45 days of Pen on Fire

Inspired by the chapter "create a written snapshot" from Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's Pen on Fire.

Chapter Take-Away: How can I verbally evoke emotion while describing the mundane? Connect with a memory where I encountered similar feelings to that which my character is experiencing and extract empathetic details for the reader to latch onto as well.

Most of my friends "create a written snapshot" every time they post a Facebook Status, which is a great exercise at being vivid with imagery while adhering to an economy of words.

Who doesn't recognize the cuteness factor of a two year old pointing to a picture of Shamu (Sea World's famous killer whale, or orca) and calling it a "cow mermaid"?

Who doesn't understand what a three year old means when he says he feels "like a burned up french fry and a dead fish" right before throwing up?

Who wouldn't crack up at a four year old boy running through the house naked, yelling, "Michelangelo! Michelangelo! Michelangelo!"?
OR
Being torn between a laugh and a sympathetic whimper when a woman is afraid she has somehow become invisible because of the way people look past her and one of her friends sets a picture of a blank wall on his cellphone to display when she calls.

***

Now there are also ways of drawing a word picture by forming correlations with the things around a character. When my character Dannen is contemplating being sent away while laying on his back in an open field behind his grandpa's house, he finds a parallel between his situation and the clouds above him:

' Wide blue sky and pale wisps of cloud swept above him. These clouds weren't quite as impressive as the billowing pillar to the east, still visible, still unchanged. But he could relate to these-- disconnected, blown about by the wind.
Soon they'd be gone too. '

TRY YOUR HAND: Write a scene about a character standing outside a building.
Where are they? Insert sensory details: sight, sound, smell, touch...
Why are they there?
Now what is the character struggling with internally?
Is he trying to talk himself into going in? What is preventing him?
Is she trying to convince herself to walk away? What is she tempted to do in there?
Or has he just left and he's afraid of the consequences of what just transpired?
How can your past experiences add richness and authenticity to the scene?

46 days of Pen on Fire

Inspired by the chapter "first lines" from Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's Pen on Fire.

Chapter Take-Away: Find a good first line to work with-- if it hooks you and pulls you through the story it's done its job even if you end up using another first line in the final draft.

If you're going to write, you need an arsenal of good first lines, you need good first lines at your Book's opening, at chapter beginnings and after section breaks. As author Jack Cavanaugh said at the San Diego Christian Writers' Guild 2009 Fall Conference, you don't want to give your readers a good place to put down your book, rather you want to give them every reason to blame you for sleep-deprivation.

These are the series of first lines which got me through my first and second draft:

* He knows, she thought.
* As he sat in classroom 4-A listening to the other kids talking about their summer plans, his spirits dug a ditch and crawled in.
* Fifteen-year-old Dannen Pyke broke into a run.
* A shadow passed in front of his eyelids and he opened to see a figure looming over him.

I am now down to the following two for my opening options in my final draft:

* The Watcher perched on the roof of a convenience store, his wings extended behind.
* The first time Dannen noticed the clouds that didn't change was on the way to Grandpa Joe Moses' house to be dumped for a summer of exile.

And as I look through my short list of first lines for future projects I find the following:

* The doctor leaned over her open palm.
* Let me make this abundantly clear: this story is not about me.
* Tomorrow my life ends.


Here are some good first lines-- let's see if we can dissect them and find out why they are good.

1)That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. (Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine)
WHY is it good?
It shows personality.
It tells the genre (fairytale).
It presents a problem-- a curse,
and reveals Point of View: first person.

2) Late on a full-mooned Sunday night, the two figures in work clothes appeared on Highway 27, just outside the small college town of Ashton. (This Present Darkness, by Frank E. Peretti)
WHY is it good?
It gives the location
and time of day--
with a hint of mood in the details.
It gives a ring of the mysterious:
these figures "appeared"
as from out of nowhere,
so we can expect the extra-ordinary in this book
and it begs the question Why have they appeared?

3) It began one day in summer about thirty years ago, and it happened to four children.(Half Magic, by Edward Eager)
WHY is it good?
It, again, gives a time frame
and season.
It tells who the main characters are going to be
and hooks the reader with the detail "it happened"--
You naturally have to know what "it" is.

4) When the city of Ember was just built and not yet inhabited, the chief builder and the assistant builder, both of them weary, sat down to speak of the future. (The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau)
WHY is it good?
It states the place.
That it was just built and not yet inhabited are
intriguing details.
And the fact that the chief builder and assistant are both weary
is a telling fact as well,
when you would expect excitement
even celebration
over their finished project,
whose purpose is about to be realized,
their somber mood suggests something about
the city's perhaps less-than-bright future.

5) Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world. (Eragon, by Christopher Paolini)
WHY is it good?
The detail of howling wind anchors the reader in an expectation of something ominous.
It grips the reader with a need to know what the scent is?
And it announces a promise: the world is about to change.

Reader Input:
What is your favorite first line? What book? What author?
And, alternately, what is the first line of your favorite book?
Finally, can you pinpoint WHY it is good?

47 days of Pen on Fire

Inspired by the chapter "harvesting words" from Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's Pen on Fire.

Chapter Take-Away: You must know a word intimately before you can use it and make it authentic. Same goes for your characters. If they haven't been exposed to a word correctly and impactfully, they can't use it with any degree of believability.

I love words. I love the way they sound, the way they play with the words around them, the way they sketch images in our minds and ignite fires within us.

I'm determined to keep a word journal, and I might just attach it to this blog for posterity and for the use and enjoyment of my readers. The journal would be made up of--
1. Words overheard
2. Words read
3. Words harvested from the dictionary
and lastly,
4. slang, or what I will from now on refer to as faux-cabulary

So, here are the words that I gleaned this week which have stuck with me.

Faux-cabulary
My first example was a misspoken term in Sunday's sermon, but I think it is delightfully valid.

ambassenger \am BASS en jer\ noun 1. A representative of his or her Sovereign who communicates a message of Truth.

other great words of the week...

Overheard:

conflagration \con fluh GRAY shun\ noun 1. Fire, especially a large disastrous fire.
2. War, conflict.

Read:

profligate \PRAW flih geht, -gayt\ adjective 1. Completely given up to dissipation and licentiousness.
2. wildly extravagant, prodigal.

vitriol \VIH tree uhl\ noun 1. a sulfate of any of various metals (as copper, iron or zinc), especially, a glassy hydrate of such a sulfate.
2. something felt to resemble vitriol especially in caustic quality. Virulence of feeling or of speech.

Reader Input: What were your favorite words you heard, read, or looked up this week?
Do you have any faux-cabulary to share?

48 days of Pen on Fire

Inspired by the chapter "load the basket, fill the jug" from Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's Pen on Fire.


Chapter Take-Away: Attack your project daily, doggedly-- gather kindling from conversations overheard, newspaper articles, candid photos, facebook posts, and situations that pin you down and tickle until your fancy cries "uncle."

Candid Photo fodder--

The bus rumbles and bumps through the green El Salvadorian landscape, winding through the verdant mountains and out of town, away from the respectable neighborhoods to a plain of refuse. Some would label the inhabitants along the same lines as their surroundings: waste. Broken aluminum, tires and tarps lean at crude angles to supply shade and shelter. Occasional mismatched shoes and grimy shirts clothe the dust-covered little ones who roam about the garbage that is their home.
We've arrived, but it feels as if we aren't really here. We dismount the bus and the smell of rot, of dry and dirty trash, of urine, assaults our senses. This is real. This is poverty.
The children gather and sing songs of praise to Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord who Provides, and eat rice and chicken provided out of the visitors' abundance. A five-year-old girl with eyes round with innocence and caution waits to eat until she's sure her younger sister has had enough, and my heart collapses. I don't speak in the same tongue as her, but her language of selflessness and love breaks through with perfect clarity. And a simple sweetness embeds itself across the memory crying out that this day has not been wasted.

49 days of Pen on Fire

Inspired by the chapter "freewriting shall set you free" from Pen on Fire, by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett


Chapter Take-Away: Create a Freewrite Topic Pile.
What is freewriting, some may ask? It is a method used by many writers to get the creative rain gutters unclogged. Here's how it works, take one or more evocative words or phrases as a starting point and set a timer. The key: write for the allotted time without stopping, without editing, without second guessing. Silence the inner critic and allow stream-of-consciousness to roam free.

I don't yet have a Topic Pile, so while working on my first freewrite I stole two words from nearby books with the open-and-blindly-point approach. I landed on "alarm" and "squashed this selfishness" and allowed myself five minutes.
It was not a stellar writing accomplishment, but it definitely gave me mental pictures to work with.

READER INPUT: Post three unrelated words or phrases that I may add to my Freewrite Topic Pile.

50 days of Pen on Fire

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While editing and revising my young adult novel, I am challenging myself to not become stale in writing fresh words as well. So, I endeavor to tackle 50 days of Pen on Fire, inspired by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's book Pen on Fire, a busy woman's guide to igniting the writer within.

Beginning with the "Getting Started" section I will use a chapter a day (Monday through Friday, though since I'm starting mid-week the first few chapters will be posted same day to catch up) and I will wrap-up with the "Overcoming the Obstacles" section. Finally there are four chapters at the end which will put me past the nice round 50 days, but I will most likely complete those as well.

The goal: each day I will include a snippet of my 15 minutes of free-writing, and my take-away from the chapter. I may give a "try your hand" challenge for my readers, or ask for additional input.
So there you have it-- the first installment, inspired by the chapter "stolen moments", follows...

Chapter Take-Away: Notwithstanding the LORD's ability to make the sun stand still in the middle of the sky (Joshua 10:13), I need to diligently redeem the time that I have been given to accomplish the roles set before me: wife, writer, secretary, Sunday school teacher, etc. Since I cannot increase the number of hours in a day, I have to take time from somewhere else, the most obvious being sleep-- Oh, how I love my 8 hours of sleep-- but also to narrow the time it takes for my various other responsibilities throughout the week, so I don't have to be crippled by the fear of neglecting my roles.

1. First things first-- The Lord shall receive the firstfruits of my day. I commit to God my first waking hours, to prayer, and the renewing of my mind by reading and submissive contemplation of His word.
2. Next, morning chores.
3. Followed by office hours at the shop.
4. Blocking out two hours of writing time upon returning home.
5. Dinner prep.
6. Husband time.

All the while, stealing moments for writing amidst the day's duties. Setting a timer, and not stepping away until those fifteen minutes are fulfilled.

READER INPUT?: the timer method works wonders for me in my chores and in my writing? What do you do in order to diligently and effectively take on a challenge?