History vs. The Moment

I’m prepping to move – something I’ve done every few years for most of my kids’ lives. They’re all in their thirties now, so that’s a lot of moves.

Now I grew up in the same house for fifteen years, with weekends at the farm that had been in the family over fifty years before I was born – then moved to the farm. So of course a lot of stuff accumulated. I played with the tea set my mother had when she was a little girl and read books that had been my grandfather’s. There was also a stereoscope with cards to view from his grand tour of Europe – circa 1890. These things weren’t artifacts to be examined in a museum, then forgotten. They were part of my life, along with the stories that went along with them. So I grew up with history as part of my world.

But when you move a lot, the treasures get condensed a bit each trip. I just finally did away with the last box of memorabilia I’d kept from my kids – artwork, report cards, stories they wrote. I chose a few items too cute to lose to scan. The rest, well, no one really cares. And when we talk about our personal past, we don’t always remember things the same way. Looking through some of the things my kids wrote back then, I realize we didn’t always see things the same way while they were happening, either.

We’re focused on the moment these days. It’s reflected in the way we get news and react to it, all fleeting. We’re living in the moment. And if the past doesn’t really exist as one truth, there may be some benefit to that.

But I don’t think that’s the whole story, because all that past I grew up with is still with me in my present, and while I read a lot of history, what sticks with me the most are the stories I heard along the way. I think feeling connected all the way back over more than a hundred years informs my understanding of the world around me right now.

So I’m thinking it’s important for us to pass on those personal histories, to make them a part of the lives of today’s children, to give them a context for the moment in which they live. You don’t have to wait until you’re old. Start an electronic scrapbook. When you make an album of photos from a trip or birthday or place you love, add a page telling about the day or what you felt was special about that particular sunset photo.

Putting words to it will enrich the experience for you, even if no one else ever looks at it. I know. I’ve already done this for my twenties. And someday a grandchild or a stranger may read it and look at the photos, and their sense of the world will expand.

www.sherimcguinn.com www.amazon.com/author/sherimcguinn

#historyvsthemoment #history #writingforgrandkids #scrapbook #mindfulness #photoalbums #livinginthemoment #inspiration

Oatmeal Brain: Writer’s Post-Race Blues

It’s possible I’ll be asked to do a few more tweaks, but the screenplay I contracted to complete has gone through two major revisions and they seem to be happy with it at this point. It was fun developing someone else’s idea. I really liked my first draft. It had this third wheel character that offered some comic relief in a tense TV movie. But they wanted him combined with the romantic lead, so I had to toss him.

Once I put aside my attachment to the character and looked at it as a challenge, I figured out a way to move a bit of the humor to the romantic lead. Of course, the script will change again once it goes into production, but that’s the way screenwriting works. I just read a lengthy interview with Terry Rossio that addresses that reality.

At the end of this major project, my brain’s functioning like oatmeal – nutritional, good content, but thick and sticky. Ideas pour slowly in globs.

Oatmeal brain: the writer’s version of post-race blues. It’s time to reboot.

To start, I took a look at my 2018 Goals and the steps I planned to meet them. If you’ve been following this blog, you realize I write all this stuff out at the beginning of the year and post it where it’s easy to access. My writing goal for 2018 is to make at least $10,000 writing. I came up with three objectives to help me meet this goal. The activities for my first objective revolve around getting Peg’s Story: One Woman’s Journey to Reclaim Herself polished, promoted, and published. The second objective’s about continuing to create new material and the third is about doing workshops on self-publishing.

Well, the screenplay wasn’t on my radar and, as long as they produce it this summer as planned, I’ll have met my goal without completing any of the written objectives.

I also have an author client I’m helping in multiple areas, which is adding to my income. And I’m doing volunteer work on promo for Who Will Remember. None of that was written into the plan either. I’ll keep devoting a few hours a week to these activities.

However, going back to the plan, I want to get that book out, I want to continue creating new material because that’s energizing, and I have three workshops scheduled – the first one at the end of June! My class is listed on page 6 of the catalog.

Fortunately, much of the preparation for the workshops overlaps with research I need to do to launch the book, so that research is the next primary focus. Writing new material will be my fun time.

I was surprised to see my personal (non-writing) goals are doing okay. I’ve completed activities under almost every objective. That’s pretty amazing. It felt like I was getting completely absorbed by my writing activities, until I looked at things in black and white. In reality, I’ve done a lot with family this year already, including some short trips.

Life is good.

www.sherimcguinn.com www.amazon.com/author/sherimcguinn

#success #depression #research #postraceblues #planning #oatmealbrain #inspiration #film #goalsetting #goals #Writing

When You’re Not a Writer – Yet

I believe all writing is good practice for a writer.

While my kids were growing up, I put aside “being a writer” for day jobs. However, many of those day jobs involved writing. For example, I’ve written stacks of court reports. Did that build any skills for my fiction writing? Absolutely.

1. I had to interview people and present their position accurately – to do that I listened carefully and checked for understanding. Even the few villains I encountered had what they believed were good reasons for their actions. So I avoid cardboard characters in my fiction. I know each of my characters from the inside out. Each has a distinct voice.

2. I had to pay attention to details. Small details, buried amidst non-essential information, often clarified an issue or sequence of events. The same holds true in fiction – the details often decide the course of events.

3. I had to take the facts I’d gathered and present them in a logical order that helped the judge make sense of the situation – which was often quite complicated. The same skill is necessary in fiction. If you confuse the reader by putting a conclusion before the facts that lead to it, you will probably lose them altogether.

4. I couldn’t include every single piece of information I collected. I had to decide which facts were necessary and which were superfluous. When writing fiction, I always know more backstory than my readers – they’d be bored if I included all of it. I have to choose what they need to know when. It’s the same skill, repurposed.

5. I also had to decide when to quote an interviewed person directly and when to paraphrase. When writing fiction, I need to decide where to describe interactions and where to use dialogue. The elements that make each effective are remarkably similar whether a court report or a novel.

What about jobs that don’t involve much writing? It’s all experience. Most writers have had a series of jobs before they start making a living (or at least part of one) writing.

If you find a complete job history of an author and then read all of that author’s work, you will probably find characters and settings that use non-writing jobs.

www.sherimcguinn.com www.amazon.com/author/sherimcguinn

Press release:

Sheri McGuinn at Gold Country Writers Six-Author Event! Official release.

Event date: Sunday, March 25, 2018 – 1:00pm to 4:00pm Event address: FACE IN A BOOK, 4359 Town Center Blvd #113, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762

http://www.getyourfaceinabook.com/event/gold-country-writers-six-author-event

#writingnovels #genre #voices #backstory #audience #novels #writingprocess #novelwriting #material #tryingtobeawriter #fiction #inspiration #Writing