New blog!

Ok, I know I'm stating the obvious, but this blog is officially dead! For the new live blog with awesome  content for writers, follow me here:

http://writerwandererwonderer.blogspot.com/

911 alert: Joy of the neglected blog

Some people neglect their blogs and feel guilty. Then, when they've neglected them long enough, they end up killing their old blogs and starting new ones so they seem fresh. Not me. I purposely set up this blog in hopes that I wouldn't use it. That's right. I hope it grows hairy with dust and shrivels in the corner. This blog is only to be used in dire emergencies. What kind of emergencies? Anything involving a blinking cursor, blank stares and too many jumps over to Twitter. Yes, I've hit a wall.

The good news is, it was a long time coming. This summer has been very productive. My last post was June 18. Wild! But now I'm sitting at home with time to write and my characters are eerily quiet in my head. No conversations. No tapping of pumps on pavement. I could just start writing, which usually works, but I feel like it would be forced, mostly because I'm a little stuck on the plot.

So I guess that means it's time for another experiment. Next up: reading. Not just any book. I'm going to read to my weakness. My novel needs a stronger plot, more hook and faster pacing. So Experiment 5 will be reading something known for being a fast-paced page turner. I'm going to be a good student, become wildly inspired and then come and report back what I learned and post how it went. Or, hopefully, I won't.

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Experiment 4: Cooking up inspiration

The good news is that I haven't exactly been blocked lately. My characters were talking to each other while I was in the shower the other day. This is what I call progress.

Still, I'm not one to live in the moment and enjoy things. Momentum needs a constant push.

So I decided to cook up a new experiment. Literally. I kept coming across these mystery series books centered around some kind of sumptuous food. The only one I can think of at the moment is Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death by M.C. Beaton, but there are plenty of others with play-on word titles. You know, "Death and Donuts," only better than that.

Anyway, I can imagine these authors finding inspiration at restaurants and coffee shops and from trying out new recipes. I'm sure they glean ideas from all kinds of exciting culinary pursuits. It all sounded so romantic, like an Amanda Hesser book. I wanted in.

While I don't write mysteries, and I'm not a food critic, I thought maybe bringing some food into my book couldn't hurt. Taste is the sense I tend to forget about. So when I found my characters ready to nosh on elotes en vaso (corn in a cup), I decided to jump into action.

{If you've never had corn in a cup, it combines roasted corn, spices, cream, lime juice and crumbly Mexican cheese, all eaten together in a styrofoam cup with a plastic spoon.}

We were having company over anyway, so why not try a new recipe on them and get inspired to write the next chapter in my novel at the same time, right? Wrong. Do not try this at home. Unless, that is, you have some skill in the kitchen. Is there a translation for green thumb for the culinary world? Let's just say if you're the type of person who waits for her husband to get home so he can boil the noodles for the spaghetti, maybe this isn't the approach for you.

My elotes en vaso looked good, but tasted awful. Basically like sour limeade with chunks of corn in it. Nothing like the real thing, even though I used a recipe. My guests were gracious.

I drone on. The point is, proceed with caution. My characters are now eating this delicious dish as we speak and I can't remember for the life of me how it's supposed to taste.

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Writer's road block: The war is on

It just hit me. I'm not blocked. Rather, I'm being blocked. Let's call it writer's road block instead.

I took a day off of work, kept my son in daycare, sat down and wrote. No husbands or children. Revise that. I meant no husband or child. I wasn't blocked. I was productive.

Now, it's Saturday and as I write this, my son is sobbing about wanting to go to the park even though he hasn't been on his best behavior today. And the other night, my husband demanded I stop writing so we could watch Avatar together. Do you know how long that movie is?

The characters in my life are stronger than the characters in my novel. So they should be, but they aren't exactly helping me along my writing journey here. They are blocking me. You can't fit inspiration between making someone a sandwich, doing the laundry and shutting up barking dogs, can you?

This means war. I need a new strategy... Uh, oh... More sobbing from the 3 year old and my husband is calling on the cell phone so I'll have to think about it later.

P.S. No book dedications for those two.

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Tapping into the subconscious

The latest thing on my mind? The stomach flu. But before that, I had a breakthrough. A clue. My recent experimenting was sparking my interest in my story again. I woke up thinking about my characters. I wasn't in full writing mode or anything, but it was in my head more often.

Then one day it happened. She spoke. Kate. My character. Out of nowhere, without me prompting her, just as I was getting into bed, she said:

"I was probably the only 17-year old on the planet that still got excited about school field trips."

And I said, "What, what did you just say?" And she repeated herself.

I was thinking...wow, the entire planet, huh? Seems a little extreme. But I was also thinking...finally, you haven't spoken to me in forever!

Then she said something else. You must understand that I had gone from napkin writing to nothing in a matter of months. I went from hearing voices in stereo to silence. This was a relief. She was still alive somewhere. Maybe she was just trapped in my subconscious. Maybe my experimenting had woken her up a little.

She gave me a page and a half. It didn't feel forced. I now believe I can get back to this world. It's just going to take some tapping.

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Experiment 2: Talk to your characters

Classic situation: I'm faced with the ultimate everyday villain who spouts off a ridiculous sentence that makes my blood boil.

6 hours later, I'm reliving the conversation and I think of the perfect comeback.

That's what's so great about writing. You can have these conversations in your head, mull over every comeback, nurture every syllable, and no matter when you finally deliver them, they're always right on time. So what if you're on both sides of the conversation and it's totally unfair? It works.

Thus, my next experiment was born. Talking to my characters. Interviewing them. Conversing.

I decided to start by interviewing one of my main characters, Grey. I didn't hold back. I asked him the tough questions, the ones the other characters would never dare ask. And he explained things the way he would. They weren't clean cut answers. They were raw, the way real people would answer. He's confused. He's torn. He's in agony.

So what did it accomplish? More than I guessed. His thoughts on the page are a road map. Knowing what he thinks will help me know how he will act. I can see that now. I even got a few great quotes I can use. I think I will do this again.

It's funny. I'm such a skeptic. I've only tried two experiments so far. And by some miracle, both of them have worked.

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Experiment 1: Walking in a character's shoes

Walking in a character's shoes. It sounded so Kill-a-Mockingbird-esque. I'm not sure where I first heard this advice, but the idea is that you're supposed to write from one or more characters' perspectives to get to know them, and in turn, it might spark something. I figured it was the perfect place to start trying to get my groove back.

I chose Crystal Harris. Who? She was the gangly blonde who made up three random paragraphs in the middle of my novel. And I had no clue what she was even doing there.

So you might be thinking that since I'm the writer, I should really be in on the secret. Maybe. But writing can be kind of an out-of-body experience for me. I feel less like a creator and more like a recorder, waiting to hear what comes next. I'm not in control. I'm just along for the ride. Not sure if it's like that for everyone.

Anyway, the exercise was pretty successful. As it turns out, Crystal was far from the one-dimensional villain I originally suspected her of. She grew up in Rhode Island and she resents her parents for moving her to the desert. Like so many characters in my book, she feels like her destiny is out of her control. Suddenly, she made sense. She wasn't random. She fit right in. She was still gangly, but a little more well-rounded.

I didn't get any usable writing done, but I did make some headway. And I woke up thinking about her instead of laundry and work and errands. To me, that's a step in the right direction no matter whose shoes I've got on.

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