Conceptualizing

By Keith N Fisher

While writing the other day, I tripped over my story line. I fell into a place where I had to explain why the character came home early from her trip. My character isn’t pretty, like her sister. She’s not promiscuous, like her friend. She chose to get recognition by being smart.

She grabbed valedictorian honors at her graduation and received several academic scholarship offers.

I know, it’s too late to make this short, but basically, she goes on a trip to tour the universities and meets a famous astrophysicist at MIT, although I can’t specifically name the university in my story.

Because the scene in question isn’t really vital to the plot, spending a lot of time on research seemed counterproductive. Nevertheless, it is necessary for the story, so I did. The astrophysicist, a professor, is a fictitious person. The scene is at MIT although I won’t say that, because I hate making mistakes with facts. (Those mistakes can come back to haunt you.)

So, let’s go back to the story line, and my character. She manages to impress the professor by naming the formation in the center of the picture. It is the Horsehead Nebula. Since the dark nebula is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, most of his students miss the subject in the photo. When the professor points at the center of the picture and asks, "What is this?" They answer, "The Orion Nebula."

That’s a lot of research for one scene, don’t you think? Like I said, I hate getting the facts wrong, and to be truthful, I am conceptualizing a little.

The professor takes my character under his wing, and convinces her to attend his school. Having made that decision, she cuts her trip short and goes home to share the news. That’s when crap hits the fan.

I once overheard a conversation at a writer’s conference that gave me pause. It still does. The statement went, "I hate doing research, I love to just write what’s in my head." In answer to this I would say, even high fantasy writers need to research the possibilities. Have you ever observed a writer, who is in the zone? Have you seen them twist their hands, move their bodies, and make gestures? They’re trying to describe actions and they are doing research. Sometimes I use people as dummies to see if my visualization is physically possible.

See the picture I attached? Look at the beauty of the colors. I made it my desktop background. I learned a lot in my research. I learned the Horsehead Nebula was discovered at the very observatory where I drafted the scene. Coincidence? I discovered the horsehead by googleing nebulas and picking the first one I saw.

My character spends a few days at MIT. She never thinks about nebulas again. The professor is not in the rest of the story. Is it worth it? What do you think? In my life I’ve been a carpenter, milwright, typesetter, document preserver, and truck Driver. I studied to be an Architect, and even managed a bar. I also pumped gas, hauled hay, and designed houses. I schmoozed customers as an inside salesman for many years. As a writer, I use all these experiences in my fiction.

Our minds are like a super computer. We start adding data when we are born, and I believe that data goes with us into the next life. Which data we collect is up to us, but as writers, we have a whole lifetime of data to draw from. I might never write about nebulas again, but it’s nice to know I don’t need to conceptualize those facts next time.

Good luck with your writing—see you next week.

What Happens, When Nobody Listens

By Keith N Fisher

Since I got off work on Tuesday morning, I’ve been in bed. Funny how things creep up on you, taking time, health, and resolve. I’ve been running in so many directions lately that I’ve let a lot of things slide.

I haven’t posted here on my assigned day for almost four weeks and nobody asked why. A question bounced around one of my Facebook writing groups recently. Should a writer blog about writing exclusively? Should they talk about other stuff? I’ve been posting blogs here about writing for almost eight years, and with the coming anniversary of The LDStorymakers Conference, I’m having serious doubts about it.

There were moments when people thanked me for writing. It kept me searching for new material. It has been a good time.

As always, I hope you never lose faith in your ability to get published and touch hearts. When you suffer over sentences at 3am, I hope you’ll remember you’re not alone. Many others have been there before you, and many others will come after. We all must write. It’s what we do.

Good luck with your writing.

Earlier Every Year

By Keith N Fisher

Yes I know it's not Saturday. I missed last week so . . .

Three days after Christmas this year, my wife came home and told me the stores had Valentines and St Patrick’s Day stuff up already. We just finished one holiday and another one pops up. Do you feel overwhelmed? How is your pocketbook holing up?

Every year, we complain about stores selling Christmas stuff before Halloween. We chuckle about having our Christmas shopping completed in July. Each store has discount bins. We can purchase discounted items from a foregone holiday while shopping for the next one. We can even get Halloween candy on Independence Day.

I investigated one of those bins once, and found discounted stuff, marked down several times since the holiday. I noticed a common theme with all of it. Each item had no intrinsic value except on the Holiday it represented. There were things like Santa Claus hats, and plastic Jack-o-lantern pails for trick or treat.

When did we become a massive consumer society? Why do we need trappings for every holiday? When did we begin to purchase gifts for every occasion? I think a lot of it stems from Elementary school.

In school, we made construction paper valentines for our mother and she loved them. Soon, we were making valentines for every member of the class. Then came the sheets of Valentines cards, just tear at the perforations, there was one for everybody in your class. Just how many people can be your valentine anyway? Is it orthodox to give a valentine to someone who isn’t your heartthrob?

When did the gift giving lines begin to blur? As a kid, we never gave gifts at Easter. As a teenager, my girlfriend expected a gift from me. Our kids get baskets of candy eggs, and although it’s not a new thing, every girl must have a new Easter dress.

Other than the religious implications, what is St Patrick’s Day for? Would you drink green beer at any other time of the year? Would you drink green beer at all? With, Kiss me, I’m Irish buttons, Hats, armbands, and T-shirts. (Everybody needs to wear green). The merchants do well. What kind of kid would you be, if you didn’t buy a certified gift for Mother’s and Father’s Days? Why can’t we give them something they really need? How many best dad T-shirts, ties, and coffee mugs do our dads need?

I’m not trying to besmirch the holidays. I’m a big fan of celebrations, but the list goes on and on. On Memorial Day, what’s wrong with flowers from the backyard? Do you know how full the Dumpster gets in the cemetery? Some people buy those trappings once and re-use them year after year. I like to put potted tomato plants on my father’s, and grandfather’s grave. It’s more fitting to the kind of guys they were.

How many rockets and sparklers are sufficient to celebrate Independence Day, anyway? Don’t forget the patriotic bunting around the picnic table.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. Over time, our consumer society has established rituals and traditions for every special day on the calendar. Part of that heritage, requires a purchase of some kind. We must have everything from hotdogs in July, to turkey in November. With all that money floating around, it shouldn’t surprise us to see the merchants capitalize on every opportunity. After all, they need to make a living, too, and the competition is fierce.

Did you know I’m a writer of cookbooks and fiction? I thought I’d mention it to validate my blog post. Good luck with your writing—see you next week.

Pearls of Wisdom

By Keith N Fisher

Do you sit in classrooms, chapels, and lecture halls and spout sarcastic humor? It’s usually something smart allecky in regard to what is being taught? I do. Sometimes I can’t control myself.

I’m not trying to disrupt. Really I’m not. I take everything seriously, but sometimes being serious is too . . . well . . . serious. Levity is like sugar and we all know what a spoonful of sugar does.

Sometimes when my pearls of wisdom come out funny, I get a laugh from people next to me, sometimes not. Other times, it’s a dirty look. I wonder if people think I do it for the attention.

Every week here on the blog, I try to write something wise for you to read. Most times, my words hit the mark. They’re pearls of wisdom. Other times, not s
o much. Today, I have no wise cracks. I was late, so I’ll post later in the week.

I hope you’re enjoying the holidays. Hope your writing is going well. Good luck with it—see you next week.

Three Hundred Eighty-Four and Counting

By Keith N Fisher

Yes, I’m late, but I’ve been wondering if anybody really reads my posts anyway. I was trying to think of something to write and I opened my writing projects computer file. In the place where I keep my blog posts and realized it’s been a long time.

I began to post here in 2006, during the time we all started blogging to help our careers. By we, I mean all the writers I know. Blog posting and social media were deemed vital to our promotion efforts. In other words, we needed to do it if we wanted to be somebody.

For more than seven years, I’ve been posting once a week minus a few times I missed and plus a couple times I posted two blogs. I did the math and here’s the equation.

I wrote 44 posts in 2013 + 28 posts in 2006 + (52 weeks a year x 6 years) =

44 + 28 + (52 x 6) =

72 + 312 = 384 posts.

It’s been fun, sometimes wild, always educational. I usually write in retrospect, talking about something I learned during the week, using metaphors. I’ve learned that life reflects our occupation. The subject of writing correctly, lends itself to many object lessons.

I’ll keep posting here, I’ve been doing it too long to stop now. Hopefully, I can make a small contribution of writing help, or at least help someone realize they aren’t alone in this crazy avocation called writing.

Until next week then,

Places

By Keith N Fisher

Over the years, I’ve written about some of the places I’ve written while sitting behind the wheel of my vehicle. I talked about waiting for a sunrise on the roof of a parking garage. I’ve talked about writing in the parking lot, waiting for a coffee shop to open. What can I say? I get inspiration while propping my laptop between my chest and the steering wheel.

I’ve noticed my surroundings, sometimes, get written into the story, too. Once, I wrote a snowstorm into a scene, while watching it through windshield wipers. I can describe buildings and people while watching them in the comfort of my vehicle and it helps to have a first hand perspective.

I sat in a coffee shop once, watching two young lovers meet, greet, and interact. I opened a new document and wrote it as I saw it. I’ve used pieces of that scene in many of my books since. I’ve re-watched videos and written scenes from the inspiration. No, I’m not stealing scenes. I’m expanding other people’s work and making it better.

For a while now, since I work at night, I’ve had the pleasure of giving my daughter a ride home from school. I get up early, drive to the school, and write while waiting for the bell to ring. People come and go, cars are on display, humanity parades in front of me. Sometimes I’m too caught up in my story to notice, but other times I watch my new character walk past and get into a car.

I get several pages written while waiting, but I’ve got a complaint. There are many visitors parking spaces, why do they let students park their cars in them? Often, lately, I have to park on the outskirts of the lot, write for a while then drive over to pick up my daughter as she comes out of the building.

When I think of places to write and the advantages of observation with each, I think of reporters of the past. Have you ever listened to the narration of the Hindenburg disaster? That man was eyewitness to the horror, and he had the presence of mind to talk about it. Can you imagine a reporter with a laptop, covering Custer’s last stand? Can you see the benefit of writing in place?

If you are writing a mystery set in an old Victorian house, perhaps you could take your laptop and write it there. I write a lot of restaurant scenes because I write in restaurants and coffee shops.

I know, there are times when you can’t write in place. I passed an old house in a farmer’s field while traveling to Canada once. I had to stop and check it out because it was the house my characters were remodeling in my book. I couldn’t delay the family trip while I wrote, so I took several pictures. Later I used them to describe the house.

Take notes, live with your eyes open. Most importantly, write with your eyes open. Listen to your senses, and write it down.

Good luck with your writing—see you next week.

　

And, Here We Go Again

By Keith N Fisher

I caught a glimpse of one of those morning news shows the other day. They were going to commercial, and the host said, coming up, Our interview with the best selling author . . . The statement caught my attention, but I missed who the author was. I waited, wondering who it could be. Perhaps it was one of my local, writer friends. Maybe a famous, national market writer offering insights to me, and other writers.

The author turned out to be Ann Romney, wife of the formal presidential candidate. "Here we go again," I thought. Thousands of writers sweat blood every day, hoping for a contract, and another famous person gets published.

Yes, I know, I’ve bored you with this subject before. It’s sour grapes and I need to let it go, but as before, I wonder, would she be published if she wasn’t married to a politician? Her book was marketable or the publisher wouldn’t print it, but is it selling because it’s good, or because she’s famous?

I think I’ve missed the boat. You see, I thought the secret was to write the best book I can. Also, I know that branding myself and paying it forward is vital, but it’s actually easier than I thought. All I need is fame. I need to do something spectacular then, submit my writing.

Good luck with your hard work—See you next week.