Thursday Thirteen #2
Thirteen Things I love About Writing~1) When I’m able to translate a scene into words on my computer screen—exactly as I saw it in my head. In my fantasy, the heroine “Brings down the Moon” and channels its power on the entire Pack, causing them all to shape-shift. It feels so right; my skin prickles whenever I read it.
2) When I write an emotional scene that not only makes me cry, it makes my critique partner cry too. I like emotional scenes and I write tons of them. There are too many for me to pick one to describe here.
3) When a character that I have complete faith in is able to grow and change just like I knew she could. My first heroine, a dreamy, waiting-for-her-dream-man kind of good girl chose to walk away from the hero when she thought he’d cheated on her. My critique group’s reaction was first shock, and then applause, but I always knew she had it in her.
4) I love the feel of a pen in my hand and the weight of a beautiful journal in my lap. I’ve written many a first person character study longhand in a journal. It’s very easy to channel characters this way. Being in touch with my characters is what I live for.
5) There’s nothing like reading a book that reminds me in some small way of my own writing. It’s nice to think that someday I could be holding my own book in my hands. After all, a publisher liked this book enough to buy it, so why not mine?
6) It’s only happened a couple of times, but it’s really cool to see a character I’ve created in real life. One of my favorite characters is a werewolf healer named Alissandra—the nemesis of my heroine Roma. She’s beautiful and she has attitude. Imagine my stunned speechless self when I started my current job and was introduced to her! She worked in my department. We later became friends and I had to tell her so she wouldn’t wonder why I was constantly staring at her. It was like magic. I imagined her and…poof! There she was.
7) It’s really cool to get so sucked into writing that hours have passed and I was unaware of it. I sat down once at 8 AM and didn’t look up until 4PM. I’d never had breakfast or lunch, never changed out of my PJs or showered, didn’t do anything I’d needed to do that day but write. Tons and tons of golden pages.
8) There’s nothing better than hearing a scrap of conversation, seeing an object or reading a headline and boom! A story idea pops into my head. It’s like a gift from my muses because I was paying attention.
9) I love, love, love that my plots are all subconscious. That I never know what’s going to happen next and if I keep writing, I’ll find out. Three cheers for my muses! (AKA The Girls)
10) I love that writing is something I can do anywhere, any time. It costs me nothing and the satisfaction I get from it is immeasurable.
11) I love that writing makes me think—even if the thinking part (AKA the plotting) also causes me such pain. Nothing worth having comes easy. The more I learn about writing craft, the harder it gets. But everyone would be a writer if it was easy, wouldn’t they?
12) I’m not a humorous writer by any stretch of the imagination, and I have no desire to write a comedy, but I love it when I write a scene that makes people laugh out loud. It’s usually because I’m in the zone and the characters are saying exactly what they should be saying.
13) I love the writing community. I’ve met the nicest people since I started writing again 8+ years ago. (Many of them are listed on my links in the right margain.) From RWA to my local chapter, to the Cherries, to my friends in Yahoo E-groups, Blogger and LJ. There’s nothing like another writer to really “get” you, support you and cheer you. When I first started writing, I emailed a local author who invited me to sit with her at our local RWA chapter meeting--I still sit with her today! Last year a published author I didn’t even know offered to send me to a writer’s conference when I mentioned on a writer's loop that I couldn't afford to go. When I came up with the money later and told her I didn't need it, she told me to donate it to our Michele Fund auction for my friend's breast cancer medical bills. I’ve had people send me free books and I’ve made the best friends in my life all in writers (and readers) groups. Writing can be a solitary thing--you hear it all the time--but it certainly hasn’t that way for me.
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Labels: Thursday13, writing
posted by Cherry Red at 12:00 AM
13 Comments:
Those were good lists of qualities as a writer. I believe a good writer is one who can convey clearly to the reader the whole point of the story, make the reader feel like she is the person in the story.
My Thursday Thirteen is up too.
I agree with you. A good writer most defintely needs to be able to desrcibe her story in a way that makes sense as well as has a point. And don't we all love to get so into a stroy we get carried away? Yeah.
Thanks for stopping by. I enjoyed your TT as well.
Nodding up and down emphatically here. :)
And #6 would absolutely knock me on my rear-end in surprise!
And the pen and notebook thing, I LOVE pens. I wish I could write by hand, but my brain moves much more quickly than my hand, and by the time I finish the first sentence, I've forgotten the next two. Grr!
Happy Thursday, Kim!
That's a great list of attributes. I don't write fiction at all - I have no imagination - so some of them I don't really relate to, but I sure relate to the ability to write anywhere any time. I do!
Yay! Another Cherry playing the TT! :)
Unsurprisingly, I completely agree with you on #13. And the rest is making me itchy to pick up the new laptop and try writing again.
Yay, Kim! Fabulous list.h
I'm completely with you on this list, Kim. Even though not everyone may find a writer's writing to be amusing, entertaining, or worthwhile, someone does, and it's for that one person that I somehow manage to squeeze out a good piece every once in awhile.
Happy Thursday to you!
One of my favourite quotes on writers, from Denise Levertov: "One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language."
I am new to Thursday Thirteen. My post is up too.
I love writing too, a lot of people don't understand how you can just get "lost" writing for hours at a time, or be perfectly happy doing that and nothing else at times.
Nice TT - mine is up now as well!
I especially agree with #1. That's always a pleasure. :)
Wow!! I think somebody is really bless with her writing!!
you definitely have a passion! great list
Yup, you sound like me. We're cursed, let's face it.
Cursed to never be alone and always have a weapon in the war against insomnia -- we can lay awake and amuse ourselves by writing scenes.
Happy TT!
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