ABC, B for Blockade

link, blink, blink.

Nothing is more inspiring
than a blank sheet of paper.

Bullshit! That damn blinking cursor on the screen is mocking me! Always!

I love beginnings, but I hate blank pages. See the crux of the matter, where the dog chases his own tail? You have to fill that empty page to get a beginning, but at the same time that very same blank page is blocking you!

Well, one method that works for me to break the vicious circle, I simply leave that blank paper and find myself a comfortable place. I close my eyes and imagine, that topic/theme I have in mind is a dark night sky. I know, the stars are already there, but I can't see them yet. I let my mind relax and allow my thoughts fly free. Some stars began slowly to sparkle, they appear and some vanish again. I let them. No pressure. No expectations. After a while the sparkles became more visible, more tangible, and I can begin to search for the right group of stars. This might take some time, but in the end I have wonderful constellation. Back to my blank page I can fill it with the perfect first sentence, the perfect first little paragraph. From now on it's much easier to continue. The curse of the blank page is broken.

I also use that technique on every other part of the text, but it only works, when I already have a theme/topic in mind. I'm still searching for creativity techniques, when my mind is also blank. Every tip is welcome!

P.S. Blockade is the same word in German and in English, only differently pronounced.

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ABC, A for Anfang (start)

revealed quite a lot of intersting prompts, that would be all interesting to write about ... but for today it could be only one. It's the start of April and the start of the challenge, so what's better than to write about beginnings.


Oh, btw: My ABC list is written in German and I'm going to use the German words!

A for Anfang = start/beginning!

If you belong to that species of book lovers then you'll might know that wonderful feeling holding a brand new book in your hands. The excitement, the expectations. You know, the moment you open the book is like opening a magical door, then you begin to read the first lines and you enter a world filled with unknown places, different times and new friends. I love beginnings ... as a reader!

From a writer's point of view the perspective changes a little bit. Now it's on you to create exactly that kind of magic, that draws your reader into your story.

I'd like to ask you: How many pages do you read before you buy a book? Does that influence you, if you buy the book or not? And later on: Do you always finish a book? How many pages do you grant the author before you finally decide to stop?

I ask for two reasons:
First of all: I belong to that category of readers, who always finish a book. And according to my motto 'Always give a second chance, but no third.', even if I don't like a book, I would try another book from the same author.
Second, and more important: There are many advices for openings, like Amie Kaufman's What Does Your First Page Say About You? And Judy Hedlund writes in her article Potential First Chapter Problems, that the first 15 pages are essential. Your first chapter should start with kind of a bang, else you run the risk to lose your readers (or even get rebuffed by an agent).

I was wondering: Is that so? With really every book? Every story? Every genre?

What about romance or comedy? Even horror delivers a great example: Stephen King. He's known as the Master of Horror, but if you know his books, he's also very talented for lengthily descriptions and procrastination. Very often there's no big bang at the beginning, instead you have to turn patiently 50, 100, 200 or even many more pages until the final showdown.

I totally agree, it's advantageous to have a grand opening, but I would also say, that's no a general rule! It's said, don't judge a book by its cover. I would also say, don't judge a book by its first 15 pages!

All right, that was my start ... no 15 pages, but hopefully good enough for you to come back?!? See you then tomorrow with the letter B!

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Friday-Fill-In: 2011-13

1. I can't believe I didn't get fooled today! (Not yet, the day isn't over!)
2. Happy 1st April for everyone.
3. How can I cheer myself doing housework joyfully?
4. 'Schinkennudeln' (noodles with onions, egg, cream and ham) was the last thing I cooked.
5. Six of one ... No! Her name was Seven of Nine!
6. Do you remember that scene in 'Singing in the rain' after the song 'Good Morning'? Yesyesyes; nonono!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to the rest of my 'Schinkennudeln', tomorrow my plans include ah, well, no concrete plans at the moment and Sunday, I want to prepare and maybe even write some of my articles for the April ABC Challenge!

Not my best! As excuse, my whole mind is busy with the April ABC Challenge!

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Writing Exercise 14: Metaphors

THE CHALLENGE

Let's talk today about metaphors, analogies, comparisons, etc., that could enhance a text and make it more interesting. Of course, 'exhausted' metaphors could make your text sound stereotyped and trite.

There are so many metaphors, we've heard so very often, that while reading we don't think about them anymore. You should be really careful with using boring metaphors, because they might just blow up your text with useless bla bla. For example: 'He broke her heart.' In most of the cases it's simply better to show the consequences of the 'heart breaking'. Similar with comparisons. Instead of writing 'Red like blood' use something better to describe the fact, e.g. 'Red like his bloodshot eyes after a long night out full of alcohol and drugs'. Well, that's maybe good enough for an example, but not good enough for a text.

All right, this exercise has two parts:
PART 1: Take your time and collect 30 metaphors, analogies or comparisons, you personally use very often. Believe me, you use more than you think.

PART 2: You might already guess. Out of that 30 pick up 10 and create three fresh versions each!

MY OUTCOME

PART 1: Well, I've found my 30 metaphors ... in German language. This time it's difficult to translate them, because some of the terms don't make sense or simply don't exist in the English vocabulary!

One additional note: While collecting I've realized, that obviously I'm very fond of using terms with animals, colors or food! *g*

PART 2: Well, I simply didn't want to rack my brain for finding something extraordinary to that plain phrases. Instead I've used a technique to create some completely new metaphors:

• Life is (like) a rose, it's full of thorns and can blossom.
• Residing is (like) a meadow, green and juicy.
• Family is (like) a cellar, dark, dusty and filled with hoards.
• Believe is (like) a vase, it depends, which flowers it contains.
• Energy is (like) a car, you have to fuel it first to use it.
• Believe is (like) a mirror, you can only see what's in front.
• Success is (like) coal, brown, dirty and needs a lot of hard work.
• Family is (like) a table, is one leg shorter it tips over.
• Recreation is (like) a deck chair, foolish, if it's folding up.

EDIT:

Thanks Roland for the hint! There is no like in metaphors!

Okay, that's enough! I really should make a little note in my current writing project to edit my text according to metaphors, analogies and comparisons!

CREATING SIMPLE METAPHORS

This is a simple technique to create simple metaphors. It's best, when you're with a partner, but it also works for one:

• Person A thinks of plain, general term, e.g. marriage, woman, profession, love, etc.
• Person B thinks of a concrete object, all things, that can be seen and touched, e.g. a chair, socks, a cat, etc.
• Person B names his object, Person A formulates a spontaneous sentence to the object.
• Combine them and you receive some 'country lore':
  Marriage - carpet - to sweep something under the carpet
  Marriage is a carpet, a lot of things get swept under.
  

See, very simple, but very effective and so true!

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WQ-11. Most & Least Favorite Character.

30 Days Of Writing Questions 11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?

The answer to that question would have been much easier, if you'd asked about characters created by other authors! For instance in the BDB series by J.R. Ward in a flick of a second I just name Rhage (Yeah!) and Lash (Boo!). *g*

But that wasn't the question, right? *sigh*

Okay, I can only speak for myself, but I can hardly imagine, that there are authors out there, who truly hate their creatures. Sure there might be some difficulties creating them or parts of their personality, that aren't so adorable, or circumstances, that make them act badly, but truly hate ... I don't know!?!

E.g. two of the main characters in my current writing project:

Cathryn: I love her, because she has all the positive qualities I'd like to have and in a way, through her eyes I can live her adventurous life. Of course, she has also quite some flaws, some I don't have, that makes them a bit difficult to write, e.g. I'm not afraid of heights, she is! What I hate about Cathryn are the circumstances and the area, she lives in. She simply can't be that independent woman she could be today, she has to fight a lot more obstacles. Does she find a way? Does everything work out well? Does it happen at all? Or are there others, who want her to take a whole different direction? But that's exactly the point, that makes the story interesting, right?

Davis: I would consider the tendency of my own personality optimistic, positive, harmonic and insightfully. On the contrary, Davis has also very dark, dishonest, snaky and greedy side. It's a bit hard for me to let the monster within myself lose, in order to let him do all those awful things in right villain way. I have to forget my own good manners, in order to let him act believably. Like I said, it's difficult, but I don't hate him!

I'm attached to all of my characters, even if they cause me some trouble now and then. Else I wouldn't write about them!

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Wreck This Journal: Glue Random Items Here.

Well, honestly I don't like to pick up things from the streets (that's what the instruction demanded), and the only things I find in my couch (alternative places to search for the items) are cats hair!

So, what won't people do for the sake of art ... I 'sacrificed' myself to eat various little bars of chocolate *yummy* in order to cover the background and make some Origami with the wrappings! ;-)

Thanks to:
Origami Club
Origami Resource Center

Left page: Crane, Moneygami Heart, Goldfish
Right page: Rabbit & Turtle, Asian Raccoon, Black Cat, Swans Parent & Child

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April A-Z Challenge.

Well, it slowly appears to me, that this year 2011 is becoming my year of the challenges. In February we had the February Journaling Challenge, hosted by Dolly and myself. A couple of days ago Carol's blogpost draw my attention to:

Some of you might remember FJC, Day-09: I Am... A-Z. I LOVE those ABC lists. They are a great for training your brain and a wonderful source for inspiration. You might imagine, that I instantly caught fire for that new Blog Challenge!

But our own challenge had taught me well. You just can't start such a challenge and hope to end it successfully without a little planning. I wanted to have at least my complete prompt list! While pondering about that, I came very fast to the conclusion to give my posts a theme: My blog is supposed to be about writing, so, the one and only logical conclusion, that my theme for the month will be Writing ABC!

Why should I rack my own brain, when some research does the trick? For 'writing ABC' I've mainly found instructions how first-graders learn to write the ABC. And 'writers ABC' gave me alphabetical lists of authors. Even 'writing lexicon' brought no useful results... I found myself quite surprised, that obviously there doesn't exist anything like a Writing ABC, or I just searched with the wrong words. Anyway, I should keep that in mind!

Instead I asked some befriend writers about their ideas - btw: Thanks a lot! My dear friend Dolly additionally made me think beyond the obvious, she wrote:

"You could pick words / phrase and write a story that centers around it. Or you decide on a longer story, and write a scene each day. First decision is what do you want to write? Fiction? Non-fiction? Short Stories? Novel? Poetry? Articles? Once you decide what you want to write, then you can choose appropriate theme."

She was right! The prompts alone aren't enough. The idea to write a serial with an alphabetical start of the daily scene was very intriguing, remember Michael Ende did that in his 'Never ending Story', but not what I'd intended to do.

So, what else? I finally ended to do it the Carrie Bradshaw way. I'm going to write a daily column. 200 words about my thoughts, believes, experiences, etc. to a special prompt. I already have my prompt list:

As you can see, my list has grown quite well over the last couple of days. I only have to chose which prompt I take. It shouldn't collide with the 30 Writing Questions, but I think, that will work out well!

I'm looking forward to the challenge and I'm quite excited about it! Maybe some of you want to join in, too! One way or the other, enjoy reading the upcoming ABC posts!

P.S. If you have some ideas for the letters J, O, U, X and Y, leave me a note!

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