The Drama of it all...

“A true spiritual aspirant will never be frightened by any circumstances, hence, move on, angel, move on!” ~BJG

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Oh the drama of it all. I think you’ve gathered by now that I, as a writer, can take a broken nail and spin it into a web of a story. I’m like that. I was at my m-i-l’s the other day, and all she did was ask, “How’s it going out on the farm?” I began my tale with my old treadle sewing machine, placed in some thread and began weaving a delightful tale.

Instead of the simple answer, “Great, life is great.” I began, “Well the potato harvesting began roaring onto the fields with machines I’ve never seen in my life. I loved the way they swept the field and one by one an army-full of semi trucks carried away the plump juicy potatoes. And we have an Elk, living in the woods, whom I named Eli thinking it was a male last year, but when I heard the baby by it’s side I realized, Eli, was Eliza, still named Eli for short.

I went on as I always do. “You wouldn’t believe the images out there, wild turkeys walking up the road, Black-eyed Susan’s galloping over every open space, and the turkeys being grown for their shipment into slaughter. Yes siree, life out there on that farm is pretty awesome.”

I add drama to every thing in my life and as my followers more than likely can tell, I speak truth, I just have a tendency to color my world. It is like my brain is a living thesaurus, and believe you me if I can’t think of the right word, I’ll dig to find it.

That is what writing is all about. You weave a colorful story, embellish the truth a bit, not too much so it is a very believable story, but paint it just so the reader becomes a part of the fabric. He/she becomes so engrossed in the flow of every word, the stroke of every key, a part of the very scene, that they jump into the fantasy that you’ve created for them.

Rose Madder by Stephen King was like that. It started off, an abused woman who lived in fear, and one day she just woke up and walked away, fearing for her life, but she did it! She made a new life for herself too, but wouldn’t you know it, her hubby found her, as all abusive husbands do and what happened is... you’ll have to read it and find out. 

She bought a picture and somehow Mr. King painted many levels of the canvas for us, the reader. A story in a story if you will. That is what I strive to do in my life. I try to paint a picture of myself, a portrait for you to glance at. Then I embellish it by wearing jeans, fixing my hair all nice and applying makeup, but never really hiding the true me underneath.

In my words you may find the drama, but underneath it all, you will see the true me shining through. And know that deep down, the true me is a writer, through and through.

Growth is the only evidence of life. ~John Henry Newman, Apologia pro vita sua, 1864

A Story is Born...

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! 

~Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!
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Did you ever wonder how a story is born? The foreplay, the inception, the follow through, and then the BIRTH of a short story or novel, or maybe even an article?

A lot of times it is through idle gossip or a man walking with flowers and as your mind wonders where he is going, who the flowers are for; you are now having the foreplay of a story being born.

I remember when I first began this journey of writing, one of the things I learned or was taught about how to find a story idea, I was told to stop/look/ and listen. Stop to take in my surroundings, observe the people, this is where our characters are being formed. The man in a suit on a 100 degree day, with a mutton chop mustache, and a cane by his side. That stands out in a observant day, and you now have a character to build a story with.

Listen: You’re in a cafe, minding your own business when you over hear two elegant older women talking. You take a quick glance and you automatically get the feeling that you are going to pair one of them with old mutton chops. Your mind is reeling now. They start talking about Barb, the hair dresser having an affair! Oh my, you are now in on the good stuff.

Well Barb is having an affair with this dashing fellow, (who sounds an awful lot like old mutton chops.) You begin to take notes on a napkin because this story starter is just too good to pass up!

As commotion begins in another booth with a bunch of teenagers. You over hear the one declaring, “She was my girlfriend first!” Then the a gun is pulled out and the teen tells the other to leave. The two ladies behind you gasp so loud, you record on the napkin OMG!
An officer who happens to be seated at the counter, out of uniform, stands, pulls out his pistol...

Do you see how one thing leads to another in the making of a story? This is how simple it is for us writers. Not all of us mind you have this innate ability to make point A meet point B! Some of us get stuck in the dungeon with writers block and we can’t see old Harry mutton chops with Esmeralda the town snot. But it’s there! A story is waiting to be born!

In the corners of your imagination; in the stench of the dank and dark dungeon, awaits a story, just wanting to be unraveled. And you, the writer, are going to be the one to unravel it, thread by thread, until you blanket the reader with...satisfaction!

Now get writing and remember, there is a story in each and every one of you just waiting to be told!

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The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person. 

~Frank Barron, Think, November-December 1962

What's in a Name

Psalm 45: 17 I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever.

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Have you ever surfed through Amazon, the library, bookstores, looking for a book to buy, read, or borrow, or in some cases, download? My next question is this: What made you pick that book up that your holding in your hand? The title.

The title of a story or book can have some real lasting affects on you as a reader. It also can make or break you as a writer. If you’re not catching readers with a title, then you need a really good picture on the cover, and if you have a lousy title, so-so picture, you’re gonna need a daggone excellent review of what your book is about.

Short stories don’t have the luxury (most of the time) of a pic to pull you in. Your title is going to need power behind it. There’s that word again. POWER! You see, I said in a previous post that words are power and I meant it in every way shape and form.

Today I was at a Short Story site. I lingered through the titles and found that the ones I read had a really cool title. I’m wondering if Stephen King’s book Carrie, got rejected numerous times because of the simple title. A whacky title, by a whacky author, may have gotten the story accepted much sooner.

Before you submit, check to see if you have a powerful enough title, or quirky enough title to get you accepted. Look at Chicken Soup for the Soul and how successful that series has become. Had it just been titled Soul Stories, it may not have had the draw and pull that has readers across the world diving in for a swim.

My son pointed out the other day, that my blog might have had better success had I had a stronger name. Now as I sit here three years after starting this blog, knowing a lot more than I did back then, I think he’s right. He has a blog titled Poems Have Hearts, and my fiancé has one titled, The Drums in the Deep, and I’m thinking, a title is everything.

Now keep in mind also, that I’ve read some books because the title was luring, the review interesting, only to read the book, get half way through and find it an utter disaster. I like quality writing and I can usually tell right off whether the story is going to work or not. I’ve even been known to read an entire story of bad writing, just to give an author the chance to be read. But, I would never read from that author again and that’s a shame.

Also, I was always taught that it is in bad form to start off with dialogue. As I was going through the short story site, many of the writer’s used dialogue to drag me into their story. It was through the dialogue that interested me in their characters and to keep the writing consistent, I kept reading. Maybe in short stories it is acceptable to start with dialogue because people don’t have much time to invest in the character. Good dialogue between two characters makes you stand up and read.

So, the title that I read today? Why not a Duck? There’s another tip, ask a question in your title. You know why? Because it is human nature for us to be inquisitive, and we as readers will want to know the answer!