Party on!

For tomorrow we must take up pen (or computer) and begin writing again.

It's that time of year ---to leap into those New Year's resolutions.

Writing: Many writers set aside time each day to write. I give myself goals to reach: so many pages for my writers' group, a year to finish. I write twenty minutes, sometimes three hours and then none at all. But my novel is always with me. I mentally direct a scene until it's right, catch and hold interesting images and phrases, and play with new concepts and possible plot tangles. If you stay with your book and it will get written.

Yeah! I wrote today.
Writing: With the holidays I haven't written any fiction. Oh, I have been going through scenes in my head but nothing made it into the computer. I even had a short story idea I didn't dare transfer into words. Stilted phrases choked my efforts. Luckily my creativity found another outlet, changing sad grapefruits into an elixir of juice, triple sec and vodka. Once I relaxed the short story wrote itself-its very raw self--but it's a start. Yeah! I'm a writer again.

Writing: An idea for a novel is like an explosion of color. It bombards the senses. No wonder that first draft is so difficult to write. How do you explain color? How do you fall into a new world and have it make sense?

The Pink Tree--my sister got this from Filene's when it became Macy's. Seems this tree didn't fit the new store's decor. The little girls in the neighborhood are envious though.

Writing: A good story is ruined if it's told from the wrong perspective. Is the right character telling the story? Should it be told in first person or third, present or past tense? Consider how many movies have retold the Christmas Carol. Do you want scary or cartoon ducks and mice?

Yes there are more trees! This is my space tree.
Writing: I went to Philcon this year, (Philly's science fiction conference) and had a great time with people who love to read science fiction, physicists whose projects seem like science fiction, and writers. Then I had to go home and face my frozen Thanksgiving turkey.
Conference are a great way to learn about the writing profession and talk to other writers. They are physically exhausting, yet mentally energizing. But writing is still solitary: You and the words.

Silver and Gold. Makes you think of the old girlscout song about friendship.

The Merry Christmas to new and old friends!

Santa Tree and an almost traditional red and lime green tree.

May Santa bring you what you want.

Writing: I would love to have a book published, but I don't need that to write. I won't stop striving to tell my stories as they should be told. And to my friends and fellow writers --thanks for the encouragement, advice, and patience.

Straw ornaments.

A friend's husband brought the boy ornaments from China. I like to imagine him searching through all the ornaments to get a set of every different one they had.

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Writing: How many different ways can a person be described? Listing eye color, hair, and height sounds like a police report. A good exercise is to describe a person by an article of clothing or personal tick. It's a great way to pass time in waiting room or meeting.

Sweets tree. It seemed a good idea at the beginning of the season to have this tree at the kitchen table but now, I've overdone the sweets and want salad!

Writing: There's overdone prose, hyperbole, saccharine sentiment--so many ways to overdo in writing. The opposite is as bad--telling instead of showing, lack of setting and characterization --offering the reader too little. Balance like a healthy diet is so hard to maintain!

Purple and lime green tree.

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This tree is a favorite for lots of people, despite how nontraditional the colors are.

Writing: I've heard agents and editors say that what they want is the "same old" done with a twist. I like to think readers are smarter. If my trees are any indication, people are open to variety and drawn to novelty. I decorated my trees to appease my artistic urge, it's the same reason I create with words.

A little bit of heaven.

Writing: What would Heaven be like? The United States a hundred years from now? What about another planet or galaxy? Writing means creating worlds. While this is obvious in science fiction and fantasy, it's true of any work of fiction. Characters shape their reality through their perceptions and needs. Their story is their world.

Snowman Tree. I thought this tree would be appreciate considering the weather.

Writing: I like the mood of this tree, it is the best of snow--the sparkle, the brightness, the fun, but not the cold. Think of all the ways you could write about snow. It could be beautiful, quiet, deadly, frigid, or dreary. How something is described tells the mood and more of a story.

I know there's something a little off about a lime tinsel tree with hand beaded Victorian like ornaments. Lime and pink aren't traditional Christmas colors but lime green is my favorite color.

Writing: Voice is nearly impossible to explain and so easy to recognize. A reader knows his favorite author's style but can't define it. While good writing can be taught, voice can't. A writer must be willing to expose his emotions, fears, ideas, the world inside his head.Once he does he can speak to his reader in his own unique voice.

Two trees to remind us of the not-so attractive trees of our past. Tinsel over load and the silver and blue wonder!

Writing: These trees aren't exactly like the ones they represent. It's difficult to capture the past--or the future. Have you ever notice how a television show like "Buck Rogers" is stuck firmly in the 1980s (hair styles, makeup, attitude, language) while being set in the future? The same is true of old science fiction, but I love the nostalgic feel of Asimov and Simak and their concepts and themes continue to be valid--we are still people after all.

Old-fashioned

Christmas

tree. The ornaments are a mix, some given to me, some old, some new, with the big lights.

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Writing: There's magic in Christmas-- in the old ornaments that still catch the light and sparkle like new. It's a glimmer into the past and as delicate as the aged glass ball. When I write, I try to capture a moment, a feeling, and a mood. Too often as I'm translating that glimmer in my mind, it shatters into a clumsy heap of words.

A tree with glitter ornaments and a gingerbread man tree skirt I made years ago.

Writing: The obvious thing to say is that "not all that glitters is gold." Same thing can be said of my writing especially the early drafts. But it seems no matter how many revisions I do there's still the stray comma, awkward phrase, and odd inconsistent fact, but I hope that if I give the reader a good story, interesting characters and a satisfying ending I will be forgiven.

The first tree has family made ornaments. The one with hearts is my daughter's tree--the ornaments represent her childhood love of bears, her semester at sea, her time as a daycare teacher. The third with a woman on top is mine-teacups, books, high heel shoes, my children and home.

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Writing: These trees are character studies. Writers do them in different ways: charting, listing, filling out employment forms. I think about my main character until I can talk to him. That character usually tells me about the others. Once I had a character that the main character didn't understand and who wouldn't talk. Luckily her friend, another character spilled the beans. And people think writers are nuts!

What a sad little tree. It's supposed to be look natural.

Writing: Writing isn't natural at all. It's grammer and plot and revision and more revision--all to sound effortless.

The deep Blue Sea Tree.

I've done this sea theme on a green tree and it just didn't look right. But the same ornaments on a blue tree were perfect.

Writing: Nothing you write can be so precious that you're not willing to change it to improve your book. Early readers of my latest book felt that the same section didn't move as well as the rest of the novel. After some thought and a discussion with Jeanne, a fellow writer, I decided to remove a secondary character who only appears in the problematic section and revise, revise, until I get it right.

A pair of purple trees

The smaller tree is in a bathroom. I can't leave a room undecorated, can I?

Writing: Purple as in purple prose should be avoided. According to Dictionary. com purple prose is that writing that calls attentions to itself because of its obvious use of certain effects, as exaggerated sentiment or pathos, esp. in a attempt to enlist or manipulate the reader's sympathies. Good writing is invisible. It wraps the reader and pulls him into the story.

WV Tree

Many of the hand blown WV glass ornaments were gifts from my daughter. My son gave me the tree

We lived in WV for fifteen years. I visit annually, usually for Charleston's Book Festival in October. The mountains are breathtaking then.

Writing: A writer needs to collect images as well as words. Living in West Virgina meant fog lying in the mountains like cobwebs, roads that rose so steeply that they seem to end in the sky and learning to trust your tires will find the way down, fossils older than dinosaurs littering the creeks, ghost stories and small houses with a million dollar view of the capital's gold gilded dome. Like a crow collecting shiny bits, I've stored these and many more images.

The Lady Tree

This is my mother's favorite tree, she refers to it as the Lady Tree. Angels and doll ornaments grace its branches.

Writing: A writer cannot be ladylike when writing. Characters must be portrayed with all their socially unacceptable thoughts and actions. Most readers appreciate the honesty because secretly they have thought or done the same things. Don't worry about the readers who might confuse your characters with you--these same people will try to re-write your book and question your sanity. They are not your friends and should be avoided.

My husband was out of town when I put up this tree. When he returned he complained, "That tree was for outside." "No," I said, "the directions say indoors and outdoors." Unconvinced, my husband sees a gap in his outdoor light display and an ugly tree in our bedroom. I see a tree the Jetsons would have loved as much as I do.

Writing: Writing well means following grammar rules and and accepted writing practices. Can these rules be broken? Of course, but only very occasionally. You may break any rule as long as you know you are breaking it and why--and are able to defend yourself to your fellow writers. This rule, however, is never to be broken.

Another Trio of Trees

May husband gave me the red tree after he told me no more trees. The other two were part of my yard sale find of five little trees for a dollar.

Writing: Everyone tells you how important the first sentence and paragraph is --how it has to hook the reader while telling him what the story is about. Contemporary books do this well. The premise that first hooks me keeps me reading and then-too often-- the ending disappoints and I feel cheated. Perhaps agents and publishers don't notice this since they seem to concentrate on the hook. Personally I'll forgive a slow start and the occasional stumbles if the ending is good. Give me a great ending and I'll sell your book to all my friends.

The theme and some of the ornaments for this tree came from a trip to Tanzania. The safari was like nothing else I've experienced. The large exotic animals, the flat expanse of the land and the overwhelming sky that stretched forever was so different from home, I could have been on another planet.

Writers live in their heads. It's where they work. And despite the frustrations, it's a comfortable place to be. But it's necessary to brave life without editorial controls and embark on adventures into the unknown--to gather sights, sounds, people, places, emotions--the it's where we find our stories.

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Joy

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Joyeux

Noel.

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The little elf atop of this tree came into my mother's house on a bottle of Joy dish liquid in the '60s. It took quite a few years for the little guy to merit his lofty position. Today he hangs onto the tree topper my husband and I bought for our first tree. Years later my children and I painted wooden ornaments, including the noel on this tree.

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quote: A writer lives for twenty-five years and spends the rest of his life writing about it.-Kurt Vonnegut.

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Writing: Writers have to dip into their memories, recalling the intense emotions that accompanied the firsts of their lives--the first kiss, the first death, the first best friend. They have to feel again the pain of unrequited love, a friend's betrayal, a parent's fall from perfection. Experience elicits the same emotions but with a sense of familiarity. Writes can't afford dulling senses. The best story feels like a 'first.'

This tree is decorated with flowers I dried, most of which I grew. I keep the tree up year round (without the lights lit). After three years the flowers are faded and I throw them away.

Writing: A novel starts with a seed of an idea that has to be nourished and grown-- through research, outlining and mentally trying out different scenarios. But when the writing begins, the words falter and the characters move robotically. What had been a promising bloom withers. Rewriting and editing preserves the bloom. But like a dried flower, the color is changed. Sometimes the story doesn't bloom, instead it crumbles into dust.

I decorated this tree as I handed out Halloween candy. It has a Fall theme after all.

Writing: Setting is more than where the story is happening. It's also when --the season (See how I connected this to the tree), the time of day. Setting extends to other details the reader needs to experience the character's world-- the weather, the political climate. Through setting a mood is drawn, a plot twists, and a sense of reality is struck with with reader.

Note to self: I'm working on a book set a hundred years from now--expand on setting until I know this future world as I know my own present.

The days of Christmas Trees have officially begun. Each day I'll be posting a decorated tree from my house. Yes, my husband John lives in a forest worthy of Santa's North Pole.

I'm beginning with this trio. My mother bought the middle one, a fiber optic white poinsettia tree years ago. Its sisters were a recent yard sale find. How could I pass up five little trees for a dollar! You'll see their green brothers later.

Writing:

The challenge here is to combine Christmas trees with writing insights. Obviously the trio depicts the first law of fiction: There must be a beginning, middle and end. Taking that further, the middle is the bulk of the story. The beginning poises a question or dilemna. The middle works through the problem and the ending comes when the character, or characters evolve, the mystery is solved, etc. Like the beginning and ending of a good story, the two smaller trees reflect the other. They are alike, yet different.