Kelly Flowers

writer

Tag Archives: new writer


by Leave a comment

Fresh Meat, New Novel. We Is Smitten.

I’ve been editing for so long, I forgot what it’s like to sink my teeth into fresh prose, to get that high from creating rather than rehashing and hacking. I am finally into a new book and my appetite has been whet.

giphy

I was gun shy to start a new novel, not because it’s an agonizing, hair-pulling, time-consuming process, which it is. I dreaded it because I didn’t want to commit to a new set of characters for the next few years of my life. Honestly, I hadn’t met a bedfellow I thought I could handle the commitment with. We’re talking about fictional characters, people, but sometimes, you’re just SICK OF TALKING TO THEM.

I’m going to do everything different this time. First, I’m writing an outline (before I start describing settings and layering characters). I’ll make sure I have a working ending so that I can build it from the beginning rather than retrofitting it in later. (and then re-retrofitting it on the second draft) See? I can learn.

Tonight, one of my writer friends said that if she knew how hard writing actually was, she would have taken up painting. She’s on her 7th draft, which made me self-conscious about my own 3 paltry drafts.

But THIS is what it’s all about! It’s the rush of lifting my fingers from the keys after three hours and having to resurface enough to maintain a conversation. Sure, I then realize I’m running late and haven’t brushed my teeth but who cares?! It like a drug to me.

So if you can’t find me for the next year of my life, know I am holing myself up in a dark corner, face creepily lit by my laptop screen and a look of crazed joy on my haggard face. Writing like a ninja.

hiding with laptop

Ahhh, authoring.

 


by 1 Comment

8 Ways To Work The Writing Critique Group

Teenagers and Writing Critique Groups = Creativity Killersscared-face

Remember being a teenager? It seemed you had to hide any bit of individuality from the mob of your peers and their judgy-ness.

Maybe that was just me. It wasn’t weird that I quoted Shakepeare, danced to swing music and carried vocabulary flashcards in my purse. No. Not weird.

I have teenagers now and guess what? They’re still judgy! And I’m still weird. (I’m told this constantly.) But now, I like my weird. We’ve grown attached to each other. We clique off and snicker about our critics. In my head, we ARE the popular kids.

I’m all grown up now. But writing critique groups can kill creativity in much the same way as the high school mean girls can.

The first time I went to a writers critique group. I was young, not much older than a teenager, really. The group met in an adorable bohemian café that had ombre walls, sold forty different types of tea and had jam poetry sessions that packed the place. This is being a writer, I said to myself. How romantic! Continue reading →


by 1 Comment

Book Excerpt: Gone Dark – The Sirens

Sam’s eyes snapped open. The dark room was grainy with the promise of morning. She lay still as the sound of sirens rose from the fog on the marsh. At first, Sam understood. Just as everything presented while straddling a dream is accepted without question. The sirens somehow made sense.

When the sirens began a second time, Sam bolted up. She stumbled to the sliding door and scanned the light beyond the glass. The Kawainui marsh was the same. The Ko’olau mountains still steepled in prayer beyond it. But it all felt different. A dense shroud of grey pressed its belly into the thickets of mangrove. The trees looked bent like blades of grass.

She stood at the door, pulling the dream back. A woman, her mother but not her mother, her finger circling the rim of a crystal glass. Sam felt like she knew something she hadn’t known before. And then the dream slipped away, a stone sinking into the pond of her mind.

A shot rang out, sending a buzz down the walls. Sam didn’t move. She watched the wind digging into the cane grass. A mango rolled down the slope of the roof landing with a splat on the pavement outside the door. Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Sowing The Seeds Of A Novel – Writing and Gardening

Gardens are like books. Ok, gardens are not as delightful as books and, well, gardens have bugs soooo… 😕 But maintaining a garden is like writing a book because…

Both gardens and books need constant care to grow. I liken that perfect, red glittery strawberry to a jewel of an idea you get at 3am. You know you should stop what you’re doing and pick it/write it down but “meh.” You’re too tired.You’ll do it later. Then poof! You turn it over and the potato bugs have swiss-cheesed it. giphy

They both look easy, until you’re on your knees in aguish because grasshoppers have scarfed down your harvest or you discover that your protagonist is just boring.

Aaaand, if you garden (or write novels) only for food, you’re in the wrong business!

Way back when, I loved the idea of food being a simple equation. Seed – plant – stomach. Easy, right?

But after many moons of battling weeds and insects, I’ve realized three things:

1. I have not outgrown my childhood skittishness of all things crawly.  Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

How To Write Consistently – Location, Location, Location!

I once told a fellow writer that every time I sit down, I feel like a different person and my work reflects it. My multiple personalities bloat my writing with their twisted humor, inflated description, gushing prose or snarky syntax. Whoever shows up that day.

“It depends on how caffeinated I am or how quiet it is or whether my dishes are done,” I said wistfully. “How do I write an entire book if I can’t even keep my scattered brain in line?”

My friend replied, “What is your workspace like? Where do you normally write?” Errrr. I did that embarrassed side-pursed-lips thing that you do when someone asks what you do to workout, then replied, “Wherever I guess. Cafes, the library, bed, my kitchen table.” She nodded knowingly.

So, apparently we writers are supposed to keep our environment stable if we want the tone of our writing to be consistent. I hope not EVERYONE here is like “duh” because this had actually never occurred to me. It makes sense, I just thought it was one of those in your perfect world scenarios. Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

How Do I Stay Focused? No, Really. How?

From my Attention-Deficit brain to yours, a thoughtful Haiku for Monday…

Steaming coffee cup

A blank screen glows before me

Did I lock my car?

 

giphy2


by 7 Comments

Writing Lessons From My 4-Year-Old In A Whack-A-Mole World

The other day, my 4-year-old, to a room full of cousins and aunts and uncles, performed her song, an original masterpiece called “Flowers In The Field”.

img_2195

It went like this…

Flowers in the field

Where is everything that grows

A girl walks with her daddy

And picks a flower and the flower dies

But she puts it in water and it comes alive 

Flowers in the field

Flowers in the field 

I turned to my friend Neil and said, “Remember being that fearless about your own creativity? Brave enough to write a song and then sing it out for a room full of people?”

“No,” he said.

“Yeah. Me neither,” I replied.

But I was braver as a child. There’s proof. My first “publication” was a poem in my school yearbook. When running for Elementary School Treasurer (laughable, I know) I gave speeches off-the-cuff. And I sang in talent shows, LOTS of blood-curdling talent shows. Now, I can’t even drunk-karaoke without hyperventilating.

And why is that? Surely, I have a better vocabulary; can more likely carry a tune; and have a lot more thoughtful things to say. I just no longer have the guts to say them. What about growing up beat the bravery right out of me?

So, it got me thinking… How do we recreate the fearlessness we had as children?

3 solutions come up mind…

1. Always be amazing, superhuman – a genius even. Get all A’s. Problem solved.

2. Only show your work to people (like your doting parents, spouse, etc.) who will love you, praise you and top off your confidence cup, regardless of what you produce.

3. Just not care. Seriously. Sociopaths aren’t worried what other people think. Continue reading →


by 3 Comments

The 48 Hour Wedding (Also, Apparently I’m A Stress Junkie)

giphy1

Hot tub’s are just places where bad decisions are made. It wasn’t “Swimming Pool Time Machine” or “Couch Time Machine”. They knew what they were doing. Hot tubs are their own kind of transport, rife with half-baked schemes, incomplete epiphanies, insincere flattering and unreasonable promises (and usually a fuzzy enough memory to never learn).

Late at night, sipping something strong and looking at the stars, more things are possible. Like running, for instance.

“I swear,” you say in a staccato mash of words. “I’ll be up at 6am to run that 10k with you. I loooove running.” Bah!

A polar bear swim, that extra finger of Sailor Jerry (you know who you are), committing to a 6am 10k, writing a book, a fourth child. You know. Whatever.

But occasionally an intriguing idea actually pops up and whoever is present swats at it for awhile. (In my hot tub’s defense, much of my book has been concocted while sipping something strong and staring at the stars)

Last Friday, with my sister and her fiancé in town, we sat in the blue glow of the jacuzzi, ripe for making life-changing decisions. Out of the blue, my sister’s fiancé says “I want to get married. Like now.” And we laugh. Hahaha. Get married now? Haha.  You’re hilarious. But… “Would it be that crazy?” I say and we swat at the idea for a little bit.

The answer is yes. It would be crazy. 48 hours?! My kind of crazy. I was already planning a wedding in my head. You didn’t know I liked planning weddings, did you? It’s a little hobby I have.

This was on Saturday. Wedding day would be Monday, before they left town on Tuesday. Muahahaha! What a thrill.

Aaaaand 48 hours later, we were sipping champagne and giving cheesy, teary, impromptu speeches. Fondly admiring our masterpiece, shotgun wedding.


Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Just Have Less Time – Stress, Day Drinking and Ninja Writing

The last 24 hours have been… well, let’s just say… I’m day drinking.  You want stress? Try herding 7 people, including an infant and toddler, through TSA airport security (only to have your 16 year old randomly pulled aside for secondary as she is EVERY time we travel. Profile a’ready. Just sayin’.) and onto a plane where everyone needs water, food, books and headphones all at once and you, (being the responsible traveller that you are) have them all packed in YOUR carry on.


Remember the scene in Home Alone where they leave the kid behind? I totally get that now.

So now, all 7 of us are turbulating (Yeah yeah. Not a word. Today it is.) over the country. The kids and bags are accounted for and everyone is either snoozing, watching frozen or obsessively playing solitaire. But not me. Nope. I have a sleeping 3 month old in my lap and one hand free so I am one-handedly (the left hand even) typing on my phone and glugging Cabernet.

Ninja writing like a boss! And you know what? I’ve been on fire this last week. My house is impeccable. My to do list is the shortest it’s been since… well… since the last time I left town. And I’ve managed to knock out the writing projects that keep getting pushed to the next list and the list after that because, what the hell, right? May as well leave with every ball out of my court. And besides schlepping two carts of luggage and a straggling crew through the entire terminal, I’d say I’m only a 6 on the stress Richter scale.

I think I’ve discovered a new theory on life management.

HAVE LESS TIME.

The last week wouldn’t have been as productive if I didn’t have an impending absence because I would’ve undoubtedly mosied through my list while intermittently snapchatting or trolling Instagram. (The jury is still out on whether these things can be considered productive on some level. How else would I know what “ish” is or what Gigi Hadid had for breakfast? Who gets to say which information is valuable?)

So yeah. Have less time. (Disclaimer: writer is unaware of long term affects of this theory. Please day drink responsibly.)

ninja


by 1 Comment

Skeletons (aka journals) In My Closet

If you asked my 11 year old self what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wouldn’t have wavered. I would have replied that I wanted to be a writer. And that never changed. I didn’t even major in something practical, as was suggested by those that love me.

I ended up studying literature and working in business writing, which, funny enough, turns out to be very practical.

Fast forward a couple decades and here I am, spending my weekend cleaning (because that is what all neurotically busy mothers do). While sorting boxes in a storage closet, I came across the roots of my ambition, my first journals dating back to that 11 year old self. I remember filling them over the years (there are at least 15) with what I imagined was pure genius, prodigy even. Continue reading →