Category: writing

Free Write Your Way Out of Writer’s Block

By Maggie King

Writer’s block. Many writers suffer from this condition. I used to scoff at the very idea of writer’s block, regarding it as another way for writers to procrastinate. But the creative slowdown I’ve experienced for several months has humbled me.

I’m not blocked for ideas, I have them by the dozen. The problem lies in creating a story, one people would actually want to read. My writing skills have gone on hiatus.

My solution: free writing. According to Matt Ellis in his post in Grammarly.com, “How Freewriting Can Boost Your Creativity,” freewriting is a technique in which the author writes their thoughts quickly and continuously, without worrying about form, style, or even grammar.

Mr. Ellis extols the benefits of this practice: “The benefits of free writing revolve around organization, brainstorming, and inspiration, as well as beating writer’s block and relieving certain anxieties. Just getting anything written, even if it is imperfect, can jump-start creativity.”

Author Natalie Goldberg also encourages free writing, or “first thoughts” in her parlance. In this excerpt from her classic Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within she explains how to write first thoughts (#6 is a tough one!):

  1. Keep your hand moving. Don’t pause to read what you’ve just written.
    That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.
  2. Don’t cross out. That is editing as you write. Even if you write something
    you didn’t mean to write, leave it.
  3. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. Don’t even care about
    staying in the margins and lines on the page.
  4. Lose control.
  5. Don’t think. Don’t get logical.
  6. Go for the jugular. If something comes up in your writing that is scary or
    naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.

Sometimes I write from a prompt (maybe not technically free writing, but who’s nitpicking?); at other times I simply write whatever comes forth. I set a timer on my smart watch for thirty minutes and go, without stopping. At first I went for ten minute sprints, but soon found that half an hour worked best. My thoughts and words flow. When the timer goes off, I pause, then go for another thirty minutes. At that point my hand needs a rest!

My free writing is turning into a memoir. Nothing organized or even chronological—whatever occurs to me ends up on the page. What occurs are often experiences from my past: family, people I’ve known, jobs held, schools attended, challenges faced. I’ve devoted pages and pages to my summers spent with relatives in a rural part of upstate New York.

It’s been an enlightening process, especially as I discover how my perspectives have changed over the years. Frankly, there are memories I’d like to keep buried, but I’ve found it liberating to get them down on paper (See #6 of Natalie Goldberg’s list above).

Since I started this process in July, I now look forward to writing each day. I can’t yet report much creative writing activity, but last week I was invited to submit a short story to an anthology. I have a great idea for a story (remember, I have no dearth of ideas) and now feel up to the challenge of actually writing it.

And now, please excuse me … it’s time to free write!

Handmade Software, Inc. Image Alchemy v1.14

Naming Characters

by Gayle Bartos-Pool

Sometimes the name of a character a writer uses just pops into their head. Other times they use the name of a friend or relative. There are also times when the writer changes the name they started with when they realize it doesn’t fit the character anymore. But how is that possible? The writer is just making up the name and the story.

Well, it’s like this…

When a writer is creating a story, they are creating a new world. It will be filled with things everyone will recognize or at least understand if the writer gives good descriptions. A space odyssey might be made-up, but there will be enough things explained so the reader can follow along. Hey, the people who wrote the Star Trek episodes imagined fantasy gadgets that were actually invented many years later by real scientists who used roughly the same concept and style for actual things we use today… “Scotty, beam me up!”

But character names can be tricky.

If one is writing a story that takes place a hundred years ago, names like Tiffany or Jaiden might not work. Watch an old movie and check out the names used. Or maybe read an old book. But something interesting is happening now in the first quarter of the 21st Century. Names from fifty to seventy-five years ago are making a comeback. This will probably mean that you can use any name for a contemporary story. But there still is the problem of fitting the name to the character.

In most cases you wouldn’t want the “heavy” in a cops and robber tale to have a cutesy name like Willy or Felix. They would more likely be the comic relief characters in another story. The same is true with the hero’s name. It would have to be something a bit stronger like Max or Duke. Remember, studio executives and a director changed Marion Morrison’s name to John Wayne to fit the type of characters he would be playing in the movies. And that’s a fact.

Female names have the same concerns. The female lead in a romantic story could be called April or Amber, not Bertha or Myrtle. Wilhemina could definitely be the name of the amateur sleuth in a cozy mystery. She could be a librarian or maybe an older sleuth like a Miss Marple.

Names can do as much to define a character as what he or she does within those pages. If you start off by introducing your main character with his or her name linked to a strong action, it will help the reader understand the part they are playing.  But that is only if you want the reader to know who they really are from the start.

If, for some reason, you wanted to gradually introduce your hero, you could peel away certain aspects of your lead character by letting him show the reader those special qualities a little at a time, but that method is usually meant for the villain who starts off as just one of the boys or maybe some influential person in the plot, but who knew he was actually the bad guy? The hero will finally see the real person under all that finery and expose him.

As for the hero, usually the reader knows who he is from the beginning, but the hero might have to discover that truth about himself by peeling away his own fears and finding his own strength when push comes to shove at the end of the book. The reader will be rooting for him, but he has to do the work.

But establishing the name for that character will still take some planning. Now that we have access to the Internet, you can type in the name that you have cleverly come up with. It fits the parameters of your story. It isn’t too quirky or too cumbersome. But “what if” there is some famous person with the same name out there? Just about every name I have come up with has two or twenty-two people with the same name on the Internet. I have a rule: If it isn’t some current name in the news and I like it, I’ll go with it.

I seldom use the actual name of a friend in my stories. If I only use their first name, I’ll do that, but I have added little changes to their names just for fun. The reason I do this is because I do want my characters to have a life of their own. After all, my friends have their own lives. But it’s fun to use their first name for a character who makes a “special guest appearance.”  I even used a version of my dad’s name in my spy novels. Dad dealt with spy planes and did some rather interesting things that are still classified, so calling my character “Ralph Barton” instead of “Ralph Bartos” worked. And dad got a kick out of it.

I probably do keep the names of my characters fairly simple. If they are all wildly intricate with too many syllables, the reader might get lost in the multi-syllabic confusion. And several odd names might confuse the reader as well. They might think Henrietta is Hildegard and not understand why the wrong one riding in the taxi with the killer.

So, I keep the names a little simpler and do something else. I don’t have three or four characters in the same story with a name that begins with the same letter. This makes it easier for the reader to follow, and it actually makes writing the story easier, too. I don’t want to confuse my characters while I’m writing.

And I do try to fit the name to the character. One of the fun names I picked was for my second private detective series. It came about this way. I always liked the old detective shows on television back in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. And the private eyes from the old black and white movies I watched on the movie channel. I wanted this new character to be a tribute to those guys. Too bad they don’t have good detective shows on TV anymore. Our loss.

I started with Sam Spade. That was the name of the character Humphrey Bogart played in The Maltese Falcon based on the 1930’s novel written by Dashiell Hammett. A classic. I also liked the television series, “Richard Diamond,” starring David Janssen, that ran from 1956 to1960. I was a fan of “Hart to Hart,” starring Robert Wagner that ran from 1979-1984.

So, I liked all these cool detectives. I noticed that their names were like the different suits in a deck of playing cards – Spade, Diamond, Heart. I needed a Club, but that name wouldn’t work. Sounded like a caveman or something.

Then I thought: what’s another word for “club”?

There’s gaming club, gambling club, and a gambling casino!

How about just casino?

And Johnny Casino was born.

The name fit this character who took a chance, changed his name from Cassini to Casino after he worked on a gambling ship near Maimi and had to leave in a hurry. He then took another chance and moved to Los Angeles and after getting his life together, he became a private investigator.

But I worked on getting his name and his life right…Three books later, I guess the “chance” I took paid off.

And you know what?  There was one more chance in this story. Another character was working his way into my head. His name: Chance McCoy. He got a second chance in life himself. There are three books in his detective series.

You see, names do matter. If they fit the character you’re writing, they can lead you to many new places. Write On!

PLOT, PLOT, PLOT

by Linda O. Johnston

We’re all novelists here at Writers in Residence. That means we all tell stories that may have some origin in fact, or not. But what we finish up with is fiction.

Whether I’m writing romantic suspense or mystery these days, the genres I’m into most, there always needs to be a plot. I’m not sure what the best definition of “plot” is, but in my estimation it’s how a story starts and continues and develops, with one thing that happens leading to the next until the grand finale, and then the wrap-up.

Where do my plots come from? My mind! I ponder them a lot as I plan a story and then write it, with things sometimes changing from what I originally intended. I make it somewhat easier on myself by plotting in advance, and I’ve even developed my own plot skeleton, pages with blanks to be filled in with people and how they interact and what they’re up to, whether it’s romance or murder, or a combination!

 So, you other writers here. How do you plot? Do you enjoy it? Are you usually happy with the result when you finish a draft or manuscript?

 I’m usually happy. But any issues may be the key to my figuring out my next plot.

A DILEMMA OF BOOKS… 

by Rosemary Lord

There I was, puffing and panting in the 90-degree sun, lugging box after box of books out to the car….

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I have always felt that one can tell a dedicated writer by the books with which they surround themselves. Although I know that nowadays, if you’re technically and digitally proficient, you can do and find everything on your computer or even on your phone.

But it’s not the same. Not for real writers! You need to READ books to be able to WRITE books. Real, actual books, that is – with carefully designed crisp paper pages, glued and sewn together – or however they do the spines now. Enticingly designed covers, beautifully matched colors, and perfect fonts. There’s a lot of work that goes into every book.

Many of those who dedicate themselves to the magical world of writing have fascinating, eclectic book collections.

I recently culled 432 books from my overwhelming assortment. And I still have many left!

How did it ever come to this?

In my defense, as a book lover, I began with just a few small (only 6”x4”) volumes I brought with me when I moved here from England: ‘Poetical Works of Tennyson,’ some Edgar Allan Poe tales, Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and a worn 1915 printing of Gene Stratton Porter’s Girl of the Limberlost, that I knew would not take up much space.

Over the years of attending so many writers’ conferences all over North America, I kept those heavy bags filled with the new books publishers gave us.

To support my fellow writers, I loyally bought the latest book by the authors I knew.

I’m a sucker for an appealing jacket cover, too – especially when Amazon made special offers so affordable, as a way to discover new writers.

I still buy books for my writing research. I have a great collection of books on Old Hollywood. And then there was my late husband, Rick’s, assortment of books on motor racing, motorbikes, animals, snakes (don’t ask!), music, finances, and the Stock Market.

And so my library grew.

But my small apartment didn’t.

I had seven tall bookcases crammed, with more books stacked on the floor in front of them.

Time for a serious cull.

I kept books that fellow writers had inscribed to me. I boxed up Rick’s books. I found several duplicate copies of paperback mysteries and ‘cozies.’  Out they go.

Of course, I kept my rare and special Hollywood books. But I was strong in my intent.

No, it’s not: ‘make room for more books,’ I tell myself!

But then, knee deep in book piles, I realized they had to go somewhere.  Most of the charity shops where I donate clothes or household items are not taking any more books.

Hmmm. Where?…

Then I remembered The Last Bookstore. Years ago, my brother and I had schlepped half a dozen bags of books there to donate. It is downtown Los Angeles, at 453 Spring Street in an old bank building with marble columns and vaults filled with vintage books.  Owner Josh Spenser has created an intriguing world of not just shelves and stacks of books, but enthralling shapes – a tunnel of books, higgledy-piggledy towers of hardbacks and paperbacks, with comfy armchairs and leather couches to sit and gaze and get inspired by the fantastical displays of books, vinyl records, gargoyles, and dolls.

The Last Bookstore has a free community service called Re-Book It: to ensure that books don’t end up in landfills. They will pick up your unwanted books and find new homes for them, dispersing books to schools, charities, hospitals, and retirement homes. Currently, they’re focusing on getting books into the hands of children and families who lost homes in the L.A. fires.

“Hooray!” I had found such a great solution. Then came the fun task of packing the books in boxes and bags, counting and labeling them. Of course, lots of lifting is involved, squatting and bending, too. Quite tough on the knees and the back! But I reminded myself that I was getting a free workout! And lots of empty apartment space.

The 432 books packed into 24 boxes and bags were amassed by the front door, ready for collection. Then, I learned that Re-Book It was short-staffed and could not complete the pick-up that day.

“Why don’t you bring it to our store on Lankersham?”

“Okay,” I foolishly agreed, anxious to complete this project.

It was about 8 boxes in that I began to regret my fervor of “I can do this!”  The books were VERY heavy to carry across the patio, to the front lobby, and then outside to my car. What was I thinking?  And it was the hottest day of the year – of course. Over 90 degrees.

I had to stop every so often, sit down with a large glass of water, and cool off in front of a fan.

But once my car was overstuffed with boxes and bags of books, I made it safely to the Valley location of The Last Bookstore on Lankersham Boulevard, just past Universal Studios.

Just as the Downtown store was a magical, mystical store – so is this one. Odd, beautiful old doors, parts of wonderful, vintage walls surrounded by an eclectic mix of books and, well, just fascinating ‘things’ to look at, curios to examine. And, of course, books: from best sellers to first editions. A book-lover’s treasure hunt. Had I not been so exhausted carrying all those books earlier, I could have easily spent an hour or three browsing there.

I was very happy that my books were going to such a lovely new home. And I returned to my apartment happy I had made more space, promising myself not to fill it back up with more books. I wonder how long that promise will last!

So, this is where we came in. My exhausting but therapeutic adventures in book culling ….

Have you ever tried culling your book collections?

…………………….

HOW TO GROW A STORY

by Miko Johnston

I wish I could take credit for the title of this post, but the idea came from one of my favorite books on writing, How To Grow A Novel by Sol Stein. So instead, I’ll focus on what I’ve learned from the parallels between gardening and writing.

Know your regional growing zone

Trying to create a desert garden in the Pacific Northwest makes no sense. If you aim to sell what you write, be sure you have, or can create, an audience for it, otherwise write for your own pleasure.

Plant your seeds at the right time

In gardening, as in writing, timing can be everything. When I began working on my Petal in the Wind series in the early 2000s, I found little information about WWI’s eastern front (in English). That changed when the 100th anniversary of that war approached. We’re a year away from significant anniversaries: our nation’s 250th, the 25th of 9/11, and (looking at you, Mad) the 100th of Route 66, any of which should stimulate interest in books inspired by these events.

Know when to use seeds and when to use starts

With my local climate, anything slow-growing, like bushes, tomatoes or delicate herbs, takes too long to grow from seed, so I buy them as starts. Ideas also can be seeds, which require a lot of development, or “starts”, inspired by an existing story. If you like the thrill of seeing a workable idea break through the soil of your imagination, then go with seeds. Otherwise, get a head start with a pre-sprouted concept.

Plant them in the right place

Some plants need protection from the late afternoon sun while others thrive in hot, sunny conditions. Planting the latter in a place that provides some shade for the former benefits both. In writing, that’s called rhythm, which keeps the scenes flowing at a good pace, with moments of intensity/drama relieved by moments of relief/humor.

Nurture your seedlings, then toughen them up

In early March I plant some vegetable seeds indoors and set them on a south-facing windowsill to sprout. By the end of April, I’ll gradually acclimate them outside once the threat of frost has passed. If they don’t die, they go into the garden. I figure if they struggle a bit to survive, they’ll taste better. Do the same with characters; create them and then challenge them. It gives them, well, character.

Sacrifice the weak for the strongest

Thinning out your seedlings allows the remaining plants ample room to thrive, and lessens the competition for water and nourishment. Overloading your story with too many characters or too much (or a too convoluted) plot will starve out the best parts of your manuscript.

Know when to harvest

Whether flowers, fruits or vegetables, some need to be picked at their peak of ripeness, some slightly earlier and left to ripen on your kitchen counter. Leave a plant too long and it bolts or rots. Then all you can hope for is to collect seeds for next year.

A story must be tended and nurtured until it’s “ripe” for picking. Sometimes that means tackling a second draft while it’s fresh in your mind, other times it’s better to let a finished manuscript sit on the shelf awhile. Just don’t let it linger too long, but if you do, take a seed from it and start again.

Like planting a garden, a great pleasure of writing is growing your seedling into a full-fledged idea, nurturing it and watching it take form until it’s complete. The food we grow feeds our bodies, while the stories we grow feeds minds. But stories have one advantage over garden products.

My writers group used to sell our books at the local farmer’s market. We’d always remind shoppers that unlike the berries, tomatoes and lettuces they’d purchased, our products wouldn’t rot if left in a hot car awhile (insert laughter here).

***

Miko Johnston, a founding member of The Writers in Residence, is the author of the historical fiction series, “A Petal in the Wind”. Her fifth and final book in the series is about to be published. She’s also a contributor to several anthologies, including the bestselling “Whidbey Island: An Insider’s Guide”. Miko lives in Washington (the big one) with her rocket scientist husband. Contact her at mikojohnstonauthor@gmail.com

Superfluous Phrases – What Do They Mean & Why Do We Use Them?

By Jill Amadio

Often writers allow a well-known and well-worn phrase to trip off the tongue- or rather, onto the keyboard – to mark a particular moment in a story, just as we do in real life. In fact, to catch a moment in time, as in, “At this moment in time.”

What does that mean? Obviously, the first three words refer to a specific time frame, to the exact fraction of a second that is being noted. Exactly. It is a method for stating, or pointing out, that a moment is to be marked. All well and good.

 So why do we also need to add the words, ‘in time?’  Surely we are already talking, or writing, to pinpoint something that requires noting as to time. We want to make it stand out, with our ‘at this moment’ that alerts the reader to note the moment. Why, then, employ the redundant ‘in time’ to add to the statement? When else would it be happening if not ‘at…this…time?’

 If the ‘something’ happened earlier or later, the writer will be sure to note it, probably with a detailed following sentence or paragraph to explain the time lapse or hint at a future action.

Another hackneyed phrase that rather galls me is ‘Right now.’ This second phrase, in itself, poses another question – what do we mean by ‘right?’  The ‘now’ word is fully understood, but whence came ‘right’ in this sense? We often use ‘right’ as a confirmation in place of ‘correct,‘ to signify to the other person their words ring true, but it is rather inelegant. 

Here are other common phrases I don’t catch in my stories until perhaps my second or third draft:

Open any book, skim a few pages, and you are fated to come across ‘faded jeans,’ ‘a pale face,’ ‘the rugged terrain,’ or ‘winding road.’ These are all beautifully simple descriptions (a couple from Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls) that tell the reader in easy terms what we want them to know without going into unnecessarily exotic language.  Just writing a well-known phrase in the correct context can provide the reader with an instant understanding of what is meant.

One of my favorites is ‘standing pat.’ It makes no sense whatsoever on its face. Yet, it has a sense of mystery because ‘standing’ and ‘pat’ appear to have no relevance to each other, yet they belong together. And, incidentally, could provide us with the basis of a plot.

One can assume the phrase to be a description of someone named Pat. Was she standing up when the phrase was created? Was the word ‘with’ missing so that phrase may originally have been ‘standing with Pat?’ It does suggest a sense of loyalty, of being at the side of Pat. Yet, the word ‘pat’ has many meanings, as well as a person’s name, although I doubt it means ‘to pat’ as in patting a pet.

So many other phrases we use are hackneyed but perfect for the moment in time (sorry). Trying to find a substitute to avoid sounding boring can take up too much time, and even sound unnatural.

A foreign character’s use of phrases in their own language often introduces an interesting change of pace as long as there is a way to translate it, if necessary. This can easily be undertaken in conversation, while other remarks may not need any translation at all. In fact, we don’t realize that many words have become part of our own English language. Someone told me that English is based on German, while someone else swore it was based on Latin.

All that writers need to remember, I would say, is how rich and versatile English is, and how fortunate we are to be able to dive in and select whatever we choose.

 I recently bought an ebook from Amazon for my Kindle Fire, selecting a mystery at random. Not until the second chapter did I notice it was set in Norway and authored by a Norwegian.  Bravo!

**

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This article was posted for Jill by Jackie Houchin

A Writer Wastes Nothing

by Maggie King

“A writer wastes nothing.” This saying is attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The renowned writer mined his college years to create his debut novel, the autobiographical This Side of Paradise.

I recently attended an outdoor event in a local park and feel inspired to write about it—in fiction form.

The crowd at this event was large, the air heavy with humidity. Virginia is a steamy place in the summer! I drank little water as I was unsure if facilities were available or even nearby (they weren’t). After standing for over an hour, the crowd started to leave—slowly.

A feeling of lightheadedness came over me and my vision blurred. To say I was frightened was an understatement. I was with friends and the crowd was friendly, so I wasn’t in danger. But the feeling of losing consciousness is scary and uncomfortable under any circumstances.

One of my friends let me lean on her until we came to a tree where I sank to the ground and sat back. People gave me bottles of cold water to drink and press against my wrists. I ate one of my melted protein bars. In no time I felt revived, grateful that I hadn’t passed out. A couple of EMTs showed up and took my vitals (they pronounced them fine!). I opted not to go to the hospital. Dehydration was named the culprit.

One of my friends left to get the car. The EMTs parted the crowd for me, and one of them stayed with me until the car arrived. While we waited, she asked what I did for work.

“I’m a writer, and I’m already planning to use this experience in a story.”

After all, a writer wastes nothing.

As I know how frightening it is to feel on the verge of losing consciousness, I can bring a visceral feeling to the story. My imagination will ratchet up the danger, raise the stakes. Possibly elements of a Hitchcock film I’ve seen is inspiring me as well.

My preliminary idea is based on a series of what ifs:

  • What if this is a hostile crowd, in addition being a slow moving one?
  • What if my character, a woman, is alone?
  • What if the heat and humidity make her feel lightheaded and make her vision blur?
  • What if she is carrying a quantity of cash and/or jewels that she’s stolen?
  • What if she is being pursued–by law enforcement? Another criminal? Both?

She must stay conscious and she must evade her pursuer.

Yikes!

A writer wastes nothing.

Has a personal experience ever led you to write about it, especially in fiction form? Tell us about it.

Telling Your Story

by Gayle Bartos-Pool

Whether you’re self-published or have the backing of a big publisher, a writer still needs to get a short version of their own life story in shape for that occasional interview they might do for publication or even a live broadcast. If the person doing the interview knows his job, he will have handed the author a set of questions ahead of time, so the writer isn’t blindsided by a question. That’s professional. Sometimes the person doing the interview will ask if there are questions the writer wants asked because often the writer has a story to tell that the person doing the interview will have no idea exists. This will make the interview unique. That’s good for everybody, even the audience who will get to meet somebody with an interesting story. For the writer, that doesn’t mean only the story in the book he just wrote.

Recently I had the opportunity to do both a written interview and a live talk for a local show where I live in Ohio. The first interview was done by a fellow writer, Jill Amadio, who started out as a journalist for a British magazine before she wrote her first mystery featuring a gal who was a gossip columnist back in Britain who has to leave the country because she did too good of a job digging up dirt only to trip over a body or two here in the States. Obviously, Jill knows a lot about writing for a magazine. That book is Digging Too Deep. A great read.

https://promotingcrime.blogspot.com/2025/06/jill-amadio-in-conversation-with-gayle.html

She asked if she could interview me for a mystery magazine, Mystery People, published in the United Kingdom.  This was fun. Working with the questions she first provided and adding a few of my own in order to tell my story, we came up with a good interview.

As writers, we need to get out in front of people and tell them not only about the book we wrote, but also a little bit about ourselves to let our potential readers know where we came from and maybe how we got the idea for our novel.

I have been doing this for a while, but it was only recently that I wrote my autobiography to tell people who I am. I learned a lot about myself. That’s why I recommend that everyone write their own story whether you write novels or do something normal…Sorry, I digress.

Having gotten to know myself doing my autobiography sure helped when I did these two new interviews. Not that I didn’t know who I was, but I needed to get organized. First, I wrote out basically what I wanted to say about my life and writing career. Then I wrote out a script like doing a movie. I had taken acting classes back in California when I wanted to write for television and/or the movies because I thought knowing what the actor needed from the writer would be a good idea. It was.

I wrote a script. I cut out stuff and added stuff until I had a fairly clear idea where I came from and how I got to be who I am. Then I rehearsed it. Two or three times a day. Even when I got into bed at night, I went over the script. As I walked around the house, I timed it. The televised event would be no longer than an hour. I made sure I could do all the aspects I wanted to cover in those sixty minutes. Then I rehearsed it a few more times.

The 54 minute interview is on the Avon Lake Library website: https://www.avonlake.org/communications-technology/videos?action=show&video=MjkwNg==

It was a challenge, but writers have to try new things in order to get our name out there so people know who we are and what we do. And, frankly, this was fun.

The written version for the British interview covered the highlights. The televised version was longer with some hand gestures thrown in to make a point and even photographs to add to the story. Those acting lessons allowed me to do the event without standing there like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz before Dorothy came around. You cannot imagine the confidence those acting lessons gave me.

So, you writers might want to work on several versions of your story in case you’re asked to do an interview. Short ones and longer ones. It gives you a head start. And something else, it might get you interested in writing your own autobiography. You do have a story to tell.

Continue reading “Telling Your Story”

LONDON’S WORLD OF WORDS AND STORIES ….

  By ROSEMARY LORD

“London Bridge is falling down…” so the song goes. Well, it’s not. It is thriving, bustling with people, merchants, tourists and local inhabitants who love this very special part of London.

I was there recently visiting my family in England. I had a meeting with my new Editor at Harper Collins Publishing offices (I still get a kick being able to say that: “My publishers, my editor”!) at London Bridge. Many of the major publishers and newspapers are housed in this towering building that is right next to London Bridge tube station.

Security was very tight. As I approached the main entrance to the office tower, security guards stopped me, ready to turn me away. But I had an appointment and had to show my ID, which was checked against the computer appointments records before I could walk through those hallowed doors. Once inside the lobby, I was checked again by security and ushered through a metal detector. Just like at the airports. I had to wait until someone came to escort me upstairs. And when I left, I was chaperoned back through the same security system. So, this is what it’s like working in London today! Not quite the fun, easy-going offices I recall from my days of writing for the teenage magazine Jackie and the host of women’s magazines in Fleet Street.

My brother Ted had accompanied me and waited patiently nearby until my meeting was done. We had decided to explore the area of London Bridge and Borough Market – the new Hot Spot in London.  The hip, cool place where the young hangout. Pop-up food stalls proliferate; vintage clothing stalls, cosmetics, tattoos, stacks of vintage records for sale, ‘Bubble Tea’ adverts and music from all over the globe wafted through the crowds. I never did find out what ‘Bubble Tea’ was. But it seemed very popular. The market was wall-to-wall students and young entrepreneurs in their eye-catching, colorful attire. Creativity and innovative ideas abounded.

One of the reasons for the throngs of young people in the vicinity selling and buying was, I realized, because the market was so close to the medical colleges and universities. Lots of medical students.

I also learned that this market began life in 1756 as a cluster of stalls at the foot of London Bridge. It’s come a long way, baby!

The tall, grim buildings on St. Thomas Street are a focal point of the medical world. The famous Guy’s Hospital, founded in 1721 by philanthropist Thomas Guy, stands cheek-by-jowl with St. Thomas’ Teaching Hospital – where Florence Nightingale trained her dedicated nurses. This hospital was named for St. Thomas Becket and founded in the Middle Ages but located here in Lambeth since 1871. These are part of the Kings College, London Medical Education programs.

Just across the road is the tiny Operating Theatre Museum, in the Herb Garret at the top of the narrow 17th century brick building. A museum of surgical history housed in the old apothecary.  Herbs and flowers used in those days are displayed, with mortar-and-pestle and hand-written notes on their efficacy.  Completed in 1822 is the operating theatre is the oldest surviving operating theatre in Europe for surgeries that predated anesthetics and antiseptics.   

What fun! It offers learning experiences for all ages. I especially loved the large yellow rubber ducks placed around the exhibits. They were each painted with some dreadful disease: blobs of green goo representing gangrene, or drooling, lumpy additions depicting small-pox, syphilis, or the black plague. Symptoms were written on a card next to the duck. You had to guess what they represented. The answer was found underneath the duck. I noticed medical student visitors taking great delight in guessing the correct answers.  The enormous, black all-encompassing metal head gear with the long snout, for the brave doctors during the plague in 1660 London was there. Various operating tools were displayed, including the large hacksaw next to the operating table that was labeled “for the removal of legs and arms”.

There were rows of seats where the medical students sat to observe the operations by doctors who had no awareness of cleanliness, let alone surgical gowns, masks or even handwashing. Hand-written notes, instructions and explanations of the various implements (of torture?) used, as well as reports of individuals’ surgical successes – or traumas!

Today’s root-canals are easy-peasy by comparison!

This part of London shared so many stories, characters, tragedies and successes. I made copious notes, as Ted and I later stopped for a delicious cake and coffee in a little corner French café. A quiet haven amidst the noise and bustle.

Everywhere I looked were stories, historic revelations and wonderful new ideas and a revitalized energy.

Charles Dickens strolled through these London streets at night when he couldn’t sleep, and claimed this was where he found inspiration for his timeless novels. Incidentally, did you know that in 1847 Dickens founded a ‘Home for Homeless Women’ in London?

We walked down to the water’s edge and followed the River Thames as it snakes its way through London, past Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre towards Charing Cross, watching such a polyglot of people of all ages – “a seething mass of humanity” moving on its way through lives humdrum, urgent, desperate, happy, exciting. Who knows?

There is so much written about London through thousands of years. It’s difficult for a writer not to come away with a myriad of story ideas, a cacophony of images and circus of characters. Painters and artists of all fields must be similarly affected.

As Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote in 1777, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. For there is in London all that life can be.”

What is your favorite source of inspiration?

 

A Group Question: Co-Writing with a Famous Writer?

Occasionally, each (or several) of us Writers In Residence answers a question about some aspect of writing or publishing.  Here is this week’s Q&A for you.  (Some of the answers may surprise you!)

Q:  If you could co-write a book with any author, living or dead, who would it be, and what genre would you choose? 

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JACKIE HOUCHIN. “I would love to co-write a book with MARY STEWART (no longer living). She wrote suspense mysteries with a young, adventurous female heroine. Her books took her to countries around the world; Greece, France, Italy, Austria, Crete, Lebanon, and England. Perhaps I got my wanderlust to travel the world from reading her books. (I was 13 when I read the first.) There was always a handsome man who could be a bad guy and always a scary situation.

Oh, to write like that!  I would let her do most of the writing, I fear, but every time her protagonist or the man in the scene would light up a cigarette, I would edit that out immediately. (haha).  That would probably be my ONLY part of the collaboration.  Or … I’d set some more of her romantic suspense in more countries!

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MIKO JOHNSTON.  “I don’t think I would want to co-write a book with another author, as I can’t see how two writers could successfully balance their styles. I’ve read mystery compilations where two best-selling authors combined their characters into a single story with mixed results. However, I have contributed short pieces to anthologies over the years and would be happy to do so again.

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BONNIE SCHROEDER. “I would love to co-write a book with the late, great KURT VONNEGUT Jr.–something in the dark humor/satire genre.

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G. B. POOL.  “There are so many authors I have read and admired through the years, from Ray Bradbury to Michael Connelly, James Patterson, Nelson DeMille, Thomas Thompson, Arthur Conan Doyle, James Ellroy, Robert B. Parker, and Steven J. Connell, all of whom are sitting on my bookshelves right now…their books, not them personally. Several of these writers I actually met, but as for co-writing with any of them, I don’t write like they do, and I don’t want to change my writing style just to have my name linked with theirs, even though the publicity would be magnificent.

But there is one person that I would have loved to co-write with. He was doing some early research on a mass murder that happened back in Texas at a KFC drive-in decades earlier and hinted that he wanted to write about it. He never had the opportunity to finish that endeavor.

The man was my husband, Richard Pool.

A few years after he passed away, I started reading the many journals he had written after he had been diagnosed with cancer back when he was twenty years old. On the fifth page of the very first journal, he mentioned that he wanted to be a writer. He was an avid reader and liked all the authors I liked. We had several of the same books in our respective collections. He wrote that being a writer was just what he wanted to be, but life got in the way of doing that. He moved from Texas to California and met me at the bank where we both worked. Richard knew I wanted to write. He told me before we got married that he would make my dream come true. We married. He got a better job and then another, making enough money to allow me to retire early and write. I did just that.

We had a great life together, and then he passed away. I started reading his journals and read that part about him wanting to be a writer. He gave me his dream.

If I could write with anyone, I would like to write with Richard. It would be what both of us wanted.

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ROSEMARY LORD. “I would like to co-author books with ENID BLYTON, the famous children’s author from my own childhood. Apart from the delightful “Noddy” books for the little ones about a wooden doll, “Noddy in Toyland,” Enid Blyton wrote wonderful mysteries for older children: “Adventures of The Famous Five” and others about “The Secret Seven.” They had all sorts of fun on ‘Adventure Island’  during their summer holidays. Total escapism and good, clean fun!! Seems like fun to write!

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LINDA O. JOHNSTON:  “Not sure how I’d do co-writing with someone else, but if I had to choose someone to write a book with, it’d have to be one of the well-known authors who also use dogs in their books, such as Kathleen Donnelly, Margaret Mizushima, Diane Kelly, David Rosenfelt, Spencer Quinn, C.B. Wilson, or Teri Wilson—some of whom I know already.

But I’ve never considered co-writing with any of them before! And the story would have to be mystery, romance, or romantic suspense, depending on who my co-writer was.

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Dear “The Writers In Residence” readers: who would YOU aspire to write a book with if you had the chance?  Comment or let me know at photojaq@aol.com.