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Writer in the Garret

~ A writer living one word at a time

Writer in the Garret

Tag Archives: writing process

Stories within the swamp…

28 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Writing

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Tags

imagination, writing process

Where do you get your ideas?

A writer relives moments, paring, shifting elements from here to there, shaping a narrative where parts appear in succession–understandable, available, gliding into the story. A writer chooses gems of emotion and picks the settings  to display those jewels to advantage. Polishing the facets can take the sting away, rubbing, rubbing at the rough edges, at the bits and pieces of untidy feelings threatening to catch the fine weave of passing time. The contrast between the writing of  words and their reading later on is the difference between the green of spring and the sere brown of autumn. That leaching of emotion limits the fallout, makes it possible to move the pieces around until the arrangement is manageable.

None of that gets to the driving force behind writing, especially if it is fiction. Escape is the thing…escape from what was and a doorway into what could have been. What should have been. The product of a fervent if only is the first level of foundation in a structure of lies. And yet the goal is to to find the truth. The purpose is to explain, if only to oneself, why something happened just that way, through deliberate actions following accidents of fate. The need to handle the pieces produces plot and action. The desire for reaction creates characters and their attributes. When all the elements have mixed together, the race is toward the aha! moment. Everything that’s gone before comes together, is tied with a bow.

But the bow becomes untied. The balloons lose their helium, the confetti is vacuumed into oblivion. The writer finds another story, another moment to be relived, to be dissected, to be rearranged. There’s another truth to be discovered and marveled over until all the pieces come together in pursuit of the aha!  And the exploration of the swamp continues.

 

 

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Near the end-end

14 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Uncategorized, Wisdom Court, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

plot elements, writing process

Portrait of crazy stressed young business woman screaming and pulling her hair over white background

No lick and a promise this time. I’ve sent All In Bad Time (Wisdom Court Book III) to beta readers for reactions and commentaries. Until I get feedback, I’m trying to clean up my work area and find and file all the scraps of paper decorating my study.
And how’s your summer going?

The problem with being sort of done with a book is the limbo left behind. I’m still thinking about plot points, still dreaming about scenes, and definitely still waiting to see what kind of comments I get. That’s the scariest part. During all the times I feel I was delusional to become a writer, I’m most convinced when I first show the tender shoots of my prose to someone else. (Can you tell I don’t work with a critique group?) Then I start dreaming about specific words to replace others, curse the plot points I didn’t stress in the “final” draft, and up the amount of antacid to deal with the ball of lead in my gut. Good times.

So, why do I continue to write? I have reasons, most psychiatric, but secretly I yearn for the moments when the world of my book gets several pieces from the universe, all at once. I love the joy of figuring out plot snarls, even as I peer over the edge of the abyss called Stuck In Space. I’m a total sucker for the rare and beautiful moments when characters talk and I just record what they say. I’ve never found any other way but writing to stumble into those highs.

Now, as I have to pretend I live in the real world, my hopes for you writers out there are these: may your words flow smoothly; may you enjoy your work in progress; may you finish with real satisfaction; and, of course, may your work hit the bestseller lists.

Cheers!

 

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Another Lick and a Promise…

11 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Hope, Random Thoughts, Wisdom Court, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

writing process

Seedling of narcissus spring flowers growing from ground

Seedling of narcissus spring flowers growing from ground

I’ve been revising like a fool, hoping the revisions aren’t foolish. Thus have Twitter & Facebook lacked for much attention, and I haven’t blogged in a good, long while. So, here’s to spring, my dears, with all the tumult and drama our Colorado springs usually have. Here’s to venturing out to plant seeds and seedlings, even though we know the likelihood of hail and destruction for a few more weeks. Here’s to doing good work and getting enough sleep and finishing the tale.
I’ll be back soon with more reflections about life, liberty, and putting words on the page. Send me good vibes, please, so I’ll see my way clear to the end of the story.

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Spring is coming…

28 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Metaphors, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

editing, writing process

I saw some crocuses the other day. Since I’m an old hand at using the signs of nature to interpret my life, I immediately associated those gorgeous little flowers with purple messengers of hope, new beginnings appearing where before there was only dirt. And as a writer, the symbolism goes deeper. Words spring from the brain like blooms pushing through soil. Ideas, paragraphs, stories are seeds waiting for encouragement, nourishment, panic.

I haven’t found a flower to represent that most efficient motivator of all. Panic gets the heart thumping and the fingers tapping, and words turn up on the page. No matter they’ve been pried out of their dank hidey holes under rotten logs at the edge of a swamp. Maybe a bare, twisted branch would serve as an image for that icon, a stark instrument of torture to prod those creative ideas out into a light offering the editor on the shoulder a grandstand view of their shortcomings.

Can you tell I’ve been writing under the gun? All In Bad Time, Book 3 of the Wisdom Court Series, is long overdue. I’m crawling toward the end over shards of broken metaphors and fractured grammar, but I’ll clean it up before I’m through. The signs of spring broke through the haze of plot points only for a moment. I’m back at work again. I swear.

First spring flowers: violet crocuses growing after melting the snow

First spring flowers: violet crocuses growing after melting the snow

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Dear Yvonne…

21 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Wisdom Court, Writing

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Tags

Avoiding writing, Character, writing process

Stick to  your writing today. I know you’re afraid of the plot intricacies in the WIP, All In Bad Time, tearing your hair out because incorporating the first two books of the  trilogy into this third book is exacting and frustrating. You can do it. Just plunge ahead with the action. If you don’t like it when you read it over, you can change it. You’re the goddess at Wisdom Court.

(Easy for you to say. Why the hell did I create so many characters? What possessed me to think I could manage them? By their natures they’re independent, contrary–well, some of them. They keep doing things I hadn’t planned, saying things I didn’t know they thought. WTF?)

Stressful business woman working on computer at the office

This always happens when you write. The characters start coming to life, and once they do, they want to help shape the narrative.

(Right now the narrative looks like that old joke about a blind man describing an elephant.)

Come on, stop whining. Imagine you’re walking through a forest and the goal is to get to the other side. You don’t stop to hear the birds sing, nor to marvel at the fungi. And stop trying to find that bubbling spring to drink from! Just keep going. That means you have to quit noodling around with this blog post.

(Crap. You’re right. I’m sitting here. My fingers are on the keys. It’s time to write. Thanks, I guess.)

You’re welcome. One question: why did you pick a youngish blonde woman for the graphic?

(She reminded me of J.K. Rowling. Not a bad example to have in mind, right?)

Get to work!

 

 

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My ducks were all over the place and yet…

20 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Colorado Gold, kick in the butt time, writing process

Ducks swimming

Ducks swimming

I’ve been redoubling my efforts on All In Bad Time, having got a huge boost of motivation from last week’s Colorado Gold Writers Conference. The speakers were terrific, the panels were timely and, for the most part, dead-on. But what made me excited about getting back to work (aside from abject terror at not being finished yet) was hanging out with my fellow attendees.

The writers I encountered were hellbent on writing their books. You can’t be around that flavor of determination for three days without revving up your own dammit-I-can-do-this spirit. I churned out a fair number of pages this week, despite a crash of our entire communications system, from phone to internet to TV. It was like living in 1960 again. I found myself looking for an apron to put over the house dress I wear to clean house (not!) and had to restrain myself from leaning out the front door to yell for Beaver to come home. (I have no son named Beaver.)

The important thing was, my Word program still worked and–Holy Distraction, Batman–since I couldn’t play any of the games I use to “get my ducks in a row”, I just wrote. My ducks were all over the place, but I wrote. Could it be that my sacred build-up to writing has been yet another way to put off writing? Surely I wouldn’t do that to myself. Would I?

The simple truth? The ducks have been trying to tell me for years they do better on every project when they’re all over the place. Guess I’d better listen to them.

 

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Watching from the shore…or is it from the river?

07 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Metaphors, Writing

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Tags

imagination, writing process

One of the images I have stuck above my computer screen comes from The X Files.  (Which is returning to television in January, I believe.)

Postage receipt

 

 

 

 

As I recall the plot, Scully (in the black coat), is tethered to shore where the woman in white waits for her to decide whether to survive. But the image reminds me of something else. I’ve always imagined writing as tapping into a river of words, ideas, and emotions. That river flows somewhere–in my mind, overhead, in the blue, blue sky. When I’m working, it’s as though I set out in that small boat to look for what I need to find the truth of my story and to tell it.

The woman in white? She stands in for a number of things, from a generous goddess of creativity to the unforgiving editor on my shoulder, depending on my mood. Though I can’t see her face, there are days I know a tear or two fall down her cheek at the unholy mess I’m making of what I’ve fished from the river. On the rare days when everything works? It’s golden, life is wonderful, aren’t I cool. And the river flows on.

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Is my brain big enough? Why can’t I concentrate–squirrel!

19 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in Writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

plot elements, writing process

portrait of beautiful young woman sitting at dark reflecting table touching head temples with handsHuman intelligence puzzle represented by a blue glowing maze and labyrinth in the shape of a human head representing the concept and symbol of the complexity of brain thinking and thought patterns as a challenging problem to solve by medical doctors.

Twice I have written the second novel in a series. The second Finny Aletter book, Obstacle Course, was a creature from hell to write for several reasons, primary among them that I was still a novice writer and was flung about like feathers in a fan factory. A Signal Shown, the second Wisdom Court book, was simultaneously the most difficult and most personal book I’ve ever written. One of the characters in it died of Alzheimer’s Disease, as did my mother. Enough said.

Now I am swinging a machete through the jungle of the third Wisdom Court book, All In Bad Time. While I have had glorious moments of communion with my characters, I also have a yard sale’s worth of details from the two previous books to braid along with the new and improved elements of this one. My haunted house is filled with wonderful women who have back stories, dreams and ambitions, complaints and attitude. They’ve also dropped a shitload of info along the way. I have a large flow chart (thanks again, Christine Jorgensen) but I’m staggering about, tripping over plot devices. Sacre dieu! (I say this as I shake my fist at the sky. French classes up frustration and the garret could use some class.)

But today a couple of different questions occurred to me: Is my brain big enough for this? Why has my concentration span shrunk to the size of a rare Rumanian stamp?

These are philosophical questions and don’t belong in a rant about writing. But…some legitimacy lies in asking them. Brain size is an important issue and I modestly point out that I have written a bunch of words, some of them arranged into novels. The arranging itself required a great deal of concentration. Thus past history would indicate both sufficient brain size and adequate attention span.

So why am I sprawled on the jungle path? Could it be the huge, crouching plot element that keeps tripping me? The one I keep hacking at with my dulling machete? Possibly. Do I long to succumb to the lures of gardening if it would, for just one day, stop raining? (Sacre dieu!) More than likely. Have large earth-moving machines and leaf blowers been singing the Hallelujah Chorus outside my window everyday for at least two weeks, accompanied by the whine of radial saws at the construction site down the block? Definitely. Do I have control over any of these things except the hulking plot element? In a word, no.

I have come to a conclusion. I must befriend my gargantuan plot element. I must love and care for it. Then, when I’ve lulled it into a false sense of security, I will gently prune its more irritating branches, enabling it to fit snugly into the existing–SQUIRREL!

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If anybody out there gives a whoop…

04 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in NaNoWriMo, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

mixed metaphors, writing process

998584-195…my word count came to 17, 562 words during NaNoWriMo. But some of that was rewriting, and I moved some chunks around among different chapters. So, it’s only a best guess. I just wish I were happier about it.

I truly admire the folks who can run with NaNoWriMo and accomplish their goals. Not for the first time, I wish I were one of you. I’m stuck with a brain that hops around among ideas and notions. A little tweak here, and, oh, this part can go back in Chapter 12. Not linear in the slightest. So, kudos, sincerely, and I hope you keep up the pace.

As for me, I’ll keep plugging in my own odd way. As Popeye famously said, “I yam what I yam.” Baked or candied, I write to my own drummer.

Happy holidays.

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And here I thought I knew everything…

25 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by Yvonne Montgomery in NaNoWriMo, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

editing, plot elements, writing process

Well, it’s been an interesting November so far. I’ve learned several things by trying NaNoWriMo for the first time. Biggest one is that it doesn’t work for me. I do have thousands of words written but I discovered a basic truth about the way I write: I go nuts if I don’t start each session with a brief edit of what I wrote the day before.

That may seem a small thing, but when I finally gave in to the desire to go back, take another look–rewrite, for God’s sake–my forward momentum died an ugly death. I was becalmed in my little sailboat of a writing routine and couldn’t catch any wind to return to the race. My focus had become fixed on piling up words, not discovering the heart of them. I kept finding half-thoughts tripping over each other, the kind of plot issues that don’t become a problem if you find them and deal with them every day. (Well, sometimes they sure as hell do, we all know that, but if your ears are filled with the ticking of the clock, it’s harder to deal with.) I floundered around for a while, fell into a pit of despair over an unsolvable plot snarl, and threw up my hands…and nearly my lunch. Ugly, my friends, ugly.

And then came the dawn. I would do what I always do (no, not try to take over the world, Pinky and the Brain fans.) I’d continue writing, I’d try to speed up a bit, but not at the expense of the incremental editing that appears to jump-start my brain. At the end of November I will add up all the words (and post them on Twitter and/or here, since I never actually signed up for NaNoWriMo.) And I’ll keep going until I’ve finished the book. And then I’ll go through the manuscript again and again until I’m ready to show it to readers.

I was really hoping the pressure of NaNoWriMo would bulldoze me through the slow patches. Came to find out the slow patches are where my writing happens.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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