titled, I Could NOT Make This Up!

Grr! Yes, it happened again last night. Another storm, another late afternoon and night with NO internet. I think God is preparing me for Unplug Week. Yeah, that's gotta be it. I went through those same withdrawal symptoms. Fatigue, nausea, shaking, headache, and general, "how will I get through this night?" feelings, but then I woke up to a BRIGHT, HAPPY, day. I had internet. YAY! So that is why I never commented to your comments. It was, oh so dreary. Oh so danged dreary. *shiver*

On to other, brighter, happier things. My site will be up next week. There was a problem transferring my domain name,*shakes fists at transfers of any kind* but that has been taken care of and now I can relax. Ahhhh. So by the end of next week my site will be up and lookin' good. Can't wait for y'all to see it. And of course I won't be able to post that it's up because I'll be unplugged. Hmmm, must remember to schedule a post and to remind folks I scheduled it and didn't break any unplug week rules. The life of a writer. Hope some of you are joining us for unplug week. I have hospital visits scheduled for my son next week and Beth and I are meeting on Wednesday, but other than that I should be able to get some writing done. Sheesh. :)

Shakes fists at storms

Grr! Yesterday a storm moved into out neck of the neighborhood, knocking out my satellite internet service all afternoon and until I went to bed. After my shaking and horror slowed down a bit, I wondered how I would get through next week. "AUGH!" She screamed! Next week is unplug week. An entire week of no blogging, no anything to do with my computer except checking my inbox and writing. "Yo, BJ, HELP! Could use a little pep talk here. Tell me how I'll get a lot of work done on my revisions. Probably be finished. BJ!" She screamed again.

Then today, I have been visiting Authoress, since my first 250 words are in the Teeny Tiny are you hooked mini round. I had to do my critiques. I've had some nice crits and two of the things mentioned I agreed with, so I immediately went in and fixed the problems. I love her and the fact that we are able to put our first pages up for critique. I just wish that everyone would follow the rules. You'll notice that 10 and 11 are missing. She graciously gives us a platform to have critiques on our work and then a few do not follow the directions. Grr.

I'm sorry for using my blog to vent today, I just felt like expressing my feelings to y'all. I will be around to comment later. "BJ!" :)

I hope that y'all have been to my writing pardner, Beth's blog. She is posting easy to understand grammar lessons. There are five of them and the first one started yesterday. Click on over. You'll be glad you did.

I've been revising--UGH! It's not that I don't like revising, well okay, I really don't like it at all. But I know it is part of the process. That brings me to the point of this post. Aren't you glad we're finally getting there?

I was wondering what y'all thought about Series Packaging. This is when an author is trying to present a fiction series to agents or editors. There is a place you can go that will help you develop a package deal. They draw up a series proposal that includes an about the author page, a synopsis of each book in the series, a series bible, a marketing plan, projected dates of when the manuscript will be completed, and sample materials which can include the complete manuscript. Now all of this comes at quite a cost. I'm not writing a series and don't know if I ever will, but I was thinking about this yesterday. I know of someone that is doing it. It's very expensive and how does the writer learn to do these things on her own? If it's being done for her/him then he learns nothing about the process. A writer needs to learn about writing queries, developing marketing plans, writing a synopsis, and everything else that goes along with it. I want to do these things whether I'm writing a series or not. That way, I know how to do it. Because I've done it before. This company even submits for the writer. Do y'all think that this is a good thing? Now I know most of us don't write series, but you never know. What say you PJ? Would you consider it. if you had money to burn? And believe me you need to have a lot of money to even consider doing this.Here is the link. Tell me what you think? I'd love to know. :)

First off, I want to say how happy I am that type 1 diabetes did not stand in the way of Judge Sonia Sotomayor being nominated to the highest court in the land. I, as many of you know have type 1, too. She will be the first person with type 1 to be nominated and confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. Now, why does this matter? Discrimination my friends. It happens! I may not agree with her politics, but my hat is off to her. She has beat the prejudice,and unfairness given to folks with this disease. :)

I've been pondering Glam's posts this week on art and craft. She posted her Father-in-law's essay, which was very good and I so enjoyed reading it. To me art is the ability to create beautiful things that stir me. If it makes me feel, then it's art.

I've been thinking about creativity. Can you dig in and write whenever you sit down at your computer? Or does it come and go? It comes and goes with me. I know when it's coming though. It's something I feel inside. Like today, it came! YAY! Creativity = the ability to use the imagination to develop new and original ideas or things especially in an artistic context. Does your muse come every time you sit down at the computer, or are you like me and you know when it's approaching. You feel it and then you sit down and write your beautiful words. That's what it's all about my friends. The words! :)I'm off to my critique group meeting with Beth.

Routines For Writers

Thanks so much to all of you for understanding that life is really hard right now. If a day comes and I can't blog it's not because I don't want to. My son and this mysterious thing, that is turning our world upside down has to come before anything really. Anything of this world, myself included. I'm really tired. But still vowing to finish Seventy Two Hours by the end of June. I write on the four hour drive to the hospital and the four hour drive back. I critique on the road. I appreciate all your good wishes, prayers(especially), and the hugs really, really feel good. :)

I know I've blogged on this topic before, but...! Developing your writers platform. There's a very good book on this subject. It's called, Get Known before the Book Deal. Written by Christina Katz. Its basic theory is that a platform strong writer is a writer with influence. In other words, know your platform, stand out from the crowd of writers and GET THE BOOK DEAL. She says that most writers underestimate how important platform is. And it doesn't take a heap of money. Yaa! It does take an in-depth understanding of platform, and then the investment of time, skills and consistent effort to build a platform. The biggest money waster? Not understanding who your platform is for, why-and hopefully save you from confusion from all the information overload. There is information overload. Have you googled writers platform before? YIKES! Information overkill!!!! UGH!!!

She says that writers confuse socializing with platform development. They think about themselves too much and their audience not enough. Christina also says that writers undervalue the platform they already have.

My questions to you are these. Do we writers really need to worry about this? Do we REALLY need to know our platform? Don't we have enough to juggle and learn about? :)

Be back on June fourth. :)

First off congrats to Shelli for snagging an agent. And, has everyone checked out my writing pardner, Beth's new blog look? WHOA! It is totally awesome and totally Beth.

I read an interesting article this morning. It talked about Google Alerts and Twitter Tweets Alert Digest. Simply put, these alerts let you know when your name is mentioned. For any reason. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The article said that authors need these alerts. You can tell these alerts what you want them to find for you and they do it. BTW, when I googled my name I discovered that there are many, many, many Robyn Campbells in our universe. Who knew?? Out of all the RC's I did find moi. *smiles*

What does all this mean? Dunno. But this article said it was very important to sign up for these alerts, and I always want to do what's important in my writing, yup, you guessed it, I signed up.

Once you've got an alert, you react to it immediately. Hey, that's great PR. If someone says something bad about you, that is untrue, you must dismiss it publicly. Now if it is true, apologize and get on with life. If a person says something nice about you, your book, or your blog, you thank them. Publicly. Truly. That's great advertising for you and great PR. What say you? Thanks for reading. :)