What WOULD the People at Google Think?

I'm often alone for the holidays.  I try not to let it bother me because I really enjoy solitude when I have it.  I do, honestly.  However, I still feel a little sad when people post photos of their smiling families gathered around the dinner table or their beautiful, glittering holiday decorations that look to be straight out of Martha Stewart.

The plus side (I think?) is that people run off to share these days with their families, so the chatter on Facebook, Twitter, and so on is virtually nonexistent.  Without others to distract me, I can focus on my novel-in-progress, The Fracture of a Dream.

Toward that end, I spent this Christmas Eve researching brain trauma, comas, and amnesia.  (Am I allowed to call it an amnesia love story?  Probably not, as it goes far beyond that label.)

It occurred to me that if anyone at Google were to keep track of my search terms and examine them individually (instead of in aggregate), I would certainly look like some kind of hypochondriac or psychopath.

That's the writing life, I presume!  May all your search terms raise eyebrows and forever remain interesting, fellow writers.  Happy holidays!

Lia B.

Where Does an Aspiring Writer Even Start?

If you're like me, you've got stories you want to tell.  Cool ideas.  Fantastic characters.  Dreams of being the next (fill in the blank here).  You've eyed the spot on the bookstore shelves where your novels, impressively thick with glossy covers, will sit, waiting for your enthusiastic fans to scoop up in excitement.  You've practiced your autograph, just like so.

Maybe, like me, you've wanted to take part in NaNoWriMo for years but were never able to make the time.  (November is crunch time for many students, plus it's right before the holidays, so it is reasonably one of worst times to commit to writing about 1,500 words a day.)

Maybe you've actually taken part in it, and like me, faltered after a few days of writing here and there.  Some days it's easy to get to that required word count.  Other days, the words just aren't there.

Where is the best place to start, though?

Here's what I think.

While writing The Fracture of a Dream, I started with the end.  Specifically, I knew how the story would end, and I wrote the final scene, the final words.  As I continued writing the rest of the novel, the story developed and the characters evolved.  I had to edit the end once or twice, yes.  However, its current incarnation remains faithfully close to the original.

By starting with the end, it allowed me to pitch the characters in the correct trajectories throughout the story, already knowing what would happen to them.  It gave me a clear direction in which to proceed.

I'd absolutely advise something like this for anyone starting out.

Lia B.

My Weird Little Paranoia

I have this paranoia that I will accidentally steal ideas from books that I read or TV shows and movies that I watch, especially without realizing I've done so (see Helen Keller's experience with her story "The Frost King").

It was this reason that ultimately kept me from pursuing creative writing instruction in college.  I was afraid of being "tainted" by formal training and wanted to keep my ideas "pure."  (I promise you I am not really a narcissist...well, not that much, anyway.)

It's rare for any theme or idea to be truly unique, I believe, but I've been extreme about avoiding other fiction while writing.  This is totally counter to the advice of some writers, but it keeps me feeling more secure.

I've been sticking to reading non-fiction works for the last year, and this practice had the interesting side effect of forming a springboard for new ideas for The Fracture of a Dream, ideas that I knew I could not have "stolen" from what I read, because I had to fictionalize them and put them into new contexts.

What do all of you think?  Read more fiction while writing fiction?  Don't read fiction at all?  Read within your genre, or read outside it?  I'm curious about what works for other writers.

Lia B.