Are You Hungry? By Patti Jo Moore

Chances are if you grew up in the South, many of your memories are associated with food. Even if you grew up somewhere else, this could also be true. But since I’m a lifelong southerner who writes stories set in the southern states, much of my writing is based on personal experience over the years.

Christmas Lights by Mary Manners

 

Christmas Lights

 

By Mary Manners

 

When the subject of Christmas gifts comes up, most people think of packages wrapped in colorful paper and shimmery bows, sitting under the Christmas tree, just waiting to be opened.

 

When I think of Christmas gifts, I think of my dad, who passed away seventeen years ago this holiday season. He was a man of many gifts, including the joy he shared for the traditions of Christmas.

 

Dad loved light—especially the light that brightened a fresh-cut pine tree in honor of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Each December first, like clockwork, Dad piled his family—all seven of us—into our Chevy station wagon and drove us to the tree lot where, shivering in the Chicago-winter cold, we oohed and aahed over each and every tree until we found the perfect one.

 

Once home, with the tree safely arranged in a metal stand and watered, Dad climbed the ladder to our attic (a mysterious place, indeed) where the Christmas lights were stored. He’d lower the battered cardboard box (re-used, season after season) to the floor below and dust it off.

 

Then my brother and sisters—five of us—gathered ’round him in the living room and waited, eyes huge with wonder, as he carefully unraveled the strands of lights and tested each one. No matter how stubborn the bulbs, dad always managed to get them working.

 

Beautiful, vibrant colors turned the room to a kaleidoscope, dancing over walls and windows with the feel of winter magic. One by one, my siblings and I each took the place of honor beside Dad, helping him to adorn the tree with light. Pine sap clung to our fingers, but we didn’t care. All the while, our hearts soared with happiness and child-like wonder.

 

Finally, dad gently gathered the Christmas star from the box. Hushed with awe, we waited while Dad chose one of us to hoist to his shoulders for the greatest thrill—placing the treasured beacon of light—the Baby Jesus Star—atop the highest limb. Somehow, Dad always sensed who needed that extra touch of attention, and there was never any argument.

 

With the lights in place (just in time for nightfall—always) we circled the tree and held hands to sing Silent Night. In the earliest years, the tune didn’t always carry and the words were sometimes off, but Dad didn’t care. He knew we understood what the tree—and especially the lights—symbolized…the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus. The most wonderful gift of all!

 

This year, Mom joined Dad in their eternal Happily-ever-after. Though the loss is great, memories of the many happy times we shared fuel my days…and my writing. Each Christmas brings a fuller, richer sense of wisdom that is woven into the legacy of the stories I love to share.

 

So, as we journey into another holiday season I would like to remind you to treasure every day…every precious memory made…and I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas.

 

 

~~~~~

 

 



Nestled into five beautiful acres just outside Hope Creek, Tennessee, Christmas Inn is an unforgettable place known for its joyful atmosphere and festive setting. Holiday decorations adorn each room. Trees glittering with ribbons and ornaments, gorgeous wreaths, velvet stockings and pine-scented candles brighten visitors’ stay at this vacation spot dedicated to Christmas all year, every year. The resort offers all the usual enticements plus one unique amenity…love. The little white chapel behind the inn, built by the Christmas family in the 1890s, boasts bell tower bells that toll when couples fall in love.

Every year people come to the inn looking for their Christmas spirit. Sometimes they find love too. Will the bells ring again this year?

 

 

~~~~~

 

 

Mary Manners lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee with her husband Tim and their rescue dog Axel, mischievous cats Colby and Rascal, 6 rambunctious chickens, and 13 fish.

Mary writes small-town family romances laced with faith, hope, and humor. Her books have earned multiple accolades including two Inspirational Reader’s Choice Awards, the Gail Wilson Award of Excellence, the Aspen Gold, the Heart of Excellence, and the National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award.

Mary loves long sunrise runs, Smoky Mountain sunsets, flavored coffee, and chocolate…lots of chocolate.

Method Acting for Writers by Preslaysa Williams

Before I started writing, I was an actor. I’d started acting at the age of nine. From the start, I worked on TV commercials and Off Broadway work and print ads. When I was fourteen, I landed my first television role on Nickelodeon’s “The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo”. Acting came naturally to me, and I had fun working on Nickelodeon set with the likes of the late Pat Morita and then television writer Suzanne Collins (author of The Hunger Games series).

My acting “training” was through watching TV. I have vivid memories of watching my favorite weeknight sitcoms and mimicking the characters on television. I’d also read a lot of books on acting technique, but I didn’t work with an acting coach until I was a college student. It was during this time, that I learned the actual method behind what I’d been doing instinctively: accessing the character’s emotions. Learning acting technique enabled me to prepare for auditions on a moment’s notice. It also helped me when I worked with Academy Award-winning screenwriter and playwright, the late Horton Foote, in his production of “The Death of Papa.” That was a challenging role and the techniques I learned helped me bring my best to each performance.

When I started writing in 2008, it felt like pulling teeth. Translating a character’s feeling onto pages while also juggling the thousand other Do’s and Don’ts of writing made me freeze and either: 1) not write at all at worst; or 2) write cardboard scenes.

Unfortunately, I carried all those paralyzing writing rules in my head for a long time until I finally learned to trust that I knew what I was doing. 

That freed me to let loose on the page.

Still, writing dramatic scenes wasn’t so simple. So later on in my writing journey, I recalled all the acting techniques I’d learned. One of them that stood out for me is a technique called sense memory.

Sense memory is an acting technique where an actor takes one simple image or memory—like the feeling of standing outside in the snow waiting for a school bus (one of my memories)—and applying it to the scene in order to connect with the fictional character.

(Disclaimer: NEVER use actual traumatic memories for writing or acting scenes. Please consult with a medical professional or counselor to help you with processing painful life events.)

Prior to sense memory work, it’s best to relax so you can fully focus on the memory and the scene you’re about to write. I once had to write a scene where a secondary character felt like they were being slighted by the school principal. For this, I asked myself: What in my past best serves this text? I used a memory of being picked last for a dodgeball team in gym class, and I relived it. The key is to relive and not just remember the memory since you’re pulling from your physical experience.

Strong acting and strong writing is both imaginative and deeply personalized. Yes, those two dynamics—imagination and personalization—seem at odds with one another, but they aren’t. You can build entire fictional lives and stories from the seed of one real life experience. 

(Back to my dodgeball team example!) I spend a few moments reliving the feelings of being picked last: the self-doubt, the insecurity, the speculation, and worry. I try to feel those emotions all over again. Sometimes a relived experience will be easy to relive and other times, I’ll have to dig and ask: how did it feel physically when that happened? However, if I have to dig too deep, I’ll simply search for another memory.

Then, I move from that emotional experience directly into either writing the scene or asking my character a few pre-writing questions about the scene.

In Uta Hagen’s book, “The Challenge for the Actor”, she created “Six Steps” for creating a character. The Six Steps hold a lot of similarities to writing techniques. Writing and Acting are first cousins! So, after re-imagining my past experience, I’ll use these questions for my scene. They are:

1. Who am I? (What is my present state of being? How to I perceive myself?)

2. What are the circumstances? (What time is it? Where am I? What surrounds me? What are my immediate circumstances?)

3. What are my relationships that I’ll encounter in this scene? (I also like to add ‘How do I feel about the relationships in my last scene and how do my feelings affect this one?’)

4. What do I want? (Character Goal)

5. What is my obstacle? (Character conflict)

6. What do I do to get what I want? (What is my behavior? What are my actions?)

Then I write! After doing a sense memory exercise, the first draft usually provides me with a lot of fodder to re-work and polish at a later point. After I write one scene, then it’s back to the drawing board with pulling a memory for my next scene and reliving it through my senses.

The famous writer-actor Sam Shepard said this about writing and acting: “There are places where writing is acting, and acting is writing. I’m not interested in the divisions. I’m interested in the way things cross over.”

I’m also interested in the way writing and acting cross over, and my interest helped me stave off writer’s block and keep writing forward. 

Question for You: How do you, as a writer, get into character prior to writing or revising a scene? 

Bio: Preslaysa Williams is an award-winning author and actress. After graduating from Columbia University, she began writing fiction. In her spare time, she enjoys spending way too much time on social media and training for half marathons to force herself to exercise. Visit her online at www.preslaysa.com
You can also find her lollygagging on Instagram and Facebook @preslaysa or on Twitter @preslaysawrites 

Include Life Experiences in Your Stories by Beth Wiseman

Today's post by author Beth Wiseman will tickle your funny bone and get you dragging out all those old memories to use in your stories. -- Sandy

Beth: I think there is a little bit of me in every character I create, and I’ve heard other authors say this as well. But another thing that makes our stories interesting and fun is including life experiences. If you’ve been through the death of a spouse or loved one, you might feel called to write about that. Maybe you’ve been through a divorce or some other traumatic event. Or maybe you’re adopted and found your biological mother, like I did. Those things seem to find a way into our books, maybe as a source of self-healing or to simply educate others or let them known that they aren’t alone.

But I’m talking about something else. What has happened in your life that is funny, touching, scary, or tangible that you can share? 

Recently, I was in a small six-seater plane. We hit a deer on the runway while landing, and when we started to smell smoke, we were told we might have to jump out of the plane and onto the runway. The plane was going about seventy miles per hour at that point. Hmm . . . death by fire . . . or a bad case of road rash? I opted for the latter, but luckily the pilot said the smoke was from burning rubber when he slowed the plane down, so I was able to keep my seat until the plane stopped. You can bet that will end up in a book!

When I was in high school, a group of girls and I put bubbles in a fountain outside a bank. That was a popular and fairly harmless prank in the 1970s. But the next morning when I walked into my parents living room, my mother was glued to the television and said, “Oh my! Someone put bubbles in the fountain by the bank. The bubbles are flowing out into the street and causing a traffic jam.” My friends and I panicked all day, just certain we would somehow be caught, and we were horrified that our stunt made the news! We weren’t caught, by the way, but I recently included that that little incident in a book.

After my very first book signing, a group of us middle-aged women went on a scavenger hunt—in our jammies. There were other authors involved in the mischief, and there might be a few reading this who are thinking . . . oh dear, don’t mention names. Ha ha! I can see that making its way into a story also.

Incorporating experiences that evoke emotion based on personal experience can be therapeutic and wonderful, however touching or tragic those topics might be. But sometimes it’s refreshing to just throw out adventures that are nostalgic, fun, and sometimes very original. I seriously doubt I’ll run into many other people who have hit a deer on a runway. My agent—Natasha Kern—made me laugh. She said, “Where exactly do you people live where you can hit a deer on the runway?” Ah . . . life in the country. J

What about you? Any unusual or unique experiences that you could see yourself including in a book?

~~~~~~~

 

Beth Wiseman is best known for her Daughters of the Promise series and the Land of Canaan Amish series. Having sold over 1.5 million books, her novels have held spots on multiple bestseller lists, and she has been the recipient of many prestigious literary awards. Beth is contracted with HarperCollins Christian Publishing into the year 2019, and she has published fourteen novels and sixteen novellas to date.

Beth has a deep affection for the Amish and their simpler way of life, and while she plans to continue writing Amish love stories, she is also branching out into other areas including Christian contemporary romance novels and novellas.  Need You Now, The House that Love Built, The Promise and A Tide Worth Turning are some of these recent releases. 

Beth and her husband are empty nesters enjoying the country life in Texas with three dogs and a rooster. When she’s not writing, Beth loves to travel, paint, and enjoy time with friends and family. You can find Beth and her books at her website BethWiseman.com, Fans of Beth Wiseman on Facebook where she interacts with readers, and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bethwiseman.

One man. Two women. A child desperate for medical treatment. How can Kyle choose between the woman he once loved and his current fiancée? Is there a solution that suits all involved, or will someone end up out of the triangle forever?   

Morgan Calhoun and her parents are whisked away in the middle of the night, something Morgan always knew was a possibility because of her father's CIA job. But she'd always thought if such a scenario played out that she would have time to say goodbye to those she loved—particularly her boyfriend, Kyle. Adding to her unbearable situation, several weeks after the move, Morgan finds out that she's pregnant.

Kyle Brossmann doesn't even get a break-up letter from Morgan. She's just gone, along with her parents. His heart broken, Kyle continues with his plans. He graduates from high school and attends college, where he meets his fiancée, Lexie. But two men visit Kyle and encourage him to travel to an undisclosed location, where he will meet his five-year-old daughter. Rocked by the news that he has a child, Kyle learns he is the only person who might be able to save his daughter's life.

Will Kyle choose his first love and his daughter? Or will he stay with Lexie and live the life they’ve been planning?

Each Surf’s Up novella takes the reader to a beach locale, weaving romance and adventure into a soul-soothing journey of hope.

A Most Cherished Lesson by Mischelle Creager

I'm pleased to welcome my friend Mischelle Creager back to Seriously Write. When I first asked Mischelle about visiting with us, she sent me two posts to see if either would work. They were both terrific so I scheduled her for two visits! I hope you'll run over to Amazon and download The Rose and The Thorn. It's free and it is the first book in her MacPherson Brides Books.

Like most writers, I can say that I have learned a lot of lessons about life since I started this journey—things like discipline, balancing my writing and the other parts of my life (especially time with my family), rejection, and so many other things. But the lesson that I am most thankful for is one I learned as I finished a certain scene in the first book of my MacPherson Brides series.

To better understand the situation you need to know that for me, many things changed after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. While I don’t need to go into all the details, I will say that before that day, life was bright and exciting. After that day, things turned dark. Things got worse when on Mother’s Day we visited the site as the employees (my husband worked there) and their families were allowed inside the fence to lay wreaths by department at the base of the ruble. As we left, a single bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.”

Sometime later on a Sunday night at church, the song leader led “Amazing Grace. I had a flashback to the time at the site—the sights, the smells, the sounds. When I was leaving the building, the preacher touched my arm, tipped his head toward the auditorium, and asked “What happened in there?” I explained. The next time we started to sing that song, I froze and started counting the bumps on the upholstery on the back of the pew in front of me. I got to where I was afraid to go to church, not knowing when we would sing that song again. This went on for over a year. Thankfully, at a survival workshop, a therapist helped me work through the situation and “Amazing Grace” has become one of my favorite hymns.

Now to the lesson, when I was writing the first book of the series, I had a character who had gone through a very abusive marriage. In church one morning, she connects what is going on there (the words of the song/sermon) with the abuse in her marriage. I wrote what she had gone through—her pain, her flashback, how she had to count the stitches on the shawl the lady in front of her wore to take her mind off the remembered horrors. When I finished the scene, I looked at it and dropped my head. For the first time, I thanked God for what I had gone through after the bombing, for the ability to understand such pain, to know that He allowed me to go through what I had so I’d be able to reach out to others who would need those words of understanding of their pain.

Thank you, God, for knowing what we need and being with us as we go through the growing pains that prepare us for the life You have for us.

Mischelle Creager writes inspirational historical romances set in the mid-1800s. She's not sure which she loves more--researching or writing. When she's not doing one of those two things, she can probably be found reading or baking. She love to share her historical research and has a website Under The Attic Eaves, filled with tidbits she's found in books written in the 19th Century. She also "reprints" a historical magazine, Worbly's Family Monthly Magazine, filled with items from books and magazines published in the middle of the 1800s. You can visit these two sites at http://undertheatticeaves.com/ and http://worblysmagazine.com.

 

If you would like to know more about Mischelle, please visit her author website at http://mischellecreager.com.