How A Story Becomes THE Story – THE END

How A Story Becomes THE Story,

A Villain for Vanessa ECover (1) 100 x 150px - 14.6KB - SmallYesterday was a big day for me as a writer. It would be a big day for any writer. So big that lots of excitement is involved. Happy excitement. Jubilant excitement. The excitement of relief. Naturally I wanted to share it.

“Jonathan” I call out from the multipurpose couch/daybed/pillow place in my office where I do most of my writing. “Come in here please. And bring your glasses.”

Last month Jonathan and I passed our forty-fourth anniversary of being together so he may have known the reason for my mysterious request. But he didn’t share that knowledge with me. He allowed me to build the suspense. I write Romantic Suspense after all and I love to milk every ounce of dramatic tension from a scene.

I wait at my laptop with my fingers poised over the keys. The cursor is already in place. The Solid Caps key has already been clicked. I’m ready for the climactic moment but I keep myself in check as is my nature. I maintain a cool façade when my insides may be roiling. Except if I can’t manage that kind of control. In which case it would be wise to run to a distant county.

Jonathan enters the room and stands behind my right shoulder. I don’t look up at him and he doesn’t speak but he’s excited too. I feel those vibes jumping off of him. He obviously does know what’s coming and I’d better make it happen soon or he’ll go all premature on me and you know how that can ruin things.

I touch the keys at the same instant a lump rises in my throat and tears gather under my eyelids. I swallow the lump and will the tears not to fall. Not yet for the emotion. Not quite yet. My fingers move. Six letters separated by a space in the middle form at the center of the page.

THE END

Seconds of silence follow. Reverence for what it has taken to get here. This book has been a challenging adventure and we all know what the word challenge means. This book has been a giant pain in the patoot to make happen. I’ll share those challenging tidbits in future posts. Meanwhile yesterday after those two words become a fact on the page a silence is in order.

Then the kisses begin. Starting at the neck where all sexy romantic heroes know just what to do with their lips etc. And Jonathan is definitely my sexy romantic hero. Especially where my writer life is concerned. Many years ago he was the one who asked the question nobody – including myself – had ever asked me.

“If you could do anything you wanted with your life what would it be?” The dramatic tension was high then too. I could barely breathe. I almost couldn’t talk. “I’d be a writer” I whispered. What Jonathan responded was basically “Go for it my darling.”

I’ve been going for it ever since. Right up until I typed THE END to my fifteenth novel yesterday. It’s called A Villain for Vanessa. Over the next weeks – on as many Mondays as I can manage – I’ll tell you how this story became THE story for me.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com                     http://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter                    http://www.twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks

RR

A Wrong Way Home – Book 1 of Alice Orr’s Riverton Road Romantic Suspense series – is a FREE eBook at Amazon and other online retailers. All of Alice’s books are available at her Amazon Author Page http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Orr/e/B000APC22E/  A Villain for Vanessa will be Book 4 of the Riverton Road Romantic Suspense series.

 

How to Thrive through Downer Times

Writers Life

Black Dog imageLet’s be honest. We all have them. Winston Churchill called them his Black Dog. If Winnie could admit to experiencing the black-and-blue blues so can we.

I’ve heard a lot of folks owning up to exactly that over the past few months. Maybe it’s the failure of spring to arrive. Maybe it’s the refusal of unpleasant realities to stay away.

Whatever the motivation for a trip to Bummerville an escape strategy is needed. May I suggest three steps along that exit route.

First – Don’t Confide in Anybody but Your Journal.

The world runs on gossip. The writer world runs on storytelling gossip. We should be careful not to fuel that ride. I’m saying you shouldn’t trust anyone. I am saying you shouldn’t overestimate anyone.

People can talk without thinking. People repeat things without thinking about the damage they can do. Sometimes they even succumb to the temptation to use knowledge as currency. Especially juicy knowledge.

The more intimate the story the juicier its potential can be. And nothing is more intimate than the insider details of somebody’s emotional meltdown. The tidbit may be told with compassion. “So sorry for her hardship.” Or with bogus compassion. “Soooo sorry for her hardship.”

The result is the same. The subject of the tidbit is portrayed as down and out or on her way to getting there. An image that does her no good no way no time. Therefore Mum is the word.

Second – Smile While your Heart is Breaking.

Some call it behaving as if. Behave as if you’re fine. I know it’s fake. Worse yet I know it’s hard to do. I also know light attracts and darkness repels.

We don’t want to break down the good work we’ve already accomplished. We want to build it further. Maybe we don’t feel capable of that construction effort at the moment but we can manage to maintain a holding pattern if we try.

My brother Michael once gave me some sage advice. He suggested I take acting classes to learn more about creating story characters. I’ve come to understand the added value of making yourself into a story character when it serves your career purpose. As I said. Only your journal page requires full – or even partial – disclosure.

Third – Tell a Bright Tale Until it Comes True.

I believe in the power of professional pretense. That power has more to do with convincing yourself than it has to do with convincing others. You are the one feeling lousy – or lost – or left out somehow. You are the one who must find a way off the down escalator. The real purpose of spinning a positive less-than-total truthhood is to hear it yourself about yourself.

“The future’s so bright I’m gonna need shades.” That’s the prophecy you want to self-fulfill. Keep repeating it to yourself and everybody and one morning you’ll wake up to find those shiny lenses reflecting your vision of yourself come back to full and lovely life.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com                   http://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter                   http://www.twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks

RR

A Wrong Way Home – Book 1 of Alice Orr’s Riverton Road Romantic Suspense series – is a FREE eBook at Amazon and other online retailers. All of Alice’s books are available at her Amazon Author Page http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Orr/e/B000APC22E/

The Real Reason for Writers Conferences

Writers Life


Sunrise New Jersey imageI’m just now emerging from the sweet fog of a weekend writers’ conference.

Why a fog? Because that’s what the misty airlock feels like between conference world and my daily world. A fog of adjustment before re-entry. Why sweet? That’s a more complicated question. The sweetness of the fog is a carryover from the sweetness of the experience and the many nectars of its ingredients.

Is there a downside? Maybe the case of Crammed-Brain Syndrome many of us take with us from two or more days of workshops and panels. Or the soft brace I’m wearing on my wrist after scribbling like crazy in my notebook to capture every morsel of good information.

Otherwise I must begin my entirely personal sweetness recipe with three days and two nights in a hotel. I’ve long maintained  that room service and maid service are among the supreme triumphs of this or any culture. A twenty-four hour snack corner in the lobby runs a close third.

This particular hotel was superb by the way. The bed was just right for my Mama Bear body. The toiletries were top shelf and I did bring all leftovers home with me. Plus I awoke each morning to the glowing sunrise you see above.

The conference luncheon was great. Only a small strip of hotel chicken atop the tasty pasta salad. And the keynoter made this a standout event. Hank Phillippi Ryan is one of the most energetic and inspiring speakers I’ve heard. “You never know” she said. You never know what waits around the next corner. So keep trying. Keep hoping. Keep enjoying. Keep writing.

Of course book signings can be humiliation hell unless you’re a bestseller. I’ll never forget the time I signed next to Nora Roberts. R for Roberts. O for Orr and OMG. The P’s knew enough to stay away. But at Liberty State Fiction Writers Conference the fabulous O-P section placed me between L.G. O’Connor on one side and Caridad Pineiro on the other. Sweet indeed.

Which brings me to the delectable heart of conference world ambrosia. Writers – Writers – and More Writers. At meals. In corridors. In workshop rooms. In the bar. At informal get-togethers and more formal ones. New friends and friends in the making. All members of the writer tribe.

Writers talking. Writers laughing. Writers debating. Writers sharing. Everywhere I turned I found writers on furlough from the trenches encouraging one another to fight through and past whatever obstacles we all inevitably encounter.

So here I am post-fog. Facing the rewrite of Chapter Thirty today and the new write of Chapter Forty to come. Embraced and emboldened by the real reason I attend writers’ conferences. In order to return home afterward reminded of how blessed I am to do this author thing.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.                http://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter.                    http://www.twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks  .

RR

A Wrong Way Home – Book 1 of my Riverton Road Romantic Suspense series – is a FREE eBook at Amazon and other online retailers. All of my books are available at my Amazon Author Page http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Orr/e/B000APC22E/.