When the Muse Grabs You by Konnie Enos

The last few weeks I’ve been trying to do edits on my fantasy and sci-fi mostly because they are my two “finished” WIPs. I’ve even been ignoring my one romance which is the closest to done of all my WIPs in that genre. However, the last couple of days I’ve had a new story demanding attention and some resolutions.

Well at first it was just one issue and I foolishly thought if I could just write that scene I’d be able to get back to what I should be doing.

It didn’t work out that way.

I did resolve it but wrote myself right into another one.

Yep, I needed to get it taken care of too.

I think I’ve done it at least six times now and I know I’ve had to backtrack closer to a dozen times because I either left information out or there was no way it could possibly work so I’d have to start over at some point. I’ve had to erase at least three scenes and try again because it wasn’t quite right. One of those I’ve erased at least three times attempting to get the right results.

And when I wasn’t moaning because it wasn’t working, yet again, I was typing as furiously as my normal mom schedule would allow.

Other than driving my kids hither and thither I have neglected my chores.

I have not updated the checkbooks. Don’t ask me how much I have in the bank right now, because I actually don’t know other than not much.

In the last two weeks we’ve actually run completely out of milk, not once, not twice but several times. Once we didn’t even have any juice in the fridge, which rarely happens. It was weird seeing my fridge so empty.

I have not done any laundry. Not to say laundry hasn’t been done in this house, just not by me.

What I did do? Up until this week, I made it to church each Sunday and, because circumstances kept me from my Henderson’s Writers Group meeting a couple of weeks ago, I made every effort to make it last week. My intent had been to make it to church and my meeting this week as well.

Well I didn’t.

And no, I didn’t miss church because I was writing.

Sunday I was sick.

Monday I felt better and I intended to go to my meeting. I really did. So what was I doing when I should have been driving to my meeting?

No, I wasn’t writing.

Yes, I spent most of the day writing, but what I was doing when I should have been going to my meeting was cooking dinner.

In fact, it didn’t even dawn on me I was missing my meeting until about an hour after it generally ends when my daughter came in my room and asked me if I was missing it.

By this time I was engrossed in writing again and I kid you not, it took about half a second for me to figure out what meeting she was talking about. Then I had to digest the fact I’d completely missed it.

I went back to my writing. Oh well. Next week.

Now to understand the next issue I came across, you have to know my sister and I attempt to get our posts up every Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. Mountain time. Yesterday (yes, I mean Tuesday) just before 11 a.m. Mountain time, my sister got on Skype and asked if I was online.

I seriously panicked.

I went so far as to pull my calendar out to confirm it wasn’t Wednesday. For a moment I thought I’d completely forgotten to write my post while I’d been working on my story. It was the most disconcerting feeling.

In order to not get lost in my writing yesterday, and hopefully get some of my chores done, I forced myself not to even open that file.

What did I accomplish yesterday?

Well, I didn’t update my checkbook or do my laundry,

I did run a child where she needed to go and accomplished a couple of errands, one of which was getting groceries. I also worked on my writing, considering my post was due I tried to focus on it.

Tried being the operative word. I fell asleep.

Good thing I’m used to getting up early.

Now to see if I can get my chores done before I open that file again.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Writing Conundrums by Bonnie Le Hamilton

I think Konnie got more writing/editing done this past week then I did. Of course, (and I have mentioned this before) Konnie doesn’t have to deal with ADD. Then again, I’m not sure my problem this last week was ADD.

Or maybe it was.

Here’s the gist of it − I spent all week trying to get some writing/editing done, but I couldn’t bring myself to open the manuscript I’d been working on, nor did I want to open my sci-fi, I wanted to work on another one of my unfinished manuscripts, the one I was thinking about at the time. So, I opened it, read through it, however, I only found a few typos, and had no ideas for changes, or additions.

Then my mind turned to another story I have sitting unfinished (I have way too many of those) so I opened it and started reading. And what happens? I suddenly have an idea for yet another story! Dang. So, I opened that one, and started reading it, but what happens? My head fills with a story I haven’t written yet.

A story with too many problems for me to fix. I’ve actually considered it several times, and tried to write it several times, and none of those attempts have come close to the idea in my head. I just can’t seem to write it. I’ve actually made four attempts at starting this idea and have four unfinished manuscripts to show for it. They just aren’t anywhere near what I have playing in my head.

So basically, I kept opening one or another of these four, or a fifth one kind of on the same theme (I actually have six manuscripts on what is essentially the same theme but I started those other two before I came up with this idea I’m talking about), intending to work on them, only to either just find some typos or find myself thinking about one of the others I didn’t have open, i.e. getting nowhere in my writing, all while Konnie managed to write her post, finish one of her manuscripts, and get some editing done on a second one, all between taking kids to doctors, attending meetings, and doing all her other chores, like grocery shopping.

I do know the story I want to write, and I even know when I come up with it – just before NANO 2016.

For those of you paying attention, you know that in 2016 I actually worked on two different stories for NANO. I started one, then started over with another one which intruded, but the fact is that the story I started writing first wasn’t quite the vision I had and the new idea seemed to fit the bill. Sadly, it didn’t.

Actually, what I need is a story somewhere between those two, with maybe a dash of the two I started since that. And maybe not. Then again, all four manuscripts are pretty good as is, and I really should finish them, even if they aren’t what I started out trying to write.

And I’m still not sure how to fix the issues so my idea makes sense and works as I envision it instead of how it is coming out on my computer screen, times four.

Adding to that is the problem that I do like these four stories, so I have to come up with even more character names and backgrounds to try yet again to write what is in my head, but I haven’t actually written this story because of the big problem I haven’t been able to solve in my mind.

So, anyway, have any of you ever had trouble writing a story that you can see in your head, but can’t work out on paper, and every time you try, you end up writing a decent story, but it isn’t the one you set out to write, not by a long shot? And I’m not talking about pantsing it, and things go off on a tangent (though admittedly I am a pantser), I’m talking about not even coming close to the story in your head.

I’ve used a written outline only once (and I veered off that anyway) and that was my sci-fi. My stories usually go off on tangents, but they don’t normally veer off course in the first paragraph. And I’m not sure how I can fix this.

Outline?

I still have the believability issue.

Brainstorming?

Maybe, but I’m not sure that will help, because that is how I came up with my first attempt at this idea.

What would you do?

If you have any good suggestions, please let me know. I could use it.

Happy writing everyone. 

Thwarting the Best Laid Plans by Konnie Enos

Recently I was reminded that the best way to make a story intriguing is to give your leading a character a goal and then throw obstacles in their way to make it difficult or even impossible for them to obtain it.

My one thought was, but it can be challenging to toss in realistic sounding obstacles without sounding cliché. Unique ones are even trickier to come up with.

Of course, when you have thoughts like that, life decides to teach you a lesson.

My week so for has been a major lesson on how life can mess with your plans in new and unique ways, or maybe some old ways, just with new twists.

Monday I had nothing planned except attending my local writer’s group meeting. Due to my daughter’s schedule I also had to take her to and from her class and we were, of course, and again, out of milk, so a trip to the store would need to be done, but both of those were necessary and par for the course.

The day was going smoothly and I was sure I needed to get ready to pick up my daughter because I would need to get her home before I could make my meeting and it was going to be a close call no matter how I did things.

Then my married daughter called.

We talked so long that the daughter I needed to pick up also called because I hadn’t responded to her text, which I didn’t notice came through while talking to her sister. By this time it was late enough I would barely have enough time to get her picked up and home and then run to my meeting IF there wasn’t any traffic.

I expected some congestion because of construction on Highway 15, but generally Highway 95 is clear once I get to the interchange. Not this time. In fact, the traffic for 95 was actually slower than for 15, which never happens. I finally get on 95 but it doesn’t really pick up and just when I think we might finally pick up speed the lane I’m in comes to a complete stand still. The other lanes are moving though.

I get out of it and eventually make it past the off ramp that is backing everything up, and on to pick up my daughter.

Driving her home we again run into heavy traffic and cars at a standstill on the highway waiting to get off at the same street that had things backed up going the other direction.

I have since learned this particular street, which normally runs three lanes in each direction, is currently under some construction and the powers that be saw no problem with restricting it to only one lane in each direction. Considering it is a main through street it is major league backed up and now that's spilling over to the nearest exit.

Anyway the entire round trip should have taken an hour. It took me that long just to get to her. By the time I got her home, any attempts to make my meeting in that traffic would have gotten me there roughly about the time it usually ends.

So instead of going to my meeting I figured I’d better make that grocery run. I had no desire to go alone especially since it involved several gallons of milk and juice.

Five of five family members were in bed and or fast asleep. After trying to cajole three of those people to go with me I finally resorted to bribing the youngest family member.

After getting the groceries put away and it not being all that late, not for me anyway, I determined I’d do something productive and work on my writing, like maybe this blog post.

I did get on my computer, but then the power went out. The first time was only for a few minutes, then it flickered a few times. Then it went out for roughly two hours. The estimated repair time meant it would be back on sometime between 11:30 and midnight.

I went to bed, though I did prepare a nice to-do list for Tuesday. I had hopes.

The day started out fine. Right up until I exited the highway on the way to my daughter’s class. Engine overheating. Again!

I got her to class, but spent three hours waiting for my husband and a tow. Then the rest of the day at home waiting for my car to be fixed. So much for my errands.

However, I learned a lesson.

When life wants to throw you a curveball, there is nothing mundane about them.

I think that’s what we need to remember when we start throwing curve balls at our characters when we are creating those intriguing stories.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Independence Day 2018 by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Two Hundred and Forty-Two years ago our Forefathers first read the Declaration of Independence to the people of what was then this brand-new country. Today everyone is busy going to parades, picnics, fairs, family gatherings. But while you’re taking part in all that fun, try to remember that such things happen in your stories too.

I know I’ve said this before, because I have read stories that have no holidays in them at all. Of course, in some the events of the story are confined to a few short weeks, they can be forgiven. But when a story covers a longer period, why aren’t there at least family special days, like a birthday or anniversary. If the character doesn’t have much family, couldn’t their friends have such days?

And of course, there are also national holidays to consider. After all, if the events you have happening occur on like the first Monday in September here in America, your character isn’t going to find a single bank that is open, possibly not even a store.

If the story you are working on happens over the summer months, why don’t you have Independence Day events in your story? Even if your character isn’t in America, if he or she is American, wouldn’t they at least celebrate on a small scale? And all sorts of things can happen during or around the events associated with this holiday.

I’m currently working on just such a story, still need to work on the scenes which happen on the fourth of July, but I do have them, because they happen. Somewhere in this story I also have to have the birthday of the hero’s stepsister because I’ve already established at the beginning of the story that her birthday was coming, as in over the summer.

Of course, my problem is, because of many different issues, its been decades since I’ve been to any events that occur between the parade and the fireworks, so I’m trying to figure out what this fictious town would have planned that would be fun for teens and younger to enjoy for most of the day. What kind of booths or games they’d have planned, where they would they be at? That sort of thing.

Then again, this is a fictitious town, so I guess I could do just about anything.

And then there is writing sci-fi or fantasy, things that happen in worlds not our own. I have a sci-fi in the works too, and I have to decide what I’m going to do about things like birthdays and anniversaries. Do they celebrate them? If so how? And what kinds of other things do they celebrate? Do they have national holidays? Do they have religious holidays? And again, if so, what are they? Do they even have celebrations of any kind? And if they don’t? Why not?

There are so many questions that can be asked, but what are the answers?

The answers always depend on the story, and what you are trying to convey about the characters, the place, etc. But I think I might enjoy coming up some holidays, celebrations, and traditions for this make-believe world of mine. I also think having such things as a part of the fabric of the world I am building will make that world more believable.

Don’t you think so?

Have a happy and safe Fourth, Happy writing everyone. And happy birthday, tomorrow, Konnie!

Of Holidays, Memories and Birthdays by Konnie Enos

Something someone said recently was one of the ways you remember things, events, is because you’re emotionally connected to them. Basically their traumatic or dramatic to you.

The specific example he gave was that anybody alive when Pearl Harbor was hit can remember exactly what they were doing when they heard the news.

I know our grandma could. She told me not only what she was doing but what she was thinking about. Or rather who she was thinking about. First was her brother-in-law who was stationed at Pearl Harbor. Needless to say she was concerned about him. (They later learned the initial blast knocked him backwards onto the dock, off the ship and to safety. He outlived Grandma.)

Second was her unborn child. She was about seven months along with her fourth child. He was born February 1, 1942. Old enough to serve a stint in Vietnam, after fathering four children. Two of which are Bonnie and I. (It should be noted he had two more children after he served in Vietnam.)

I’ve also spoken to people who could remember exactly what they were doing when they heard JFK was assassinated. There are others who have never forgotten the day Ronald Reagan was shot.

Personally one of my earliest memories, and most traumatic, is accidentally dropping a couple of potted plants right into my hands on my birthday. I still remember accidentally bumping the shelf (a not so stable bookcase) they were on and being terrified the owner would be upset if I let those plants fall without at least attempting to catch them. Both hit my hands plant down, then of course I dropped them. Not that either was very big. They weren’t. But because both were cactus plants.

Not only were both my hands full of little nettles but being my birthday, and therefore the middle of summer, I was barefoot, so at least one of my big toes got hit too.

The worst part of the day came later, when it was time to open all my birthday presents.

I could not touch a thing. Bonnie had to open each and every one of our gifts.

She picked up one up and excitedly opened it. “Oh look what I got!” Then she picked up my gift of the same size and shape, opening it. “Here’s yours.”

Rinse and repeat, three times. Our mother bought us, two little chairs, two alphabet books, two miniature china tea sets, two sewing card sets, and two jump rope and jack sets.

Each and every gift told us we were a set, two of one. Never separate, always together. Always the same. Just like our rhyming names told us we were a set. Of course the fact people around us couldn’t tell us apart already gave us that information.

The problem was even at six years old my sister and I already knew some differences.

For one thing, Bonnie didn’t find that tea set appealing. And I know I didn’t care for the jump rope or jacks. In later years I learned to use both, but at six I couldn’t. Plus neither of us liked the sewing cards which were meant to teach eye and coordination to preschoolers.

As much as we hated getting all the same gifts that year, the events of our next two birthdays solidified our resolve to rebel against identical gifts.

The next year our father’s girlfriend and her mother gave us each a baby doll. Only unlike every other time we’d been given such a gift, these dolls weren’t carbon copies. One, just like the mother, had short, curly brown hair, and the other had long blond hair, like Dad’s girlfriend. AND his girlfriend could tell us apart!

Yes, we treasured those dolls.

The next year Momma gave me a baby doll and Bonnie a teddy bear. She was finally getting the idea. However, every single other gift we got was carbon copy gifts except the badminton set we had to share. We even got tea sets, jump ropes and jack sets, again.

We threw a fit!

We did everything we could to make people see us as individuals. We still got gifts we were supposed to share, but I think that was the last year we got carbon copy gifts.

Anyway, the conversation about how you remember traumatic events, and it just being the season, it brought up one of my earliest memories, those plants landing on me.

I believe I stated our birthday is in the middle of summer. We’ve been told, our mother went into labor while at the fireworks display. So we weren’t born on the Fourth, but the stands going up let us know our birthday is coming soon.

Happy Birthday (just a bit soon) Bonnie!

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Languages and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

In order to communicate, we first have to know the language being used and with the number of those in world, it isn’t always easy.

I’m reminded of an incident years ago with my husband. He was watching his World War II movie “The Dirty Dozen” and at one point he remembered that I had taken one year of French in college, so he turned to me and asked me what the staff at the hotel were saying in those final scenes. I told him I only remembered a little bit, but that I’d try, so he backed the video up just a little and I started translating, what I could of it, because some of what they said was so garbled I couldn’t pick out any words, then one lady said two very clear and distinct words. I turned to Tom and said, “I’m not translating that.”

“Why? Because you don’t know it?”

“No. Because she just took the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Oh.”

The translation was, “My blank!” Fill in that word yourself.

Another time we were watching “Father Goose” which has three characters who speak French, two of those don’t speak any English. And of course, Tom asked me to translate; half the time I didn’t get what they said because they said it too fast. Though the funniest scene is when Leslie Caron’s character takes down a message for Cary Grant’s character in French, so of course, Grant (i.e. Father Goose) asks her to translate, which she does, but she is intentionally stalling for time, so she asks him how to say parachute in English. Makes me laugh every time.

Language is important. It helps get across ideas and information to other people. Language is the building block of writing. But what do you do when what you’re writing is in a language other than your native tongue?

I occasionally use a bit of French in my writing, not a string of words, and nothing that needs translated, just a word here or there that is actually commonly used in America. The one I use most often is fiancée, but hey, I mostly write romance. I’ve also used touché a time or two and even en masse. That’s easy; I know the words, and they are well known; I don’t have to translate them. Then again, French does exist. It is a real language.

This last week Konnie and I have been dealing with languages that don’t exist except in our sci-fi worlds. For me, my hero speaks the heroine’s native tongue quite well, but the heroine doesn’t speak his native tongue all that well, and I have both of them switching back and forth between the languages to communicate. Only, there isn’t two languages, just the names of those languages, and a few made up words.

With Konnie, there are a lot more languages, and some social rules about when you can use which one. She has characters switching what tongue they are speaking probably more than I have mine switching. And she was complaining the other day about how hard it was. I couldn’t help but point out she was one that made up the rules.

And we’ve both made up some words. After all we need the name of the language in order to tell the reader what language they are using. But I’ve made up a few words which are in my heroine’s native tongue. And I’m talking about words other than the ones I made up for devices and such in my made-up world.

I’ve another story where I confined certain words to a specific meaning. The most notable was the word join. In that novel join only refers to intimate relations (including a simple kiss) between and a male and a female. The people in my story don’t use that word to mean anything else. Which made for fun scene when my heroine, who isn’t one of that group, uses join, and she wasn’t talking about intimate relations.

It really got the hero’s heartrate going. 😊

But all this brings up the question what is the best way to deal with foreign languages in a story?

And what is the best way to deal with made up languages in a story?

Do you ever make up words? Or do you ever make up rules for the society in your story about the use of certain words, or like the Konnie did, the use of language?

Happy writing everyone! 😊

Of Technology and Other Issues by Konnie Enos

 At the church the other day the teacher in our Sunday class was having some technical issues with the equipment she was trying to use as part of her lesson. For several minutes the lesson stalled and at least one class member left the room looking for someone who was elsewhere in the building to solve the problem.

Several of the women in the room (it was a woman’s meeting) made comments about getting one of the younger children to help.

I turned to the older woman beside me a told her that when I have issues with my technology (which isn’t often) I call my youngest son. I also admitted I obtained my first internet ready computer while I was pregnant with my older son. Both my boys have grown up with technology and at least my youngest daughter doesn’t remember much before surfing the web was a common everyday thing.

On the other hand, I think I was in high school the first time I saw a computer and that wasn’t to use it myself. The secretary at the school I was attending was using it.

My first computer class was when I was in college.

Today, I have my own laptop and use it every day.

So I sat in this class thinking more about how much things have changed over the last twenty years. The last forty. Then I did about the lesson.

Just think about the changes you’ve seen in just the last twenty years.

Internet ready and capable devices and World Wide Web being one of the biggest changes. Now the idea of not only flying cars, but self-driving cars isn’t so farfetched.

This technology can be a blessing and a distraction.

As a writer, I appreciate the fact I can now type a full page without having to use whiteout or eventually rip the paper out of the typewriter and start over. It’s also helpful that the program can, sometimes, help me properly spell words, something I often have difficulty with. And if I can’t find the word I want sometimes I can get the program to help me find a similar word that would work just as well.

It also helps me get things done, like managing the family’s finances.

The downside of technology is it’s a major distraction.

I fought even having a video game system in my house for years for this reason. (Yes, I am very anti-video games. Long story.)

People get lost surfing the web or on Facebook every day.

Me?

I spent the last couple of days doing little else but reading, though my files.

This is why my post is not only late, but sort.

I was distracted, by my writing.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.