Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Thu, Apr 11 2013
Write me a river
We talk a lot about the flow of words and the natural course of a story, as though a tale moves like a neatly-defined Mississippi River, but the analogy works only if we look at the present-day flow. Beneath it all, the course of the Mississippi River has been reversed by earthquake activity, altered by geological erosion, littered with illegal dumping, sped up by run-off from torrential rains and slowed drastically by lack of rainfall. The telling of a tale should flow, but that doesn't mean that writers get to skip the work of managing the underlying causes of the story's course.
posted at: 08:56 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
We talk a lot about the flow of words and the natural course of a story, as though a tale moves like a neatly-defined Mississippi River, but the analogy works only if we look at the present-day flow. Beneath it all, the course of the Mississippi River has been reversed by earthquake activity, altered by geological erosion, littered with illegal dumping, sped up by run-off from torrential rains and slowed drastically by lack of rainfall. The telling of a tale should flow, but that doesn't mean that writers get to skip the work of managing the underlying causes of the story's course.
posted at: 08:56 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Wed, Mar 13 2013
Smoke Watch
People are watching the Sistine Chapel in anticipation of white smoke. The suspense is rather anticlimactic, from a writer's standpoint. A writer fills a plot with foreshadowing, twists and turns. A mystery writer focuses on a "whodunnit" and also the killer's motive. When the Roman Catholics choose a human spiritual leader, they usually choose after a death has already happened. This time it's different. There was no death. I've been musing on what twist or turn would give the white smoke a lot more intrigue, since fictional story ideas often spring from events in real life.
posted at: 09:05 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
People are watching the Sistine Chapel in anticipation of white smoke. The suspense is rather anticlimactic, from a writer's standpoint. A writer fills a plot with foreshadowing, twists and turns. A mystery writer focuses on a "whodunnit" and also the killer's motive. When the Roman Catholics choose a human spiritual leader, they usually choose after a death has already happened. This time it's different. There was no death. I've been musing on what twist or turn would give the white smoke a lot more intrigue, since fictional story ideas often spring from events in real life.
posted at: 09:05 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Fri, Jan 25 2013
Contagion
The title of this post sounds like a blockbuster tale, but I assure you that what I have to say is nothing so monumental. It's just that I've had to learn that I can't always "work through" a cold or other bug and this week has been one of those weeks. I haven't had the official flu for the season and I haven't had the stomach virus they've been talking about in graphic detail on the news all week. I've just caight something that settled in the upper respiratory passages and throat and made me cough so much that I've got sore ribs and go-along asthma symptoms. Even an extra dose or two of caffeine hasn't brought work into total focus. What does this have to do with writing, you might ask? Well, let's just say I've gained an excellent way to describe the supposedly subtle beginnings of a fictional plague, should the need ever arise.
Have a good weekend, fellow writers. I hope you all stay virus-free.
posted at: 16:57 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
The title of this post sounds like a blockbuster tale, but I assure you that what I have to say is nothing so monumental. It's just that I've had to learn that I can't always "work through" a cold or other bug and this week has been one of those weeks. I haven't had the official flu for the season and I haven't had the stomach virus they've been talking about in graphic detail on the news all week. I've just caight something that settled in the upper respiratory passages and throat and made me cough so much that I've got sore ribs and go-along asthma symptoms. Even an extra dose or two of caffeine hasn't brought work into total focus. What does this have to do with writing, you might ask? Well, let's just say I've gained an excellent way to describe the supposedly subtle beginnings of a fictional plague, should the need ever arise.
Have a good weekend, fellow writers. I hope you all stay virus-free.
posted at: 16:57 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Tue, Jan 15 2013
Locked in with a blank screen
I haven't had to deal with winter cold for many years. We get an occasional cold night here, but nothing like what we've had lately. People are warming their cars and scraping frost off the windshield every morning. These are Midwest rituals, not typical California coastal rituals. Cold air triggers an asthmatic reaction for me, so my outside walks have been curtailed to the extent that I recall the years in Minnesota when I felt like a prisoner during winter months.
One would think that outside cold and indoor lingering would feed the writing muse. There are writers who long for a day inside with a warm beverage and free hours to write. For me, thoughts have become a bit frozen along with the weather. Worse than thought freezing are the bursts of story ideas and sentence fragments that come, only to be sidetracked fifteen minutes later by the wish to prepare vegetables for a pot of hot soup. Comfort seems to produce malaise in my writing mind. Maybe it's time to turn down the heat and eat cold salad, drink ice water, turn off the electric blanket. Maybe then I can envision sweeping vistas of glacial cliffs and a dying sun, where a group of scientific explorers suddenly travel back in time to some Death Valley location where they find a secret tent full of cold-producing bacteria that came from extraterrestrials, who only meant to help us combat global warming, until something went terribly, horribly wrong.
I'll be back. I've just gone to turn down the thermostat and get a bowl of ice cream.
posted at: 10:01 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
I haven't had to deal with winter cold for many years. We get an occasional cold night here, but nothing like what we've had lately. People are warming their cars and scraping frost off the windshield every morning. These are Midwest rituals, not typical California coastal rituals. Cold air triggers an asthmatic reaction for me, so my outside walks have been curtailed to the extent that I recall the years in Minnesota when I felt like a prisoner during winter months.
One would think that outside cold and indoor lingering would feed the writing muse. There are writers who long for a day inside with a warm beverage and free hours to write. For me, thoughts have become a bit frozen along with the weather. Worse than thought freezing are the bursts of story ideas and sentence fragments that come, only to be sidetracked fifteen minutes later by the wish to prepare vegetables for a pot of hot soup. Comfort seems to produce malaise in my writing mind. Maybe it's time to turn down the heat and eat cold salad, drink ice water, turn off the electric blanket. Maybe then I can envision sweeping vistas of glacial cliffs and a dying sun, where a group of scientific explorers suddenly travel back in time to some Death Valley location where they find a secret tent full of cold-producing bacteria that came from extraterrestrials, who only meant to help us combat global warming, until something went terribly, horribly wrong.
I'll be back. I've just gone to turn down the thermostat and get a bowl of ice cream.
posted at: 10:01 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Wed, Jan 09 2013
January thaw
2013 finds me somewhat behind on the goals I want to accomplish, whether the goals be in the areas of writing, clutter control, gardening or personal. I did lose about 20 pounds in 2012 and am on a path to better control my blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol. I'm exercising more and being more active in general. What I haven't gotten under control is my writing time. Part of my plan to write more is to post regularly here again. I think we'll begin with once or twice a week, for now.
Other parts of my plan include more reading and less TV viewing. I enjoy TV and grew up watching it quite often. But TV does seem to be hypnotic in some ways. What I need is motivation to write. I have come to realize that TV rarely works for that. Reading seems to stimulate parts of the brain that get the juices flowing toward my own urge to write. I've read studies about beta waves and theta waves and concentration. There are studies that claims TV changes our brains. That's fascinating material, but what works is what works. TV often stifles my urge to write. Reading often stimulates my urge to write. I won't give up all TV viewing, but I'm planning to make it work for me, rather than against me. I hope this new year finds the rest of you writing early and writing often.
posted at: 09:10 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
2013 finds me somewhat behind on the goals I want to accomplish, whether the goals be in the areas of writing, clutter control, gardening or personal. I did lose about 20 pounds in 2012 and am on a path to better control my blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol. I'm exercising more and being more active in general. What I haven't gotten under control is my writing time. Part of my plan to write more is to post regularly here again. I think we'll begin with once or twice a week, for now.
Other parts of my plan include more reading and less TV viewing. I enjoy TV and grew up watching it quite often. But TV does seem to be hypnotic in some ways. What I need is motivation to write. I have come to realize that TV rarely works for that. Reading seems to stimulate parts of the brain that get the juices flowing toward my own urge to write. I've read studies about beta waves and theta waves and concentration. There are studies that claims TV changes our brains. That's fascinating material, but what works is what works. TV often stifles my urge to write. Reading often stimulates my urge to write. I won't give up all TV viewing, but I'm planning to make it work for me, rather than against me. I hope this new year finds the rest of you writing early and writing often.
posted at: 09:10 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Mon, Jan 02 2012
2012 is the year for breaking rules
I've taken a break from blogging the last few months in order to finish up some other projects and consider some new ones. Writing is in full swing once again, so it's time to stop in here for sharing a few notes.
All my life I've soaked up tips, tricks, how-to articles and other pieces of advice from writers on writing. I've come to the conclusion that no one piece of advice is one-size-fits-all for writers. If the only time you can produce writing is by working in longhand in the bed of a pick-up truck on top of a windy hill on Tuesdays, then you're ahead of the game. All this talk about writing only first thing in the morning or about never revising while doing a first draft is just someone else's opinion if it doesn't work for you. What works is what works.
posted at: 13:24 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
I've taken a break from blogging the last few months in order to finish up some other projects and consider some new ones. Writing is in full swing once again, so it's time to stop in here for sharing a few notes.
All my life I've soaked up tips, tricks, how-to articles and other pieces of advice from writers on writing. I've come to the conclusion that no one piece of advice is one-size-fits-all for writers. If the only time you can produce writing is by working in longhand in the bed of a pick-up truck on top of a windy hill on Tuesdays, then you're ahead of the game. All this talk about writing only first thing in the morning or about never revising while doing a first draft is just someone else's opinion if it doesn't work for you. What works is what works.
posted at: 13:24 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Mon, May 16 2011
Characters-in-waiting
Good fictional characters are both progressive and instantaneous in nature. They are a twinkle in a muse's eye, a surging of a writer's heart. Actors have to surmise a lot about the characters they portray, but writers have a chance to develop characters as sinew and spirit. It's a powerful, yet humbling, place to be in life.
posted at: 10:51 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Good fictional characters are both progressive and instantaneous in nature. They are a twinkle in a muse's eye, a surging of a writer's heart. Actors have to surmise a lot about the characters they portray, but writers have a chance to develop characters as sinew and spirit. It's a powerful, yet humbling, place to be in life.
posted at: 10:51 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
