I've Already Blogged About Hotdogs and Shower Filters...now what?

                                                                 By Trina Boice
                                                          http://www.boicebox.com/

So, you've joined the ranks of bloggers on the Internet!  Great!   You quickly wrote about everything you were passionate about and now you're starting to draw a blank, eh? 

Some days the ideas and words flow quite easily, but then there are the days when you just can't think of anything original or worthwhile to say.  Don't force it.  The most important thing about blogging is to be authentic.

Sometimes you just need a little inspiration to get you started.  I recently discovered a cool tool that does just that.

Brian Proctor, the son of Bob Proctor (The Secret) was interested in receiving inspirational quotes and stories that would set the tone for each day. He created a free auto-sending email service (before it was common to do so) with an inspirational quote Monday through Thursday and a story on Fridays.

When you sign up for his free emails you'll receive plenty of inspiring ideas that can quickly get your own creative juices flowing. Enjoy!

To start receiving great blog ideas, click on this little box:

Overcoming Writer's Block

By Christine Thackeray

The beginning of this week I had arranged my schedule to spend hours writing. I'm working on a screenplay, spoke to a co-author about changes and was determined to get through them for our conference call on Friday. Unfortunately, everytime I sat down, I'd stare at the page and couldn't make it work. Then I'd do something else, hoping the answer would just "come", but NOTHING!

I remember a few years ago Heather Moore told me that most writer's block is a result of unclear characters or motivation. That was exactly the problem in my case but I couldn't make it work. The person I'm working with wanted to change the action in the first scene but by doing it, it changed the main character. The old main character would never have done such a thing. I remembered reading Dwight Swain who believed that you could recreate characters with quirks that could do what you wanted them to but I couldn't bend any personality to be consistent with the two events.

On Thursday afternoon, so frustrated I could pull my HAIR OUT, I took my husband out to lunch and forced him to listen to my dilemna. He told me to just change the character. Make her the new girl and change the dialogue so it's her. Oh. Duh. The minute I accepted the new main character, everything fell in place. Dailogue started coming to my mind and it was genuine. Ta-da. Block over.

I got the first five scenes done and mailed them off just before my meeting but the meeting was cancelled. We'll meet next Friday instead, only this time I hope to have the rewrite complete. That is hope because this week I may not have writer's block but with something going on everyday next week, do I have the time???

Let the Son Shine

This morning when I looked outside, I saw this:



It's a picture of the sun trying to peek through the fog. And once it was finally able to, the fog cleared, and now it looks like this:



Sometimes my life gets a little foggy, whether it's related to illness, life events, or writer's block. Lately, it's just been my mind. Ever since Christmas, I just haven't had the same focus and creativity to write as efficiently in my book. Maybe it was holiday indulgence, stress, or whatever, but I've been struggling to keep my writing goals.

But something struck me a couple days ago, and that was that I needed to let the Son, my Savior, shine more in my life, mainly by trusting Him. And I found that when I focus on trusting Him, loving Him, and allowing myself to feel His love for me, the fog lifts, not only on my writing, but on every other aspect of my life.

What a blessing to know that He is there, shining for us, and lifting the fog from our lives if we allow Him. I am so grateful.

And now with this new-found peace and creativity, I'm off to write. :)

Influences on Writing - Part 2

Writer's Block

Do you suffer from writer's block? Do you worry that you won't make that deadline because you can't come up with anything? Have you put your writing away because you just can't get past that one part?

We've all been there. We all get writer's block! When I was writing By Love or By Sea, I sat in front of my computer for 30 days before I figured out a solution to the problem. So what did I do?

Well, first off, I sat there, every day. I tried to write and usually I ended up deleting it all. But I kept trying. When my mind was completely blank, I did research online. I kept trying to come up with new angles and new situations.

Finally, after a month of dedicated perserverence, a thought struck me. A lot like lightening. I suddenly knew exactly what to write. And I couldn't write down my thoughts fast enough. My house and family were neglected because I was so desperate not to lose my thought!

Is that the only way to go about writer's block? Probably not. I do think that by trudging on through you can work through it. Although sometimes I think you need to put it away for a week or so and work on something else before coming back to it.

One think I know for certain, if you put it away and don't keep trying, you will never get beyond it. So keep on trying. It will work out sooner or later!

*Part 1 of this series, Influences on Writing - Music, can be found at on my blog! I look forward to seeing you there!

Fun Writing

The first time I wrote a novel, it was so fun! In fact, it didn't feel like work at all because it was just pure enjoyment. (Maybe I should have put some work into it, then it might have gotten published, but hey.)

My second novel started out fun, but after a few months it started to become work. It was hard to get all the way through it, and then all the way through it again. But I did, and now it's published.

When I began a third novel, it was really fun for the first few months, and then the holidays came and I stopped writing. Then I never went back because by then the fun and newness had worn off. I lost my desire to finish it.

Part of me felt obligated to finish this "baby" because I was officially a "writer" so I had to. But sometimes when I feel like I have to do something, I automatically don't want to do it anymore. It was the same with the book.

But then something happened. It was a turning point of sorts. I decided that I was a writer, that this story deserved to be told, and that I was going to write it even if it was work and it could be difficult. (Besides, I have a small fan club, consisting mostly of immediate family members, that can't wait for it to be finished.)

So I decided to try again, but there were a few things I needed to learn before I could, and they were:

1. Have fun: I engaged in a couple different writing projects that were so fun and satisfying in every way. This helped me to get the "fun" spark back again.

2. Trust God: I believe my talents were given to me by Heavenly Father and that He intends that I use and share my talents, not bury them. I needed to trust that He would help me write, but I also needed to put forth the effort. Recently, when it was that time of day for me to write, I had no idea what to write about. No thoughts had come to my mind at all previously, but within two hours, I had still written more than eight pages.

3. Trust myself: I think I was at a point where I didn't know if I had it in me to finish writing another novel. (Who knows. Maybe my published novel was just some sort of weird fluke that fell into my head and flowed out my fingertips, and could never be repeated.)But every time without fail, when I set time aside to write, words that weren't even there before, come. Plus, I've completed three books now, I can certainly complete another one.

4. An attitude adjustment: My problem was viewing work as something not fun. But when I could see how fun, exciting, rewarding, and satisfying work could actually be, the whole idea of work shifted in my mind.

5. Patience: Writing a book takes time, but everyday I can see progress being made. Goals help to keep me on track, and when I accomplish a goal, it's all I need to feel satisfied. This helps me to be patient while I work for that day it's complete.

I'm still working on getting a good writing system down, but it's coming together nicely. Most of all, I'm doing what I love and having fun while working at it.

The Writing Journey Through Music

By Trina Boice

My eyelids were drooping and every part of my body was aching last weekend as I sat in front of my computer screen for hours, scrambling to make a deadline my publisher had given me to finish my latest manuscript. I felt tired and uninspired, yet determined to finish.

What do you do for inspiration and motivation to keep hacking away at the keyboard? Well, I'm so excited about my latest discovery that I just have to tell you about it! Have you heard of http://www.pandora.com/ ? I absolutely love it and I have it to thank for keeping me on task with my last writing project!

It's like a music radio station online, except without all of the annoying commercial breaks and songs you don't like. You simply tell it what songs you like and it creates a custom station just for you! Best of all, it's free!

To get back some energy I plugged myself into the "Journey" channel and suddenly felt a surge of writing strength overcome me. Yeah, I'm dating myself, but Journey is one of my favorite bands of all time. Thankfully, they're making a come-back with their 2009 tour, so now I won't seem so old, right? I hear their new singer, Arnel, is blowing everyone away. Sure love that Steve Perry...

When I needed to think harder and work on the more spiritual parts of the book I switched to the "Yanni" and "Enya" channels. Perfect. I even created my own "Wicked" and "Dream Girls" channels when I wanted to sing out loud while I continued typing away.

Pandora.com declares itself as a music genome project that began in the year 2000. They've grouped songs together by sound, rather than genre, making for a very nice collection that appears to be able to identify my taste spot on.

I used to be one of those writers who prefers silence as their writing companion, but now I'm converted to Pandora.com! What do YOU do for inspiration?

It's My Turn Again. Any Ideas?

By Rachel Rager

I often run into trouble when thinking about what it is I want to write for a blog. This is not necessarily the place you go to post all your family reunion pictures. It's not the place where you tell all your deepest and darkest secrets either. (No, I don't have any. I have kids! And they certainly don't let me leave the house without my pants on.) But it is a place to learn and grow and find friends.


So what do you tell all these friends?


I'm still not always certain. Last time, I was out of town and posted a short story I'd written at the spur of the moment several months before. That works and kind of shows you a little bit about who I am and what I do. But what about the next time? I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to how to promote a book, how to write a book, or even how to find an idea. But I'm reading lots and learning.


I do know that I keep notebooks EVERYWHERE and am writing a little here and a little there. Sometimes I start a story at the beginning and go to the end. Sometimes I write different scenes and lace them together. So you see, there is no method to my madness. (Maybe it's inherited?)


I did just post a teaser, for a book I'm working on, on my personal blog. Check it out. I need some help and there might be a prize for whoever can help me! So for now, I will leave you with my jumbled thoughts. May your day be sunny and cheerful and full of yummy kisses!

Plotting it Out

By Heather Justesen

I used to be what is commonly called a discovery writer. You know, you get an idea, play with it a bit (if you can stand to wait to start writing, which I sometimes couldn't) and then sit down and start typing. This is a great way to get a book started, and I know some people just let the story take them wherever it wants to go and end up with great stories.

Me, not so much.

I was writing for several years and had only finished one book from beginning to end...the other two dozen got anywhere from 30 pages to three-quarters of the way finished before I ran out of steam or lost the plot threads.

And then a couple of years back I learned I am much happier as a plotter. It's true, if I'm excited about what I'm writing and I have the major complications spelled out I can write a 90,000 word novel in under a month. The other bonus is that I can have it cleaned up and submitted in only five or six drafts, instead of twenty-five. Can I write a new novel every month? No, I'd probably go on burnout, and the edits would never get done, but I'm capable of writing that fast and with a decent first draft if i know where I'm going.

But despite that, I still let myself get moving on my current writing project (which was one of my three-quarters finished projects from a couple of years back) without plotting out that last quarter. And then as I got to the half-way point I started to flail.

Why wasn't it coming together? Why did I feel directionless and as though the story didn't want to be written?

And then I realized I hadn't plotted it out, and it all clicked.

Now, I'm not the type to write a thirty-page synopsis for a 300-page novel. If I did that, I would never end up writing the book--it's already been written, after all. Where's the fun in that?

Instead I open up my handy spread sheet and just put a sentence for the basics of what I plan to do in that scene. Each line is its own scene and I can easily cut and paste the lines as I shift around the storyline. It helps me keep track of my story arcs, to realize when I've gone too long since a certain thread was mentioned, or if my second character hasn't had a scene in his point of view for fifteen scenes.

Sometimes once I get started writing, I don't refer back to it very often. After all, the characters have wills of their own, and sometimes things happen in different orders than you expected, or a character decides to do something you had never planned. This leaves me with enough room to change things up and go with the story the way it wants to be written, but when I get frustrated and start feeling lost, I can refer back to the original plan and realize what I still need to cover to reach my happy ending.

Writer's bock? Not anymore!

We All Lose Steam Sometimes

By Heather Justesen

Last March I had the awesome opportunity to attend Snow College's Major Rush (Go Badgers!), which meant I had the chance to speak with students who wanted to go into publishing, but didn't know how to go about it. Afterward one of the young women whom I had met, but hadn't had much time to talk with, wrote me with a question--can I just say how much I love to talk about writing? She said that she had gotten partway through a book and was stuck. Even when she wrote later chapters she found it difficult to merge everything back together. This is what I told her.

I think this is a problem we all face sometimes. I know I have trouble with my stories when I get about 2/3 of the way through. Even though I know where I want to end up, I still struggle to get from here to there.

There are several possible causes for this, in my experience. First, I often don't have enough conflict planned for that section of the book, so I have to add something more. I heard a podcast (Writing Excuses) where the guys said when they get stuck, they have a bad guy knock down the door. Another writer recently mentioned on her blog that when she gets to a spot like this, she starts looking to see if there are any characters she can kill off (Josi Killpack).

Obviously, these aren't going to solve every problem, but sometimes when I get to this place, I re-evaluate what I've written (I don't do a thorough edit, I just skim over what I've got written to refresh my memory and see if there are any loose ends). Often I can find a conflict from earlier in the story that I let drop that I can pull again. Other times I get ideas on how to reintroduce or strengthen an existing conflict (The ex in-laws try to get custody, the character gets arrested by mistake, the guy who has been trying to get her to date him all year pushes again, and she pushes back in a totally unexpected way).

In my stories it is almost ALWAYS a lack of sufficient conflict. I often call one of my writing friends (Danyelle) and brain storm with her, because she's great at coming up with new things that should be obvious conflict possibilities that I totally missed. If you have someone you can talk to about your story, you might want to see if they have ideas.

Another possible reason for the problem could be that you're trying to get your character to do something they wouldn't normally do without proper motivation. I've been having this problem with another book I'm working on because I haven't given my character a good enough reason to do what I want them to do. So I either need to give them a better reason to come to this decision, or I need to give them a different course to follow. In this case, not having them make the decision I want them to make is going to ruin the whole premise of the story, so I need to fix the motivation.

A third possibility is that maybe you don't know your characters well enough. When I don't understand the character, know their quirks and history, I sometimes have trouble staying on track, or figuring out what they would do next to get to the next major story goal. Conversely, if I know my characters really well, I know what conflicts are coming up, and I'm excited about the story, it tends to almost write itself.

So why do I let myself start writing without knowing my characters inside and out or having a reasonable outline? No idea. I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.