Z is for Zest

 

No, not that kind of zest. I’m talking about the other types of zest.

 

Definition of zest

*An enjoyably exciting quality

*Keen enjoyment

Source: Merrian-Webster Dictionary

 

Over the past month, I’ve had lots of fun sharing with you Everything that I Love about Writing. I’ve covered a myriad of topics, some I never anticipated and others that turned out totally different than I set out to write. I got to read some phenomenal blogs and make some new blogging friends. But we have reached the end of the A to Z Challenge. So where do I go from here?

Well, right now I’m busy trying to make sure that everything is ready for my May 15^th release of the next book in my series: In Search of Healing. It’s the second book in a six part series and I’m excited about its upcoming release. For my blog, I still plan on my Feature Fridays, plus I hope to start a serial story sometime in May.

But most of all, I plan to continue writing with zest. For many years, I hid my writing away as unimportant and not good enough. But my writing brings me joy and I hope that I’ve been able to share a small measure of that joy with you over the past month. So thank you for supporting my A to Z journey and I encourage you to live every day with zest and joy.

Here’s to a great 2018!

X is for Xanadu

Xanadu definition

An idyllic, exotic, or luxurious place

Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary

As shown above, Xanadu was originally mentioned in the poem “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Coleridge. You can find the whole poem here: Kubla Khan I really advise going and reading it, the mental imagery is gorgeous

Now can you imagine coming up with a word like Xanadu? Here is a great link about how words are formed: Word Formation The correct term for what Coleridge did was that he coined Xanadu.

Now my family has a few words that we’ve made up, mainly remnants from when we were kids. I’ve never included them in with my writing though as you need to understand the story behind to really get them.

So what is a word that you or your family has coined? I’m looking forward to seeing the answers 😊

W is for Worldbuilding

In case you can’t tell from some of my other posts, world building is one of my favorite aspects of writing. It’s time for me to confess another flaw of mine. When it comes to writing, I hate researching. Let me explain a little bit. I absolutely love researching, I have an endless curiosity and always like to look up random things. For example, did you know that there is a dark soy sauce and a light soy sauce? I know, that totally blew my mind. So why did I say that I hate researching? Well, it’s more the history that I dislike researching. I love history, after all, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. However, my characters are too mule headed to play with real history. They don’t like the restrictions that come with real history. And I struggle with writing alternate history. Some people do an amazing job of it, but my imagination just doesn’t work that way. When I try to do that, my stories end up, odd, to say the least.

 

 

So I make a world where I can create histories that work for my characters. Where I am in charge of all the elements and anything can happen. That doesn’t mean that my worlds don’t have rules, it just means that I have more leeway with what is going on. For example, in most of my stories I tend to not have in a modern age with modern weaponry. I prefer having my characters having to get up close to handle problems, not just snipe them from a mile away. I guess you could say that most of them are set in almost a King Arthur time frame, the times of knights and chivalry.

I did take a side step in creating my world for The Seeker Files though. It is set in modern times, in a city that is a lot like NYC in my imagination, although a bit smaller. The characters have guns, cell phones, all the modern conveniences. But there is a difference between this world and the real world. In the world that the Seeker Files is set in, Humans and Supernaturals live side by side. This creates a whole different dynamic than that of the real world. Because there is magic, I have been able to include traditional weapons like swords and bows in addition to modern weapons like guns and tasers. Magic can also be used offensively and defensively, although it has many, many uses besides that.

So how deep do I go in my worldbuilding? It really depends. I tend to leave commonsense things alone, everyone still eats, drinks, sleeps, etc. Gravity that we consider normal is still part of it and there is day and night, the sky is blue and water is wet. 24 hours days, 7 days a week, 12 months, 365 days in a year. Most of the things that we don’t even consciously think about, I leave alone. My biggest thing is creating new history and events. Also, spending time playing in the world. When I’m writing and I come across something that I hadn’t anticipated, I take a stroll. I throw on some music, close my eyes, and simply stroll through the world in my imagination, looking for the answers to my question. It is usually pretty straightforward and I get the answer quickly, but sometimes I have to dig through the layers to find it.

For example, I recently had to figure out how to share magic between my characters. Well, magic doesn’t really exist in our world, so I can’t really use that as a reference. While some people can make magical objects, most of the magic in my world is intangible outside of the user. How then can I get it from character A to character B. After playing around with several different ideas, it suddenly came to me. It’s like giving a blood transfusion. Different blood types or in this case magic types can only receive or donate magic to certain other magic types. It’s an idea that people can understand and one that allows me to have a measure of control over magical exchanges. These are the sort of challenges and puzzles that I live for.

 

 

So how do you world build?

V is for Villains

My theme for this A to Z Challenge is Everything I Love about Writing. Well, here’s a little secret for you, I don’t really like villains. I write and read to get away from the real world and all of its sorrow. There are even movies that I refuse to watch because they end sadly, Steel Magnolias and Love is a Many Splendored Thing to name just a couple. However, without a villain, something for good to strive against, many books and movies would not exist. After all, can you imagine Lord of the Rings without Sauron? Makes the whole series kinda moot, doesn’t it?

In the series I’m currently writing, The Seeker Files, it is a fantasy/mystery series. Most mysteries need a bad guy, not all, but most. A little bit of a sneak peak, but there will be a villain through the entire six books series. So, in my mind, what do I think about when writing about villains?

 

Here are the top 3 things:

 

1. No villain is one hundred percent evil

Even though it would be easier if the villain was just pure evil, that is not the case. No one is ever entirely good or entirely bad. Both of these things will cause people to put aside a book or turn off a movie because they can’t relate. After all, how can one relate to pure light or pure darkness? Our world is filled with different degrees of grayness, that is what makes us human. Villains are still human to some degree, so to make them pure evil is doing your story a disservice.

 

2. Every villain has a backstory

 

Villains don’t just appear out of nowhere. They have parents and childhoods. They might have had pets and friends. They have foods that they prefer to eat and clothes that they like to wear. They have all the quirks that every person living has. Some people are born sociopaths, that is true, but they can still feel emotion even if it’s just a burning desire to take things for themselves. Their backstory might even contain what made them turn into villains. Maybe they had abusive parents or a drug habit. Maybe they are adrenaline junkies that need to keep getting more extreme to feel that rush. Who knows? But next time you’re reading, take a moment to think about what might’ve caused them to be the villains that they are.

 

3. Villains are the heroes of their own stories

A villain is not a villain to themselves. They may know that they are opposed to the ‘good guys’, but they do not believe that they are in the wrong. For example, think of Ursula in A Little Mermaid. She believes that she is helping the merfolk even as she is taking advantage of them. The villain might have even started out as a good guy, only to get twisted over to evil as he does his journey. Anakin from Star Wars is a prime example of that. His worry for Padme, a noble thing, got so twisted around that he ended up becoming Darth Vader.

 

 

I know that there have probably been several posts about villains during this A to Z Challenge, but here is my take on them. Let me know what you think 😊

U is for Unexpected

Writing for me is not a thoroughly planned journey. It is often just a rough sketch and I usually end up coloring outside of the lines. For me, creativity happens spontaneously. If I try to plan out every little nuance before I begin to write, I find I have no desire to actually write the story. It takes all the joy out of it for me. So although I may have a general outline, I tend to just let my storyline flow and see what happens.

However, that does not mean that I am never surprised by what happens. This weekend I was working on my novel. The scene was going well, we were working on setting up a game plan for their undercover operation. Then, right in the middle of this, one of my characters decides to have a deep, introspective moment. I’m like, ‘Where is this even coming from and you choose now to have this conversation? We are right in the middle of a battle plan, not a why did you trust me conversation.’ Still, my character was unwilling to progress any farther until this matter was dealt with, so we rolled with it. It may or may not become important later in the plot, I have no idea as I never planned for this conversation.

This is part of why I love writing, the joy of discovering surprising backstories and hidden depths to characters. The twists and turns in plots that I could never anticipate. Sometimes it irritates me and I rant for a while or even walk away from the story for a time. But in the end, the curiosity about what happens next always draws me back.

So what is something unexpected that happened in your life recently?

 

T is for Traits

As a writer, this is a big question every time I sit down to write. What do I want my characters to embody? Is it something that I resonate with or is it something against everything I believe in. People are not two-dimensional beings and I don’t believe that characters should be either. People are extraordinarily complex and rarely have a single clear cut reason for doing anything.

For example, someone who volunteers at a food pantry may have a myriad of reasons that they do so. Their parents may have done so, so they do it out a sense of familiarity and tradition. On the other hand, maybe they grew up poor and were often hungry, so they want to give back so others don’t feel that pain. Maybe their love language is feeding others, so it’s a way to share their warmth with the world. Or it could be something else. They were caught shoplifting and ordered by the court to do community service. Maybe they’re looking for someone to do a criminal act for them and think that they can find that person amongst the homeless and people down on their luck. Could be that they are just doing it for appearance’s sake, so they can look like good citizens. The possibilities are endless.

So what are some traits that I look for and prize in my characters?

Loyalty

I can deal with a lot of less than ideal traits in my characters, after all, they would be no fun if they were perfect. However, if they are disloyal, they are the villain. Someone who turns their back on their friends and family is not someone that I want to associate with at all.

Compassion

They don’t have to be a bleeding heart that tries to fix others woes but they have to have a sense of humanity. They have to be willing to extend a helping hand to those around them and to accept help that it offered to them occasionally. They have to see the problems around them and not just look away but try to help out somehow.

Humor

They have to have a sense of humor. It can be subtle, witty, dry, odd, any type you can think of. But if someone is serious and straight laced all the time, they quickly become boring and two-dimensional in my mind. I soon lose all interest in them and they fade away in my stories.

 

What sort of traits do you look for in characters?

 

S is for Surroundings

Now earlier in this challenge on Day O, I talked about observation. So how are observation and surroundings different? For me, when I’m talking about observation, I’m talking about observing people and animals. When I’m talking about surroundings, I’m talking about my physical surroundings. These are the things that make up the world around me, the little nuances that are easily missed in the bustle of everyday life.

For example, are you in an urban area or rural area? What is the defining characteristic of the area around you? Is it tall buildings of steel and glass that reach up until you can only see bits of blue sky? Or are you surrounded on all sides by nature, rolling fields, a few trees that are a nice mixture of pines and cottonwoods, the only sounds bird song and wind whispering through the leaves? Maybe you’re in a combination of both, a quiet park situated in the middle of a bustling city.

 

 

Now, take a moment and look closer your surroundings. If you are in an urban area, is the area well-kept, neatly maintained? Or is there trash littering the sidewalks, graffiti on the walls, houses and fences are starting to look broken down and worn? Or if you are in a rural area, is it heavily forested or mainly field land? Let’s look even closer. Is the graffiti layered with new and old? Does if have pictures or is it mainly words? Is it monochromatic or is it a dazzling burst of colors? If it’s a rural area, is it lush and fertile or is it dry and desolate? Are there a bunch of animals or eerily empty of all life?

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a new area to you. It could be someplace familiar. Take a moment to study a room, any room, in your house. I would recommend someplace where the family gathers, like the kitchen. A room like that is the heart of the house and you can get the real feeling of the occupants from a room like that. So let’s try the kitchen. What does the décor look like, sleek and modern or classic and homey? Are the colors dark or light, making it feel more closed in or more open? What sort of food or dishes are in the kitchen? All of these are personal choices and it will help build your story.

So take a look around a familiar room like you are seeing it for the first time. What does the room tell you about the occupants of the house? Try it and share what you discover 😊

Be Curious, like these Cheetah Cubs

M is for Money

Due to tiredness, I made a mistake on yesterday’s post, L is for Language. Today is the halfway point, not yesterday. My apologies for the mix-up but congratulations again for everyone that has hung in there. Also, thank you to everyone who has stopped by and read my blog. Without you guys, there wouldn’t be a reason for a blog. Now, onward to the post!

 

 

Money is such an ingrained part of our daily lives that we rarely consciously notice it. It is there, after all, we work to pay our bills, we shop for things we need, we save up to go on vacation. In fact, on any given day we probably use and think of money at least twice if not more. We know our currency down to its smallest value. For Americans, it’s the penny. We often have a jar filled with it sitting around our houses somewhere.

 

So how does money translate into writing? We have to consciously bring it to the forefront of our minds as we write. Is our character poor or rich? Do they budget everything or are they a free spirit that struggles paycheck to paycheck? When they travel, are they familiar with the local currency or do they struggle to pay and make change. Because of this, are they easy prey for con men and tricksters? What if they are robbed in a foreign country? What are their options?

 

 

As a fantasy writer, I often do world building for my stories. Part of that includes currency. This includes types of currency, is it made from precious metals, cheap metals, wood, paper? Value of currency, is it based on a very regulated system like each coin increases value by 10 or is it a more random system where each item is valued independently of each other? This is always a very fun part of writing for me.

 

Finally, there is one more type of currency: Barter

:to trade by exchanging one commodity for another

: to trade goods or services in exchange for other goods or services

• farmers bartering for supplies with their crops
• bartered with the store’s owner

Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 

Your character has a specific skill set, how can they barter it to obtain what they need? How do you set values for such diverse things? This is always a challenge to decide, but it allows you a lot of flexibility in your storyline.

 

We have now reached the end of the second week of the A to Z Challenge. Only two more to go! So tell me about a time when you bartered for something. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

G is for Grammar

Today is the last day of week one of the A to Z blogging challenge and I honestly can’t say if I’m relieved or not. This has been a tough week, as I am not used to blogging every day, but it has been really fulfilling as well. I’ve gotten to read some incredible posts, meet some inspiring bloggers, and put myself out there for the world to see (that was the absolutely most terrifying aspect of the whole thing).

For the last post of the week, I decided to change things up. My theme is Everything I Love about Writing. However, no matter how much you love something, life is not perfect. There will always be aspects that drive you nuts, ones that make you lose your mind. For me and writing, it is grammar.

 

 

Here’s the ugly truth. I hate grammar and it’s a mutual thing, grammar hates me right back. During school, having to slog through grammar could reduce me to tears. I loved to write as a child, but until I was about ten or so, it was really hard to read any of my stories because they were basically one long run-on sentence.

Of a necessity, I learned grammar. But I hated it, hated having to curtail my imagination and stories because of grammar. I was like a bird in a cage, futilely battering myself against the bars. There were many tears, meltdowns, and loud arguments with my mother (who was also my teacher and a bit of a grammar cop) about grammar and its place in the world. Still, with much angst and fighting, I slowly mastered grammar and my writing improved.

 

 

Today, things have improved. I acknowledge grammar (and editing) as a necessary part of writing. After all, if you love something you have to accept all parts of it. Grammar and I have a neutral relationship, the anger and angst are gone but we will never be best friends. When I write, I ignore the grammar check (I often turn it off entirely). Then, when time for editing rolls around, I sigh and groan a little bit, but I ultimately use grammar to check it over and make my novel a better one.

Still, I maintain that learning grammar for the English language is a job and half. Because America is a melting pot, we have snippets from languages all over the world. I’m glad that I’m a native speaker, because I wouldn’t have mastered it otherwise. I’m including a poem below that shows how crazy it can be at times.

 

So what do you hate, or love, about grammar?

 

http://www.icaltefl.com/dearest-creature-in-creation  (I dare you to try and read it out loud all the way to the end)

E is for Escape

 

Come, (holds out hand), escape with me for a little while. Let me take you away from the real world and invite you into my world for a bit while we explore exactly what I believe escapes are. First off, books offer me an escape into a different world. They allow me to run off and have all sorts of adventures with a myriad of different companions. I was exiled to the attic with Sara from “A little Princess”, I spent summers with Andrew Lang’s color fairy series, my imagination running free. I sleuthed with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and cheered on Chester in his attempts to protect his family from ‘Bunnicula’. I traveled with Frodo and the Fellowship to Mordor to get rid of the ring. It is a wonderful thing to be able to open a book and step into another world. However, there are other types of escapes that I’ll mention briefly.

 

One: Emotional escape.

 

I like to make characters that I believe I could meet on the street. As such, they come with all the flaws that real humans do. Sometimes, my characters will avoid situations that are emotionally fraught. They will run and hide until I make them face it and/or resolve it. Other times, characters have finally walked away from emotionally toxic situations and begin to do emotional healing. They break free from their chains and move on to live the lives they were always intended to live.

 

Two: Physical escape

 

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the character is imprisoned. It can mean many different things. The character can move in order to have a better job and a better life. They can walk away from an abusive person or situation. And yes, in some cases, it means escaping from being imprisoned. That, however, takes a lot of planning. When you are writing and your character is imprisoned, think long and hard before taking this route. Because if your storyline is going to be continued, your character must either of a necessity escape or be rescued, or another character must shift into the main character’s place. Also, there are the logistics to be figured out. Are they in a highly secured or a loosely secured area? Are the guards lazy or highly alert? What about the doors and windows? Can the be opened or picked or is there a special key that only opens that one door and is held on to by a highly skilled individual? Does the character have allies where they are held or are they completely alone? Will their compatriots rescue them or are they expected to sacrifice themselves for the good of the cause? These are all things that an author will have to contemplate if their main character gets captured. These are the sort of challenges that I love as an author. It is a like piecing together an intricate puzzle and the reward is a satisfying plot line.

 

So what are some books that you like to escape into?