Posts By Lindsey Loucks
First Chapter Contest
There’s a contest going on over at this blog: http://lydiasharp.blogspot.com/ Whether you win or not, you’ll get your first 500 words critiqued. It sounded kind of fun, so I entered.
I Lust Verbs
Maybe it’s just me. It wouldn’t be the first time I lusted after something/someone no one else gave two shakes about. But every time I read a strong, creative verb in a sentence, I drool a little. Yes, it’s gross. But while I dribble down my chin, I reread the entire sentence to experience that lust again. And again and again.
No need to question my sanity – I checked out of reality long ago. But my lust has stirred in me the need to make a list of my favorite verbs since lists also make me lust. The following are just a few of my favorites in present tense. Some of them look like nouns, but could be used as verbs.
lance
lick (no, I don’t write erotica!)
arc
echo
loll (not to be confused with LOL)
scar
prick
sheet
slice
That’s all I can think of at the moment. What are some of your favorite verbs?
A Shower Won’t Help
Let’s be realistic: no one has a sparkly clean mind. They’re messy and complicated, kind of like the directions for my new crock pot. Bits of information are scattered all over the place. But a scattered mind is what makes us human, so at least we have that as an excuse.
A critique partner asked me once how I make my stories so polished. I’m still not exactly sure what he meant, but I answered back by saying, “They sure don’t start out that way.” Maybe that’s because I start writing the first draft on notebook paper, not computer. In that initial shotgun blast, I have to keep up with the story by writing in shorthand. My typing fingers are too slow. Below is an example of how dirty/messy/complicated and unpolished my writing is:
Lines and whole sentences are crossed out. Phrases are scribbled in the margins. Eventual destinations are marked with stars. It’s crazy! But that’s what fell out of my messy head.
Of course, this word vomit winds up on my computer so that I can sort it out, but still. Writing is messy, and showers won’t help.
So, writers, what do your first drafts look like?
Anyone, what’s on your dirty minds? Wait, do I want to know?
Anyone, do you have any good recipes for my new crock pot?
Shooting From the Hip, Lindsey Style
I like cowboy movies. Maybe it’s the swagger and the scuffed boots, or the squinting into the sunset with a toothpick jutting out of a parched mouth. Whatever the reason, I like them. Maybe that’s why I live in a certain famous historically rich cowboy town. Actually, there’s no ‘maybe’ about it. The thought of squinting into the sunset like Wyatt Earp, maybe even standing in the exact place he once did, thrills me. I’m kind of a nerd like that.
Is there a point to all this, you ask? Chill. I’m swaggering and my spurs are jingle-jangling. I’m caught up in the moment.
There’s a saying in the writing community, “Shoot from the hip.” My guns are out and pointed at my computer screen, but in a friendly howdy-do way. Because sometimes I do shoot from the hip. This means I don’t plan what I write, it just comes. When this happens, I try to keep up with my brain. That’s what happened last summer when I sat down to write The Grave Winner. I got as far as chapter four with no idea where I was going to go next. Then I twirled my guns out of their holsters and started shooting. But the ideas came so fast as to what would happen next, I had to write them down. No way was I going to forget them. After a third of the book was written, I shot my guns again. Here’s a picture of the bullet holes:
It’s messy and hardly legible, but you can kind of make out the chapter numbers on the left. So I wrote the second third of the book based on these bullet holes, though some of the tiny details changed. My momentum carried into the last third, but soon I had to get my guns out again.
My point, and I do have one, is that I don’t know what’s going to happen next until the smoke clears from my blazing guns, and an outline appears in my little notebook like the above picture. I do both – shoot from the hip and outline.
What do other writers out there do? If you’re not a writer, what’s your favorite western movie? While I await responses, I’m going to YouTube the preview for True Grit and squint at the computer screen while I watch it.
Why I Write, Part I: I Suck at Speaking
There has been a lot of drama in the bureaucratic part of my school district lately including finger wagging, playing the blame game, and administration suspending. The teachers and I all wrote down positive things about the suspended administrator and planned to confront the bureaucracy at a meeting. Everyone read what I wrote beforehand and said how phenomenal it was. I think I was expected to speak at the meeting as eloquently as I wrote, but as soon as the tears started flowing in the room, I was useless. All I could do was try to silence my sobbing and sniffles. I guess that was okay because other people spoke instead, though I could feel people looking at me expectantly. This is why I’m a writer and not a speaker. And yet somehow I can speak to children with no problem.
Editing + Revising = Fixing. I’m The Fixer!
While I edit my latest YA novel, the following song repeats again and again:
Yay, Pearl Jam!
My first draft felt rushed in some ways, and covered in a thick layer of dust in others. As I begin editing and revising, I’m slowing it down in places and polishing my computer screen with LemiShine. It’s working, I think. My house smells like lemons, anyway.
Knowing how the story ends has helped the editing process. I completely changed my original ending from one of Everyone is Skippy Happy to It’s Over, But Gee Whiz, Is Everyone Alive? I like the new ending better; it fits the entire tone of the book. What was I thinking with that original ending?
I’d like to pump up the word count, but it seems to be dropping. All the fluffy flowery writing has to go, though. Out with the unnecessary speech tags when the character’s action does the trick. Wave goodbye to”I looked, I watched, to me, at me.” They’re all gone. But when I get to the action parts, I’ll be like that Pokemon character named Slow Bro. Action sequences are difficult for me to write because I’m trying to keep up with how it plays out in my mind. I have to remember that no one else is seeing exactly what I’m seeing unless I describe it to them in perfect detail. Well, maybe not perfect, but as close as I can get.
Editing is hard, but super fun. I like my story enough, (who am I kidding – I love it!) that I’d revisit, play with it, revise it forever. As long as “The Fixer” keeps playing, I’ll keep fixing.