Seedtime Guesses and More

Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower. ~John Harrigan

Loved all your great guesses last week on my seed picture. Some of the guesses were of seeds I recognized - blueberries, huckleberries, gooseberries. But others of you mentioned berries that had me wondering. I'll be looking some of them up on the net. Saskatoon berries, farkleberries, Nantucket berries, Arrow wood berries and more. I definitely have to look up those farkleberries. That name is made to go in a story. But the one thing in common on all the guesses is that they were wrong. :) 

Funny thing is, I was wrong too. Here's a repost of the photo. I decided to make sure I was telling you the right tree, so I did an internet search and came up with a different tree. Well, it's really more of a bush. You know what? Now I know why the berries on that bush are blue while the bush next to it never has blue berries. They might be cousin plants but not sister ones. I thought it was a red twig dogwood, but instead it's a silky dogwood. 
http://plants.usda.gov/factsheet/pdf/fs_coam2.pdf 

But that's okay. The berries are still very pretty and the guesses didn't have to be right for you to get an entry in my book giveaway. Even better, this week I'm giving you an easy picture. I think most all of you will be able to identify these "seeds" without thinking twice. Remember you can guess on each new picture this month and get another entry in a drawing to receive one of my books (winner's choice) and a grab bag book by a different writer. I'll be posting more "seed" photos for you to guess until I draw for a couple of winners on Halloween. So you might up your chances of winning by leaving a guess on each post before then. Doesn't have to be right. Just a guess. 

A NEW STORY ROAD

You have to get up and plant the seed and see if it grows, but you can't just wait around, you have to water it and take care of it.                                                                             ~Bootsy Collins

That's true with most everything in life from planting a garden in the spring to beginning down a new story road the way I am right now. I'm at the "grow the idea in my head a little bit more" stage. In writing, the same as in planting seeds in dirt, you do have to actually plant the seeds. In writing, that means I have to put my fingers on the keyboard and type words that will grow into a story. At least, that will be my hope. 

The initial story idea is sometimes like an odd little tree sprout I might come across. I see the sprout there. The idea. But I need more. I need limbs and branches, leaves and twigs. And everything needs to connect and interact to make a story something like I envisioned when I allowed my idea seed to germinate and begin growing. 

The seed of everything is in everything else. ~Anaxagoras

As always, thanks for reading. 

Plotting a Beginning

Time to Begin Again.

How to begin? How do you begin anything that must be done? A long journey - by taking the first step. An unpleasant chore - by grabbing the mop or hammer or paintbrush or whatever tool is necessary to get started. A novel - by discovering the character or event that will push you to the edge of the story cliff and then trick you into jumping off. Once you are in the open air of the story the worrisome fear might start coursing through you that this time you might not be able to grab hold of the story balloon. This time you might plummet down into the rocks of rejection and failure below. But at the same time you rejoice in the breath-taking freedom of a new page. What's the story going to be? What are the characters going to tell you? What's going to happen?

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I have a little book, Craft & Technique by Paul Raymond Martin that's chock full of short little pithy bits of writing advice. About plot he says, "In your everyday life, avoid trouble. In your writing life, revel in it." So that's why so many characters have such a talent for stepping into the quicksand of life. Then a writer has to write them out of that impossible situation only to let them be carried away by a flood of new problems. Most readers want something to happen. There has to be conflict whether it's emotional or physical. As Martin says in another place in his book, there are three themes in most fiction: Life is a struggle, humans are resilient, and effort will triumph.

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And so I am posed on the edge of the story cliff searching the horizon for that character that will be the enticement I need to jump. But at the same time I keep getting pulled back from the edge of a new story by other writing tasks. This week I need to edit the page proofs for Angel Sister and so I'm backing away from the story cliff to do the final polish on that book. But very soon I'm going to say "what if I have a Shaker girl who...?"

~~

Also very soon - in four days - I'm going to be drawing for the winners of my birthday giveaways. But it's not too late to throw your name in the hat if you want. Check out the details on the Event Page of my website. And for heaven's sake stay out of trouble. Leave that for the characters in the books you read.

~~

P.S. The clock is a Shaker clock. Some of the communities had very skilled clock makers.