Thursday at the Tire Store

(First posted at TRS Blue November 6, 2009)

Well, things being what they are, I find myself at the local tire shop, taking care of bunches of stuff that my aging mother let go on her van. Windshield wipers, alignment, spare tire, and so forth. It’s dreary outside, drizzling and wet. To cap everything, I’m coming down with a cold.

The good thing about a tire shop is that it’s one of those male havens, a place where women are patently out of place in spite of the pretty blondes working at the counter. I sit here with my laptop, gazing covertly at the limping redhaired man with the fox-headed walking staff, the bearded fellow in the plaid flannel shirt and pristine white tennis shoes, and the cowboy with his hat hair and beautiful redheaded girlfriend.

It’s not a bad place to be on a drizzly morning.

My active brain begins spinning stories with the characters that are so ready to be written. The tire technician with the shaved head keeps sending glances toward the skinny guy that’s running the register, and the middle-aged cashier clearly has something going with the young hunk that works the alignment bay. Up at the front office, the manager of the shop is sitting at his desk, his head just inches from the blonde girl’s breast as he explains a mistake.

It doesn’t take much to dig up the inspiration, does it? It comes from so many places, both expected and completely surprising.

Outside the window is the bad section of town, where down and out drifters wait in line for a warm lunch and a place to crash for the night. These days, the Mission is filled to capacity every night.

The young man on the bicycle has kinky, wild hair and the eyes of a madman or a prophet. He’s clearly seen too much in life. He’s late for check-in at the mission, so he’ll spend a cold, damp night sleeping in the bushes across the street from the tire shop. His dreams will be vivid and populated with images both amazing and frightful. Perhaps he will come face-to-face with the magic that accompanies his every thought and action. I make a mental portrait of him, for he will take a role in a future story.

Very soon the work on the van will be finished, and it will be time to leave. These players will continue to move on a stage outside of my vision, but their stories will continue to unwind, leaving me to wonder and to imagine.

Belinda McBride writes erotic fiction, and is published at Loose Id, Changeling Press, and New Concepts Publishing. She welcomes you to visit her site at http://www.belindamcbride.com
And her blog at
http://www.belindam.blogspot.com

Gettin' Insightful...

I write because I must.

I write because I have something to say.

I write to release the music in my soul.

I write because I’m sure it’s an easy way to make money.

I write because I have a book inside of me somewhere.

We’ve all heard these comments at some point, and perhaps they are truths to some, myths to others. (Especially the part about the money!) With the start of NaNo, there are people all over the world setting their writing goals and starting their journey. We’re beginning day 3, and already you see writers at 12K per day, and others who haven’t yet begun. The complaints are beginning as well, as are the comments that indicate that many writers are discourage and ready to drop already.

I signed up for NaNo this year simply because I’ve never done it. This past summer, I participated in 2 week Fast Draft challenges with a small group of authors, and felt that experience prepared me for NaNo. And in a way, it has.

In order for me to complete the 50K word count, I calculated the words per day that I need to write. I gave myself several days off, (after all, November is a busy month!) and that still came to less than 2K per day. Easy, right? Well, maybe not, considering that my grand total word count for October was about 7K! LOL! But that was intentional; I built a break into my schedule this year. There were some edits, and some serious plotting going on, and I did some uncounted words on several WIPs, but my focus was on taking some time to refresh my mind. NaNo seemed like a good way to get back into the habit of writing, and also to narrow my focus to one project.

Why do I write? All of the above comments have applied to me at some time, but the main reason I write is that my brain has some chemical issues. I’m a bit clumsy with communication; it’s difficult for me to verbally express what I wish to say to someone. I am capable of expressing myself in writing.

I have racing thoughts, and those of you who have experienced this know how distressing it can be. From childhood, stories and scenarios have flooded my brain non-stop. Many writers say they are full of stories, but this is a bit different. It’s an obsessive/compulsive issue that is nearly crippling. When the racing thoughts kick in, I babble non-stop, and sleep is nearly impossible. It slowed me down at school and sometimes interferes with my job.

When I purchased my first laptop and began writing compulsively for hours on end, it wasn’t for creative expression. It was for survival…for sanity. That first year, I probably wrote 400K or more. Of that, two novels and a novella emerged and made it to publication.

Thankfully, the discipline that it takes to write constructively was drilled into me in college, so after the first few months of simply pouring myself out onto my hard drive, I was able to slow down, to take the time to polish my words and sentences, and to consider actually selling what I’d written. Because even if my stories don’t sell, they’re going to be written.

The wonderful thing is that I’ve discovered that this outlet I have has the potential to be fun. Note that I said that it has the potential…it also have the potential to be nightmarish and stressful. Anyone who’s written on a deadline or found themselves blocked will discover that this craft is not always fun, nor is it easy.

Like all things in life, there must be balance and moderation. So yes, there are spikes in my creativity where I can write a 30K novella in days. Other times it takes months to grind out a short story. But over all, slow and steady is what it takes. Setting a daily goal. For some, it is a word count goal. As a general rule, I don’t keep track of my daily word count unless I’m on a challenge. My rule is to never let a day go by without doing something constructive, whether it’s writing, plotting, doing a book video, or seeking inspiration. (AKA research)

So if you’re doing NaNo…good for you! Just realize that if you don’t meet word count at the end of the month, you have not failed. Look at what you have done and realize that those are words that you wouldn’t have written otherwise.

If you do meet the 50K goal, excellent! Now is the hard part. Don’t leave that manuscript languishing on your hard drive. You’ve given it life, now start polishing and editing. Look at the market and see where your book fits. Expand on it, tighten it, and make those words into a living, breathing document.

It might be the only book you have in you, but I’m willing to bet that if you’ve written that much, there is more inside.

I’d like to hear why you write, and if you’re participating in the Challenge, what your feelings are about it.

Back to the Drawing Board

Here it is, the end of October, and NaNo is almost upon us.

I confess that I've never participated in the event before, and initially wasn't that interested. This summer, I had the fantastic experience of doing several 2 week Fast Draft challenges with a small group of authors, and for me, the results were amazing. It seems that while I suck at deadlines, when I issue a challenge to myself, I'm capable of more than I give myself credit for.

So...just days away and I haven't begun preparations yet. In fact, the project that I intended to focus on might not be appropriate. How can I write Book 4 of Bad Angels when I haven't even drafted Book 3? LOL! Oh well...

That's what the Drawing Board is for.

When I first enrolled in college, I was a pretty good student in most of my subjects. Unfortunately, I had major problems in algebra. Not math, not geometry...just algebra. Testing indicated a fairly rare and specific learning disability, and the school promptly assigned me a tutor. What I learned from her was the use of white boards and colored markers to delineate an equation. Later on, when I began writing plays, I used this same method to track scenes, acts and characters.

Let me explain some of my tricks. When I'm creating a character, or even if I'm blocked, I write the name of the problem character (or situation) in the center of the board, and then circle it. From there, I send out a line with the name of the first character that comes to mind. Then the next, and so forth. They all get their own circles and lines out to other characters. Pretty soon, there's a network that expands from that central character. It's a bit messy, but gets all the threads out of my head and into a physical context that I can stand back and look at.

Another trick I use is free association. I just sit down and think. I use a large yellow pad and set a time line for the story, and jot down all the possible directions the story could go. Or I bend the ear of a poor unfortunate listener and babble on about everything that's flooding my brain. Unfortunately, if I don't record it, most of that drifts away on the ether...

When I'm actually writing and feel the story is vague or without a clear plot, I use a variation of the Snowflake Method. I write a sentence summarizing the book. Next comes a paragraph that expands on the sentence. From there, each sentence is given its own paragraph. That's a neat trick for really pinning down your project. It also works really well to write your book's summary.

Well, hope there was something of worth in this late night post. I'm off to bed to dream about Bad Angels.