Taryn Raye's Writerly Wednesday~ Surfing & NaNo

Yesterday I avoided the computer altogether while I tackled Mt. Dirty Laundry, hemmed a raveled seam on one of my daughter's shirts by hand and read a couple of books about surfing on my my Kindle. Honestly, I think I need the time away from the computer every once in a while to clear my head and find inner balance.

 (image from morguefile.com)

In regard to my research, I know reading about surfing is far from having experience with it, but as a writer who lives no where near the coast, I'm making do with the sources I have and honestly think I've gathered several great ideas for scenes for Mark and Alexa in my upcoming WIP that I'll be writing next month.

As of today, we're a mere week and a day away from NaNoWriMo. Am I excited? HECK YEAH! The closer we get and the more I read, the more exhilarated I feel.

Of course, that means, I'm stepping back from prepping Love by Design for publication, so I can concentrate on writing Heart of the Surf and putting a finish on this 2nd book series. I have plot lines and tweaking for LBD, that I'll work on after I come through NaNo on the other side.

Reading the books on surfing is really fueling my excitement for NaNo to begin for sure, though now that I'm researching and learning more about it, I'm also seeing more on television, especially the sad news of the surfer who was killed by a shark off the coast of California. That caught my attention last night on the news because my story is set on the California coastline and that could be a real issue, but I don't think I'm going to be writing a shark into the story.

Normally surfing is not my normal fare of interest, but I'm eager to see the new Chasing Mavericks movie, starring Gerard Butler. Of course, Mr. Butler is a mighty fine reason to watch ANY movie, but I'm finding myself interested in learning more about surfing, too, though I might never step a foot in the ocean.

Mind you, I love Gidget, but this has gotten me to thinking about other movies that might help give me a clearer, more modern idea visually— Point Break & Soul Surfer are a couple I need to get so I can watch them. Even Surf's Up is recommended viewing by one of the authors of one of the books I read about surfing.

Over the next few weeks I'm also intent on checking out the vast amount of surfing videos on Youtube, such as this one-

I find it's often easy for me to plunk myself down in another world and experience other things vicariously through words and visuals. Such is the blessings of being a writer and an avid reader.

Hope you have a great and wonderful Hump Day!

I can see the weekend from here!

#Writerly Wednesday- My next #WIP & Merc in Retro-Perils of the Universe #writing

I'm eager to start on my next novel, Heart of the Surf, the 4th and final book in my Pryce of Love series. Centered around the youngest of the Pryce brothers, and also the last to find love, the story will be a journey for Mark and Alexa Stevens, both of whom have their eyes on the prize of the elite and exclusive surfing competition. Little could they know that their love of sand and surf would also throw them together in another way. Already, I'm gleaning background information about my main characters at odd times, like while I'm showering. I learned a little something about Alexa's grandmother yesterday, so I can feel life being breathed into the story and the characters already.

But....

Mind you, I've never been surfing, never even been to a coastal beach, so this book will be a challenge and there will be research to do, so what better timing for research than just as Mercury is about to go Retrograde.

You see, silly or as superstitious as it might seem in me- I don't start new projects when good ol' Merc's in Retro because I have no desire to "redo" anything later. Not in a big way. There will be enough to be done with edits and polishing once I finish writing the story. Not to mention that I need time to research anyway before I start rattling on about things I know nothing about, but I'm intrigued by the idea of the life of a surfer, so the desire to learn is there.

Of course, writing will be easier still if I wait until after Mercury goes direct again anyway shortly after August begins and my children are back in school. The quiet writing time will help tremendously. It's honestly hard to work and concentrate on writing, to fall deep into my storytelling, when I have someone constantly asking me "Mommy, what's for lunch?" "Can we have a snack?" "Again, why can't we go outside in this triple digit heat?"

(Sandwiches, string cheese or yogurt, I don't want you to resemble the scorched grass in our yard that looks more like bits of hay than living green foliage)

Add to that, I'm also still researching self-publishing, so I have that on my plate, as well. Oh, and the weird dreams- so many of them lately, but I won't bore you with the bizarre and wacky details. I think it's a side effect of the planetary changes. I can feel in my bones. It always opens locked doors to the odd and unusual within me.

And so, I'm also settling back into our routine normalcy around the house after being gone to visit my family and friends in my hometown for 3 weeks. I'm still feeling sluggish today though my mind is racing that I have things to do, people to contact, etc...I can hope to find the balance, but not sure I ever will.

Hope you're having a great Wednesday! I can see the weekend

(and a lucky Friday the 13th) from here!

#WIPlash Wednesdays Complete Manuscript Number 11 #writing

Sunday I put the finishing touch on my 11th manuscript, Perfect Recipe for Love. Well, the official finishing touch- The End. Edits will ensue eventually, but for now I'm enjoying that sense of accomplishment that comes with putting the finish on yet another story...

Up next, I plan to start the 4th and last in the Pryce of Love series about the Pryce Brothers, manuscript #12 for me. Mark is up next, young surfer boy and he's going to have his hands full with the competition- "Alex" Alexa- who's the only girl in a male-dominated surf competition. You know she's going to be stubborn and bullheaded.

Considering I write by the seat of my pants though, that about all I can tell you at the moment. LOL I intend to invest in a few books about surfing, perhaps see if there are any videos on Youtube that might give me more insight and I have a bunch of websites bookmarked that list surfer lingo and information about the lifestyle. The last few books I've written had minimum research, but this one I will be giving a bit more time over to learning about the subject matter so I can present it in a realistic knowledgeable way.

I'm also endeavoring to learn more about self-publishing, and have currently been reading Smashwords Style Guide, just to familiarize myself with it before I attempt anything. Learning a little at a time, I'm really warming to the idea, but I'm not quite ready to rush in headfirst, but I'm seriously considering self-pubbing both of my 4-book series and after that, who knows. :o)

This week I'm still enjoying visiting with my parents and sister and friends and just enjoying touching base with my roots. The older I get, the more I need it. Hope everyone's having a great week! Stay cool!

Doing my Happy Dance- #1k1hr Challenges, #Writing & a 4 out of 5 #Review for Castaway Hearts! Squee!

Today has been rather exciting for me.

Castaway Hearts first REVIEW is up onMEL'S BOOK BLOG(click link below)   

I also feel great today as I added over 4,000 words to my current work in progress yesterday by doing #1k1hr challenges with a few other fellow writers. 3 hours of that and I had almost 4k. In total I knocked out 4,018, which leaves me not all that far from my 80k (approx) word count goal. Thanks for the kick in the tush to get writing- (You can follow them on Twitter if you click on their names)

Candace Havens

Alyssa Day

Amy Denim

Heather Riccio

Pamela V Mason

Seeing as how I'm not far from it, I can feel "the end" just around the corner and that generally gets me pumped to finish writing.

Add to that, I'm starting to get excited about writing the next one, which means I'm going to be scouring Amazon's Kindle Store for some books about Pacific Coast surfing, the history of surfing and competition, etc. for research. Gotta know how to speak the lingo and catch a gnarly wave. (If anyone has any good suggestions on books for researching that subject, please feel free to leave a comment about it.)

My visit to Hallee's blog yesterday also got me to thinking about whether there will be a continuation of Castaway Hearts somewhere in the future. It's definitely something I've thought about and I am considering it. I have notes and ideas jotted, though I know further research will be necessary to travel forward a few years in time with each new heroine/hero from Catherine and Dawson's family tree. It's not completely off the table, so I will be chewing on that for a bit until I feel the "draw" to begin another one. I have a feeling that it will have to wait until I'm at least finished with the surf novel mentioned above.

And now, seeing as how its the first day of summer vacation, I'm off to see whether I can get any writing done before the little monsters need to be fed (they do have to be fed, right?) ;)

Have a wonderful day! Write on/Read on!

WIPlash Wednesdays- #Research for #CastawayHearts

In 2007 when I started writing Castaway Hearts, I didn't know a lot about Virginia. Originally I'd intended to set the story in Boston, but something drew me to the Norfolk area and the need to write "near" there, rather than further north along the coast. My story also was originally going to be set more in the mid-to-late 1800's rather than the 1790s, but again, situations and circumstances changed as I began to write the story.

One of the most important pieces of research material I used for Castaway Hearts was the book-

I used Wikipedia to figure out the timeline for corsets and stays, when they were and weren't in "fashion."

To understand the proper name for quilt designs I went here- Quilt Patterns Names

Links for other places I used for research follow-

An Outline of American Literature
The Food Timeline
18th Century History- The City of Norfolk, Va
American History Timeline 1780-2010
Great Inventions
Fire and Light
1780s Decade Timeline
Norfolk Highlights 1584-1881
Virginia Historical Society
Tobacco Timeline: The Seventeen Century
Tobacco Timeline: The Eighteenth Century
Virginia History
Virginia, Timeline of State History

I'm not sure I can honestly pinpoint every detail I learned doing this research or what I've used within the story because a lot of it now seems just common knowledge to me. One of the things that always sticks out most is that I learned matches didn't exist yet and therefore my characters, in the 1790s would have used tinderboxes and spills (tightly wound paper) to light their pipe tobacco. And though most of the information I found in these research resources did not appear, by direct means, in my novel, all the knowledge I gathered helped build the scenery and behaviors of my characters and the time in which they lived.

****

Currently I'm still working on the same WIP, I'm up to 63,156 words of approximately 80K. I left off at a very pivotal moment in the hero's life that deals with his mother, brothers and their deadbeat father. The stormy weekend and my husband's oral surgery has bumped my writing time to the back burner while I take care of family matters, but I'm hoping to get back to work on it today.

WIPlash Wednesdays- Question from Joey R.

We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and nervy.

~E.L. Doctorow~

Joey R.- Do you sometimes use actual events or things that has happened to you or people you know in your work?

Not really, but I do draw from life. Though I write romantic fiction, it is based in reality, so there are certainly bound to be topics or ideas that I've taken from the life around me, though I haven't written anything directly that could be tied to one event or person, or even myself specifically, because I take bits and pieces of knowledge, common sense, experience and mesh it together. They say, "write what you know" and I do, but not always the way you would think.

Any events in my novels are the indirect result of living and paying attention to my emotions, my situations as well as being observant of what others have gone through or are going through. There are a lot of things that are just common ground for all of us.

Most people have had their hearts broken by someone they love. Most everyone has lost a loved one or known someone in a bad relationship. Some have been abused, neglected, mistreated, or felt that way. Illness can strike anyone whether it's mental, emotional or physical and that includes things like bad habits, addictions, quirks and behaviors.

We are results of our environment and experience and subject to a plethora of things- accidents, deaths, debilitating disease, job loss, running into an ex at the grocery store. It's all happening around us, all the time, so I have a vast world of ideas at my fingertips. We're all also very adaptable, whether we like change or not, and we also all have a singular goal in common for the majority of our lives and that is to seek out love, regardless of where it comes from- parents, siblings, relatives, friends, acquaintances, lovers.
I draw from all that because I know it is the human condition, our compulsion, to seek love and approval through our work, our hobbies, our relationships and in most everything we do. Even my fictional characters need to be real, believable, fallible. They have quirks, mixtures of my own loved ones' idiosyncrasies, emotional outbursts, hidden sorrows, broken hearts and life experiences and that never-ending need to be loved, find joy and live happy, just like we all do.

Truth is, though that by the time they come to life on the page, I find it easily conceivable to believe they are living people who's situations are just as real to me as anything else I've ever seen or experienced myself.

Thanks for the question Joey!

If anyone else has a question, feel free to ask, leave a comment.

Feel free to leave me more questions in the comments here at anytime.
I'll be happy to answer them.

Happy Hump Day! I can see the weekend from here!

A Love Story was Born- Castaway Hearts

At some point in early 2007, before Facebook had appeared on the horizon and kicked Myspace's butt to the curb, I was on there a LOT. I posted blogs daily, or just about daily. I was catching up with old friends and making new ones. It was my hangout and there were awesome backgrounds to choose from for your profile, so one day I was searching for something to suit me and I came across a profile background with this image-

I sat, staring at it in quiet amazement- feeling drawn to the picture- the sadness it aroused within me, the heartache I felt the young woman feeling. The ghostly ship was ominous and the entire picture just gripped my heart and I felt tears prick my eyes. I thought, "Wow, she's just so, so sad. She lost her lover at sea...."

The idea made my chest hurt. Love lost is never a funny matter. I set the image layout to my profile and though I went back to doing whatever it was I was doing that day, I kept going back to look at it. I couldn't shake it and every time I saw it I was moved to tears again. I went to bed that night unable to put the image out of my mind.

Then I remembered somewhere in old scribbled notes and papers I has the beginnings of a historical I started to write when I was in my late teens. Just one sheet, front and back in my very youthful chicken scratch. A girl named Catherine, boarding her grandfather's ship in England to sail away to a life she's never known.

Bit by bit, the story started to unfold as I lay in bed, listening to my husband snore while I couldn't sleep for all the thoughts and story ideas that were swirling around in my head. What if she sailed to Virginia? What if she met a young man on the ship and believed she was in love with him? But what if he sailed away once she arrived in Virginia, and left her feeling lost and alone? What if she promised herself to him in secret? And what if his very own brother, burned by the past, became her confidant? Became her friend? And what if the sea took the man she thought she loved, after she'd already fallen for another? How devastating could that be?

It would be as devastating and heartbreaking as that image above. It would move me to tears, whispering the pain, the sorrow, the madness of grief and guilt that a young woman might feel in Catherine's shoes.

And so, my Myspace background haunted me and Catherine's story began to take shape over several months. This story, that I once put aside because I lost sight of my own writing dreams, a story that had once been frozen in thought at the outset, was beginning to warm, to incubate, beneath the heat lamp of this image that was searing itself on my brain. It was fertilized by that haunting picture that branded itself on my mind and my heart. It started to grow into a story that went much deeper and had more aspects than I first intended.

I didn't just start writing it though. I began researching and reading up on the history of Virginia, of the late 1700's. I spent several months researching online and with books I ordered online. And in a search for images that I could use purely for my own inspiration, I found Catherine Barrett, Dawson's sweet sweet Cathy, in this image of a young Kate Beckinsale.

And I found Dawson Randolph, residing in a plantation home similar to this, with dark blue shutters and a blue front door. A lonely man, widowed far too early in life, I realized that I saw Dawson Randolph in James Scott's portrayal of Stefano DiMera's father, Santo DiMera on Days of Our Lives. I've been a DOOL fan all my life (I remember watching when I was like 5 year-old.) I was watching Days at the time I wrote Castaway Hearts so "Santo" fit what I saw in my mind perfectly. Handsome, sophisticated and melancholy to find real happiness in a world that had failed him and taken love away rather than given it to him.

Catherine and Dawson deserved happiness, and I knew it was up to me to find it for them- to clear the path, to make sure they weren't two "castaway hearts."

And so there you have it. A love story was born from something seemingly as simple as an image.

Happy Valentine's Day, Lovelies!
Hope its special!

WIPlash Wednesdays- Questions from Mary Ellen & Katie

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.

~E.L. Doctorow~

Mary Ellen T.- Is your book about your life or someone you may know? I wonder how you can put everything together for a book.

Everything I write is fiction, so no, my book, nor any others I release, will be about my life or anyone I know. As a writer I know that parts of who I am, and those I love, are woven into the fabric of the story, but I never write myself or others intentionally. I do think it just comes with the territory that, as a writer, our stories are who we are, without ever meaning to be because they come from the heart of us.

(the 2nd half of Mary Ellen's comment also kind of blends into Katie's below)
Katie M.- Do your plots just come to you?

Putting together a story for me is rather free form. Sometimes plots come to me freely, spinning out off something I heard, saw or imagined. Some of those ideas percolate in my dreams, but being I'm a pantser (write by the seat of my pants), I don't plot or outline the stories in great detail.

In 2006, when I first started writing with the serious intentions of getting published, pretty much every story I had started with bare bones- character names, a general idea about what they do for a living, how they might get thrown together, what kind of conflict could exist between them and a tentative title.

All the stories I've written so far stem from those. In truth, I'm still working on writing all the ideas I already have jotted down and it hasn't been until more recently that several ideas sprung from the well I thought was dry. The only problem is that until I finish some of my others, the new ones have to be put on the back burner.

How did the new ones come to me? I fell asleep one night with all the thoughts racing in my mind and when I woke up they were still there, burning into my brain, so I wrote them down. Doesn't happen often, but I figured it was worth taking notes. Some have followed me to bed and taken their sweet time to congeal over long periods. The majority of them though, I wrote in a month, taking my cue from my participation in NaNoWriMo- conforming my writing patterns to nailing down the first rough draft within 30 days. I tend to produce a lot more when I work under such tight self-imposed deadlines.

How do you keep all the back stories straight?

Keeping the back stories straight is usually pretty easy. I don't outline, but I do usually keep a list of all characters, main and secondary, in a notebook wherein I also keep track of how scenes play out, how characters are connected (family, friends, coworkers, acquaintances- I've even jotted a sketchy-at-best family tree, just to make sense of how many siblings there are), how long the chapters run, and make notes of things to come as I'm writing or even research I've done online for certain things like preparation of certain meals or dishes or decorating jargon, rodeo information, the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theater, or when the match came into existence, etc.

For Castaway Hearts, I was halfway through the story when I wondered if matches even existed in the late 1700s. A quick search on Bing found my answer.

Friction matches, were first invented by an English chemist in 1826, so no, my character couldn't light pipe tobacco from a match. So what did they do to start a fire? Before friction matches, also known as lucifer matches, men lit their pipes with a paper spill or carried a tinderbox with them for lighting their tobacco. This was a much more time consuming habit, but I knew I had a few places in the story where I needed to remove the match lighting and give a little insight into what would have been the norm in that bygone time.

Story timelines, most especially for those that play out in chronological order are definitely something I need to police myself over a little more. I realized at the end of January while reading through to finish my current WIP, that a secondary character, who was pregnant in a previous book, would have been due in March, but when the WIP started, it was already May, but she was due anytime...I kept thinking, wait...2 months OVERDUE? That's just not possible! And so I had to fix it. And then there's the whole, "did that couple get married in the last book, or are they getting married in this one?"

It's a juggling act, to say the least, but something I enjoy tremendously.

Thanks for the questions ladies! Tune in next week for a question from Joey R.

Feel free to leave me more questions in the comments here at anytime.
I'll be happy to answer them.

Happy Hump Day! I can see the weekend from here!

Jumping Hurdles & Rambling Thoughts

I made some good strides yesterday with my revisions. Can I say that I'm proud of myself? LOL

I got more than halfway through my novel and corrected some mistakes and took a better look at some of the historic elements and corrected some of them as well. I even upped my word count just a smidge when I found a spot here and there that I felt needed a little more explanation or definition. A couple of weeks break from my novel seems to be helping me with revisions. Cleared my head a bit to help me see things clearer.

When I found a good stopping point last night before I headed off to bed, my vision was blurry and I felt a minor headache coming on from eye strain, but I felt more accomplished than I had in almost 2 weeks.

I feel refreshed and pleased with this turn of events.

I also got my books yesterday that I ordered to read up on information about history on Norfolk, Virginia. My characters live near there, not necessarily right IN Norfolk, but close enough and finding information on it has been a difficult task. Most books are about the general info in regard to population and such, and doesn't really give you an indepth look at how people dressed or things like that, especially when trying to find stuff that is for a specific year (late 1780's).

As I've said before, I'm not great at research and I'm not really all that fond of it, but I am finding a developing interest in the time period and the history of Virginia's coast. So I guess in a way I have started educating myself, without realizing I was doing so. I may develop a new hobby or interest in the process, who knows!

This year has been full of surprises for me, that's for sure. I would never have guessed I'd have spent so much time working on this novel or researching for it.

I would like to get this one done though, so I can move on to the next one. I'm not sure which one I'm going to work on though yet. I have a lot, but not sure which one will feel closest to my heart next. Right now this one is filling my heart so much to get it polished and done that I haven't really thought much about the others for a while. Plus, I still need to go back through my other two and do revisions and polishing on them as well. And I may just do that, rather than setting myself another WIP goal just yet.

I am also looking forward to National Novel Writing Month in November too. 30 days to write 50,000 words. I plan to participate in that again. I really enjoyed the fast pace and the looming deadline to get a novel pumped out.

Which makes me wonder if I will enjoy having deadlines in the future...LOL

Before last year's NaNo, I was absolutely certain that it would take me YEARS to write a novel, based on my singular experience with my first novel, that took me ten years of blood, sweat, and tears to finish. I had to literally DRAG the words out through most of it and some of the scenes were hard to write. I did a lot of deleting and rewrites over the years. There was a lot of emotion packed into it and some was a little too close for comfort.

But I never imagined I could write a novel in a month. That was Greek to me, a foreign idea I wasn't sure I could comprehend. But after my participation in NaNo last year, and having finished a 80K word novel in less than 30 crazy days, it gave me a different perspective of myself as a writer. I enjoyed the personal challenge and it gave me hope that I can actually complete something when I put my mind to it and in short order at that.

I'm stronger and more determined than I have ever given myself credit for. In my youth I didn't always follow through with my plans to do things, no matter how much I wanted to do them.

In my early 20's I did a novel writing workshop through the mail. I didn't finish it. Why? you might ask. Because I took the instructor's critques to heart and wore them like a badge of failure. I was young and stubborn and aggravated.

I thought her critques were a huge neon flag blowing in the breeze, showing every one of my faults and all my shining ignorance, for all the world to see. I took it mentally and emotionally hard and it didn't help matters that the man I was engaged to at the time basically told me he didn't support my dream of becoming a published writer (or believe it would ever happen) and he couldn't love me unless I had a "real" job.

Needless to say, he and I broke up and I quit my workshop and never looked back. I believed that I didn't deserve to be a writer or even dream about it. But it kept coming back to haunt me. Novel ideas would pop into my head at odd sporatic times and I would sigh and think how great it would be if I could be a writer, but still doubted I had any business thinking about it because I just wasn't good enough, no matter how that writing desire burned my insides up.

I've grown a lot in the past decade though and I've jumped a lot of hurdles emotionally and mentally to get me to the here and now. It took me this long to realize that if I want my dream to come true, if I start believing in me, and surround myself with good supportive friends and family, I can accomplish it.

That former self-doubting belief system I had relied on for so long is history. I can't live my life that way. My writing flame is stronger than that and has been burning inside me for far too long for me to let it snuff out without so much as a second thought. It won't let me. It's the driving force that keeps me thinking, desiring, wanting and needing to write.

It's an eternal flame that can't be put out. It's my heart and soul.