Monday Musings: The Christmas Story continues

It's the Monday before Christmas and I'm happy to say, I'm ready. Basically. I just have one more grocery shop to do, but everything else is done and in order. I even have sometime to work on this shiny new wip I got going. Hee hee.

I'm so happy to have all my kids home, I find myself just staring at them and smiling. I'm truly blessed. I do miss them as little kids though. When you're in those years, you can't ever imagine a day when they'll be gone, but then you wake up one morning and poof--they're all grown up. At least that's how it felt to me.

That's one of the reasons I love this youtube video, a really original remake of the Christmas Story and the kids are just so adorable. Plus, I just love the accents. Take a minute to watch this, you'll be glad you did.




Merry Christmas all my wonderful online friends!

I'll be back January 01 with my goals and confessions.  Have a wonderful and peaceful week.

(Now, I have to go stare at my kids some more... :)

Friday Free For All: Christmas Traditions

Christmas traditions are unique to each family. Some are passed down through generations, some are  grafted together through marriage, and some are developed as your family changes and grows. But one thing is for sure: we all love our traditions.

I thought I’d share some of our special traditions (in no particular order).

1. Christmas begins the weekend after my second son’s birthday which is December 6^th. 
2. We always get a live Christmas tree. My daughter and I go to the tree farm, pick a tree and then drink hot chocolate in the barn while we wait for it to get cut down.
3. Every year I make Christmas granola. (pic)  It’s the granola I make yearlong but at Christmas time I add a bag of chocolate M & M’s.  The kids love this.
4. My mother-in-law always sends us a package of homemade German cookies. The kids really look forward to this every year and it will be a sad day when this tradition ends.
5. We set up a puzzle table with a puzzle ongoing that anyone can stop and work on.
6. We attend a candle-light church service on Christmas Eve. Many times the music is led by my husband and several times the kids have been his band.
7. We have a European heritage so we open presents Christmas Eve after church. We bring out all the snacks, put on the Christmas music and light the fireplace (the adults often have an eggnog and rum in hand). The presents are handed out one at a time, and we ohh and ahh over each gift and the gift receiver thanks the gift giver, often with a hug. Afterwards we just hang out and enjoy the evening.
8. Stockings are opened on Christmas morning (I like to spread out the excitement). When the kids were younger, it gave them something to look forward to, and mom and dad got to sleep in. It was a win-win. Now we all sleep in. Still a win!
9. Christmas day is Turkey day. When the kids were younger we’d build snow forts and go tobogganing.  Now we crack open a board game like Cranium. We usually end the night by watching a movie together.

For me, the biggest gift is having this extended family time together.  We are all so busy throughout the year, each with our own lives, that these two days are sacred for me. I’ll be really sad when the kids start getting married and I have to share them!! 

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?

For those of you who are eye-balling my Christmas granola, here’s the recipe:

7 cups of quick oats

1 cup each of bran, wheat germ, sun flower seeds and slivered almonds. *

I sprinkle a bit of ground flax in for good measure.

In sauce pan heat to rolling boil:

1cup oil

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup corn syrup or honey

½ teaspoon of salt

Remove from heat and add 1 teaspoon of vanilla

Pour over oat mixture and stir well. Bake at 225 F for 15 min. Remove and stir. Bake for an additional 15 min. Remove and stir. Allow to cool. Store in a sealed container at room temperature.

* When we lived in Massachusetts I couldn't find wheat germ in the grocery stores. I'm not sure if this is a state thing or USA thing. If you can't find wheat germ, just substitute a cup of something else you like. 

Merry Christmas!

How To Write: Felt Need

One thing I try to figure out before starting a new book is my main character’s felt need.

What do I mean by felt need?  Some people might call it the character’s motivation, but I think it goes deeper than that. For instance, a character may be motivated to do his father’s bidding because if he doesn’t he’ll get a beating. He obeys to prevent something harsh from happening. He’s motivated to please his father to preserve himself.  His felt need goes beyond motivation: his felt need in this situation may be to be accepted by his father. What he really wants is unconditional love. This felt need drives the character not only in how he acts and reacts but in how he feels.

For instance in my book CLOCKWISE, my main character’s felt need is to be normal.  She will never be normal according to the world’s definition, but by the end of the book she has defined her own normal and accepts it. 

In another manuscript my character’s felt need is to belong.

Felt need doesn’t eliminate character motivation—it enhances it. Motivation drives a character’s action, felt need drives action and emotion.

Felt needs are pretty basic to humanity and you’ll find that there’s a short list of needs that really drive people.  The need for acceptance, to be normal, to belong, to be loved unconditionally, to prove oneself, the desire for justice, to be safe.

In THE CAY by Theodore Taylor, Philip's felt need is to be safe. He wants to reunite with his family, get away from Timothy and he wants his vision back. A lot of his drive—his actions, reactions and emotions are the result of not feeling safe.

In the movie Napoleon Dynamite, to use the same illustration as last week, Napoleon’s felt need is to be taken seriously. He’s belittled or ignored by everyone except his new friend Pedro and this drives him to help Pedro win student council president.

How about you? Do you know you’re main character’s felt need?

Tuesday Word Smart

This week's word:

SUPERCILIOUS (soo pur SIL ee ous) adj haughty, patronizing

* The supercilious Rolls-Royce salesman treated us like peasants until we opened our suitcases full of one hundred dollar bills.

* The newly famous author was so supercilious that he pretended not to recognize members of his own family, whom he now believed to be beneath him.

Note from me: those illustrations come from the book--I didn't make that  last one up! Just to be clear :)

Monday Musings: Tracking with Technology

 I don’t know about you, but sometimes technology makes my head spin. Actually, I’m quite amazed at how far I’ve come in the last year. I started a blog, actually figured out how to set up a template and post my thoughts all by myself! (I know, I know) I set up a facebook page and joined twitter…both a little intimidating at the start … “Will you be my friend? Will you kindly follow me?” I felt a bit like the new kid in kindergarten.

After a while I got my stride, sort of. I upgraded my blog, added more features and gadgets,  joined Goodreads, and best of all, made a lot of great on-line friends.

Yet somehow it’s not enough. All these things can be done better, and more efficiently. Mostly I just stumble on information that shows me there’s always more to know.

I guess that’s a good thing.

For instance I happened upon Kristen Lamb’s blog where she told me that I should be thinking about getting more traffic to my blog and how to do that. Something about tags (labels?) and that I should have them. Drag…I didn’t. I better go back and do that…but will that work? What is it that I’m trying to do again?

And did you know that twitter isn’t twitter unless you have tweetdeck? (Or hootsuite, though I’ve yet to see anyone even mention hootsuite so I don’t know.) I down loaded tweetdeck, and yeah, I can see the appeal. Now I can have endless columns of tweets I can follow (in case one is not enough). And it turns out there's a way to filter out twitter peeps I want to engage with more regularly from the rather large list of followers one may acquire over time.

Here’s the scariest one for me at the moment: smart phones. Yikes, my phone is for, you guessed it, talking to other people on the phone. That’s it.

Except I want more—I want a smart phone. I want to be smarter. And more efficient. And cooler.

But what to get? There’s so much to choose from. How do you know what is the right one for you? How???

Here’s what I want: I want an e-reader, hd camera/video, social networking, calendar, games, gps, language translator, big screen, email, easy to use texting keyboard. And I don’t want to be killed with monthly fees.

Any suggestions?

How about you? Do you find technology a mind bender, or are you one of those tech whizzes? (And if you are, will you be my friend?)

Friday Free For All: A List

1. Okay, I reached my goal—I finished edits on my latest wip and sent it off to my terrific beta readers. What a relief to get it done! Now I can focus on Christmas and spend a bit more time reading blogs!

2. Q4U: What are blog Labels (tags if you're word press) really for?  I'd assumed that they were to help the blog author to organize her blogs and to help blog readers find certain things. Though this is true, I've just read somewhere online that LABELS help your search engine find you. For instance, if you write a blog on Unique Christmas Tree Ornaments and put those words plus others, say the name of people you quoted in your blog or collectible decorations, the more words you put in the labels the better chance someone searching the web will come across your blog. IS THIS TRUE? (you'll note my label list as increased dramatically since reading this, but I want to make sure this is right. I'm not, as previously stated, a techie). 

3. Check out Denise Jaden’s fab twitter contest, Have a Little Faith for a chance to win an annotated copy of LOSING FAITH. Don't know what that means? Check out her link to find out.

4. Charissa  has a great list: her top ten blogs for writers—worth checking out.

5. Fiddling with Tweetdeck. I've been using Hootsuite for a while, but I'm intrigued by some of the options Tweetdeck offers that I can't find with Hootsuite. Thanks to @roniloren and @rachellegardner for blogging about their twitter tips
  

6. All my kids and my husband are home—the first time the six of us have been all together since summer. I love having them here (though it’s noisier and messier, that’s for sure)!

7. Tomorrow I'm going to the tree farm with my lovely daughter to pick out our Christmas tree. Hubby brought home a lot of chocolate Christmas tree ornaments from Germany, so it will be fun to hang those. (Germans are serious about their chocolate!!) Also hitting the thrift shop circuit. Who said cool gifts had to be brand new?

What are you up to this weekend?

See you Monday, everyone!

Need Some Writing Inspiration? Check Out the Now Free Paris Review Interviews--guest blog by Vanessa Jones

Today's Other Stuff Thursday's blog is a guest post by Vanessa Jones. Please contact me if you'd like to guest post here someday.

As noted before here on Elle Strauss' blog, there are millions of books on the craft of writing out there, and it does indeed seem that we could read about writing a novel forever before actually getting down to work. Still, reading writing advice from established authors is a fantastic way to get some inspiration from those who've done it for awhile and know more about the process than we do.

One terrific new resource for writing advice can be found in the iconic Paris Review, which recently "freed" its legendary collection of author interviews on its website. From Ernest Hemingway to Vladimir Nabokov to Ian McEwan and more, the Art of Fiction series features the world's best writers as they explore their craft. They also demonstrate to those of us who are trying to complete and publish our own first books that even the "greats" struggle with writing.

Here are some of my favorites:
Tobias Wolff
Wolf, a writer of short stories, novels, and memoirs, describes in the beginning of his interview the importance of routine and hard work. He notes:

"[writing is] very hard work and it absolutely requires all the conditions that make one a bore: You have to be alone a lot, you have to be rather sedentary, you have to be a creature of routine, you have to fetishize your solitude, and you have to become very, very selfish about your time."

Paula Fox
Paula Fox is renowned author of both adult and children's fiction. In her interview, Fox notes the importance of truth when writing. She describes a time when the idea that every word must ring true first struck her:

"I recall lying on a bed, looking at a manuscript on the floor as I reached to turn pages, and thinking to myself, I must mean everything I say, every word, and feeling it as a profound moment in my writing life."

Rick Moody
Rick Moody is a contemporary American short story writer and novelist. He's most famous for his novel The Ice Storm, which was made into a movie in 1997. In his interview, Moody explains how he writes with a specific focus on language and voice, out of which thematic considerations grow organically:

"I think I’m trying so hard to fashion language and structure in ways that interest me that I never really bother to think about what I’m actually trying to say. I take it as an article of faith that each book has some specific set of thematic concerns and so forth, but I don’t really care all that much what they are. Eventually I sort of do, but most of the time I’m trying to work out issues of voice and language."

While it's very easy for writers to become bogged down by what other writers have to say about their craft, sometimes an established author can illuminate an aspect of the novel- or story- writing process that you may never have thought about before. Reading through the hundreds of now free Paris Review interviews is a wonderful way to get inside the heads of a variety of sensitive and articulate writers.

By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Vanessa Jones, who writes on the topics of dating sites. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: vanessa.jones42@gmail.com.

How To Write: Plots and Subplots

What is plot?

For some reason plot is not easily defined, and yet if plot is missing in a book or movie we know it. How? We find ourselves shaking our heads saying, I don’t get it, and What is this story about?

Plot is closely related to structure. There must be a problem or a quest. There must be obstacles that get in the way of solving the problem or continuing the quest. There must be a solution to the problem or a completion of the quest.

 Let’s look at THE CAY by Theodore Taylor. The problem: stranded on a deserted island. The solution: rescue from the deserted island.  Obstacles in the way: blindness, hunger, storms, no way to contact the outside world.

In the movie Napoleon Dynamite the main character, Napoleon, is on a quest to help his friend Pedro become the new student president. The completion of the quest is Pedro’s success. Obstacles in the way: the girl, Summer, who is running against him, Napoleon's lack of popularity, Pedro’s lack of popularity, their apparent lack of skills.

Most novel length books need more than just the plot to propel the story along. The plot is assisted with subplots. While the story can be told without subplots, subplots alone are not the story.

Again with THE CAY, the subplots would include the back drop of the war and the attack of the boat by enemy submarines, Timothy and Philip’s efforts to deal with Philip’s blindness; Philip’s prejudices towards Timothy, and Philip’s developing relationship with the cat.

In Napoleon Dynamite the subplots would be Napoleon’s tumultuous relationship with his brother Kip, Kip and their uncle trying to go back in time and trying to sell Tupperware, Napoleon’s attraction to Debbie and trying to get a date for the school dance, and his secret dancing lessons (which becomes key to Pedro’s ultimate win and Napoleon’s success in his quest).

Some people like to look at sub-ploting as braiding.

Imagine the center strand as the main plot line and the outside strands are subplots. As you structure your story, the subplots twist around the plot creating a braid—a well developed novel.

You can have more than two subplots, of course, though not all books require it. Use whatever your story needs to build the plot, just remember that you have to tie up all the loose ends by the end of your story, including all subplots.

One important thing to remember while plotting is to keep your main character active. Though sometimes things will happen to him, you want your protag to be actively engaged. For instance, even though Philip's boat was torpedoed (something that happened to him) it's his actions afterward that propel the novel. His disdain for Timothy, his stubbornness, his resistance that creates the tension and keeps us turning pages. 

Tuesday Word Smart

Today's word:

PERFIDY (PUR fuh dee) n treachery

*It was the criminals' natural perfidy that finally did them in, as each one became an informant on the other.

*I was appalled at Al's perfidy. He had sworn to me that he was my best friend, but then he asked my girlfriend to the prom.

To engage in perfidy is to be perfidious (per FID ee ous).

Monday Musings: Marvelous Middle Grade Monday

Shannon Messenger started this wonderful Monday blogging addition to help highlight some of the great Middle Grade books out there.  I think it’s a great idea so this Monday I’m featuring IDA B…and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly)Save the World, by Katherine Hannigan. Let me just say, it’s a national Bestseller for a reason.

First of all the voice is incredible. You can’t help but love little Ida B the moment you meet her. Her joy for life, along with her initial innocent world view as she plays in her valley with her trees and her brook can’t help but make you wistful.  I think most of us can relate to that short time in our lives when we were oblivious to any of the world’s evils and were blissfully pre-occupied with our childish imaginary worlds.

Of course that bubble is burst for us all at some point and I love how Ms Hannigan so poignantly shows us how it affects Ida B.

“But as I cried, my heart was being transformed. It was getting smaller and smaller in my chest and hardening up like a rock. The smaller and harder my heart got, the less I cried, until finally I stopped completely.

By the time I was finished, my heart was a sharp, black stone that was small enough to fit into the palm of my hand. It was so hard nobody could break it and so sharp it would hurt anybody who touched it.

I stayed there, staring ahead at nothing, with just about nothing left inside of me, for quite a bit.

And then my new heart came up with a resolution. Because when your heart changes, you change, and you have to make new plans.”

IDA B is charming and wrenching (but not too wrenching) and hopeful. I definitely recommend it.

Friday Free For All: The End of Quiet

This weekend marks the end of a very sweet quiet period in my life. For the last few weeks I’ve lived alone with only my two youngest kids and two cats. Daughter and son are in school/dance and college most of the time so that gave me big quiet spots to write in. Ah, bliss.

And I didn’t waste it. I got lots of new writing and revision writing done. It feels good and I’m exciting about going into the New Year with these new and improved projects.

My season of quiet is about to come to an end. Saturday my oldest son comes home from Asia, part of his university’s travel study program. Son two moves back in on Monday. Husband returns from Europe on Tuesday.

As much as I love them, all six of us in the house again is going to take some getting use to. And to think that use to be my normal!

Then on the 14^th my parents arrive for the rest of December. At that point all writing efforts will be put away until the New Year and Christmas will have officially begun.

I’m not worried, though. More quiet time is sure to come and I’m going to enjoy having my family around: lots of conversation, laughter and celebration.

Okay, enough of that.

In case you have not seen this, and chances are you have, but I want to post it anyway because it’s so darn funny, check out: So You Want to Write a Novel.

And if you need a little more sugar, you gotta watch this:

Happy Weekend, everyone!

How To Write: Chapters And Scenes

 Yes, I know it's Thursday. See my rights under What You'll Find Here.

If you’ve ever read a book you’ll know that a novel is a series of scenes strung together to make the whole. These scenes are often grouped together to make chapters.

So how does a writer know how many scenes to include in any given chapter? How long should a chapter be? What should be in it?

If you’re like me, you kind of just go by your gut. I think the chapter should end here. Or here. Or maybe here.  But maybe I should add some more—is it long enough? Or maybe it’s too long? Or????

Anyone else struggle with the Chapter Question?

I had an epiphany recently on how to write a chapter. I’m not saying it’s an original idea, just that it was the first time I’d thought about it.

It came while reading The Art & Craft of the Short Story by Rick DeMarinis, while simultaneously reading The Atonement by Ian McEwan.

Here’s the epiphany: Chapters are short stories.

A short story is a fictional telling that runs between 500 and 2500 words.  It has a beginning a middle and an end.

The beginning, as Rick DeMarinis teaches, drops the reader into a situation that has a history.

A chapter has a history (unless it’s the first chapter, but you can see my posts on beginnings here and here and here for more on that). The history lies in all the chapters previous, and also in things the writer knows about the back story of the character and situation.

And according to DeMarinis, the ending has to illuminate all that has gone on before. 

I couldn’t really encapsulate what he had to say about the middle but I’ll say that the middle is comprised of well crafted detail that propels the reader to the ending.

Much like a novel arc, the beginning must hook, the middle go “up hill” and the ending make you go “ah”, or in the case of a chapter, turn the page.

As mentioned, I happened to be reading The Atonement at the same time, and it occurred to me that McEwan’s chapters are exceptionally well written short stories. When strung together they made a bestselling novel.

I took this approach to chapter writing while working on my latest wip. With each new chapter I’d think about the character involved and what was to happen. Like any good short story it must have a creative, intriguing opening line. The middle must be rich with detail and build tension. It can’t have a limp ending. I wrote my chapters with the view that if this was the only thing someone read--outside of chapters previous or to come--that it would be an enjoyable, satisfying reading experience.

I came across this graph from the crafty writer, who drew this to illustrate how to write short stories. I think it works to illustrate how to write chapters as well.

She describes short stories as a slice of life that when strung together make the whole life story, or in our case, the whole novel.

I found this approach very helpful for me, and now I want to go back to my previous manuscripts and make sure that each chapter reads like a short story.

How about you? Do you have your own approach to chapter writing?

Other Stuff Thursdays (on Wednesday)

I’m switching the order of service this week in order to shout out to Talli about her ebook release.  Stay tuned tomorrow for Wednesday How to Write: Chapters and Scenes.

 

 

Help Talli Roland's debut novel THE HATING GAME hit the Kindle bestseller list at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk by spreading the word today. Even a few sales in a short period of time on Amazon helps push the book up the rankings, making it more visible to other readers.

Amazon.co.uk: http://amzn.to/hNBkJk

Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/hX2ieD

No Kindle? Download a free app at Amazon for Mac, iPhone, PC, Android and more.

Coming soon in paperback. Keep up with the latest at www.talliroland.com.

About THE HATING GAME:

When man-eater Mattie Johns agrees to star on a dating game show to save her ailing recruitment business, she's confident she'll sail through to the end without letting down the perma-guard she's perfected from years of her love 'em and leave 'em dating strategy. After all, what can go wrong with dating a few losers and hanging out long enough to pick up a juicy £2000,000 prize? Plenty, Mattie discovers, when it's revealed that the contestants are four of her very unhappy exes. Can Mattie confront her past to get the prize money she so desperately needs, or will her exes finally wreak their long-awaited revenge? And what about the ambitious TV producer whose career depends on stopping her from making it to the end?