Method Writing: ROW80 Update

"Writers that cannot feel, cannot write."

These words from Jo Michaels, in her Tough Scenes and Emotional Therapy post, really struck a chord with me.

You often hear about method actors. From Wikipedia: Method acting is any of a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances. Though not all Method actors use the same approach, the "method" in Method acting usually refers to the practice, influenced by Constantin Stanislavski and advocated by Lee Strasberg, by which actors draw upon their own emotions and memories in their portrayals.

Some actors do not use this approach, but it seems to me all writers should. You might not take your characters to the store, to bed, or even to a company picnic. But you rarely leave them behind completely. Without immersing yourself into the mind of the character you've created, the voice will never be as consistent or authentic.

However, I'm not saying you embrace the character so fully that you no longer follow your own conscience or behaviors.

Many said Heath Ledger spiralled into self-destruction after embracing the dark side of the Joker, the character he portrayed in The Dark Knight. Was it method acting taken too far? Many applauded his performance, but clearly it had a devastating effect on his personal life.

When I read emotionally draining books like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, I often wonder how the writer survived the constant emotional anguish.

Jo Michaels asked a thought-provoking question in the post I mentioned above: When you read or write a very emotional scene, do you take those feelings with you? If so, how do you shake them off after?

I'd love to hear what people think.

For me, I dive into a book and let a different set of characters take me away. But sometimes I just have to embrace the emotions, have a good cry even. I must admit... I have never handled fear well. Maybe that's why I don't write a lot of terrifying scenes.

My writing tends to be equal parts humor and depth. Whenever I've been writing an intense part for too long, I switch to a humor-filled scene to lighten the load.

In Depression Cookies, I had to write a very emotional scene where the main character, a teenager, is visiting a friend in the hospital who is slowly killing herself. I cried every time I sat down with that chapter. But sometimes tears are cathartic.

But don't get me wrong, I was thrilled to get to the next humor-filled scene.

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A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) Update

On Monday, Mom and I (I'm still in North Carolina visiting family) took the girls to Raleigh to buy school clothes. The entire two hour drive back, we discussed possible titles for our Depression Cookies follow-up. Two hours. There's so much to consider. In fact, I think I'll write a post about titles.

We also discussed a cover. Another subject with blog post potential.

I'm on a writing and editing hiatus until school starts. It doesn't make sense to try to force it right now with two weeks to go. But my WIP is never far from my mind. Krista, my main character, is part of me. So much so that my friends say it reeks of Tia.

I'm so excited to jump back on the #teamsprinty bandwagon when the girls go back to school. I hope it's still happening. I might also jump into #wordmongering.

The nice part about taking a break... the building excitement to jump back in. I'm looking forward to it. Hope my fellow ROW80ers are rocking it!

Themes & Symbolism: ROW80 Update

Shakespeare. He has proved* to be my nemesis on more than one occasion. I respect his works, even enjoy them. Then I got that one professor who considered himself the utmost authority on all things Shakespeare, and I have not read Shakespeare since.

Why? The professor picked out so many absurd, over-reaching varied themes and symbolism, I started to wonder. If Shakespeare was alive today, would he be sitting in the back of a college lecture laughing his butt** off? Did he really intend to put so many elements into his writing?

Or did he write a darn** good story and luck into some academic success?

I am not challenging Shakespeare's brilliance or writing talent, just how much forethought he had on people dissecting his work for generations to come.

But I digress...

As a writer, how much should we pour over adding themes and symbolism to our work?

I'll be honest, I write my story. After it's done, I will see some recurring themes and symbolism. I might even beef them up. Sure, I start with some themes... family issues, teenage insecurity, relationship difficulties, self-discovery... but I end up with more in the natural writing process than by some synthetic manipulation intended to make the reader think I'm talented.

* Just to share my OGD (Obsessive Grammar Disorder), I was torn on using has proved or has proven yet. I looked it up and according to modern usage, proven is only an adjective (such as a proven theory) and proved is the verb.

** Butt and darn were used as a public service announcement to my children who challenge me daily to not use bad words.

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My A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) Update

It's slow going. Quite frankly, it will be until August 27th when my kids go back to school. I only have two weeks left with them. And I'll be honest... if they even sense my muse is considering gracing me with her presence, they set up a barricade of chaos to chase her away.

That being said, I have given a lot of thought to theme in my currrent WIP. Mom and I are doing a theme-based reading with Marty Silverthorne, a wonderful poet and my cousin. We are showing the same themes can be in prose and poems and reading snippets of our work. It's been an enlightening process, especially since Mom and I are again reading from our current novel.

I have two new editing jobs starting August 27 and a list of writing goals a mile long. I'm looking forward to that, but I will miss the time I've shared with my girls this summer. My family is such an important part of who I am as a writer. I think I've only really understood that lately.

One accomplishment I was quite proud of this past week. I blogged five days straight on Mom in Love with Fiction, including three book reviews. First time ever.

Hope all my ROW80 participants are rocking this round. Wishing you many words!

It's a Small World: ROW80 Update

I love it's-a-small-world stories.

Early last year, I read an incredible book and reviewed it for Rebecca's Reads, Max and Menna by Shauna Kelley. Read my review here.

The book made such an impression on me that I immediately followed Shauna on Twitter, found and followed her blog and Facebook, and commented as often as I could on all of them. I'm sure she wondered who her stalker was. (Honestly, I do that very seldomly... although a lot more now than I used to. Judy Blume was the first author I ever followed on Twitter, and I think I've made it clear how obsessed I am with her work.)

From her blog, I knew she lived in Baltimore. I'm near DC, so it felt good to support a great author that was also local. I touted her book whenever I could. Funny how life works... she just moved to my town (my small town!) and we went out to dinner last week. I was thrilled. One, she wasn't afraid of her online stalker. Two, we talked books and she felt like an old friend after one dinner. Thanks, Shauna!

I love writers, have I mentioned that lately?

Mom, Elise Fallson & me

Next, my dear writer friend (and sister from another mister), Elise Fallson called me on my 40th birthday Saturday. Not only did she call me from France, she had her adorable children sing to me. Have I mentioned she's writing an incredible young adult book?! Hugs and thanks, Elise!

If you haven't checked out Elise's blog yet, please do.

I love writers, have I mentioned that lately?

Then, not long ago, the lovely Kim Switzer, a fellow ROW80 participant, made an offer I couldn't refuse... muse coaching. The offer came at the perfect time for this struggling-to-focus writer, so I took her up on it.

Kim had some amazing advice that really helped me harness my muse and focus on my writing. One of her best tips: break writing (or anything) down into small chunks. Start by setting a timer for even 10 minutes and focus on the task at hand. I got up to 30 minute chunks by the time our sessions were over. Amazing. I owe Kim a huge thanks!

Please check out Kim's services at MuseCraft: Creativity Coaching, Classes, Inspiration and Whimsy.

I love writers, have I mentioned that lately?

And if you'll pardon the blatant self-promotion for a bit, I was featured on Sandi Tuttle's An Average Woman in a Superwoman World BlogTalk Radio show. Please check it out here if you have a chance, and visit Sandi's blog. It's wonderful! (I met Sandi through the Author Blog Challenge in June). Thanks, Sandi!

What was your last it's-a-small-world moment involving online author friends?

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A huge thank you to all my writer friends, especially those from A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80). Without you, I would be alone and my writing would suffer.

This week I have written my butt off, everything from my two novels to blog posts and reviews. Some of it was good, some of it tolerable, and some needs a whole lot of work. But it's progress. And that's the name of the game.

I leave for a week at Mom's on Thursday and then there is one week before school starts. I don't know how productive the rest of August will be, but I've got grand writing ideas and plans for August 27th and beyond.

Now, I'm off to catch up on some blog reading. I should stop saying catch up, because it's near to impossible at this point. Instead, I should say I'm off to recommit to my writer friends by reading as many of their blogs as I can.

What's the best writing advice you've received lately from your writer friends?

Fear and the Image: What's a Blogger to Do?

I'm afraid, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Thanks to a recent blog post from Roni Loren, Best-selling Author, I am terrified to use images on my blog. Every blogger should read Roni's post and be aware of the potential hell involved with using images from the Internet.

Blog posts without pictures are like a newspaper without pictures. Line after line of text is not compelling. Just like a book cover, I often pick a post to read based on an eye-catching image. I simply have too many blogs I follow and not enough reading time.

In addition to this blog, I have a book review blog, Mom in Love with Fiction. Should I not use pictures of author's books from the Internet? I feel like I'm doing authors a service by reviewing their books (free publicity). Should I not use the book image only when it's a bad review? My fear is that is the time the author would have a problem with it.

For my posts here, I often use the site, Public Domain Pictures. But let's be honest, it doesn't have the greatest royalty free pictures. Other times, I get creative and use my own pictures. Case in point, the picture to the right represented my family's ongoing battle with Strep (yes, it is a bit disturbing!). I am by no means a photographer, and I use most of my creativity to write the posts. Now I feel like I need to take a photography class. And Lord knows you don't want me to draw. I have trouble with stick figures.

So what's a blogger to do?

Do I go back through all my posts and delete questionable pictures? I barely have time to move forward in life, much less go back to fix things!

One thing I know for sure... going forward, I will either

* Take my own pictures (I apologize in advance)
* Use pictures as appropriate from Wikipedia (research a topic and click on the picture Wikipedia uses, it will show you the license agreement. Most of the ones they use have a creative commons designation.)
* Use Public Domain Pictures

The talented Juliana Haygert, and a fellow ROW80 participant, wrote an excellent post recently about this topic and listed some Pinterest sites that feature creative commons images. Check out her post here. I'm now following all the boards Juliana recommended. I also found a wonderful site, Inky Girl, with fun writer graphics and cartoons by Debbie Ridpath Ohi (as well as other great information). From her blog...

My Inkygirl comics for writers by Debbie Ridpath Ohi are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License with the following conditions: You're free to copy and reuse my writing-related comic (non-commercially) for your writing-related blog as long as you tell people where it came from. BUT please keeping reading... You don't need my permission to post these comics on your website as long as you include a link back to this permissions page. A text credit would also be very much appreciated, such as "Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl."

No problem. I'm happy to credit her pieces. I used one in a recent blog post, Stages of Writing. It was perfect for my topic and added value to the post.

Oh, and don't assume because people share images on Pinterest that you can share them. I've heard some horror stories about that as well.

For awhile, I used Dreamstime with some success. Unfortunately, they cut you off after you've downloaded so many royalty-free images and you are back to paying. And it's unclear sometimes which images can be used on blogs and which can't. I did have one photographer send me a note to take down an image used incorrectly. I explained that I was confused and even wrote to customer service at Dreamstime. I'm still confused. And, quite frankly, I can't afford to pay for images on a blog. Maybe some day...

Where do you go for images? How concerned are you with being sued for making a mistake and using an image incorrectly?

Disappearing Days: ROW80 Update

The main thing I learned this week... Wednesday to Sunday flies by even more quickly during the summer. Add in the Olympics and my 40th birthday, and well...

Yes, my 40th. It came, it went. I survived. My husband whisked me away for a weekend in Baltimore, sans kids. It was lovely. We went out to a nice dinner. I wore cute shoes that left me with horrible, bleeding blisters. But all the best shoes do.

I haven't completely wrapped my head around 40. It's not the number. Having a preteen makes me feel old, but 40 doesn't. It's just making me more self-aware of what I want out of life. Good thing I know writing is one of things!

So now...

Source

My A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) Update

Writing: I wrote a rough chapter with all intentions of coming back to it. It was a word dump, but sometimes those are necessary. Tomorrow, I will read it with one eye closed. Better words that can be fixed than no words at all, right?

Blogging: Settling into my new schedule. Definitely sticking with it through August. No post-a-day challenges for me anytime soon. (Please remind me I said that if I dare speak of one.)

Reading: During my 40th getaway, hubby and I walked around Barnes & Noble for an hour. Blissful. I bought a Maeve Binchy novel (okay, three). I was saddened by her passing, especially since people had been recommending her books to me for years. I'm continuing to post reviews at Mom in Love with Fiction.

Social Media: Still catching up on #IWSG and ROW80 blogs, as well as other favorites. Need to be better about Twitter and at least try to learn Triberr.

Editing: Just added two new clients. So excited to start when the girls go back to school. Until then, I have an old favorite waiting for me. I can't wait to see how it turns out. I mean, I look forward to editing the end.

Hope everyone had a great writing/reading week.

Olympic Dreams: Fun Facts Friday

Who doesn't watch the Olympics and imagine themselves as an athlete? My kids and I are glued to every triumph and sad with every defeat. It's so inspiring to hear the atheletes' stories and how dedicated they are to their respective sports.

Inspired, I thought I'd do some research and present some fun facts about the Olympic tradition. A special thanks to my daughter, Jackie, who did the legwork of fact finding thanks to her own interest.

Source

Significance of the Five Rings

They symbolize the five significant continents and are interconnected to symbolize friendship, something hopefully achieved by the international events. The rings, from left to right, are blue, yellow, black, green, and red. These colors were chosen because at least one of them appears on the flag of every country in the world. The Olympic Flag was first flown during the 1920 Olympics.

Olympic Oath

One athlete from the host country, on behalf of all the athletes, recites the following oath before the start of games (first taken at the 1920 Olympics): In the name of all the competitors I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honor of our teams.

Olympic Creed

The following has appeared on the scoreboard of every modern day Olympics: The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.

Olympic Motto

Citius, Altius, Fortius: Swifter, Higher, Stronger

Now, I'm even more inspired. I was not familiar with the oath, creed, or motto. But each is inspiring in its mission of sportsmanship and dedicated participation. They can be applied to all facets of life.

As a writer, I know that being a part of a writing community has elevated my writing knowledge and resources as well as teaching me the importance of dedication. To my fellow writers... swifter, higher, stronger. I know we can do it.

This past week, Michelle Rafter (fearless Blogathon leader) had a great post: Going for the Gold: 6 Ways Writers Can Train Like an Olympian. She said it so well, so please visit the post.

No matter what we choose to do in life, we can all benefit by tackling it like an Olympic athlete and remembering, "... the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle."

What has been your favorite 2012 Summer Olympic memory so far?

Mine: USA Swimming. I have such a renewed respect since two of my daughters are swimmers.

Stages of Writing: #IWSG & ROW80 Updates

It's the first Wednesday of August and time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group (#IWSG) therapy session. From the mastermind behind the group, Alex J. Cavanaugh, the group's purpose is "To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!"

As with most therapy sessions, or at least what I've gathered from television representations, I should begin... Hi, my name is Tia Bach, and I am an insecure writer. This is my second session and it has been approximately 24 hours (if that) since I had an insecure thought about my writing.

Twenty-four hours may not seem like much, but my feelings about my writing can jump all over the place as represented by this graphic: 

Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com.

I'd like to say that each stage is over several hours or days, but sometimes I run through all four emotions in one paragraph. I am a stickler for transition, so I'm usually hardest on my first sentence and my last. Then I fall in love with a sentence toward the middle, and feel earnest affection for the sentence before and after it. Its glow warming those that touch it.

What I've learned most about writing, and being a voracious reader has certainly contributed as well, is that no writing is perfect. There will be days where my inner critic surfaces and likes very little followed by days where I can objectively enjoy my own work. That being said, I think I could edit until the end of days.

At some point, you have to set your work free and know you did the best job possible. The only other choice is to walk away from a project for awhile until you can gain new perspective. I find the only cure for my insecurity is to write, write, write. Get the story down. Then, when I'm feeling confident and determined, I go back and mold and remold the words until I see the piece forming like I imagined.

My mom and I are co-authoring our second book together, the follow up to our award-winning Depression Cookies. I feel confident in the storyline and characters, but I'm harder on myself about the quality. Opening myself up to critique groups, as I reported about in my Writer Rejuvenated post, and sharing my work with fellow writers has really helped me squelch the insecurity monster that's always lurking. I can handle constructive criticism as longs as it's productive and makes my work better in the end.

What helps keep you insecurity monster at bay?

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Wednesdays are also designated for A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) updates. I am happy with my goal progress. But to be honest, I've scaled back my goals for summer. My three daughters (12, 10 & 7) go back to school August 27.

Writing: I've spent a minimum of 30 minutes a day on my Depression Cookies follow up since Sunday's check in.

Editing: I spent one hour on editing projects yesterday and have allocated an hour today. With kids home, it's about all I can manage. Actually, my children might call someone soon to counsel me since I lock myself in the office to edit and they can hear me talking to myself (reading pieces out loud).

Blogging: Finally getting back on track for Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday postings. I'm trying to write posts at least a day ahead instead of trying to wring out my brain on post day and force creativity.

Social Media: I'm proud to say I commented on a minimum of 10 ROW80 Sunday posts and at least 10 more blogs since Sunday. The best I've done in weeks.

Reading: A bit of insecurity has surfaced lately because I've read several amazing books (4-5 stars) in a row. Check out my review blog, Mom in Love with Fiction, to add some to your to-be-read list.

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I hope you will take a few minutes to visit other Insecure Writers and ROW80 participants. Share the love. It always comes back to you when you do!