Writing = Puzzles

I had the pleasure of going on a weekend writer's retreat with my fellow Toronto Romance Writer authors - JK Coi, Leah Braemel, Christing d'Abo and Kimber Chin. Much fun was had, words typed, brains stormed, wine drunk, chocolate consumed...

Over a week later and I'm still reflecting on how different we all worked, how we structure not only our writing time, but how our stories unfold.

While I write this, my son is sitting on the floor doing a puzzle. We usually do them together, me in the lead, so he follows my method: I begin with the four corners, then find all the edge pieces. Once those are in place, I like to sort the pieces by color so that I can quickly identify which part of the puzzle they belong. Then I start filling in the middle.
Left to his own devices, my five year old started from the bottom up.
The bottom up!!
Imagine that. It makes no sense to me, but he's plugging away and by the time I'm finished this post, I'm sure he'll be done.

Back to writing...
My method, what seems to work for me, anyway, is to get the four corners down, so within the rough outline (no, not synopsis... this is more of a mind dump) I identify the hero and heroine, their internal and external conflicts, how it affects them within the framework of the story.
Then I figure out how the hero and heroine meet, a few critical turning points and an ending (or at least a glimmer of an ending). Voila - my frame.
Then I begin - usually with 'Chapter One', but not always! I often write the critical scenes or turning points (the sorting of the colors) then go back and fill in or further flesh out the plot that lead to the critical scenes.

Other writers in the group write in a linear fashion -- from Chapter 1 to The End. Something like what my son is doing with his puzzle (he's finished, btw -- every little Spongebob piece in its perfect place). The beginning to end method makes the most sense, doesn't it? It's logical -- can't argue with that -- but this method doesn't work for me because if I come upon a part I don't know what to do with, I get paralyzed, unable to move past that point. (I know, I know, stubborn like mule.) I feel like I don't have an aim.
I'm strange like this. Y'know how some people go for a walk? "Hey - let's go for a walk, get some fresh air, some exercise."
This isn't me. I need a destination or it seems like a pointless task. Tell me to walk to the mailbox, to the store for a paper, to the closest Tim Hortons for a coffee, and hell ya! The fresh and exercise is a bonus. But just to go for a walk... uh un.
(I get it, btw, why people do, so don't misread this as me being judgemental --It's totally me being strange!!)

What works for you? Are you a corners and border first, a one end to the other, or a grap a piece and see where it fits?

It's so dark in here...

I'm such a bad blogger lately, eh? What can I say.... all my brain juice is being used on the current wip-from-hell, Jump Zone, that was supposed to end about 20k words ago... but is just NOT.
The good news: I finally figured out how to end the sucker.
The bad news: I still have many thousands of words to write.

The other bad news (or good news, depending on your pov...) I'm taking a blogaday (blog+holiday) for a month or two. I'm going deeper into the cave taking only a candle, match and my laptop. And maybe a bag of chips (or twelve).

Before I go...
I must give a big shout out to Leah Braemel who not only had her first book released from Samhain -- but also remained #1 on their best seller list for two weeks!! You can learn more about Private Property HERE.

Another shout out to Christine d'Abo for her recent release All Bottled Up from Samhain AND her uber-hot Ellora's Cave book The Bond that Ties Us (a must-read) is coming out in print. Double WOOTS!

Whew, I'm getting hoarse from these, but there's just much good news!
Another WOOT WOOT goes to Amy Ruttan who's first book of a five book series, Enchanted: The Fey just came out from Linden Bay. I haven't read it yet, but if it's got Amy's name on it, you can be sure it'll contain some hot stuff ;)

AND - last but certainly not least, the talented Thomma Lyn sold her novel Mirror Blue to Black Lyon Publishing!! Let me tell you... I've read the book and it's amazing. It's about damn time someone recognized her awesome literary talent. Keep your eyes on this one... it'll be a late spring release and you will NOT want to miss it. Trust.


Happy writing, happy reading and bye for awhile!

Enquiring Minds Want to Know: How do you bust stress??

Isn't summer supposed to be a lazy time to kick back, relax and enjoy the sunbeams?
Yeah, well... I'm doing something seriously wrong because I've been in frantic mode since mid-June.

I had a nice long chat with my TRW (Toronto Romance Writers) buddy Christine d'Abo over dinner the other night and she's in a very stressful place as well, for different reasons. I've got ten years on Christine so tried to share some of my own experiences in handling stress in the workplace, which is ironic since she's already much better equiped to handle it than I was ten years ago!! Also, I've gotten myself into my own personal stress-rut so who'm I to dole out advice?

So give it to me people... WHAT DO YOU DO when feeling overwhelmed, can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, or find yourself in circumstances that you don't have the power to change? Other than self-medicate, I mean ;)

I used to loose myself in a good book, but I just can't find the time to crack a novel, let alone Christine's latest release (The Bond that Heals Us, second in the Bond series... so freaking good!!) and even THAT'S stressing me out!! What the heck kind of supportive sistah-friend am I that I can't find three or four hours to jump into the Davin/Sara story that I had been chomping at the bit for?! *bows head in shame*

On a sort of related topic, Leah Braemel brought up the subject of writing and hobbies on her blog today, so go visit and share your thoughts.

No Cuttie for Wylie (again), Juno, Gone Baby Gone, Sunny Days, Blog Roundup

I was supposed to have my surgery today... the one that was postponed from March... but the blighters postponed me again! Now I have June 9th to dread.

I watched 2 movies this weekend:
Juno - a quirky, smart, thoroughly enjoyable movie that I highly recommend. It's different and delightful on so many levels.
Gone Baby, Gone - I'd read Dennis Lehane's book of the same title, so I was mentally prepared for the subject matter - child abduction. Normally, I'd stay FAR away from movies like this because as a mother of two young children, my stomach couldn't take it. But I already knew the outcome and only had to leave the room once.
Anyhoo... it's an excellent movie. Casey Affleck has definitely come out of the shadow of his big brother (Ben directed, btw) and though it has its dark moments, it a rich story with deep moral conflict. It's funny, hubby and I totally disagreed on how the main character (Patrick Kenzie) dealt with the situation in the end. (ignorant bastard - both Kenzie and my DH)
My only niggly complaint was the portrayal of Kenzie's partner, Angela Gennaro. In the Kenzie/Gennaro books (they're recurring private investigators in Lehane's books) Angie is a kick-ass no-nonsense toughie. The movie treated her like helpless girl. Grrrr.

The weather in Southern Ontario has been GORGEOUS. We went from winter to full-on summer in 3 weeks. My kids have tans, the dh has a burned bald-spot and I'm sporting a farmer's tan from the hours of yard work. Couldn't possibly stay cooped up indoors when the sun was shining so brightly and nature was greening-up before my eyes.
In other words - no writey for Wylie. (Aside from the Toronto Romance Writers newsletter, of course, which was due out yesterday... but is not, yet.)

Ah well... I needed a good dose of vitamin D having been deprived of it for so long.
How did you spend your weekend?

Before you go, I've got two places for you to check out:

You MUST go to Nicholas's blog and click on the link he provided to an Al Jazeera broadcast featuring an amazingly passionate and articulate woman who wants to bring her culture into the 21st century.
GO!!!

Savvy Leah has provided some terrific tips on making Google work for you. You may think you know what you're doing, but seriously, you'll learn something... Go!

No cuttie, no happy

I was supposed to have That Surgery yesterday but they postponed me until the end of April. I think they're trying to kill me by stressful anticipation...

Sweetness (aka 3 yr old) starts back at nursery school tomorrow WOOOO HOOOO (did I say that outloud?) after a 3 week March break. He only attends for 2 hours in the afternoon, but honestly, my sanity depends on those 120 minutes per day.

I hope y'all had a lovely Easter weekend, for those who celebrate. We have more chocolate in the house than Britney has Frappes. My kids are vibrating from the sugar intake *cough me too cough cough*.

I haven't been as productive on my writing projects as I was hoping... but hanging with two very active boys all day every day sort of wore me out so all I wanted to do most evenings was sit in front of the television and lose myself in mindless entertainment. Gah - there really is SHITE on most of the time. I pretty much LIVE for Thursday nights... LOST. House will be back at the end of April, so that's another night to look forward to. And though I haven't been consistantly watching American Idol, the few performances I've managed to catch were amazing. The little David Archuletta (sp?) has some serious talent...

Back to writing.... my current wip, The Elements of Attraction, is coming along slowly. I've cut out huge swaths of text that I'd written earlier because I decided to change the nature of one of my characters. The story is becoming quite clear in my mind, though (this is a good thing!) and the characters are definitely speaking to me. Mostly in the middle of the night ;)

Leah Braemel has a new website and it's absolutely DIVINE!! Go see.

Okay - so here's the deal. I'm only going to blog twice/week (she says, *snort*) on Tuesdays and Fridays. That's the goal, anyway.

Upcoming:
details on the Law of Averages contest
website update (about time!)
latest reads
my mini-movie marathon

Thanks for stopping by and I'll be making rounds soon!