Put a Little Character in Your Characters

In your mind your characters do not look like the ones in the picture. They are colorful with dreams and ambitions. They also have unique interests and talents. However, sometimes we translate them differently from our mind to the page and they end up sounding like the picture: flat, colorless and see-through.

When that happens I challenge people to think about what they know about their characters. My husband consistently teases me about obsessing over my characters. I research them, know about their daily lives, and understand the past they came from. Why am I like this? Because I don't want my characters looking like the picture. I want vibrant characters who reach out and grab the reader with everything they are. When I know and understand them they write the story all on their on and I'm just the vessel they use.

So I ask you today to think about your characters. Can you see through them? How much do you truly know about them? And lastly who's writing your story?

Find Your Voice

I would like to apologize for the delayed blogging. I had a bit of technical difficulties with my laptop, but now I'm back. I started working on this blog post before the issue and am now posting it for your reading pleasure.

My daughter is going to film camp this summer. Might I add as the proud mom here it's to a highly distinguished invite only type of thing. A couple weeks ago her scholarship information arrived. She has to choose from a list of questions and write an essay about it. One of the questions immediately drew me in: What movie or movie moment inspired you to become what you are? Now if it were me having to write the questions it wouldn't be a problem as my own answer came to me immediately. It would be a 1980's movie starring Christian Slater entitled Pump Up the Volume. It's about this pirate radio DJ who brings relief to a group of drone high school students. In the climax of the movie he tells his listeners, "Find your voice and use it. Be the voice in the darkness."

Find your voice and use it! I love that thought. As writers we struggle with finding our voice and maintaining it throughout our story. I personally struggled with finding the genre I wanted to write and than find myself after years settling into my niche. My question today is do you find yourself writing in the voice/genre that you enjoy reading or something completely different? Are you trying to be the unique voice in the darkness?

Do What You Are

As I wondered through the bookstore this week I came across a book on one of the tables. It's title was Do What You Are. The thought that ran though my head brought a slight grin to my face. What an interesting challenge for all of us to do what we are. It was a timely thing to see when just last week I talked about my return to writing.

Discovering who we are isn't the easiest thing in the world. But dive in deep; allow your emotions to show you. Then put it on paper. Do what you are furiously!

Who I Am

As we settle back into the normal routine in the Dean house, one thing I had to do was arrange the new semester's schedule for my daughter. Her day is typically packed between ballet, guitar and her extracurriculars at school, but we attempt to make time for other things as well. For example her daily schedule involves reading, writing in her journal, and taking time to practice her acting.

We spent the summer exploring expressions and emotions. During the fall we focused on movement. As we were deciding how we would spend our winter I thought about the little rules that we've made for her concerning her acting. They are very simple, but manage to keep her in line. One night while she was still at her grandma's house she called me and decided we should rename them. To her the idea of calling them rules meant that she couldn't have fun! You see Cloudya is a firm believer that acting is FUN and the reason she does it is to make people SMILE! I got her point immediately, so we are looking for a new name that doesn't sound so commitment orientated.

After the conversation I thought about what she said. One of her "rules" is be yourself and you'll always shine! The real question though is who are we really. As artists we are known to go "searching for ourselves." Maybe at this crucial time in her development its important to focus on that now. If you ask her why she likes Nick Jonas, she will give you a simple answer, but if you dig deeper its much more than that.

My nine year old knows who she is! She really does. This winter we are going to spend our time highlighting it. Rather we are actors or writers diving into our own personality can open up a world of opportunity and we invite you to go on that adventure with us!

Writer's Block or Should I Say Unblock

Yes, it' me! Once again this Wal-mart manager survived the holiday season in usual fashion! I apologize for not being around, but since Thanksgiving all I've done is eat, sleep and work. Well on to more important things like writing!

I've made it no secret that for years I took a break from my craft. Years that I look back on now as wasted time. I'm sad for all of the projects that I could have completed and for all the characters I could have met along the way. Up until college, I spent many hours working on my writing and truly honing in my skills. I didn't care what people thought about me or what I wrote about! One professor...one professor is all it took and what I thought were my hopes and dreams came crashing down around me. It happened at such a vulnerable time in my life that I simply turned my back on everything I loved and walked away! I enrolled in management training with Wal-mart and off I went into a completely different career.

Looking back now I know this wasn't their fault. In fact every bit of it was mine. As a writer we should have thick skin for the criticism that we will ultimately endure. So much other stuff was going on in my life that I allowed one sneak comment to destroy the one thing that made me who I am. For five years I lived with the what ifs. Every time I attempted to even pen a sentence the only thing I saw was jade. So I didn't do!

This last May came with shocking news as I learned the foot surgery I had the previous year didn't hold and I would have to have another one. The second one was much more evasive and now I proudly carry a card that states I'm not a terrorist due to the amount of metal in my body! A close family member chatted with me on the phone after I learned the news and was feeling completely sorry for myself. Basically she asked me how long it had been since I'd written anything and than told me I was wasting my talent. Ultimately she wondered if this wasn't God's way of coercing me back into what I once loved so much.

The next day I sat at my computer attempting to lay something down; anything just to say I had. Two days later I finished a short screenplay. Shortly after that I created this blog.

I'd like to think my time at Wally World hasn't been a complete waste. I've learned a lot about human behavior and needs. I can see how much the maturity of my characters has changed over the years. One thing I do know is working with 500 people your life is an open book! You hear things about yourself all the time and it truly builds thick skin. So as I progress in the writing world this time I won't be so easily scared away.

Since that first day at the computer writing that short screenplay, its like a dam has broke inside my brain. I'm unable to stop the ideas from flowing so freely. All those years of keeping it so bottled up has caught up to me. Currently I have a list going of projects I want to tackle. At this rate I won't be caught up until sometime in 2012. I love this though...feeling as if I've finally comeback alive. My one wish in 2010 is to keep up with it all!

2009-A Look Back

A quote from my favorite musical, RENT:

December twenty-fourth, ten pm

Eastern standard time

I can't believe a year went by so fast

Time to see, what we have time to see

As the year 2009 steam rolls to an end, all I can say is wow! The skeptic in me looks back to see the things that I set out to accomplish this year and asks if I got anywhere close. In years past I can honestly say that goals fell by the wayside, but this year was different. Each of us took great strides to getting a little bit closer to our dreams. I thought I'd take some time to share each of our milestones.

Thomas finished his first full length novel shortly after ringing in the new year. After putting the polishing touches on it we sent out his first set of query letters only to learn how not to write a query. Even with the initial query he did have some bites on partial requests. We revamped and are hitting the next round very soon. He also accepted a position with the new professional dance school here in Omaha, where he will be teaching a wide arrange of theater classes. This of course is his first real passion.

I spent the year in a writing frenzy completing a number of short stories and screenplays, a full length screenplay and a novel. In the month of November I began my quest in NaNoWriMo; in which I failed due to time constraints, but learned a lot from anyway. To those of you who supported me through this thank you and yes I will be completing my project very soon as promised. On a lighter note it is my personal opinion that my second foot surgery is much more successful than the first and I will hopefully not be adding anymore titanium to my body anytime soon!

Cloudya our little superstar has had a number of achievements this year. In April, she signed with a top talent agency out of Chicago. In June she auditioned for her first film and later in August landed a national audition for the American Girl Doll Company. She spent the summer doing photo shoots and wondering around the neighborhood making movies with her friends. After doing a number of local things here in Omaha, she completed the year dancing once again in the Omaha Ballet's Nutcracker. Of course, if you ask her about her greatest achievement from the year she will probably tell you it was winning tickets to the Jonas Brother SoundCheck. In which she got to be among only 200 people to watch the preSoundCheck for their show. Later on that night she attended their concert!

Although our son doesn't do anything theatrical(yet) I feel bad leaving him out of this. Kaiden did do a photo shoot for a local Twilight event. He started his first year in hockey lessons, which people I'm telling you in my house is a BIG deal! He finished off his karate year earning his little dragon purple belt which means by this time next year he'll be a black belt.

Other 2009 milestones:

In January, Kevin Costner came to my Wal-mart and not only did I meet him, but spent the afternoon less than ten feet from him. Cloudya was super excited she got to meet the "mariner" from Waterworld. I really believe she is the only one I know that liked that movie.

In April, our family saw RENT while in Chicago. It starred Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal! I love those guys!

We spent a week in the summer in South Dakota. Visited Mount Rushmore, about died on a lake and spent the entire time being rained on.

So as 2010 approaches what kind of goals will you find yourself trying to obtain. Here's a few words of wisdom from us.

1)Writing what you know is good, but don't forget to think outside the box.

2)You are always auditioning!

3)Let your characters take over the story. After all it is theirs to tell.

4)Throw away the rules and you might just write something truly amazing.

5)Write everyday even if its only a sentence.

6)The last rule works for both publishing and acting. Remember the hardest person to beat out for the part is yourself.

Have a great holiday season everyone. I'm truly excited to see great things from you in 2010!

The Sweet Escape

This week, a friend of mine has spurred memories of my childhood. With that, I have been feeling a bit nostalgic. While I'm deep in the editing process on my novel, I've also taken some time to do my other passion, reading-I know real original. When I put down True Blue by LuAnne Rice at two o'clock in the morning, my recent feelings had to ask how I had become this way? What in my life influenced me to spend all my time either reading or writing?

In order to come to the truth, I didn't have to dig far. Some of you who read this blog have known me since I was a child, so the answer will come as no surprise. For the rest of you, I will be showing a side of my past I often don't speak about.
The answer is escape. I wasn't raised in the best home situation. In the first grade, I was introduced to the wonderful book, Charlotte's Web. The lives of the characters intrigued me and pulled me in to a whole different type of world. By the second grade, I learned that I could read at a much faster pace and began to read everything put in front of me. During the screaming and the fighting, I would escape to a special corner in the backyard, where I would loose myself in another universe.I learned how other people lived; ones who didn't have the same problems as me and ones who did. The hours I spent in others worlds refreshed me.

After moving to a new town in the fourth grade, I found myself homesick for my friends. My grandfather phoned to inform me that my dog since I was a baby had died. It was that year that I wrote my first full length story. This project was of course a school assignment, but I put my heart into every word. My dog was the subject and she had returned to welcome me to my new home. Looking back, it seems like such a simple thing to write about, but it taught me that I could write stories, like the ones I had read.

Through the years, I have been ridiculed for my obsessions. I was that girl whose nose was always stuck in a book while the world around me faded away. Talking to myself was often a problem, as I worked out my projects in my head before I put them on paper. Even now it happens when people chuckle at me, because they learned that I spent the majority of my recent time off work, in front of the computer finishing my novel.

I'm thankful though that the family I'm surrounded by, understands my craziness. Just the other night, my husband came to bed and said, "I thought you were only going to read one chapter?" Of course, he's just as bad as I am, but even worse when he's writing. Last year as he wrote his latest novel, I had to cook many meals, because he was busy and I don't cook. My mother-in-law chuckled to learn that I'd read an entire novel in one day. My sister frequently supplies me with unique names that she has learned, knowing that I have a hard time coming up with them.

I don't need the escape anymore, nothing like before. Now, I simply fall in love with the story I'm reading or writing and don't stop till I finish it. Every book I read helps to increase my skills as a writer. What ever causes us to start these obsessions is different, but I know I'm not alone in this world. Millions of people have a love for the same past time. Our tastes may vary, but the characters continue to draw us in, page after page. So read on my friends and don't be afraid to write what you know, those stories may be the best of all.

Amidst the Fog

As authors we've all fallen in love with one of our projects and treated like it was our baby. We take months to write it maybe even years, because it needs to be perfect. Then after a while we get bored with it and never finish. Rather your a new writer or old we've all done it. I'm not afraid to admit it I have. Maybe it wasn't boredom that caused you to set it aside or personal reasons. My favorite blaming spot is my job. Yes, I would love to write all day and never leave my computer, but until that day happens I have to work.

Several years ago I fell hard for a story between two potential characters. I took a month just to write the prologue. Absolutely no reason for doing that. Then after three years I put it away, because not only was it all over the place, so was I. In three years a human being goes through a lot of emotions and changes, I was taking me characters along for the ride. After only eleven chapters they were going nowhere and not very fast.

So I finished a project recently and was beginning to think about what I wanted to work on next when I stumbled across the above picture. It was one that I had posted above my workstation while writing my incomplete novel Amidst the Fog. It made me think about my life for a minute and all the situations that had occurred. Sometimes as a writer I get distracted and I let everything else going on fog it up. I was guilty of walking away from writing for so many years, because I was jaded about my situation. Then if I did try to write all anyone would have seen was the jade. They'd see my fog and as beautiful as it might be that's all they'd see; nothing underneath.

This year I got tired of it...my own crap. The only thing keeping from doing what I loved was myself. Now I do a little of it everyday regardless of what's going on. Quite frankly I feel incomplete without it. Maybe in a day I write one paragraph or I write fifty pages at least I did it.

I pushed my own fog out, but brought back in my incomplete project. I looked at what worked and what didn't. These characters had a great story going it just needed to be finessed. So I've started over with it. I'm already at 200 pages, because I'm focused on them and so are they.

So when you find yourself amidst the fog take a step back and see what's causing your vision to be clouded and than get rid of it. In the end it will be worth it.

Reading, Writing and Arithmetics

If you read Thomas' post earlier this week you learned that our daughter begin the new school year, so our house has been absolutely crazy. Cloudya is our actress-aspiring oldest child. After meeting her new teacher she discovered that he is big on writing which she has been complaining about ever since. See she doesn't enjoy reading or writing either one. Thomas and I often wonder how she came from two people who do both rather fervently. After all it took me all of a week to read the Twilight series for the first time and Thomas can whip out a novel in a matter of months.
Many people believe that the love for these start at an early age by doing these activities with your children. It wasn't like we didn't do this with her. We still even read together quite a bit, but she only stays interested if I help read the things aloud. They took their first trip to the library this week and instead of finding books she could read and would read she picked three books about dinosaurs. Its a good subject science, but she's only going to look through it. In fact the last book she read cover to cover contained her three favorite subjects...The Jonas Brothers. Although she can tell you what kind of ice cream Nick, Joe, and Kevin eat I don't think there was a lot of viable material in it. Sorry boys.
Today we are going to make a list of things she likes for example dinosaurs, vampires, and witches. Then we'll head to the bookstore and find a series that not only fits her reading level, but also peaks her interest in something so important. In the long run both subjects not only make her a better reader and writer, but also influence her acting.

Query Letters...What...What?

Getting a novel published can be a curious thing. Once Thomas had completed his project at the beginning of this year we started on the long journey to get on a bookstore's shelves. We researched how the process worked and learned that a good resource for new authors is the book entitled Writer's Market. There are several editions of this particular book for the various types of things you may pen and a couple that contain all the information. They also have a website that is updated daily.
After purchasing it we discovered that one of the first steps is to write a query letter to literary agents. There are very detailed instructions on what to include in this note for example a word count, short author bio and a good book description. The purpose of this letter is to grab the agent's attention enough that they request to see your manuscript or additional pages.
They remind you in this book that the road to becoming a published author is a brutal one full of rejections. Shortly after we mailed the first round the rejection letters started rolling in. They came in all shapes and sizes, but all had two common factors the basic rejection and the encouragement to keep submitting to others. Several people requested pages although with the quality of the project not as many as I assumed. After a month letters came for them as well.
After this last one we took a hard look at our text book style query letter. Those of you who have read the project know how good it is and how much it draws you in. Most haven't read it and are probably wondering what this person who likes vampire literature would even know. For me to read anything I have to connect with its characters they have to attack me and hold my attention. The characters come alive shortly after you open the book. Most readers want to be captured by a story and this book will succeed in doing this to pretty much anyone. So I was the one that wrote the initial query letter and its decent, but the problem is as my husband says, "You're a pretty writer." Its true. Leaving out the grit, I turned Thomas' suspense filled novel into a lovey dovey sounding piece. People don't want mushy mystery novels, but clearly that's what I was trying to sell. So we're going to rework it and I'm making Thomas write it. One of the important pieces of a query letter is so the agent sees what style you write and in this case they didn't.
Every agents has ultimately been right. Just because one doesn't like the project doesn't mean another won't. We didn't give them the chance, but we will now. The new query letters will not only grab there attention, but will leave them only wanting more.