Saturday – Page 2 – Linda Nelson

Yesterday I became officially hooked into the Romance Writers World. That’s right, now I am a member of the NH Chapter too. This is a good thing. They are such a great bunch of gals and fun to be around and full of great information. They meet at the Baker Free Library in Bow, NH on the second Saturday of the month.

We had a speaker visit us at the meeting yesterday. This is one of the great benefits of attending a local writing group meeting. Next weekend I will be attending the meeting at the Monadnock Writers’ Group at the Peterborough Library on Saturday. They too will have a speaker.

Our guest was Kristan Higgins and wow what a speaker!

She is the author of 9 bestselling – 9 mind you – romances. She is also funny, witty, and full of great information. I see she has a blog too. http://kristanhiggins.com/blog/

So yesterday she left us with some tidbits on writing. These bits would probably work for almost any type of fictional writing and not just Romances.

The title of her presentation was Chapter One – I am born

Kristan explained to us how the first chapter is the most important chapter in any story. It is the chapter that gets the reader to keep coming back for more. It is your hook. So here is a condensed version of some of her tidbits.

“Wicked Awesome First Line”
Tone – Funny, Tragic, Terrifying, Elegant – “Don’t mislead your reader by writing a funny opener and having a tragic ending.”
Theme – “What is your Book about?” – Show what your Character does not know.
Personality – Demonstrate through action – “Beware of the cliché in character development – Create a Character the reader can relate to. “Romances are about the Character.”
Character’s beliefs is somewhere stated
Everyday life & World – where the story takes place and how things work in the character’s world. If the character has emotional scars, give glimpses and let the readers use their own imagination.
Keep the first chapter Lean and only include the key players of the story.
Seeds of the past – Flash backs, but don’t tell the reader EVErything.
Immediate Goal
Character Flaw – “why she doesn’t have what she wants just yet.”
Character in Action – “Don’t have the character just sit there doing nothing. Create some disturbance or conflict, hooking into the emotions of the character so the reader can relate to them.
The Hook – Last line of the chapter and its job.
Call to the Adventure – Why life can’t continue to be the same after what has taken place in the first chapter.
“The last chapter of the story should echo the first chapter.”

Then she gave us a list of NO – No’s

Flash back – sometimes okay if used properly
Dreams
Secondary Plot lines
The next four heroes & heroines in your series – keep them out of the picture as best as you can and don’t let them steal the show.
Overt revelations
Grocery list of descriptions
Prologues can sometimes be allowed if they are very important to the story. But don’t give away the trump card.

At our meeting we have a Pro Liaison and she is great at giving us writing challenges to take us through the month. They are more like exercises to help us get out of the way of our muses. This month’s challenge is to write crap for 5 minutes every day to kill your inner critic.

Okay – I found an outlet for my crap writing. I have this manuscript I started in 2010 for NaNo and never finished it because I thought the story line was crap – Maybe something can happen with it and I can shape it after I finish writing the crap in the first draft. Yesterday I did 500 words in the five or so minutes I worked on it. Who know what could happen with this story.

ROW80:

This week was a blah week. I was sick and didn’t feel like doing much of anything but sleeping. I even missed a day of work from my everyday job. It isn’t like me to call in sick.

I’m feeling better, and yesterday I was able to pick up some motivation from the girls at the Bow meeting. So yeaH! I added another 1k words to Road Salt. The first draft isn’t anywhere near the word count I am seeking but at least the story line is over 2/3^rds done. I can see the end of the story off in the distance.

After what I did with the revision on Witch Book I am sure I will be able to make my word count when I go back and add some fluff to the story. I tend to do the opposite of most writers. I write tight and have to force myself to add the stuff our imaginations are made of.

Have a great week and may the ROW be with you… If you have time come check out some other ROWers and cheer them on Linky List.

Autumn… Sigh… Summer has fallen along with the temperatures in New Hampshire. We said, “Ugh,” after lighting the woodstove last night. Many New Hampshire residents are feeling they will surely see snow once again before Halloween.

It is kind of funny how the seasons change so fast here. Just last week the trees had green leaves in them. As of today, most of them have turned and are now carpeting our lawns.

If you are a leaf peeper, now is a great time to take a trip to NH to see some really pretty colors. That is if it manages to stop raining long enough for anyone to enjoy the trip. The colors always look so much more beautiful when the sun shines on them.

Mike took the screen house down yesterday. He almost took the snow blower out but he decided to wait another week.

Last year at this time we had a surprise snow storm that dumped over two feet of snow on us a week or two before Halloween. So when Halloween came around it didn’t feel like Halloween, it felt more like Thanksgiving.

Survived the Book Signing:

I survived the book signing last Saturday, in fact I had a grand old time. It was a small turn out but that was fine for me. It just made it easier to face the crowd. My friend Linda was a great help. She was able to keep me focused and I don’t remember her ever needing to tell me to breath. Just her being there helped me feel more confident in myself.

I am ready and willing to do an event again, with her help of course.

I was told at work that I should have put a posting about it up on our Cafeteria bulletin board. I really didn’t know I could have done that. It was the lady from human resources who had told me to do this next time. So I say – Hmm.

Have you done a Local Book Signing yet? I would love to hear about your first experience.

Mine was – I showed up early. I had read all over the internet about book signings and they all said show up early. (Don’t show up early – at least not an hour early.) Ten minutes early is alright but not an hour early like I did. One good thing though by doing the hour early thing… I was able to spend some time talking to the store owner and was able to learn a little bit more about the Kobo vs. Google eBooks for Independent Book Sellers. Our store is considering carrying and selling the Kobo eReaders.

Offer to bring copies of your books. I was glad I had brought some copies of Friends of Choice and my Short Story Collection. It gave the guest a good variety of books to choose from.

If you have a co-host for your event, interact with them while they do their thing. This seems to liven things up. I saw how my friend did this for me, I did not step up and do this for her, mostly over the fact that I was still in shock from speaking to the public. It was like I was in some far away land and when it was over I was like dah…why didn’t I help her the way she helped me. I was a bit beside myself for not doing this.

ROW80 Check in:

I missed Sunday’s check in. What’s new right?

Anyways – After the book signing I added a thousand more words on Saturday. Then I did open the file on Sunday but only added a hundred or so words and the same again on Tuesday. Today before writing this blog I added another thousand words to the manuscript. It is going slowly. I have to get my butt into gear – NaNo is right around the corner.

Mind you, I only do NaNo to help get myself motivated. I have never once finished a manuscript on time. That is not my real intentions for doing NaNo. I think I like the forums and finding the motivational blogs. It always help to find a way to get pumped to write, just like is done for ROW80 with the inspirational posts. I look forward to those posts every week from our ROW80 mentors.

Well, I hope you are all finding ways to ROW your manuscript along.

Keep on writing.

Stop by and check out how the other ROWers are doing on the Linkey List.