Posts Tagged ‘fantasy author’

Dream Theories: Embrace what goes bump in your nightmares!

Monday, June 4th, 2012

I’m guest blogging today about the dream theory in Her Forgotten Betrayal. Link over, enjoy, and leave a comment for your chance to win a free digital copy of HFB.

Dreaming blog

The underlying message of Her Forgotten Betrayal is to follow your dreams—even the scarier ones. Because your dreams are just that—yours. They’re your thoughts and your intuition and your memories. And when your dreams go dark, it’s often your mind’s way of focusing you on the tough stuff you’re avoiding in your every day…”

Dream Theories: What’s chasing you?

Monday, April 16th, 2012

I haven’t been blogging about dreams lately. Folks have been complaining. A lot. Honestly, I’ve been negligent for a good reason. Promise. I’ve been WRITING about dreams again, instead. And then revising. A lot. Particularly, about  nightmares again, this time of being chased. Bwahahaha… I’ve been digging deeper into all the levels of meaning that dreams like this present, doing my best to capture them for both my heroine and my readers. So, as we snap back to weekly Dream Theories posts, let’s see what I found out as I researched and created my latest novel…

chasing_dream

Remember, dreams are about your subconscious telling you things, and processing things, you don’t typically see in your waking world. DON”T take dream images literally, no matter how disturbing they can be. Look deeper for the what the images could represent (about both others and yourself). Feel the emotions associated with what’s happening, rather than worrying about how even the most disturbing dream situations might actually come to be. Normally, they won’t. But, your mind is trying to tell you something, and our emotions are a direct conduit to what that might be.

Chasing/running dreams, as in my newest, nightmare-based gothic suspense Her Forgotten Betrayal, are about things or issues or people that you’re avoiding. In my Dead Sexy series launch book (from Entangled Publishing), the heroine’s an amnesiac, and the question is, why? Her mind is shutting her memory down completely in order to avoid something. What? Or, in my protagonist’s situation, who is she refusing to remember? Shaw knows it’s a man, or does she? The guy has no face, and she recognizes his voice, but she can’t remember why. In fact, in the dream, everything makes sense. When she wakes, it all goes away. Hmmmm…

chasing dreams legs

In reality, and my heroine Shaw Cassiday’s case, maybe what we’re running from (avoiding) in our chasing dreams is more of an idea. A situation. A long-held belief. (more…)

The Soul of the Matter: Love the One You’re With…

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Writers aren’t all that different for saner mortals. Even though most of us wear our freak flags like parade banners. As part of our every-day, we offer ourselves up for rejection–the very reality we tend to fear most. Because we’re bent that way. We write about our neuroses and dreams and innermost secrets. Then we go one step further in our quest to understand, by slapping our names onto what we’ve created before sending it out into the world to be judged. Which is tantamount to dropping your pants, then plastering a pic of the gory details all over social media. And in the end, most of us writer-types, the honest ones anyway, will admit that we’re TERR-I-FIED by the entire process, even though we cant’ stop ourselves from indulging in it. Why? For the same reason a “normal” person follows his or her passion. LOVE.

Crazy-Love-Graphics2

You don’t get to pick and chose how your mind works or what makes your creativity thrive. Life, in my honest opinion, is about learning to love who and what you are–and the love that you’re born to pursue.

Challenge that core reality, and you’re denying the inner freakishness that you’re here to explore and share. Take a look at my Things My Teenager Says series, if you want an idea of how proud I am of kids (and adults) who figure out exactly who and what they are, then fly that uniqueness proudly. I’m still on a path to owning my own stuff, probably a step or two behind my gifted teen. But I’m a writer. What can I say? I pay more attention most days to internal landscapes, than I do the world around me. I’ll catch up eventually. I’ll understand, one of these years, everything that love is supposed to mean to me and everything it’s not. Until then, I’ll be crazy, loud and proud, and fake it ’til I make it.

crazy love graphic

Being crazy in love with your uniqueness, even when it means standing out in ways that shriek at your insecurities and desperation to belong–that’s the life goal I wish for myself. And yourself. (more…)

How We Write: When we’re waiting, and waiting, and waiting…

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

Writing like we’re on fire is every author’s dream. Creating free and feeling the juice and dying to find out what happens next. But how is that zone possible, when your control of the “business” world of your publishing slips beyond your grasp? I’m asked this question all the time. Possibly because I’m riding that slippery slope most of the time these days ;o) Not sure that’s a compliment to the state of my business. But it’s nice, too, living the unpredictability of my world in an outward way that makes others want to know how I’m dealing with all of it.

There are those, in my opinion, who want to tell you how to do what they themselves aren’t, because they’ve been blessed with the answers you can’t find anywhere else–self-help folks, especially in writing circles, who haven’t actually done what they’re promising they can help you be a success at, chap my hide.

sucker

If your fiction writing guru has never actually published a work of fiction, you should probably take that as a sign.

Just saying.

There are those who are going through what you’re needing help with, and just want to rant. I’m not a big fan of that approach either. Everyone needs to vent when the going gets tough, but making a career out of shocking the world with your bitterness or need to blame everyone but your own choices for your circumstances is a little too weak for my tastes.

Then there are those who live their trials and their successes in the open, with the same kind of honesty, and invite you into their up-and-down journey, as they try to make sense out of the mix. I’d like to think this latter approach is what I’ve been rambling about doing in How We Write. (more…)

How We Write: The Soul of the Matter

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

My Soul of the Matter posts are usually about my life and the life I see going on around me, and how I try to change daily the things I let prevent me from actually living. Because surviving isn’t enough. Thriving should be the goal. How We Write is usually a motivational rant about finding the soul of your writing, and not just worshiping craft rules. Today, I hope to accomplish both.

keep_it_simple

How we write isn’t always about process and technique. Because we’re creating story. And story is a powerful mechanism for changing minds, and through them our world. Always has been. We write because something drives us to touch readers’ imaginations and hearts and emotions. Their souls. That’s a powerful motivation that should never be completely obscured by our how.

My point?

Every story has a beginning. No matter how beautifully you’re capable of stringing words together, your story begins and ends with your character and your reader’s experience of that character’s journey. Your story must resonate with the heart. It helps if you connect with a theme (even in comedy) that reaches deep inside for a universal truth that can’t be denied. Then, if your gift is writing and you can master the toolbox of techniques that we must learn to bring that vision to life, your reader’s world will most definitely be touched by whatever inspired you to reach them.

How do we write ?

We focus first on the story, for as long as it takes to discover what we most want to say. And only then do we sit down to write.

thunk

For me, I’m an angsty writer who wishes my gift was making folks laugh until they cry. My work is cathartic at more of the other end of the spectrum. Darker-themed, challenging emotional journeys come to me. Always have. Like this morning, when it only took the first five minutes of my news program for my entire day (my life) to shift as I listened to this. (more…)

How We Write: Crunchy

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Heads down in a three-quarters completed draft, I’m also coaching an author preparing for the same creative battle: making story and characters come alive by force of will and your imagination alone. My first comment to her–it’s going to get crunchy. Don’t expect a cake walk. In fact if it’s not an all-out battle, you’re not challenging yourself enough.

Angry woman

That’s right. We write uneven and clunky and, yes, crunchy stuff when we’re slogging through the draft. And for most of us, even those of us who’ve published novels into the double digits, it gets harder the more stories we challenge, not easier. That’s the way it works. The more you learn about story, the more you decide to do with it, the less intuitive it can sometimes be to create what appears to be an effortless journey to the reader.

Several things cause the anxiety and mind-numbing tangents we encounter when we draft: (more…)

How We Write: Free Writing (Drafting) with a Plan…

Friday, February 17th, 2012

In addition to editing/reading other author’s manuscripts this month, I’m in the throws of drafting a new book of my own. Eeek! Writing into the ether isn’t my happy place. So I free-write with a plan. Huh? you say. Yep, I plan my characters and as many plot turning points as possible before I start. How? I’m so glad you asked…

 planning

My half-day workshops focus on my theory that if you know what you intend to accomplish with a character and/or story arc BEFORE you write a scene, you’ve got a much better chance of actually producing a successful experience for the reader once you’re done. And if you know what you want the reader to feel and take away from an entire chapter or a whole section of your novel, before you begin stringing scenes together, you’ll be aware of that plan as you write and your subconscious and instincts will help you not write yourself or your characters into corners you can’t plot out of once you’re there.

Having a goal in mind doesn’t mean you’re forcing yourself to follow only one path to your story goal, (more…)

Dream Theories: Dr. C Wades in on Imagery!

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

Everyone, welcome “Dr. C” back to the Dream Theories club house! You’re gonna like her “real world” take on dream inages, to go along with my more metaphysical ramblings ;o)

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Dream Imagery: “Where did that come from?”

Dream imagery has both straightforward and random aspects to it. I know Anna has covered some of this in earlier posts from a layperson perspective, so I’m here to give you the skinny from a psychological professional who deals with it on a weekly basis. First, I’m going to review some major theories of dream imagery and interpretation using a case study familiar to us all:

Client Name: Ebenezer Scrooge
Age: 70-ish (adjusted for modern life expectancy, etc.)
Occupation: Banker and Curmudgeon
Presenting Problem: Very vivid nightmares, particularly around the holidays.

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.
“I don’t,” said Scrooge.
“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”
“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.
“Why do you doubt your senses?”
“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

- “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, 1843

scrooge

When clients tell me about their dreams, a common statement is, “I have no idea where that image came from!” (more…)

How We Write: Character Rules!

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Most every writer’s heard of scene and sequel. Jack Bickham’s Elements of Fiction Writing is some of the best instruction on novel structure out there. But he, and I today, aren’t merely talking about plot. The key is to apply structure principles to your characters every step of the way. Because, as Robert McKee tells us, plot IS character.

family guy

I’ve studied with both these masters. Bickham, in addition to devouring his books, I bought a workshop series from and wish I’d had the chance to hear him in person before his death. McKee, who isn’t dead but some who attended the three-day scriptwriting seminar attended most likely wished him so, was worth the money and travel expense ten times over, given what I walked away from his course better understanding about the real source of good writing.

It’s character.All the plot rules, setting rules, structure rules, symbol rules, and any other thing that someone’s tried to make you think is most important to story, is actually about CHARACTER. Because your story is about character. Each scene and its sequel, each element and act and conflict and motivation… It’s all about character.

mad scientist

Readers want the journey. (more…)

The Psychic Realm: Reverse Engineering the Brain

Monday, February 6th, 2012

More Dream Theories tomorrow from Dr. C, but Michio Kaku is obsessed with the application of “impossible” physics to every day life, and today in the Psychic Realm, so I am I. He has a lot to say about reverse engineering the brain to understand seemingly “out there” psychic phenomenon, the soul, consciousness and teasing apart neural pathways to one day model (artificially) how all the things we think and sense and feel and don’t fully comprehend work. I’m taking copious notes, every time I dive into one of his books, as I build a contemporary fantasy world around three new Legacy novels. And I’m sharing, ’cause I can’t seem to help myself.

consciousness

I want to dive deeper into this science with my new family who are discovering they have latent, powerful psychic gifts. What could be better than to have the government’s “Center” taking apart the brain, neuron by neuron, so that computers and other technologies can simulate how empaths and the like do what they do. Imagine my love of Kaku’s books, as they talk about how possible something like this really is!

NeuralPathways

Basically modern neuro science is developing the ability to understand how the brain works, exactly the way a motor works. Which isn’t to say they’re all the way there yet. (more…)