PenTwist

Making Time to Write
suggestions by David Pyle

The first thing you should settle in your mind once and for all –
Am I a Writer?
If there are any doubts about where your passions and talent’s lie, writing will always be a struggle for you.  However, if you have that minor hurdle behind you, then there are many easy prompts you can add to your daily routine to help solidify your productivity.

Make writing the first thing you do.  
I already hear the excuses ejecting from you.  I have a life, I have children, I have a demanding job, I have home chores, I have bills to pay, I have…
For those of you who have other demands – Bravo.  You fall into a category many others who have-not would trade you for.  Daily life only adds to the treasure and quality of your personal resources.  Don’t see these demands as hindrances, because without them, your fictional characters would have no substance or link to reality.

Choosing the right time for you to apply yourself is critical.  Many writers choose to place themselves before a laptop or computer late at night, after all the other items have stopped nagging for attention.  Face it, you’re tired.  All the creative mini-bursts you enjoyed throughout the day have faded into a dreamlike vapor.  You consider a fresh pot of coffee at midnight just to rekindle the dozens of ideas you tried to take note of during the day.

If midnight is the only time you can claim, then be a note taker – literally.  Also, take note of those nudges and when they occur – an idea to spice up a character, a plot detail that will cause your story to explode, a location, a scent, a sound.  Those nudges could be an indication that you should schedule that very portion of your day as your quality creative time to write.

Speaking of fictional characters (above) – choosing the correct subject and genre for your efforts can be just as important as the muse you entertain.  Think back to when you were a child and were allowed a trip to the school or public library.  Which sections did you run to immediately?
Fiction Adventure History World Events Nature
What you currently love to read is likely the spark needed to open the floodgate of your creativity.  That floodgate will inspire time to write and cause your writing to be inspired.

Final thoughts – Set goals, keep a writing journal, read, and never settle for second best.

Write on…

“The great materialistic progress which we have venerated for so long is on the verge of bankruptcy.  We can no longer believe that we are born into this world to accumulate wealth and abandon ourselves to mortal pleasures.  We see the dangers and realize that we have been exploited for centuries.  We were told the twentieth century was the most progressive that the world has ever known, but unfortunately the progression was in the direction of self-destruction.”

–Manly P Hall

Take a walk into the mind of The Underworld  in CAGED MINDS...

Also take a peek at the complete Book Gallery!

Of Cats and Curiosities
(by D.P)

Sticks and stones will break your bones
     and put you in the ground…
Those hateful words that followed you
     can make you stick around.
If poisoned darts or hidden trenches
     can’t snatch you in their snare.
Sugar and spice, with a smile so nice
     will catch you unaware
So beware the legs inside those jeans
     that make them fit so tight.
Twined promises of pleasures now,
     will trap you in their vice.

For the rest of the story, get a copy of –

Click Here to Preview at David Pyle’s Amazon Bookstore

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I rip through books, scour websites in search of important tools for new authors / writers.  I’ve fallen short of that mission lately due to the final stages of publishing a new novel.  So in the light of rendering help – below is an excerpt from a fellow author’s blog to confirm the need for quality reviews:

………..
By Chuck Sambuchino

6. Leave a review on Amazon or BN.com or Goodreads or all.

Reviews are still very important. Think about it. If you come by a new book and see it has 2.0 stars on Amazon, would you buy it? On some level, that silly rating does affect me and my decision — and my guess is that it affects you, too. So it’s crucial that, when you read a book and enjoy it, you leave a review on Amazon or BN.com or Goodreads or all. Those first 10-20 reviews really matter and can set a book on the right path. (Note: You can leave the same review on all sites to save time.)

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Follow the link on Chuck’s name to read the entire list.

Write On!

David

What inflames an audience?
New tech-savvy graphics can lure with eye-candy, musical scores with pop-culture repetitive chimes, but the true audience retention is in a combination of writer imagination and actor prowess. Your playwright, manuscript, or novella, can be amplified to escalating proportions by incorporating a little restraint.

Meet the professionals – The Matadors of Literature.

With a few well-placed attacks, a seasoned matador can quickly and easily dispense with a violent young bull. However, the true crowd pleaser will restrain from ending the contest between them and the angry beast. A lingering contest of skills, however inhumane, will always hold a crowd at bay, while a quick kill hardly gives the audience their money’s worth.

Creative, lingering, and taunting life and death struggles between protagonist and antagonist will forever hold audiences spellbound and give quality actors scores of trophies to brag about. Unfortunately, a ‘quick kill’ scene would likely be construed as a thirty-second blurb on the evening news, whereas associated quotes such as ‘Make my day’ and ‘I’ll be back’ will be remembered for an entire generation.

Remember to build tension in your fiction until your protagonist is walking a tight-wire for that next breath while your audience is holding theirs.

Write on!

David Pyle

Quotable by Anne Lamott

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better. Anne Lamott

Instead of placing a redundant preview on PenTwist, please click on one of the links below for a preview on Amazon’s website:

Caged Minds – on Kindle

Or a preview on Barnes and Nobel’s website if you prefer NOOK as your Ebook Reader:

Caged Minds – on NOOK

Thanks for the positive feedback!

**Recent in-depth review of Caged Minds**

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When is the right time to consider your story’s timeline?

Right now!

One of the easiest mistakes to make as a new writer is to jump right into your story without a fragmented skeleton of an outline. But an even worse mistake is to get 40 – 50K words into your manuscript and see timing elements that don’t mesh.
Rewrites can be pure evil if one of your elements or your scenes causes a few of your “days” to seem an impossible 46 ½ hours long, or you based the beginning pace on an unsupportable time frame that comes back to bite you – nearly at the end of your manuscript.
Now is the time where an ounce of prevention can save you a week (or more) of heartache, trying to correct a simple mistake at Chapter Three, only to find that it completely destroys the integration of your story throughout 400+ pages of intense plot!
Keep a running tally on each chapter, each imaginary day, and skip right over that writer’s pit!

Check out Writers Rant or the Archives for more helpful hints.

Happy Writing,

David Pyle

….or Evidence of things Hoped for…

There is one thing that is almost inevitable in this life, whether long and prosperous or short and jagged – people collect junk.
For the sake of argument, I’m heaping those who keep sentimental trinkets from their past into the same bucket as those who are borderline obsessive about their collections. That raw gem you gleaned from a split in a sidewalk during your honeymoon would be no less precious to an obsessive personality over their stack of yellowed newspapers stored from nine years past.
As a child, I remember my own aged family members, who seemed almost destitute to throw away small items they deemed reusable on a rainy day. My own grandfather kept everything from used screws to straightened nails, sorted in old coffee cans, and my grandmother had a special drawer in her dresser with bits and pieces of her sewing craft as well as an old scratched magnifying glass. Their obsession was derived from a depression era philosophy ingrained into their very pores.
Waste not, want not.

It was Thomas A. Edison that said –

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”

As a writer, creativity can creep up on you at the oddest of moments, linking junked memories from your past, and assembling them into something bright, shiny, and new. Good memories, bad memories, and even the mundane are items that are not easily discarded.
We all collect junk in our lives like a vacuum collecting dust bunnies. Never believe that your life has been too short, too uneventful, inexperienced, or drab to become or create something more than you already are.
If you feel life has handed you a box of junk or inanimate parts, take the time to find their collective use and see a competed work of art. Whether you write, paint, or create metal artwork, take a moment to inventory and use those discarded items from your life.

David Pyle

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Recognize your temperament!

How rarely do we have a day when most everything goes according to plan?
Not too often?
What about those days when you’re happy when ONE thing goes right?
🙂

As a writer, moods affect not only the quality, but the moods of our created characters. When you’re having a crap day, your characters tend to take on your personality. Conversely, when you’re having a perfect day, it becomes almost impossible to fall into your antagonist’s mindset!

One of the reasons I work on multiple manuscripts at the same time, is to use those moods transitions. The hardest part is admitting to yourself that you’re in a funk, or that you’d rather be out in the sun with a cold glass of tea.
Learn to harness your inner strengths, recognize your current chemistries, and use them.

Try this little trick on for size for one week and watch your bad guys reek with antagonism, and your protagonists shine with witty sarcasm!

Write on!

David Pyle

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