Tag: A Dance Out of Time

Total 7 Posts

Winter Writing

Wintertime brought chilly weather, sleet, and snow to the Northeast. Huddling under a plaid throw blanket, sipping hot cider or cocoa, and reading made it less bleak. I listen to my favorite classical music station, WQXR, Sirius radio, or my collection of classic rock and pop songs from my CD library.

I’ve returned to my passion of writing and republished my two young adult novels featuring a ghost hunter at the Jersey Shore in A Kiss Out of Time and its sequel A Dance Out of Time, and a case of past lives returning to solve the crime of smuggling in Mexico in my adult paranormal Sacred Fires.

As the saying goes, there’s no time like the present to get things done. Being fully-retired helps too. After many years in education, I’m fortunate that I can now write more or less full-time. In the works are two more novels and a memoir. That should keep me busy into Spring!

 

To Write, Observe

 

Pay attention to your surroundings. It’s not always easy these days especially with the distractions of mobile phones, computers, and other electronic devices. As a writer, I often need to find those quiet moments and special places for writing, such as a library, a park, or my home office, but sometimes I need to write on the fly wherever I can. That’s why I began to bring along a small journal or notepad for jotting down ideas. It also helps to be aware of your surroundings because they can inspire ideas too.

Recently while enjoying a morning walk in a park in my hometown of Nutley, New Jersey, I forgot to notice those wonderful sounds like birds singing, the gurgle of the brooks, and the topple of the water over the falls in Kingsland Park. Shaking me out of my daydream was the sounds in a nearby treetop. I thought either squirrels on a mad chase or a raccoon shimmering down the trunk caused the sound, but to my astonishment a few feet ahead of me came a loud crash and a huge branch fell. My heart raced at the sight and the realization that I could have been struck by the branch. A fellow traveler in the wooded area noticed this too, and we both thanked the heavens that we’d been spared. It also woke me up to the necessity to pay more attention to my surrounding. Indeed it could be a matter of life or death!

The sights, the sounds, and the feelings of my surroundings have inspired me in my writing of settings for my books. Ocean Grove and Asbury Park, New Jersey are the settings for my two young adult books, A Dance Out of Time and A Kiss Out of Time. Although I haven’t been on the pioneer trail to Oregon, the setting for my western historical romance, Wildflowers, I have visited several western and mid-western states including Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Taking photographs, enjoying visits to local museums and art galleries, and writing in journals has helped me to capture my ideas about those surroundings.

I heard long ago that to be a writer means to be an observer. I believe that it’s true. It can also save your life!

 

To Plot or Not To Plot

To plot or not to plot? That is the question when I start a new story. Most times, I write a fast rough draft after I have a sketch of an outline.

When I wrote during National Novel Writing Month in November, or NaNoWriMo, I wrote as quickly and frequently as possible without revision because the goal is to write 50,000 words in the month. So, it’s more important to get the story down and save revision for later on.

I completed two novels, A Kiss Out of Time and A Dance Out of Time, both YA paranormal books by that method.They needed editing, and I went through them several times before they became publishable, but I enjoyed the free flow of ideas and quick writing it took to meet the NaNoWriMo deadlines.

However, my first romance novel, Wildflowers, a western historical set along the Oregon Trail, took several years and versions to complete before publication. I wrote the draft in a small notebook while commuting to my job as a copy writer in New York City. I did tons of research which I kept in a notebook, used index cards to write notes on characters, and created a timeline for events along the route the characters followed to get from Missouri to Oregon.  I typed the novel on my first personal computer, and it went through many revisions with critique partners before becoming published.

I’ve met writers who don’t start writing a draft until they’ve done extensive research and meticulous outlines.  I’ve also met writers who I identify with as “pantsers” and write the entire draft and then follow-up with research and revision.

I find myself doing a combination of the two with using  some kind of an outline or notebook  for ideas, a brief synopsis, and then writing as much as I can. I do research as needed.  I also keep a photo collection containing photos from magazines, postcards, and street maps to help visualize the story.  I enjoy using Pinterest and created a few boards to visualize settings, characters, food, and even music which might set the mood for a story.

To plot or not to plot? I think the answer is you need to plot, but you can approach it several ways from a few lines on a Post-It note to several detailed pages. Whatever works and gets you to write the story can determine the approach to plotting.