Category: Writing

Lifelong learning, What I Love, Writing

Thinking about what I should write

I get emails all the time from various writers trying to sell their latest books about writing, writing courses, etc. Sometimes they are full of interesting things, sometimes not so much. Today’s message from bookfox.co caught my eye sent me down this rabbit hole:

Write down your favorite album, your favorite movie, and your favorite artwork.
Now answer a few questions about these selections:
What do your answers have in common?
What kind of art are they?Why do these pieces of art, above all else, move you?
Now to figure out what this means. What do your answers tell you about the type of writing you should produce?

My answers:

Favorite album: Nomads, Indians, and Saints by the Indigo Girls

Favorite movie: Sliding Doors

Favorite artwork: Van Gogh’s Starry Night

What do these things have in common? I chose them all during my college years. They all represent a time to me when I was first starting out, making my first decisions away from my parents, living on my own for the first time. And even with twenty years in between those days and now, I still love them. I still think about them as some of the first things that were really, truly my things.

Other things they have in common is a certain amount of wildness and inconsistency, some questioning of reality, a journey to find what really is true about the world. Those are still things I’m thinking about today, even though some of my thoughts on those subjects have changed, my quest for truth in the world has not. I’m still striving for my own authenticity in a world that wants me to be just like everyone else. But not I can see how different everyone else really is and see what that means in their lives. My world has expanded so much since then.

The next part of the email made me realize that I’d gone off the intended path of the lesson at hand for the day, but that’s okay. I like the answers I found.

What I Love, Writing

Critique Group Opening

Hello writers! I attend a critique group with the East Texas Writers Guild. Our critique group has a couple openings right now. We meet every other week on Friday mornings at 9am to give critiques in person (right now we meet via Zoom). We can send up to 15 pages of short stories or fiction each for each meeting, due by email the Friday before the meeting. We currently have two historical fiction writers and two fantasy writers, but most genres (no erotica, please) are welcome. If you are interested in joining us, please contact me at lisa.holcomb@suddenlink.net. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Computers and Internet, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement at TPLWC

I spoke today at the Tyler Public Library’s Writing Club Facebook Group on “Writing More Productively.” I talked a lot about From 2K to 10K and shared a lot of links both during the lesson and afterward. If you are a member of the group, you can see the replay of the live video here: {link}

Computers and Internet, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Speaking Engagement on 07.15.20

I will be speaking at the Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club at noon on July 15, 2020. My topic will be “How to Write More Productively.” Hope you will join us! {link}

Books, My Own Personal Weirdness, What I Love, Writing

Holiday Weekend, now back to writing

My dad came up to spend the July 4th weekend with us. He arrived Friday and we thought he was going home on Sunday, but he extended it to Monday to make some much needed repair calls for his house up here and now he’s extended it one more day to meet the termite people in person. All of which to say that I haven’t gotten any writing done since last Thursday.

So today, I’ve got some time and my brain says “nope.” I am not letting that deter me. For my birthday in April, I got several of those books in the writing thesaurus series and I have not managed to look at a single one until this morning. So I looked up my notes about the scene I was supposed to be writing – “Edward & Minerva talk in hotel room after meeting Sharon. E’s POV, also show how he is more like Stephen/Walt in tenderness towards wife, but how that is a magically manipulated response.”

So then I looked up these key words: “adoration” “apprehension” (both from the “Emotion Thesaurus“) “hotel room” (from the Urban Settings Thesaurus) “manipulative” (from the “Negative Trait Thesaurus“

Then I made notes about each key words and dumped those into my scene document et voila! Half the scene is already done. The part I consider the hard part, usually. Now to add dialogue.

Was it quick? Not really. But it’s a scene started rather than the two sentence outline I previously had. 🙂

Around the House, My Own Personal Weirdness, Organizing, Writing

New Writing Planner

I always intend to blog more than I end up doing. I type up my morning pages and then think “I’ll add to these and make a blog post.” And then I end up dumping the info into a post and don’t edit it or hit publish until a couple weeks or month or so later, when I do several at once. I do that with a lot of things. I think “I’m going to do x,y, or z” and then don’t plan well around that thing, so not as much gets accomplished and then I feel bad about it. I decided to get better about planning writing things.

On Sunday I got out my new HP Classic Planner, the Welcome to the Book Club one. It’s super fun and has lots of book themes dividers and pages. I got the accompanying planner stickers, too. What I failed to notice in my buying spree was that this is a horizontal layout, not vertical, and I converted to a vertical process for regular life stuff several years ago. I had no idea how I was going to use this one. I had initially decided I was going to chuck July through December and start it in January. I’d have a plan by then, right? But on Sunday a beautiful plan came into my mind and I had to try it.

So here is my new writing planner for July.

Rainbow themed calendar pages from the HP Classic sized planner. Calendar Month is July 2020

I have only included writing goals, writing related events, and the odd regular-life event that impedes my normal writing time slots. Blue ink is for writing, purple for revision, green for events (like writer’s guild meetings, library writing class, other writing-related classes, conventions, etc.) and pink for impending due dates.

Weekly view looks like this:

I’m using the left side for planned scenes to write and # words needed for that day, the middle for word sprint counts, and the right side for events that might impede the schedule. The bottom right provides a place for overall word count for my main project, things I love this week, and what writing related guidebook I’m reading this week.

I started using it on Monday and it’s working out pretty well so far. (these photos are from Sunday when I first started filling it out) I like being able to just get up andstart on work I already know needs doing. I plan on updating it weekly on Sunday like I do my regular life planner and meal plan. 🙂

Organizing, Writing

MPTA notes

I mapped out all the new scenes I need for Chapters 1-8. That took a while and one change I made affected several other scenes, so there’s new things to add into already written ones as well. It’s all good and I think it will make for a better story and some better flow.

I need my brain to cooperate and actually push out the words and scenes now. I’m having a bad hand month, it seems, so my typing is more erratic lately than it had been. I really have to concentrate to hit the right keys and that frustrates me.  Tomorrow I will start back to the actual writing.

Organizing, Writing

MPTA notes, Day 53

All my notes on this story that live in the computer are labeled with a number that corresponds to the book “90 Day Novel” because that’s the method I was using when I started this particular novel. I have other notes, of course, in longhand in a notebook from days when I was out and about in meetings or riding in the van on the way somewhere or otherwise trapped away from the computer – those are not numbered by day. So the system is…flawed. Ah well. Today was “Day 53” in the computer and here are the notes:

“I haven’t done any character building for this novel, outside of Sharon and Minerva, because that’s what the 90 day Novel focuses on – the hero and the antagonist. Today I am working on details for the main character’s daughter Katie.

From Katie’s POV:

  • One thing you still need to know about me is…
    • Beginning: I’m the middle child. Sometimes I feel left out. Nell is the oldest girl and she is nearly perfect. Jake is the only boy. I’m just in the middle and it frequently sucks.
    • Middle: I’m so jazzed about being the center of attention now. Mom is really paying attention to me. I’m special for once and it’s great. I’m mean, it’s still not how I dreamed it would be, but still better than how it was.
    • End: I don’t want this gift. It’s too hard. I have to make too many choices now. How does anyone live like this? Mom was so excited for me, but Grand-Deb wasn’t.  And Grandmother Minerva is just scary in so many ways.
  • The lie I continually tell myself is…
    • That it doesn’t matter that no one pays attention to me. That it’s my superpower: Unnoticeable Katie.”

And then a huge amount of research on Middle Child Syndrome in case that comes into play. I’m not sure it will.

Computers and Internet, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement at TPLWC

I spoke today at the Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club on “Building a Sustainable Writing Career Through Managing Your Creative Assets.” I know, a ridiculously long title, but when I was pulling it all together, that’s what worked for my brain. I felt like I had a lot of ground to cover quickly, but it went all right once Facebook stopped putting pop-ups in my way. If you are a member of the group, you can see the replay of the live video here: {link}

Everywhere But Home, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Speaking Engagement on 06/24/20

I am once again speaking at the Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club Facebook Group on June 24, 2020 at noon. My topic is “Building a Sustainable Career Through Managing Your Creative Assets.”