Andrea

Amanda

Ava

Adriana

Alexander

Andra

Autumn

Asha

Atef

Amara

I’ve met them all.

And I’ve used two of those names myself.

So what’s the deal? Why are names that start with the start of the the alphabet so appealing? Any insights? Ideas? And have you used an A name in your writing?

Curiously awaiting . . .

Your Creative Superpowers

If you’re a human being, then you’re creative.

If you’re a novelist, then you’re very creative.

There are actually a number of different ways to be
creative. Most novelists excel at some of them. Most
novelists are weak in others.

I like to think of the various modes of creativity as
“creative superpowers”.

I suspect that your total creative ability isn’t just
the sum of your creative superpowers.

I suspect that your total creative ability is more like
the multiplication of your creative superpowers.

The reason is because when you want to create something
new, you typically need to work through a whole chain
of creative tasks, each using a different creative
superpower. The more creative each link in the chain,
the more creative the final result.

The bad news is that creativity is hard to outsource.

The good news is that you can learn to be more
creative.

To do that, you need to understand what the various
creative superpowers are and then exercise your
creative muscles to develop those superpowers.

I’ve been reading a book lately on creativity, YOUR
CREATIVE BRAIN, by Shelley Carson, Ph.D.

Dr. Carson identifies seven different creative
superpowers (she calls them “brainsets” in analogy to
the word “mindset”, but my inner geek responds better
to the phrase “creative superpower” so that’s what I’ll
use here.)

YOUR CREATIVE BRAIN helps you figure out which creative
superpowers you’re naturally good at. More important,
it has exercises to help you develop your strength in
each of them.

What are those creative superpowers? Here’s a rough
description of each one:

* The “Absorb” superpower is the one you use when you
see the world around you in a creative way. You are
absorbing apparently useless information and finding an
unexpected use for it.

Alexander Fleming was doing experiments on bacteria and
found that they weren’t growing well in a lab dish that
had been contaminated with a certain kind of mold. He
realized that this could be useful and invented
penicillin.

George de Mestral was brushing burrs out of his dog’s
fur and realized that the annoying little things would
make an amazing fastener. That led him to invent
Velcro.

* The “Envision” superpower is the one you use to
imagine “being there,” complete with the sights,
sounds, smells, and feelings of whatever “there” is.
It’s also the superpower a mechanic uses to mentally
rearrange the parts on a car. When you read a novel and
“see” the story, you’re using your Envision superpower.

I remember helping friends move into their house. When
I carried some boxes upstairs, I found that two guys
had spent about twenty minutes trying to manhandle a
desk through a narrow doorway, but it just wouldn’t go.
They were arguing about whether to take the desk apart
to get it through.

I immediately saw in my head a sequence of steps that I
thought might work. It took me five minutes to convince
them to let me try it. Two minutes later, the desk was
in place.

* The “Connect” superpower lets you solve problems that
are ill-posed and don’t have a unique answer. To use
this superpower, your brain makes connections between
things that don’t have any obvious relationship.

I used to interview potential software engineers for my
company and my final question was always, “Name as many
ways as you can to kill your manager with a doorknob.”

I was looking for engineers who could improvise. What I
usually got was a disbelieving stare. Very few job
candidates could come up with a single innovative
murder method. (Most novelists can easily think of a
dozen.)

I never identified any specially creative engineers
using this question. But I did find quite a number of
applicants who were incredibly eager to work on my
team. Strangely, my CEO always seemed a bit nervous
around me.

* The “Reason” superpower is the ability to use logic
to solve problems.

Those pesky software engineers excel at using Reason.
Novelists, not so much. When you read a story with an
inconsistent plot, the author fell down on using his
Reason superpower.

* The “Evaluate” superpower is the one you use when
you’re editing your story. You make judgments on what’s
good and what’s bad. Your job is to keep the good and
replace the bad.

This superpower is easier to use on other people than
on yourself. It’s obvious what the other guy is doing
right — and doing wrong. But many novelists are too
easy on themselves — or too hard.

* The “Transform” superpower is the one you use when
you turn your horrible life experiences into a great
story. There’s an old saying that nothing bad ever
happens to a novelist because, in the end, it’s all
research.

This superpower seems to be strongest in artists of all
types — writers, painters, musicians. It lets us turn
our ashes into diamonds.

* The “Stream” superpower is the one you use when
you’re writing a first draft and you move into that
zone where the words fly onto the page and time passes
without you noticing.

Some writers never enter that zone. Others do it every
time. Guess who enjoys the writing more?

Now here’s the important point. You’re strong in some
of these creative superpowers and weak in others.
That’s the way you are.

But it’s not the way you always have to be.

There are exercises you can do to increase your
creative superpowers.

The book YOUR CREATIVE BRAIN has a number of exercises
to help you boost each of your superpowers. And if
you’re creative, you can easily think up new exercises,
once you understand the principles.

My goal in the coming year is to build up all seven of
my creative superpowers.

Want to join me? Check out Dr. Carson’s web site here:
http://www.shelleycarson.com/

You may never look at a doorknob the same way again.

This article is reprinted by permission of the author.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the
Snowflake Guy,” publishes the free monthly Advanced
Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 32,000 readers.
If you want to learn the craft and marketing of
fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to
editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit
http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing
and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

Did you know:

There are two basic types of criminalists. The specialists, aka “lab rats,” and the generalists, aka “field mice.” I’ll let you guess which ones generally work in the lab analyzing evidence, and which are usually out in the field collecting evidence.

Wet items of evidence are not put in plastic evidence bags – they can degrade in plastic. They go in paper bags.

Evidence for felonies must be stored forever. Forever.

There are five manners of death: homicide, suicide, accident, natural and undetermined. In this day and age, kind of amazing to me that there’d still be a case of “undetermined.”

Processing a crime scene is tedious (in my humble opinion). They do a walk-through (carefully…along the sides of walkways, hallways, etc, rather than down the middle where criminals – and everyone else – tend to tread), they photograph it using overall, mid-range and close-up angles, they videotape (usually with the sound off because people say the darndest things…), and they sketch it and show measurements of everything.

There is an assorted spectrum of blue light used to look at a crime scene, and the blue light is chosen based on what they’re looking for. The criminalist also wears goggles when using the blue light which changes how things look. On tv, blood and other body fluids glow blue. When we looked at ours, using a general spectrum blue light and orange goggles (that go with this particular blue light, if I understand it correctly), blood drops were orange.

When a taser is fired, it releases three to four dozen tiny bits of confetti that are marked with a serial number identifying which taser they were fired from. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. And then that taser shows the date and time that the taser was fired.

Those are just a few highlights from a four-hour, very cool workshop. And please don’t quote me on the exactness of the above. If you want to confirm any of these answers, check out Tom Adair’s website at http://authortomadair.wordpress.com He presented the workshop, and he’s more than happy to answer questions.

And I’ll leave you with one last recommendation – never look at any toilet with blue light…

This is a review of the “uncorrected manuscript for limited distribution.”

I was very interested in reading this book. Having grown up in Salt Lake City as a non-Mormon, I was curious about what would bring this woman to a place, in her adult life, where she decided to convert to Mormonism.

Sadly, I was disappointed in the read from the very first pages. The author is already fascinated by Joseph Smith and has been since she was a little girl. At least I think that’s what she said – I was a bit confused by the way the story moved from the “smoking ruins of Vietnam” to her time with PBS when she worked on a special about the Mormons. Where is her journey to this point? It seemed more a story about “I’ve loved Joseph Smith forever, even before I became a Mormon,” rather than a conversion.

The author also makes references to things that she assumed I knew. Joseph Smith used peep stones? For what? He spoke into his hat? That’s how he read the golden plates – by looking into his hat? She referred to these things as if the reader has certainly read a biography of Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon. I have not.

This isn’t the longest book, so I was determined to push on, hoping things would become more clear, the writing more smooth. Alas, it did not. Suddenly she tells us “the taxi may have been an even bigger factor.” Taxi? What taxi? Then, they did go to church (pre-conversion to Mormonism), they didn’t go to church – huh? And then, because the author is so sure that Mark Twain would also have loved Joseph Smith, and that Tom and Huck are much like Joseph Smith, she writes them into a scene together. Ugh.

And so, I bailed on this book. I really, really, really wanted to read it, understand it, experience her journey. But I couldn’t do it. It’s very possible that this is a style difference and that other readers will love her style and story, but it was not for me.

View all my reviews

This is a review of the Advanced Readers’ Edition.

Carter Ross is an investigative reporter for the Eagle-Examiner and decides to write a human interest piece on a fellow employee who was killed in a hit-and-run accident while delivering newspapers. Ross discovers all is not as it seems, this is no mere accident, and the mystery unfolds.

I did enjoy the read, the writing, the characters. And there’s a nice dose of humor throughout the book. But, through the process of elimination, I did figure out early on who the bad guy must be. That was disappointing and the book wasn’t quite as much fun after that. For me, it definitely needed a few more suspects and less obvious clues.

If you want a light read, an interesting story, and some funny moments, skip the italicized sections (the bad guy’s POV) and enjoy.

View all my reviews

That’s enough to want to take the summer off from blogging. Right? Plus the fact that many writers just like to take the summer off to spend it with family, do the vacation thing, enjoy the long days. Right?

That wasn’t me. I did take the summer off from blogging but it wasn’t a conscious decision. What was a conscious decision was to focus on my book, my protagonist, the adventure that is snug inside my typed pages, and finish that first draft.

And last Thursday, August 16th, I did it. I finished that first draft. Woo hoo! Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, I have written a novel. 350 pages. And there was much rejoicing. And a lovely, yummy, swoony bottle of wine with the husband. All good. We celebrated. We enjoyed the weekend.

And now it’s back to work. Because is the book done? No. Not by a long shot. I really should have typed “The End of this Phase” at the end, rather than just “The End.” Now comes more critiquing, editing, building in depth and color and zing.

Don’t get me wrong. There is much that I’m happy with in my novel right now. But I think of it more as the foundation and the walls of a house being built. That’s done. Now I need to put in the flooring, the countertops and the shiny new appliances, paint it, decorate it, maybe hang some art. And then I can move in. Or rather, the readers can move in.

So I’m back at it. People have asked me how long this will take. Every time I’ve tried to answer that question, I later discover I’ve underestimated. Tell me – how long did it take you to write your first novel and get it ready for agents and editors?

Happy rest of summer!

This was my first Philip Kerr/Bernard Gunther novel and I was not disappointed. It’s an entertaining read with plenty of twists and turns. Also of note, while it takes place in Nazi Germany and certainly addresses the atrocities committed during this time, it’s not *all* about the gas chambers and horrors and darkness. Kerr does a great job of incorporating the history, including characters that were really part of that time, and giving the reader a different and intriguing perspective.

I liked the protagonist, Bernard Gunther. I cheered him on throughout the novel, and worried a bit too, when he pushed back on the bad guys who could easily have had him eliminated. And if you’re wondering if you need to read the Gunther books in order, from my experience that does not seem necessary. I dropped into the series at book eight and didn’t feel like I was missing key information. I will read others in the series as well.

View all my reviews

• Meeting and dining with Jeffery Deaver, international best-selling author of thrillers (including the most recent James Bond novel, CARTE BLANCHE) and learning that he is a really nice, smart and funny guy.
  

  Jeffery Deaver

• Donald Maass, the man some have called “the Mick Jagger of agents,” completely lived up to the hype. Fantastic all-day workshop on Thursday, moving and memorable speech on Saturday.
• Marie Lu, author of LEGEND, is also smart, friendly, easy-going. It was great to hear her story, from newbie-never-been-to-a-conference-before attendee in 2004, to highly praised author today. Good stuff.
• Learning how much I’ve learned in the last year (since my first conference in 2010), to learning even more this year, and continuing to get better.
• Hearing that Jeffery Deaver, even after 37 books, edits his manuscript “30-40 times before another human being sees it.” For some writers this might be difficult to hear because applying it to your own manuscript means lots and lots and lots of work before one finished [good] book. But this actually made me happy because I’ve edited some sections 10-15 times and they’re still not right. But I’m just not done yet. (And since I haven’t written 37 books, it may take me more than 40 edits. I get that. I’m on it.)
• The people. So many good people, writers of all skill levels, from newbie to published, excited to be together, work together, and help each other as much as possible. Made lots of new friends.
• The winner of the scholarship to next year’s conference. Unfortunately I cannot remember her name, but when it was announced that she’d won the drawing, she was sincerely stunned and sincerely excited. She went up to the stage, asked for the microphone and told everyone that this was her first conference, one she wasn’t sure she could afford to attend. But she’d been saving money to get her teeth fixed and decided to use it for the conference instead. She figured that, once she was published, then she could afford to fix her teeth. She was adorable. A better winner there never was.

I could go on. I won’t. But, wow, I feel like a writer and I love this community. Thanks, Pikes Peak Writers Conference. And extra special thanks to my writing friends, near and far. You rock.

Margie Lawson

No doubt about it, writing is a tough gig.

It’s tough to make a living, to find an agent, an editor, a publisher.

It’s tough to sit down and do it – how many people do you know who “want to write a novel?” And how many do you know that have actually done it, published or not?

It’s tough for many to announce to friends and family that they want to be a writer. I know one woman who, when she told her family she wanted to write, they asked her to please not use her real name. No, she isn’t writing erotica. She’s writing romance novels. With a pen name. Secretly.

And it’s tough to stay committed to the writing gig when you hear things like “you must write for 10,000 hours before you’re actually good enough.”

This statement is based on Malcolm Gladwell‘s book Outliers: The Story of Success that was published in 2008. His theory is that the key to success in any field, not just writing, is practicing in said field for a minimum of 10,000 hours. It’s an interesting theory, one that seems to make a lot of sense. It can also be a bit overwhelming.

10,000 hours. That’s five years if you do an 8-5 day, five days a week. Five years…

Even with that floating around in my head, I continue to pursue the dream, to write and edit and polish, and work to up my game. Do I still have many hours of work ahead of me before I’ve got something really good, really ready? Absolutely. But I want to share a little secret: MargieLawson.com

Last September I wrote about one of Margie’s classes, the first I’d ever taken, called Story Structure Safari taught by Lisa W. Miller. For me, it was a game changer. It transformed me from random writing by the seat of my pants, to focused and organized but still with lots of freedom. With my current work in progress, I feel like I’m in a country that I don’t really know, things are still changing, but now I have a GPS device so I know where I’m ultimately going. Love that.

After that course, I dove into several of Margie’s classes including Deep Editing, Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a Psychologist, and Empowering Characters’ Emotions. Every one was as informative and impressive and as valuable as the last.

Well, last week I went all in and took Margie’s Immersion Master Class. Four days of intense work onsite with Margie. Exhausting. And exhilarating. And the best part? I believe I garnered at least 1000 hours of writing experience in those four days. Every Margie Lawson course has upped my game significantly. Immersion vaulted me to a new level.

So, yes, I am an evangelist for Margie Lawson. No, I’m not getting paid anything for this endorsement. I just want to share this with all of my writerly friends because, well, MargieLawson.com is one of the best values out there for writers.

Her courses are extremely affordable. Too affordable, really. If you’re interested in her classes, even a little bit, get thee to her website and sign up. Before she’s “discovered.” Before she’s elite. Before her prices go up.  My two-cents.

Have you taken a Margie course already? Do share.

For me, this was a tough read — but let me quickly clarify that and tell you that any book, especially a memoir, that talks about the suffering of children is a tough read for me. That being said, I did enjoy Heart Warriors.

The author, Amanda Rose Adams, shares a very real and personal experience with the reader. She is a woman committed and driven to holding onto hope and finding help for her son, Liam, who was born with congenital heart disease. But she doesn’t start out as a “warrior.” She starts in ignorance and honestly conveys her fears, challenges, weaknesses and struggles. She is a very tangible part of this book and her personality is painted on every page. I think she’d be someone I’d like which made her story that much more interesting to me.

But I think the larger value of this book is that will be a tool, a support system, even a guide for parents who are fighting the same battle as the author and her family. Not to mention the fact that it helps educate the public at large. The book states that congenital heart disease is “the single most common and lethal birth defect in the world in both the most advanced and the most underdeveloped nations.” Did you know this? I did not. Do you know a family that is dealing with this issue? Well then you’d probably find a lot of value in this book as well. It is ultimately intended to help everyone.

There were a few moments during this book that I felt a bit chastised because I would likely have been one of those people who says the wrong thing to a “heart parent” when they’re trying to be supportive. Ms. Adams mentions these moments in her book. But she also discusses her own personal growth and development, and that process was an appreciated addition to the read. Hopefully we all learn that, for the most part, people want to help. Sometimes we just don’t have the whole picture.

Besides the fact that this book can be a valuable asset to anyone close to someone with congenital heart disease, the best part of the book was Liam. His resilience and overall attitude is an inspiration.