Felicia Denise's Blog, page 66
August 21, 2017
Write Your Story #MondayBlog
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Writer’s block gets far too much credit for words not written and false starts on manuscripts.
Not being able to develop a character or plot to move the story forward is maddening. However, sometimes a lack of words is not the problem but the overabundance of words vomited by your brain!
After finishing a twenty-five-hundred-word chapter, you read it and cringe in horror at the forty-seven adverbs, nineteen pronouns, twelve dialogue tags, and eleven uses of the word ‘had.’
You believe writing is not your calling and consider a career in the food service industry where name tags and hats are required.
Instead, you delete the paragraph and start over.
Stop it.
You’re dealing with another type of writer’s block—one where you’re blocking yourself from moving forward because you’re trying to write the perfect first draft using the rules.
Stop it.
Everyone’s first draft is craptastic—you’re not going to be the exception.
First drafts get rewritten during the editing stage … hence the name FIRST draft.
Your story can (and will) change, making the chapter you’re agonizing over irrelevant.
Your editor could say the chapter doesn’t add to the story. Wave goodbye to the chapter.
Your MS will go through more changes than an Academy Awards show host.
Take a deep breath … and exhale.
Now. Write your story.
Let the words flow. Good, bad, passive, indifferent. Get them on paper.
Write your story. Finish it … and take a break from it.
After your break, make a copy of your MS and put it away.
Now you can use the rules and fix the excessive adverbs, run-on sentences and five-hundred-sixty-five occurrences of the word ‘that’ … or maybe that was just me.
Line up your Beta-readers and alert your editor.
And when you’re holding your published book in print form or on your reader, take out the saved copy of your first draft and compare the two.
See?
You turned something craptastic into literature.
Pat your yourself on the back … and start all over again.
Write your story.
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August 20, 2017
Saying Goodbye
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52-Week Writing Challenge: Week 33
This is part of a scene from the upcoming Family Matters, book 2 of In the Best Interest of the Child. Olivia Chandler is at the bedside of Willis Benson, her lifelong protector, as he lay dying. Her fear of abandonment threatens to overwhelm her until Willis reminds her of one important detail.
“How long has he known?”
“Since July.”
“July?” Thoughts and images raced through Olivia’s mind. She’d spent time with Willis on five or six occasions in the last four months. And never suspected a thing.
“How long-”
“No one knows. Two weeks… two hours. Any answer would be a guess.”
“That’s unacceptable. His condition must tell them something. Who is this doctor? Maybe we should get a-”
“Olivia, stop.”
She frowned.
“Dad signed a DNR.”
Ian became a blur to Olivia. Dizziness and nausea gripped her, Heat enveloped her body as sudden fatigue caught hold and dragged her toward the floor.
Ian was the only reason Olivia didn’t fall. He held on and propped her against the wall.
Ian spoke to her but Olivia heard no words. Her jumbled thoughts were of Willis Benson, the man in the brown suit she met as a ten-year-old. The only constant in her life since that fateful day when everything changed.
Ben Chandler planned well for his daughter’s future. But it was Willis Benson who fought for Olivia… and her mother. He risked his own job future and status in the firm to carry out Ben’s wishes.
When Olivia turned eighteen and took partial control of her inheritance, Willis was at her side. He answered Olivia’s questions and gave mild guidance, but Willis insisted she make her own decisions.
Years later when Olivia refused to visit her mother ever again, Willis accepted it and continued to stand by her.
Now Olivia needed to accept the fact if… no, when Willis suffered another cardiac episode or seizure, no life-saving measures would be taken.
He would die… and leave her.
With a sense of urgency, Olivia attempted to break Ian’s hold on her.
“I have to see him, Ian! Please let me see him! Let me… say goodbye.”
With a simple nod, Ian took Olivia by the hand and returned to his father’s room.
Malcolm Benson had his chair pulled close to the bed as he clasped one of Willis’ big hands between his own. Not as tall as Ian or their father, Malcolm had more brawn. He rose from his seat and pulled Olivia into a one-arm hug while still holding his father’s hand.
“Hey, pretty lady. He’s been asking for you.”
“I’m sorry. I was in court… it ran long… delays…-”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”
Olivia smiled and stepped past Malcolm to greet her lifelong protector and surrogate father and was shocked by Willis’ appearance.
She and Willis spoke at least once every week by phone, and several times by text, but six weeks had passed since their last face-face meeting. It was hard for Olivia to reconcile the lively, robust Willis Benson from late summer with the pale, gaunt figure before her. He was twenty-five pounds lighter… at least. Drawn skin over his neck and jawline gave the older attorney a skeletal look.
Olivia’s jaws ached to hold onto the smile which masked her breaking heart. However, when she looked into the dying man’s eyes, her soul calmed. Life was leaving his body, but the piercing blue eyes of Willis Benson reflected all the wisdom and wit Olivia admired and loved for so many years.
“Livvie-”
She stopped him with a gentle touch to his lips.
“Don’t try to speak, Willie-B. I just want to be here with you.”
He placed his hand over hers and squeezed.
“When have I ever passed up a chance to talk? You do know I’m an attorney, right?”
Olivia laughed even as her tears flowed down her face.
“Why, Willie-B? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“For the same reason I didn’t tell the boys. You all would have put your lives on hold, waiting on me hand and foot, trying to make my last days good ones. My dear, I haven’t had a good day since I lost my Sarah.”
He winced, new pain breaking through, defying the powerful IV drug cocktail started only moments before.
“It’s my time, Livvie. But I go knowing you and the boys will be okay. I’m proud of the men my sons have become. And I’m proud of you… just as proud as your father would be.”
“But there had to be times when-”
Willis cut her off.
“Yes, honey. There were days I was sure I’d be dead before sundown. But with rest and medication, I went on. It wasn’t my time yet. But it is now.”
“Why didn’t you choose to fight it? The Mayo Clinic is a short car ride away, or we could have gone anyplace in the world to help you fight for your life.”
Willis closed his eyes but continued to speak.
“It was not a rash decision, my dear. I gave the matter serious thought.”
He opened his eyes and regarded Olivia warmly.
“I’m… not a young man. My cancer is one of… the most aggressive. In the end, my dear, I may have gotten what? An extra two? Three years? And the treatments would have taken their toll making me an invalid needing constant care.”
Olivia clutched the dying man’s frail hand.
“Don’t be afraid, Livvie. I’m not. It hasn’t been easy… these last few months, but for me, it was the best decision. To go on my own terms… not surrendering. Pain has been the worst part of this journey. But, I knew that’s how it would end for me. Please… try not to judge me too harshly.”
Olivia shook her head, almost in a frantic state. “No, Willie-B. I would never do that. You’re the last person on the planet I would judge.”
She tried to calm herself. Reaching out, she caressed his sunken cheek, his skin cool to the touch. “Just rest now. Save your strength. We can talk more in a little while.”
With effort, Willis raised his hand and covered hers.
“This is our time to talk, Livvie. This… is what my strength is for.”
Willis went on before Olivia could speak.
“You must make a decision about… your mother, Livvie.”
©Felicia Denise
August 18, 2017
“Inspiration Will Fail You”
by Kyle Massa
I had a professor in college who often said, “Inspiration will fail you.” She was very right about that.
Many authors wait around to be inspired. They wait for the muse to appear with an amazing idea, one that fills the page with vivid prose and vibrant action. And when inspiration fails to appear, those writers remind themselves that tomorrow is another day, and they don’t write anything.
That’s why inspiration will fail you. It’s lazy, it’s inconsiderate, and it doesn’t ever show up when you want it to.
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August 17, 2017
What is a Healthy Identity?
Such an excellent series – join the conversation!
August 16, 2017
August 15, 2017
Books: The New Weights for Exercising Your Brain
by Nadia Sotnikova
When I was a toddler, it took more than a few fake airplanes to make me eat my carrots and broccoli. My mouth remained clamped shut, as my mom would pilot the fork airplane filled with toddler-sized bites of multi-colored veggies. My hatred for Bugs Bunny’s favorite vegetable followed me from childhood into adulthood, and my mouth remained shut no matter how many times I was told how beneficial carrots were for my eyes.
My poor mom never stopped trying to create a health conscious carrot-eating daughter, no matter how many times I fed her carrots to the dog or left them on my dinner plate. Creating a health conscious lifestyle require us to consume a large quantity of carrots, broccoli, treadmills, and multivitamins.
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Available now in Print!
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Universal Link
Lenore Porter’s life had not gone as she planned. The marriage she put her heart and soul into failed. The man she sacrificed so much for abandoned her. But Lennie refused to be broken. She pushed on, running a successful business and raising her three sons alone.
Through health scares, severe family dysfunction, and trauma which forever changed their lives, the Porter family clung to each other to keep from sinking into the darkness. With her marriage over long ago and her adult sons living their own lives, Lenore Porter decides to sell the cold fortress she worked so hard to make a warm, loving home.
A short, final inspection of her former home turns into a confrontation with ghosts from the past, and decisions and events Lennie felt she’d dealt with and moved on from.
Free, a Novella is a short, clean read recounting one woman’s determination to not be broken by life or lose her identity.
August 14, 2017
What is Successful Blogging? #MondayBlog
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Blogging.
We live it.
We breathe it.
We write blogs about blogging. Ahem!
We write blogs about not blogging.
We blog the how-to and the why.
We blog the if and the then.
We blog the funny, the ironic and the sarcastic.
We blog the sad, the tragic, and the devastating.
We blog the journeys, the pathways, and the epiphanies.
We blog for money, attention, and fame.
We blog to connect and know we’re not alone.
We rant, vent, posit, and postulate.
We ponder, wonder, and extoll.
We link, sync, and hotspot … so we’re always able to blog.
We announce when we’re unplugging and going off-the-grid
Because we want it known we’ll be back … to blog.
We have blog parties, blog hops, and blog meet-n-greets
So, we can meet more people to blog to.
On those rare occasions when we have conversations with real people not behind a blog we ask, “Do you blog?” and offer up our blog address.
Experts/consultants are adamant that you’re not a serious *Insert your profession of choice here* if you don’t have a blog.
We put hours into planning ‘the right’ blog posts with attention-getting headlines and appealing graphics … because we take blogging seriously.
And after we blog …
We become the man behind-the-curtain checking Likes, views, and comments.
Search engine referrals are up and links are being clicked.
Blogging is a success!
But… is blogging its own reward?
What is the payoff?
Product moved?
New subscribers to the mailing list?
Increase in page views/daily blog visitors?
New friendships and collaborations?
More Likes?
More Follows?
What is blogging to you and how do you know if/when you’re successful at it?
August 13, 2017
Using the 6 Types of Conflict to Create Pitch-Perfect Tension
Add this one to your lists of resources! Definitely a keeper! Click through and leave Jed a LIKE, comment or both!
