YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK - The Guardian The Whole Picture

“You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert "Eat, Pray, Love"

I hope you can get this grainy advert to run, it is amazing. When it comes to responses, based on POV, this advert was designed to put the viewer through the emotional wringer.

No matter which emotion your character is feeling:

anger

aversion

courage

dejection

desire 

despair

fear

hate

hope

love

sadness

         Arnold (1960) 

these emotions are felt as a direct response to the situation multiplied by what they think is going on. 

The emotional response is caused by how the character interprets what they can see or hear.

Your character could react in the wrong way because they are sure they know what's happening.

WHAT MADE YOU THINK TODAY?

PITCH-BOTHERED AND A IS FOR AERIAL ARTIST

To prepare you for
Introducing Characters:
A is for Aerial Artist
Image from  solid gold creativity
Hossein Baghalan Aval by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images AsiaPac, 

I have been spending a lot of time visiting Deana Barnhart's GUTGAA blogfest. 

Just to help you out, I linked you straight over to pitch #6, although I can't think why ;)

Over there, we are deep in the Pitch Polish process.

For the past few days, people have been reading queries and offering advice on how to make them shine. I have enjoyed reading all the query letters and the first 150 words.

It has been superbly useful.

Angela, Cat, Jayme and Katie as well as an anonymous commenter really helped me direct the focus on my MC.

Right now, my pitch for THE HIGHER ROAD reads like this:

The twelve-year-old girl who survives a traffic accident has mirrored internal organs, but her doctors just consider that an interesting anomaly. Unfortunately, when her injuries heal overnight she might as well have Bio-engineered @ ALIEN LABS ^TM Everyone suspects she was created to appear human, in an alien laboratory. The evidence stacks up against her when materials of non-terrestrial origin are found at the crash site.

The government orders scientists and secret service agents to study and to guard her; but they don't want information to leak to the press and cause a mass panic. She is kept in isolation and interrogated. The girl – who names herself, Thursday – suffers almost total amnesia. Every flash from her past is painful but she builds a memory of the boy who saved her from her sense of touch–his hand on her arm and his mouth against hers when he breathed for her. She owes him her life and she feels she must repay the debt. In the face of constant pressure, Thursday guards her rescuer's secret with courage and loyalty–stubbornness. She is horrified when the boy, Ethan, is brought – willingly – to see her at the loch-side castle, secret location. This is just the beginning of the adventure… two alien species are ready to infiltrate planet Earth, and Thursday is the only person who might be able to persuade Ethan to do something about that.

Thursday and Ethan learn a lot about themselves, and human nature, when one of them is suspected of being alien and the other is… not from around here.

INTRODUCING CHARACTERS

A few months ago, and I can't remember where but it was definitely on line, I read a description designed to introduce a new character into the plot of a book.

My thanks to the unknown author of the piece, when I saw it I knew I had to write it in my work book. I had to develop it into a writing exercise I could work out with every week. 

To tone my writing and shape my descriptions, I plan to use Tuesdays to introduce a character using the same basic sentence format. It's in present tense,which I never use, so it will be good for my skill-development ;)

A IS FOR AERIAL ARTIST

The once-noisy audience gasps. Swinging a foot as he sits on a narrow metal bar far feet above the crowd is the most perfect example of man I've ever seen. Dark brown hair short enough to give edge to his wild look and his body sculpted like Michaelangelo finished shaping him, yesterday. Pass the oxygen, the crowd has forgotten to breathe while he runs his hands up the trapeze wires and swings out over our heads.

You can almost hear every woman's thoughts:

I'm in Quality Control, just let me check those muscles are real.

Please! Don't get dazzled by those lights... it would be a shame to bruise perfection.

If you need to you could fall on me... but, make it later, after the show.

And every man's thoughts:

I'm in quality Control, let me check those muscles are real.

Please! It's not like they're real, it's all done with lighting.

If all I had to do was swing about all day, I'd look that good too.

  

My apologies for not posting yesterday, I spent AGES going around The Making of Harry Potter studio tour.It was so AMAZING I survived the concrete proof that the HP films weren't real. I say GO ME! During the tour, I was able to out-potter even my daughter who is so much the fan that I had to drag her out of the WB/PotterGift shop while they still had merchandise to sell.

HAPPY WEDNESDAY! IT MAKES A GREAT LATE-TUESDAY!

WHICH STAGE OF THE WRITING PROCESS ARE YOU AT RIGHT NOW?

WRITING AND CONFLICT

Never…was so much owed by so many to so few. ~

Winston Churchill

Oh, bless!
I was this age when I wrote my first book.
Image from Wikimedia

Writers?

This quote is definitely true of writers.

It takes effort, time and a certain amount of conflict to bring an idea from the first inkling to the final draft.

Despite the pleasure to be found in writing, it can be a lonely and difficult struggle to get the pages to reflect the world you first imagined.

It takes bravery to write and finish the novel and then comes the really hard part. Once it’s done, the safest place for it – for the writer – is to put it in a folder and keep it from harm.

With a deep breath and nervousness, the brave writer begins to write, and then re-writes, their query letter.

If that letter is ever seen by anyone else it offers it up to a world of criticism and rejection.

It would be easier not to bother, after all the first joy of writing is writing.

I have entered my Query letter for Deana Barnhart’s GUTGAA Pitch Polish blogfest.

I know I’ll learn from the experience. I hope everyone who stops by to read and comment can take away snippets of good advice too.

Have a great weekend. May all your conflicts be little ones – so little they don’t scratch at your surface or cause you any pain.

WHICH PART OF WRITING BRINGS YOU INTO CONFLICT?

For me, it is the time away from family

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. ~ Winston Churchill

This thought praised the service, and the sacrifice, of the brave men and women of the RAF after the darkest hours of the last world war. I would never belittle their sacrifice or that of anyone whose work and service protected, or protects, the peace and security of nations.

IMAGINATION IS AN AWE-FUL THING

DOESN'T HE JUST MAKE
YOU THINK?
IMAGINE
IMAGE FROM WIKIMEDIA

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” - Albert Einstein

The imagination is an awe-ful thing.

Our imaginations are spectacular. When ideas start as tiny golden glints, the real treasures lies beneath – deep in our imaginations – where rich veins seam just waiting to be discovered. 

While we’re walking about doing the useful, the practical and the everyday-normal tasks, our imagination lets us see into alternate realities – sometimes multiples versions of it – without even missing a step. 

Imagination can take us from the known-world and into a place that expands like the universe. In our imaginations there are limitless possibilities.

When we’re all-unfocussed gazing into some kind of middle distance, where nothing of this world exists, it’s because we are somewhere else entirely and only our physical bodies remain in this dimension. With the infinite power of the imagination, we are somewhere else in space and time and, even there, we are writing.

Either that, or reading.

WHAT HAS YOUR IMAGINATION DONE FOR YOU LATELY? ;)

GEARING UP FOR THE EPIC GUTGAA BLOGFEST

DEANA BARNHART
and the #GUTGAA Blogfest

I hope you had a fabulous weekend bordering on the mythic ;)

If your weekend fun was mostly mythical why not make Monday spectacular by signing up to Deana Barnhart’s Gearing Up to Get An Agent Blogfest (this link is for the full list of blogfest activities)

In the GUTGAA Blogfest, you could meet and greet a group of people who are spinning their way through the query process and working on ways to get themselves an agent.

Monday 3^rd September is the meet and greet session. Imagine, this is an opportunity to meet people who would love to hear all about your writing and all about you too. What’s not to love? ;)

Questions for the Meet and Greet

-Where do you write?

I write at my desk in the small ex-bedroom with the stunning view over mine and my neighbours’ backgardens (sometimes, it has a too stunning view of everything that goes on in the gardens)

-Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see?

At the left hand side of my desk is the larger pin board – it is currently covered in maps and images of castles and my favourite ‘Donald Maass Writing Tips’

-Favourite time to write?

My favourite time to write is whenever I get a block of time with no other responsibilities. I have been known to write in bed, at the kitchen bench while cooking, in the car and definitely while waiting for the washing machine to finish a cycle.

-Drink of choice while writing?

My drink of choice while writing depends on which time of day it is I have, in the past, lined up a cup of tea, next to a cup of coffee and a can of diet ‘cola’.

-When writing, do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?

Mostly, I write with music that matches the emotional intensity of whatever I am writing. I like my music atmospheric. If things are intense I don’t notice that the music has ended. Obviously, I couldn’t hear it over the tapping of the keys. ;)

-What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?

The inspiration for my short stories came from a walk in a park. At the entrance there were two gatehouses. One was shabby and the other was beautifully kept,  and I couldn’t help but wonder why.

-What's your most valuable writing tip?

My most valuable writing tip (apart from the 58 writing tips on the Donald Maass’ Literary Agency Website) is to read. Read for enjoyment first. Then, as a writer, read every newly published book can find in the genre you want to write. Read so you can unpick how the author created characters, pace and plot.

Answers complete :D

Now, I need to get out there and Meet and Greet a lot of new friends who are all gearing up for acquire themselves an agent.

This Monday will be epic, if not mythic ;)

Like Deana and about 200 other writers I can't wait to see what everyone wrote! 

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR DEANA BARNHART'S GEARING UP TO GET AN AGENT - #GUTGAA - BLOGFEST?

THE LAST WEEKEND BEFORE THE START OF SCHOOL

THIS IS PRETTY-MUCH HOW I FEEL!
IMAGE FROM WIKIMEDIA 

OH NO! THE LAST WEEKEND BEFORE THE START OF SCHOOL

In the England, this is the last weekend before the start of the new academic year. 

I know for some, my American, Scottish and Irish visitors, in particular, the holidays are already drifting from short into long term memories.

Before the countdown to timetables and deadlines began, we wanted to cling to the holiday spirit while we could. The Paralympics has made that a lot easier, every event I watched has been as inspirational as it was exciting.

While everyone was still under the same roof and before the stress of planning, prepping, marking, grading, form-filling, filing and fuming kicks in we:

·        went to the pub at ate with friends who like us and swapped the holiday stories that couldn’t make it onto FB ;)

·        met up for take-out curry in numbers so large the Met would have kettled us if our gathering was outdoors ;)

·        walked and looked for signs that the trees were ready to shift from green to gold

·        fought over who got to play at riding the micro-scooter and fought harder to avoid dipping off the front of the skateboard (what can I say… we live on a hill)

·        planned a bar-b-q dinner that turned into an indoor event because it rained–which came as a great surprise ;)

If you weren’t able to celebrate the last few days of freedom, I hope you had fun doing what you like and how you like it.

HAPPY SEPTEMBER TO YOU!

IF I HAD TO SUM UP SEPTEMBER IN THREE IMAGES I WOULD SAY IT IS THE MONTH OF FRESH PAGES, NEW STARTS AND FURNITURE POLISH.

CAN YOU SUM UP SEPTEMBER IN THREE WORDS?

COUNTING DOWN TO SCHOOL TIME AND NORMALITY

2012, THE SUMMER OF RAIN, RAINBOWS
AND FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
image from Wikimedia

I have been a bad blogger of the absent-without-leave kind. The trouble is...I’m still not sure how it happened.

EXCUSE 1

The academic year ended, in the Smith-family semi we were all bustling about getting under each other’s feet and being busy, busy, busy and I still found time to blog. Then we had to put a box of this-year’s-important-stuff into the loft, trouble was you can’t sit on a loft hatch to make it close because gravity is a bit unforgiving in that direction.

We had no choice but to do something.

There were lies and lives and ghosts of things we were up there–along with the regular family skeletons.

We did:

digging

delving

laughing

crying

fighting

sighing

sorting

moving

recycling

archiving

and tidying up the remains of jelly sweets from when sleepovers in the loft had been one of the absolutely everythingest experiences on the planet (not for me, personally, you understand.)

Dust, crap and catharsis later we had contractors in to re-board the whole thing and we have a huge space at the top of the ladder. There’s even enough room to have a room up there ;)

RIGHT NOW… I AM WRITING.

During this summer, I hope you have found some days where the weather made you smile rather than look for shade or shelter. I hope you had enough time to think, plan, write, or to find a different way to wallow in words.

This summer, it rained when I was bar-b-qing, on my walks, when I was in the pool and at the festival–to the extent that I was up to the tops of my trainers in mud. However, I’ve been basking in the Olympic glow, I like to think of it as the summer of rain, rainbows… and shades of grey.

HAVE YOU HAD FUN THIS SUMMER?