Here’s the 8th in my series of ColorCats…. Enjoy. (Note: ColorCats 1 through 6 were practice.. Therefore, you only find 7 and 8 in my gallery… Here
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Writer Challenges: 1000 Words A Day
Quick guide to the first stages of story development
So you have an idea for a book. How do you turn that idea into a story? Of course, it depends on whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction. Today, let’s talk about fiction. I’ll devote another blog soon to non-fiction. Here are some of the steps to get you started:
1. If you don’t have an idea for your story, you’ll have to come up with one. Here are several ways to do that…
–character: Think of an interesting person and and let your mind wander as to how they would react to different difficult situations in live.
–location: Think of an interesting town, setting, building, etc. that has always stirred ideas in you. Load that place with interesting characters and come up with the story that setting compells you to tell.
–theme: Think of a compelling theme and develop hy our characters and setting around that. You know what point you want to make with the story, let your characters be the ones who make that point for you.
2. Now that you have a story idea, you need to determine where that story starts and where it ends. You don’t want to start the story too far ahead of where you’re going to make your point with the story. For example, if you want to tell about Sarah being mugged and how her reaction to it changed her life, you don’t need to start with her childhood and tell the whole story of her life. You just need to show the time that leads up to the mugging. Tell just enough of her story to give the readers an idea of what kind of person she is. Likewise, if the point of your story is to show how her life changed, you only need to show enough to get that point across. No need to show what she did for all of the twelve years after that.
3. So you have a beginning and an ending. Now, you need to develop the middle of the story by showing the struggle your main character has in facing the challenge you put before him or her. Throughout the middle, keep the pressure on so the reader will want to continue to turn pages (or scroll for you electronic readers). Don’t let up, until you are ready to reach the climax of the story.
Start your book with these few steps and you’ll soon have conquered the blank page before you.
Today’s Art….
I’ve started a new series of paintings on cradled birch. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a wood surface with a lip 1.5 inches wide. This allows the painter to paint around the edges and the art collector can hang it on the wall without framing. When using canvas, this is called gallery wrapped. Anyway, I’m continuing with the ColorCat Series and have decided to paint the originals on cradled birch.
Here’s ColorCat 7. You can see it and other work in my gallery at
ColorCat 7
Posted in fiction, Uncategorized
Tagged cat art, ColorCat 7, fiction, story development. art
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Pet Blogger Mall Blog… now open for followers…
Just a quick blog post today… I don’t know if all of you know, but I’m a pet blogger. Well, a group of very special and industrious bloggers are setting up a petbloggers shopping mall http://petbloggermall.com/ on line and I am thrilled to announce that I’ll have a shop in it.
The Pet Blogger Mall (PBM) is going to be spectacular. The grand opening will be this summer…. And I’m sure you don’t want to miss out on any of the announcements about it.
So I have a fovor to ask… please take a minute and go over and sign on to follow the blog. There’s a slot in the right hand column to insert your email address…. Click on this link and sign up today…. http://petbloggermall.com/blog/ and please ask all your friends to sign up to follow the blog as well…. We want to get started now letting people know what is happening. (That way, you won’t miss the Grand Opening Announcements)
The PBM will feature many wonderful artists and petbloggers and products of all types.
Here are a couple examples of my work. If her mom hadn’t already bought this painting of the wonderful and beautiful Madi, it would be displayed in my shop…
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| Madi http://downhomeinnc.blogspot.com/ |
Or I’d offer this new piece of ColorCat5, a painting based on Bugsy.
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| ColorCat5 says…. “Sign up today to follow the PBM blog! |
So… the message here is: Please follow the new PBM blog and Please spread the news to all your friends…
Thanks you so much…
Lou
Colorcat5
Good morning. It’s been a while since I posted a cat painting…. Here’s one in bright, living color…. Enjoy…
This and more images at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/lou-belcher.html
Writing: When to give up…
Never… That’s my answer. If you truly love writing or if you hate it, but find a moment or two of pleasure from it, don’t give up. I met an agent one time who thought it was clever that when he evaluated a novel he thought wasn’t good enough, he sent the writer an application for employment at Burger King instead of a rejection letter. When I heard this, I was appalled that anyone in the industry would adopt such a callous form of rejection. Who knows how many careers he has crushed by his insensitivity. I only hope that those writers realize that his is only one person’s opinion.
When I was thinking about that agent the other day, I realized that I had never fully covered the rejection process in the blog. Certainly, before you write, it’s important for you to know the subtle language of rejection. Obviously, that agent’s communication is his blatant attempt at humor at the expense of the feelings of the writer. But other rejections may hit you hard and aren’t really rejections. You need to be alert for them.
I remember when I was first writing and sending out magazine articles. If I received anything that remotely resembled a rejection, I wouldn’t send anything to that magazine again. That was a mistake on my part. If the editor says, “Thanks for submitting, but your article is not right for our magazine,” don’t take that as a blanket rejection. Go back and look at their guidelines and try again with another article.
Don’t miss this opportunity: If an editor says, “This article doesn’t fit, but we’d be glad to look at other material,” that is not a rejection….it’s an invitation to send them something else. It means that they like your writing, but couldn’t use the subject of your article.
My advice…. don’t give up until you are truly ready to stop writing. With each word you write, your writing will ,and I feel that you shouldn’t allow anyone to “reject” you into quitting.
Organizing your writing time (5 ways to make the most of the time you devote to writing)
This post is as much for me as it is for you. Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and commenting on blogs can eat up precious writing time. I can easily spend two to several hours on the computer without working on my book at all.
Here are some ways I’ve come up with to rein in my social media time in order to devote more time to my book:
1. Make a weekly schedule of when you will do what. If you are on Fcebook, set aside time at the beginning of your day and at the end of your day for Facebook time. At the beginning, post a couple of items of your own and respond to others. At the end, check your posts and respond to comments and make a few comments on others. This amount of Facebook time will keep you in touch with other without eating up hours and hours. If you’re on other social media sites, schedule time for them as well. Before scheduling social media time though, block out time on your schedule to work on your book. That comes first.
2. When you hit a sticky spot in your writing, it’s oftem easier to flip over to Facebook or Twitter and read and respond to posts as a diversion. Unfortunately, five to ten minutes just to check on things can turn into an hour or more. I’d suggest you stick to your schedule.
3. Schedule posts on Twitter. If you just hate not having posts going out on Twitter, you can use Hootsuite.com or other Twitter applications to schedule posts to go out throughout the day. That way, you can spend a few minutes at the beginning of the day to send out one or two live posts, then schedule some interesting ones to draw attention to your work, your website, or other points of interest. Later, you can see if you received any Tweets and respond to those. This will save your time for writing your book.
4. Commit yourself to completing your daily writing goals first. If you just can’t live without being on your social media sites, allow yourself time to visit them all, but only do so after you finish your writing goal of the day. Each day determine how much writing you want to accomplish… a page or a chapter, etc…. Finish that, then allow yourself time to participate in other activities.
5. Make the most of your social media time by commenting on what others are saying. As long as you are going to allow yourself a certain amount of social media time, be visible. It’s informative to read the posts of others, but to get the most of it, network with those you are reading by leaving comments. Not only will that person get to know you by your comments, but others who read their tweets, facebook posts or blog posts might get to know you also and visit your blog and become interested in your writing. So, as long as you are going to take time away from writing your book to surf the social media sites, make the most of it.
Above all…. feel good about your new schedule because your book will be better for the concentrated effort you will put in on it.
Posted in social media, writing general
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What to do if your characters take over your plot.
Before you write, you should know this…. All authors learn this one day, but you’ll be ahead of the game if you realize that you’ll probably start out to write one book, but as you progress, the book will morph into another direction.
You may say that it won’t happen to you. You may think that you have such a tight outline of your story that your characters will not be able to lead you away. They will and the more you fight it, the more your book will suffer for it.
Here are a few of the things that happen when you’re writing a novel..
1. You think you know your characters inside an out before you start writing. Character sketches and biographies are important. They outline the back story for each of your important character. Just because you’ve listed all the idiosyncrasies for each of your characters and their likes and dislikes, don’t be shocked and don’t balk when they surprise you now and then and take on new ones. After all, they are supposed to be humans too and we all grow and change. That doesn’t mean you want to let them change too much, but be flexible. They may lead you in a good direction.
2. You plot may change as you go along. Now, I’m not advocating that you go off in every wild direction with your plot, but don’t out if you get the urge to go in a different direction than your outline. When this happens, pause and think it through. I know it seems strange when an author says that the book and the characters develop minds of their own, but it does seem that way. Let it happen to a certain degree and then evaluate whether the new direction is better.
3. Settings too may change with time. You may find that your plot works well but the setting you have chosen does not serve it well. If you find yourself fighting against your setting then change it. If you’re using a real city for your story but it is too restrictive for the story, then develop a fictional setting that will work better.
Some of these changes won’t be evident to you before you write. Don’t let them startle you. As you write the first draft of your story, it’s important to be flexible and make changes as you see necessary.
My latest painting: Heather
