The Little Things Authors Do...

Author's are interesting people. They provide readers with an escape from our day to day lives, they give us a chance to see the world in a different light, and most of all they often do things that make us laugh or cry. For this last one I'm not only talking about the books they write, but the little things they add to it that I don't always see.

I recently received a book that had the most delightful note from it's author in the first few pages. This note made me start to think about the interesting and silly things author's do that I really enjoy seeing. Things like quirky acknowledgments, regular blog posts, a quick reply to a fan, and yes notes to their readers in their books. There are a good deal more of these things that I've noticed over the years and I always love seeing author's interact with their audience in creative ways.


Let me take a moment to say that I'm not discrediting traditional ways that author's interact with their audience, like speaking/signing events or even letters. I'm just pointing out other ways that I've noticed them reaching out.

My favorite thing I see authors do is when they go well out of their way to interact with their audience. For instance like when they set up times to answer questions online or when they take up space in their book to talk to the reader. I love hearing an author's thoughts on their book, seeing why they did something, and getting to look at a map or chart, but most of all I love hearing from them.

I've found author's to be as interesting as the books that they write. And so I love getting to see a little bit more of them than just their books. When an author is willing to put a silly bio at the back of their book, or they really try to stay in touch with their audience through their website or blog it tells me a lot about them. It makes me lean in closer and listen to what they have to say, and yes it also makes me even more eager to read whatever they are writing next.

All of this to say two things: the first is to say thank you to all the authors who write silly bios and have crazy blog posts. Thank you to all the authors who've thanked their readers in their acknowledgements and to all the authors brave enough to have question and answer sessions on their blogs. And thank you to all the authors who do so much more than I've even listed here. Secondly I wanted to point it out to readers and possible future authors. These are things to notice, and to do. These are interesting ways to connect with other readers.  And maybe, just maybe they are simply fun.

Keep your eyes open.

~Dawn

Block-B-Gone A Quick Guide to Overcoming Writer's Block

I’ve decided to tackle a problem that seems to plague every writer at some point or another. That’s right today I will be discussing the terror known as writer’s block.

I’ve battled on and off with writers block ever since I started writing. My first real experience with it was in middle school when after a writing club meeting I was assigned the task of writing a piece of short fiction dealing with advertising. I thought and thought on what I was going to do and came up empty each time. I was hit with the double whammy of blank page syndrome and writer’s block all at once and I couldn’t figure out where to go. 

Some of you may have experienced this awful feeling of wanting desperately to put something down on the page and not being able to. Others may be well into their work and have simply ground to a halt (or maybe come screaming to a stop) but almost any serious writer has come across it. Everyone says something different about writer’s block and curing it and I even came up with a miracle cure of my own back in middle school while wrestling with my short story. I finally hammered out the story of a sad author stuck deep in the mires of writer’s block who conveniently tunes into a commercial for a miracle drink known as Block-B-Gone the revolutionary cure for writers block.

If only curing writer’s block could be as easy as taking a swig of good old Block-B-Gone. 

Over the years as I’ve struggled with writer’s block I’ve come across a lot of different advice, some of it worked and some of it didn’t. I’m going to give you my top ten list of ‘Block-B-Gone’ cures that have helped me to get past some of my toughest bouts with writers block. I’ve used all of these at least once and some of them on a regular basis just to keep my writing on track. I hope at least one of them can help you. 

Block-B-Gone

Ten ways to get rid of Writer’s Block:

10: Just keep on writing past the block. It doesn’t matter what you are writing, just make sure you are writing. Even if you’ve moved away from your novel, poem, or whatever as long as you keep plowing forward eventually you’ll break through.

9: When writer’s block sets in step away from your desk, notebook, ect. and do something else for a while. 

8: Do a writing exercise or find some prompts. These can both help you get started or keep moving in your writing. There are a lot of them out there and they can be a great way to generate ideas. 

7: This goes with number 9, get some exercise. Getting your body moving helps to shake away all the mess and clear the way for great ideas, just make sure you’ve got a notebook on hand for when that idea finally does strike.

6: Set it aside for a few days and then come back to it and read it over again. 

5: Ideas will hit you at the most unexpected of times so keep a notebook ready for when they do. You never know what mundane event in your life will spark the breakthrough you’ve been waiting for in your novel.  

4: The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck.

3: Ignore your inner critic. We are often the hardest on ourselves and this can often halt our writing process if we are not careful. I have often talked myself out of writing something for fear of how it would look or turn out. 

2: Have fun. Albert Einstein once said “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” And I’ve found this to be true. I started writing because it was fun. I’ve always enjoyed telling stories or making them up with friends and we were always at our best when we were having fun. The two just go together. 

1: When you are stuck that is your subconscious trying to tell you that you have gone in a wrong direction. Step back and look at what you’ve written and don’t be afraid to rewrite whole sections of your work. I got this advice when I was seriously stuck on a chapter in my novel and I ended up having to rewrite over a chapter and a half because of it. However the rewrite changed the story back into a direction I liked and things are flowing very well now.

My personal favorite cures on this list are cures #1 and 2 (that’s probably the reason there at the top of my list…). They tend to go best together for me. As long as I’m having fun and the story is flowing in the right direction writer’s block seems to stay far away. It’s only when I let it become work or try to think too hard about the story that things get messy.

I understand writing is hard, but so is everything that is worthwhile in life. Don’t let the block get you down, try some of these ‘cures’ and if they don’t work and you still need help there are plenty more on the internet to try. My advice? Use what works for you. You know yourself and your writing best, so stick to the things that tend to work for you and you’ll do fine.

~Dawn

Prompted to Write

I usually don't like writing poems. I have nothing against poetry or even reading them. I even have quite a few that I really enjoy going back to every now and then but for the most part I'm not what you would call a poetry person. I'm telling you this because recently I submitted a poem to a competition that was written due to a prompt.

A few years ago I took a creative writing course at the college I was attending. During the course of this class we spent equal time writing both poetry and prose, something I was not happy about at the time. But I wanted to get as much out of the class as I could so I stuck it out churning out the proper lines and stanzas required for each poetry assignment. Eventually I was assigned to write a pantoum. For those of you who've never heard of this style of poetry it a Malaysian poetic form that was introduced to the West by Victor Hugo. The Pantoum can be unlimited in it's stanzas and follows a standard rhyme form of ABAB. Things get interesting when you begin to write the poem itself, everything is said twice. 

Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

Stanza 1:

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Stanza 2:

Line 5 (repeat of line 2 in stanza 1)
Line 6 (new line)
Line 7   (repeat of line 4 in stanza 1)
Line 8 (new line) 

Stanza 3/Last Stanza (This is the format for the last stanza no matter how many preceding stanzas exist):

Line 9   (line 2 of the previous stanza)
Line 10 (line 3 of the first stanza)
Line 11 (line 4 of the previous stanza)
Line 12 (line 1 of the first stanza) 

This assginment spurned me into creating the piece of poetry that I submitted to the contest I mentioned.  Without my Professor's prompt I would have never written the poem or had anything to submit to this particular competition. It's been 2 years since I've last submitted my work anywhere and whether I win or lose this competition I'm glad I had something I was confident in to submit. 

In the Teen Writing Club I Co-lead we use prompts monthly to get the teens to expand their writing. It is amazing to me how many different stories or poems can come from a simple prompt. I love seeing how each person has put their own unique spin on what they're given. And they enjoy it too, many have talked about how the prompts have pushed them as writers.

Some of my best, and worst, work has been due to prompts that I've been assigned or have found on my own. I've written things that I've never wanted to and things that I'd never dared try before. They've helped me expand my writing and given me breakthroughs in areas that I've wanted to try but haven't known where to start.

Prompts have power. They have the power to ignite imagination and cause people to do things that they would never have done before, with surprising results. So the next time you want to expand your writing borders try a prompt, it's easy to find them online with a simple Google (or Bing) search, you may end up getting your next winning piece or successful novel from it.

Here is a list of a few prompts I've used before:

• Write a Pantoum.
• Use these 7 items in a story: A bottle of Baily's Irish Cream, A locket with one picture missing, a crack, a fedora, a cat, a conch shell, and an old tattered dictionary.
• Write a story/poem based on a piece of instrumental music.
• Write a page from a book titled: How to Survive a Boring Class.
• Create a short story that is 26 sentences long, each sentence beginning with the next letter of the alphabet.
• Silvery flakes drifted down, glittering in the bright light of the harvest moon. The blackbird, screeched... 
• Write a story focusing on a Damsel in Distress. 

Feel free to try a few of the examples or tell me of your own experience in the comments.

~Dawn

First!

So here is my first post in Plots and Pickaxes! I've created this space as a place for me to share my ideas and thoughts with the world. I'm also hoping to write some book/movie reviews and talk about upcoming trends in both areas.

I am an aspiring author so I'm probably going to write often about my book and short stories. I may possibly post a few of them on here at some point as well. I am a co-leader of a writing club so there's a strong possibility of my talking about those things here as well. I'm also hoping to have some posts about writing itself. 

The rest of the blog will be spent talking about life, the universe, and everything (including the number 42). Seeing as I'm a self-labeled nerd I am sure to talk about (but not limited to): Anything Science fiction related, Fantasy, British television, video games, D&D, and crazy things I find online.

Well now that I've managed to send half of you away, and the other half to sleep you've gotten the idea that this blog is sure to be a hodgepodge of random, sometimes helpful-most of the time not- stuff.

~Dawn