Mar 6, 2018 |
by Molly Jo Realy @MollyJoRealy
Well, I thought I was sort of done with NOLA but the truth is (as so many of my writing peeps warned me), it’s only just begun. [Cue Carpenters’ music here.]
As y’all will recall (I hope) from a recent post, for a while there I forgot I was a writer. I mean, I was listening to so many others, and I was acting like a new student instead of a seasoned wordsmith. It took a little self-diagnosing to figure out the main problem was, well, me. *GASP* So not cool, right? Now here’s Part A of this awesome post. Y’all have heard me mention Caleb now and then. He’s this guy I adopted/befriended/took under my wings at the last Blue Ridge conference, and we’re planning to meet up again this year. I call him my kid, my little brother, JB. He wears all kinds of hats. One of the things I love most about him is his willingness to be a better writer.
We talk quite often about our characters’ backstories, what makes them tick, all that Jazz. And since I’m in the midst of a NOLA rewrite (that’s a good thing), I figured it’s time to finally make my story bible. I’ve had it in mind for years, I just never put one together. I know, shame on me. [Mom. Seriously. Stop agreeing and talking to the computer screen. No one can hear you when you do that.]
Frankly, My Dear . . . : That One Time I Created a Character Bio Template
And since y’all know my penchant habit compulsion for multi-purposing items and activities, of course I immediately decide to use one of my Happy Planners for the project.
Oh, but wait. There’s more.
I’ve also recently fallen in love with bullet journaling. See, Happy Planning is the planning and organizing side of things. Bullet Journaling is the tracking and history and recording side of things. And when the two met and fell in love, they married and had a creative baby called the NOLA story bible.
And since this baby is mine and mine alone, there’s no wrong way to dress up the information. Seriously. Like, you can do it too and no one can tell you you’re baby’s ugly because it’s your baby and you don’t have to show it to anyone. [Getting weird? Okay. We’ll stop.]
For starters, I’m having fun learning my characters’ backgrounds. Their likes, dislikes, nasty habits and saving graces. I curated a bunch of character bio sheet information, polled my writer peeps, and put it all together in one handy form.
Frankly, My Dear . . . : Character Bio Template by Molly Jo Realy
Yup. That’s right. I created a Character Bio Template. It’s a handy-dandy resource to help you learn more about your character, even if some of that information doesn’t make it into your manuscript. Look at it this way: When you go into a restaurant, your waiter doesn’t need to know why you want cream and sugar for your coffee, or why you like sourdough instead of wheat. They just want to take your order and fill it. But you have your reasons, am I right?
A character bio gives you insights into why your character behaves/thinks/emotes the way he/she does. Your reader doesn’t need to know everything, but if you understand your character better, you’ll write a better story.
It’s a template because y’all can use as much or as little info as you want. It’s broken up into sections so you can compartmentalize your character’s info: The Basics, The Background, The Family Highlights, The Body, The Soul and Mind, The Back Story/Psychology, and The Favorites. I color-coded my sections and numbered the individual items. Now I have a full sheet of information for each protagonist, antagonist, and secondary characters. [That’s main good guys, main bad guys, and sidekicks, for all you non-writer folk.] I kind of wanna show you Josie’s bio, but you know, government secrets and all. Okay, not really. But when you’re a writer, it feels that intense. Gotta protect the story at all costs. So, sorry, no share. But here’s a pretty photo of the template in my Happy Planner/Story bible:
Frankly, My Dear . . . : That One Time I Created a Character Bio Template
I’d love to share the template with you. Just click here: Character Bio Template.
And now it’s your turn: How do you keep track of your character information?
With characters to organize and a story to tell,
Happy writing.
~Molly Jo
And Frankly, My Dear . . . : That’s all she wrote!
Mar 1, 2018 |
by Molly Jo Realy @MollyJoRealy
Okay. Seriously. I have a lot–I mean a lot-to tell y’all. There’s been some travel, some food indulgences, some Happy Planner MoJo, and of course, some writing.
And we’ll get to all of that. Soon. Like, this weekend when I can spread everything out and take awesome-possum photos for y’all while drinking some of that sweet tea I’m so utterly fond of.
But today I need to share with you something I hadn’t experienced before.
Now, I know it existed. But it was like an urban myth I hadn’t paid attention to.
You ready for this?
I’m blogging from. my. PHONE.
BoHoHurricane Girl say what?!
Frankly, My Dear . . . : That One Time I Learned How to Blog From My Phone
That’s right. [Ha, ha. I almost spelled it w-r-i-t-e. But that would be wrong. See what I did there?] (*insert winky face here. Or a smile.)
Frankly, My Dear . . . : That One Time I Learned How to Blog From My Phone
So there’s this WordPress app (short for “application” for you old-timers) that you can download to your smart phone. And it manages all your wordpress sites. Like, say, your blog. And website. And online storefront.
And with the Canva app, I can make great images as well. Like this:
Frankly, My Dear . . . : My Website Collage
I might be just a little over the moon with all this.
I might be just a little more in love with writing these days.
Now comes the nervy part: Submitting the post and hoping it all turns out all write right. Oh, look. I did it again.
What apps do you use in your on-the-go professional life?
With a quick thumb and a palping heart,
Happy reading.
~Molly Jo
And Frankly, My Dear. . . : That’s all she wrote!
Feb 20, 2018 |
by Molly Jo Realy @MollyJoRealy
So, this thing happened. Actually, a lot of things happened. And I quit writing. #truestory.
Now, as Al Gansky often says, “You can quit anytime you want. You just can’t stay quit.” Easy for you to say, Pops.
But I wasn’t ready to unquit. I wasn’t ready to put on my Big Girl pants and move forward. I was ready to drown my sorrows in a nice vat of sweet tea.
I was pretty much embroiled in a two-week, flu-and-medication induced, nobody-really-cares-about-NOLA pity party. Uhm, yeah. I’d collected about four rejection letters from agents and publishers, the alpha readers weren’t responding, my editor had some priority commitments, and I hadn’t written in quite some time.
I was pretty much desolate and devoid of life.
Frankly, My Dear . . . : That One Time I Forgot I Was a Writer
Of course, I figured once I worked my way out (if that was indeed what I wanted to do), I’d have a blog post to share with y’all. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to share this. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to work my way out of it. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to write any more.
There I was, a week ago, all dressed up in my Mardi Gras-inspired LuLaRoe outfit, and nobody cared. It was Fat Tuesday, but out here in California, it was just another day. Another cold, wintry, Molly-don’t-feel-good day. And then [like it could get any worse? Oh, but just wait for it. It does.] the very next day was Valentine’s Day. Now, I’m not a poor-me-I’m-single kind of thinker. Except when I’m going on week two of a severe flu-and-cold attack wrapped neatly in a writer’s block sandwich with a nice dollop of would-you-like-some-cheese-with-your-WHINE kind of attitude.
And I was struggling – I mean really struggling – about my writing. I want so desperately to make NOLA the best it can be, but I wasn’t getting much feedback from anyone. And, something has been gnawing at me lately. Well, not just lately. But it started small enough I could ignore it. Until recently. Until the flu meds helped my brain become a little less filtered. So as I’m sitting resting near comatose in a meditative medicated state in my recliner, these words come back to me from someone who I think meant well, but doesn’t grasp the essence of me or my story. This person, last year, inferred I didn’t belong in the writing community I was in because of the suggestive content in NOLA.
And last week I started to believe that statement. I thought, “How can I be a Christian and write grit?” I was compromising my story to make it fit Someone Else’s idea of what it should be. I knew, even though the rough draft is exactly what I wanted it to be, that it’s not the finished product.
And to get to a marketable finished product, I need to change NOLA. But how? There’s no cussing. No sex. There’s some booze and Hoodoo. [Oh, c’mon. It’s New Orleans, not the Sistine Chapel.] And, yeah. Some physical attractions. So why doesn’t it work? Because when I was writing it for Someone Else, it wasn’t the story that needs to be told.
So I set everything I was told aside. I read Steven James’s The Pawn. Now, here’s a great Christian, award-winning author who writes psychological thrillers. NOLA isn’t a psychological thriller, but I can certainly draw parallels between writing grit while being a Christian. NOLA was never intended for the Christian market.
But there’s still the thing about rules. You know, market formula. Sigh. Heavy sigh. Because it’s CREATIVE writing, am I right? How can we be creative geniuses and embrace our craziness if we’re regulated to formulaic prose?
Huzzah. I picked up another Steven James book last week: Story Trumps Structure. Four pages in and I already realize, this is what’s been missing. Steven knows how to create a story worth telling on its merit. Forget Act I, II, III. Forget peaks and valleys of plot. Just write the story. And he gives me [okay, everyone, but for this conversation, we’re gonna say he wrote the book for me, okay?] permission to be *gasp* *wait for it*
CREATIVE.
Okay. Raise your hands if you did not see that one coming.
But wait. There’s more: Aaron Gansky [son of the aforementioned Pops, and my good friend and writing mentor] has always encouraged writers to read Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners. Now, I studied Flannery in college. So the same night I picked up Steven James’s books, I also grabbed The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor. She wrote grit. She was almost excommunicated from the Catholic Church for writing Southern-grotesque stories. You know what her response was? How can you show how wonderful God is unless you show all He helps us overcome? How can we show the depravity of man if we keep our eyes closed to it? Her writings weren’t meant to be sermons, but rather studies on human nature. She had a beautiful grasp on the “unexpected but inevitable” endings. Her stories could never end any way other than how she wrote them, and yet they still surprise us. She was a master at her craft.
So here I am, putting these puzzle pieces back together. Crying my guts out to my three closest Besties (and my mom), and agonizing over what to do because I want to be creative and not follow a formula and I’m tired of waiting on agents and publishers and editors and I just need to move forward. And every single one of my people told me (a) “I love you. You’ll get through this.” and (b) “Knock it off and get a grip.” It was their loving version of a Gibbs-slap.
And it worked.
Two days ago I started rewriting NOLA to be the piece I know it can be. I’m pulling out old notes, reinserting deleted scenes, cleaning up grammar and dirtying up the plot. I’m making it the book I need it be. For me. Not for a community. Not for instructors. Not for rules of the industry. And in doing so, I’m making it the best book for you.
Gibbs always tells his NCIS team, “Trust your gut.” And that’s what I’ve decided to do. Because nobody knows how to tell NOLA better than me. I just forgot that part for a minute.
Frankly, My Dear . . . Trust Your Gut.
As a prologue to this wonderful journey, first I’m over the flu thankyouverymuchforasking. Second, tonight’s Firsts in Fiction Podcast is “Encouragement from Discouragement.” How apropos is that? Hey, I don’t make this stuff up! I hope you’ll join the chat room live at 5:30 pm PST. Just click on the link and join the fun.
Now I want to hear from you: Have you compromised your work to fit someone else’s idea of what it should be? How do you get over writer’s block? What encouragements do you have for other writers?
With a clear path and a happy gut,
Happy Writing.
~Molly Jo
And Frankly, My Dear . . . : That’s all she wrote!
