One book leads to another...

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

IWSG July 2023 One Tomato, Two Tomatoes,

 


Welcome readers, writers, authors, and bloggers!

We're glad you're here! It's the First Wednesday of the month; when we celebrate IWSG Day in the form of a blog hop featuring members and guests of the Insecure Writer's Support GroupFounded by author Alex Cavanaugh (Thank you, Captain!) and fostered by like-minded associates, IWSG is a comfortable place to share views and literary news from our perspective writing desks as we record our journeys. Check out the July newsletter here.

Our awesome co-hosts this month are:  PJ Colando, Kim Lajevardi, Gwen Gardner, Pat Garcia, and Natalie Aguirre!  Feel free to hop around and say hello to everyone!

The optional question for this month is: 99% of my story ideas come from dreams. Where do yours predominantly come from?

I'm reminded of a quote (I'll paraphrase for brevity) by Orson Scott:

"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day,"

A few cool and unusual things happened on my way to a job fair a few weeks ago; I received a great compliment and a strange prompt. There was also a promise of rain. Thankfully, the praise came first, or I might have disregarded the prompt to describe my own funeral from the attendees' point of view. This is going to be so much fun!

I wrote the first 300 words in a parking lot! Later, it took me longer to decipher my own handwriting than it did to write those words in my excited state ;-) But the seed was planted and already growing. *In my defense, Agatha Christie also had terrible handwriting and had to dictate much of her work ;-)

The compliment was also just the encouragement I needed to revisit, revise, and at last release a story (I've left blowing in the wind) to the capable hands of an editor, who by now must think I've given up and torched the manuscript. Not so. I've just been…distracted.

So, what do you do when focusing is easier said than done? Has anyone heard of the "Pomodoro Technique"? Setting specified writing sessions – or Pomodoro, which is Italian for tomato -  sounds like something that just might work for me. One tomato, two tomatoes, three tomatoes, four…It all adds up.

Hemingway's tip for keeping the creativity flowing between sessions was to stop right in the middle of a scene you can't wait to get back to. That way, your next session is already in progress, and you're not facing the dreaded blank what-do-I-write-now page.

Fun Fact:

Author Roald Dahl was a taste-tester for Cadbury Chocolate.



 

"Hold the vision, trust the process.”