Read everything you can.

Please excuse my absence; I am deep into editing the last half of my novel. Since I tend to write by reading from the beginning, even though I am writing the third, fourth, fifth chapter, the first half of my novel is well edited. At some point that becomes difficult though and I am now editing the 'less gone over' part of my book, so my writing here is more sporadic.

I am a reader. Set it in front of me and I will read it. But, when I began writing my youth fantasy novel, I was afraid to read any more fantasies, as I was afraid I would inadvertently steal from someone. Do not be afraid of that. It’s like they say, there is nothing new.

This Christmas, Gaffer gave me two Terry Pratchett books to read and I was hooked. Low and behold, the third one I picked up had a small section of something that is similar to a very important object in my work and that is when I decided that you do not need to worry about stealing from an author, when you are writing. What you need to do is learn from them.

I would be working on a sculpture, something new and dynamic no one has ever done before (I thought) and the very next issue of one of my Ceramic/Clay magazines would arrive, and there would be something very similar to what I was creating. In other words, everything has been done. You just have to find a way to do it in a unique way.

The art adage is “steal it, don’t borrow it.” This means to take an idea and do it in your own unique way. And, I think it is finally dawning on me that the more you read, even as you write, the more other authors will influence your writing in a good way.

With Pratchett, it’s the way he turns a phrase and the things he relates to other items that I would never think to do and yet it’s just brilliant. He is a master at the Simile and Metaphor.

With Rowling, it is the way she draws you into her world immediately and how you identify with her characters. I can get so lost in her books that I barely know what is going on around me.

So, read everything you can get your hands on, but only after your writing hours because that has to come first.

If you post it, they will steal it! It's that simple.

I recently joined FaceBook. Again, it is all about my book and the networking necessary to promote it. I have actually pretty much ignored it, since I joined, but now my family is sending me “friend” links so I went back on it, for the second time.

Then, the big hype that FaceBook is going to steal your content.

PEOPLE: If you post it, they will steal it. What makes anyone on earth think that there is any way to keep people from stealing your work, your words, or your art?

I did national art shows for years and I once saw an artist, nearly break his neck, jumping in between his precious artwork and a woman with an Instamatic camera. I talked to him later and he was very concerned that someone was going to steal his work and make prints. I have news for him, no way was an Instamatic camera of high enough quality to make saleable art prints. I freely would pose by my paintings or give permission for photos of them to anyone who did not have a $6,000 camera on a tripod. Then, I want my cut.

People who grab a picture want them because they admire the work and they wish they could do it themselves. I have heard of someone who was snagging pictures of polymer fairies, off eBay, and making needlepoint patterns to sell. That was wrong. But, it’s hard to stop that. You could obscure your artwork by putting your name across it but that is so distracting. They are going to steal it. Take my word for it.

Having my artwork visible and open for theft on my website is something I quit worrying about, when I discovered the print screen button on my keyboard. This works even on sites that have their graphics protected. Not that I would use it, mind you, but I have checked it out and it works. So, get over it.

Nothing is sacred. Nothing is protected. The very first time I went to find out the cost of a cell phone, the person in front of me refused to give her Social Security number to the man selling the cell phones. She walked away without a phone and we had a good chuckle over her thought that he could not have her number. He even told me how he could have her number right now, if he wanted.

My mother cuts up all of her address labels, of course mom has a thing with cutting up paper, but she is ensuring that no one gets her address. “Have you ever looked in the phone book, Mom?” Why would anyone dig through your garbage, when they can just look in the phone book?

Beside my young adult novel, I have a mystery that I would like to polish up and put out there. I started and nearly completed it a long time ago. When I found out that you should not put anything on the internet, giving away first rights, when you are going to be submitting it, I thought of my Mystery and the fact that I had entered it on an on-line book site once, long ago. I could not find it anywhere and I thought,” that’s good.” I will tell them it is no longer out there.

But, you know what; there is never a time when something you have posted is ‘no longer out there.’ Google recently had their tenth anniversary and so, to honor it, they posted all the stuff you could access when they were first in business. Yep, the first first chapter of my mystery was right there- ten years later, an eon in the life of the internet.

Instead of writing here, or on my WordPress Blog, Savanvleck’s Weblog, I have spent my last week creating a Book Map Outline. It is yet another thing I have learned from Cheryl Klein’s Blog. Brooklyn Arden

I have spent countless hours finding a way to keep track of my book and, for some reason, this one is the one that works for me. I have added a bit to it, and I will get into how I use her Map Outline below the graph, but I have added a number system to keep track of the tension in my plot. 1 is the least tension and 10 is highest.

Now, one chapter I had going from 6 to 1, which I did not work into my graph above but it is always a good waste of my time to learn how to do something new and I have never made a graph before in Word.

This graph is for the first nine chapters of my book.

I start off with some tension, Chapter 1 is #5. This is my world set-up, what life is like for my protagonist and his two brothers, and it is the incident that moves my plot line along.
Chapter 2, a #6, is the external conflict which rises as life is thrown off course. (Hmmm,! Sort of like getting a $500 cell phone bill one day and a $1,200 propane bill the next)

I drop down to a #4 in tension for Chapter 3, for a bit of relief and then jump up to a #7 in tension. My goal here is increasing tension and relief. This is the final outline. The first one showed me that I had to go into a couple of chapters to increase the tension in the right amount.

And, about the Book Map; I am not sure how Ms. Klein exactly formats hers but table obssessed as I am, I created a table. It is just two columns but a varying number of rows. I have nine charts so far, one for each of the first nine chapters. Below the chapter title, I put my tension number.

The left column's are: Key Action, Plot Point, Protagonist development, (I have added one for Characters, to keep track of what chapters they are in. This is good to keep track of things like that someone important has not been mentioned lately.) Key Thoughts, Key Lines, Clues, Foreshadow, Red Herring. Some of these are things I have added and I have actually deleted one you might find strange.

I am not using the Plot Point. There again, Ms. Klein had excellent help on this with Brooklyn Arden: A Character-Based View of Plot. So, I am using the Protagonist development as a plot line.

We shall see.

My Book Map progress

I have been ignoring all of you lately. But, other than the foot of snow that had our car trapped for six days, and school cancelled for four days, and the flu that I just cannot seem to shake, and my mother's birthday and my birthday, other than those, I have a good reason to ignore you. I am outlining my book.

There has to be a reason I am having a problem writing, also known as putting off, the ending of my book. So, I am taking Brooklyn Arden: Search results for Book Map advice and creating a Book Map. That was a link to what I found with my search for Book Map. I did not find the post on doing the Book Map, but there was a neat blog about the artwork she has made in her own apartment. Tres Cool!

I am up to chapter 10, which is on its way out. Yes, a whole chapter is just taking up valued word space, and it is redundant to a future chapter (which is much more important) and, like all things I take out, I save a copy in its own file. I have deleted many of these files later and I may this one or I may put it in a future book, but for this book, it is history.

There is one little section, which will be worked into the next chapter. But, I feel as though I am getting somewhere already, even though I have yet to go back through the Book Map and really look at what is going on in the book.

This is also giving Master’s Daughter a break from editing as she has a lot on her plate right now and could use a break.

So, I sit here with the flu now turned into something that is settling in my chest, and move on to Chapter eleven, with ten nine more to go.