June 12, 2008

• Chicky Boom

  Ladies and Gentleman, is there anything that cheers my heart more than a coupon which can be combined with a sale?  When I hit the mall in search of a new bra the other day and discovered that not only did my favorite store have a sale going on but that I could also use the $10 off coupon I've been hoarding, my heart went pitter patter.

  The bras in question were pretty with lively summer colors and they had several in my size.  (I know that only about 25 of you have met me in real life, so I'll let everyone else in on the story now.  I'm a DDD or G cup depending on how the bra is made.  Sigh.  Now you know.)  I'll also be 45 years old next week and over the decades gravity has imposed it's undeniable stamp on my parts. 

  The bras in question were labled "Balconey" bras.  Okay, they LOOKED normal.  I bought two.

  Uh, I now have cleavage to my CHIN.  I didn't know it was possible to push my girls up that far.  It's kind of interesting in a Dolly Parton sort of OMG sort of way, but I'm afraid to leave my house.  What if I knock someone down with these things? 

   

  

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  Notes from Workshop:
  

  Fictional Seeds:

  Lisa Lenard-Cook defines fictional seeds as those ideas that get stuck in your head.  It's an image, or a sentence, or a scene, or a situation and you can't let it go.  Many of us get one of these inspirational flashes and sit down to write our masterpiece only to have it peter out after about 15 pages.  What happened?  It was a great seed!

  Lisa suggests that it takes no fewer than three of these seeds to make a compelling story.  In her novel Dissonance (which I highly recommend to all) she combines the seeds of a disturbing family secret, a concentration camp survivor, Los Alamos, New Mexico, memory and music theory.  The result is a book that I was literally unable to put down until I finished it.  On every page I found something that made me want to know what happened on the next page. 

  Time in Story:

  Time happens according to two different principles.  Chronos is the time according to the clock.  Kairos is time outside of time, spiritual time.  This is what happens when you are 8 years old, you've packed your books for the day and you're waiting for the bell.  The last 6 minutes of the day are longer than the preceding six hours. 

  Pacing must account for both types of time.  Your character wakes up goes through morning routine and an hour passes in that first paragraph which establishes the chronos of your story.  But not every paragraph equals an hour.  Scenes which involve great emotion are kairos and may require many paragraphs. 

  Managing time in your story is both a process of knowing whether your scene is in Chronos and Kairos and of staying true to the Chronos of your story. 

  I have a story that I have loosely called "The Year of Behaving Badly" but it's not 365 pages.  It moves in and out of the story's "present" with scenes of emotion.  So far it's only about 200 pages long, and my cousin has suggested that I change the title to "Tell Mama What?" because bad behavior isn't attractive to her.

  Start All Over Agaain:

  Just because you've typed "the end" doesn't mean that your book is ready to be sent off to agents and publishing houses.  Set it aside for at LEAST two months, preferrably longer.  Then start all over again with revising and rewriting.  Revising is working with the material you have, rewriting is literally starting all over again. 
  
  Which does your story need?  Sit down and read the book yourself, start to finish, in one sitting.  SO if you have to clear your calendar for a whole day or two, do it.  It's this process that reveals such oversights as a character who broke his arm this morning playing tag football this afternoon.  Or the woman who moved to Israel last week appearing in the supermarket today.  Fix those things.

  Then what? Here's where you reach out to valued readers.  Ask your carefully chosen panel to read your book and tell you what works and what doesn't.  Listen to them.  You're a writer.  Don't be afraid to rewrite until the story you tell is the story that connects with your reader and communicates what you want to say.

  Lisa's book is called "The Mind of Your Story" and the bits I've included here are but a few of the highlights of a 3 hour workshop. 

   

  • 11:51 am
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