Taylor's Book Pub

Welcome to all as I embark on a new writing adventure! I am going to write a 50,000 novel in the next 30 days, starting today, November 1, 2012. This is a part of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. I am so excited to focus my energies in writing this next month.

I have been preparing extensively for this. I have read the following books:

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks

How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months by John Locke

Plot versus Character by Jeff Gerke

It was the Best of Sentences, it was the Worst of Sentences by June Casagrande

Conflict & Suspense by James Scott Bell

Write Great Fiction – Dialogue by Gloria Kempton

Write Great Fiction – Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell

Write Great Fiction – Description & Setting by Ron Rozelle

I have also purchased the following books, which I will use as reference material while writing:

45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt

The Describer’s Dictionary by David Grambs

The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi

Book in a Month by Victoria Lyn Schmidt, PhD

I have other books that I recommend you look at as well, so click here to see that list.

I feel like someone who has decided to take up golf and has only read about how to play the game and has only been on the driving range. Now I get to play in the Masters!

I don’t expect fame and fortune right away, I honestly think that my initial motivation to create a steady income has given way to the actual enjoyment of writing a great sentence or paragraph, and stringing those into chapters and ultimately into a novel that people will be compelled to read. I have embraced this hobby as something that is fulfilling, at least to me.

So, please join me in my adventure! I have posted a word tracker up at the top right of the page so that you can monitor my progress. I invite you to write any comments or words of encouragement below! Happy writing… (364)

I just uploaded the latest The Piano Guys video here. (203)

Just added bio page for Serena Clarke. Check out her bio and the book that she has written here. Thank you, Serena, for telling us about yourself! (261)

The following is a motivational message from NaNoWriMo:

Dear Writer,

When I was 30 years old, I moved to Minneapolis and got a job in a book warehouse. My official job title was “Picker.” This meant that I went around the third floor of the warehouse holding a computerized print order in one hand and pulling books off the shelf with the other hand. I put all the books into a grocery cart and I took the grocery cart and wheeled it into an ancient, crabby freight elevator and went downstairs to deliver the order to the shipping department. Then I took the stairs back up to the third floor and started over again.

It wasn’t a challenging job. It didn’t pay much. I was on my feet all day long. My back hurt. My hands hurt. But I was happy. I was surrounded by books and by people who loved to read them. Also, for the first time in my life, I was writing.

I got up every morning before work (the alarm was set for 4:30) and wrote two pages before I went into the warehouse. And then, when I arrived at work at 7:00 to punch the time clock, I received my daily so-you-want-to-be-a-writer pep talk from a coworker.

Let’s call him Bob. (Even though his real name is Gary).

Bob wanted to be a writer, too. But he wasn’t writing. Every morning we had the same exchange.

Bob: “How did the writing go?”

Me: “Fine.”

Bob: “How many pages did you write?”

Me: “Two.”

Bob: “Do you think Dickens wrote two pages a day?”

Me: “I don’t know how many pages Dickens wrote a day.”

Bob: “Yeah, well let me tell you something, you’re no Dickens. So what’s Plan B, babe? What’s Plan B for when the writing doesn’t work out?”

For this question, I had no answer.

I turned my back on Bob, pulse pounding, fists clenched, and climbed the stairs to the third floor and started picking books.

When the alarm went off at 4:30 the next morning, I thought about Bob and that is part of the reason I got out of bed.

It is a truly excellent to have someone to believe in you and your ability to write.

But I think it is just as helpful to have people who don’t believe in you, people who mock you, people who doubt you, people who enrage you. Fortunately, there is never a shortage of this type of person in the world.

So as you enter this month of writing, write for yourself. Write for the story. And write, also, for all of the people who doubt you. Write for all of those people who are not brave enough to try to do this grand and wondrous thing themselves. Let them motivate you.

In other words, do it for Bob!

Your friend in writing,
Kate DiCamillo

Kate DiCamillo is the author of The Tale of Despereaux (Newbery Medal), Because of Winn-Dixie (Newbery Honor), and a The Tiger Rising (National Book Award finalist).

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I just added the following songs to my list of The Piano Guys videos, Twinkle Lullaby and To the Summit. Check them out here! (352)

For those of you who would like to get their work critiqued by other writers for free, check out the Writer’s Digest Community. It is a true community made up of writers in all genre’s. You can customize your main page, sign up for different groups, depending on your needs, and establish a network of friends.

The website is very stable and easy to navigate, with the ability to share paragraphs, chapters, and more to those that are willing to provide feedback on what you have written. It is a great place to meet people quickly and get involved in discussions.

I have found that website to be very useful in getting my name out in the writing community. It only took a few days of contacting new and existing members to promote who I was and create links to my website. You can even post HTML code on your customizable page!

I recommend checking the community out! Click here to get started! (315)

Just added a new video for The Piano Guys, click here to listen! It is called “Titanium/Pavane” and it is a stirring, well balanced piece between the cello and the piano. (424)

In writing my novel, I found it necessary to understand what types of non-verbal cues people use to express what they are feeling. I came across this website that is a series of videos that teach a person how to read body language. The 18 videos are brief, between one and a half to two minutes each, and are presented by Dr. Michelle Roth Cohen, a Psychological Expert with her own talk show on LA TalkRadio, “On The Couch With Dr. Michelle.”

While the videos are not breaking any new ground, they are very concise examples of certain cues that we have all seen in real life. They are organized by topics, such as “How to Flirt with Body Language,” or “How to Take Control with Body Language,” or “How to Tell if Someone is Lying with Body Language,” and the transcripts are found under each video.

I am going to use these videos to help my characters come alive, especially in dialogue sequences. I am really enjoying how to write good dialogue, but I knew that I was falling short in certain places, so these videos have already helped me identify places where I can show, not tell.

Feel free to comment below and tell me what you think! (407)

Here is a funny video that someone forwarded on to me today. Welcome to seminary! (357)

Currently, I am reading a book called “Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing” by Larry Brooks. This book is amazing in how it puts together the elements of writing a story. So far, I have learned that every story that sells is made up of these 6 Core Competencies, which are: Concept, Character, Theme, Story Structure, Scene Execution, and Writing Voice. His use of analogies throughout the book make it very easy to understand why these Core Competencies are important, not only for writing fiction, but for telling a great story.

So far, I have learned the differences between Concept and Theme and how to develop Character as a three-dimensional entity, using the character arc to tie all of these elements together. I don’t want to give away too much, but I have found that my intended writing style — Larry calls this writing method “seat-of-your-pants” and anyone that writes this way as a “pantser” — may need to be modified somewhat to have some sort of structure, otherwise I will be in for writing draft after draft.

I highly recommend that if you want to write a novel, or even if you simply want to be a better storyteller, that you read Larry Brooks’ book. You can buy it by clicking here.

On a different note, one of my current challenges in writing a novel is finding the time. I just got back from a two and a half week vacation with very limited access to a computer (no, I don’t have a laptop yet, but I may be asking for one for Christmas), and the demands of getting back to my full-time employment have left me with very little time for myself. While I don’t resent these demands on my time, I have to realize that writing fiction has developed into a hobby that is somehow inserting itself into the cracks of my otherwise busy life. I have always believed in having a balance in all things, and I have a wonderful wife who picks up a lot of the slack when I am not around, but I realize that if I truly want to write this first novel, I am going to have to make some sacrifices on some of the time wasters that I currently enjoy. TV, for one, is something that I could do less of, but I have already started to do that over the last few years. I already record most of the shows that I like watching since I work in the evenings, but I may have to do some more cutting. Also, it is college football season, and I love BYU football.

So, for me, writing a good story involves learning about the elements of a good story, discovering the structure in how it should evolve, and applying some discipline in getting it done. Feel free to leave any comments below if you have any good ideas in how I might better accomplish these goals!

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