The benefits

First off, I wanted to mention that I have written over 700 words today. Now onto the main reason for this post.

A few weeks ago I stumbled onto Yahoo answers. I have answered 42 questions since then, mainly about writing and books. It is another place on the net to waste time when I should be writing. I seem to be a expert at that-lol!

Anyway, today I answered a question that I don't think any writer would ask. Below is the question and my answer.

What are the benefits of writing?


The benefits of writing are similar to the benefits of playing a instrument or painting a picture. You are making something where there was previously nothing. And when you create something that you love you get a HIGH.
This is a better HIGH than any drug could give you.And when you feel it you feel like you are flying. This high belongs only and soley to you alone. You own it as your right for your creation.And that feeling is magnificent.

Andre is alive!

I have been posting on this blog about Andre's Story since last November. A few times I have mentioned that a certain story idea( about a man who just got out of prison and must reconnect with his family) was calling to me.

This link is to other posts that talk about Andre's Story.

http://search.blogger.com/?as_q=andre&ie=UTF-8&ui=blg&bl_url=aspiringromancewriters.blogspot.com


But before now I could not find a way into the story. I know the characters. I know how the novel will be set up and some of the struggles they will face. I know Andre's deep desire of need for forgiveness for leaving his family and his hope that he can find a way back into their lives and the world. But I did not know what the first words of the novel should be. I kept thinking it would start with Andre in prison, behind the bars, and the gaurd walks up to let him out. But I could not write that scene.
So Andre remained only in my mind.

Well yesterday, as I typed away trying to fit a writing session in before church, Andre sprung from my head to the page. I am thrilled to hear him speak and know he is on his way now.

Will I continue actively working on his story? I don't know. I long to go from the "waiting for the muse" writer to the " can writer anytime, anyplace" writer but I am not there right now.


P.S. You might wonder why this blog is called Aspiring Romance Writer and my screen name is RomanceWriter when I am not writing a romance novel. If you read the first few posts from this blog you will see that back then I was working on a novel called Come Back to Me, a romantic suspense tale targeted for Harlequin Intrigue.

The Group

The yahoo group is going great so far. I thought I would answer some questions that the members or other readers of this blog might have about the group.

Why did I start a Yahoo group for unpublished writers?
I think having other writers to share my struggles, joy, questions and concerns with will make me more focused on my writing. Having this blog has made me accountable to not only myself ( I have to write to have something to blog about) but, also, to everyone who ever reads this blog. It is my story of my journey to publication and I want it to have a happy ending. The Writers Group is another way to motivate me to keep going.
I know writing can be a lonely adventure at times and having connections to other writers can ease some of those feelings.

Am I a member of any other Writers Group?
Offline I am not. I don't feel brave enough to go to a meeting with paper in hand to be critiqued. But I hope to get to that point some day.
Online I am the member of two other groups. A yahoo group called new writers chat that has helped me over the last year to learn some technical aspects of novel writing. It has also allowed me to make some new writer friends. But over time the number of monthly posts have dwindled.
I started my own mns group for aspiring writers at the same time I started this blog. This blog was actually created as a promotional tool to get people to join my msn group.
I chat daily at a msn group that discusses a different hobby I have and that group makes me crack up laughing, feel supported, and vent if I need to. But it is not focused on writing .I hoped my msn group would be just like that one but for writers. Well, after nearly a year and a half, I have given up on waiting for that to happen. Now my yahoo group will get the attention the msn group used to get.

How am I getting members for the new Yahoo group?

First off I posted a question on Yahoo Answers asking if anyone wanted to join. Then I sent invites to everyone in my msn writers group and New Writers Chat. I , also, searched through yahoo groups for writers groups that were started and never found any members. I know the person that started that group must have hoped, like I did for my msn group, that they would find online writing friends. And if they join
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/brandnewaspiringwriters/
they will.

I will still be updating this blog weekly.

Yahoo Group

Today I started a yahoo group. The other yahoo writers group I belong to seems to have died. It could be a temporary thing and the members will come back and post soon but I thought I would try having my own group.
I tried that at msn groups and only a few people joined. With msn it took 60 days before it was even listed in the msn group seach listings.

The purpose of this group is just to share the up and downs of being a unpublished writer.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/brandnewaspiringwriters/

First Lines

A short post to add onto my thoughts about the first chapter in a novel. The first line of a novel is the first chance you have to draw a reader in. This web site has a list titled 100 Best First Lines from Novels.
http://www.litline.org/ABR/100bestfirstlines.html


My favorite from that list is

71. Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me. —GŸnter Grass, The Tin Drum (1959; trans. Ralph Manheim)

I also love the first lines from Anna Karenina and The Catcher and the Rye.

One I do not like off that list is

7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. —James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)

Any first lines that you love or hate from that list or from any novel you have read?

Book Excerpts and First Chapters

Check out this site
http://www.readersread.com/excerpts/

It helps me to figure out how I want my novel to sound by reading the first pages
in other novels. The ones that I quickly lose interest or can't relate to tell me that is not the way I want to start my novel.

I think more novels should start with dialouge. I love to jump right into someone's world. It can be jarring but it is like jumping into a swimming pool. Do it quick and see if you want to stay in. I do not want to take a tour around the pool, seeing every little blade of grass, every bug that is crawling through that grass, and hearing the history of the grass before I even get near the pool. If I fall in love with the pool then maybe I will care about all that stuff.

When it comes to a novel I want to be dropped into the middle of the choas and see if it speaks to me. Right into the deep end. And that is how I like to write too.

Song Lyrics of the Day
The strands in your eyes
that color them wonderful
Stop me and steal my breath

Emeralds from mountains
thrust towards the sky
Never revealing their depth

Tell me that we belong together
Dress it up
with the trappings of love
I'll be captivated,
I'll hang from your lips
Instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above

Edwin Mccain

A Long Journey

I have accepted the fact that it will be a long journey to publication for me. This blog is already over a year old. I didn't even start seriously working on my writing until I started this blog.

I have yet to finish a novel, then I have to send it out to publishers, and then wait to hear back, and repeat that as many times as neccesary before I either get accepted or start sending out something else. Because I will not quit. I can not. It would be useless to quit because my desire to be published will never die. I would only return to writing again later if I ever was foolish enough to give it up. I tried that once before cloaking it in the cover of "writer's block".
Was it writer's block that kept me away from this craft I love for three years or was it writer's neglect?

And after I sell my first novel it may be up to two years before it is on a shelf in a store. I am not discouraged by the length of time it might take or all the setbacks and roadblocks I might face.

This is a wondrous journey for me. I would not want to spend my free time on anything else.

What I am reading- Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan

To share is to savor even more

I can already tell that my explosive
period of poetic inspiration is coming
to an end. Instead of 5-7 poems a day
I am down to 1 poem every few days.
But that is fine with me. I know me
and know that these burst come
randomly and consume me when
they do. But, in time, they taper out
and I return to a more normal schedule of writing.

I wrote a poem last night I thought
I would share with anyone who reads my blog.


June 3rd, 2006
A Mission for the Girl

This girl,
who never
set the world on fire
flashing
downcast eyes
and weary smiles,
now aims her
full force field
of internal
energy
toward bringing to life
the dream that resides
in a
well of desire
she only
recently tapped.

She's finding foot holes on a
inner
mountain of courage that
rises out of her depths.

Though others
would have
never
guessed
she had this in her.

But, as for the girl,
she always knew.

Now her plan
is to grab and
claw
and scratch
at the
world,
grasp at the world
and
grip it with
both hands,
shake it up
till
it shakes out
all that she is owed
for the time she sowed
being such a
good girl.


All she wants is
everything
and everything is all
she
knows
she is due.

A Home for All

My heart still hurts after watching that special on foster children last night. I don't have answers for what might be done to help the sitution. But I know if more people work together there is an answer to be found.
I pray that one day every lonely child can find a good, moral and able adult to provide them with a place to call home, a place to belong to someone.
There are a few things on my list of dreams I hope to accomplish one day. The list is simple and could be counted using one hand. It has always included children and, in a vague way, the hope that I would be blessed enough to open my home to foster( available for adoption) children. This fantasy is always for a sibling group because I strongly favor keeping families together.
But will I ever be in the position to do this? I don't know. After watching that program last night I feel like anyone who has ever entertained the idea of fostering/adopting owes it to themselves, the children in the system, and the world to look into it.
There are no quick fix answers to this problem but these children are all of our children and they can not be abandoned. We are only as strong as the weakest among us.

Some interesting blogs to read on this subject-

http://mylostdecade.blogspot.com/

http://sunshinegirlonarainyday.blogspot.com/


Song Lyrics of the Day

There's a love that's divine
And it's yours
and it's mine
And it shines
like the sun
At the end of the day
We will give thanks and pray
To the one
Have I told you lately
that I love you?
Have I told you
there's no one above you?
Fill my heart with gladness,
Take away my sadness,
Ease my troubles
That's what you do!

Rod Stewart