Sharing Challenges & Success Stories of Will-Be Authors

The Writing Process – Learning

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I’ve recently “completed” my first Character Questionnaire. This is an important step in my growth as a writer for several reasons. I’ve numbered the reasons below to quantify the accomplishments this one exercise has brought me.

 

  1. I completed something, that’s an accomplishment.
  2. I was creating a new Protagonist and I was able to peer into his mind just a bit.
  3. I began to connect with this new Protagonist so much that I felt like I was truly him, from time to time, when answering the questions.
  4. I’d not experienced that level of immersion before.
  5. While answering those 75 questions, I learned the story of this character, where he’s been and were he is now and that’s a huge part of the story I’m going to tell.
  6. It’s work already done, almost like the outline built itself.
  7. Because I began to understand the character, learning tidbits from his past and present, that’s made it so much easier to project his future with a level of complexity, honesty and earnestness I’ve not achieved before.
  8. It’s made it easier to imagine a more practical and reasoned series of obstacles for him to overcome.
  9. It’s allowed me to flesh out the world he lives in by connecting his earlier experiences and current experiences to an entire world. That has spur fresh ideas and takes on the world I wasn’t sure of, that now I am significantly more confident that I can create with a thoroughness I’ve not achieved before.
  10. It’s given me confidence that I can moved forward as a writer and storyteller.
  11. It’s proven to me that I can imagine, create and disseminate thoughtful and emotionally impactful scenes.
  12. It’s relieved me of one of my biggest fears.

New Process, New Manuscript, New Beginnings

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I started a new manuscript, or at least I’m preparing for the new manuscript. On Monday I started building a new character, the protagonist, I completed the 75 question, questionnaire about him yesterday. I’m very excited because it’s the first time I’ve started a story this way and it’s a resounding success. I feel I know whom this person is in so many ways I’ve not known characters I’ve previously created. In fleshing out his identity, I’ve already created hints of other characters and I pretty much know the story I want to tell now. And that story isn’t at all the story I’d even considered telling before I started the character questionnaire. I’m  off from writing for much of the day to today, but I can’t wait to return to write and build my next character in this new story.  I’ll recommend for those who haven’t started this way, give it a shot. I used the questionnaire in the book, “The Fantasy Fiction Formula” by Deborah Chester. Have a great creative day.

Go out and create something you love.

Paleo or Bust? My Weight-loss Journey!

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Part of being a writer is being a human person, rounded out with flaws like my characters and in need of change. Some flaws are universal and everyone agrees they are flaws, others’ not so much. I’m overweight. Very overweight. This might not be a flaw to some people, and I accept that, but for me it’s a personal flaw. I was a thin child, then I gained weight in my teens. That weight was an emotional response to some family and personal drama I went through. I locked myself away from friends and stayed inside ninety nine percent of the time. When I was 20, I was about 60 lbs overweight and I chose to loose it. Six months later that excess weight was gone. I was thin again and I stayed that way for twelve years. When I was 32, I stopped smoking. Like so many people I replaced nicotine with carbohydrates. Within 3 months I’d put on over 80 lbs.

It’s been 19 years since I gained that 80 lbs. I’m not now, nor have I ever been, contented with being over-weight, but I have allowed myself to accept the situation in spite of numerous attempts to lose weight. I’m not comfortable heavy, yet the difficulty in escaping the mental and emotional pull of carbohydrates has led me, on more than one occasion, to falter. Trying to lose weight has only led me to gain back any weight I lost. Most of the time I added significant poundage onto my previously total.Continue Reading

June 19, 2017

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I’m starting a new job next Monday. I’m going to work for myself as a ride-share driver.

It occurred to me that being away from home, spending each day in my car alone for the most part and on my own schedule, might help me get away from the distractions that interfere with focusing and being disciplined.

Another aspect I mention in the podcast is the exposure to so many different kinds of people and the ability to immediately document and memorialize each person’s characteristics. Unlike a normal job, I’ll be in my car and then suddenly alone in my car with my laptop or phone to record or type what I saw or experienced with my fairs. It’s such a great opportunity to learn more about different people.

I posted a new Podcast today. It was a few hours late, but I got it done and feel really good about that. I feel like doing another one right away and getting it done, but I need to read and get some writing done.

Thursday is my wife’s and my twenty second wedding anniversary and our twenty sixth year together. We married on the forth anniversary of the day we met. I’m lucky and grateful to have a partner in life that can tell me that she is on my side.

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