Arts – Page 6 – Linda Nelson

Kristen Lamb cracks me up every time I read one of her Blogs. She is funny and witty.

I just started following her blogs recently and she does have a point when she writes about the importance of blogging among writers. It is an important tool that does help a writer learn to write better.

I have seen my writing skills improve over the past two years. I have gotten faster with my typing skills and it is getting easier to think up topic content for each post.

But with one of Kristen’s recent posts it sparked a thought.

Her question was: How many of you are introverts and this is making you maybe peek out from behind the curtains?

How did she know I was peeking?

Granted I don’t get out much. I don’t spend the necessary time socializing. My schedule in life is redundant but it works for me. It helps keep me focused on being a writer.

I get up in the morning – check emails – check Facebook – check Twitter

Go to work – this is my day job – this is when I work as a weaver and weave specialty cloth and maybe do an odd job here and there at work. It pays the bills. I chat with a few co-workers but it is kept to a minimum so I can get my work done on time.

Go home – my day job is done for that day, I get to go home, maybe run a few errands, but then it is home, to my family. My family at home consists of my Mom, my other half – Mike, my son – when he is around – which isn’t much these days – he is getting his life back and sees it, our dog – Julie – she will be my crit partner for this month’s NHRWA challenge. I am to read Aaron & Keja to her and maybe have another shot at the story with a possible additional edit by her. Maybe the other two cats – Gracie and Sam will join in. This story does feature a dog and a cat so we will see what they think. (LOL)

At home – I split my time up during the week and the weekend. I try to focus most of my time on writing but it doesn’t always go that way. I have to do a bit of this and that. This helps keep me from becoming burned out on any of the other things I like to do. This being, crochet – I’m working on two Afghans. One I already ran out of yarn for and need to buy more of that color. The other one is made by making Granny Squares. I’m half way done making these then I get to put it all together.

Then the other time I’m not writing – I’m gaming. No not Facebook games. I am a World of Warcraft Player. I use WOW as my reward for a writing job well done. This is my chocolate, my socializing, and my fun time.

Am I an Introvert?

Maybe – well just a little bit. But I do have my game World of Warcraft to brighten my day.

Yesterday was my NHRWA meeting. We had another great meeting.

This month we had our annual Christmas Party and Book Swap. The book I received is, The Trouble with Valentine’s Day by Rachel Gibson. I will be looking forward to reading this book next even though it is not on my Kindle but in paperback instead.

We also had a speaker. She was none other than one of our own who travels all the way to Bow, NH from Massachusetts, Christyne Butler . She spoke at the RWA Nationals just last year. I didn’t get to go to it. I hear they had a great time.

Her Presentation was The Soapy Way to Writing Category.

Christyne was introduced to Day-Time Soaps at an early age by her mother. This later grew into a desire to write fan fiction for one of her favorite Day-Time Soaps. She eventually developed a following among those who followed fan fiction and at her husband’s suggestion she decided to try writing stories she could sell.

So she used what she learned from the Soaps and infused this into her Romance Writing.

She studied how the characters were cast in the shows, the Archetypes, The Hero – The girl/boy next door, The Millionaire Tycoon, The Professionals – like doctors and lawyers, The Family Matriarchs, and so on…

She had a good point. Those shows are infused with so much character building it can be overwhelming. But that is what makes you keep coming back to watch those shows.

I am a Grey’s Anatomy Fan – Hence this is a Romance with a Professional theme and it is Soapy.

She also talked about Romance Plot devices. You can find a great list here à
Romance Plot Devices

To cap off her presentation she explained how Romance writing was all about the Characters and their Dialogue’s.

I’m going to hold on to all this info and try to put it into use when I begin writing the next book in my series Wings from Ashes.

ROW80 Check In:

Nope… There has been no writing going on this week. I have been rewarding myself for a job well done that I definitely deserve for finishing and releasing on Kindle. Road Salt is done. This is the first book I have ever had to research so much info for writing a fictional book. The last time I had to research so much was back when I was in high school and had to write a term paper for biology.

It was kind of fun even though it was troublesome in the beginning. There isn’t much known about Bath Salts so I had a lot of scrounging around before I finally realized I had a great source at my finger tips on my Facebook Profile. He happened to be an EMT who dealt with individuals being treated for Bath Salts on a frequent but scary basis. He was all for Road Salt and was more than happy to divulge some really great info on the subject of Bath Salts.

So I thank you Scott for all your help in getting this project done.

Next up:

Begin working on the next book in my fantasy series, Orgarlan Saga.

Maybe the animals will make another appearance in this next book as they try to retrieve the Dragon Claw from Lord Ky’debaul.