Blog of Gracie O'Neil Author Paranormal Romantic Suspense

My task was to create a story or a poem using the names of various grammar rules/items including: 'subjunctive clause', 'prepositional phrase', and 'predicate'. So, using the idea of a child remembering bedtime stories as told by her grandmother, I wrote My Grammar and Me.

There's nothing paranormal, romantic or suspenseful about it. But the truth is that if you only ever write one style or genre when you're starting out in this business you might never find your true metier. Experiment. Have fun. There's nothing worse than hating your job.

23 November, 2009

Time for Giving

OK, it's a month (almost) till Christmas, and I'd like to give some early presents. If you're anything like me then chocolate would work! But a good book or story is the next best thing.

So over the next few weeks I'll be putting up some fun bits and pieces. Today's gift is a short story called Straight and Narrow. Hope you enjoy it!

18 November, 2009

Logical Conflict?

I've just spent several absolutely exhausting hours on a piddly 1400 words. I know. I can't believe it either. But, in my defense, it involved massive emotion, a huge conflict, and a major turning point.

Now I'm sitting, staring at the screen and thinking, "This thing is all over the place like a dog's dinner. How am I going to make any sense out of it?"

Which brings me to my real question. How logical does conflict have to be?

The answer? In real life, it doesn't. In fiction, it does. Why? Because conflict--especially an argument--has to advance the plot, and be seen to do so.

Unlike in life. I mean, in the real world when you're having a knock-down-drag out fight with your significant other--or anyone else, for that matter--how often do you stop mid-rant and think, "Hang on. What I just said makes as much sense as a chocolate nasal swab"? (Actually, as I've never talked to a chocolate nasal swab, they might be quite erudite and I'd never know...but that's beside the point).

When was the last time you (in the middle of PMS) decided an argument over sex wasn't worth it because it wasn't advancing your life goals? Exactly.

And how many times have you thought, "I should give him another couple of seconds spluttering-time and then whale in with a good dose of 'well, if you're going to take that attitude then...'" OK, maybe that's more common. Well, it is inside my head, anyway.

Back to the fictional conflict. So, I'm staring at this page and thinking these thoughts, and it occurred to me that surely someone, somewhere must have analyzed the anatomy of an argument. For example:

Step One: Start.

Step Two: Progression to hands on hips.

Step Three: Small verbal sideswipe, preferably incorporating the words "you always..."

Step Four: Quick recover, followed by red herring argument by injured party.

Step Five: Major archaeological foray (known in most families as "digging up the past")

Step Six: Swift retaliation in the form of "Who gives a [insert expletive of choice here]" and a slammed door by one combatant...

All right. I know the example above is not advancing a plot. But seriously. How hard can it be to make an imaginary argument between two fictional people realistic, and yet functional? Let's just say it's difficult enough that I'm currently taking a break for coffee, and a sanity transplant.

4 November, 2009

Disguised as Work

I came across a really great quote by Thomas Edison the other day.

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

It rang a bell with me. Opportunity is work. So why do we seem to think that it's something magical, almost Zen-like, requiring us only to listen for its knock in order to take advantage of the moment?

The truth is that opportunity is a fickle thing with the attention span of a two-year-old combined with the attitude of a junkyard dog, and if it ever knocks it only does so when you're in the shower and your clothes are several rooms away.

Down a glass corridor overlooked by the local television station.

Whose CEO you just told to take a long running jump off a bridge.

What I'm trying to say here is that opportunity is not convenient. It's not easy. It's not necessarily fun. And it sure isn't tall, dark, and handsome.

In the writing world opportunity comes with built in pressures. Deadlines. Revisions. Internal conflict between the good and the best. External pressure from people who don't understand--or care--about your goals. The guilt those closest to you layer over your choices like frosting over a cake.

My opinion? Opportunity wears overalls because it knows that whenever it stands next to someone who really, really wants to take advantage of the moment then everybody inside a twelve mile radius is going to get splattered by the brown stuff flicking off the rotating device.

It also carries a shovel for much the same reason--and hands it to you a nanosecond before you suffocate so you can dig your own way out.

30 November, 2009

Building with Writer's Block

What do you do when you're at a point in your novel where you simply can't seem to go ahead? Some people call it 'writer's block'. Some call it a myth. Whatever you call it, it's horrifically frustrating.

There are all sorts of ways of dealing with it, but one that sometimes works for me is a trick I learned from my father. He wrote several math textbooks, two anthologies of short stories, and a couple of novels. Whenever he was at an impasse of some sort he'd take a break and write something utterly different. In his case, rhyming poetry for children, a la Dr Seuss. He said it forced his brain to think in another pattern.

When I started writing it was as a musician, so I wrote songs--words and music. Even now poetry works for me.

However, writing it cold isn't as stimulating to my brain as having a defined field in which to operate . A word count, for example. Or, as in the case of my gift today, certain words or themes that have to be included somewhere.