March 2011

Writing a Proposal
March 29, 2011 | 0 comments

I’ve been working on a new proposal.  Same heart of the story I’ve been dreaming about, but transplanted into a different body.  The character sketches came together quickly.  The names are a little hokey, but then character names often change several times during the course of writing a story.  As I write, the characters begin to tell me who they really are.  “Hey, Rivers!  That name you gave me is lousy!  Try again.”

I know all this sounds pretty weird.  I have conversations with my characters all the time.   Sometimes we have kerfuffles.   Just read that word the other day and loved it.   It might even make a good surname:  Charlene Kerfuffle (the girl who always stirs up trouble and argues over everything). 

The story line is based on one chapter from an Old Testament book that has given me another glimpse of God and his enduring love.  (Hint: “Endure” doesn’t just mean long-...

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Scrapping a Proposal
March 18, 2011 | 0 comments

I’m scrapping my proposal and prologue today. Shredding it is a better idea.  I’ve been thinking/working over a story idea for months!  I dream about this “thing”, whatever it is.  It’s been like living in a rabbit warren and the rabbits keep producing more rabbits.  In this case, ideas are reproducing ideas.  I’m living in a maze of them and I’ve been having trouble making sense of where all this is going and why it’s happening.  

Is it any wonder then when Rick read my book proposal and prologue he could only say: “It will be very interesting to see how you pull this off.”  Uh oh!  And then my agent and her associate called and gently broke the news:  “We’ve been scratching our heads… we didn’t get it…”  Not a surprise.  How do you explain something you can’t quite grasp?  As to form?  It was (sort of) a paranormal, sci-fi, fantastical allegorical mess. 

But as they talked, my head was buzzing...

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More on Writing
March 14, 2011 | 0 comments

Writing isn’t about making friends with my characters, but trying to understand them.  It’s a process.  What I write in a “book proposal” is a faint shadow of who the characters are and what they will do.  I don’t even know any of that yet.  What is important is what these new people in my life will become in the course of writing “about” them.  When they (finally -- hopefully) take on a life of their own, breathing out their own words and thoughts, the story begins to happen.  I become more like a court recorder than a creator. 

Until that spark happens, writing is more like going to gym after having taken a year of vacation on a cruise line with buffets and then being turned over to a trainer who is a retired Marine drill instructor. 

If anyone were to ask me how to write a book proposal (which is what I’m working on right  now), I would have to admit honestly I have no idea.  I can offer a “working title”, a (...

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