Parts to a Story from The Daily Kick

David Farland's Daily Kick e-newsletter had such a great message on how to develop the parts of a story that I'm including it here. In fact, The Kick may be included once a week for your creative delectation.

The Inciting Incident
As you begin writing a story, you have to introduce your setting and characters right away. In fact, my mentor Algis Budrys used to say that if you didn’t get them at least partly introduced in two pages, he’d throw your story into the round file. He figured that you were taking too long. For me, depending upon your style and tone, I might give you a little more time, but his sense of pacing is pretty spot-on.
As you introduce your setting and character, you might even give us the main conflict right out the gate, or introduce the theme. You don’t have to. You might use minor conflicts as a stepping stone as you build up toward that main conflict. For example, let’s say that you have a character who hears a sound in his house at night. He reaches over to wake his wife, but she’s gone. He gets up, afraid of an intruder, and grabs a baseball bat that he keeps by his bed. He creeps into the living room and spots an intruder in the dark, then chases the intruder from the house. As he does so, he trips over something—the body of his wife. She’s bloody, battered—and dead. In a blind panic he flips on the light and calls 911. He rushed outside with his bat, looking for the intruder in the darkness. It is not until the police arrive that he looks at his bat—and sees that it, too, is bloody. He’s holding the murder weapon!
So here is a story where my character faces several conflicts right in a row—strange sounds, an intruder, his wife’s murder—all before he discovers that he has been framed, and is now facing the fight of his life, which will be to defend himself.
Sometime within the first 10% of a story, normally, you reach a point where the audience learns about the main conflict—the biggest thing that your character is likely to face. Even for a short story, the rule is that “this should be the most important conflict that this character will ever face in his or her life.” That moment when the audience learns about the conflict is a turning point. From that point on, whatever other course in life your character was following, his path will change for good.
The First Try/Fail Cycle
A Try/Fail cycle occurs when a character struggles to overcome some opposition. It might be a very minor attempt, or it might be huge. In the first try/fail cycle, the character usually begins to grasp the enormity of the situation. He learns what he is up against. So, for example, one early try/fail cycle often involves diplomacy.
Your protagonist just got handed a pink-slip, and security escorts him from his office where he works at the New York Stock Exchange. Astonished, he calls his boss. He apologizes for slacking off this last week, and points out that with his wife’s cancer, he hasn’t been too focused. He begs for another chance. That’s when the bombshells start hitting. The boss refuses to tell him why he is being fired, but lets him know that it isn’t for “lack of performance.” He says, “There’s a criminal investigation. The SEC is involved, and the FBI. I can’t talk anymore about it.” The protagonist pleads innocence, begs for his job. “But, I haven’t stolen anything. I haven’t broken any rules!” The boss comes back, “I’m sorry. I can’t talk to you. Go find another career, if you can. You have no future in this one. You may not have a future at all. . . .”
Normally, a first try/fail cycle will take up about 10% of your story.
The Second Try/Fail Cycle
As your character grapples with his problem, he must find that it is larger than he first imagined. We’ll talk later about ways to expand upon problems, make them bigger than they first appear, but let it suffice to say that your protagonist must now try to resolve his problem. He does some legwork. He meets his old secretary at a cheap restaurant. He discovers that someone else in the office has been bad-mouthing him. A man named Moses Siregar seems to be behind the firing. So your protagonist does a little digging. Moses worked with him on a major account, one for an oil company. The company has been accused of rigging bids for rights for offshore oil reserves, and it looks like Moses is somehow trying to place the blame on our protagonist. This is the big SEC violation. So our character breaks into Moses’s home and tries to steal files from Moses’s computer, hoping to exonerate himself. But just as he is downloading the information, a stranger breaks into the home and tries to kill the protagonist. It soon becomes apparent that the man isn’t just a burglar—he’s some sort of assassin. Our protagonist is thrown out a four-story window—and has his fall slowed by an awning. Limping and wounded, he flees into the night.
In an adventure novel, the protagonist might go through several more try/fail cycles, each time getting closer to his goal, confronting different enemies, perhaps learning new revelations.
However, you should note that a second try/fail cycle is all that is absolutely needed. It often takes up about 30% of your tale.
The Climax
At the climax to a story, the hero must marshal all of his resources to resolve the major conflict. In doing so, he might call upon his courage, test his intellectual resources to the limit, and endure physical or emotional torment.
Those resources will almost always include the help of close friends. In our case, our hero might call upon his girlfriend for help, his old secretary, a mentor, investors that he has served well in the past, and so on.
During the climax, the hero will most likely come face-to-face with his problem. In our story above, he will discover who is framing him—and he’ll learn what he is being framed for, and how. He’ll try to figure out how to prove his innocence and reclaim his life. But not all problems have external sources. His problem might be an internal one—say a character flaw. Or he might be confronting society.
The climax is typically the most emotionally charged part of the story.
Very often, the climax will have one or more “reversals” in it, a scene where one party seems to have the upper hand, yet the other party suddenly gains it. Reversals don’t have to happen just in the climax, they can easily happen in any scene, but they're so integral to a good climax that I’m tempted to list the reversal as a “part” of the story, a necessary element. Yet some fine stories don’t have reversals to them at all. So they aren’t really necessary.
In the climax, the main problem in your story is resolved one way or another. Either the hero wins the day, or loses his conflict.
The climax to your story is something that you build up to. The protagonist often must gather clues and allies, confront inner demons, consider the themes of the piece, prepare a battle plan, and then confront the enemy. It often takes up more than 40% of a novel or movie to get through a climax.
The Denouement
The denouement of your story is everything that happens in the end. It assures the audience that the end that you’ve reached really is the end. If the villain is killed, a coroner will ensure us that he is dead. If my protagonist falls in love with his secretary, we might see him propose to her. If he clears his name, newspaper reporters might be shouting for details. If he has learned a great lesson in life, the lesson is reinforced—even voiced.
In short, the purpose of a denouement is to reinforce the ending. It can sometimes have interesting twists, unexpected revelations, and so on, but doesn’t need to do so.
Since evincing certain key emotions is important, an author often spends a great deal of time trying to hit an emotional high, give the payoff for the tale. For example, if you’re writing a heart-warming tale, you might look for opportunities to make your reader cry in the end. If you’re trying to evince wonder, then a wondrous conclusion is called for.
Normally, the denouement takes about 10% of the total length of your story.

The Poet Within

Poetry acts upon the creative soul like fire touched to tinder. The elegant phrases inspired by genius can make the dry places of the heart burn with brilliant thoughts or startling concepts. Read the following excerpts, then write, without conscious thought, whatever comes to mind. It may surprise you what gorgeous script flows from your pen onto the page.

No man is an island, entire of itself;

Each man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,

As well as if a promontory were,

As well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved with mankind;

And, therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

John Donne

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or, bends with the remover to remove:

Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Shakespeare

I think continually of those who were truly great.

Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history

Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns,

Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition

Was that their lips, still touched with fire,

Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song…

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,

See how these names are fêted by the waving grass…

The names of those who in their lives fought for life,

Who wore at their hearts the fire’s center.

Born of the sun, they traveled a short while toward the sun

And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

Stephen Spender

The poet within each writer feeds on inspired words from glorious literary lights like Byron, Keats, Shelley, Browning, Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Tennyson. Nourish your heart with their lyrical wisdom and your writing will abound with beauty and meaning.

Start to Write

There are so many genres and sub-genres in the writing field, today, that it can be confusing. Follow the headings of Science Fiction to Fantasy to Horror to Romance to Suspense to Crime, and you will discover combinations of all of the above. Pick your passion. Which one of these genres to you read most often? That was a really hard choice for me. I read a cross section of many of these genres, so it was challenging to choose just one. Still that choice must be made before your writing can mature into salable work.

Don't despair when it comes to identifying your start point. One legend among Southern California authors says that Dean Koontz actually started first in an entirely different genre. After giving his first manuscript to a famous author to review, the author's feedback guided him to the suspense/thriller genre in which he now excels. (Yes...he is often shelved in the Horror section, but doesn't in my book really belong there. It's a marketing ploy rather than a definition of his works). The point is that we all need a starting point.

Choose your starting genre and jump into it. My sister, Roxy, has written several romance novels. She is good. Her characters are appealing and her storyline is complex. Still she receives rejection letters. Is she a real writer? Yes! Money does not make a writer. Even publication, as we all know, does not make a writer...at least not a good one. How many of us have wandered through the book stacks, pulled paperbacks off the shelves and said, "I can write better than that!"

Many authors that are published languish in the public eye for two reasons. #1 - They started. #2 - They finished.

Start your writing career, today!

Don't Give Up from David Farland's "Daily Kick"

This encouraging information was taken from David Farland's e-newsletter entitled, "Daily Kick." It was so good, I transposed it word for word:
While many writers lament that facing a blank page is the most difficult part of writing, others will disagree and state that it is getting "that" rejection letter that really makes writing torturous.

This is because "that" rejection letter can hit right where it hurts; the old ego. "That" rejection letter can make a writer doubt their own abilities, possibly may even make them rethink their dream career and even their life's purpose.

Well, take heart dear writers and don't give up. Just because a strange "someone" didn't like your piece does not mean it is not good.

The following is a list of writers who also received "that" letter. Many even received it more than once, but they didn't let that stop them and you shouldn't either.

Margaret Mitchell received "that" letter 38 times. The book? Gone With The Wind

This "poor" woman spent six years writing the first installment of a series of books she wanted to publish. You would think that after 9 rejections she might have thought she was wasting her time. Children all over the world are grateful that J.K. Rowling didn't feel that way. Her Harry Potter book series has sold over 400 million copies around the globe and even as far back as 2003 the BBC news announced that Rowland was already "richer than the Queen."

Talk about rejection! James Joyce's Dubliners was rejected 22 times! And even after it was published, only 379 copies were sold in its first year. To make matters worse, Mr. Joyce admitted that he purchased 120 of those copies himself.

This quote from author Judy Blume pretty much says it all. "I would go to sleep at night feeling that I'd never be published. But I'd wake up in the morning convinced I would be. Each time I sent a story or book off to a publisher, I would sit down and begin something new. I was learning more with each effort. I was determined. Determination and hard work are as important as talent." It took Ms. Blume 2 years before any of her work was accepted.

Ouch! That Hurts!

It's one thing to receive the standard rejection letter that states that a publisher is "not looking for this kind of book at this time" because then an author can at least console themselves in knowing that it is not personal and it is not their writing that is the problem.

Quite often an author can also convince themselves that maybe their book wasn't even read very carefully by a publisher to begin with. But how would you feel if you found out that not only was your book read, but a publisher actually took the time to tell you why it was so horrendous?

The following are actual excerpts famous authors have received in their rejection letters that turn out to be so laughable in hindsight.

"The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the 'curiosity' level." The book -- The Diary of Anne Frank.

"It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA" in a rejection letter regarding the book Animal Farm.

"A very bad book.." Told to Pierre Boulle about his "Bridge Over River Kwai"

"The book is not publishable.' regarding - "Who Killed Viriginia Wolfe?"

"...too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling" told to Dr. Seuss, about his book And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street.

"This is a work of almost-genius - genius in the power of its expression - almost in the sense of its enormous bitterness. I wish there were an audience for a book of this kind. But there isn't. It won't sell." told to Ayn Rand about her book The Fountainhead

"Jonathan Livingston Seagull will never make it as a paperback" the book written by Richard Bach ended up selling more than 8 million copies.

"...she is a painfully dull, inept, clumsy, undisciplined, rambling and thoroughly amateurish writer whose every sentence, paragraph and scene cries for the hand of a pro. She wastes endless pages on utter trivia, writes wide-eyed romantic scenes ...hauls out every terrible show biz cliché in all the books, lets every good scene fall apart in endless talk and allows her book to ramble aimlessly ..." The author was Jacqueline Susann and the book was "Valley of the Dolls"

"An endless nightmare. I do not believe it would "take"...I think the verdict would be 'Oh don't read that horrid book'." This was written about The War of The Worlds by H.G. Wells. Here is another wonderful critique Mr. Wells received about The Time Machine; "It is not interesting enough for the general reader and not thorough enough for the scientific reader."

"This will set publishing back 25 years," written about The Deer Park by Norman Mailer

"We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell." Written about Carrie by Stephen King

'Do you realize, young woman, that you're the first American writer ever to poke fun at sex.' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos

'I haven't really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say... Apparently the author intends it to be funny - possibly even satire - but it is really not funny on any intellectual level ... From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.' The author was Joseph Heller - the book was Catch - 22.

"It would be extremely rotten taste, to say nothing of being horribly cruel, should we want to publish it." Was in the rejection letter that Ernest Hemingway received regarding his novel "The Torrents of Spring"

"an absurd and uninteresting fantasy," regarding Lord of the Flies

And probably one of the all-time greatest ironic rejections is:

"You'd have a decent book if you'd get rid of that Gatsby Character." told to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

As you can tell from the quotes written above, some publishers just don't have a clue. So start saving those rejection letters. Who knows? Maybe one day you can show them off when your book hits the best seller list?

For the Love of Writing

In a world where the educated populace worldwide is at an all time high, where fabulous incomes are reaped by successful authors, while the appeal of writing concepts and styles changes almost daily, it's easy to buy into standard definitions of "what works" in specific genres. I support knowing what works. I encourage every writer to develop a familiarity with their genre of choice. But, don't write for fame, money or to prove your worth. Write for the love of writing!

The best writing comes from the heart, not the brain. Although mental acuity shapes and refines our writing, the soul of every written work is engendered in the heart. So, don't write for the awards. If your writing is good awards will come, naturally. Don't write for acclaim. If your message is universal acclaim will arrive easily, on the wings the message you impart. Especially don't write to prove your worth, either as a person or an artist. That is a dangerous path to walk and one on which comparison becomes a yardstick for your value, a very vulnerable place to be. Instead, write from love, for love and to share love.

Writing from love requires you to know yourself. You must be honest about your motives and desires. To write authentically, you can't blame anyone else for your feelings or situation. You must value yourself with your failings, seeing them clearly and without condemnation. In short, you heart must be true for your writing to be true.

So, base your writing on love. When you do, others respond with joy, enthusiasm and loyalty, all-powerful characteristics of an expanding and supportive fan base.

Don't Write Down to Kids by David Farland

In Farland's weekly e-newsletter "The Daily Kick," he talked about why not to write down to kids. His advice was so wise I'm quoting it here, with a suggestion that every serious writer sign-up for this free newsletter. It's a gem and will richly reward the few moments it takes to get on Farland's list:
 
Years ago I was invited to Disney World to do some interviews. My family was flown first-class, and we stayed at the resort for a week—all paid for by the Mouse. All that I had to do was go down to the park for a couple of hours on two mornings and do some radio interviews to talk about new attractions at the theme park.
In one interview, I was talking to kids on the Disney Channel, being interviewed by a child reporter. The producer stopped the taping on two occasions and said, “First rule: don’t talk down to the kids.” You see, if you’re an adult and you’re not used to talking to children, you tend to speak in a falsetto. You intentionally dummy down your vocabulary and begin speaking in small sentences.
In short, you try to sound like a kid. Don’t do it.
Now, this advice will run counter to that of many people in the field who will tell you, “You can’t use big words with middle-grade or young adult audiences!” There are even lists of “approved” words.
Yet I believe for some very good reasons that this is the wrong tact to take. I can’t get into all of the reasons in a forum this short, but I’ll elaborate on our next outing.
So here’s my advice, even when writing for very young readers: forget the lists, at least on your first draft. In that draft, write as if you were writing for your intellectual equals. This will help you avoid dummying the work down for artificial reasons.
Now, let’s be honest. Most kids don’t have the vocabulary that adults do. According to an article that I read years ago, the average person has a vocabulary of 10,000 words that they use frequently. Another 10,000 might be used infrequently. But a six-year-old might have a vocabulary of only 2,000 words.
So you’ll want to limit your vocabulary eventually. You can always go back, have some children of the appropriate age read your work, and make adjustments based upon that. When writing for middle-grades, I hired my children to read the books and edit them by circling any words that they didn’t know. Neighbor kids did the same.
I found that when I exposed a child to an unfamiliar word, I could almost always remedy the problem by defining it for them within the text. But I left some words intentionally, so that kids could look the words up on their own, and grow their vocabulary.
Remember what I said about Rowling’s sentence structure and language? She writes well above her audience’s grade-level. That’s all right.
I’m going to tell you a secret that many editors haven’t figured out yet: kids will read what they want. If the story intrigues them enough, they’ll struggle to read above their own grade level.
I once had a small girl, four years old, ask me to sign my Star Wars book, THE COURTSHIP OF PRINCESS LEIA. I asked if she planned to read it someday, and she said in a haughty tone, “I’ve already read it three times. It’s my favorite book!” Her mother told me that she had seen it on the shelf at the bookstore at age three and said, “I want to learn to read, and I want to read that book.” Her mother read it to her once, helped her read through the first three, chapters, and then the three-year-old girl took off and taught herself to read.
This happens over and over. My youngest son Ben set a goal of reading a thousand books in Kindergarten. I helped him through them—all picture books. By the middle of the year, he was reading at a sixth-grade level.
I typically visit schools and talk to about 25,000 children per year. In every third-grade class, about 25% of the kids are reading adult fantasy—EREGON, HARRY POTTER, LORD OF THE RINGS, Terry Brooks, and so on. Do you really think those kids are reading at third-grade level?
No, the truth is that some kids often learn to love reading at an early age. As soon as they do, they begin increasing their skills rapidly. The little things that slowed them down are easily overcome. For example, I recently read with a child who came across the word goon, and read it as “Go-on.” I corrected him, and within a few pages I found that he was taking time to think about the words he was reading, to sound them out better in his head, and perhaps as many as 70% of his errors disappeared in that one outing.
So those third-graders who love to read quickly begin reading at a sixth-grade level, while the children next to them, those who haven’t caught the bug, may still only be reading at a first-grade level.
The children who will buy your books are the ones who love to read. They’ll recommend them to their friends, and those kids will struggle to raise their reading skill in order to share the enjoyment of your book. At least, that was my theory when I advised Scholastic to begin pushing Harry Potter, despite its apparent problems. I’m going to explain a much more powerful reason why you shouldn’t dumb the books down on our next outing.
So when writing to those kids, don’t dumb your books down! Studies show that science fiction readers read well above their level, and as a result have higher IQ’s than people who don’t read science fiction. I’ve known many a science fiction fan who will point this out with pride. But the truth is that any child who loves to read anything—cookbooks, adventure stories, historicals—will soon read well above their normal grade level and get that same boost in IQ. It’s not that science fiction readers are smarter than other people, it’s that avid READERS OF ANYTHING will score higher on such tests.

Writing for Television

Writing for television breaks into a series of unique genres, of which sitcoms, comedies, prime time dramas and made for TV movies are just a start. Within these genres you'll find a rainbow of audiences, ranging from children's programming to documentary films to TV magazine shows. 

Before you start writing, figure out what kind of programming fascinates you. It may take a long time to struggle up to the top in television writing, so make sure whatever type of writing you do is the type you can spend hours, months, even years working on without getting bored or jaded.

Knowing how to organize the structure of each episode is key. So, go to the library and checkout the best books on the subject. I recommend Write to TV by Martie Cook. This piece covers everything, from why you start and end each segment with your "A" plot to how to get a pitch meeting and present your ideas with compelling power. Whether you want to be a staff writer (a job that can open doors but also encourage gray hairs due to tight deadlines) or a freelance writer, writing for television is an art, and requires intelligence and business savvy.    

Remember, writing for television is only one facet of writing for Hollywood. Look into your heart and write about what you love. Whether your scripts are geared for famous studios or up and coming producers, the act of writing them will reward you with creative enrichment, polish and, if Fortune smiles, with money.

A New Era of Writing by Jerry Simmons

Jerry Simmons, former Marketing Director for Turner Publications, puts out a free newsletter each month. This month's offering was so good he allowed me to quote him, as follows:

Over the past four decades there have been three distinct market shifts in book publishing that transitioned the industry. The results of each were dramatic growth for both publishers and writers. As we enter a new era in book publishing we are seeing the dawn of the fourth major transitional market shift. Growth is inevitable as this market evolves and writers position themselves for dramatic changes in what has been a stagnant industry.

Hardcover

The first major shift occurred in the mid 1970’s with the emergence of the hardcover format, which surpassed the mass-market paper and gave publishers a new revenue stream for the same content. Up to that point the paperback was the publishing format leader and responsible for more than the majority of the company’s print order, distribution and revenue.

Trade paper was available at this time but not widely distributed. The hardcover format began to show potential as the bookstore market grew with more independent stores cropping up around the country. This enabled publishers to move away from dependence on the low price mass market format and move to a higher price more respectable hardcover edition. The result was more revenue for the publisher, higher royalties for the author and overall growth for the industry.

Superstores

The second shift in the late 1980’s was the emergence of the large bookstore chains, which transitioned primarily from mass merchant or large box stores to multiple retail locations specifically designed for books. The mom and pop boutique bookstores that existed did not preclude what became the superstore because they provided little sales and profits for the big publishers.

Up to this point the mass-market paperback placed within a defined space in a supermarket, drug or mass merchant was the primary source for distributing and selling books. Publishing decisions were based more on impulse buying as opposed to what is considered a destination purchase. In mass retailers most consumers made a book purchase as they pushed their cart down an aisle and spotted something interesting as opposed to driving directly to a bookstore to make a specific title purchase. This changed dramatically with the super bookstore.

Technology

The third noticeable shift occurred in late 1990’s in the emergence of the print-on-demand technology, which may not have directly dented the sales of the major publishers, but it certainly impacted the industry. Print-on-demand technology was first introduced to the major companies as a way to reduce inventory by printing at bookstore locations as demand warranted.  The big publishers rejected the idea, which gave rise to the number of new authors, more published titles and POD publishing companies.

Even though these new titles and companies did not directly compete with the major publishers, they did provide fuel for the Amazon fire and accelerated their growth in the industry. POD companies has caused an explosion in the number of new titles available to consumers but at the same time has also dramatically eroded the perception of the consumer toward books and publishing as the quality of the product has declined.

Amazon itself did not cause a major shift in the publishing industry. The online retailer became a prominent account yet until recently was responsible for a small percent of the major publishers overall sales. Amazon capitalized on the market transition by being in the right place at the right time and becoming the major player for the print-on-demand explosion and catering to their needs.

Digital

The fourth major shift within the publishing industry began in 2007 and really took off in April 2009. These dates coincide with the release of the Kindle and iPad. It is obvious that at this very moment the book industry is transitioning into a digital marketplace where the primary format for all publications will eventually become the eBook. Even though total sales represent barely a quarter of major publishers overall revenue the increase is strong and sustainable.

As more resources are placed into enhancing the format and developing new revenue streams such as advertising and product placement, there is little doubt that publishing is undergoing a major transitional shift in the market. As publishers recognize the overall potential of the eBook goes well beyond the content there is little doubt the format will continue to experience strong growth for the publisher and unlimited potential for the writer.

Opportunity

For writers this represents perhaps the biggest opportunity for growth in the past four decades. As technology changes, grows, and provides new platforms and delivery systems for creative content the demand for that content will grow accordingly. In order for a writer to take advantage of these opportunities they need to do three things. First; make certain they have a basic understanding of the market and how their writing is positioned within that market. Second; find an editor they are comfortable with and can work with to improve the quality of their writing. Third; write as often and as much as possible.

Success as a writer in the new transitional marketplace will require writers to be more publishing and marketing savvy and create a breadth of quality content within the same genre. Anything is possible in book publishing as long as writers continue to improve their work and learn how to market themselves, their content, and their publications. The key is to focus on writing, editing, and never worry about things beyond their control. Markets will continue to shift; the winners will be those in a position to take advantage.

Apologies and Resolutions

Dear Readers:

Since before Christmas, I've been very ill and am only now enjoying returning health. Thank you for your patience.

At the start of the New Year, our resolutions rise, fresh and inspiring. The greatest motivator when it comes to writing your tale is simply showing up. When you do, things happen. Ideas sprout. Characters grow. Plotlines develop. No story has a chance of being finished unless it's started. So, start your story and then show up each day to write it.

That is how you realize success as a writer...