lori sizemore

Are you a Twilight enthusiast? A Bella-Wannabe? Mooning endlessly over Bella’s identification withWuthering Heights and thinking the only thing as great as being the author of Edward would be being the author of Heathcliff?

Just so you know: the author of Heathcliff was dissed by her publisher, left unpublished until he could ride the coattails of her sister Charlotte, then published in a terrible edition with sloppy typesetting and cheap paper, and ignored by the reading public, who found Heathcliff—beyond reprehensible—downright disgusting. Emily Bronte was a bonafide literary genius whose greatest work, a saga in verse, was altered after her death against her passionately-clear wishes by busybody Charlotte and re-published in its mutilated form, although half the poems had vanished by then and have never been recovered. Emily Bronte died young, unloved, unhappy, unfulfilled. Undiscovered.

And the author of Edward can’t write for beans. She stumbled on a misogynist aspect of our culture she could exploit in impressionable kids, along with a really good marketer. That really good marketer is now busy with Twilight, and you are in their backwash.

via A. Victoria Mixon, Editor » Blog Archive » 6 Personality Types Who Will Fail as Writers.

This article is great, Ms. Mixon is better.  People who speak their minds and can back it up with facts–priceless.

Title: Show Up Naked: Writing the Male

POVInstructors: Chris Redding

Date: August 2 – 27, 2010

Classroom: Mile High

DESCRIPTION: This class is a fun, but informative trip through a man’s mind. Scary thought, I know, but when you finish this course you will know more about that man in your life and, more importantly, you’ll write believable male characters.The lessons will include:

• Male Emotions, yes they have them

• Stages men go through

• Bad boys, why we love them and how they got to be that way.

• Insight into why men can be so sweet one minute, and then the next say the most boneheaded things.

BIO: Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, one dog and three rabbits. When she is not writing she works part time in the Emergency Medical Services Department of her local hospital. Her latest, release, Incendiary, will be out this Spring.

via Colorado Romance Writers Inc. – the Denver Affiliate of Romance Writers of America®.

I deeply wanted to take this class, but time constraints prevent me from doing so right now.  If any of you have the opportunity, I highly recommend it.

I’ve had some distracting circumstances recently that forced me to pretty much put aside writing for a while until I could own my time again.  My time still isn’t completely free and clear, but there is a little more of it.

The problem, though, is how do you pick up that piece you once had so much passion for?  What magic formula brings it alive again?

I have two works in progress; one is still very much alive, but the other I laid aside because it just..wasn’t…working.  That’s the one I want to discuss today.

My first approach is to try something new.  I mean really new, something–a pov, a timeline, a plotting versus pantsing technique–that you’ve never tried before.  This novel is very much connected to events in the past.  So much so, that’s where a good portion of the story should be.  So I’m breaking my own backstory rule and trying to weave it in.  I’m going to have two simultaneous timelines happening to explain what’s happening in one by using one.  Will it work?  Don’t know yet.  But, right now, this story is so much dead weight in the water.

Second, I’m going to bask in the process.  I’m a note taker, a big one.  I write everything down, even conversations with myself and my characters about the story.  I plan on steeping my mind in this information until that spark of passion ignites again.

Finally, and I’m pretty sure this is how any story truly gets written, I’m going to just do it already.  Hold my nose, close my eyes, and jump in. I’m strongly believe, a story is written not through love of writing but commitment.  Push through the wall, head down, hands on the keyboard, and just write.

The goal is not a number of words or hours spent writing. All you need to do is to keep your heart and mind open to the work.

WALTER MOSLEY