Story Glimmers

A writer needs time to gather a story. To let the glimmers spark out of that mysterious dark center where stories are sometimes born. But there are times when the glimmers sparkle but are as elusive as a sunbeam. You see it but you can't really grab it. Sometimes the story glimmers tease you and entice you down the wrong story road. And yes, sometimes a writer can't just sit back and wait for the glimmers to settle in her head to light the way to a story. A writer has to grab a flashlight and go hunting in the dark for that story.

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I'm definitely at the glimmer stage with my next story. And about ready to grab that flashlight and venture out into the dark unknown. The glimmers are there, but they aren't very bright. I see a Shaker sister keeping a journal. Perhaps she's sitting at a desk like the one above and dipping her pen into a pot of ink before carefully forming the letters of her words. She doesn't want to make a mistake because she's writing the history of her sisters and brothers. I see another character, a young sister, who is enchanted by the possibilities of life. But I don't yet know when. Or what. Maybe I can't know what until I know when. I think it's time to read some history. That always helps me focus on an idea or even discover an idea.

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And yet I stall. I have to do these other things. I have a deadline to come up with discussion questions for Angel Sister. I have questions to answer for someone to do an article. I need to update my events calendar. I need to copy edit Angels at the Crossroads so I can get copies with the new cover. I need to do this blog entry. All these things are writing related. If I'm doing them, I'm surely working. Surely writing.

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But the truth is, I'm not. Those things are important and need doing. The same as the clothes have to be washed and the meals cooked. My mom has to be taken care of and the grandkids visited. The deck needed a second coat before winter sets in. (And I got that mostly done this afternoon and am paying the price with sore muscles and blisters and too much sun.) But I'm not writing. I have to do all those other things, but I want to be writing. I want to be chasing down those story glimmers. And yet I stall.

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It can be a fearsome thing to write that first word. Will it work? Will the story magic happen again? I've done it many times. I'm confident the words will come. The story will be there if the characters are there. It is time to grab my flashlight and pursue those characters.

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I got the proposed cover for The Blessed, my Shaker novel that will be out next July. I'll post it here soon. And I also got those Blue Monday candy bars so I'll be mailing out the packages to my birthday celebration giveaway winners next week. No mail on Monday. Columbus Day. But Sunday has an interesting date. 10-10-10. Hope you have a day of perfect tens.

A Blank Page Full of Possibilities

A leaf covered wagon road through a woods can be a path of possibilities to a hiker. Who knows what might be around the bend? Deer or a hawk whistling a warning to the woods inhabitants below or a beautifully decked out maple tree. Perhaps there will be nothing but more of the same, but in this case the same is enough if I'm the hiker hearing the crunch of the autumn leaves underfoot with the autumn scent in my nose.
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"We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize." (Thich Nhat Hanh)
That's true not only for a path through the woods, but also when a writer like me sits down in front of a computer and faces that blank page/screen. So many possibilities. So many directions to take. Is this the story road or perhaps only a detour? A pleasant detour perhaps, but one that doesn't lead to the possibilities of our story.
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That's where I am now. Staring at the blank screen and considering the possibilities. I've written four Shaker books. All my characters made their way to my Shaker village by different roads. And now I must find another new road to travel for this next journey to my Harmony Hill. I am going to write my "what if" question this week. I am going to find a road to start down even if I have to chop down the trees of blocked thoughts to make my new road. Another quote I came across when I was looking for inspiration is this one from Jeri Ryan. "Impossible is a word humans use far too often."
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I'm not saying impossible. I know I can find my right characters. I have many times before. One character already is in my thoughts - a Shaker sister who has a rich history, but she's not the main character. I see that girl, my main character, vaguely the way one might spot movement out of the corner of one's eyes. She's there, but she's not yet playing out her story in my mind. She has no name, no age, no desires. Well, that last is not exactly true. Even with her playing just outside the comfortable range of my eyes (mind) I know a few of her desires. But are they story making desires?
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That is the question I will have to answer, and when I answer it I will have to keep in mind this Mark Twain quote. "Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't." I have to make my story believable. If my readers say (as I wanted to say in a book I read recently) that what I wrote could have never happened, then I've lost them. The magic aura of story over their minds has been shattered. It doesn't matter that every bit of the book is not true from Chapter one, word one. The story has to read as if it is true. Truer than truth, because amazing things can happen in real life. Amazing things can happen in fiction, but if they do, the writer better write about those amazing things in such a way that the reader is ready to say, "Okay, maybe it could happen this one time."
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What about you? Have you ever walked down the magic roads of possibilities as a writer or reader and had the magic fade? Or did each new bend in the road just make the possibilities more enchanting?
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Here are the winners in my birthday book giveaway. Linda of PA chose my book The Outsider and also gets The Carousel Painter by Judith Miller. Dee of VA picks my book, The Believer, (and plans to give the copy she already has to a friend, bless her!) and gets a Shaker bookmark. Sylvia of Nova Scotia wants The Seeker and also gets The Shunning by Beverly Lewis, Jo right here in KY picked Summer of Joy and will get an autographed copy of A Daughter's Legacy by Virginia Smith. Amy of MO and Marilyn M haven't let me know yet which books they want. So Amy and Marilyn if you're reading this and didn't get my "you're a winner" e-mail, get in touch. Thanks so much to all of you who joined in the fun of my birthday giveaway. For sure I'll be doing something new around Thanksgiving or Christmas. So stay tuned. Thanks for reading.

Happy Possibilities

Where do you feel happy? And if you found such a place, how often would you make every effort to go there? This would be a place where you would feel loved and worthy and safe and engaged in life. No boredom there. No hard testing. Except, of course, some of us are happiest when faced with challenges that we have to give our all to meet.
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That's probably why people run marathons. I haven't decided that would be a happy time for me. I love to walk, but running 26 miles is another matter. But my son-in-law and daughter enjoy testing themselves by running in races and feeling the accomplishment of finishing with a faster time than they did in the last race.
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Me, I'm happy when I'm writing and it can certainly be challenging to come up with the right idea that can start the snowball of story creation rolling. At times the idea can explode and lend itself to a dynamite beginning that maybe writes itself but then somewhere along the story writing way will come some writing doldrums. I usually have a few stretches of doldrums when I'm writing - times when I wonder if I'll ever finish this story or even if it's worth finishing. And yet I'm only really happy when I'm somewhere in the process of telling a story.
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Not that I don't get happiness from other things. I certainly do. I love my family and I'm crazy about my grandkids. I am blessed with a life chock full of happy possibilities. Even now staying with Mom so much, there are happy possibilities as Mom and I spend more time together than we have in years. Of course there are also the happy times when I do get to go home and just be me. And part of me - a big part of me - is a writer. That was part of me before I ever met my husband. It can be a frustrating part - a maddening part - a consuming part. But in the center of all of that it can be a happy part.
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I got going on the idea of where to find happiness from our Sunday bulletin today. In the printed material on the back the writer asks, "Where is a good place to find happiness?" And he suggests we might answer "the church." I do hope you expect to find that inner happiness so necessary to your well being in your chuch. I do. But I also know I need to be writing words that will slide one sentence into the next and the next until I have a story going. And then I'm happy - at least until I hit the doldrums. ;o)
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I've been so busy this weekend with the trip to Books by the Banks in Cincinnati and then staying at Mom's and trying to cook for Homecoming meal and going to Homecoming and then back to Mom's that happiness hasn't been much on my mind. More survival or perhaps endurance is the better word. Maybe I'm running those races just like my daughter and son-in-law, but they're private races - races to get everything done and some words written too.
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I haven't even been home long enough to pick my winners for my birthday giveaway, but by next blog post for sure. Oh yeah, and I just put the flower picture because I liked it. It's been way too chilly today as if winter is trying to leapfrog over autumn and so I needed a little bright time. Plus, the area where I took the picture of those Dutchman's-breeches is one of the places I can always find a good dose of happiness while I'm hiking. Church is another, especially on a day like today when we were celebrating 198 years and welcoming so many friends back home.
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Where is a good place for you to find happiness?

Books by the Banks

I love book fairs and festivals. They have two of my favorite things in life - people and books. Well, maybe I shouldn't say people are things, but you get the idea. Book fairs are places where most everybody who is in the place has a love for books. That's why they are there - unless, of course, they were dragged there by a bookloving relative or friend. I've seen patient husbands trailing along after their wives and carrying their bags of books and smiling indulgently when the wives stop at yet one more author's table. And I know those two have a great marriage. In fact last year I signed a book for a young wife whose husband surprised her with the trip to the KY Book Fair because he knew how much she loved to read. Such a romantic gesture and so thoughtful too. Besides, what longer lasting present can a person get! A book usually takes at the least a couple of days to read and then sometimes that story can live in your imagination for years afterwards. No box of candy can last that long except maybe as extra pounds on your hips. Flowers wilt. Books keep giving.

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So I'm hoping a few people will want my book and my autograph. This book fair is a bit different than others I've attended. Each author is generally signing only one title for readers. So I'll only have one book to push. That's another thing about book fairs, the competition for book buyers can be keen. And if you as a writer have the misfortune of being at a table beside a super salesman, then you might as well pack it in if you can't match the sales pitch. Most of the time when a reader gets the hard sell by an author, they are afraid to even take a peek at the books on the next table. Of course they usually buy a book from the good salesman author. Sometimes every title available on that author's table.

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I've watched the super salesmen (and women) operate and admire their talent of selling their work. Not my talent. As one guy told me once, I'm good at giving away bookmarks. So if any of you live in the Cincinnati area and need a bookmark come on down by the river on Saturday to the Books by the Banks festival. I love to talk to people and I'll give you all something to keep your place in those books you just bought from the guy down the row.

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Book prize drawing day is the last day of the month. Still time to pitch in your name if you haven't already. And I've got two more days to get these edits on Angel Sister done. I only lack about a hundred pages, but I can feel myself drooping. Sleepy eyes don't make very good final edits eyes. And tomorrow I've volunteered (I couldn't tell my daughter-in-law no! And I didn't have a deadline when I said yes.) to help with my grandkids' elementary school book fair. It will be fun and I'll have a couple of hours free sometime - surely - to finish these edits. Just one more rough spot in them to go.

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Thanks for reading and hope you are having a great Wednesday.

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...?"

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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.

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

Country Living is the Life

You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl!!

Okay, here I am trying on my fancy smancy dress before taking off for the ACFW Conference last week. My necklace is glittering. I'm practicing my smile - squinting a bit since my husband insisted I had to look into the sun. The dress looks sharp. But what do you see right over the deck railing beside me? A cow's back. What can I say? I'm a country girl. I can't remember a time when there wasn't a cow around. My grandkids love it. The last time a couple of my WV grandkids came to visit, the four-year-old kept looking at the seven-year-old and saying with great wonder and surprise, "Our Grandma's a farmer!" I could never decide if she was impressed or amused. But having a cow around (or country living) is good for keeping a girl's feet on the ground not to mention having to watch where she steps to make sure she doesn't put her foot in something she'd rather not.

So I'm glad I live in the country with cows out in the fields and deer that sneak in at night to eat all the apples off my trees. As long as I can keep them out of my strawberries next spring. At the same time it was fun going off to the big city (Indianapolis was a big enough city for me) and getting to know so many writers last week. But of course I got to eat humble pie. When my time to sign books came around, nobody came to my table for my autograph. The writer next to me had a line. I took pictures of her. I should have taken a picture of lonely me. But being a country girl, I shrugged it off. And when I got home I had some e-mails from sweet readers who told me they enjoyed reading my books. So there are times when you can be the glittery, dressed up writer and enjoy the special events, but there are more times when I have to be the country girl at home taking care of chores and trying to come up with a new idea that readers will like enough to pick up my book - and maybe even want my autograph on the inside cover someday. Meanwhile I've got to go for a walk and you can bet I'll be watching where I step.

Birthday Book Giveaway

Don't forget - if you haven't entered my birthday giveaway, you still have time. I'll be doing the drawing on the last day of September. I mean if I have to get older, I might as well celebrate by doing something fun and I think it's fun to give away books. You can check out the details, etc. on the Events page of my website or down in the box at the bottom of the homepage. www.annhgabhart.com. Thanks for reading.

Writers, Writers, and More Writers

Wow! What a week! Writers, writers, and more writers all in one place.

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I did my very first writers conference in June last summer when I taught a couple of classes at the Kentucky Christian Writers Conference here in the state. And then last weekend I was off to my first national writers conference - the ACFW Conference. That's the American Christian Fiction Writers. Over six hundred fiction writers showed up to listen and learn from one another and to pitch their book ideas to editors and agents. Obviously since this was the first conference like this I've ever attended, that's something I've never done. I've sent in proposals in writing or over the internet, but never face to face with editors or agents who hear dozens of pitches every day. I don't know who's braver - the pitching authors or the receiving editors and agents.

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Of course they - the editors and agents - are hoping to mine some gold among all the wanna-be writers. And the wanna-be writers are just trying to figure out the magic equation that will help them find the right publisher so they can get their book out in front of readers. I certainly understand that feeling. That I want to be published feeling. Maybe stated even better - the I-want-to-write-a-story-so-good-that-editors-will-be-coming-to-me-to-pitch-their-contract-terms feeling. I'm not sure that ever happens to many writers until they've got a pile of books on the bookstore shelves and readers are anxiously demanding more books. From them! Most of us have to put in some time and a lot of practice words before anything even close to that happens. So many good writers are out there and so many more who are doing that writing practice and getting better and better.

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I'm in the photo above with one of those new writers. That's Laura Frantz smiling with me. Her first published novel, The Frontiersman's Daughter was up for a Carol Award. The same one my book was up for. Unfortunately she didn't win either. Mary Connealy won - I think with her book, Montana Rose. She had two books in the finalists so I may have the wrong one. I mean when you don't hear your name announced as winner, you have this moment or two of not listening while you're regretting that you won't get to say that witty acceptance speech you labored over that afternoon and kept silently practicing while everybody else was enjoying their fancy dessert. LOL.

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But the conference was fun. And it was especially fun to get all dressed up in fancy clothes and see everybody else's fancy dresses and jewelry. It was great, but I have to admit that I was glad to get back to my hotel room and kick off those nasty high heeled shoes. I'll be posting a few pictures on Facebook and maybe I'll put one of that fancy dress on here on Wednesday.

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Thanks for reading. And don't forget to leave a comment or send me an e-mail from my website to get your name in the hat for my birthday giveaway the end of the month. I sent out newsletters right before I left for the conference. If you want to be on my newsletter list, just let me know. Hope you are enjoying a beautiful autumn day the way I am. I'm getting ready to go out and walk with the dogs. I know they've missed me. Till next time, Ann

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