Tag Archives: Writing Tip

Storytelling Mentor on Your Shoulder

Storytelling, ,

Storytelling Mentor on Your Shoulder. Every writer I know has endured rejection. I certainly have. In fact, on the occasion of my first major rejection, the editor implied, or maybe told me straight out, that I had no idea what I was doing.

My first big mistake that day was agreeing to a sushi lunch. I didn’t know sushi from tsunami at the time, but I did know I should appear cooperative. So, I replied, “Sushi’s good.” Had I guessed the true purpose of the lunch, I would have made a different response. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue, though I probably should have.

I was writing my second novel for this editor. The first hadn’t set the world on fire.  The second was supposed to correct that, but the revision phase had dragged on so long I’d almost lost track of what my story was originally about. As I took a wobbly chopstick grip on my third portion of something raw and wet wrapped in seaweed, my editor let me know she felt the same.

“This just doesn’t work for us,” the editor said. If you have ever heard or read those words, you know what happened next. I plunged into shock. On the other hand, I was back on track in one respect. I got that the revision phase was finished. Novel number two was off the table, as surely as the sushi had slipped from between my chopsticks and plummeted to my plate.

“You seem to think a bird sits on your shoulder and tells you how to write,” my editor was saying. “Like you don’t have anything to do with it.” I needed to be at the top of my mental game right then, but I was incapable of responding. Instead, I excused myself, dashed to the ladies’ room, and leaned my clammy forehead against the cool black tiles of the marble stall.

A Storytelling Mentor on Your Shoulder?  I had never been aware of anything, with or without feathers, telling me how to write a book. What I had always been aware of was my lack of power. Because of the way the publishing world works, I had no control over the destiny of my writing career. Now, I understood how perilous such a position can be.

If you have ever submitted a manuscript anywhere, you know what I mean. You labor over your work, send it out into what feels like a void. then wait for a thumbs up or down on your efforts, your ambitions, your hope. You endure this because you have no idea what else you can do. You are as clueless as I was in that ladies’ room with my forehead pressed against tile as black as I believed my future to be.

A few years later, I became an editor myself. That choice had a lot to do with power. I was determined to regain mine, and to pass it on. As an editor, then a literary agent and teacher, I would be that bird. I would sit on a writer’s shoulder and whisper in her ear the words she needed to hear to avoid her own demoralizing rejection scenes. I could do that because my years on the other side of the desk taught me a lot about how to create a marketable manuscript.

I have been sharing that knowledge ever since. Still, the dread words are out there. “This just doesn’t work for us.” Words that hit their mark hard for any writer. I wish I could guarantee they will never be heard again, but I can’t. What I can offer is my experience and expertise, and to be a bird with an empowering song you need to hear. A Storytelling Mentor on Your shoulder. Stay tuned to this blog. I have many more melodies to sing.

Meanwhile, ask your crucial questions. How does your attitude need to be adjusted? What fears do you face about your writing career? What do you most eagerly desire to know? Add a question comment to this post, or email me at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. I will be honored to respond.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr’s Christmas story A Vacancy at the Inn – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 3 – is available on Amazon HERE. Enjoy!

Alice Orr A Vacancy at the Inn

Praise for A Vacancy at the Inn. “Grabbed me right away and swept me up in the lives of Bethany and Luke.” “Undercurrents of suspense move the story along at an irresistible pace.” “The Miller family is rife with personality quirks, an authentic touch that demonstrates Alice Orr’s skill as a writer.”

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

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Places Replenish Our Writer Souls

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Places Replenish our Writer Souls. Reading stories aloud was a big deal when our grandchildren were growing up. Some of my favorite storyteller moments happened under the storytelling tree.

Our front yard featured a particularly family-friendly place. A yellow Adirondack chair fitted into a notch at a fence corner between two trees. I would sit in that chair with one grandchild at my side and another at my feet, and I would tell stories.

The way those two trees grew made me think of them as one. At ground level, they were far enough apart to accommodate a seat and small table. Further up, at about towhead height, they began to grow toward each other.

One day my grandson asked me about that. “What’s the story with the trees, Grandma.” He was staring at the place where the trees came almost together over my head, and he’d asked for a story. I gave him a story. Because that’s what grandmas and writers do.

“These trees were born close to each other under the ground, and they fell in love. When they grew above the ground and saw each other’s beauty, they fell in love even more. So much so that they couldn’t stand being apart and grew toward each other. Until they were side-by-side, with their branches entwined, reaching for the sky.”

The grandkids appreciated a good yarn and let me think they believed my tale. As for me, I believed every word with all my heart. Especially the feeling of it, which perfectly suited my yellow chair and that enchanting place. Because Places Replenish Our Writer Souls, and I definitely have one of those.

Stories have power. They lift and transport us out of real-life time and space into another universe, separate and apart. John Gardner called that universe “the dream of the story.” I believe in this lifting and transporting, but I also believe in places like the storytelling tree.

Places have power. Wherever we may be, we can picture ourselves somewhere else, like that notch in the fence at the corner of our front yard. We can take ourselves there, into the feel of it. The green branches overhead, the smell of grass and a child’s hair, the sound of birdsong on the soft air of late spring. The taste of contentment on the tongue. A feast for all of our senses as Places Replenish Our Writer Souls.

At bedtime in those days, I sat in another storytelling chair. Bright red, with a comfortable back cushion to ease me after delightful, exhausting hours surrounded by youthful energy. This chair stood between the dormers of the children’s bedroom, where the angles of the ceiling leaned toward one another, like the trees in the fence corner.

When I need a spirit boost, I take myself back to Christmas Eve in that red chair. There is a  stack of books at my side. My deliberate singsong tone has droned two excited children almost to sleep. I reach the last book on the pile and begin. “Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house…” To this day, that line transports me to the red chair under the dormers. Places Replenish Our Writer Souls.

You must tell your re-spiriting stories as well. Stories of places that lift you out of the moment. Places that come alive for you in every detail, if only in your imagination. Your heart is opened there. You are moved to bring us there as well. Because Places Replenish Our Writer Souls, and we deserve to be replenished.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Speaking of Christmas, A Vacancy at the Inn is Book 3 of Alice’s Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series, and it is a holiday story. Find A Vacancy at the Inn HERE.  Find all of Alice’s books HERE.

Alice Orr A Vacancy at the Inn

What Readers Say: “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.” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”  “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.”

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Write Thru Crisis – Salted Wounds

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Write Thru crisis – Salted wounds. Mother’s Day was a few weeks ago. My son once said, “This is a holiday created by Hallmark Cards to sell their product.” My response to that might be, “This is a holiday created by Morton Salt to sell their product.”

I am a mother who had a mother, and a grandmother who had a grandmother. All of which does have a Hallmark card side. Idyllic resonances that could prompt sweet, four-line rhymes. Plus, a Morton Salt side, associations with wounded places, some scarred over, some still bloody, all conflicted.

Meanwhile, on a grander scale, there is the Covid-19 catastrophe. Whether you believe this to be our century’s worldwide plague or a conspiratorial hoax, we are all in the midst of a Morton’s moment magnified. This situation rubs salt into every vulnerable, sensitive corner of our psyches, the places where we most long to be left undisturbed.

Unfortunately, crisis of any kind is, by nature, disturbing. Crisis is an impertinent, belligerent, often malicious finger, rubbing the Morton’s deeper in, making certain we experience its sting to the max.

Back to Mother’s Day, which I pick on only as an example. Like the Corona Crisis, Mother’s Day is a universal phenomenon, whether you celebrate either or not. We all have some relationship with motherhood. We are all in the grips of this crisis. We all have wounded places.

Animals are a good example of what to do about the last of those. When wounded, they find a place of refuge, a crevice where they can burrow in, lick the lethal elements from their wounds and, hopefully, heal. Each of us has a similar refuge close at hand, our personal stories and the telling of them.

Here, as examples, are two of my own refuge stories. Coroneal Mom’s Day was bittersweet for me. On the lighter side, I missed my son in law’s waffles. Last year, I stuffed myself so full of them, I had to lie immobile for an hour to recover. This year, he and my daughter stood six feet from me in the street, avoiding mention of waffles or anything else we missed.

On the heavy side, my mother suffered from mental illness. Which is why I spent most childhood weekdays with my kind, loving grandma. She passed away when I was seven years and three days old. Life before then and life afterward were very different realities me and, for some reason, this Mother’s Day has brought those times close to my heart.Grandma and Alice at Two and a Half

Obviously, each of these snippets requires much more detail to become an actual story. As I said, they are only examples, starting places in search of further telling. They are also crevices I may burrow into, salve my wounds with words, and heal, or celebrate. You can do the same.

What real-life stories does Mother’s Day 2020 call forth for you? No crevice is required, only a pen, a journal, and sentences. Or draw a picture, construct a collage, compose a lyric and some music to go with it. Whatever your medium preference may be, let it wash the salt away, dull the sting, encourage healing to happen.

And don’t forget the feelings, where method and magic meet. Share your stories, if you wish, at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com, and let me know if you would like others to experience them too. Share this post also. We all have stories to tell, as we Write Thru Crisis.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Alice has spent most of her professional life in publishing, as book editor, literary agent, workshop leader, and author. She’s published 16 novels, 3 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript That Sells (revised version coming soon). Her current work in progress includes Hero in the Mirror: How to Write Your Best Story of You.

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