The weekend after Thanksgiving is my favorite weekend of the year. Every year our family spends Friday night shopping for our Christmas tree. We also buy five new ornaments, one for each member of the family which we label with our names and dates.

We spend the rest of the weekend making our home festive. On Saturday while listening to Christmas music we string the lights then each place our own new ornament on the tree followed by ornaments from years past. Over the years our tree has grown and so has our ornament collection.

I grew up with few traditions so I’ve made a point to create traditions with my kids that we faithfully follow every year. Spending this weekend together is one of those traditions. As the kids get older and lose interest in family time it makes days like this even more special. We forget shopping, and friends, and extended family. We turn off the outside world and focus on each other.

After decorating the house I make hot chocolate while the kids make a huge bed on the floor next to the tree. The rest of the evening is spent watching our favorite Christmas movies under the twinkling lights of our new tree. We usually start with Elf staring Will Ferrell then we watch favorites like Home Alone and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I hope when my kids become parents they continue this tradition with their own families. By the time they marry and move on I may have enough Christmas ornaments to decorate three trees.

A warm summer breeze blows off the ocean gently caressing our faces. We feel the sand between our toes and smell saltwater in the air as we dance step by step and hand in hand to the perfect harmony of seagulls cawing in a cloudless sky, and the sweet sequential melody of our jovial laughter.

This is one of the best articles I’ve read about POV.

Emotional Depth 4: Deep Point of View

Written by: Melissa James

She has an entire series of articles written on Emotional Depth. I haven’t read them all but this one is so good and so detailed and so specific I had to share it ASAP.

I found this the other day while surfing the internet on editing advice. I’m not very good at editing (especially in my own writing) so I need all the help I can get. It’s an auto edit program which offers limited free usage or you can purchase for unlimited access. I thought I’d share it with you. I’ve used the free service a few times and it’s already help me see some of the mistakes I commonly make and forced me to be more creative.

It’s called the Autocrit Manuscript Editing Software.

The free service allows you to look for over used words, repeated phrases, and sentence length variation. The paid service offers much more including a pacing monitor and cliché finder.

This website also offers tons of writing advice. Click Help/Advice then Advice for Writers to view a complete page of useful tips and answer to various questions. Not to mention tons of helpful articles on every subject known to writers.

I did it! Whew! Not only did I surpass the 50k mark but I also completed a first draft of my manuscript. I spent all weekend trying to figure out a good ending and it finally came to me in the middle of the night.

Now for the fun stuff. I have to go back and add some details and descriptions in a few areas still lacking. That will boost my word count a little more, I hope to have it completed somewhere between 90k and 100k.  If it doesn’t get that high I can live with that too.

Thank you Darksculptures, Kathan, Nancy Drew Too and Shaddy aka Paper Cut Screams for all your support and encouragement. I’m thrilled to see that we are all winners this month but not surprised. I knew we could do it, and what fun it was. I can’t wait to read more of what you’ve written.

I must mention that when I submitted my novel for the final word count the count drop over 450 words. I was surprised to see the difference in the Microsoft word counter and the NaNo word counter.

I’m slowly coming to the end of my story and while tying everything together I have to make sure all my backup documents are in order. You know, make sure I have all my ducks in a row.  I don’t want to leave any loose ends or dropped story lines.

I do very little prep before I start writing but a few things I do faithfully. I thought I would share these things with you. You may find them helpful.

First: I write two mini-bios. Below are the questions I complete for each main character. Both these examples came from the book “Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints by: Nancy Kress.

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Mini-Bio for Key Characters

Name:

Age:

Birthplace:

Marital Status:

Children and their ages:

General appearance:

Living arrangements: (i.e., lives with wife and three young children; rents ramshackle apartment alone; has tent in nomadic tribe with three concubines)

Occupation, including name of employer: (if applicable)

Degree of skill at occupation (loves it, hates it, regards it as “just a job,” has mixed feelings, is actively searching for other employment)

Family background (whatever you think is important: ethnicity, siblings’ names, parents’ names, social status, clan affiliation, total repugnance toward everybody he knew before the age of twelve)

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Emotional Mini-Bio for Key Characters

Name:

What three or four things does this person value most in life?

(i.e. success, money, family, god, love, integrity, power, peace and quiet)

What three things do they most fear?

What is this person’s basic underlying attitude about life?

What do they need to know about a person in order to accept that other as “all right” and trustworthy?

What would cause this person more pain than anything else possible?

What would this person consider the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to them?

What three words would this person use to describe himself or herself, accurate or not?

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I try to have a firm grasp on my characters when I start writing even if I don’t have a firm grasp on the story. I also come up with a list of key phrases that they most often say. Expletives or common expressions, for example, Sarah says “Dammit” and Ali says “Oh hell.”

I’ll write a couple of journal entries from the characters point of view just to get an idea of what they’re made of. I try to focus on their history and their current state-of-mind so I can accurately portray them in my writing. This is very helpful in making them real individuals and not just a random picture in my head.—which brings me to my next step. I look for pictures of people I think most resemble my character. Sarah happens to look a lot like Keri Russell, when I think of Mark, Chris Pine comes to mind but with darker hair. Brian looks similar to Eric Bana or Brody Jenner, Eric is slightly too old and Brody is too young but they both resemble him in looks-yes, he’s very hot!

In addition I make a list of all characters, which often changes by the end of the story. I list their names, ages and occupations. Then tie together how they’re all related to each other.

I make a timeline highlighting important events in the lives of my main characters. Births, marriages, divorces, birth of their children, etc.

When starting a new story I pick a date on the calendar, like September 22^nd. Then I print a calendar for September through whenever—however long it takes to finish the story. Dangerous Embrace starts on September 22^nd and ends mid-January. I use the printed calendar to mark current events. For example, one entry under November 10^th might say “Sarah’s attacker arrested” or under October 18^th, “Sarah and Mark fight—break up” or “Sarah and Mark’s first kiss”. (It is a love story after all )

In Dangerous Embrace I had to list the marriages of Sarah’s parents because both had been married numerous times. I couldn’t keep them straight so I had to make a list of wedding dates, divorces and last names. Every time Sarah’s mother divorced she moved to another state so I had to track each move by city and Sarah’s age at the time of the move. As you can imagine the timeline for Dangerous Embrace was very long.

I’d be curious to hear how you all started, besides the typical outline.

This is a continuation from my last excerpt.

Let me know what you think, honestly! Rip it to shreds if you must.

Oh, and feel free to let me know how incredibly tacky it is that he’s consumed with thoughts of another woman while he’s burying his wife. I’m having trouble with the concept too, but if you read the entire story it makes a little more sense.

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Brian stood there with his hands on his daughter’s shoulders, looking out over her bowed head. He felt like he’d been thrown back in time and back to a day he knew he would never forget.

Their blond heads so perfectly matched as they tilted towards each other in an iron embrace. He remembered the day like it was yesterday, the picture as clear as the bright blue sky above his head. He knew right then—as sure as he was breathing that he loved Alyssa—who knows this stuff at eight? He wanted to scoff at himself but he didn’t have the energy. Who the hell knows what love is at eight? He couldn’t explain it to himself but he couldn’t deny it either.

Watching Alyssa and Ali cry over their father’s coffin on that day twenty-five years ago was so like today. There they stood, holding each other again, Ali’s hand reached out to Bobby’s but her arm around Alyssa, their heads together crying all over again. He glanced at their mother, Susan Parker and knew he’d not given her enough credit for what she’d done, raising her daughters alone, being widowed at a young age. Her girls growing up without a father, his friends, he remembered how hard it had been for them both. He wanted to cry too, and he did. He cried for his friends and for Alyssa, it hurt him to his soul to see the pain and tears in her eyes everyday.

Brian remembered growing up hating Susan. Every time she kept Alyssa from him, every time she wouldn’t let Alyssa see him or talk to him he cursed her, but now he had a better idea of what she had went through. They were just kids, he and Alyssa. Whadda ya know, Susan Parker had been right about Brian all along. All he did was hurt Alyssa in the end just as Susan had known he would.

For Brian it was just beginning. He looked again at Julie’s shining coffin glinting in the bright sun and wanted to kick himself for thinking about Alyssa on this day, the very day he had to put his wife in the ground. If Julie could hear his thoughts she would hate him, ironically enough so would Alyssa. Alyssa would never respect him, not after what he’d done to her and especially if she knew his true feelings now, Brian again had to force back his tears.

How did he get here? How did so many things change since that day? Nothing was what it should have been, but how could he regret? How could he—as he stood there with his daughter? Regret her? Regret his life to this point? Regret Julie? No, he didn’t, of course not, but regret Alyssa? Yes, there were regrets where Alyssa was concerned. He loved Erin with his whole heart; he couldn’t imagine his life without his beautiful daughter. He’d loved Julie too, but Alyssa was different and he knew it. He couldn’t explain it, just different than Julie. Alyssa held a part of his soul. To this day she still gripped it in her hands. That part of him had been missing in his life with Julie, the part he’d left behind with Alyssa when he’d decided to marry Julie.

Alyssa will always have it, even after she marries that jerk-off from Berkeley. Even then she’ll own a part of him. His stomach lurched at the thought of her with him, but what could he do. He’d given up on her; he’d walked away and given himself to Julie.

Is this what it felt like to Alyssa? Did she feel this sinking overwhelming sick feeling when she found out about him and Julie? Had she been living with it for fifteen years? Was her love for him equal to his for her? He couldn’t remember if he’d ever told her how much he loved her. Did I tell her? Did she know? Did that make everything harder for her? Did I tell Julie? Did Julie know how much I loved her? It’s too late to fix that—she’s gone—Julie is gone, Brian, Julie is dead—urgh! Did she know how important she was to me? Even after the hateful things he’d said he still cared for her—and now she’s dead.

What if Julie were here? What if Julie was here and Alyssa was in that coffin? Brian inhaled a loud gasp at the thought. He felt his chest tighten and tried to take a deep breath. Don’t, man—just get through this day and stop thinking about Alyssa, Christ, man—stop! He reached up and rubbed the sweat from his forehead.

Erin turned to look at him with red-rimmed eyes and a slight smile of support. “I love you, Daddy.”

Brian cupped her neck and kissed the top of her head as a tear rolled down his cheek. “I love you too, hunny.”

One margarita, two margaritas, four, my father-in-lay made tacos and now I feel funny. A little tequila, a little lime, sometimes sugar, tonight salt. It’s not Friday yet but who cares. This flash 55 will be the most fun thanks to one margarita, or five? I can’t remember. I’m going to bed, Good night,  lovely margarita and lime.

Heh heh heh, this is a true story. I wrote this last night with a spinning head and the giggles. Sorry for the awful writing, I’m not even sure exactly how many words this is. My plan was to erase it in the morning but now that I read it I just can’t, it’s too funny.

I’m struggling with lack of knowledge and no real way to research.

You may remember from a Flash 55 a few weeks ago that my story starts out with Detective Brian Hammel finding his wife Julie with another man. Not soon after this Julie dies. After Julie’s death Brian finds out the man she was having an affair with is his one of his daughter’s high school teachers.

When Brian finds out this teacher is harassing his daughter at school he beats him up and gets suspended for it. While on suspension he gets arrested for shooting the same guy—except he didn’t do it. His daughter did it but when Brian figures this out he confesses to protect her.

Long story short, everyone figures out that Brian is lying and his confession is false. How much trouble can he realistically get in for that?

So far he is guilty of what? Filing a false statement? Obstruction of justice? Can he be charged for the false confession or fired?

I have no knowledge of police procedures. I’ve only actually seen the inside of a police department once and that’s when my daughter graduated from the Youth Citizen’s Police Academy.

Maybe writing about a cop wasn’t the smartest idea but Brian was a secondary character from Dangerous Embrace so I couldn’t change his profession and he picked me I didn’t pick him—or I should say he picked Alyssa.

Furthermore, how much trouble can his fifteen-year-old daughter get in for shooting the antagonist? It wasn’t exactly in self-defense but more under duress. She’s never been in trouble before and the guy was coercing her into doing bad things—and I mean bad things.

Does anyone know anything about police procedures or policies? I want it to be as realistic as possible without throwing my story off too much.
I’ve researched the police department from the city I’m writing about. I know the different units and the hierarchy in each unit but I don’t know anything about juvenile law or code of conduct for officers. Does anyone know where I can research this. a website or a book?

I’ll take all the help I can get.

“If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.”  — John Steinbeck.

I stumbled across this today and thought I’d share. It’s funny how different we all are but still share that strong bond in loving what we’re doing.

Check this out John Steinbeck: Advice for Beginning Writers.