Blogger: Wendy Lawton (Brand New Grandmother)
Location: Old New Castle, Delaware
Weather: 63º and cloudy
I appreciate Michelle filling in for me yesterday and I love how she highlighted some of those delightful detours on the journey by reminding us of the surprise characters who show up. What fun when that happens.
On Monday and Tuesday we talked about the call and the threshold—two of the milestones on the classic hero’s journey. Today let’s look at the third step—the challenges. Sometimes this stage is called “allies and enemies.”
Step Three: The Challenges
The hero faces a series of challenges or temptations. As the journey progresses the challenges often become more and more difficult. One of the greatest tests for the hero is to differentiate real helpers from “tempters.” (Tempters try to pull the hero away from their path using doubt, fear, or distraction.) Challenges reflect needs and fears— only by directly facing these weaknesses can the hero acknowledge and conquer them.
This step normally makes up the biggest part of the story. Those of you who are novelists know that to make a satisfying story we need to give the hero loads of conflict—piling trouble on top of troubles. We have no problem recognizing this step—challenges— as a part of the writer’s journey, right?
(more…)
By Wendy Lawton on Mar 11, 2010 in Blog, Writing Life | 0 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: NOT New Castle, Delaware where Wendy is busy with her brand-new first grandchild. (She will be back posting tomorrow.)
This week Wendy has been taking us through the heroic journey, likening novel writing and publishing to a grand endeavor. I’ve followed her posts and plotted my own course in parallel, but today I’d like to turn our attention to the surprise: a character who springs up in the middle of the story, or the quest, to ease some of the mounting tension. (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Mar 10, 2010 in Blog, Writing Life | 3 Comments
Blogger: Wendy Lawton
Location: Old New Castle, Delaware
Weather: 59º and sunny
As we continue talking about the writer’s journey let’s look at the second step.
Step Two: The Threshold
This is the jumping off point for the adventure. Once past this threshold, the hero enters the unknown—a world filled with challenges and danger. At the threshold the hero encounters beings or situations that block his passage (guardians or gatekeepers). When the hero is ready to meet the challenge the guardians will stand aside or even become a helper or friend.
This is where so many writers get stuck. We receive the call and embark on the journey but once we hit up against the realities of the publishing industry, which include seemingly insurmountable odds and some of the most ferocious gatekeepers, we shrink back.
(more…)
By Wendy Lawton on Mar 9, 2010 in Blog, Writing Life, query | 7 Comments
Blogger: Wendy Lawton
Location: Old New Castle, Delaware
Weather: Warm 57º and sunny
Each time I approach my blog week, I try to think back to some of the concerns of the past few weeks to see if I can offer something of value. Recently I’ve heard published writers talking about throwing in the towel, unpublished writers mourning the unfairness of the query process, and even an editor expressing concern about a contracted author who needs to spend more time writing an exemplary novel and less time blogging and tweeting. I’ve heard from authors with troublesome sales numbers that make it challenging to sell the next book. I’ve talked to others who are tired of getting so little return on the investment and others who are who are coming to grips with the reality that the bestseller list may always elude them.
Why so much angst to balance against those celebrating milestones and triumphs?
(more…)
By Wendy Lawton on Mar 8, 2010 in Blog, Writing Life | 12 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
I’ve written this week about how specific novels affected the early years of my marriage and thus my relationship with my terrific engineer husband. You don’t have to be married to have a book affect relationships–for either good or bad.
What books–fiction or non-fiction–have brought you closer to someone, given you insight into someone else’s life, or enabled you to enjoy the differences? And just how did they do it?
By Michelle Ule on Mar 5, 2010 in Blog, Fiction, Reading | 3 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
They were sitting in the submarine wardroom on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean one morning, when the Commanding Officer entered and began his briefing for the planned war games. Two sentences in, the navigator looked up in surprise. Two more, and the executive officer cleared his throat. By the time the CO paused, all the officers were staring at him with wide eyes.
My husband, the chief engineer on the oldest submarine in the Atlantic that day in 1984, said, “Sir?”
The CO swiped his hand across his face. “Hmm. Is that what we’re really supposed to do, or was that in the book last night?” (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Mar 4, 2010 in Blog, Fiction, Reading | 8 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
As aforementioned, my husband and I became fans of PBS’s Masterpiece Theater early in our marriage. Back in those days, which seem almost Dickenesque now, the program aired once a week on Sunday nights. You saw it then, or you didn’t see it at all.
Fortunately, the program usually featured stories based on actual books, so if you missed an episode, you could obtain a copy of the novel and catch up before the next Sunday. Which is how we happened to read Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice--and fell in mutual love with the British author’s stories. (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Mar 3, 2010 in Blog, Fiction, Reading | 6 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Drizzly Santa Rosa, Calif., main office
I never had paid a lot of attention to my boyfriend’s reading while we dated. We attended college sixty miles apart, and while I was immersed in Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer and the horrors of Joyce’s Ulysses, my intended spent his hours fiddling with mathematical equations and engineering tomes. Because my fiance was, and continues to be as my husband, eclectic in his interests, we also enjoyed seeing Shakespeare plays together. Did it really matter, what we were reading as long as we enjoyed it? (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Mar 2, 2010 in Blog, Reading | 6 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: The new main office in Santa Rosa, Calif.
My husband and I both majored in ENG in college. At UCLA, that meant ENGLISH. At Harvey Mudd College, that meant ENGINEERING. You can imagine how, theoretically, we could have been at cross-purposes in our literary choices over the years.
You’d be right to some extent, but not completely.
Prior to our marriage (a week after he was sworn in as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy’s nuclear engineering program), I spent a lot of time thinking about what book I’d take on our honeymoon. Oh, he knew I read all the time, but neither one of us worried about it since he, too, was an avid reader. (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Mar 1, 2010 in Blog, Reading | 13 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: about 40 degrees
Like many of you I suspect, I’m wrapped up in the Winter Olympics. At a dinner party this past weekend, we had quite a discussion about what makes curling a sport, and is it a good idea for women skiers to use larger skis than men use.
Earlier this week I was thrilled watching Americans Charlie White and Meryl Davis and the beautiful Canadian pair Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir compete in ice dancing–my favorite competition.
During the event the commentator said that judges watched how close and symetrically a pair skates. Two humans skating precisely as one to the rhythm of music. The affection the skaters displayed for each other at the dance conclusions was freer and more obvious than I remembered. Hugs and kisses all around at the end of performances. It seemed so romantic! Such love on display! Such happiness after all the trials and efforts!
I wonder what skaters read, how they stay in touch with what’s happening outside the rink and what disciplines they use to keep their minds focused. Do they plug in iPods as they practice? You could do that as a soloist but pairs have to think about the other person as well as themselves. Sounds somewhat like marriage, doesn’t it?
Surely there have been romance novels about ice skaters, but I can’t remember any titles. How do authors balance the hours of laborious practice, the disagreements with coaches, the injuries, the missed activities with friends against the glorious achievement of a good skating performance and finding the perfect partner?
It’s sort of an anomaly to associate love with ice rather than heat. Ah, but true love melts us all, doesn’t it?
By Etta Wilson on Feb 26, 2010 in Authors, Blog, Writing Life | 9 Comments
