Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts

Book Nooks (4)


Book Nooks
*Every weekend*
Show us something pretty!



Commentary: Cute little garden pagoda. You're outside, but you're inside, and vice versa. Lots of pillows to make the visitor more comfortable, light source is effective but pretty - paper lanterns. The semi-tinted glass panels at the top are a nice touch, too, letting in enough natural light without too much sun glare.

Drapes are nice, to screen out the sun when it's too sunny, but entire spot is open to the garden and probably some nice sights and scents and sounds. This looks like it could be a nice reading nook whether it's sunny or rainy. This would be a nice spot for writers as well as readers - very mellow and low-key.

Details: Image is part of a slideshow feature at House Beautiful, slide #24 of 46. Description for this image was: Pagoda was made California-cozy with curtains, big cushions, and pillows and paper lanterns from Ikea. Designer is Jay Griffith.

### Goodies Around Town ###
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Take Five: #23: The daily grind


Take Five series: #23: The daily grind

Well, there's the goal. It's another day. Proceed.

If you've made it this far, already, then this advice will be superfluous, and that's a great thing. The reason for that - yes, writing a novel requires talent and the right tools (a working knowledge of grammar, spelling and so on), but one really important element that people forget is discipline. If you've made it this far, the odds are that you have discipline and will just keep on going, making progress towards your goal.

Actually - discipline, focus and persistence are all important and sort of connected; you need focus, to organize and complete your projects; discipline, to write when you don't feel like it; persistence, to continue well beyond places where nearly anyone else would give up. In fact, persistence will take you to places where 99.9% of people would give up; it's a handy personality trait in a writer, as well as being useful in life, just in general.

Author Cherie Priest comments on discipline in an interview with game site, Grinding to Valhalla:


Anybody who keeps up with my web page knows what my personal grind looks like. Almost every day I post the word metrics and a general update on whatever project is in the queue, not so much to keep the world informed, but to keep my progress tracked. I am not innately good at self-direction and time management. That sort of discipline took me a long time to learn, and it'd be easy to un-learn if I let myself get out of the habit.

People talk a lot about their muse, and about how inspiration strikes them, and I guess that must be nice. I'm sure that it really does work that way, for some people, but not for me. For me, it's a matter of sitting down and writing every day whether I want to or not - whether I'm feeling inspired or not, and whether I have anything to say or not. Because usually, once I force myself to get started, I get into the groove and end up making a productive day of it after all, despite any initial hesitation.

The fact is, I have deadlines.

Those deadlines do not wait for my muse to get its ass in gear.

Shown above: Interview with Cherie Priest. Video courtesy of PNWA (Pacific Northwest Writers Association).

The rest of the interview may be read here: Interview with Cherie Priest
A video interview with this author is show above; she doesn't discuss today's topic, but you might be interested on her take on other subjects.


About Cherie Priest: Bio | Works
Find Cherie Priest: Twitter | YouTube | Flickr | Blog | goodreads
Photo credit: Libby Bulloff

About this series
The Take Five series is curated by Sasha Soren, author of Random Magic. You can find out more about the book here, if you like:

Find Random Magic: Print | Kindle
Explore Random Magic: YouTube | Tumblr | Twitter

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Take Five: #20: Story structure





Take Five
Five-minute reads about writing
to help you with NaNoWriMo
Nov. 1 - Nov. 30, 2011
Courtesy: Sasha Soren (Random Magic)

#20: Story structure

Here we have a brief video clip on story structure. The writers involved are screenwriters, so they're specifically speaking about film scripts - but story structure is just as relevant in novels.

You'd just adjust the three-act structure from fitting 90-120 pages for a feature film, or 30-45 pages, in a television script, to occurring over 80,000-100,000 pages during a novel - but it's still the same structure and progression.

Steve Skrovan is a television writer and producer (Everybody Loves Raymond, Hot in Cleveland, others), and here's a quick excerpt of his advice from the clip, before you watch it:

Act I is the information you need to be able to tell the rest of the story. That act is over when all of that is set up and you've come to a turning point in your story, where the story then goes off. But the first act is the set-up.

Act II is the journey that takes place, that's kind of the meat of your story.

Act III then becomes the resolution of that.

With this in mind, there are additional details to take notes on in the clip - but the primary lesson today is recognizing how a story is constructed and being sure that you're giving a reader the information they need - and at the right time - to follow the story you're trying to tell.

Watch clip: Story Structure

About this series
The Take Five series is curated by Sasha Soren, author of Random Magic. You can find out more about the book here, if you like:

Find Random Magic: Print | Kindle
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Take Five: #16: Ask some questions - then answer them


Take Five
Five-minute reads about writing
to help you with NaNoWriMo
Nov. 1 - Nov. 30, 2011
Courtesy: Sasha Soren (Random Magic)

#16: Ask some questions - then answer them

Question (Moonlight Gleam's Bookshelf): How did you come to write Random Magic, what inspired you?

Answer (Sasha Soren, author of Random Magic): When you say 'inspired,' that's really the right word, because wasn't even planning to write a whole book, it sort of happened, ah, at random…

You know, when you read a book, and it makes you laugh, or it makes you angry, or it makes you cry, you get involved with those characters, that world, that story.

When you laugh, you're really laughing. When you cry, those are real tears.

But it's just ink and paper and some little symbols on a page - how odd and powerful, and how ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.

Every book is like its own world, and for a few hours or days, you escape into that world, you fall into a book.

So, was just idly wondering one day, what if it were possible to fall into some story and live the life of a character in that story? Who would it be? What story would it be? Where would it be interesting to spend some time?

You know, just as if you were picking up a round-trip ticket to some unusual place.

And thought, oh, it could be fun to visit the world of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, what an odd and interesting story, and what a strange place.


Shown above: Illustration, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Then thought, well, what if you didn't fall in, but someone else fell out? What would Alice do in our world? Would it seem as strange to her, our 21st century world - considering the passage of time, as the novel, under the title Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, was originally published in 1865 - as Wonderland was?

What would she make of cell phones or airplanes or computers?

But then thought, well, it wouldn't be as interesting or challenging to write about something that's really familiar.

Well, what if she didn't fall into our world, but into a different book?

And what if someone had to jump into that book to bring her back?

Who was that person, and where would he or she land, and what would they do when they got there?

And after wondering about that for a bit, started jotting things down, just out of curiosity. But then the curiosity just got stronger and stronger, and really just wanted to know - well, what happened? Did he or she ever find her? And what would it mean if they didn't?

And that's how that happened.

It'd be fair to say that nearly all books - at the start, when there's nothing to read yet but a blank screen - begin with one phrase: What if...?

So, if you'd like to find out what happens - that is, to write your book as an answer to a specific question, or set of questions, make sure you have a question in mind that interests you, because, if it does, you'll make it all the way to the end of the story.

Stuck? Ask a question - then answer it. And you'll make progress, slowly and surely, until finally you'll run out of questions to ask - but, by then, you'll have your entire story!

- Sasha Soren, author of Random Magic

About this series
The Take Five series is curated by Sasha Soren, author of Random Magic. You can find out more about the book here, if you like:

Find Random Magic: Print | Kindle
Explore Random Magic: YouTube | Tumblr | Twitter
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Source: Interview with Sasha Soren (Random Magic) at Moonlight Gleam's Bookshelf
Image source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Peter Newell
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Take Five: #14: Grit is an essential ingredient


Take Five
Five-minute reads about writing
to help you with NaNoWriMo
Nov. 1 - Nov. 30, 2011
Courtesy: Sasha Soren (Random Magic)
Twitter: @RandomMagicTour

#14: Grit is an essential ingredient

Yesterday we talked about the enjoyable part of writing. So, today, here's the not-so-enjoyable part of writing - the catch is that it's also an essential ingredient, and you'll never finish a creative project of any kind without it. What is it? True grit. 

 More on that here:


The not-so-enjoyable part of writing is the actual grind to get everything just where it's meant to be. Writing is not at all easy, just the way that ballet, for example, is not at all easy, but the final effect of all that effort can be something wonderful and even transcendent.

There's something magical about writing, just the way there's something magical about dance, or any creative art, any performing art. There's also a huge amount of work involved.

But if you can create something marvelous, even if the moment of enjoyment is brief, then it might be worth it to you - if you have a particular kind of personality. Meaning that you're willing to work hard and to push yourself, because you know what's possible, just there, up ahead of you, and you want to get there.

And you will get there, no matter what. Strangely, even the hard work is enjoyable in itself, in a way, but you definitely have to have a specific kind of character.

There's this interesting misconception that a lot of creative people are sort of fey and perishing, but anyone who's completed a creative project, you'll find, is usually quite strong and capable of commitment, dedication, and intense focus, almost to the point of being unreasonable.
Maybe even beyond the point of being unreasonable. Completing a creative project of any kind takes grit.

Indie artists, in particular, have to fight even harder, bless them. No matter how many obstacles are hurled in front of them, or on top of them, they shake it off and go right on ahead. It might be scary if it weren't so impressive. Although it's really only impressive to onlookers. The artist knows it's not impressive, just necessary. And so they just get on with things.

Anyone who is an artist, or knows someone who is, knows this is true. They also know that you're either committed to a project or not, there are no halfway measures involved in making some particular vision come to life. You're in or you're out.

So, there's definitely an enjoyable aspect to writing, but there’s also a lot more involved, and so the experience might or might not be pleasant to you, depending on your particular personality.
- Sasha Soren, author of Random Magic.

About this series

The Take Five series is curated by Sasha Soren, author of Random Magic. You can find out more about the book here, if you like:

Find Random Magic: Print | Kindle
Explore Random Magic: YouTube | Tumblr | Twitter

Notes: Excerpt shown is from an interview with author Sasha Soren at Moonlight Gleam's Bookshelf.
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