YOUR BOOK TO WRITE, YOUR STORY TO TELL

Your book means just that; it’s your book to write.

If you have a story to tell and share, write your book.

The secret to finishing a book? Start writing it.

Another secret? Everyone has a book in them.

At least one.

A BoomerPdx reader sent this message:

 

This, my friends, is what I like to call ‘Blogger Gold.’

My story made someone think about doing something.

Not unplugging a sink, changing a tire, or making pie crust, but writing a book about growing up with girls who become friends for life.

So why not go ahead and jump into it?

Take this aptitude test first, then jump.

 

9.  Complete the sentence, “A good story needs…”

a. the structure you learn from Larry Brooks 

b. the sort of daring you find on http://chuckpalahniuk.net/

c. a friend like Tom Spanbauer

d. a teacher like Cynthia Whitcomb

Correct Answer: A writer who won‘t give up.

Be sure and click on the links.

 

When It’s Your Book

There’s a difference between comparison and comps.

Comparisons are what you do while you write.

“This sounds too much like that.”

“I sound like a plagiarist.”

“Why am I copying Mark Twain?”

One word for comparisons: ignore them.

Write your book in any voice, in any style, in any format.

Change it in the middle, change it in the end, change it in the beginning.

– But blogger D, it sounds confusing. Why is that?

Because in a first draft the big goal is finishing it.

Not ‘just do it,’ but, ‘just finish it.’

After a first draft, you’re done. Put it away.

If you ever dreamed of writing a book, you did it.

Call it a dream come true.

But you know it’s not enough.

In my experience, someone who has thought about writing a book needs to write their book.

In some form.

Write it in order of events: this happened, then that happened, the end.

Write it reverse order: We’ve been friends for life and get together at least once a year. We were all busy in mid-life with jobs and family, but in high school we were inseparable. Now it feels like it did way back then. The end.

Write in a sequence of flashbacks: We’ve met each others’ guys along the way, been to each others’ weddings. The kids have all met.  And we’ve been to the rescue for each other.

 

This link points to a ‘masterclass’ in novel writing. Who doesn’t like masterclass?

 

More masterclass:

 

Write the story you can’t stop thinking about.

“Usually I have more than one story,” Spike Lee says, “but I found that over time the one I keep thinking about is the one I’m eventually doing.”

Great writers often have multiple stories bouncing around in their heads at once, but how do you choose which one to write?

Avoid basing your decision on what you think will sell or on current Hollywood spec scripts trends.

Instead, realize that your best writing will be born from excitement and passion for the story.

 

But You’re Writing a Memoir? Set The Table

A big part of writing anything is keeping a focus on the work.

If it sounds hard, it is. It takes mental fitness.

Good mental fitness leads to good mental health, and who doesn’t appreciate that in everyone?

However, poor mental health is a better story with an unreliable narrator.

If you grew up in the 70’s you know plenty of unreliable narrators.

The women you know may have married them.

The writer in you cannot be unreliable. You’ve got to keep things in their proper order.

What does that mean exactly?

Rewriting. Edit hard and write it again.

Repeat until ????

 

Ben Affleck said this in an interview:

Craftsmen know how to do the work; artists know when to finish.

You’ve got your people, your characters, and you know them well.

Shine a special light on your time together for a great story I’d like to read.

Try casting a movie for your story.

Who would play you?

I’d start with Nicole Kidman. I might stop there, too.