Happily Ever After--Write Your Ending First

Ready for NaNoWriMo? Here's a tip to make the next month easy on your time, planning, and imagination: Write your ending first.

Writing the end of my novels and short stories before I write my first page is a trick I've been using for years, and I love it. It's especially helpful for someone like me because I've never really been either a total pantster (someone who freewrites her way through a manuscript as opposed to persnickety planning), or an obsessive outliner. I've always preferred a combination of the two. 

For instance, I like to know who my characters are and what makes them tick in advance of writing a full manuscript, but to get there I still have to freewrite what those traits and motivations are going to be. If I have a pre-written ending that tells me where my characters will be on the last page, complete with dialogue and action, I'll know exactly what they need to do, be, and feel to reach that point. 

Writing my last three to  five pages first has saved me a lot of worry. Here's why:

1.  Writing your ending first gives you a life raft to swim toward. You will always know where you're supposed to go, giving your scenes a sense of forward movement.

2.  When somebody (like an editor) asks what your WIP is about, you will instinctively know the answer based on the tone and mood of your ending.

3.  Many writers (like me) love to write back story, but so often we're told "no back story allowed!" I think this is because so often back story is inserted into the wrong places where it slows the plot down. However, if you have to write your story backwards to explain how you reached your ending, you get to write all the "back story" you can think of--and it's always in the right place because it IS your story!

4.  Writing "The End" first means that technically at least, your manuscript is finished; a nifty psychological ploy to keep you from feeling overwhelmed on the blah-days when it seems your book is going nowhere fast.

5.  Which creates confidence--you know in advance that your story has a strong and satisfying conclusion. No more unfinished manuscripts piling up in your filing cabinet, no more excuses for not sending out those query letters!

Tip of the Day: Even if you have no intention of participating in National Novel Writing Month this year, take some time on Friday November 1 to sit down and write the last five pages of either a new work, or something you've already started. The first time I tried this exercise was with a novella I was playing around with just for fun. What I discovered from writing that final scene before I'd even written Chapter Two completely turned the book around from being a superficial light comedy to a serious story about aging and accepting mistakes with grace. Wow--who'd of thunk it? Happy Nanowrimo-ing!

Happy Birthday To My Blog!

You are invited: to my blog's birthday party!

5 years old! It's my blog's birthday on Monday, October 28; I can hardly believe it. 

To celebrate I'm having a special giveaway just for my followers (thank you, everyone!). 

All you have to do to be eligible is a) follow my blog. Easy-peasy. 

And of course, if you'd like to leave a comment that would be lovely too.

I'll be holding a random drawing on Friday, November 1 (the start of NanoWriMo) at 12.00 PM Mountain Time, so that gives you a whole week to sign up and join the fun.

The giveaway prize will consist of books, journal, and pens--just one winner.

Don't miss out :) In the meantime, everybody eat cake . . .

Autumn Planning

For the last few weeks I've found myself offline much more than usual. I can't help it--where some people suffer from "spring fever" and the inability to stay indoors and concentrate when the first green buds appear on the trees, I have the exact opposite problem: "autumn fever." 

It's been that way all of my life, something to do with the turning leaves, cooler days, an Indian Summer wardrobe that pairs sweaters with cotton skirts, Halloween, Nanowrimo . . . my birthday . . . there's nothing about the season I don't love! 

And even though it's been a long, long time since my student days, I think autumn brings back a remnant of "back to school" determination and renewal to my psyche--all those great plans to accomplish by next semester! I recently read somewhere that deciding to become a writer is like signing up to do homework for the rest of your life. Too true--which is probably why I'm so interested in creating schedules, routines, and self-imposed deadlines; I don't want to mess up my assignments.

With that theme in mind, I've been busy getting ready for the writer's equivalent of term paper and doctoral thesis rolled into one:  revising my next novel. In this respect I've been a little bit like a squirrel hoarding autumn acorns for the winter. Do I have the right supplies? Have I done all my prep? I think so, starting with:

• A complete first draft with a beginning, middle, and end.
• First draft fully edited. (Four red pens hit the dust!) Areas that require new scenes and chapters all marked out for new writing.
• Character names, dates, goals finalized.
• To keep my characters and story events in order, I've created a "manuscript chart" listing my chapters.  This was important for me to remember both my timeline and to know exactly which characters appear in these chapters, and why. I've also included a section to remind myself why I even HAVE a particular chapter other than because it's so well written, LOL! I figured this last section could also be helpful for marketing and and editorial response, especially in the case of an editor requiring any kind of further rewriting.

So . . . I'm ready to go! Second draft, here I come. But first, I just have to take one more autumn walk with my journal-sketchbook in hand. These leaves are just too pretty to miss.  

Tip of the Day: What projects have you got planned for the winter? What "school supplies" do you need to purchase or make to ensure the work goes smoothly? In my case it was a bigger binder to hold all my revision notes, as well as some new magazine cut-out for those extra sections I need to write. It's good to have everything you need before you begin.

New Book Trailer! The Essential Guide for New Writers, From Idea to Finished Manuscript

Announcing!  The Essential Guide for New Writers, From Idea to Finished Manuscript now has its own book trailer:

I'm excited to have this new development for the book, especially as it's been one of my best sellers over the years, and it's been quite a few years! Some of my favorite memories from the early days of writing the book:

• The idea came to me while I was teaching my first workshop at West Georgia College, now the University of West Georgia.
• I was still in the middle of building my house in the middle of 5 acres of woods and farmland.
• My initial idea was to simply make photocopies of my workshop notes and staple them together. (Whew. Would've been a lot of stapling. Glad I didn't choose that option!)
• And then I realized I could have a complete trade paperback. A revelation in publishing.
• Chapter 3 on "Creative Conflict" was reprinted in a textbook for the Atlanta College of Art. Prior to this I never knew you could sell and get royalties for just a part of your book. The textbook was for the college's class on making videos.
• International sales have been as far away as New Zealand and Singapore.
• I'm proud to say the book has been used in both male and female prison writing programs throughout the country.
• It's also been a featured textbook in several university masters' programs, including the Masters in Professional Writing at Kennesaw State.
• I wrote the entire book in longhand first--still my preferred method!

To celebrate the release of my new trailer, The Essential Guide for New Writers is on super-sale at my website.

Instead of the usual price of $10.95, the price is now only $5.95, and all USA orders include Free Shipping! What are you waiting for? Get on over and get your copy today!

Tip of the Day: I wrote The Essential Guide as a way to express my love of writing. When I sat down to type out my handwritten notes, writing was, and continues to be, my passion. I just love to write--and I wanted to share that joy with other writers. Whatever you feel passionate about is always a good indicator of what you should be working on.

Splash Ink Watercolors

I can't believe how long it's been since my last blog post: over a month. Guess I've been busy! Most of August found me editing my new novel, The Abyssal Plain, and practicing the techniques I learned in a recent 2-day art class, Splash Ink Watercolor.

I was attracted to this class for two reasons: first, the word "ink" made me think of fountain and gel pens, freewriting, and calligraphy. And I just love ink! Second was the course description that mentioned using our imaginations to paint--always a good sign of something interesting up ahead.

In a nutshell, Splash Ink is based on Chinese art and theory. One of the things that surprised me the most was that the word "splash" actually means "pour" in Chinese, so the class wasn't quite as messy as I thought it would be. (I wore my absolute worst clothes and shoes on both days, terrified that we would be throwing paint all over the room and each other. Thankfully, this never happened and was straight out of my over-active "imagination." Splash Ink can be safely attempted in any work space or studio with a plastic tablecloth and paper towels.)

To start off the first day of class, our wonderful instructor, Ming Franz, gave us each 12 sheets of good quality rice paper measuring roughly about 14" x 14" that we divided into sets of 4. The sets of 4 were kept together and taped to plastic boards. After taping, we then sprayed water onto the top sheet until all 4 sheets were saturated. We then poured ink and liquid watercolor and/or acrylic paints onto the top paper in the following order: sumi ink first, then blue, red, yellow, and white paint. Using the white paint was the most surprising to me as I've always heard, "Don't use white in a watercolor!! Ever!" But for this method it was essential. Somehow the white paint seemed to soften, blur, and highlight the other colors all at the same time, a very nice effect.

After pouring the color and letting it seep down into all 4 sheets, the next optional step was to sprinkle salt onto the first sheet. We could also drip diluted dish washing liquid into the damp color for added depth and texture. Another option was to place pieces of scrunched-up plastic wrap in selected spots. Last of all we then carried our boards outside into the New Mexico sun to let the papers dry--which in our super-dry climate took about 30 minutes.

Once everything was dry we were able to separate the pages, and wow: 3 sets of 4 abstract backgrounds in varying degrees of dark to light depending on the order of the papers . Here is one of my lighter pieces that was #3 in a set of 4:

This next much darker sheet was the first of a set of 4. I also used some of the crunched-up plastic wrap to fill out the design:

Day 2 was where the magic really began--we got to paint over the backgrounds with either acrylic or gouache (opaque watercolor) paints. Our homework assignment between classes was to study and meditate on our pieces so that we could "find the picture" inside each one, kind of like looking at clouds or cracks in the ceiling. There's an elephant! No, it's a giraffe! Ming also suggested we look through books and magazines for reference photos we could bring to class and that could help turn our background pieces into finished paintings.

For me, a magazine picture of falling autumn leaves over rushing water seemed to fit the red paint splashes I already had on this particular piece:

I was sorry the class was for only two days, because I certainly had a lot more backgrounds to fill. I ended up with even more when I took 4 of my least favorite sheets and cut them down into quarters, giving me a stack of little "mini-sheets" to practice on. Here's the result of my first small attempt at home; I called it "On the Way to Taos" as that's exactly what it reminded me of:

Now that the class is over, I hope to continue using Splash Ink and adapting it to my own style and choice of mediums. I think it would be an incredible way to illustrate a book, especially one for children, or perhaps a dark and mysterious Gothic novel for grown-ups. Maybe I'll have to do this one day for a new edition of Overtaken!

Tip of the Day: To learn more about Ming Franz and Splash Ink, take a look at Ming's book, Splash Ink With Watercolor (Looking East, Painting West). Not only will her beautiful artwork inspire you to try some painting of your own, but you might want to experiment with using Ming's paintings as writing prompts--a great idea for yourself or your writer's group. Happy creating!

Watercolors for Everyone--Writers, Too!

Tomorrow morning I start a new watercolor class, which I thought was the perfect excuse to write about: Watercolors!

The idea to post about painting has been with me for awhile, thanks to watercolor artist, Rita Squier, one of the winners from my blog giveaway last November. I had asked followers for some suggestions on what I should blog about, and Rita asked what it was I enjoyed about watercolors. Great question! And it was one I wanted to give some thought to, not just write any old thing from off the top of my head. 

It may seem that I waited rather long, however, to answer Rita, but I have a good excuse: at the time of Rita's question, I had taken a small break from watercolor painting. November in Albuquerque was SO cold that watercolors seemed too thin, too bright and summery for the way I was feeling. Instead, I found myself turning to oil pastels for creative inspiration, especially the more muted tones of gray, olive green, and brown. Just the thought of watercolor back then made me want to shiver and put on an extra sweater.

But now it's summer again, and I'm back to sandals, T-shirts, and open windows. Once again I'm craving the brilliant light and sparkle only watercolor can produce on a pristine sheet of white paper. (Oh, that scary white paper . . . no, not really!)

My interest in watercolors started about twelve years ago, but it took a while for me to get up the nerve to try them myself. For years I had heard so many people say that watercolor was a difficult, even impossible, medium to work with (something I still hear) that I was afraid to make a serious start. Especially when most of the instruction books and magazines I read concentrated on super-realism; beautiful to look at, but the time, the talent needed to achieve such results! Whew. How could I ever reach that pinnacle of perfectionism? My own meager attempts seemed like messy blobs of . . . well, mess. Then one day I had an epiphany: the watercolor paintings I loved best were messy. And they were beautiful. There was room for everyone.

Once I started using watercolors on a regular basis, I learned that yes, they could be frustrating, no two ways about it--those nay-sayers had a point. But more often than not the paints were pure magic: the transparency they can give to light and shadow alike; the meditative dreaminess of the wet colors and soft edges flowing across a damp surface; the mystery of "what will it be?" allowing for a constant sense of new direction; the bright intense color which can match my mood whether it be somber and reflective, or happy and playful. I can't think of any other medium that can provide all that at the same time.

One of my favorite things about watercolor, though, has to be its similarity to ink.  In the same way I prefer to use a gel or fountain pen when I freewrite, each time I start a new watercolor I can simply let the images "flow." A single drop of color can spread into an entire design, leading to yet another choice of color, and another new doorway into my imagination. Happy accidents abound, and sometimes I can almost say the painting painted itself. When that happens I can barely remember even holding the paintbrush.

Another wonderful aspect of watercolors is that they come in a variety of forms now--not just little pans or tubes of paint. Watercolor pencils, pens, and crayons are perfect for writers! Whether I use them for  journaling or perhaps to add some loose sketches to my manuscript notes, they're as easy to use as any other pen or pencil, like the time I went into my backyard looking for haiku subjects:

In this next example I wanted to illustrate a poem about my cats and I used a brush and traditional tube colors instead of the pencils. I experimented with using just three colors:

Here I simply took a break from editing to capture another of my cats as he dozed on the couch in my office. I had to work fast before he woke up!

Painting people is almost as fun as painting cats (almost). This next picture was done with a single watercolor crayon. (I also think this model would be a great character to write about):

Now it's your turn . . .

Tip of the Day: Visit Rita's blog as well as her Etsy store.  And while you're at it, why not buy yourself a watercolor pad or journal, as well as a little set of Prang Watercolors? (Amazing value and excellent quality for beginners and professionals alike.) Just be sure to throw away the accompanying brush that comes with the set however, or keep it for spreading glue in your art journal. In its place I recommend buying 2 synthetic brushes: a flat and a round, size 8 or 10 is just about right for anything. If you've never tried watercolors at all, a good place to start is by watching beginner's how-to videos online and following along with the step-by-step lessons. Paint your world beautiful!

Motorcycles and Madonnas: Back from Barcelona!

I'm back: from my Internet holiday and 2 weeks in Barcelona! I'm jet lagged, recovering from a head cold, and surrounded by so many bits and pieces of Barcelona ephemera (ticket stubs, receipts, postcards, museum brochures, postage stamps) that it seems I will be art journaling on the city for the rest of my life. And that's fine with me--I love having a theme that can extend into my pottery, my watercolors, and who knows--maybe even a short story or two.

Our choice of Barcelona started with my husband's wish to see a Moto GP race live, and the Catalunya circuit seemed like a good venue. Put that with my desire of many years to see the Black Madonna of Montserrat, and we thought, hey, let's go!

Our first day was spent settling into our apartment converted from an old palace straight out of a fairy tale. (I still don't know how I got my suitcase up these stairs.)

The view from our living room: 

From the bedroom:

From both rooms:

The original (and very high) ceiling in the bedroom:

Next stop was afternoon coffee:



I loved all the architecture of the city, from Gothic to Art Nouveau, and for some reason became obsessed with this particular building we seemed to pass just about every day. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it was so full of carving and plants and romantic stonework . . . I wanted to move in and live there forever.

Old world undies (no, I did not shop here): 



Seeing Montserrat at last was every bit as thrilling and meaningful as I thought it would be--maybe even more so. Ever since reading China Galland's book, Longing for Darkness, Tara and the Black Madonna I've been intrigued by the history and spirituality connected to the various Black Madonnas throughout the world. Add that to my love for the work of New Mexico artist and writer, Elaine Soto and her own versions of these beautiful icons, there was no way I could go to Barcelona without making the (somewhat scary) ascent up the mountainside to this sacred site.

Montserrat wasn't the only place with a view, however. This picture was taken right from the heart of the city on Montjuic and the steps of the Catalonia art museum: 



After several more days of nonstop museums (Picasso, Roman ruins, the Cathedral...) it was great to get out onto the water with a boat trip:

And visit Gaudi's Sagrada Familia: 



As well as the Maritime Museum (uh-oh, more museums!):



Here's me at the Aquarium. Husband's instructions: "Smile--there's a shark right over your head!"

Before we left Albuquerque, someone asked me if it wasn't a little unusual to mix motorcycles and Madonnas into one trip. But for me, it seemed the most natural combination in the world--two extremes blended into one perfect whole. It's what I aspire to in my writing, my painting, and well, even my life, I guess!

So on that thought, I'll leave you with another shot of the race (as you can see we were smack in the middle of the Rossi fan club. Good thing they were so focused on their guy they couldn't hear us cheering for Pedrosa.). Yay, Barcelona!

Tip of the Day: Where's your dream vacation? Try starting a "vision board" and special art journal to help get you there. Collect pictures, create your own artwork of the place, and write about the sights you want to see. Not only will you have an excellent source of daily writing and drawing prompts, you might even surprise yourself with a plane ticket.