Inspiration - Finding it on the Map

The Foggy Road North

This trip would be a chance for me to work on my novel, find some direction for my next WIP. Find direction? At one point I could barely find the road! Above is a pic taken during the day, the fog was so thick, I couldn't see the cars in front. How eerie is this scene? Wouldn't it make a great setting for a murder mystery?

Most travellers take the coast route to Queensland, but I like the inland one. There's the cutest little towns, pubs and gardens. I like quirky, and I found one region chocca with it. For a couple of hours, we would drive through towns, villages and past farms that all hosted... old bikes.

I first noticed it when I started seeing old children's bicycles hanging from trees like christmas ornaments or posted to the tree like a sign:

Before long, I saw animals fancied from bike bits and other 'junk', our favourite was the dinosaur:

 This got my brain whirling. How did the bike art come about? Was it just one guy who created these sculptures and travelled through his entire county distributing them? Or did one person try it and everyone followed their lead? Was it a council decision to distribute the old bikes? What happens if a town beyond the border decides to go ahead and put up bikes as well, if I hang a bike from a tree in my front yard, will I be slapped with a copyright infringement notice?

This got me to thinking how our stories begin, or where in my travels I might locate the town hosting my inspiration. Everywhere. It begins with us questioning and imagining. I immediately wondered what kind of man created this bike art and, was the entire community happy about it? Perhaps someone disliked the idea enough to kill him? (Not really I hope, just pondering some book ideas).

I also heard of a town nearby called 'Welcome' - and immediately I thought, great location for a murder, especially if the victim is a newcomer to the town, 'cause I don't think they'd be feeling the welcome.

So what happens after you start questioning, how does it become a story plot? For me, it comes with play. I play with the ideas and mix them up. I look at all the possibilities and one will latch onto me, make me need to write it. And darn it, somehow I'm gonna work that weird bike art man into my WIP. :-)

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Read, Write, Drive

Road Trip!

Hitting the road (cars packed and everyone's waiting on me!) for our holiday in Brisbane. So, for your viewing pleasure, today we have a re-run of a January post. I'm taking this book along with me for the trip (and I'm still editing that WIP):

I've been stuck on a chapter for Dog Show Detective, so, I had a crazy old guy pull out a gun and shoot a character, that got things moving! I then had my MC faint and wake up inside a caged and padlocked pen. How was I supposed to get her out of there?

The idea of the gun wielding lunatic is an old trick of adding  surprise to a narrative. In Revision & Self-Editing (James Scott Bell), surprising behaviour is a key way to liven a story that drags. Bell quotes Raymond Chandler as saying when things get boring, "Bring in a guy with a gun" (I sure did).

My puzzle now is how to get the Lead character out of the cage where she's trapped with her friend and a badly wounded boy. Bell has also helped me out with this predicament, he suggeststhe Lead character needs to show inner courage, experience conflict and act with honour. This great instructional book tells the self-editor to write a list of at least ten things that the Lead character could do, what would be unexpected?

So I wrote, keeping in mind all of the above suggestions, this is what I came up with:

When the old man returns with his gun, so does the wounded boy's dog. Just as the man raises his gun, the dog leaps and knocks him down, the bad guy hits his head and is unconscious. Kitty eventually gets the keys and opens their prison, they want to run, but Kitty won't be able to leave the boy bleeding with a bullet wound. Here is Kitty's conflict, she's only eleven, she wants to get to safety, but instead sends her friend for help and picks up the crazy man's gun, in case he wakes. Kitty chooses bravery and honour.

Bell also suggests if you come up with some outrageous solutions, it may be a good idea to use the 'Pull-Back Technique', basically you invent an over-the-top solution and then tone it down by about 25%. For example, I thought I would have the bad guy wake up and Kitty would have to shoot him. That's too extreme for a kids' book, so instead, I'll have Kitty think about what she has to do, get scared and decide that she can't kill a person. Kitty will lower the gun, and shoot his foot. That should be enough to keep them safe until help comes -extreme, minus 25%.

Revision & Self-Editing is proving to be a valuable tool for my first experience at editing a novel, I definitely recommend you check it out.

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Traditional Publishing

Saw this and had to share :-)

Why writers must also be promoters:

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D.I.Y Publishing

I'll self-publish and market my book in the off-leash park

Would you self-publish your fiction?

I'm still focusing on the writing/editing part of my manuscript, but many writers do publish, market and sell their own books. One of the main benefits is a speedier book-in-hand time, you don't have to wait to find a publisher and then wait for them to produce your book. The biggest drawback is you have to do a LOT of work to push your book and get a market for it, even if the narrative is great, if you flop because of your lack of marketing skills (or horror - publish before it's been proofread properly), you give yourself a bad reputation as a writer.

If you want to see more on the debate of self-publishing pros and cons, visit my previous post:

Self-publishing is it for you?

I'm still intrigued by self-publishing and I've been checking out a few different sites of P.O.D. publishers, so if it's for you, check these out:

• http://www.youwriteon.com/
• http://www.lulu.com/
• Self-publishing on the iPad
• http://www.yorkshirepublishing.com/
• www.createspace.com for publishing on Kindle

Have you had any experience with self-publishing? Know a link I've forgotten? Let us know!

And while I'm migrating to the warmer climate of Queensland, visiting my Dad in Brisbane, I'm thinking of going retro and reposting some of my favourite posts. That way I can focus on my writing, editing and generally doing a lot of this:

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Got Audiobook?

I'm taking the girls up to Queensland to visit my Dad in a few days, and as usual, my bag-packing panic has nothing to do with clothes. Which books will I choose to read while I'm away???

I'll be sensible this time and take the Kindle, after a frenzy whirl of book-downloading-fever, I have plenty to keep me busy, both in novels and writing books. The trip is also acting as a good deadline for me. I'm working through the first (and thanks to 'How to Revise Your Novel', the last) edit on Dog Show Detective and I can get the girls to read it while we are away (they are my harshest but most encouraging critics).

The drive to Brisbane takes a good 13hrs, so for this trip I've stocked up on audio-books! On the playlist for me:

I originally searched iTunes for a 'Sookie Stackhouse' mystery, I've heard so many people talk about this series and I figured it was a good time to catch up. But, when I saw the blurb for this book, I knew it was for me!

Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side - and its crime buffs. One of them is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyse famous cases. It's a harmless pastime - until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss...

I'll also be listening to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I'm keeping the plot a secret from myself for now, but there's been enough hype to suggest it's a 'should read'. 

Meanwhile, the kids will be kept entertained with:

and

They should have something to blog about when they get back on their book review site:

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Flexing the Creative Muscle

Always stretch your brain before a writing workout

A common problem I see writers online facing seems to be getting themselves out of a non-writing funk. You've been on holidays, busy at work, sick or there's just been a great season of Castle showing non-stop for a week on pay-tv, whatever the excuse, sometimes we take a break from writing and have trouble picking up the pen again.

I also see loads of advice online for this problem. There are many techniques to get your WIP up and running again, but they all boil down to one simple solution. Just write. Writer's block seems to have  a lot less to do with a lack of ideas than time and motivation. Write anything, journals, riff-writing, clustering, letters, short stories or scenes. Once you get yourself started you'll be amazed at how silly it seemed to procrastinate.

This week I've been reading Now Write! (edited by Sherry Ellis), a collection of fiction writing exercises guaranteed to spark ideas. Several writers and creative writing teachers have contributed to this anthology of writing exercises on topics that cover point of view, character development, dialogue, plot and pacing, setting and description, revision and more. 

These exercises are simple but effective and force you to reevaluate the priorities in your writing, like character motives. If you're impatient (like me) and don't like creative exercises that take time from your WIP, you can even do many of these to expand your current plot and character depth.

I'll be using some of the exercises in the classroom with my students, so this book is both inspiring and practical for me.

Have you got a favourite tip to get the writing flowing again?

I'm so happy to be back online, and I am making my way through my blog list to catch up on all your writing and reading exploits!

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Power of the Pen

Being forced offline for over a week, taught me something about my writing. I organise on the computer but create with pen and paper. I know many writers who prefer to just tap their stories out on the keyboard, it's faster and more efficient (and checks your spelling), but creating swirls and strokes with a pen scratching across paper unlocks something in my creativity. I get new ideas and a more intimate connection with my WIP.

Once I've written up my ideas, outlines or first drafts, I can then type them up and develop the narrative. My mind goes in a different direction with typing, I start to think of all the practicalities of my plot.

If I spark different parts of my brain by using handwriting over typing, doesn't it stand to reason a reader would react differently to receiving typed text to handwritten scrawl? If 'I 4got 2 tell u 2day zat I lv u' is not your idea of a romantic message, perhaps you'd rather a handwritten note on scented paper?

Kaz is from my little country town in Australia (although Kaz may reasonably argue it's just as much her little country town) and she's started a blog on handwritten letters. You'll find it here:

I love handwritten letters

Why not pop a letter in the post for someone you care about? Or write to someone you've never met instead of emailing? It'll get the creative juices flowing! A while back my girls got letters from Granddad, they were so excited, they usually correspond via facebook, emails and blog comments.

A writing prompt I like is to write a letter from your main character to someone they miss.

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