Celebrate--It's National Book Week

FORMAT MATTERS BECAUSE...

Punctuation Matters

Networking Parts 1 and 2

Recently I was asked to do a workshop for RWA PRO Members who are
preparing to attend the annual writer’s conference.
While geared specifically for PRO, I thought I’d share my notes here.
Perhaps something in them will be useful to you.

For Part 1, click HERE.

For Part 2, click HERE.

Email questions to:
infoandrequests (at) aol.com

Blessings,

Vicki

Why Write from Honesty?

What to Write? Single-Title or Category

For writers contemplating whether to write single title or category novels, you might find the following article helpful. It’s one of that I wrote and Jennifer Connors has published in the Seattle Examiner.

Here is a link to the complete article:

Category or Single-Title

Blessings,

Vicki

Never Give Up--You Just Might Make It!

Alicia Dean dreamed of being a published author. Now she is. Join me in a discussion on her journey. Hopefully, you'll gain insights relevant to your own.

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Blessings,

Vicki

Effective Narrative

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Narrative: Don't Underestimate It

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SIGNIFICANCE AND REALISM

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Write What You Know

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EFFECTIVE NARRATIVE

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PLOT BOARD

What is a Plot Board? And why do I need one?

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Mixing Points of View in Your Novel

Can you mix first-and-third-person points of view in a novel?

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Remember to enter Vicki's monthly contest:


ENTER HERE





Our libraries are struggling to operate under extreme budget cuts. Show your support by adding the following icon to your site, social network pages, and be a friend to your local library.

I created this graphic, and permission is granted to copy and display on any family-friendly site/page.









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CLOSURE

In 1991, America was in the first Gulf War. As well as general concern for our troops and country, I had a husband and son in two different branches of the military then. This war was up close and personal, and I was deeply invested in news and monitoring closely.

I remember the day we learned Navy pilot Scott Speicher went missing.
Over the years, he was deemed dead, missing in action. There were sightings that included his name written on the wall in an Iraqi jail cell. His status was changed, his formal status in the military considered multiple times, but his case remained opened.

At the onset of the second Iraqi war, I heard a news broadcast with a marine who said, “We leave no man behind” and I thought of Scott Spiecher. He was gone but not forgotten.

That comment, often spoken with and heard by others with pride that our soldiers are
so devoted to each other and to us, haunted me. What about Scott?

And the storyteller took over, in a book I wrote and dedicated to Capt. Speicher and his family, HER PERFECT LIFE.

In it, a female pilot is shot down and deemed dead. Her husband and two small children mourn her, and then move on with their lives because as human beings that’s what we do.

Only our pilot wasn’t dead. And she spent the next six years being held prisoner by a tribal band.

And then she’s rescued--and that’s where the real story begins.

She comes home, unwilling to speak about her time in captivity. Others assume she’s doing so because she doesn’t want to remember. The truth is, she can’t remember. The tortures endured were too horrific and she’d survived by blocking them out, focusing only on getting home to her husband and her kids.

Only home isn’t there anymore. Her husband has remarried. Her children are strangers and unsure they want to know her. They love their stepmother--and on getting to know her, our returning heroine is full of anger and outrage at her perfect life being stolen and she can’t even hate the woman who replaced her because she’s been wonderful to her kids.

And so begins the work to rebuild a life from ashes. A future when everything that mattered to her was gone.

HER PERFECT LIFE. Shattered. Gone.

But in doing that work, our heroine Katie, discovers she hadn’t lost her perfect life. Her perfect life is now.

It’s quite a journey for Katie. For her husband, his wife, the children, and Katie’s co-pilot who was certain she was dead.
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Creating Character: Details, The Stuff of Life

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The Overworked Writer

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WHY WRITERS SHOULD BE READING #IRANELECTION ON TWITTER

WARNING: This is a no-edit zone...


I’m interrupting my Mistakes We Make posts, because this opportunity will not wait.


As writers, we write about people. About the human condition. We connect with readers through emotion, which means writers must be students of emotion.


Right now the people of Iran are risking death--and indeed some are dying--and being imprisoned for a cause well known to Americans: freedom. With 140% of the population voting in many districts, the people feel betrayed, disrespected and undervalued by their leaders. They are passionate and their emotions are raw.


When emotions are raw, there is no veneer. You see actions and reactions that are impassioned and that cut close to the bone. If you want to know what someone is really thinking, observe them in an emotional situation. The more intense the emotion, the more honest and overt the reaction.


As human beings, we have felt many of the emotions being felt in force right now. Betrayal, hurt, feeling helpless and hopeless and small and insignificant. I am but one. What can I do? We’ve felt that. In observing it, we remember it, and we feel the violations all over again. That creates a bond of empathy, which is why if you are following on Twitter and have been since the weekend, you see posts that say things like, “Stay safe, my brother” or “today we’re all Iranian.” It isn’t that the speakers are related or they’ve changed their allegiance to their own country, it’s that they empathize so intensely with the injustice the other person is feeling, they align.


I’ve seen acts of great courage. One man posted before going to march in the first protest that he didn’t need to sleep because “today I die.” He believed--and for just cause since 7,000 were executed for defiance before--that if he went, he would die. But he went. And thousands on Twitter held their collective breaths until he returned and posted. We all understand fear. We all recognize courage. We all . . .


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Tags: character, emotion, empathy, creative writing, author, writer, novelist, books, #iranelection, writers library, vicki hinze

Mistakes We Make: Part 9

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WRITERS: LOVE THE LIFE

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