A Good Chase

I have been working on my main work in progress and have come to a dilemma. I need to write a chase scene. I want it to be exciting and meaningful all at the same time. I have been doing some research and looking around the interwebs information and advice on writing a good chase scene.

Some of the tips that I ran into several times said in many different ways are:

Make each sentence simple and precise – Short sentences make the reading flow much faster keeping the action flowing. It would be hard to keep up the pulse pounding action while your character takes time to jimmy open a window. Just smash it instead.

Use active verbs – [thing doing action] + [verb] + [thing receiving action] Yeah I know it's not quite that simple, but what I am trying to say is don't find an amazing euphemism for an explosion. Just have the car explode.

Avoid all qualifiers – Nearly and almost only count in horseshoes and grenades. Something should either happen or not.

Stay on your character – Action scenes are sometimes so complex we are tempted to describe the whole setting. What people really care about most are your characters and what is happening to them.

I think these suggestions will help me write a pulse pounding chase scene. Do you have any tips I didn't cover? Do you use a completely different method? Please share, I would love to get all the help I can before I dive into my first chase scene.


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Trouble With My Main Character And Music

I am having a little trouble still with my main project. It seems the main character has gotten an attitude and doesn't want to talk to me. Which is hard because I need to know how she is feeling. Anyway, I was trying to figure out a way to make her talk and I thought music might help. I know a lot of writers have music always playing while they are writing, but I generally like the silence that my life so rarely affords. I wrote one scene based on these two songs by one of my favorite bands Empty Hats.

Calling On Song   

Happy Man good performance  

I was trying to think of music that would represent my MC or that she might like. She lives in a world of magic and mystery so all kinds are possible. What song would you say that she, or anyone, should definitely hear?  

Midweek Check-in and a case of the blahs

Today is midweek check in for the ROW80 participants. ROW80 is the writing challenge that knows you have a life. We are all different and we all have different demands on our time.  Why should we all have the same goal?  The simple answer is that we shouldn't.  If you want to be a writer, then you have to be able to roll with the punches and adapt to your changing circumstances.  If that means changing your goals when your life blows up, so be it.  ROW80 is the challenge that champions the marriage of writing and real life.

My goals for this round are:

1. To post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 
2. To write 500 words on any project.
3. To write a flash fiction piece for Friday Flash.

I have been faithfully posting. A random writing topic on Monday. So far I covered a great outlining method I stumbled across and what to do with social media. I have only been checking in for ROW80 on Wednesdays because I can't handle another day of posting and especially on the weekends. Both Fridays I managed to post a story for Friday Flash. One was a little steamy and the other is a series that started on a field trip.

I am doing well at meeting the goals so far, but I am feeling uninspired at present. What do you all do when you are not really feeling it?

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Social Media Darling...

Riding in the car on a long journey I realized that I could grab a few moments to work on my writing. Though in reality the incessant humming of my five year old in the back seat will probably keep me from getting much done, but I am going to try. (Since I got this done in the car I decided to give you a bonus photo of him.)

Today I would like to talk about presence in social media. Mostly because I don't have one. I think my focus probably needs to be on Facebook with the huge number of users. I have an author page, but I usually forget to post to it after I finish my blog. Another important site is Twitter and thanks to Triberr I think I am getting a lot out of my twitter profile. Of course I could always do more, but I am not sure what exactly to do.

I have done a lot of reading on the subject, on the long car ride, and most of the suggestions seemed like great ideas. For instance one site said to have an interactive conversation with your followers instead of delivering a sermon from upon high. This seemed reasonable and helpful. I know you need to respond to comments to let the readers know that you are paying attention to them. Another site said not to post on Facebook more than two times a day. I was just wondering who posts that much and where do they find their content? Still another site suggests you have a video on your site because it will bump you up in searches and add varied content for your readers. Something else that I thought was fun was a suggestion that you get gaming. Play games and run contests for your readers. Now to try and implement some of these ideas.

What do you think is your most important social media platform and what is the best way to take advantage of it? What do you do to keep your readers engaged?

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Distracted By Monsters

Today is a check in day with ROW80. It's the writing challenge that knows you have a life!

OK so I have been doing pretty good on my goals. I met the one I thought would be the hardest and got the three posts out. Which pushed me considerably toward my write 500 words on anything goal. I have an outline for a story and feel confident that I will be able to get out a flash fiction for Friday Flash.

However, I was not able to write 500 words everyday. See there was Monsters University and had a great time hanging out before and after. Out of eleven pieces of my goal I was able to meet ten so I am feeling pretty good about that.

this day called Saturday. I am sure you have all met him. He just likes to play and is very convincing. On Saturday the kids and I went to the movies with my Mom. We went to see

What are the fun things that distract you from your writing?

Oh No You Didn't...July!

And so it starts! I am already behind. I want to play in this ROW80, but while I was busy dusting the cobwebs off around here the month of July had the gall to start on a Monday. My goals are going to be easy so I can stick with them.

1. Write 500 words EVERYDAY! Sounds simple enough. I am not even putting caveats that it must be on a specific project.

2. Write a submission for FridayFlash every week. This will be easy because I love flash fiction. Randomly jumping into the best part of a story is much easier than trying to make it all mesh cohesively.

3. Update this blog Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This one is a little tougher, but I really miss posting and it is nice to have somewhere to keep track of what I am doing. I also miss all you wonderful supportive people who help me when I am off track.

Do you have any tips or tricks to help you achieve your goals?

So Far Not So Good

OK, so what do you write about when you can't think of anything to write about? I am stuck on my novel because I took too much time off. I can't seem to get back into the story. I tried writing a few short stories about the characters like Elise suggested, but I am not making any progress. I am still ill so that is a giant set back. I don't mind sharing that I am feeling a little hopeless and this isn't even the Insecure Writers Support Group.

Do you have any more suggestions that I could try? I would love to hear them.

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Insecure Writers Support Group February

This is the first Wednesday in the month so it is time once again for the IWSG. So last month, I must say, I did not meet the goals I set for myself in ROW80. I was in the hospital for 10 days and unable to work on my novel. I feel so inadequate at this time. I wish I was more dedicated, but I know that I have to take care of my health before I can get back to tormenting my characters. However, I also know that sometimes if I don't make myself write I will just be lazy and not do it.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated?

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ROW80 and a Bonus

If you have been reading you know I am participating in A Round of Words in 80 Days. My goals were to post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The other goal was to write 1000 words per day. I have been doing well on posting, but I have only written 1000 words on one day this past week. I have also found it hard to post the updates on Sunday. So in the spirit of making my goals fit around my life I will not be posting on updates on Sunday or at least not long ones.

So as far as my novel is going I printed out what I had so far and reread what I wrote so that I can get back in the story. I realized that I need I lot of editing, but I am trying not to deal with it now. My goal it just to get the first draft done. Do you have any ideas that can help me get back into the story that I put on hold for a month while we celebrated?

Today is a light update day so I need to give you a reason to leave happy. Bonus pictures of cute kids.

My kids at their birthday party.

My nephew dressed up for a dino parade.

My "Niece" riding the horses at Disney.

Help Me Make Love (Mature)

OK so I am working on a sex scene. I have been reading post after post on what makes a good sex scene. So far the consensus is that I should not say penis, which makes me sad. I think the word penis is a sexy word, but it seems everyone else thinks it is too clinical or will make people giggle. On the other hand they were discouraging me to use something called "Purple Prose" which included examples such as: wand of love and dewy folds. These things I do not find sexy anyway so luckily I could easily avoid the purple prose kind of thing. There were lots of other things that had some agreement, but none so overwhelming as do not say penis. So where does that leave me? Cock, dick or wiener? Alright wiener just made me laugh out loud so I guess that one is out, too. Someone suggested just saying me because everyone will know what you mean anyway.

For example: She licked her hands and grabbed my penis.
Versus: She licked her hands and grabbed me.

I guess they are right, that does sound more alluring than the penis example.

Another good piece of advice they gave me was to make sure you don't ignore the emotional for the carnal. That sex is an emotional experience as well as a physical one. This we already know, but it is a good reminder to make sure we are using both sides to engage the reader.

A final piece of advice that surprised me, but makes sense is that sex should be used to develop a character or reveal something that we didn't know. This never occurred to me. I was just going to use sex because it is fun to have and read, but I am now trying to think about what it will reveal about my characters. other than they like to have sex.

Do you have any good tips for making a sex scene better?