Writing to Entertain

by guest blogger Lee Lopez

Ever since I was very young I was a natural storyteller. What followed was the desire to see my stories in print. That is where my dream shifted and changed. I had no idea how hard it would be to become published. In my infancy of writing, during those naïve day dreams, I thought I wrote the story, sent it to an agent, they’d love it, (of course) and the deals would come rolling in.

Then reality hit the fan, splattering me with rejection letters. I was pelted with them.

To be honest, there were times in my writing life, when I was close to quitting. I have a file filled with standard rejections, and even one written on the back of my query with a very distinct coffee cup stain. Whatever drove me deep in my oracle genes kept running a full tilt, because I didn’t stop writing.

When the Indie publishing phenomenon hit, it was the place for me. I could control my own career, choose my own covers, titles, without deadlines or someone outside my story ordering me to change this or that to please the public. I released She Cried Wolf in April, to see my dream become the best part of reality.

As an author, I’m not really sure what I expect from my book. It’s selling decently well. I’ve received five star reviews, and I love the cover. I’m a happy girl.

Do I expect to make a fortune? No. As authors our mantra is, “Don’t quit your day job”. When an indie does climb up the list, it’s always a pleasant surprise, because they had to do it all on their own. No publisher to buy a spot on the NYT list. The book had to sell on its own merits.

What I wanted to do with my book was entertain.  When it started to sell I had a Sally Fields moment, “They like me! They really like me!” I was entertaining someone out there in the cyber world.

I think most authors will agree, they are compelled to write. It’s not about fame and fortune, it’s an uncontrollable compulsion. No matter if I’m indie published or someday get a dream contract, I write stories because it’s engrained deep in my DNA. Instead of sitting around a fire exaggerating a hunt into a fable, I sit at a computer and reinterpret life onto the pages of what will become a book.

Are you compelled to write?

Lee Lopez is a retired Sheriff’s Deputy, who lives in San Francisco Bay area with her husband and two black cats. Her debut release is She Cried Wolf.  You can find her on Facebook Lee Lopez-author, Twitter, www.leelopez.com www.twoindieladies.wordpress.com  and www.thehappyhealthyholisticpet.blogspot.com

 

A Life In Writing

The marker says, “Gold found here July 4, 1862.

I searched one of author Angela Hunt’s blog sites and found this quote: “The things that enter her life sooner or later find their way into her books, hence a life in pages.” Of course, I immediately thought about what I’ve put into my manuscripts. How what I’ve experienced has made what I write.

My father always said to invest in real estate. In the summer of ’96 my husband and I looked across the state of Oregon for affordable river front property and bought some acreage in northeast Oregon between Baker City and Sumpter. We spent every chance we could four wheeling amongst the junipers, pines, firs and rocky crags of the area. My husband’s interest was in panning for gold, while I was enamored with the decaying buildings, the caves, or equipment left behind in the mining districts and still visible today.  Fine, I had my location. Since I have some experience with writing, the hero in my first published book became a writer with a fan base similar to author Dean Koontz. All famous mystery author Stanton Black wanted was to leave the flashbulbs of Hollywood behind. Hiding out in the wilds of northeast Oregon seemed like the perfect way to get over the attempt on his life while researching his work. His latest novel would draw on the history of his ancestors and the lore of gold country.

I am a licensed speech language pathology assistant so the heroine in Maya’s Gold became a teacher. Now, all my hero needed was a suitable tour guide. Special education teacher Maya Valentine was no tour guide. After the death of her parents, Maya has come home to Salisbury Junction for the summer only to have an ailing friend (a historian) talk her into escorting Stanton around the area. As a pattern of crime around her and the newfound gold on her property leads to a real-life mystery. I also threw in a crazy Viet Nam veteran, which I may or may not have known in real life.

For A Place to Land: Some years back I lived next to two Russian families and I learned something about coming to America and the cultures that many brought with them. So when Uli’s (my heroine) impoverished family left Russia for America, she was only ten years old. From that point on, she’s been determined to make the American dream hers. When Headline Magazine offers the perfect story with which to launch her new writing career (okay, so I can’t let writing go), Uli travels across Oregon to find out exactly how wolf and cowboy mix. I imagined what it would be like to find a successful young rancher with acres upon acres of land set against the Eagle Cap Mountains of NE Oregon. Jackson Holt, my hero, owns one of the largest ranches in eastern Oregon and like most ranchers, is none too happy with wolves crossing over the Idaho border near his livestock. The last thing he needs is a semi-environmentalist, journalist wannabe dogging his footsteps. I also gave Jackson a well-behaved German Shepherd (I had two at the time, but maybe not well-behaved). I added a villain, but not a crazy one this time.

For Wanting Moore: I now own two lots on Main Street in the ghost town of Bourne. It is an old gold mining town in Northeast Oregon. It is a place you can sit and listen to the creek and think about what must have gone on there from 1862 through the early 1900s. Thus came the idea for my third book, a novella. The second step in putting this story together came from two Asperger’s syndrome students that I’d taught. Both had an interest in the Civil War and as the story was coming together in my mind, I asked them questions.

My father had five brothers and one sister. Some families cherish their only girl and treat her like a princess (like my aunt) and other families have a kick-butt kind of girl that tries to keep up or outdo her brothers. My heroine, Isabella Moore, is mostly the latter and a fun character to write. Independent beyond what’s good for her, she leaves her brothers and parents in Prairie City in search of her true calling. Traveling to Haines, Oregon, by way of the historic Bourne-Haines Stage Road, she runs across the type of people from whom she’d been sheltered, leading to an accident. The hero, blacksmith Gabriel Stone saw enough of death during the Civil War to last him a lifetime. Isabella is in need of his care-but caring for her may bring back unwanted memories of his former life as a doctor. And dare he entrust his heart to a woman filled with ideas of gold mining and adventure?

It seems that most authors use something from their own lives, or the lives of people they know as an integral part of the story. Are you that type of writer, too?

www.maryvine.com

 

I Dream Of LeakyCon

I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago in praise of small conferences—great opportunities not just for workshops, but also for getting involved with your local writing community.  No matter what genre you write or where your dream conferences take you, I hope that you will always return to your local writing groups and take care of each other.

That said, today I want to talk about going to the conferences of your dreams.  You know the ones? The ones that increase your heart rate, the ones that make you hyperventilate a little?

Some of you are murmuring the names already.  I can hear you.

The places on my list are  LeakyCon, ALA, Big Sur, SCBWI.  I could easily slip onto a plane headed for Comic-con or Bouchercon.

Someone else’s list will look like a pile of letters.  Your own list will feel like poetry.

But what about those of you who have yet to define your dream?  This post is for you.

Keep in mind that conferences don’t just cost lotsa dollars.  They also cost lotsa energy and require a time shift away from things like Actual Writing and Sustaining Relationships.

Before you dump all your available resources into a conference, please take time to consider whether you’re following your heart or someone else’s.  This may sound obvious, but it’s amazing how many writers don’t know what they want for themselves. They’ll go along because their writing group is going.  They’ll go along because online friends are going. They’ll go along because they went last year. They’ll go along because they haven’t done the research or the soul-searching to know what they want instead.

Not sure if you’re being true to yourself, true to your own dreams?  Ask yourself these questions:

• Which living authors inspire you?  Are those authors participating in any conferences, workshops, or mentoring programs?
• What books do you love?  Where do other fans of these books congregate?
• Do the books you love ever win awards?  Who gives those awards? Does that organization host a conference?
• Do the authors you love belong to professional writing groups?  Which groups?  Do those groups host conferences?
• Who works with the authors you adore? Think about agents, editors, publishers.  Are those professionals speaking or doing workshops?

Take your list and look for overlap at points of awesomeness. We’ll call these POA. Any single POA might be a wonderful thing.  Where many POA overlap, you’ve got yourself a dream.

Please note that there is no need to discount another person’s dream in order to follow your own.  You’re not looking for reasons a conference is wrong for you. You’re not arguing that your conference is right for everyone. You’re simply looking for overlapping POA that make you grin like crazy.

Those are your people.  That’s where you belong. A recitation of those names will sound like poetry. They’ll also keep you focused on your dreams and they’ll keep you putting money into your conference savings account.

I’ll be going to LeakyCon this year.  Just saying it makes me hyperventilate a little.

The POA overlap at LeakyCon?  Holly Black, John Green, Hank Green, Lev Grossman, Maureen Johnson, Jennifer Laughran, Stephanie Perkins, Rebecca Sherman, Margaret Stohl, Laini Taylor, Kate Schafer Testerman, Robin Wasserman, Evanna Lynch, Scarlett Byrne, Team Starkid, MuggleCast, Meghan Tonjes, Tonks and the Aurors, Alex Carpenter, Ministry of Magic, Gred and Forge, Lauren Fairweather, The Whomping Willows, Harry and The Potters.  Mmm.  Yeah.  Serious POA.

Where are your dreams taking you?  How long will it take you to get there?

 

Grammar Pet Peeves

“In the contest between I and me, the booby prize often goes to myself.” This quote from “Woe is I,” sums up my biggest pet peeve.

It’s the missuses of these three words that, as writers, drive us to distraction. “Me, myself, and I,” are the three words that absolutely, make me cringe. As a result, I’ve decided to go on a one person campaign to try to get people to sound as intelligent as they are.

People putting a personal pronoun first. When I was little I remember my father explaining this basic rule to me. “Think of it as stepping in front of someone. It isn’t polite.” You wouldn’t walk up and cut in line. No, you’d wait your turn at the end. Unless you’re in a car and then it seems to be perfectly acceptable to push in wherever they like. But that’s another pet peeve.

Me.

The rule: Do not use ME as the subject of a sentence. It must be the object of the verb or preposition. (example “to me” “just between you and me,” etc)

This problem has its roots in childhood. Your parents wouldn’t give you a cookie when you said, “Me want a cookie.” Instead they gently corrected you to say, “I want a cookie.” It planted in your mind that me wasn’t as acceptable as the word I. We begin to think subconsciously—and yes it is sub and not un because you can’t think anything if you’re unconscious—that I is more refined and therefore more correct choice. Not necessarily.

Don’t say—I and John are going or John and ME are going.

Do say—Between you and me or they came to see Bruce and me.

Myself.

The Rule: self-ish words (reflexive pronouns—yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves) are often used in place of I and me, he and she, etc. It may be laziness, out of habit or, because people just don’t know which is correct so they stuff in a self-ish pronoun.

The rule: reflexive pronouns – myself, himself, herself, itself, themselves, ourselves, yourself, yourselves- should be used only when they refer back to another word in the sentence. Use myself to refer back to yourself (I dressed myself.)

I.

The rule: Use I only as the subject of a verb.

The rule of thumb is to remove the other noun from the sentence and see if it still makes sense.

Susie and me walked across the street. Remove the Susie and and you end up with, me walked across the street. Remember, your mom won’t give you a cookie for this one.

I know this seems so basic, but if you listen to others speak and some write you find the errors glairing. It becomes annoying when you hear the mistakes repeated time and time again on TV and in the newspapers.

Since I’m on the subject I’ll throw in my second teeth gritter. Less and fewer.

Less– a smaller extent, or degree smaller in size, less exact. Often preceded by much or still: not so large, great, or much: less money; less speed. lower in consideration, rank, or importance.

Fewer– a smaller number: fewer words and more action. a smaller number: Fewer have come than we hoped.

In the end if you can count it it’s fewer. If not use less.

Remember kids learn by example and they’re hearing the errors from all sources and taking them as correct. Do a kid a favor, speak correctly.

What are your pet peeve words or phrases?

 

Runelore

Elder Futhark

The image on the left spells out my name, Janis. The individual rune names are Jera, Ansuz, Nauthiz, Isa, Sowilo. Notice how a few are very close to our alphabet. Regular disclaimer: There are many variations in names, shapes, direct meanings, and magical meanings.

I’m using the Elder Futhark which is a combination of those symbols most often seen in northern Europe. So, if you’ve seen other symbols or names, I believe you!

Don’t worry, this is not a scholarly piece on runelore. I became interested in runes many years ago because I had a friend who read Tarot cards. I felt that since the reader dealt the cards, it was easy to manipulate which ones were drawn.

When reading runes, the person with the question draws the runic tiles from a bag, which meant the interpreter had nothing to do with the selection of symbols in the spread. I read runes for co-workers at social functions and really enjoyed the experience. A couple of moves later and I lost track of my set.

Last year, I found my precious rune bag in one of those boxes that yield treasures after collecting dust in your garage for years. I knew I wanted to study runelore to relearn the interpretations. Since I look at everything as a writer now, I’m amazed that I missed the language aspects of runelore. Anyone who has read my blogs knows I have a passion for language and how it developed.

Our current language uses letters to form words that create meaning. A letter by itself means nothing.

Runic symbols have meanings in themselves, which leads to rune casting. How rich a language it is! The ISA symbol means ice which binds with fire. A balance is created. When the pattern goes out of balance, the destructive force of fire and ice are unleashed.

Think how the early civilizations made sense of their world. First, they used storytelling to explain phenomena and take comfort in the story. Then, they created a written language that gave them the power to communicate with each other and the modern world that found their etchings all over the world.

With 24 runic symbols, you can imagine how hard it is to become proficient in interpreting casts. I’m studying because I’d like to interpret some castings in a month at a writing retreat. I don’t know if I’ll be ready, because there is so much material, but the subject is fascinating.

As for the similarity of the symbols with our alphabet, linguists call the Elder Futhark alphabet proto-Germanic, which stems from proto-Indo-European.

The thirst to decipher our daily lives continues to astound me. Language is an ever-evolving way to communicate. The more I learn, the more I appreciate even the shortcuts of texting language. And I never thought that would happen.

* Runelore: The Magic, History, and Hidden Codes of the Runes, Edred Thorsson, 2012.