Where to Find Your Story - What's the Big Deal

Apologize for the fast, unedited posting. On a time schedule, like normal. :-)

What's the big deal about 'where to find your story?' Here's the freaking truth. For me, it's never been a problem--ever. That sounds egotistical, but it's not. I've written all my life and stories pop all around me. They gel in the middle of the night, and I know they are right when my heart isn't simply touched by them, but wraps tight around them until I HAVE TO TELL THAT STORY.

Of course, I've picked up ideas here and there at conferences--all excellent ones:

• Tim Powers (SF/F) told a class that he researches until he has 'twenty ideas too cool not to use' and then he starts writing.
• Connie Willis (SF/F MASTER) told a group that you must 'keep your butterfly net out and scooping up ideas all the time.
• Mark Twain (you know Samuel Clemens) says that 'the difference between the right world and the the almost right world is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.' Or was that 'right word?' Doesn't matter, either work.
• Joyce Carol Oates considers herself 'as a teacher, I am the ideal editor...who defines herself primarily as a friend of the text and a friend of the writer, in that order.' 

My night writing has evolved into the bizarre. Normally ideas percolate like Connie Willis' butterflies, crashing around in a small space, until they merge as a story. Recently? Yeah, kind of freaky. I've been having dreams that aren't mine. I wake up and wonder where the heck that scene or that character came from. If I can't line it up with my real world, I've decided it's someone else's mind that came to visit.

Examples: 

• Last night in my dreams I met a woman (not homeless, but dang close) who lives in Seattle (yes, I've visited but that's it) and lives in a home that is a tiny Quonset hut. It must leak because inside that is a large hiking type hut. (She's very proud it, the tent, has two rooms, but you can't stand in it.) She burrowed into my heart like I imagine blood worms do in dogs' hearts. And isn't that a lovely idea. I will write about her one day. She was a proud woman.
• This is more typical of where my ideas coalesce. I'm researching #GamerGate for a short story, or maybe more, and last night went on line to try to contact some of the major players via twitter (since their website entitled Fat, Ugly, or Slutty, (FUoS) title based on what some fellow gamers think about women players--especially the ones that routinely crush male players online.) So many ideas thunk around in my brain space like boulders carried along in molten lava. Take away, as Wil Wheaton points out? You write off the comments as being from twelve-year-old boys, but the average gamer age is 34. That's a frightening and very Kami Files worthy plot idea. 
• Things start to gel, outline shapes up, characters rise, and all of it wraps around my heart and burrows in for the long haul. After all, I'll live with these characters and their lives for over a year. They need to be worthy of the attention.

So then it's time to begin. Stop posting on your blog. Get to work, Meg. And that's why this isn't edited nice and neat. Still, it might be helpful for fellow authors or for readers who have always wondered.

Endorsements and Book Giveaway for Chaos Theory!

Please visit my website at www.MEvonneDobson.com to see what wonderful endorsements have come in for my contemporary crime fiction/mystery, Chaos Theory releasing Feb 3rd from the Poisoned Pencil, imprint of The Poisoned Pen Press - one of the nation's largest publisher of hardback mysteries!  Including one from 2013 YA Edgar (Mystery Writers of America's top honor) finalist Kathyrn Burak.

And then visit Goodreads for a chance to win a free copy being offered by the press!

Chaos Theory Book Giveaway!

Exceptional Pink Ribbon Warrior's Memoir

Grit and Grace: Fighting Breast Cancer One Step at a Time 
by Carrie S Bell 

M. Dobson's review 

Nov 14, 14  ·  edit

5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: a-quest-for-sanity-in-an-insane-wor, pink-ribbon,pink-ribbon-heroes

Recommended to M. by: my writing critique group

Recommended for: pink ribbon heroes fighting cancer

Read in November, 2014 — I own a copy, read count: 1

In Grit and Grace, Carrie S. Bell shares and bears her soul to provide knowledge and hope for all fighting cancer. All profits are donated to cancer charities. And she does it with love, passion, and honesty.

I met Carrie S Bell in a writer's critique group. That first time, she brought pages from her cancer-fighting memoir she was considering publishing, and I loved them. Last time we met, she handed me the published work! How thrilling to see her writing quest and her personal cancer journey at last in book form and in my hands.

We share a common love of the Sonoran Desert. The thesaurus offers alternatives to the word desert: wasteland, wilderness, waste, barren and arid region, desolate tract. Yet there are some of us who find solace, comfort, peace, and beauty there. It takes grit to not only survive the desert but to embrace it. We both admire the plants and animal life that adapted over time to flourish there. However, while I putz along on gentler slopes and less strenuous climbs with naked bow in hand, Carrie seeks the mountaintops.

In her cancer fighting memoir, Grit and Grace, she shares the ups, the downs, the in-betweens, and the difficult reality of fighting breast cancer. Her determination to trek to soaring desert peaks is the same determination she applied to her cancer battle.

We share something else, the dogged determination to pursue our writing passion.

I look forward to reading her future works of fiction, but dare I hope she'll bring the mountain tops and the desert with her into the works? I hope so!

With great admiration, Meg E Dobson, AKA M Evonne Dobson

Cover Reveal of Chaos Theory! Release Date Feb 2015

Thank you James Ryan Daley for the images!

Thank

You Poisoned Pencil!

And thank you to my editor. The art department, the publicist, and my fellow press authors!

The ARC is making rounds. If you will read for honest review on Goodreads, B&N, and Amazon, let me know?

Jack Gantos in Final Five Kirkus Prize 2014

How do you top a Newbery Award? This works! Congratulations to the amazing author Jack Gantos.  This is how you close out a series.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/prize/2014/finalists/young-readers/

As to the other finalists? My 'to be read' stack just increased in volume.

Single Most Important Revision Question to Ask

Your rough draft is done. Congrats. Bells. Whistles. And so what? That's nothing. It's only a pile of horse apples. Face it. Face facts. Face reality. That stinking, smelly thing goes no where, but know that hidden within are the jewels that make it special. If you have trouble finding them, put it aside for a bit before you return. Let the critic go when you come back. The critic deserves no seat at the table or a view of your laptop.

Bring new revisionist eyes and your tool box. Now it's time to roll up your sleeves and dig deep. You'll find the jewels. You're expand them, set them up early, and let them linger as the pages pass by. Yes, you need to do the grammar stuff, but right now? It's all about your story and how effectively you've told it.

The single most important revision question you pull from your tool box will be your jewel cutter tools. And the main one is, "How does this scene relate to my story?" If it doesn't--yank it, no matter how beautiful or intriguing. You HAVE to pull it. (You might find a few cases where you can rewrite it later, so never delete forever, but remember that if it doesn't belong, it's ineffective.) My rule of thumb is that every scene must advance three aspects of the main plot. It might be driving forward the plot, revealing a character's motivation or soul, or firmly tying a subplot to the main plot, or shining light on the main plot line from another perspective. The three aspects don't have to be world moving stuff. It might simply add tension to ramp up the story: a character argues with another, or has a romantic interlude, or confronts something frightening from their past.

There can be a hundred reasons to include a scene, but you NEED three reasons to prove that its earned its place. Anything less, and you're lacking the depth and richness you need to expect from your storytelling. Think of this as the bulky hammer that cracks the diamond into pieces, or finds the marble figure outlines beneath the solid block. (I love the imagery of this 3D aspect. Your manuscript needs the 3D of a fine sculpture to be good.)

Like all good Single Most Important Questions, it has layers. You now pull out your finer tools. "How does this sentence relate to my story?" Is it an effective sentence? Does it do what it needs to do? Also, it has to be clearly communicated to readers; if readers can't understand it, you failed. Use your smaller chisel to make that sentence a beautiful arm or leg, a curved buttock. Well, you get my drift.

Then you reach for your finest files from your tool box. Here, you borrow from the poet. "Is this the right word for this sentence and this scene." And yes, by now you've gotten it in grammar-okay shape by this point, but that isn't your goal. The storytelling is the goal!

Parelli is a famous horse/rider trainer. He says, "You have to slow down to speed up." Manuscripts are like horses. Rough drafts are no different; dig deep to speed up the main plot story telling.

(Sorry for the rough draft on this blog post, but I need to be working my rough draft for Book II of the The Kami Files, tentatively entitled, TET Theory.)

The Bitter Script Reader: Nathan Fillion is part of a great cast for The Black List's next live reading!

The Bitter Script Reader: Nathan Fillion is part of a great cast for The Black List's next live reading! What I wouldn't give to be at this! @nathanfillion take on road! Take on road hell make the movie!