What's in a Name?

So...since I don't have enough going on these days (ha ha ha), I decided I wanted to write a Halloween story to submit to The Wild Rose Press for this year. In 2012 I had a Thanksgiving story, in 2011 I had a Christmas story, I figured it made sense to stick with the holidays. Trouble is, the deadline is just before the end of January. I really, really am hoping to make it, but I've had little to no time to make any sort of decent progress. I catch a few minutes at the keyboard here and there, but not enough to really sink my teeth into anything. But, at least I'm getting bits and pieces written. I'm not looking to make this a super long story. It's going to fall more in the Rosette category (2,500 to 20,000 words).

Right now, my biggest issue, besides not having enough time to write, is I can't find a good name for the hero. I'm using Rafe as a place-holder for now, but I'm not wild about it. He's mysterious, sexy, and just might possibly be a vampire, so the name needs to fit: Steve, Tom, or Mike just isn't going to cut it. If something doesn't come to me soon, I'm going to head to my favorite resource for names...internet lists of baby names. I really prefer to have my characters name themselves, but at this point, with time running short, I'm getting desperate.

Any ideas?

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Colour Me Blue

One of the ‘prompts’ suggested for the 100K Words in 100Days challenge is ‘Try picking a colour and writing as much as you can about it.’

 

I’ve chosen blue, not just because it’s my favourite colour, but also because it seems to have dominated my life. At my junior school, the ‘unofficial’ summer uniform was a blue checked dress, and in the winter we were expected to wear blue sweaters or cardigans (any shade of blue). Most kids wore navy, until my mother, who at the time owned a wool shop, knitted me a royal blue cardigan. The headteacher obviously liked it, because I was pulled out in front of the whole school one day, and she told the rest of the kids that this was the colour she wanted everyone to have! My mother had to stock more royal blue wool in her shop to supply the ensuing demand! Even forty plus years later, I used to smile when I drove past my old school and saw the kids in the playground, all with their royal blue sweaters!

 

When I went to high school, the uniform there was – yes, blue. Navy skirts and cardigans with white blouses in winter, and in summer our dresses were blue and white pinstripes. I was also in the Girl Guides, not just as a teenager, but for a lot of my adult life (as a leader) and again the uniform was blue.

 

Even now, when I’m choosing new clothes, I have to make a conscious effort to steer myself away from buying blue all the time. I admit, though, it is still the dominant colour in my wardrobe!

 

Apart from those practical links to the colour blue, what else does it mean to me?

 

Blue eyes – mine are blue, and I love men with blue eyes, too – Paul Newman’s probably being the most outstanding, and Martin Sheen has real 'blue Irish eyes'!

 

Blue skies always make me feel more alive than the dull, grey skies we often get here in the UK (and especially last year which was the worst ‘summer’ on record – so depressing).

 

Blue sea and lakes, especially the Mediterranean. The sea around the UK is often more grey than blue (reflecting those grey clouds of course!), but my photos of the Lake District and Ireland prove that we do see blue water sometimes in the lakes and seas!

 

And what about emotions? Blue tends to be associated with sadness – Blue Christmas, of course, and (showing my age now!) ‘Singing the Blues’ by Guy Mitchell. Maybe we’d better not mention ‘blue movies’ although I’m not sure why they’re called blue! On the plus side, blue is also associated with fidelity and loyalty, and blue furnishings in your home are said to have a calming effect.

 

It has occurred to me that it might be an interesting exercise to write something like this as one of your characters might write it! What colour would they choose and why?

 

Meantime, what colour would you choose and why?

Writing About Pain

I got a cortisone shot today in my hand, the third of three. For those of you wincing, I’m allergic to anesthetic. The ones YOU get have anesthetic mixed in; mine are straight up. Not that I want to one-up anyone, but as much as your cortisone shots hurt, mine hurt worse. It’s excruciating for 10 minutes, and then it just plain hurts for the rest of the day. Lucky me.

After I got past the first 10 minutes of pain and could think, I started to think about writing (knowing I had a blog post to write today). And after I moved my hand a bit to make sure I could actually write the blog post (yes, I should have done it earlier), I thought about how we describe things.

The more vivid the descriptions, the easier the reader can enter the story and feel like they are living what you write. We use specific words, choose our adjectives wisely, limit our adverbs and use active, rather than passive, verbs. We incorporate multiple senses.

Scenery is fairly easy. We can look out our window and describe what we see. If we don’t see a specific scene, we can look it up on the Internet or find a photograph and describe it. Again, we’re “there” so it’s pretty simple (at least in theory) to get our readers there too.

Things we do every day, or frequently, are also easy to describe. They’re part of our lives—some of us know firsthand the drudgery of carpooling or cleaning. We cook and can do a pretty decent job of describing the sights and smells of the food.

We can also pretty easily describe joy and satisfaction, for most of us experience it frequently, even if it’s only in little ways. But the more difficult emotions to describe are the painful experiences that our characters are going to go through—sadness, mourning, devastation, physical pain. For most of us, we don’t have those experiences often enough to have them in the forefront of our minds. We have to think back to a painful experience, put ourselves into that original spot and draw from there.

Most of those uncomfortable experiences are not ones we want to relive and we certainly don’t want to record our feelings at the time we’re experiencing them, at least, not in any clinical way. Those of us who keep blogs or diaries can go back to those writings at a later time, read the rawness of our emotions and transfer those emotions to our characters, but doing so is not without a risk to us.

But for me, today, I was in a painful spot that I CAN use for future reference, almost immediately. Sure, as I said earlier, it was excruciating. But it was a physical pain, not an emotional one. Sitting down now to record how it felt when the needle pierced my flesh, or the burn of the cortisone, or the physical ache afterwards, will not make my hand feel worse. Nor will it bother me and cause me to have to leave my computer for a break. The feelings are fresh, but physical. And now is a great time to write them down, so that the next time I want one of my characters to experience physical pain, I can refer back to my “cheat sheet.”

And, hey, if none of that works, at least it gave me something other than my hand to think about! J

Cross Training

I attended a workshop on wholesaling produce last Friday.  Food safety rules are evolving and getting more stringent. This is good, but will require much more work from veggie growers. With consumers wanting more of their food ready to eat, stores and distributors are pushing processing and liability back onto growers. I not only have to take the risk of raising produce, I have to wash, sort, trim, sanitize, bag, label, box, label, invoice, label, and document for inspectors my compliance with a crazy number of checklists.

This sounds like publishing. I used to think all I had to do was conceive characters and turn them loose in a plot. Edit for consistency and typos and send it off. This has been really hard. Especially the rejections.

I have to do these things for my WIP's, and if I have improved in my craft skills, I will wait an agonizingly long period of time, edit, check, resubmit, wait. If I am lucky, I will have to learn about contract clauses and do seemingly endless promotion. If I self-publish, I will also have to learn how to format for multiple e-readers, design covers, write blurbs, do another even more intensive line edit, really promote, and take even more risk.

Everyone says it is possible. To go for it. And I will, even though some days it seems like an invitation to another crisis of self-doubt. Right now I'd much rather write than garden.  Or be Rachel's film roadie--here is a shot taken during pre-shoot rehearsing.

All in a Day's Work

I've been on vacation from my real job for the past two weeks. Even though I love what I do for a living, it's been a wonderful break. Sleeping in. Getting caught up on some scrapbook organizing. Naps. Grocery shopping during the day. Keeping up with other blogs and actually leaving comments. All those little things in life, that seem so minor, but always slip through the cracks when things get busy.

I even accomplished my goal of having the revisions done on "This Feels Like Home" and getting it back to the editor at TWRP by the end of the year. Well, I finished the revisions on December 31 and sent it off on January 2. But I'll call that a success since the Press was closed for its own winter break until then. It was nice to feel like a writer again, and be able to devote large chunks of time to actually making progress on a story.

Monday I go back to work. I'm fine with that. I feel well-rested and ready to get going again. Part of me is excited. Part of me wishes there could just be more hours in the day. Because I will miss having the time for those little things. Once the work day is done, meals prepared, meetings attended, etc., there's not much time left over.

But it is what it is. At this point I'm not wealthy enough to not work at all and not prolific enough to be a full-time writer. And as I mentioned already, I love my job and wouldn't want to leave it. And as nice as it's been to be away, getting back to a regular schedule will be nice. I just hope I can find some time to devote some time to writing once the busyness kicks in again. Because this vacation also made me remember what I love about being a writer: things coming together and the story coming alive on the pages.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Unplug

I did not want to come home from vacation Sunday. In fact, I dreaded it, but not for the reasons you might expect.

I did not dread returning home to the freezing cold New Jersey weather from the warm, sunny Bahamian weather, even though I loved the sun and hate being cold. Although I do wish my tan had lasted a wee bit longer.

I did not dread having to do a ton of laundry when we got home—that’s what happens when three out of the four of us bring almost every clothing item (and shoes) we own on the off chance we might have needed them. Call it the price of being prepared.

I did not even dread returning home to regular food from a cruise filled with more food than I could eat in a lifetime, although we certainly did try!

No, what I dreaded most was returning to the “constantly plugged in” status my life was before our vacation.

My email is on from the minute my kids step out the door until I go to bed. Same with my Facebook account. Yes, I’m one of THOSE people. And I used to feel guilty about it. I used to slink around and not respond to people’s posts immediately so they wouldn’t know I was there. I’ve hidden (I think!) my profile so most people can’t tell when I’m logged on. But then I realized something important.

See, I’m a mom and a writer. I spend most of my days at home by myself. When I’m not taking care of my house or my kids, I’m writing. I don’t have the benefit of working in an office, surrounded by people whom I can talk to whenever I need a break. I can’t hang out with my friends all day long—they have busy lives too, and if we spent all our time “doing lunch,” we’d never get anything done. And believe me, we’re a lot busier than you think we are. So, my connection to the outside world is through email, Facebook and other forms of social media.

One of the other things I do is volunteer with my Temple. That requires me to converse with many people, answer questions and help out with projects. Most of these things are done through email. Because my email is open all the time, I see most emails as they come in, enabling me to respond quickly and be productive. That’s not a bad thing!

But, this vacation, I decided to do something different. My family was traveling for a week with my parents. Since that’s kind of like stepping back in time, I decided to truly make it an “80’s vacation”—minus the clothes and the hair—and sever all ties to my computer for the entire week.

It was daunting, especially the thought of not writing for an entire week, but I thought it was important. First of all, if I can’t stay away from my computer for a week, I have a bigger problem! Second, no one is irreplaceable. There are other people on my committees who can fill in for me. Third, it’s a slow week. And fourth, I wanted to be truly present with my family the entire time we were together. I didn’t want to be listening with half an ear while I was checking my email. I didn’t want to post pictures of my vacation for others to enjoy, rather than enjoying my time myself.

So, I shipped my computer off to the Geek Squad for a much needed tune-up, changed the settings on my iPhone so that I couldn’t connect to WiFi even if I wanted to, and brought my iPad only for reading (I swear!!!).

The first day was hard. Partly because we were home and out of habit I kept looking for my computer. But after that, it was so relaxing! I couldn’t stress over nasty emails or emails that asked me to do something. I didn’t have to make sure to forward information to anyone. No one online stalked me or knew what I was doing every minute of every day. And my family and I shared jokes and laughs without constantly posting about it (although I’ll admit to writing down a funny thing my 11-year-old said, just so that I could remember it in the future), allowing us to respond to each other and have an even better time. I didn’t post my pictures immediately—I doubt in the long run whether it will matter if I post my pictures the second they were taken or a few days later. I’ll still have the memories, and my friends will appreciate my limiting the number of pictures I actually post.

I also gained a valuable lesson regarding my writing. Taking a break allowed the juices to flow. It let ideas take hold in my brain and rattle around a bit. It let me relax enough for the worries to slip away and the ideas to enter. I came home inspired and itching to write!

I also learned several things about myself on vacation. Number one, I had a lot more fun interacting with people in person than I ever do online. Number two, my stress levels decreased drastically and I was able to relax. And number three, I can survive without my computer. So much so that I dreaded coming home and turning it on.

You can see how long THAT lasted!

Age is just a number - isn't it?

I have to admit I greet 2013 with a certain amount of apprehension. Maybe one of the reasons is that in August this year I reach one of the milestones in my life – one of those dreaded ‘Big-0’ birthdays. Another decade over and the start of a new one. Easy when you’re 20 or 30, but less so as the numbers preceding the ‘0’ increase. My mind tells me I cannot possibly be that old, the calendar tells me differently.

 

Many years ago, when I was in my (young) teens, my friend and I heard our mothers talking. They were both in their 40’s, but said they still felt like 18-year-olds. I remember how my friend and I looked at each other in complete disbelief. How could people as old as our parents think they were still like teenagers? It didn’t make any sense to us then, but of course as I’ve grown older I understand exactly what they meant.

 

I won’t say I feel like an 18 year old. In fact, I’m glad I’m not that age. I’ve learned a lot about life and people and myself, too, since then. So maybe, in my mind, I’m somewhere in my late 30’s.

 

Inevitably, every decade of my life has had its highs and lows, but I’ve been more fortunate than many of my peers in that I’ve had no major health issues (fingers crossed), apart from my arthritis, which has been part of my life for so long, I’ve learned to live with it.

 

Looking back at the different decades, I’ve come to the conclusion that they actually get better as you get older!

 

This last one has been especially memorable as I’ve travelled to places I never thought I would see – Sharjah and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, many of the Western Front battlefields, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, the USA, Canada, and Egypt. I also ‘discovered’ Ireland and have paid 9 visits there, to different parts of the island.

 

This last decade has also seen my return to writing romance novels, thanks initially to Jed and Abbey Bartlet from ‘The West Wing’ and then to Linda Lael Miller whom I got to know on an American Civil War tour in 2008. The result: four books published in the last eighteen months.

 

I’ve seen my two daughters settle happily with their respective partners, and I’ve seen my two grandsons grow into fine, handsome young men.

 

So yes, this past decade of my life has been a good one. Maybe, therefore, I shouldn’t be approaching the next one with apprehension. On the contrary, I should be saying, ‘Bring it on!’