My Writing Process

Carla Stockton asked me to participate in this chain gang blog hop.

http://carlastockton.me/2014/06/23/my-writing-process-blog-tour/

1)What am I working on?

Novel in progress working title: Eco Terrorist

Natalie Clark retires from MI5 during the Great Drought. Seeking a life far away from her job as an Analytic Soothsayer she buys a  ranch in rural Wyoming. Two men will pull her back to her old life. One wants to poison the Ogallaha Aquifer (all the remaining water in the West and Midwest). The other desires to control it all. Can she stop them?

Currently the book is 188998 words. I’m revising. Preparations are underway to send to my editor. Revision for me is on a paper printed copy. I read each word aloud. My goal is to edit ten pages a day.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’m a member of International Thriller Writers. The underlying structure of my novels are “thriller”; however they are literary. I ghostwrote a few thrillers for someone else first.

I’m not following the typical format. My hero is heartbroken. There are two villains. Readers may relate to the bad guys. Both are fathers, both have built lives for their families. However the process in which they achieved their goals is dead wrong. The setting is the Midwest /West after climate change has left most with no resources for water. My work has been called “transgressional, dark, poetic, and gothic.” This story is written in four different voices. Each has their own version of the story within the tale. Mise en abyne in which the French would look for clues in each voice.

Thriller genre seems at odds with literary fiction and poetic structure. In this novel there are secrets, song bird calls and bits of tornadoes. Someone else may categorize the book as apocalyptic.

3) Why do I write what I do?

I have a million stories to share. I hope to make a reader think. I’m writing about this time from my spot on the planet. My poetry, short stories and novels aren’t easy reads but they are true.

I write or I must surrender to the ashes.

4) How does your writing process work?

To write a novel:

I start with drawings, photographs and my moleskin notepad. This year I used instagram as a journal to keep ideas flowing.

First I use a white board. It is four feet by six feet. The story is mapped on the board as a graph.

Next, I write every day. The Chapters are not numbered. They may be shuffled around like cards later. Sometimes I begin with the middle of the narrative. I have a full time job and am a single Mom besides writing.

I am disciplined. Every morning at 5:25 A. M. I’m working on our kitchen table. Weekday evenings I will put in two more hours. I set word count goals. Each day that I achieve the goal I reward myself by going for a hike or working in the garden for an hour.

Once the first draft is completed I print the novel. At this point I will write a short story or poetry to give the draft a rest for a couple weeks.

I am creative in my daily life. Come over for dinner. You will be entertained.

Revisions begin: this part is slow. When I wrote I often will put two or three words to express an idea in a sentence. I’m not doing spell check or grammar check. I read aloud. Muddling over the exact word choice, uncovering the tool that clearly expresses not just the meaning of the sentence but the sound and rhythm I find my way.

Second edit is to take all the handwritten notes on the hard copy and put them back into the computer.

Total process takes a year or more.

I purchased a couple writing programs (Final Draft, Story lit, White smoke, Story book) none make it easy. This is a long process. My editor uses one then I will finish with whatever he is using.

Word does some tricks with auto saving the wrong copy. In long form at this point you better be labeling each copy and dating it. Otherwise you may have to go back and rework. Ugh.

After editor makes his notes I will share with a couple beta readers.

I lost both mine. My mom had a stroke, then open heart surgery. She’s no longer up for the task, but I will give her a printed copy this summer to attempt the red pen. Any volunteers? Prizes, vacations and wine promised for certain.

Next up:

Judy Serrano graduated from Texas A and M University, Commerce with a BA in English. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and Dallas Area Romance Authors. She spends her days writing on her laptop and living in her imagination, when she can steal a private moment. She is the author of "Easter's Lilly," "Brother Number Three," "Relatively Close" and "Memoirs of a Mobster."

Judy currently resides in Texas with her husband, four boys and five dogs. She is also a singer/songwriter in her spare time.

Blog:  http://www.Judyserrano.com

Ewa Zwonarz is a Polish-American writer, author of the soon to be released paranormal young adult novel “Moonchild.” She is a recipient of several awards in journalism and film production, a published poet and an author of a blog. She graduated Valedictorian with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mass Communications and works as a Strategic Analyst for a Silicon Valley start up. When she is not working, Ewa is traveling the world collecting morsels of inspiration for her future projects.

Link :  www.dare2begin.com

DAVID B LENTZ

Was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, David B. Lentz graduated from Bates College and has published six novels: "For the Beauty of the Earth", "Bloomsday: The Bostoniad", "AmericA, Inc.: A Novel in Stream of Voice", "Bourbon Street", "The Day Trader" and "The Silver King." In addition, he has published two stage plays, "Bloomsday" and "AmericA, Inc.", as well as a volume of poetry, "Old Greenwich Odes." He introduced a new model of critical literary theory for reviewing novels in his "Novel Criticism." Selected excerpts from his collection of literary works among his novels, stage plays and poetry are available in "Essential Lentz." He is a member of the Center for Fiction in New York, the Royal Society of Literature in London, the Academy of American Poets, and the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He has served Bates College as an Alumnus-in-Admissions (18 years), Stamford-Greenwich Literacy Volunteers of America, Midnight Run for New York City Homeless, Healing the Children Northeast, Inc. (Board), St. Baldricks Foundation for Children's Cancer Research and as a Volunteer in St. Paul's Chapel at Ground Zero. Lentz has lived in the Garden District of New Orleans, Boston's Back Bay, Houston, Philadelphia's Main Line and Greenwich, Connecticut.

link to his blog: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/5884341-us-senator-chris-murphy-responds-to-being-and-homelessness-by-john-sib 

 

 

 

Caroline Gerardo

http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Assets-Bank-Caroline-Gerardo-ebook/dp/B004RCLZXI/ref=la_B004PHVP1C_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404078286&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Lucky-Boy-Caroline-Gerardo-ebook/dp/B0064FOCZO/ref=la_B004PHVP1C_1_2_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404078325&sr=1-2

My Daily journal here: http://instagram.com/carolinegerardo/

Proud Mom

Photo 8-28-2011 copyright Caroline Gerardo


Family Prayer


It is almost Fall
My favorite season
School starts in a week
We will fly down to California
Summer locked down in the prairie ends
I will miss the skys in Wyoming at daybreak,
Long rides on Shorty into the National Park across the river,
and I'll give Big Rainbow tomatoes (heirloom) fireworks in a basket to the neighbor.
I look forward with great anticpation to the days ahead, when my middle child attends High School.
The games we play, "what 'cha thinkin of?" when we reveal our true hearts as a team family together bind.
I anticipate with amazement Carson's soul growing as a strong oak tree sharing his spirit with earth.
I thank God for my blessings, for three children who I treasure more than I can speak.
Will the barn owl be here when we return before Halloween?
It will be fun to surf again at Monarch Beach,
and catch sunlight dancing in the foam.
My great fortune is wherever
I am with my children
and God is home.

Short Stories From Wyoming

The baby is finally sleeping in his own bed after travelling from California to Wyoming twice this summer. Because our cottage doesn’t have curtains yet on the south-east side the house floods with blue clear light early in the long days. I’m up writing before the dawn and feeling more productive and stronger in spirit. My novel is off for editing. I have completed fourteen short stories, one a day just like the vitamins. They vary from flash 1100 to 5000 words. I sent one on a lark to Steven James when I spotted his call to: a murder goes never goes as planned. Firing off the words straight stream of consciousness. Some of the stories are great pondering of ideas nagging to be put solid on paper, some are dark.

My neighbors on the north side (there is only meadow and mountain range to the west and south really no need for privacy), Adam and Sue are a dear couple in their seventies. He is a silent source of courage and example of how a good man walks to me and all of my children. The cancer is in his spine now, and myself being a cancer, well they never say survivor yet; but I do, I know his immense pain. Adam is using a walker to get around on their property but the time is approaching when they need to make some adjustments. In the past week I realize how being neighborly can be the difference between life and death.

Adam and Sue manage cattle on hectares of land. Their property is fenced with barbed wire and spiny pots, last summer Carson and I took the bale of wire, clippers and hatchets to repair some of the weaker spots. I am certain each of those points were stronger than any icy wind from the mountain.

Out in the garden pulling bugs off my tomatoes and sunflowers when one of the dogs tears off barking. The baby is hanging in this pouch on my chest as happy as a new born kangaroo, he smiles at the disturbance of yapping.

“Come back Peanut.” I look up and see Adam working his way across the meadow with an aluminum walker. With muddy hands and a sweating front I jog towards him.

“What are you doing out?”

“Some of the livestock is missing.”

“How many Adam?”

“Don’t know, but my grand champion European Cross and all the Angus disappeared.”

“And you don’t have money to hire cowboys to fetch them.”

“Right.”

“Can Sue watch the baby? My two eldest didn’t come with me this week, Carson is in Santa Cruz and Blair has summer college classes.”

“We were hoping you might say that. She was saddling Shorty to go out herself if you didn’t volunteer.”

“Can I help you back?”

“No,” he says gently, and smiles, “you are something..”

In the barn, she fumbles with the red Indian pad to prepare Shorty, named so because he is a giant seventeen hands tall. I turn a bucket upside down in the hay and arch my feet. I tighten him down.
I don’t hear Adam returning, and I did not want to embarrass him with my hovering.

“Go check on Adam heading back Sue.”

“He was stubborn, he didn’t let me go ask you.”

“I have expressed breast milk in the refrigerator, I think three or four. He needs a nap in an hour then at three feed him one. I don't know how long this will take.”

“Come here Maclund Reid,” she lifts his grunting face from my chest contraption that he loves. He knows her but he fusses. She bounces him as if on the ocean in the rhythm that he enjoys and he is calmed.

Adam is at the barn gate,  "you’re an angel.”

“No only wish God smiled on me that way.”

“Pack my Colt and some snacks.” He points to the holster, “Watch for black bears.”

“I’m more concerned about thieves.”


***
Story to be continued