Blog Chain: Like a good neighbor...

It's blog chain time again.

For this round, Mandy asked:

How do you prioritize? How do you balance paying attention to your writing, critiquing for friends, spending time with your family and earning a living?

This is a kind of a funny question for someone who flies by the seat of her pants. (That would be me.)

I know my answer may not be comfortable for some people to read. Not everyone believes in the same things I do.

That's okay. We all have our own journey.

But since Mandy asked. . .

About 13 years ago, I worked as a pharmacy technician. I hated it. The hours were long. The pay sucked. And, to be quite honest, people are cranky when they're sick. (Not to mention the fact that I picked up every little bug that came along.)

To top all of that off, my situation at home wasn't so great. My husband and I were dirt poor and way too immature to care for an infant properly. It always seemed like I was shoveling to fill one hole only to create another.

I was miserable. There were mornings when, on my way to work, I considered dropping my daughter off at daycare and driving away from my life.

Seriously.

It was that bad.

And then one day, I lost it. As my little girl napped, I sat on the floor of my single-wide trailer and broke my long silence with God. In a nutshell, I told Him I couldn't stand the imbalance in my life anymore. Something needed to change. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I couldn't do it alone.

Of course, as God often does when I speak out loud with Him (as noted here and here), He spoke back.

He told me I should only have two priorities in my life: 1.) Him and 2.) Everything else.

I scoffed. "Geez, God. That's a little self-centered, even for someone who is omnipotent."

His only response was: "Trust me."

That's when I started going with the flow of my life instead of trying to swim against the current. I started listening to that voice inside that told me when to write, when to read, when to crit, when to work, when to push it all aside for the sake of family, and most importantly, when to ask for help.

Oddly enough, less than a month after my conversation with God, I received a job offer from a place where I had applied more than five months earlier. It was a temporary position in the library of a Catholic high school. When that job ended in the spring, my boss -- the principal of the school -- gave a glowing recommendation to the daily newspaper where I now work as a business editor.

Don't get me wrong, I still hit snags. There are times when I get impatient with the speed of my life and push God out of the driver's seat. But the nice thing about crashing now is knowing my assurance provider always has me covered.

Check out what the ever-charming Eric had to say before me. Check out what the colossally creative Christine has to say tomorrow.

So she got me

While sitting in church with my family on Sunday morning, an idea for a new story popped into my head.

When we got home I announced the sudden burst of creative genius that had hit.

My teenager quickly stomped out my pride, however, as she narrowed her eyes and asked: "And why weren't you paying attention to Father?"

Ah, touche, my dear daughter. Touche.

Blog Chain: Mo' drama

Christine kicked off this blog chain round with this question:

How do you create a wonderfully dramatic story? Are there any questions you ask yourself, or specific things you keep in mind to ensure that you have the level of tension necessary to propel the story forward?

The first thing that popped into my head when I read this was Story Sensei, a blog written by Camy Tang. She has some incredible tips on how to add tension to each and every scene. I highly recommend checking it out.

The second thing that popped into my head when I read this was a scene I recently wrote on my nano book.

“The End of Me” chronicles the journey of two characters: a mother, Penny Marx, and her son, Lucas. It opens with Lucas’ discovering that his parents aren’t exactly who they say they are. The narrative then alternates between Lucas’ struggle to accept the truth and Penny’s misguided reasons for doing what she did.

The scene that came to mind when I read Christine's question focused on the birth of Penny’s oldest child. My original intent was for the occasion to be complicated merely by the absence of her husband. It went something like this: (Now, please keep in mind these samples are from my nano novel, so it’s pretty extremely rough.)

Dad parked in the emergency lane at the hospital. This couldn’t happen yet. Not without Tony. But the pain that shot through me soon convinced me otherwise.

While this turn of events made for an uncomfortable situation for Penny, I couldn’t get behind it.

Something was missing. So I started asking myself about different aspects of Penny’s environment.

Who else could be with Penny? Her dad’s I-don’t-need-help-to-do-this attitude plays heavily into the situation. Since I liked the idea of putting him in charge of the situation, I decided to leave this aspect alone.

What time of year is it? It’s New Year’s Eve.

Why is Penny’s husband absent for this joyous event? He’s kind of a deadbeat, so your guess is as good as mine.


Where does she live in relationship to the hospital? Bonus! This is a variable I can manipulate to fit the scene.


And the most important question of all: What’s the worst that could happen? Well let’s see.

The car fishtailed onto the thoroughfare. When I gained enough courage to look, I found Dad hunched forward, squinting into the storm.

“How much farther?”

“Just hang on, Kitten.” By now, panic was clenching his voice, too.

The surface of my belly stiffened like a wall of steel. I cried out.

“Kitten?”

Dad reached for me, but the Buick jerked and metal began grinding against metal. My hand ripped from his as I lurched forward. The seatbelt cut across my stomach, whipping me back against the seat. When we came to rest, I thought we’d be okay. Then the car jolted sideways. Something hit my head and glass sprayed toward me.

Opening my eyes, I found myself sprawled across the front seat, no longer restrained.

“Daddy…Daddy, it hurts.”

“Just hold on, Penny.” Beneath his breath, I heard him whisper, My God, please help her.

“Daddy?”

“I’m here, Penny. Just hold on.”

His voice distorted as pain cleaved through me again.

A strange haze settled around us. Enveloped in a world that seemed to be growing colder by the second, I stared up at the shattered fragments of the passenger window. Trails of red trickled downward, a stark contrast with the white flakes swirling above me.

As reality thinned, the name Tony and I had picked out for our baby flitted through my mind. It meant glittering; glowing white. I felt my mouth form around its syllables. Isn’t it funny, the things you think of when you think you’re about to die?

OK. Granted, that scene might be a little over the top, but complicating Penny's trip to the hospital with a blizzard and an accident sure was a heckuva lot more fun to write (and read, I hope) than my first try. The scene also helped set up complications Penny would have later on in the story.

And it all started by asking myself questions about how the characters, their environment, how their situations could get worse and not being afraid of getting carried away.

Isn’t that the point of fiction?

Now check out what Eric had to say before me. Or check out Amanda's blog on Nov. 16, as she kicks off the next round.

Writerly Wednesday: When good characters go bad

Meet Dave.

At one time, Dave was a good, wholesome guy (despite his bad 80s glam-band hair).

But when he first appeared on the page, he was flat and boring. As a supporting character, he served no purpose other than to move the MC from the beginning of the story to the end.

He needed a life. So he developed one. (Well, I developed one for him.)

He got married. He became a father. He became a father, and then he got married. (Kids back then, I tell you what.)

Of course, no one's life is ever perfect. Dave was no exception. His wife was bitter. She was too young when she got tied down with a kid, and she had a tendency to make Dave the victim of her venom. If she wasn't locking him out of the house or making him sleep on the couch, she was cheating on him.

Poor Dave. Poor, poor, pitiful Dave.

And shame on me for making his life such a drag, right?

Well don't waggle your finger at me just yet.

You see, Dave started to irritate me. Even though he had a life, he wasn't doing anything other than playing the role of World's Biggest Chump. And let's face it, nobody likes a chump.

So I started thinking. And thinking led to tinkering. And tinkering led to an interesting realization on my part: Just because a character is "one of the good guys" doesn't mean he (or she) can't have some serious flaws. In fact, giving a character shortcomings makes them A.) more believable; B.) more interesting; C.) more likable in the long run; and D.) more fun to write about.

It made a lot of sense for Dave to act like the north end of a southbound moose (kind of like you'd expect a guy in his position to act) and for his wife to respond to his behavior with bitterness and insecurity (allowing the reader to maintain a feeling of sympathy for him).

Not only did this make Dave a more intriguing character, it also gave him room to grow and change throughout the story. And that was something he had to do anyway.

After all, he is one of the good guys.

Song and Emotion

ElanaJ had an awesome post yesterday in which she related writing to a Twisted Sister song.

It started me thinking about music and how difficult it might be to write without it.

I love music. Nothing can get me more fired up about a character than a carefully chosen playlist.

In fact, each character in Long Road had a specific song that helped me "feel" where they were coming from.

This one, for instance, put me in touch with Dave Vacanti:



This one defined the I-don't-need-a-man attitude of my MC's best friend, Roxann Bainbridge:




Saigon Kick, a one-hit wonder from the early 90s, always helped me get in touch with the scenes I wrote between Nick, the hero, and Heather, the heroine.





And I could easily call forth visions of Heather, by herself, with this tune.



I guess I had figured these characters were so easily conjured by certain songs because they, themselves, are musicians. It stood to reason that writing about someone whose life revolves around music would be made easier by defining them each with a song.

Since I started working on my latest project, however, I quickly came to realize that's not necessarily the case. The bad guy in my NaNo book, who has surprised me by being more of a cunning snake in the grass than I had first anticipated, calls to mind a song to which my brother-in-law introduced me a few years ago.



Every time I write about this guy, this is what I hear in my head. It's quicking becoming a top song on my playlist.

So what about your characters? Are there songs that define any of them to a "T"?

Is it supposed to be like this?

So, I sat down to kick off my Nano book on Sunday. I had a particular story idea in mind.

But when my fingers hit the keys, something completely different came out. It was like some other character came out of left field and took over. (I'm actually enjoying the experience.)

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Happy Blogging Agent/Editor Appreciation Day!

Today's post is dedicated to all of the agents and editors who take time out of their hectic schedules to blog about writing and the publishing industry.

Thanks for all you do!