Lara Morgan's Blog, page 5

Writing conference and some tips…

with Kate Cuthbert (left) publishing manager of Harlequin Escape

So I spend last weekend at the national Romance Writers Conference, Riding the Waves in Fremantle. It was great fun AND I got to meet lost of lovely people, eat a lot of cake and picked up some great new tips for writing, which I wrote about over on my other website http://www.lara-morgan.com under my Author’s Desk blog, but so you don’t miss out I’m sharing it here as well. So for all those budding writers, if you’re looking for some more advice head over and see if it helps.

xx

Writing techniques to convey emotion…

I’ve recently ordered a new edition for my books on writing technique shelf – which is only slightly messy ahem – and I’m impatient for it to arrive. It’s called The Emotion Thesaurus, a writer’s guide to creative expression. I came upon it while reading the latest SCWBI mag (society of children’s book writers and illustrators) and got the kind of ecstatic buzz only writers with an addiction to any book with wordy words in it can be.

And it got me thinking.

Conveying character emotions is one of the most challenging aspects of writing – for me anyway – and I’m talking about getting it across in a subtle show rather than tell kind of way here. I hate writing, ‘Rosie felt scared, or ‘Joe was angry” that sort of thing. I feel lazy when I do it and am always sweating over trying to find a way to show the reader how the character is feeling without stating it – and in a new non clichéd way.

It doesn’t always work. I’m not always successful. But what I have discovered is one of the best ways of doing it is to imbue the character with some physical habits which might help. For example, Rosie tends to scratch her neck when she’s upset or uncomfortable. It’s something someone I know does. Though they don’t realise they do it so let’s keep that to ourselves.

I also try to pay attention to what people do when they’re angry or scared or annoyed or any other myriad emotions. The reaction changes according to the person of course. Not everyone gets the shakes, or screams when they’re scared. Some people go very very quiet. One person I know smiles when they’re really angry at what someone is saying to them. Another person closes their eyes when they’re talking about something uncomfortable.

It depends on the person and that’s the key. You need to know your character to be able to convey their emotional state. And then try to get it across in dialogue and their physical responses but try to keep it subtle.

Something I like to do when I’m editing is a global search for the world ‘felt’ and then try to find another way of writing that passage without it. Eyes is another word I have an irritating reliance on. But everyone has their crutch, don’t they. What’s yours?

What to write when you can’t write

Okay so some of you may have come here expecting me to talk about climbing out of writer’s block hell, but that’s not what this is about. I’m not sure I even believe in writer’s block. Usually when I’m in the middle of a project and can’t move forward it’s because I don’t know where I’m going with the plot and for me that’s more of a writer’s detour sign than a block. ie. Go left and back to your outline and stop trying to jump over that gap without any legs!

But I digress. This blog is actually about the despair, despondency and plain old pissed offedness (look I made a word!) that comes with not having the time to write when your head is full of ideas. For me that has been most of the last year. Of course this is due to my need to breed (looks sideways at baby in high chair with cheese up his nose) and that reason, or the result of the reason, is pretty darn lovely (pats baby’s cheesy head) but still there is that need to write.

And the panic. I have books I want to write. New books. New characters. What if all that enthusiasm goes away? It could literally get sucked down the plug hole of the bathtub. It could disintegrate due to extreme lack of sleep – otherwise known as zombie mum syndrome. Really I could be an extra in that show. I’m perfect for it, no make up required.

So how do other writer parent’s cope? What have you done to get through that first year or two when the time to write was taken over by the avalanche that is BABY? The only thing I can write right now is a grant application to help me pay for childcare when I can write (catch 22??) and this blog but that time is snatched from the jaws of nap time and trapped in a high chair time. You see the dilemma.

Also I don’t have time to finish this bl…

 

 

What day is it???

A writer’s life can be a strange ephemeral world in which we waft about finding meaning in the sound of the wind or a blade of grass…..or in reality we wonder how the hell we’re going to find any time to fit in our writing around everything else and, also, where we left the keys. I am forever leaving the car keys in a different spot.

Lately I’ve been trying to A: revamp my main website www.lara-morgan.com which I have mostly managed Yay! So now it looks kind of different and more modern and I hope more usable for folks. If only I could solve the issue of the magical disappearing background that I spent a lot of time choosing and fixing which went the way of the fairies as soon as my brother hit the go live button. (Yes though I write sf I am not as technologically adept as I would like to be – and very time poor – so my fabulous brother has been doing the migrating to another web spot thingy for me and all that tech stuff I don’t understand. BIG thanks to him. xx

B: get a grant application together to help me pay the bills and get some childcare so I can get the time to write another YA novel I’ve had on the burner. I can’t give you any details but to say there’ll be a girl, a boy and a mysterious, dangerous journey involving ancient forces. And it may involve locations such as this…

and this….

But that’s my next year project.This year I need to finish the final instalment of my fantasy series The Twins of Saranthium. And take my son to playgroup. The two of which don’t go well together and which has resulted in not much writing at the moment. Anyone got a spare nanny who will work for cups of tea and cake? I make REALLY good cake.

Perth Writers Festival 2013

I had a lovely day at the Perth Writers Festival recently catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. I went on the Saturday with husband and baby in tow, intending to maybe see a panel or two but ended up spending three hours in the green room instead talking talking talking! (The green room for those unfamiliar with the term is where the starving and caffeine deprived writers congregate between gruelling sessions of answering questions about life, the universe and their favourite sock colours)

My main reason for making the trip to the festival this year was to catch up with Isobelle Carmody and I was going to take a pic of us and post it here, but I was so involved with chatting I never got the pic!

I met Isobelle when she mentored me in 2004 on the first Rosie Black book, Genesis. We did the whole mentorship via email because she was living in Prague at the time. We didn’t actually meet in person until 2007 when I took a trip to Europe.

The picture above on the left is us meeting for the very first time in front of the beautiful State Theatre in Prague. She’s barely changed since then. I think her hair is shorter that’s all!

Isobelle is a wonderful writer and an awesome person and we chatted about writing,of course, her new project (sorry can’t share that!) and the merits of the mango and chocolate cake being served in the green room (to. die. for.) the only problem was our time was much too short.

While in the green room I also got to meet fellow Walker Books author and West Australian, Ambelin Kwaymullina. Picture of us above on the right – I’m the one on the left. (Hasn’t Ambelin got fabulous hair?!!)

Ambelin’s first book in her Tribe series, The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, came out mid last year and if you’re into dystopian YA you should check it out. She’s given me a copy and I’m hoping to find time to read it – as soon as my 8 month old son lets me. He is so bossy!

Ambelin has been doing really well with her book and will be at the Melbourne and Sydney writers festivals this year, as well as taking part in a tour of China. If she had a website I’d send you there for all the details, but she hasn’t yet. (I’m trying to convince her to get a blog so I can cyber stalk her.)

It was really a wonderful day catching up with people and feeling part of the writing world again, I got inspired to try to find time to write but think I will need a baby sitter first for that.

Now I’ve just got to see if I can figure out a way I can get to the Ubud Writers Festival in October…..

xx L

Extra special content reveal, a letter from Pip

Remember late last year when I asked people what extra tid bits they would like to know about Rosie Black – or one of the other characters in the Chronicles?

Well finally it’s here! Yes it’s taken a while but now for your viewing pleasure is the extra content and it’s all about Pip. In fact it’s from Pip.

Back during the events of Book 2, Equinox, Pip wrote Rosie a letter which he never sent, and you, dear Reader, never saw. But now here it is, an insight into Pip’s thoughts; his reasons for not contacting Rosie when he went away and how he really felt about her.

Pip’s letter to Rosie

xx

Lara

I can’t believe it’s February already….

I know, I know I haven’t blogged in a while. When I looked at the date of my last post I could hardly believe it’s been so long. *flogs self with wet fish* So Rosie 3, Dark Star has been out for a while and much love to all who continue to support me by buying it and sharing it with friends and family. I hope you all liked the way Rosie’s story ended. Bittersweet is always good isn’t it? And that’s all I’m saying about that so there’ll be no spoilers for those who haven’t read it yet!

If you want some more insight into my odd mind and influences, I was interviewed on a blog called Dark Ink at http://jbthomasauthor.blogspot.com.au/ so head on over to get the skinny.

Currently my desk is languishing waiting for me to start working again – which I’m finding a challenge with an 8 month old! – but never fear there will be more from me in the future. I have ideas…..

Lovely review and you could win the set!

Spotted on the web was a review of Dark Star over at the My Best Friends Are Books blog, and he’s doing a give away so if you spent all your money or want to win a set of The Rosie Black Chronicles for your Aunty you should click over there for a look.

http://bestfriendsrbooks.wordpress.co...

And part 2 of my talking head…

Your questions answered

As I said earlier, I made a video when I was visiting Sydney where I answered some of those burning questions you might have about Rosie and if you head to the Walker books You tube channel you can see Part 1 now. Or just watch it here!