The Joy of Story

Saturday, January 16, 2016

TAKE A CHANCE—PULL THAT THREAD!

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

January 16, 2016

Greetings! This week, beginning on the third Saturday of the month of January, I’m pleased to present guest author Cora J. Ramos. I’m proud to say that thirteen years ago, I published Valley Fever, a short story collection featuring stories by Cora Ramos, along with stories by Sunny Frazier and JoAnne Lucas. I’m glad to say Cora is still writing, now concentrating on novels of romance and suspense, combined with a paranormal element.

Cora’s essay, as you’ll see, encourages writers to take chances. It acknowledges the appeal of outlining your plots in advance, but she shows what can happen when you abandon your outline and follow the thread where it takes you.

Makes sense. How can it hurt you? If you like where it leads you, you win. If you don’t think it’s working, you can repair it or toss it and start over. Revision is a wonderful gift. It improves your writing, and it forgives your mistakes. Remember: Nobody ever wrote a perfect first draft. So take chances. Now I’ll stop talking and let Cora J. Ramos take over.

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Pull That Thread

by Cora J. Ramos

Remember the first time you found a loose thread on your sweater and wanted to pull it to see what would happen? Did you follow that impulse and unravel the sweater?

I’m not going to talk about the dangers of loose threads in your story. I’m the rebel who is going to encourage you to pull that thread.

After publication of my first novel, I was happily writing my shiny new follow-up story that focused on a male character that everyone loved in book one, writer Jack Hart. My plan was to follow the pattern set up in my first novel of dipping into a past life for greater insight into my main character. And, because of his character arc, I decided Jack needed to have a past life as a samurai. Wanting something other than the usual samurai stereotype, I chose a little known period in Japanese history, the Heian era, before samurai formed clans of their own.

And, this time I was going to plan my novel and not go all pantser. But I was forty pages in and BAM! Something happened that changed everything.

There was a loose thread.

I come from a mystery/suspense background, but my new critique partners were all romance writers. They quickly informed me there were rules for romance. There was something called an HEA (a must-have happily ever after ending). I didn’t have that in my first romantic suspense novel, Dance the Dream Awake. True to my mystery/suspense background, I’d left the ending for the reader to chew on.

My new critique partners now guilted me to create an HEA in this new novel. So, my past life samurai would have to have a romance.

After researching the time period, I fell in love with the “peace and tranquility capital,” Heian Kyo, world of the emperor, Japan of 980 A.D. (pre-Kyoto) and dove more deeply into the story. The world’s first novels by Japanese women in the early eleventh century were written during this era —The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, and The Pillow Book by Sei Shonigon. Both were about the gossip and romantic goings-on of the participants of the Emperor’s court.

This loose thread of Jack’s past life samurai story continued to fascinate me. I kept pulling that thread until one evening my critique partners all pronounced, “We want more of that story.”

I agreed, pivoted and pulled out that back story. It became Haiku Dance. I was tickled when my story editor, a history buff, became very personally engaged in researching the time period and place and helped me polish it. She even corrected a few of my haiku poems.

We all love to be surprised while reading. But how do you handle change when it rears its head while writing? Do you fight it, find a way around it, or give in and go with the flow to follow that thread?

Remember Robert Frost’s adage, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” Pull that thread and keep pulling; you might end up with a surprising story you love, just as I did.

Cora J. Ramos is intrigued by the edge of things. She is an award winning author of stories of mystery and suspense that straddle that edge, whether slightly paranormal, a deadly decision or the place where science ends and magic resides. A collection of her short stories can be found in the anthology, Valley Fever, Where Murder is Contagious.

Her current novel, Dance the Dream Awake, a paranormal romantic suspense that dips into a Mayan past life, was published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

Her upcoming sensual romance novel, Haiku Dance, set in ancient Japan, will be released in the spring of 2016, by Black Opal Books.

She is currently working on Dance the Edge, the follow-up to Dance the Dream Awake.

Website: http://www.coraramos.com

Blog: http://coraramos-cora.blogspot.com/

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NOTE: It's come to my attention that hot links in this post don't function; they don't open up the pages they reference. If this is the case, and if you want to visit the page, you should copy the link and paste it into the search bar of your browser. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

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And now a word from our sponsor…

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Six Stories by

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Call for Submissions: 99-Word Stories wanted!

The deadline for February’s 99-word story submissions is February First. The stories will appear on my blog post for February 13, 2016.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

This month’s prompt for next month’s 99-word story:

You’ll note that the stories will appear on The Joy of Story February 13. That’s Valentine’s Day Eve, folks. To celebrate this coincidence, I challenge you to try your hand at romance writing (sincerely or as a spoof). Use this sentence, or something like this sentence, somewhere in the story: “It was one of those kisses that murmur, ‘Let’s get lost…”

Reread Rule 3, above; this must be a story, not just an essay. If I receive your story by February 1, and if you follow the rules, your story will appear on this blog February 13 and the week following.

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As always, I thank you for stopping by. I hope you’ll return next week. Till then, stay well, write well, and make the most of the Joy in the stories you write and the stories you read.

photo by Clark Lohr

http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html

Saturday, January 9, 2016

WRITERS NEED AN AUDIENCE

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

January 9, 2016

Greetings! This week, beginning on the second Saturday of the month of January, I’m pleased to present seven stories, each 99 words long, with the theme “This time I really mean it.” These stories were written and submitted by occasional and regular readers of this blog. Some of the regulars are writers who have taken writing classes from Eileen Obser, who suggested to her students that they participate in the 99-word game. Eileen tells me that for some of them this is their first experience of seeing their words go public (printed or online). I’m happy to offer this important experience, because I think every writer should seek and find an audience.

The following essay is written mainly for new writers, but it concerns a subject that matters to all writers. I hope some experienced (published) writers will read it, and will feel free to leave comments to amplify or refute what I have to say about finding an audience.

I think it’s important to find a community of fellow writers, for honest but supportive feedback, for new ways of thinking about the craft of writing, and for the joy of friendship based on common interest. It’s important to find an audience. Many of us write, and some of us find our words published in print or on line; but all writers, published or not, are reaching out to readers. We write because we want to communicate. For some of us that means we want to put forth our ideas about how to understand and improve our world. For others, we write to entertain. Some writers do both. In any case, we write because we must. We’re given the talent and the task, and we’re not rewarded for our hard work until we know we’ve been read.

Let’s face it: writing is a solitary business. At least the writing part of it is. We sit in a room alone by ourselves—even when we’re tapping our laptops in a crowded Starbucks. Other artists have more instant reward: musicians and actors work together, and their work earns applause; even when they’re just jamming or rehearsing, the energy bounces back and forth from artist to artist, and that’s a reward in itself. Painters and sculptors can show their work to friends or strangers and get immediate feedback just by observing the looks on the faces of the viewers. But for most writers, the reward is a delayed response. If we’re lucky enough to be published or showcased, the response usually comes long after the creative process ends, and it often doesn’t get back to the creator at all.

How to find an audience? There are a number of easy ways. Take writing classes, especially classes where you’re encouraged to share your work with your classmates. I taught creative writing classes through adult education and university extension programs for twenty years. It was a thrilling experience for me, and judging from the number of people who took my classes over and over, the classroom and my classes gave both new and experienced writers the audience they were seeking.

Or, find and join a writing group. For the past twelve years I have belonged to a writing group known as The Great Intenders. We meet once a week, Wednesday afternoons from one to five. Being in this group has been enjoyable and most helpful to me as a writer. During my years as a member of the group, I’ve finished eleven novels, an output I never could have achieved all on my own. I am grateful for all the encouragement and feedback I received from my fellow Intenders, and I’m also grateful for the fellowship and lively conversation that have added to the fun of our weekly meetings. I know the other Great Intenders feel the same way.

Third, seek out a mentor to correspond with. Find a writer more experienced than yourself, who will promise to give you a careful reading of your work and an honest response. This could be a cousin, or a former school chum, or somebody you’ve come to know and “like” on Facebook. Or your ideal mentor might be a writer you admire, and the relationship might start with a fan letter you write. My mentor when I was trying to find my voice was a science fiction writer named Ray Russell, who had been the first fiction editor at Playboy magazine. I don’t write science fiction, and although I can’t claim I’ve never opened an issue of Playboy, I don’t think I read any fiction in that magazine. How I met Ray Russell is a long story I’ll tell another time. (I met him in person only once.) The point I’m making is that having Ray’s encouragement helped me tremendously. We swapped letters once a week or more, and I showed him every story I wrote during those years. In time Ray died, and I still miss his letters. Since then I’ve gone on to be a mentor to a number of good and emerging writers, some of whom I got to know through my career as a freelance writer.

In the end, though, the goal is to find publication. Get your stories into print. Seeking publication is a long and sometimes frustrating quest, but it’s part of your job as a writer. I’ll expand on that subject in another post.

Meanwhile, for your entertainment…

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“THIS TIME I REALLY MEAN IT”

Seven stories, 99 words each

A CHANGE OF ITINERARY

by Kenny Stevens

Christmas Eve.

Our Uber driver weaved through the sea of yellow cabs, bringing his pimped-out Prius to a stop at Terminal 2 — the first destination in our annual guilt trip.

In the trunk: one 49.5-pound rolling suitcase.

One duffle full of cheesy last-minute gifts.

One carry-on with fully loaded Kindle to help cope.

My wife’s phone rings. “It’s my mom,” she says.

We look at each other for four rings.

She picks up on the fifth and final ring.

“Sorry mom, we’re not coming this year. This time I really mean it.”

“Amir, back to the apartment please.”

•••

RESOLUTION

by James Hawkins

My birthday fell on Thanksgiving. “I’m thankful this is my last cigarette,” I announced.

But then came Christmas parties, with friends offering smokes. Then New Year’s Eve. I resolved to quit. For real, this time. Next day I drove all over town, looking for a store open where I could buy a pack of Marlboros. Smoked one, then threw the rest away.

A week later I got the news. My brother had lung cancer. I bought a pack the day he died, and smoked my last cigarette.

This time I didn’t throw away the rest. That would be wasteful.

•••

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

by Joyce Ann Brown

“I mean it. Stop the tantrums or no more ice cream, ever,” Zach said to his son.

The boy wailed.

Zach’s wife patted her bulging belly. Oh, for a quiet baby.

Baby Sister was born tear-free, even when in pain. At first a relief, the syndrome became dangerous.

“Cry or else. I mean it,” Zach said to his daughter.

He read his son a fairytale about how a princess was cured of tearlessness invoked by a fairy. Would it work?

Onions peeled under the baby’s nose made her shed tears. Cured.

“What bliss! This time I really mean it.”

•••

THE BIG MAN AND HIS TUNA

By Jerry Giammatteo

Kurt was a champion wrestler in college but shy and stoic, rarely speaking at work. We played little jokes on him to get a reaction. He’d feign outrage but enjoyed the horseplay.

He loved tuna salad sandwiches. One day, I took a huge bite when he left it unattended. When Kurt saw it, he simply dropped it into the trash without expression.

That Friday, he shook my hand.

“Have a nice weekend,” he said. His grip was a vise and he was breaking my fingers.

“Don’t ever do that again. This time, I really mean it,” he whispered gravely.

•••

HE PUT HIS FOOT DOWN

by Cathy Mayrides

“This time I really mean it,” said my father. He threatened to put our shoes out with the garbage if we didn’t collect them and put them away properly. However, we never thought he would really do it…until the day we walked into the house and didn’t see the usual pile of shoes by the front door.

The sanitation truck was approaching, ready to stop by our house. My sister and I never ran so fast. We found the shoes in the nick of time.

Never underestimate the wrath of a Greek father on a mission.

He meant it.

•••

THE MISCREANTS

by Christine Viscuso

“This time I mean it!” I slammed bowl on the counter. “You guys have been just awful! All this fighting. And you, Mocha. Ripping apart the stuffed Moose you got for Christmas. Now you don’t have anything to snuggle with at night. And Dudley, you have to come in when I call you. Honestly, you are a couple of miscreants.”

I prepared dinner with two sets of eyes watching me. “Why, I have a mind not to give you any more treats.” After gazing into the soulful eyes of my two dogs, I knew I couldn’t refuse them anything.

•••

LET IT SNOW

by Pat Shevlin

The chatter was predictable: at the market, at the gas station, on the street, “snow” was fueling conversation, making friends out of strangers. The puffin-like passenger waiting with me for the bus shared, “I’m purchasing snow tires tomorrow!” While pumping gas, a muffler-clad man shouted, “I’m purchasing a plane ticket to anywhere warm; this time I really mean it!”

As I slipped through the slush to Starbucks, my childhood love of winter returned. Anticipation of the snow angel I would cut into the canvas after school returned as I stared into the frothy canvas of my Grande skim latte.

•••

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And now a word from our sponsor…

John M. Daniel Literary Services

WARREN, 2000-2014
Assistant Editor and Chief Paperweight

As I indicated in my essay above, I believe every writer needs some help, some support, a community, an audience. I believe this strongly, and that’s why I have made it my business to offer this support. I’m also in business as a writer and a publisher, but I am proud to provide fellow writers with assistance in various ways.

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Mentorship: http://www.danielpublishing.com/mentorship.html

Manuscript evaluation: http://www.danielpublishing.com/ms_evaluation.html

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Call for Submissions: 99-Word Stories wanted!

The deadline for February’s 99-word story submissions is February First. The stories will appear on my blog post for February 13, 2016.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

This month’s prompt for next month’s 99-word story:

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As always, I thank you for stopping by. Please come again next week, when I hope to have a guest blogger, novelist Cora Ramos. Till then, stay well, write well, and make the most of the Joy in the stories you write and the stories you read.

http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html

Saturday, January 2, 2016

A WRITER'S RESOLUTIONS

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

January 2, 2016

Happy New Year, writers and readers, storytellers all. I trust you’ve had joyous holidays and are ready to take off the paper hats and put away your noise makers, and settle down to making and keeping resolutions.

For those of us who call ourselves writers, the most important resolution is to be writers. That means, we must write. Carolyn See, a superb novelist, book critic, teacher, and inspiration, offers this advice: Write a thousand words a day, five days a week, for the rest of your life. Well, that has worked for her. I admire her fortitude and her dedication. I confess I don’t follow her advice literally, but I have set aside one day a week, Sunday, for writing fiction. I think the point is to have a routine and to stick to it. I recommend that approach. It has worked for me. So one resolution I have is to stick to that routine.

I’ve reread the blog posts I’ve written during the past season, and I came away from that experience regretting that I sounded so dark so often. Yes, I still believe that stories need conflict to survive; and I still maintain that a writer should face the monsters and not be afraid of the dark. But I believe just as strongly that the Joy of Story is just that, and that writing, telling, reading, and listening to stories should be a positive experience. So another resolution I have this New Year is to (in the words of the great Johnny Mercer) “latch on to the affirmative.”

Another resolution I’ve made is to be more accepting of the enormous and rapid changes that have happened and are still happening in the publishing business. I can’t hope to stay on top of all the developments and trends in all areas of publishing, but I can and shall change my attitude to accept with interest the changes I’ve feared and closed my eyes to. After all, though I still consider myself a twentieth-century man, I’ve learned to live in a world with ebooks, Print on Demand, Amazon.com, cell phones, and Facebook. I can adapt, and I can adopt.

Have you made resolutions this year? Are they about writing? If so, please share them with others by leaving a comment at the end of this post.

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Speaking of resolutions and new years, please check out the promotion at the end of this blog for my ebook Promises, Promises, Promises. This is a strange and ingenious book (says its proud author). It takes place in the year 1963 (with flashback stories set in earlier times). It’s a novel, but it’s also a trio of connected novellas, which in turn are made up of connected stories. It’s about promises kept and not kept, and there’s a resolution that must be faced on the day John Kennedy was killed, November 22.

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It will interest some of you to learn that the literary magazine Black Lamb, to which I’ve contributed essays monthly for the past six years, has ceased print publication. The magazine will continue, however, in an online format, starting this month. Black Lamb’s current website address is http://www.blacklamb.org. I assume that will be the address of the online magazine once it’s up and running. If I learn different, I’ll let you know.

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Calling all authors—

I feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book, email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

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Call for Submissions: 99-Word Stories wanted!

The deadline for February’s 99-word story submissions is February First. The stories will appear on my blog post for February 13, 2016.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

This month’s prompt for next month’s 99-word story:

Reread Rule 3, above; this must be a story, not just an essay. If I receive your story by February 1, and if you follow the rules, your story will appear on this blog February 13.

And now a word from our sponsor.

Promises, Promises, Promises

Three Novellas

by John M. Daniel

Anyone who remembers the year 1963 will never forget it.

$4.99, Available from Kindle and Nook. Be sure to type in the full title, including subtitle: "Promises, Promises, Promises: Three Novellas."  Kindle edition: http://www.amazon.com/ Nookbook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/    

Spring in Dallas: Wealthy bachelor Fergus Powers decides to get married for the first time, at the age of 68, but first he must inform the other women in his life…

Summer in Los Angeles: Art student David Llewellyn spends the summer painting a mural for a movie star and learning from two women how to have a love affair…

Fall in Minneapolis: Widow Rose Llewellyn, eight months sober, hears the news of JFK's assassination. Will her resolve hold, or will she succumb to despair?

 Promises, Promises, Promises is made up of three novellas set in 1963. Combined, they form a three-part novel about love, promises, family, the controlling power of generosity, and the importance of home. Each of the three parts is told from a different point of view, covers a different span of time in that significant year, and is set in a different location. The book ends with an epilogue that ties the three novellas into a cohesive novel. The book is laced with humor and with sorrow, and the characters live in each other’s lives while they compel the plot forward, decision after decision. Together these closely connected novellas show the changes that happen to the three principal characters, and the changes that happen to them as a family. 

John M. Daniel is a freelance editor and writer. He has published dozens of stories in literary magazines and is the author of ten published books, including the Guy Mallon mystery novels. He and his wife, Susan, own a small-press publishing company. They live in Humboldt County, California.

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Thank you for dropping by. I hope you’ll be back again, soon and often! Next week you’ll get to read the 99-Word stories submitted during the month of December 2015.

http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html