Tag Archives: Writing

Show Up – Your Write2Thrive Story

January 22, 2025Writer MotivationStorytelling, Writers Life, Writing, Writing Career TipAlice Orr

Show Up – Your Write2Thrive Story. Jean Rikhoff was my mentor. She taught me to Show Up. “Ninety percent of success is showing up,” she would say. She had a lot to say. Like in this picture with the 1980s hair. But Jean did much more than talk the talk.

Walk the Walk. Jean showed up. She was a young mother when the parking lot episode occurred. Home was so hectic she drove to a supermarket parking lot early every morning and wrote her novel there. Figure out how to do what needs to be done in your life. Jean did that. You can too.

Write Regularly. No matter what is going on in your life. Let the rich experience of creativity do its kick-butt thing to your writer psyche until you feel out of balance without a daily dose. One page or one hour a day minimum. Enough to make you crave another dose tomorrow.

Mark Your Territory. Carve out a place for yourself and your work. Virginia Woolf talked about “a room of your own.” Crowded circumstances may preclude that. A private corner can suffice. Put your stuff there. Notebooks. Laptop. Files. Pens. A lamp covered in story ideas.

Get Good Gear. Buy yourself quality equipment. If necessary – do so by cutting back spending on other things. If you have qualms about doing that – make yourself believe the following. You deserve what you need to succeed. This is your new mantra. Repeat it often and adamantly. Show Up – Your Write2Thrive Story.

Value Your Time. Control your commitments. Ask yourself, “Can someone else do this? Does it have to be me?” Examine carefully new requests for your time and energy. Ask yourself, “Is this the best use of my precious self.”

Train Your Tribe. Post your work hours. The refrigerator door is a good place. Insist on no interruptions at those times. Tell family and friends how important your writing is to you. Make them hear you. Do not back down. They will come around. If they do not – keep on with your work. Do it anyway.

Train You Too. Identify your personal time-burners. Activities that contribute minimally to what you really want to accomplish. Do not indulge during your best brain time. Limit online play to your dim bulb hours. Use your online activity to build your public platform visibility.

Show Up for Your Story. These disciplines will carry you deep into your writing and keep you there. John Gardner called it “the dream of the book.” Write to inhabit that dream. Write from deep in your imagination where your very best stories are waiting.

Show Up for Yourself. Life stress can stop you in your tracks. Give yourself a break and a story boost instead. Powerful stories are intense like stress. Incorporate your personal intensity into a dramatic scene. Incorporate that scene into your current work. Feel it all. Adapt it all. You are a creator. Create.

Show Up for Your Tribe. Embrace your writer family by helping each other. Look around. Feel where you are needed. When someone is down lift them up. Let your generosity shine. Be grateful for the opportunity to give. Together we thrive. Show Up – Your Write2Thrive Story.

You possess storytelling magic. Keep on writing whatever may occur. Alice Orr. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells. Alice blogs for writers and readers at https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Alice’s novel A Time of Fear & Loving . Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5. Available HERE.

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving: “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “The best one yet!”

Alice’s Suspense Novel Series. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. Five intense stories of love and death and intrigue. Available HERE.

Praise for Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. “Romance and suspense at its best.” “I highly recommend this page-turner series.” “Twists and turns, strong characters, suspense and passionate love.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know? About your writer experience. About telling your stories. Ask your question as a comment following this post.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

Here’s Looking at Your Story Character

May 22, 2024StorytellingCreating Characters, Writing, Writing FictionAlice Orr

Here’s Looking at Your Story Character. Let’s Go to the Movies. I use films as storytelling examples more often than I use books. Because more of us have seen the same movies than have read the same books. Some movies have produced story character icons in our culture. Rick Blaine played by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca is one of those icons.

Let’s Lay on Time Setting Drama from the Start. Casablanca came out in 1942. The world was immersed in the horrific drama of World War II. The film opening taps directly into that with a map of Europe and then Northern Africa running beneath the credits.

Let’s Lay on Place Setting Drama Too. Maps were very significant then. They played in theater news reels. They appeared in newspapers alongside stories of heart-stopping events. Battles. Troop movements. All in places that represented life and death to a 1942 audience.

Let’s Set the Stage for Your Dramatic Character. Rick has not yet so much as shown his face and we are already on the edge of our seats. A story’s opening has a lot of work to do. A hero character has a lot of weight to carry. How do you confront these challenges in your story?

Let’s Begin with Your Dramatic Opening. Picture your potential reader checking out the sample pages of your story online or scanning them in a bookstore aisle. You get one chance to make this first impression. You must not squander that chance. Here’s Looking at Your Story Character.

Let’s Plunge Your Hero into Trouble. Start with a situation where your hero feels as if their current world is being yanked out from under them. For Rick – Ilsa returns. She is the lover from the past who broke his heart. From this point on his life will never be the same again.

Let’s Make Your Hero Struggle. A struggle begins at your story’s opening. Something dramatic is already in progress. Casablanca uses Rick’s history for this. He must struggle against past hurt and present anger. Consider doing something like that in your story.

Let’s Create High Stakes for Your Hero. Something crucial is at stake for your character and for others too. Decisive action is desperately needed. Dire circumstances will result if your character fails to fulfill this desperate need. Rick must save a war hero from deathly peril.

Let’s Make Success a Long Shot for Your Hero. Obstacles to your characters purpose are already evident at the beginning of your story. Formidable obstacles. Powerful confrontations are inevitable. Rick is pitted against Nazis. Put your character in truly intense danger also.

Let’s Make Your Hero Decide to Act Anyway. Your character recognizes the danger and would prefer to avoid it. But somebody must do something. Nobody else steps up. Your hero makes a conscious decision to act. That decision sets your story in motion. Like Rick in Casablanca your hero must save the day – and they both will. Here’s Looking at Your Story Character.

AliceOrr. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells. Blogging here for writers. “What A Character! How to Create Characters that Live and Breathe on the Page.”

Alice’s Memoir is titled Lifted to the Light: A Story of Struggle and Kindness. At the beating heart of this moving story a woman struggles. All her life, she has taken care of herself. Now she faces an adversary too formidable to battle alone. Available HERE.

Praise for Lifted to the Light: A Story of Struggle and Kindness: “I was lifted. I highly recommend this book as a can’t-put-down roadmap for anyone.” “Outstanding read. Very, very well written.” “Honest, funny, and consoling.” “Ms. Orr is a fine, sensitive author and woman. I have read other books by her and am glad didn’t miss this one.”

All of Alice’s Books are available HERE.

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know about how to discover the strongest story characters you have in you? Ask your questions in the Comments section at the end of this post. Alice will answer.

http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/

May Inspires Your Story Characters – and You

May 8, 2024StorytellingCreating Characters, Writing, Writing FictionAlice Orr

May Inspires Your Story Characters – and You. May represents rebirth. Fertility. Anticipation of something new. Here it comes. The start of something. A surge of excitement. Listen. Your writer’s heart is beating faster. May is Inspiration. Let’s get inspired!!!

All Things Seem Possible in May (Edwin Way Teale – Author). Let’s create some possibility. Take advantage of the spring weather. Go somewhere public. Pick a person – or a victim – from the crowd. What do they inspire for you as character material?

Spring is When Life is Alive in Everything (Christina Rosetti – Author). Life is alive in this person you have chosen to observe. Life is alive in your writer’s imagination. Let’s imagine. What are they doing here on this particular day at this particular time? As a storyteller you need conflict and complication. Something is upsetting them today? Why are they upset?

May is the Month of Expectation, the Month of Wishes (Emily Bronte – Author). Let’s explore that upset. Give your subject a name to make them more real to you. Call them Jo. Jo has a dream. Something very dear to them. What is that dream? Why is it so very dear?

May More than Any Other Month Wants Us to Feel Most Alive (Fennel Hudson – Author). This dream makes Jo feel wonderfully alive. Let’s make Jo the hero of your story. That means their dream is most likely something you can root for and want them to achieve. Jo’s dream makes you as storyteller wonderfully alive also – ready to soar.

Spring is the Time for Plans and Projects (Leo Tolstoy – Author). Let’s get intense. Jo hopes hard for this dream to happen. Jo desperately needs that or Jo’s life will go terribly wrong. You as storyteller must be a troublemaker. Plunge Jo’s dream into trouble. Make that trouble dire. Disrupt Jo’s plans. How will you do that? Let your wicked imagination fly.

Hope Sleeps in Our Bones Like a Bear Waiting for Spring to Rise and Walk (Marge Piercy – Author). Jo makes a hero’s choice to rise up and fight the trouble you have created. Jo is a bear rather than a bunny. Jo’s story ignites. Struggle erupts. Jo’s desperate need to succeed fuels the flames. Your storyteller’s appetite has a page-turner on its menu for May.

You Can Cut All the Flowers but You Cannot Keep Spring from Coming (Pablo Neruda – Author). Do you write popular fiction? Is your goal a story lots of readers will read and not be able to put down until they reach the end? If so – make that ending a triumph for Jo. By the skin of their teeth after a flat-out exhausting battle – but a triumph all the same.

May is a Month of Magic (Me). Hey. Is that you the storyteller still sitting on your observer’s park bench or wherever? Get on home and start writing. Jo and your imagination and the mighty month of May have given you a smashing story tell. I hope you took good notes. May Inspires Your Story Characters – and You.

You possess storytelling magic. Keep on writing whatever may occur.