Month: October 2015

Creating Characters

Creating believable characters takes a lot of work. There are so many resources to help a writer that choosing a method borders on a brain drain.

Still, I have to wonder: did Thomas Hardy know Tess of the D’Ubervilles’ astrological sign?

Did Charles Dickens plot Oliver Twist‘s archetype before he penned the novel?

I’m pretty sure Jane Austin didn’t read Elizabeth Bennet’s tarot cards before she wrote Pride and Prejudice.

And Charlotte Bronte certainly didn’t define Jane Eyre by her Enneagram type or her Myers-Briggs classification.

So why am I surrounded by books, decks of cards, and charts?

Reading By The Season: October

OCTOBER

AMMIE, COME HOME by Barbara Michaels.

I’m on my second or third paperback copy of this book. They keep falling apart on me!

The story actually takes place in November. There is not a hint of Halloween.

The author skillfully weaves the autumn weather into the story, adding to the atmosphere. This is a must-read for fans of haunted houses. Except maybe it wasn’t the house that was haunted . . .

Planner Planning

Last year, I decided to resurrect my planner. Several parts of the restructuring worked out really well.

A friend of mine mentioned she was downloading free, printable planner pages. Doing something like this never occurred to me! I embraced the idea. And now that I’ve finally jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon, I have a lot more ideas from which to choose.

There are many sites offering a variety of options. The ones I seem to like best only come in 8.5 x 11 size. And quite a few of the sites are from professional housewives/mothers and from people who home school. While I like the looks of the pages, the content won’t work for me. Here’s an example of what I mean. Parts of this page are perfect. But making the bed isn’t on my to do list.

I wish I were graphically able to create my own. I’m just not that clever.

Here’s what I settled on.

goals planner

I think I’m going to love them.

Now I need to find something for blog planning.

Stalker Songs

I like to create custom mixes of music. Recently, I realized two songs I happen to like are really kind of creepy–and stalkerish.

Elvis Presley’s “Kentucky Rain” is about a guy chasing after his run-away wife.

REM’s “Superman” threatens to track down a woman, even if she goes a million miles away.

So I Googled stalker songs. Eeesh! There are a lot of them.

“Every Breath You Take” (The Police)

“Run for Your Life” (The Beatles)

“One Way or Another” (Blondie)

“Private Eyes” (Hall & Oates)

These songs were all hits. That’s what’s really scary.

Reviews

My local RWA chapter recently held a program on reviews. It was an insightful presentation and sparked passionate dialogue. Does one read reviews or ignore them? Are bad reviews are good thing? Does one respond to a review, good or bad?

Here’s my take on the topic. I love reviews, good or bad. It means someone read my book.

As far as I’m concerned a bad review lends legitimacy to the review process. If several reviewers find the same flaw in the book, then I need to seriously consider what they’re saying. I prefer to think of those types of reviews as constructive rather than bad. If a book has all four-or-five star reviews, I wonder if it’s not a stacked deck.

Never ever ever engage with a reviewer on a review site. It’s unprofessional. One of the newer, unpublished members of the chapter said, “But I would be thrilled that an author wanted to talk to me!”

My response: then friend me on Facebook. If you are my friend on Facebook, you will be my buddy. We will swap recipes, share stories about our children, and recommend books to each other. I love interacting with my readers . . . on Facebook. It’s casual, the way a friendship should be. But not on Goodreads and not on Amazon.

Do you write reviews for books you’ve read?