Sharing the Writing Life — Typing One-Handed

Men in Uniform: A Tribute … Electronic Release Just in Time for Veteran’s Day!

November 11, 2011 By Patricia Marie Warren 1 Comment

Lightning Always Strikes Twice by Patricia Marie Warren

Wyatt Richmond has been appearing in her life just when she needs rescuing. Now it is U.S. Marine Captain Audrey Justice’s turn to be the rescuer. It’s a matter of life or death and Audrey must use all her skills as a JAG officer and a woman to save her combat Marine from a court martial and himself.

Digital Release, November 11, 2011 … Print Release, November 21, 2011

I can’t describe the excitement I had, from a writer’s perspective, when an editor for Turquoise Morning Press extended an invitation for me to submit a story for the “in-house only” anthology, Men in Uniform: A Tribute. It is an honor for me to be included with these writers who work hard at perfecting the craft and weaving the art of writing romance.

From a personal perspective, this book is near and dear to my heart. I am the daughter of a retired United States Marine, SgtMaj Wayne A. Shelden, who served for 30 years. I am the wife of a retired United States Airman, SMSgt Steven T. Warren, who served for 22 years. And I am the mother of an active duty United States Marine, LCpl Steven R. Warren, currently serving and deployed in the big, ugly place. I am aunt and sister-in-law to more brave men who serve and have served.

My story is dedicated to these amazing members of my family and all those who serve – you are my heroes!

Audrey and Wyatt’s story is based on a true incident that happened during the Vietnam War to my father. There are circumstances that require our fighting forces to do things they could never imagine themselves doing during normal life. But there is nothing normal about war. I won’t spoil the story, but please be assured that I do not take lightly the seriousness of war or the effects it has on our fighting men and women both during and after they serve in war zones.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affects more than just the warrior. Families can be torn apart. Our responsibility to our military reaches much farther than wearing red on Fridays. We must reach out and be a comfort to those who serve overseas and here at home. Please read here for more information.

I do wear red every Friday to show support for my son and all U.S. military serving worldwide. I take every opportunity to tell people why I wear red. Talking about our troops is the very minimum I can do. Praying is the most important.

More from the authors of Men in Uniform: A Tribute ….

Jennifer Johnson http://jennfrancesca.blogspot.com/

Margaret Ethridge http://www.margaretethridge.com/?page_id=54

Jennifer Anderson http://musingsfromthepeanutgallery.blogspot.com/

Filed Under: Blog, Men in Uniform: A Tribute, PUBLISHED, Sharing the Writing Life, Today's Featured Story, Turquoise Morning Press

Book Release, NaNoWriMo, Home Improvements, and a Happy Holidays to You!

November 3, 2011 By Patricia Marie Warren Leave a Comment

Could November get any busier?

First News: National Novel Writing Month started Tuesday, November 1. I am squeezing in a word or two every chance I get. This year I am determined to “Get ‘er Done!” More on this in a minute.

Second News: My first published story was released on Amazon.com on Wednesday, November 2. I was so excited yesterday I could hardly sit still. I kept a browser open to the book’s Amazon page all through work and then at home. What an amazing feeling to see my name included on the cover! I am doubly excited about the release of Currents: A Collection of River Stories because all the proceeds are going to the Greenup County (Kentucky) Health Department to pay for ovarian cancer screenings. Clicking the cover will take you to the book’s publisher page, Turquoise Morning Press at CreateSpace, where you can be assured every bit of the proceeds from your purchase will go to ovarian cancer screenings.

I will have copies in hand around November 16. All proceeds from these will also go to ovarian cancer screening.

If you are interested in seeing how cool the book’s Amazon page is, click here.

Third News: This will shock my family members I am sure. The bathroom update is finished, the dining room is nearing completion, and the sunroom will be close to finished by Thanksgiving… and yes, we will be hosting a family Thanksgiving dinner in the newly remodeled spaces. This year’s feast will be 100% gluten-free and will have special vegan dishes for those who want them–menu and recipes will be in a later post. If I wander from the activity, I’ll be hiding away furiously trying to make my daily word count goal. Y’all will understand, won’t you?

Now back to NaNoWriMo: With the grand endeavor starting during the work week, I am already behind on my word count. At the current rate I will be finished by December 28. But hallelujah! The weekend is coming. My novel will get a big boost Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. For those few who got a sneak peek at my Currents short story and wanted the rest of the story, The Devil is in The Details is the novel I am writing for NaNoWriMo. How interesting it is getting to know Detective Jillian MacKenzie better as she works to solve the mystery of women who are dying for love. How frightening it is taking a look into the mind of a serial killer.

I DO LOVE WRITING!

Filed Under: Blog, NaNoWriMo, PUBLISHED, Sharing the Writing Life, Today's Featured Story Tagged With: anthology, Book Release, Currents: A Collection of River Stories, gluten-free, mystery, NaNoWriMo, publishing, remodeling, suspense, Thanksgiving, Turquoise Morning Press, Typing One-Handed, vegan

Writing in My Happy Place

March 2, 2011 By Patricia Marie Warren 2 Comments

I can’t wait for spring when the morning chill will burn off as soon as the sun pops over the hill across the street. I count the minutes down each week, noting each minute earlier I can see the sun peek at me over the top. In January my desk, which faces my front room window, didn’t have sunlight until around 9:40 a.m. Today, it was bright by 8:45 a.m.

I am much more inspired to write when the sun is bright and the air is warm. If I have a lovely view to refresh my brain when I’ve been writing diligently all morning, so much the better. Maybe because I was born in the deep South, I am more attuned to the sun’s energizing beams. My blood has never completely warmed to this mid-Atlantic region I live in, all boxed in by hills and mountains, even if it is wonderful for growing gardens. I know, though, that I have a special affinity to water. I was born on the Gulf of Mexico and lived most of my life near an ocean or sea. I have only lived in land-locked areas a few times, including the last eight years.

Yet I still been gifted with water here…

Our land backs up to a wide creek. It is so-designated because it is one mile too short to be called a river. In the middle of a dry summer, some spots in the creek are no deeper than my shins, at least the spots behind our place. With the rains of the past week, the creek has risen and swallowed the base of many trees on our lowest level. That level is very sandy and unsuitable to walk on except during the dry season. But the level above that, which is the level below where our house sits, has a lovely view of the creek. It is also bathed in sunlight from mid-morning until very late in the afternoon, when the hill on the other side of the creek blocks the sun.

This morning while enjoying a little walk along the middle level, I decided to move my small bistro table down there. Usually I write at it sitting on the top level of my backyard and sneak peeks over toward the water. I took my breakfast, my notebook, and my pencil and spent an hour soaking up the sunshine and listening to the water gurgle as it rushes past on its way to the Ohio River. The ambiance was perfect. I got past a difficult scene in my story before the still too cool breezes penetrated my coat and sent me scurrying for my warm house.

I’ll try again in a couple hours. I think I’ve found my happy place, a spot where my mind is at peace so the creativity flows as freely as the creek that passes by it.

Where is your happy place? What inspires you to write your best/favorite things? Share with me. I love hearing your stories.

Filed Under: Being in the Write Place, Blog, Sharing the Writing Life

What is Your Point of View?

February 23, 2011 By Patricia Marie Warren 1 Comment

Writing in first person can be a very effective story tool. My favorite book, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, employs this method. All the world is seen from Jane’s perspective with her life experiences influencing how she perceives it. The tension is built by Jane’s interpretation of other people’s words and actions as well as strange sounds. Because we are inside her head, her insecurities become ours and her fears speed up our pulse rates.

While I am no Charlotte Bronte, I decided to try my hand at a short story using first person. I have enjoyed the work involved in staying in my main character’s head. I am weaving a story with three important characters, two human and one environmental. I have to develop my character arcs using nothing more than how the main character sees, feels, desires the world to be. It is proving a daunting, yet rewarding stretch of my skills.

Care should be taken when using a single point of view. “Head-hopping” is disastrous to even a story with a great premise. Recently I began reading a book recommended by someone on my Twitter feed. She promoted is as “a great Friday read.” It was on Amazon for only 99 cents, so I bought it. The synopsis seemed intriguing enough for a light weekend read. Since I was feeling unwell and bored with television offerings, I clicked ‘buy.’ I am not going to do a review of this book here for there is too much to cover about what needs revising. (Book lover’s note: Always, always have someone skilled proof your work even, or maybe especially, if you self-publish!)

The story is about four young ladies who interact with each other constantly. It begins in first person and shortly jumps to third person. I got only about 20 minutes of reading in before I turned off the Kindle… It was way too much work bouncing in and out of view points. It was hard to determine who was thinking/speaking. I tired of rereading each paragraph to figure out who was doing what.

I did get benefit from my brief time in that book. I have been extremely diligent in keeping my story in one point of view. This is the first time I’ve written fiction in first person and I think I will definitely use it again although I will have to become much more skilled before I attempt a book-length story with it.

WritersDigest.com is my favorite go-to spot when I need help with the craft. Nancy Kress has a great article how to choose the point of view for your story. In 6 Tips to Choosing the Right Point of View, she explains the different ones and gives these guidelines on how to use them:

If you want to write the entire story in individual, quirky language, choose first person.
If you want your POV character to indulge in lengthy ruminations, choose first person.
If you want your reader to feel high identification with your POV character, choose first person or close third.
If you want to describe your character from the outside as well as give her thoughts, choose either close or distant third person.
If you want to intersperse the author’s opinions with the character’s, choose distant third.
If you want low identification between reader and character, perhaps because you’re going to make a fool of your character, choose distant third.

Another great source I got from WritersDigest.com is Alicia Rasley’s The Power of Point of View. Alicia goes into great detail and explains which points of view are best with each genre. This one I keep on my desk.

“From a dog’s point of view, his master is an elongated and abnormally clever dog.” ~Mabel L. Robinson

Filed Under: Blog, Point of View, Sharing the Writing Life

The Office of Letters and Light–NaNoWriMo, The Blog

November 2, 2010 By Patricia Marie Warren Leave a Comment

For the entire month of November the Weekly Blog Recommendation will be The Office of Letters and Light for two reasons:

It’s a funny and informative blog for National Novel Writing Month participants.
I will be too busy all month writing a novel in 30 days to evaluate any other blogs.

I don’t exactly understand it, but this writing thing is addictive…especially when you throw in a competition, albeit a prizeless one. The only real reward for participants is the warm fuzzies we get from meeting daily, weekly, and ultimately, the monthly goal.

We’re all really friendly about the whole thing. We have Writing Buddies to join us in the fun. Except when I checked my Writing Buddies’ stats and saw one of them had totally blown me away with her word count, I sorta had a red haze descend over my eyes. I said, “The heck with dinner!” Then I grabbed a glass of water and pecked out 800 more words.

Whew! Now I can sit calmly and edit my writing. Oh, by the way…do this before you take your writing to critique group. Pecking out words in a red-haze-covered frenzy may leave you with red flaming cheeks after the group gets done with you. (Yep…I took my pre-edited manuscript pages. Ouch!)

Write On, friends! Don’t forget to check frequently throughout November with The Office of Letters and Light for inspiration or just a few chuckles.

**50,000 words, here I come!!**

Filed Under: NaNoWriMo, The Office of Letters and Light, Weekly Blog Recommendation

Do You NaNoWriMo?

October 30, 2010 By Patricia Marie Warren Leave a Comment

Do you have trouble making friends and family leave you alone to write? Well, NaNoWriMo is your perfect opportunity to be officially “under deadline.” National Novel Writing Month is November 1-30. I challenge you to sign up at NaNoWriMo.org. You will receive encouraging emails, have an opportunity to find other writers in your region, and be able to set aside time to write 1667 words a day. I’m signed up. Find me and add me as your Writing Buddy: patriciawarren22. It’s the ultimate writers’ social networking group! Here is the email I received from Lindsey Grant at NaNoWriMo this morning:

Dear NaNo-novelist, First of all, high-five for signing up to write a novel during NaNoWriMo. That was a wise choice, my friend. The world needs your novel, and now is the very best time to write it. We’re gonna have a great time doing it, too! To prepare you for the awesomeness ahead, here is a guide to the month: Today: Set your home region. Tomorrow: Set your time zone. This will alleviate massive end-of-event panic (and, potentially, unnecessary computer smashing) when it comes time to validate your novel. October 31: Kiss the dog, unplug your cable box, and email your family and friends to let them know that you’re about to enter the zone. The NaNoWriMo zone. November 1: Watch the first video pep talk on NaNoWriMo.org, and then write your first 1,667 words. You can also update your word count in the box in the top right-hand corner of the website (or, of course, in your Author Profile). November 3: Discover that what you’re writing so far wasn’t necessarily what you were planning to write. Realize that is okay—great, even—and keep writing in anticipation of what will come next. November 4: Receive the first guest pep talk from Mercedes Lackey. November 5: Go into the first weekend of November having written 8,335 words. If you’re not there yet, don’t worry! That’s what weekends are for. Aim for 11,669 words by Sunday night and you’ll be golden. November 8: Get ready for one super-inspirational week! You’ll be receiving three pep talks: one from me and two from guest pep talk authors. The pep talks will continue at this pace throughout the month, and will include words of wisdom from more of your favorite published authors. (If you miss a pep talk email, don’t worry! They’ll be posted on the Pep Talks page throughout the month.) November 11: Admit that you’ve grown attached to your characters and miss them when you’re not writing. November 13: Stop what you’re doing and back up your novel on a flash drive, email it to yourself, burn it onto a CD, or do all three! November 16: Take a moment to celebrate your accomplishments over the first half of NaNoWriMo, and give yourself a big treat before diving back in to writing the second half of your November novel. (Suggested rewards: Eating a cake, napping for 30 minutes, finally taking that shower, or washing your writing uniform!) November 17: Stay tuned for an all-day public-radio-style donations drive for NaNo and the Young Writer’s Program. If we hit our fundraising goals, we have a slew of irresistible offers including, but not limited to, humiliating ourselves on video. November 19: In addition to International Men’s Day, today is also Municipal Liaison (ML) Appreciation Day. (MLs are our volunteer chapter heads.) Be sure to thank your local ML and shower them when possible with coffee, candies, and breakfast cereals. November 21: Fly (or take an armchair field trip with your mind) to San Francisco for the fourth annual Night of Writing Dangerously, and join 249 of your fellow Wrimos in writing the fastest and most dangerous fiction this side of the San Andreas Fault. November 25: Winning begins! Once you hit that 50,000-word mark, upload your novel and get whisked to the winner’s page for congratulations, downloadable treats, and your extra-spiffy 2010 Winner Certificate. November 26: If you’re in the US, fix yourself a post-Thanksgiving turkey-cranberry-stuffing sandwich. It’s a little-known fact that this is prime novel-finishing writer fuel. If you’ve already won, no matter where you are, wear your Winner Shirt proudly to show the world, “Hey, I’m a Winner!” November 29: If you are still writing, know that I am too. I have never finished a NaNo-novel before 6 PM on November 30. We can do this! Write, write, write! November 30: At midnight wherever you are, NaNoWriMo will come to an end. You’ll have written the rough draft of a novel and earned the title of author. Make a note to yourself to RSVP to your local “Thank God It’s Over Party” (TGIO) after you wake up from your long and much-deserved slumber. As you fall into a deep, dreamless sleep, smile at the knowledge that you did it. You did it! December 1: RSVP to your local TGIO party and contemplate more sleep. No doubt, you need it. When you awake, the “I Wrote a Novel, Now What?” and “Winner’s Goodies” pages will be live, and you’ll be well-rested enough to think (maybe just a little bit) about what you want to do with your November novel. December 2: Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life as a writer. Hopefully that gives you an idea of how the next 30-plus days will go. In these final hours of pre-noveling prep, hug your loved ones, stock the pantry, and stretch those fingers. We’re about to write! Lindsey NaNoWriMo

See you Monday!! Write On, my Friends!

Filed Under: Accountability, Making Time to Write, NaNoWriMo, Sharing the Writing Life, Social Networking Tagged With: NaNoWriMo

Writing a Page Turner: Cliffhanger Practice via Flash Fiction

August 16, 2010 By Patricia Marie Warren 4 Comments

We’ve all done it. We start reading a book that is so good we can’t put it down. Next thing we know it’s morning, the dishes are still in the sink, we can barely see, and all day we stifle yawns to keep our friends, families, and co-workers from knowing we stayed up all night. Then, at the first chance we get, we scour Borders’ bookshelves looking for the author’s next book.

Writing a cliffhanger is not easy. One of the greatest challenges with my work-in-progress (WIP) is keeping the chapters from trailing off into boring. Figuring out the right combination of scenes to make the reader want to turn the page rather than grab a bookmark and go to bed is a talent that takes practice.

I may have discovered a secret to helping develop that talent in the serial blog posts of Simon C. Larter at Constant Revision and Mercedes M. Yardley at A Broken Laptop. Stilettos & Shirley Temples has kept me eager for new episodes for five weeks so far. I wrote a post on the importance of accountability based on their collaboration here. I’ve been updating it each week with links to the new installments. After reading today’s installment, I had to address what makes this my favorite one so far: it left me groaning that I have to wait a week to find out what Mercedes is about to reveal to Simon. It is the ideal example of what makes a good cliffhanger ending.

Simon tells us on his blog that he is a flash fiction specialist. Wikipedia defines flash fiction like this:

Flash fiction differs from a vignette in that the flash-fiction might contain the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles or complications, and resolution. However, unlike the case with a traditional short story, the limited word length often forces some of these elements to remain unwritten, that is, hinted at or implied in the written storyline. This principle, taken to the extreme, is illustrated in a possibly apocryphal story about a six-word flash reportedly penned by Ernest Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Writing a novel, no matter the genre, requires putting together a collection of scenes that show the story. Each of these scenes must resolve, while leading into the set up of the next scene. The basic elements of fiction are defined as:

1) Protagonist: Each scene must be important to our protagonist (or heroine/hero aka main character), even if that protagonist doesn’t have dialog in that scene.

2) Conflict: Conflict is the vehicle through which our protagonist gains experience or insight to get to resolution.

3) Obstacles: Each scene must present an obstacle that our protagonist must overcome. Because of these obstacles, our protagonist must make a decision that will determine the direction of the story.

4) Resolution: At the end of the story, our readers must feel that the story is resolved. With a thriller, the protagonist must survive to fight another day. With a romance, there must be a happily ever after or a happily for now. Some contemporary literature doesn’t resolve as satisfactorily as we might like (ala, Nicholas Sparks), but the protagonist grows through the story, and thus it is resolved.

Flash fiction is a study in judicious editing. There is no room for extraneous facts. The story must be complete in under 1000 words. While a fiction story may contain chapters with more than 1000 words, the story line may begin to drag if the individual scenes exceed 1000 words by very much. With flash fiction, some of the main story may only be hinted at, but the main idea of the story is completely revealed.

Look at the Hemingway example again: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” What is the story implied by these cryptic words? It could be a pregnancy unrealized, either through miscarriage or infertility. Personally, I think it likely was not a for sale ad placed by the mother, because I myself would be unable to part with whatever little I had left of the hopes of a child. Someone else might disagree, thinking this step enabled the woman to move on with her life. Regardless, the story of loss is plain while never explicitly written.

Flash fiction is concise with only the most important details spelled out. The skill of writing short, rich stories is evident in Simon’s and Mercedes’ collaboration. Each week, we want to “turn the page” and see what comes next. This is a skill I really want to learn to make my writing more appealing. What about you?

Writing Challenge: Pick a topic and try to write a complete story using the elements of flash fiction, staying strictly within the limits of 55 to 1000 words. Share your story on your blog and post a link in the comments or just put your whole story here if you like. I will write another post listing all the links, promoting your writing here, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Filed Under: Cliffhangers, Sharing the Writing Life

Bad Boys vs Heroes: Why Our Readers Need to Love Them Both

August 13, 2010 By Patricia Marie Warren 1 Comment

SYFY's New Original TV series, Haven (photo from SYFY website)

As a fan of weird stuff, I am really liking the new SYFY series Haven. And, as a writer in the middle of writing the first of a paranormal romance trilogy, I love it! The storyline is fairly typical: smart and beautiful heroine gets a choice between straight arrow and good-looking hero or smokin’ hot bad boy with redeeming qualities. To keep this storyline from being boring, SYFY has based their new series on The Colorado Kid, a novella by the always weird, but amazingly talented Stephen King. I doubt if either SYFY or Stephen King intended their works to be romance stories, but every good story has a romance element in it.

FBI Agent Audrey Parker, played by Emily Rose (photo from SYFY website)

Our heroine in Haven is FBI agent Audrey Parker, played by Emily Rose. Agent Parker already has a reputation for seeing the paranormal in her cases. She is sent to Haven to catch an escaped prisoner and stays after being caught up in the unusual circumstances of his death. Each episode sees Audrey thrown into the company of two of Haven’s most handsome residents.

Nathan Wournos, played by Lucas Bryant (photo from SYFY website)

Agent Parker first encounters local cop and story hero Nathan Wournos, played by Lucas Bryant,within minutes of the opening of the first episode. Nathan has all the trappings of the perfect hero. He is the strong silent type with a secret he tries to hide, but has revealed quickly in the first episode. His perceived weakness doesn’t make him any less attractive. In fact, it makes him a bit more fascinating than he would be if he were a too-perfect hero type.

Duke Crocker, played by Eric Balfour (photo from SYFY website)

The bad boy of Haven is Duke Crocker, played by smokin’ hot Eric Balfour. Supposedly a black marketeer, Duke is seriously disliked by Nathan and really doesn’t like to talk to cops–until Audrey falls at his feet…well sort of. She is knocked unconscious by an electrical box explosion and falls into the water near his boat. She wakes up naked in his bed. When she finds him reading a newspaper on the deck of his boat, she is dressed only in his chambray shirt and her service revolver. He responds to her accusation, “You took my clothes,” with a knockout grin and, “Good morning.” This is the delicious beginning to a series full of sexual tension.

As romance writers, sexual tension is what we are looking for. We want our readers to be drawn into the relationships of our heroine and her male counterparts. Usually readers pull for the hero to “get the girl.” With the addition of a bad boy with redeeming qualities, readers find themselves rooting for him too, particularly if the interaction between them heats up and makes us want to be in her shoes. (And with Eric’s killer smile, how can we not want that?!) A storyline where the choice is unclear till the very end will bring readers back to the next book, or in this case, episode.

Our task is to write characters as appealing as Nathan and Duke, making them work as hero and bad boy as well as Lucas and Eric play them. Writing Challenge: Watch a few episodes of Haven…you can see them on SYFY.com. Take notes on what makes these characters so attractive (other than the obvious) and tell what makes their scenes with Audrey work so well. Let me know what you come up with, if you like.

PS: I almost always pull for the smokin’ hot bad boy! ;p

Filed Under: Characters, Sharing the Writing Life

The Office of Letters and Light–NaNoWriMo, The Blog

My Books

Subscribe to Typing One-Handed

Just Me…

Bravely Attempting to be Organized…

People are talkin’…

Skippin’ Along the Edge…

Blogroll

Keepin’ It Real…

Writers Write Day ~ Wednesday, August 11