What’s in a Name? – July 23, 2007

I started getting some names to pop into my new story. I have officially titled the book "Guardians of Light" at least right now. Writing is a dynamic process and things can change…Stay tuned.

This has been a struggle for me because usually I have names that I try to throw into a plot pot. This time I have a plot but the characters aren't showing up. I have had to go out and conscript them to the story. I am feeling like the names may change but for now I am OK with them.

In an attempt to overcome the procrastination monster I worked on my story all weekend. (Please don't get the idea I worked on it all day all weekend but, I consider that I worked on it if I open my notebook and jot down a line or two! Hey, at least I'm writing!) Anyway I did spend an hour or two each of the past three days working on the book and, when I wanted to give up because junk was coming out of my pen instead of cleverly phrased sentences rife with breath taking details and descriptions, I sat back down and wrote some more junk. It felt kinda good…

Well, not only did I get some character names but I was able to produce some country names and add more detail to my map. (I love maps! A good book is not so good unless it comes complete with a map!)

I also wrote out four pages of the prologue. I felt pretty good although it was a rough draft. THANK the LORD it was only a first draft! It is full of junk and garbage, but as they say, "One man's junk is another man's treasure". Maybe this will prove to be the case here as well.

 

Bye for now!

The Story Grooowwwsss—July 16, 2007

 

 

We held the 6^th Annual Grady Paul Larson Memorial Softball Tournament this weekend and it could not have been better! The Lord blessed us with beautiful weather, a great crowd, and twelve teams.

I was able to go around and talk to people attending the games, to some of the players, and soak up some great fellowship. It was great fun!

We raised about 2/3 of the coast of the Make-A-Wish trip, around $4400.00, which was lower than what we had hoped but the contacts we made and the lives the Lord touched through this tournament were worth all the efforts! We really praise Him for all He has done!

I have a bad habit of forgetting to put sunscreen on so I am red as a lobster, again and all that fellowshippin' wears me out! I love it as it is happening but when it is over I am drained to the very bottom of my being and need to quiet down time to recover. But I do love it!

Now to the story... I have mentioned in the past being frustrated with material within seven to ten pages of writing and not being able to move forward with the story. The other night\morning I was able to get three pages of outline completed and, upon review, the story is a good one and the ideas keep coming! Praise the Lord! I now have SEVEN, count them, SEVEN pages just in the outline! WOW! I am so pumped right now! I can't wait to get home and start working on this again!

I need character names, a map, and names for the locations on the map but the ideas for the story just keep coming!

Even if this story never goes anywhere as far as being publish or sold, it will mean so much to me to get a whole story written. I feel confident that once I have done one complete story, the process will be easier for the next story. Not the writing or the actual work, but I will have had experience putting together a whole novel so I could then use that as a template for future work! Cool!

And work it will be! Getting the ideas and the outline, though time consuming, is the easy part…I now have to write the story. I have to make the characters come to life with personality and struggles. I need to create scenes that are believable and place the reader in the scene. I need to create a plot line that will draw the reader into the story and not let go! This excites me and scares me at the same time! I am excited because I really believe I can do it and it scares me because can I REALLY do it? Won't know unless I try! I try I will! I am ready to work. The next objective is to see if I can find a permanent home for my writing work. I have to clean up my mess after each writing session and this is a pain. A nice office space would be wonderful, to just spread out and not have to worry about starting over each day. Oh well, that is another story!

Bye for now! I will keep ya'll posted!

May the Lord guide you to His will!

Attack of the Sleep Snatchers! – July 13, 2007

The Sleep Snatchers strike again! There was a time when I dreaded not being able to sleep. The fear that I would not be my best the next day (or in a couple of hours, whatever!) probably exacerbated the problem.

Tossing, turning, envying my wife as she sleeps soundly and thinking to myself "Two more hours before the alarm goes off! Ugh!".

I have learned that if I can't sleep it is a great time to think. I am not suggesting that you take this time to make critical decisions about the course of your life or what you should have for breakfast but it is a great time to muse about a good many things. Indeed, my mind won't shut off so, like it or not, I think about a good MANY things.

I am learning, slowly, painfully, grudgingly to stop procrastinating.

If something comes into my mind that I need to do I have been trying to at least write myself a note…immediately. It amazes me how much stress this can actually relieve! I know I won't forget what needs to be done, now that I have it written down! (Now, if I could only find the note…)

Last night/this morning was no exception. I have been under a great deal of stress lately which has been driving me to my knees before the Father which, in and of itself, is a good thing. I certainly need more of that but I am REALLY tired of the stress. I also fear losing the stress as I believe it is what actually flows in my veins instead of blood. Yikes!

I spent time in prayer, and thought through some of the points of stress in my life and finally decided I could get to sleep…Nope! No such luck.

I have to believe there has to be some calorie burning benefit from tossing and turning, I can flip really fast!

Almost two AM. That means when you all were safely into deep REM sleep my eyes were looking at the leaves fluttering in the light breeze outside my bedroom window and my mind was a whirlwind of thoughts.

And then, in one instant of time, another story idea popped into my head and got me excited. It is not pretty when I get an exciting thought at two AM, believe me. I was so excited about this story idea I turned over and tried to back to sleep. That didn't work either. Those vicious Sleep Snatchers!

Popping out of bed (when you get to be as old as I am it really is POPPING!), I grabbed my trusty writing notebook and proceeded to the kitchen.

I sat down and started outlining the idea and when I finished I had three pages of outline! I was stunned! I had never had that much material for a story that seems to have substance. So cool!

I have not gone back and looked at this "masterpiece" today and it is possible that the late night Sleep Snatchers tricked me into thinking I had a cool idea, it has happened before, but I was pretty coherent, I didn't put it off until today, (tomorrow, the next day, the day after that…)I went right to work. Forty minutes later, that would be 2:40 AM for those of you keeping score, and I thought All right! I can now go to bed, and I did, but this story tumbled around my head for another hour so the Sleep Snatchers won again.

Oh well, if I do have a potentially good story waiting in my notebook at home it will be well worth it!

I get discouraged with all these false starts to the stories I have had lately but then I read that other authors, authors that have actually had material published and made it onto the best seller lists, have poured hundreds of thousands of words and many false starts before they finally broke in. It's a practice thing, I guess.

That is heartening to me and excites me more. I am steadily climbing this writing ladder and maybe one day I can change the title of this blog to the NOT SO Lazy Writer! I will let you know when that day arrives.

 

For now, I bid you good day and may you always look to Jesus for your strength and courage.

 

Fight the good fight today!

 

Greg

 

A Story Takes Form—July 5, 2007

I just finished reading a great book on dialogue called, oddly enough, "Writing Dialogue". It's late, or I should say very early and I can't remember the author's name. Sorry!

In it I found some great tips and I wanted to practice so a story idea popped into my head and I started to write; without an outline even! Gasp! I hate writing without an outline. I like to know where I am going and, it does not squash my creativity. It's really a guideline and not a set-in-stone document.

Anyway, I start writing this story to practice what I just learned (Pretty smart, huh?!) and I realize that I have a story that I am interested in.

At this point I sit down and start fleshing this out a bit more…

After the dialogue book I picked up another book of inspiration for writers by Terry Brooks, a fantasy writer.

In it he says when creating a world we need to have dream time. This is a time of sitting around and dreaming about the world you want to create. Let go and be creative! I really liked this plan though I have heard it also called brainstorming. Brainstorming sounds too business-like and dream time, to me, just sounds more creative so I have adopted the term. I will keep brainstorming in the business world.

Anyway, in two 2 hour sittings, with no outline I banged out six pages! That is the best production I have had on one piece of work since I started this madness known as writing.

I have also spent about two hours of dream time and that has proven to be beneficial as well. There are some cool things that could happen with this story. I'll keep you posted.

 

Bye for now!