The Pen of a Ready Writer

Hi!  I'm linking up with Sky and Cait's Beautiful People: Sibling Edition this month.  You can check out Sky's hosting post here:  http://furtherup-and-furtherin.blogspot.com/2015/04/beautiful-people-sibling-edition.html This time I will be talking about Brant and Mason, from my story "Broken Clouds."  They are brothers.  Brant's about 14 or 15 years old.  Mason is about 7 years old.  Here it goes! 1. What is the first memory they have of each other? Brant's first memory is coming home from spending the day at a friend's house and being introduced to his small, red, screaming brother.  Mason doesn't have a first memory -- Brant's just always been there. 2. Describe their relationship in 3 words. Brant is the protector, boss, and occasionally the creator-of-fun-things-to-do.  Mason is the I'm-cute, don't-be-mad-at-me, let's-do-something part of the relationship. 3. What kind of things do they like to do together? Get ice...

Getting ready to head home after running some errands at work.      Life is pretty exciting around here these days.  I left TCK to sit for a few weeks, and now I am plunging back into edits.  I found that a couple of my themes were nebulous, and nebulous is never good.   Subtle is good.  Nebulous?  Not so much.  With my material, I could take the theme one of two ways.  So I am trying to decide where to go with it.      I sent TCK to one of my beloved beta-readers on April 1st (along with a plea, begging her not to pull any April Fool's stunts on my story -- I can take criticism like a champ but jokes are too much when my baby/story is involved).  And I sent it to a couple other readers later in the week.  Can't wait to get all their feedback and work on my story again.      Pouring over the list of "what I should have done" (aka, an editing checklist) always sparks my imagination for storie...

Hello, friends!      I'm popping in to give you guys a quick update on my doings.      Broken Clouds went to a stand-still when I suddenly realized my ending needed some adjustments.  Granted, I am no where near the ending...but the ending is something I write towards.  I drop hints as I go.  So I need to know where I'm going to end up.  Some cool ideas occured to me (to fix my ending) so I gave Broken Clouds a break while I let them simmer.  I will be starting it up again soon...probably this week.      TCK is going underground...meaning I probably won't post much about it for a month or two.  Maybe some supporting pictures, but not much else.  Sometimes a story needs a little secrecy while it is being edited.      However, if you are interested in reading it for me and giving me some feedback, leave a comment below.  I won't publish your comment, but it will he...

In the course of the book, there are seven main girls (all between the ages of 12 and 18) whom Kelsey interacts with.  For fun, I sat down and wrote philosphy statements for each of them.  :) Darla:      Pretty girls get what they want.      If I don't have a devoted following, there is something wrong with me.      Second place in popularity is not good enough.      Nobody gets in my way. Trudy:      Sports are my life.      Practice and committment equal winning.      Nothing matters but the team and the game.      Everything I do ties back to the game.  Everything affects my performance -- for good or bad.      True friends will push each other to higher athletic achievements. April:      Someday I will be as cool as everybody else.  ...

       I have really good news...      ...I think.      It will depend on how it works out.      I am rewriting Broken Clouds.      So, if you have been following my blog, you know that I have been writing Broken Clouds in a nonchronological fashion, jumping around to write the scene that strikes my fancy.  You also know that I chopped my scenes up and spread them out on a table to sort them out recently (a great idea, by the way).  And you further know that I had a big, important backstory that I didn't know how to fit into the story.      I pulled it apart and took a look at it and now I am putting it back together.  With the richness of the scenes I already wrote under my belt, I am starting at the beginning.  For me, there is so much to weave and so much to build upon from one scene to the next, and so much of it appears as I ...

     This is going to sound lame, and I apologize.  But this week in Broken Clouds has mostly been little one-liner edits that are not amazing enough to list as snippets.  So, instead, I am going to refer you to my post earlier this week that I did for Chatterbox.  Ladies and gentlemen... Wrestling a Fog

via Pinterest “I want to know who I am,” I blurted.   Tears sprang to my eyes and my voice caught in my throat, surprising me.   I hadn’t realized how deep and painful that wound was.   I thought I was doing fine in my pursuit of normalcy.   Where did the tears come from? I sneaked a glance at Brant.   He leaned against the tree, arms folded across his chest, and stared at the ground, listening to me with a sympathetic ear. Like cracking a dam, once I had started talking, I couldn’t stop.   “I want to know if my name is Ilona or Kelsey.”   Tears were coming faster now.   “I want to know why I am always shifted from place to place, why mysterious people seem to know me, why I’m never allowed to be adopted.”   The tears were falling on my hands, splashing and making wet spots on my pants.   Brant hadn’t moved.   “I want to know who my parents were...”   My voice caught and I drew in a long, shaky breath.   “…and ...

     Trudy was just behind me.   “Don’t hold back,” she murmured, just loud enough for me to hear.   “If you perform well in the PE games, you have a chance of making one of the varsity teams.   Otherwise, you get stuck in JV.”      Like I cared. **      I glanced around for the black-haired girl.   She was on the side-lines, whispering to one of the boys.   April was at her elbow, listening to every word.   Good riddance.   **        The boy on the other team took off like an Olympian, but the boy on my team took the baton and began to slowly limp toward the next station.   Great.   We had a cripple on our team.   I rolled my eyes.   **      One of the homeless men looked ancient.   His pale, watery eyes seemed to watch the race without seeing it.   Poor old guy. **  ...

Dear Readers,      I am Kelsey Harpman, a character in Broken Clouds.  I am writing to you today in hopes of gaining your insight in the art of storycrafting.     Some time ago, my author sat down and penned my backstory.  I think my backstory is important to the tale, as it will eventually help solve mysteries that have clouded my past for 8 years.  But now, my author does not know what to do with the mini-book we created.      She was very proud of how she showed my past life.  I suggested she stick the entire mini-book into the story somewhere, but she says it is too long to so easily dispose of it.  She's afraid readers will be bored with a long flashback.  I suggested she start the book sooner...so she can include the backstory at the beginning...but she sticks her chin out stubbornly and says she likes where the book starts already, thank you very much.  Grrr.  I suggested she turn it into a pr...

     So I've been working on Broken Clouds in pieces, writing scenes as they strike my fancy.  But there's one problem...I'm still a little bit of a pantser.      Plotters and pantsers are the two extremes of writing approaches.  Plotters are those that plan the entire story before starting to write.  Pantsters (from the expression "seat of the pants") tend to write the story, without previous planning, and see where it takes them.  Most people are a mix of the two extremes.      I thought I had plotted this one out fairly well, but there are elements to the story (and even an unexpected character or two) that didn't show up until I started writing...Which meant I had a bunch of disjointed scenes that probably weren't even in the right order.      It was my hope that I would be able to sort all of that out on my Word document.  After all, that's what copy and paste are fo...

     “The second day is easier,” I told myself, shifting my backpack and lifting my chin confidently.   I knew where my locker was.   I knew where my classes were.   I should be fine.   ***       April caught my eye when I reached my locker.   I smiled at her.   She turned away and whispered to the girl next to her.   I looked from April’s straight strawberry blonde hair to the black, cascading curls of her friend.   While I watched, the new girl surveyed me with a stony gaze that was anything but friendly.      Great. ***      “Stubborn girl,” Brant scolded, swinging around in front of me to study my face.   “I’m coming with you.   No getting out of it.”   He dropped into step next to me.   “There’s something strange going on here, and I’d like to figure it out.” ***        A flicker of...

Today, instead of sharing a bunch of smaller snippets, I am posting one large snippet.  Enjoy!   “I put pictures up in my room,” Mason said, waving his hand at the walls.   They were covered in crayon drawings and posters of cars and trucks.   He turned to look at me.   There was a furrow in his brow, and I could tell something was on his mind.   “Brant puts pictures on his walls, too.   And Mama puts pictures on the refrigerator.”   His brow crinkled even more as he looked at me.   “Why don’t you put pictures on your walls?” I stared at Mason.   I wasn’t quite sure what to say. It was true.   My mind immediately flew to my suitcase and the place where I hid my treasured pictures.   I would never have dreamed of posting them on the wall in my bedroom. Why not?   I licked my lips.   “Sometimes I like to put very special things in a safe place,” I said slowly. Mason gazed up at his wall, his mouth...

     The bell rang for dismissal at the end of the day, and moments later I was trotting down the front steps of the school – trotting away from the great altar.        She looked disappointed by my short answers but I didn’t care.   My world was crazy enough as it was and it felt oddly satisfying to have control over the length of my replies.        Then the dark-haired boy plunked down in his newly acquired seat, propping his elbow over the back of it so he could grin at me.      In the end, he smiled again.   “I own the bus,” he said.      Bluff, I thought.      Mason didn’t think my life was hard.      Whatever my face expressed, it delighted Charlie even more.   He winked at me and headed back to his own seat.      In my room, I plopped onto the floor by my bed ...

     “Here comes Miss Young.   Make sure you tell her we answered all your questions,” April murmured hastily.      “ Do you have any questions?” Renee asked.   An amused look flickered across my face.   Somehow I think Miss Young, if she had overheard, would have been more impressed with Renee’s approach than April’s.        "Hey!"      My head jerked to the right, and I saw the skinny blonde-haired boy lurking in the empty hallway.  Discretion prompted me to walk on.      "Get back here!  I'm talking to you!" he hissed.       My steps slowed to a stop and I looked back over my shoulder.      He jammed his hands in his pockets.  "I have a message for you," he said.       "From who?" I asked.       He looked as nervous as a cat on a wat...

     I had never gotten an F in English in my life.      I didn’t know whether to be ashamed or angry.      Slowly the teacher lowered the paper and ran her finger over the F.   “I hate to fail anybody,” she said, with a dramatic sigh.   “I’m going to give you a second chance.”    She looked at me as if expecting to see relief and gratitude instead of my stunned face.   “I will give you a second assignment that will count in place of this one, but you have to stay late for tutoring with me three days a week.   I will write a note to your parents.”      Fifteen minutes later, I was walking out of the school on my way home with her note in my hand.   The world looked like a dismal place.   I could almost see big, red F’s and the teacher’s phony smile everywhere I looked.      “Your paper was that bad, huh?”

I think I have flunked the challenge. I had 2 weeks where I only wrote 5 days in each...instead of 6 days. But I'm going to keep going because that is what you do when you fail at something you really want to do.  You try again. So here are my snippets from Week Six of the 100 for 100 Challenge: The large group worried me. The two adults had their hands full of excited youngsters, and there was one little boy in particular who seemed to have a destructive inclination.  I winced several times as he narrowly avoided crashing into the exhibits. He had come too close to disaster several times…he couldn’t keep his hands to himself.  And then it happened.  He pulled one of the small models down from a shelf and, to my horror, threw it across the room.  The head and body of the little figure separated, sliding across the floor and coming to rest somewhere near the T-Rex.  My eyes flew anxiously to the serious guard.  What would he do? As I wa...

My typical method of story-telling is evolving. Story-telling changes...kind of like a frog does... :) I used to get a concept and start writing, with no idea of where the story was going. Those are fun to write, but they frequently fizzled out when I ran out of ideas. So there was this explosion and then...um...I don't know.  Where was I going with this? Then I started working on a more complete story idea before I started writing.  Instead of "man, branded as thief, must live on the run in the forest," I started with something more like "an innocent man, branded as a thief must live as a fugitive in the forest.  His only goal is to clear his name until he finds the king, also on the run as his diabolical uncle tries to overthrow the government.  Together, they team up to restore the king to his throne and the nation to stability.  In the end, he saves the kingdom and proves his innocence as well." Then I would start writing, beginning to end...

I can hardly believe we are finishing week 5 of this challenge.  Although, I guess it is not so much when you realize that we are barely over a third of the way through 100 days.  Wow.  Long challenge.  But I am loving the results. Enough chit-chat.  Here are some of my snippets from this week of the 100 for 100 Challenge at GoTeenWriters.        “I’m not a charity case,” I said, bending over my math with a passion.        “Mardove Canyon.   I know,” he said.   “The Rithavens go every year.”      “It’s creepy how much you know,” I said, feeling a hint of amusement.      I felt like I was shooting sparks from my eyes, but there was no answering spark from his.   His eyes were like calm pools – my sparks fell into them and sizzled into nothing.      Mrs. Rithaven was setting plates on the table when Mr. Rithave...