Join me at Bookstock 24. Meet and greet 60 local authors. Enjoy author talks and book signings, live music, choir performances, food trucks, face painting, and more. It promises to be a special time for the whole family, so we hope to see you all there!

Saturday, April 6, 2024 11a.m. – 3 p.m.
Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, Memphis TN)
For more information - https://buff.ly/3v1shPt

9/28/2018

Music, a porch swing, and a pen #mfrwauthor

Welcome to week 39.


Unlike some writers I know, I don't have elaborate writing rituals. There is no pile of cassettes to be played in a specific order during the writing process. The turntable is broken. There is no special corner of the house where I work. I work wherever, whenever; usually in a recliner in the living room while I keep an eye on the rest of the family.

Another reason I have is no specific writing ritual is that each session differs depending on where I am in the outlining, writing, or editing phases. It might be fifteen minutes while sitting in a doctor's office or a half-hour while waiting for the shower to be available. While more productive than pleasant, lying on the couch with a lap desk while I'm sick can be described as a ritual.

I am starting what might turn out to be a ritual and that is Fiction Focus For Writers Only by Jackie Weger. (A bit of blatant promotion, the new audio book version is to be released on 10/9.)


What little I do that can be considered a ritual comes from being a plotter (or at least an explorer) until the characters take over. That is if you can call creating a novel notebook a ritual. A novel notebook helps with accuracy and reduces editing. To keep manuscripts as clean as possible as the story unfolds, I track major points in an outline. And as names are assigned to characters or places in the world I'm creating, they are also memorialized in the appropriate forms.



So a little music, a porch swing and a pen encourages the muse.  That's all the writing ritual I can share. ~till next time, Helen



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