Writing Woes by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I don’t know if anyone ever told you this, but writing is hard.

I have at least started or have notes for pushing fifty titles. Some of these stories I may never finish; I’m not even sure I want to, while others I’d like to finish, but am stuck on them.

Then there are the ones where the story playing in my brain is far ahead of where I’ve written to, that I’m having a hard time rewinding my brain to the point where my writing is.

And please don’t tell me to just skip ahead. I tried that. That story still has a major hole in it thanks to skipping ahead. I can’t seem to go back and fill it in, any more than I can rewind the story in my brain to match where I’m writing.

This is just how my brain works.

That isn’t to say I can’t rewind and get to where my written story is to add to the story. I have done that, but not at the pace I want to. My brain has a mind of its own.

My brain also doesn’t always remember what I’ve written already. Case in point is the fact that this week I unearthed an old manuscript I started, I have no idea how long ago, but it is clearly a sci-fi, and older than the series I’ve been working on for like six years now. The series that I thought was my only sci-fi. It isn’t.

The only problem is, this old one is so similar to my current sci-fi that it would be counterproductive to finish this old manuscript when this current manuscript is so much further along and, well, better written. I don’t need to produce boilerplate Sci-Fi’s.

I actually have a paragraph for yet another sci-fi, and notes on another one, which I didn’t include in the list I made of my titles, since there was so little about them.

That isn’t to say romance novels don’t dominate my list, because believe me, they do. I’m just saying I have done more in the sci-fi department than I originally thought. And I do like sci-fi, but I also like romance.

And in all that, I still have my one manuscript, which I thought was romance with a touch of sci-fi, or paranormal, or something, but it turns out it's just speculative fiction.

It does have aliens in it! Why couldn’t it have been sci-fi?

Honestly, because I don’t have any futuristic or alien technology in it. I don’t have that in this story because it didn’t fit the story details.

Oh, well.

And it’s not like I was trying to write a sci-fi when I wrote that one; I was trying to write yet another romance.

Yeah, writing is hard.

And that doesn’t count how often I have to stop and use my Spellcheck. You would think a person who likes to read as much as I do and loves to write would be able to spell just about anything, but the clear answer is no, I can’t!

I might point out that way back in high school, my creative writing teacher once complained that of his two students with the most potential, one couldn’t spell correctly, and the other was horrible at punctuation.

Guess who the poor speller was.

He has suggested that the two of us team up. The only problem was that our writing styles didn’t mesh. My writing style is more on the level of feel-good/happy endings, while his was decidedly a lot darker. Yeah, I wasn’t going to work with that guy. Sorry.

Let’s face it. Konnie and I both write, and we are identical twins, but we have yet to fully collaborate on anything.

I’m not saying we don’t help each other; we do, a lot.

I’m just saying that, well, we have yet to co-write anything other than this blog.

There are bits and pieces of her work that are really all me. Believe me. Konnie couldn’t write a Male POV right if her life depended on it. So, any scene where the man’s POV is actually spot on – yeah, I helped a ton on that.

On the converse, my one female character, who was a bit shy and easily scared, yeah, I’d have never pulled that story off without her help. I had so many plot holes in that story until she stepped in; it was horrible to read.

So, yeah, we don’t collaborate, but we do help each other. She just needs more help with the Male POV than I ever need with the Female POV.

Too bad she can’t help me fill in the gaps I have.

But then we don’t write each other’s work; we just guide each other in ways to fix the problems.

Anyway, happy writing, everyone!

The Subtleness of Verbiage by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

The other day, I was watching videos online and came across one in which a father talked about his daughter having had a math test that day at school.

Apparently, her teacher had told the class if they could answer just one question correctly, they would get an A without taking the test. Everyone wrote their answers down, folded the paper, and handed it in.

The father’s daughter did not answer the question correctly, so she asked him if he could. Then, she reiterated the question in more detail than given here, but it starts with a butcher with two kids and a wife and then goes into the weight of his family members. It ends with the question, “Now what does the butcher weigh?”

The father in the video looks at the screen, his expression seems to say, “How should I know!”

Without thinking, I responded, “Meat.”

Now hear me out if you don’t believe me that I am right. The question wasn’t, “How much does the butcher weigh?” but rather, “What does the butcher weigh?”

This is a bit ambiguous, but I was sure the story before the question was more a misdirect than a clue. Ergo, the butcher weighs meat.

And in a way, I am surprised I got it. I have never considered myself as clever as say, Hermione Granger, who figured out Snape’s riddle about which bottle contains what. I found that confusing as all get out. And hats off to J.K. Rowling for producing that.

Though wording does matter. It can make a huge difference. Understanding the subtleness of verbiage teaches you that wording changes everything.

Case in point, when someone prefaces a request with the words, “Would you mind,” in general most people will respond, “Yes,” when they in fact will grant the favor asked, but if you look at the phrasing of the request, and really think about it. It is clear the correct favorable answer would be, “No.”

A fact I have used against people on several occasions, twice this last week.

The first time I asked a young lady helping me clean my house, to get me a refill of water, using the aforementioned phrase.

Her response was of course the standard, “Yes.”

I responded, “You would!” with as shocked an expression as I could muster. She didn’t seem to understand what I was saying and just took my mug to refill it.

Now, Monday night, my cousin Steve was over to visit, and I’d received a rather heavy package at some point during the day and I asked him if he would mind bringing it in for me.

He did respond with the standard, “yes,” but when I retorted with my shocked, “You would!” he chuckled and said, “Okay, you got me there!”

He is the first person to ever respond that way when I’ve done it, and I’ve done it a lot.

I am also correct. If you would not mind doing the favor, the correct response is no, not yes.

That is the subtleness of wording, which is what makes writing so hard. Ambiguous wording makes the text stronger or the mystery deeper, but it could also lead the reader astray. Finding just the right word can be extremely difficult. Especially if you have innate issues with spelling.

In point of fact, I spent several minutes trying to figure out the correct spelling of “subtle.” I knew it was the root of the word I needed, but I didn’t know how to spell it!

Most of the time when this happens, I can think of another word that means the same thing and find the word I am trying to use via the thesaurus on my computer. However, that doesn’t always work. Sometimes because there is no other word or because, I picked a word for which that similar meaning is obscure and not in the thesaurus, making me doubt what I remember of etymology.

And for those of you who don’t know, etymology is the history of a word. It is its root, origin, and current and original meanings.

Etymology is why I excelled in my college class, “Concise Business Writing.”

Something I think I have mentioned before. It was in that class that the professor asked us to reduce a Cossel quote to as few words as possible. I did not use my Etymological dictionary for that assignment. I didn’t need it.

However, I admit it wasn’t because I knew the etymology of all those words in the quote. It was because of an earlier incident involving our big sister, nicknamed Dictionary.

But anyway, I aced the assignment!

Happy writing everyone!

Of Thoughts and Characters by Konnie Enos

When I last wrote a post, I was in Boston visiting my second born child. Since then, I’ve returned home, celebrated the birthday of my third born, and spent a considerable amount of time updating our checkbook registers, not to mention planning this month’s budget.

Of course, there is also all the sleeping I’ve been doing. First because of jetlag. Or maybe that was because I spent over 24 hours awake in my effort to get home. Then I have apparently gotten a slight cold. The only annoying part is feeling like I need to throw up.

So, with everything going on, I have not thought about the fact I had to post today, for days. In fact, though I was remembering it was my turn this week, I somehow missed that it was already Wednesday until my middle of the night trip to the bathroom. Thankfully, I have an alarm already set so that I’ll have time to deal with it. I crawled back in bed assured my alarm would wake me up in time.

What I hadn’t planned on was I’d turn my alarm off and go back to sleep. I think the only thing that woke me up was realizing Xavier had just jumped off my bed and Jerry wasn’t in it. Of course, then I had to set up my laptop, open Word, then stare at a blank page for a minute.

Then the alarm saying it was time to feed the pets went off. Thankfully, all I had to do was turn that one off because Jerry was already dealing with it. But knowing I had only about a quarter of my post written and now less than an hour to do it in didn’t help.

Neither did Jerry trying to talk to me. I was right in the middle of a thought, and he threw me right out of it. Worse still, I had no interest in obsessing over what he was fixating on now.

I told him I was busy and to leave me alone, which he didn’t do, and I had to repeat that at least three times. I finally yelled at him again then focused on my screen hoping re-reading the last paragraph would get me back in the flow of my thoughts again. Jerry accused me of reading again.

“No! I’m writing! I told you I was busy. Leave me alone.”

He finally left me alone.

Then I was again stuck trying to stimulate ideas again, which is something I’ve been spending a great deal of time thinking about recently.

One thing I know about good stories is they always have some obstacles that the main characters must overcome somehow. You have to find the right roadblocks to throw up for them so that your story is interesting and believable.

But there is also the issue of not using overworked scenarios, trite storylines, or stereotyped characters. At one point, I also noticed that far too many of my characters had the same features. Short leading ladies is one I use far too often.

I do understand it. If you are writing from what you know, then using characters you can emphasize with makes sense. Knowing this, I’ve tried hard to vary my leading ladies, though I’m afraid they are all still short.

But another thing I’ve noticed is the tendency to stick to similar story lines. All of them seem to have the exact same, or similar elements in them. Some of those being the ages, physical characteristics and even the talents or activities of the main characters. But it could also be the types of obstacles they face. Or even the names you choose.

Now, obviously, you’re going to stick to the elements of the genre you’re writing so things like the obstacles they face are probably going to be similar. However, the characteristics of your characters don’t all have to be from a template.

You’re leading ladies don’t all have to be petite any more than your leading men must be tall dark and handsome. Personality traits and talents can also be quite varied.

Though the one I find the hardest is naming all my characters. If you are writing sci-fi or fantasy you can make up names. For anything else you have to find names that fit the era and the story.

From experience, I know the first names you’re going to pull out of the hat are ones with which you are most familiar. Anything else and you need to do some research just to name them.

So, I find myself wondering how other writers overcome the issues of their characters, in their different stories, all feeling like they’re from a template.

How do you vary your characters?

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

Writing Male Characters by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Recently, while browsing the internet, I came upon a blog post about bad writing tips for women writing male characters. Of course, I was interested because I’m Konnie’s go-to person when she’s having trouble with her male characters. And I use male POVs a lot. I wanted to make sure I was doing it right, because, you know, I am a woman.

For starters, the post is at howtodothewritething.com and it is titled, “If You’re a Woman Writing a Male Character Avoid these Bad Writing Tips.”

From the title, I was afraid that I might be using bad writing tips.

I am not.

Actually, I’ve never even heard these bad writing tips the author mentions.

So far so good.

I particularly like what he said about emotionless robots. But then I am a fan of Data. Heck, I am a fan of Spock! Then there is also Seven-of-Nine, too.

However, when I read that, for some strange reason I started thinking about a female character in a certain sci-fi series. Said character is emotionless, or rather appears to be. She is a well-written and pivotal character for the series. And I promise, she isn’t totally emotionless, she just hides her feelings really well.

And if you want to read this story, I am afraid it isn’t published yet; I just know the author oh probably better than anybody else, certainly longer.

The author is Konnie. Enough said.

There is some exceptional advice in the aforementioned post, so it should really be a must-read for everyone.

And no, Konnie, it is not going to help you with the issues you usually have with male characters, but I am still right here!

However, the best tip I read in this post was about being true to your character. A tip that is helpful for any character you are writing.

I have no idea how many times either Konnie or I have said to the other, “He/She wouldn’t do that!” while talking about a character the other one has written.

I do it most often when it's Konnie’s male characters, and she’s said it a few times over my less strong female characters. I’ve said it more than Konnie has.

She has in fact only helped me with a couple of female characters I described as timid and or fearful. Clearly, I don’t know how that would work. Without Konnie, I wouldn’t have been able to write them.

Konnie has trouble with her male characters constantly.

“Uh, no, a guy would not say that.” “Uh, no, a guy would not react that way.” Yeah, I say those two a lot.

With Konnie, she’d be saying, “(insert character name) would not react that way! She’s shy/timid/fearful, you need to fix this.”

As you can see, her comments are specific to a character whereas mine are more gender related. I’m not saying I haven’t made character-specific comments, but more often than not Konnie’s issues with male characters are more gender related than character-related.

My few issues with my female characters have always been character-related rather than gender.

Sometimes I actually wonder why I get my male characters so right.

Is it because growing up, most of my friends were guys? In those younger years, I remember one girl who was for a short time my best friend, but she had like five or six big brothers and no sisters. We got along great until my family moved, again.

And the one person who was my best friend for the longest time was my cousin, Jon.

It only changed when I hit puberty, and I no longer liked “cops and robbers” and other rough-and-tumble games.

And it isn’t like I haven’t doubted if I have my characters right. I have doubted. One time an older male friend of mine didn’t like a scene I’d written where three buddies were discussing each other’s choice of a spouse. The older gentleman said no decent man would disparage their friends’ women in that manner.

The only thing is they were not really disparaging their friends’ choices, they were merely saying they wouldn’t have picked that person.

I got so worried I hadn’t written the scene in a believable manner I finally broke down and read the scene to my husband to see if he thought they were acting out of character. I figured he was a better choice because he was in the age group of the characters during the time of the story.

Tom informed me it was totally accurate. Actually, what he was, “Guys do talk like that.”

How do you handle writing characters of the opposite gender? Do you need help? Or can you usually manage?

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Of Research, Notes, and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

The other night I had a dream that someone asked me if I’ve ever played football. I was about to say of course I haven’t when a kaleidoscope of events that occurred when I was around twenty-one crossed my mind and I had to amend my answer.

The thing is that is the only time I ever played!

All my roommates and I joined up with a bunch of guys at a nearby park to play. As we divided into teams, I kept trying to tell them I’d never played, but no one would listen. As the team I was on formed a huddle, I finally got our captain to understand I knew nothing about the game.

He pointed out one of my larger roommates and told me all I had to do was keep from her passing our scrimmage line.

Okay.

I still wasn’t sure I could do it. This girl was taller and broader than my then less than five feet, 125 pounds body. But I lined up with the rest of my team directly across the field from said roommate.

When everyone started running forward, I took a couple of steps, planted my feet firmly in place, and then held my arm out to my side, the side for which she was aiming.

As she got to my arm, I put my whole body into moving my arm in front of me.

Within seconds she was flat on her back at my feet, staring up at me totally stunned I managed that.

My team captain yelled, “We’re playing tag football not tackle!”

I faced him and said, “You said stop her; I stopped her!”

My roommate spent the rest of the evening commenting on how I was stronger than I looked.

She was probably glad I stopped playing because soon after that my hip started bothering me and I sat down on the sidelines for the rest of the game.

I’ve never played football again. But some years later I came across a booklet titled “A Football Widow’s Handbook” which I studied thoroughly because my husband was into watching the sport.

Nowadays, anytime Konnie needs any information related to football for a story of hers, she asks me.

I lost that booklet decades ago, and I lost my husband over a decade ago, so it’s been at least that long since I’ve watched a football game, but Konnie still turns to me for such information.

Though it’s been a while since she’s asked me about football. More recently she asked me about makes of cars and their sizes. You know, to be more specific in her story. In other words, telling the types of vehicles wasn’t going to cut it.

Good thing I have a computer. I just looked up some of the makes I could think of. Konnie couldn’t come up with any.

So, I guess I do know cars better than she does but let’s keep in mind I have one story where the two main characters are auto mechanics. And boy did I have I have to do quite a bit of research for that!

Of course, I’ve also got one where the female lead is a pilot. And yes, I did a lot of research for that one too.

Now I’m working on my sci-fi and I had to do a lot of research, more than any of the rest.

I had to look up military ranks because the hero is in the military. But I also had to research the Greek Alphabet and study how fables were written for my backstory for the series which is an ancient fable for the world I’ve built. I did write the fable.

Then I also had to look into things like kings and their heirs, because that plays a role in my story, and for good measure, I looked up ranks of nobility.

Let’s not forget looking up a bit of science so my solar system I’m making up works!

Yeah, I’ve done more research for my sci-fi than I’ve ever done for any of my contemporary romances.

But then when I’m not researching, I have also done a lot of drawing up floor plans for the characters' homes, and for my Moose Creek series, I have a file on the family groups, including birth and marriage dates, and another file of who graduated in what year from the local high school. I also have the genealogy of the main family in that series, back several generations. I also have a file on family groups for my speculative fiction. Yeah, I take lots of notes.

As I write a story, I note character names, ages, and whatever else I need to remember, including my research notes.

How about you?

Happy writing all!

Of Writing, Baking, and the Internet by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I am going to make this post short and sweet because I haven’t got a lot of time to write it. For starters, my internet was down for several days, and I wasn’t about to get much writing done since I couldn’t access the cloud or anything.

Then of course there is the fact that today is the day before Thanksgiving, and I have some baking to do before tomorrow.

I admit that what baking I have to do is nothing compared to how busy Konnie is preparing for her Thanksgiving dinner. At Konnie’s house, everything is fixed from scratch, and I mean everything, including the bread for the stuffing.

At my place, I’m only providing a couple of desserts. Yes, from scratch, but well, there aren’t going to be a lot of people at my sister’s-in-law tomorrow. There just isn’t room over there for a lot of people, so I won’t need to make a bunch of pies, which Konnie is doing.

As far as Nano goes, I actually finished the challenge on the 12^th, much to Konnie’s surprise. I did post that fact on Facebook, and Konnie thought I was just posting that I was participating again this year.

No, I made my goal.

I have since added a few more words to my novel, just not a whole lot due mostly to my internet issues, but I can also blame the write-in I attended Saturday where the entire group got distracted when one of our members was having trouble finding the answer to a research question she had.

That took up a large chunk of the time we had for our write-in as everyone tried to find the answer for her.

One of the other members went so far as to call a friend and ask her if she knew the answer. She didn’t off the top of her head, but she managed to find the answer just as we were packing up to leave.

The problem was solved, but I went home to find my internet was down, so I wasn’t able to have what had become my usual weekend marathon of writing. And my internet was down until last night.

I guess I should be happy that I am already past the 50k mark, I was just hoping I could manage something along the lines of what I did when I wrote book one of this series. That was the year I got over 90k in November.  And I was doing so well! After all, I did make 50k well before the 15^th and when I wrote the first book, I was at like 30k on the 15^th. Yeah, I did a ton of writing in the last half of that month.

At least there is still time to get a bunch more words and I do have another weekend to do another marathon of writing.

On another note, a librarian friend of mine asked for a copy of the first book so she could read it. She was very excited to read it and even offered to get a copy for the library once I felt it was polished.

I had told her it was a rough draft.

I personally think she has too much faith in my writing as she made that offer before she read the manuscript.

Anyway, I need to get a bunch of stuff done before work today, so I’m going to say,
“Happy Thanksgiving! And happy writing everyone!”

 

NANO, Sci-Fi's and Editing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 I have been working on my sci-fi like I said I would, just less than I had hoped. I did get to the point where I was ready to bridge the new scenes with the old stuff, whereupon I realized I didn’t “show” the correct stuff in some of the new scenes, and I even once showed them doing something that came later in the old stuff!

So now I have to do some major rewriting of a portion of the new scenes. Thankfully not all of them. But the most annoying part of all this is I didn’t show my hero’s emotions correctly in the new scenes. How could I have forgotten what was going on in the part of the story I did keep?

Then there is the issue that my office has been closed for the last two days. So today is my first day back at work this week. I’m having some financial issues, and yet another check is going to be short. I can barely make ends meet if I don’t miss any work.

On the bright side, I did go through my sci-fi manuscript, and I have removed the portion that is actually the second book of the series to a separate file. That does need some changes made, but I’ll work on it later. Right now, I want to finish book one!

And I am so close. I swear I am.

Once I fix the errors I made in the new scenes, it will mostly minor changes and simple editing. And believe me, major changes take way longer than minor changes and simple fixes. The major stuff is always a problem.

The worst part is I always seem to get to a point in the day when no words continue to come. It’s like my brain shuts down after a certain number of pages of writing. I’m lucky if I can manage ten pages a day, it's usually only five, which isn’t a thing to be happening right before NANO starts.

You see, to keep up with NANO I will have to write between six and seven pages a day. Shutting down around five pages isn’t going to cut it.

It sometimes amazes me that I manage to finish NANO most years. And it is even more amazing that in 2017 I managed to write over 90K words in November. That is the year I started this sci-fi.

Yeah, we’re talking over 90,000 words in just one month. Which is on par with the time I wrote an over 130K rough draft in just six weeks. (If you are curious, that one was my story everyone couldn’t decide if was a paranormal romance, or sci-fi, and it turns out it's speculative fiction, who knew?)

In other words, I write more and faster when I am not writing romance! I thought I was a romance writer. Go figure.

I swear, most of what I write is romance. Promise.

Just ask Konnie, she’ll tell you.

But I must say I am having fun with this sci-fi, and it isn’t like I have never liked sci-fi. I’m a Star Trek fan from way back.

Actually, that is something Konnie and I have in common – Star Trek.

She even used names associated with Star Trek in her opus sci-fi. And I mean a ton of names from the Star Trek universe, both character names and actor names. She’s even got Roddenberry in there, both Gene and Majel! She actually did a great job.

She’s got a Takai and a Sulu in there and every time I read at least Takai’s lines I hear George Takai saying the line in my head! I do not have any problems with most of the others. There is that issue with her character Crosby where I always envision Tasha Yar, but generally, I just have fun seeing all those familiar names on the page.

I haven’t done the same, but Konnie’s sci-fi is set way far in Earth’s future whereas mine is set in an alien universe, so there is a big difference there.

There is one major change I’ve made to my sci-fi this last month or so and that is moving the first scene with my hero to before the first scene with my heroine. This seems kind of strange because this whole story started from a writing prompt competition, I entered ages ago. Everybody loved the first few lines I wrote from the prompt in the heroine’s POV.

The problem was that the stuff I later wrote in the hero’s POV happened well before the first scene in the heroine’s POV, so I had to make the change. Linear wise it makes more sense, so it needed done.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

On Writing, Reading, and Other Things by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Here I sit in front of my computer, staring at a blank screen.

You can’t fix a blank screen, but what do I write?

If you are curious about how last week went for me, I was on antibiotics, again. The third time this year! At least this time it wasn’t sepsis. This time it was bronchitis, so not much better. My paycheck is suffering horribly because of all this sick time, and I was having trouble making ends meet without missing work!

I’d write about my writing, but all I’ve managed to do is reread one of my old unfinished stories. This isn’t helpful because it’s so old, most of the characters don’t have cell phones, and all have a landline. Yeah, updating that one isn’t going to be easy. There were other issues besides the phones that made it outdated. Ergo, it may never be finished.

And I had wanted to get to the end of the edits for book one of my sci-fi before the end of October, I’m running out of time here plus rereading the Harry Potter series isn’t helping, but when I was sick this last time, I couldn’t think very clearly, nor did I have the energy to do anything. I mostly stayed in bed and read or called my neighbors for help a couple of times.

I needed my humidifier but didn’t have the energy to fill that up.

And of course, I’m a slow reader, but I also skipped between HP and my own stuff, so right now I am just past the halfway point on Goblet of Fire. I have three and a half books to go, but they’re the biggest books of the series!

Of course, I have no trouble finding time to read, or write. After all my house is always quiet, for the most part. I do watch TV sometimes and Patches likes to meow occasionally, but on the whole, my place is quiet.

Which I have mentioned before. Most particularly, the time Konnie was visiting me, and she put in a video just for the noise. She couldn’t write without it! I, on the other hand, can’t write at her house, there is too much going on. And I can’t tell you how many times I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of paws tapping across the wood floors while visiting her.

But then at home these days, I occasionally get woken up by a cat landing on top of me. Dogs are noisy; cats are quiet, ergo, I get scared a couple of nights a week. Patches likes waking me in the middle of the night.

You would think Konnie and I would be more alike, but when it comes to noise or the lack thereof, it is what we are used to. I live with a cat; Konnie still has kids at home and a menagerie of animals, primarily dogs.

I hate being at Konnie’s place when those dogs start barking. Actually, I hate being on the phone with her when those dogs start barking. Cats do meow, but they are not that loud!

Though sometimes, it would be nice to have a distraction around here. Just as long as it’s not me being ill again. I swear, if I have to take antibiotics again this year, I’m going to scream! Come on, enough already, isn’t three times more than sufficient?

At any rate, I’m not getting much done around here, and I still don’t know how I’m going to make my bills this next month.

However, I can at least report my water heater and tub are now in working order again, thankfully. Now all I need is for my current landlord to actually sell this place, so I don’t have to deal with him anymore.

At any rate, I have a lot to do and not enough time to do it, so I’m going to cut this post short.

Happy writing everyone!

Of Headaches and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I hate blank pages. It can be hard to think about what to write, and lately, thinking hasn’t been easy. You see, I have a headache. I’ve had this headache for just over a week.

Try to do any writing when you can’t even think.

Of course, you can't edit a blank page, so I have to find the words somewhere.

Regarding writing in general, I haven’t done much more than rereading some of my older stories. It isn’t like I don’t have ideas running through my head, it's just that when faced with this screen, the ideas run away leaving me with the pain in my head.

For instance, I opened one of my unfinished manuscripts and I knew I really needed to add one detail in, and in several places rework things. I reread the whole thing and didn’t make a single change! Even when I got to the place, I knew I needed to make the most significant change, I just read it and moved on.

And when it comes to my sci-fi, well, I’m still on the first book, but my brain, when it wants to work is stuck on the second book.

Do you remember when I lamented that the twin brother of the hero in my first book wasn’t talking to me? Well, he’s talking now! I’m not ready for his POV.

And with a headache, I can’t think straight enough to work on my sci-fi anyway.

So, anyway, I haven’t gotten much done at all the last couple of weeks other than trying to get rid of this headache. My doctor prescribed me pain meds and is working on getting me a sleep study done. Looks like I need a C-PAP machine.

Man, I didn’t want to go there.

Hopefully, once I can get a decent night’s sleep again, I will be able to concentrate enough to do more than just stare at the screen.

Even now I doubt I’ll be able to get a full post done. My head hurts too much and frankly, I didn’t get enough sleep last night fretting over this post.

Anyway, I tried.

I hope all of you are doing better than I am.

Happy writing everyone.

Backups and brainstorming by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Okay, in my last post, I mentioned that I’d lost a scene I know I wrote. Well, I mentioned it to Konnie, and she asked if I’d checked our shared files. I said I had, but also mentioned that I know I wrote it and shared it with her because she had once commented on the bit about my main female character sitting on the shoulders of the main male character. 

Konnie asked me how long ago I shared it with her, but I couldn’t remember. I did however remember that I shared it via email because it was before we acquired the ability to share our changes automatically through a program she is paying for. 

So, Konnie searched through her old emails! And I have my scene restored! Not only that, but it has changes in it I’d forgotten about, so now I’m working to combine the best parts of the previous version and the current version. 

This isn’t as easy as it seems because the current version has several significant changes in it, including the names of half the men in the story which needs to be dealt with. 

And then when I am rereading the old version, I noticed I had a feature in there that I hadn’t carried over to the current version that was excellent, and I had to rework the feature of the hero’s ship into the current version and work in a short bit of scene into the current version, which required changes because it's happening at a different time than I originally had it.  

Of course, that different time is the big issue because between writing the previous version and the current version, I decided some of the things they do need to take days longer than what I had. Ergo, that excellent interaction between the hero and heroine takes place days after I originally had it happen. 

And that will continue to be an issue, as well as the fact that I added details that weren’t in the previous version. And all of that makes a difference. 

The best part is I was afraid to scan ahead in the current version to see if I lost another fantastic scene that happens later in the story. And frankly, I still haven’t checked, but in rereading the obsolete version, I found I still had that scene as well. 

This is such great news. I can’t tell you how glad I am that Konnie is my backup. But now we have to be sure we are always saving the newest version! Or we’ll lose our changes. 

Just remember when Word tells you, you already have a file by that name, please remember to save the current version, not the older one! Then you won’t have this issue. 

I might add, Konnie and I have used each other as backup before. Once I had to send Konnie all her stories that I had stored on my flash drive because her computer or her flash drive crashed. And this isn’t the first time she happened to have the version of a story that I managed to lose somehow.

Do any of you have a friend or family member you can share your work with, so you have it stored somewhere else? 

For that matter, do any of you have a family member with which you can brainstorm?

Not too long ago, Konnie called me because she was editing her sci-fi and she realized she needed one character to have a first name, not just a title and last name. And she’d already exhausted her list of alien names. 

Hence the reason she called me. 

Yeah, my strong suits are male POVs and alien names even though most of what I write is contemporary romance.  

The thing is Konnie’s strong suits are meek and timid female characters and making up titles. She’s even better at blurbs than I am. 

I do have a couple of female characters with phobias, and Konnie had to help me get those scenes right in the way I help her with male POVs. 

On the other hand, my best blurbs are in reality her work, and most of my titles are her work as well. I have one where the title for my story came from a friend, but the story idea was his too, he just insisted I was better suited to write it. And I have another one that the title came to me along with the main character. 

As much as we work together and complement each other, it's no wonder people have wondered why we don’t collaborate on a story.

All I can say is we work better alone, except when we need help. 

Anyway, happy writing everyone!