Smoke and Mirrors and Valuable Lessons by HL Carpenter

The Write Way Café welcomes HL Carpenter, a mother/daughter writing team who shares a few tips for improving writing productivity,  skill, and inspiration.

March 29 is Smoke and Mirrors Day...we think. Someone could be deceiving us, much the way the hero in our young adult novel, Walled In, is deceived when her father is accused of fraud. But we found out about Smoke and Mirrors Day on the internet, so it must be true, right? :)

Right. Well, one fact we're sure of here in Carpenter Country is that our author friends don't deceive us. Oh, yes, they write mysteries that take us down the garden path, away from the solution to the crime, and they happily sprinkle misdirection here, there, and everywhere in their stories. But in real life, we've learned valuable lessons from other authors.

Here are three.

Good habits. When a famous author was invited to speak at a class we attended, he mentioned that when he's writing, he doesn't stop. If his thoughts wander to his errands while he's in the middle of a scene, he puts a bracket at that point in his manuscript and inserts whatever is on his mind. Then he closes the bracket and continues with his day's writing. When the manuscript is complete, he does a search for these entries and saves them to another document to serve as a journal of his writing.

You might consider this a form of conscious flow. Whatever term you want to use, once we put his technique to work, our productivity increased. As a bonus, these "side" entries provide fodder for new story ideas.

Solid craft. After we've enjoyed reading the latest bestseller by a favorite author, we return to the beginning and reread the book. This time, we take a step back from the story and study the execution. For example, we examine the setup of the first paragraph and think about the ending and how the beginning and end tie together. We also study story arc, character development, and dialogue flow. Each book is a mini course in writing artistry.

Perseverance. J.K. Rowling's trek to publication after multiple rejections is a large part of her personal backstory. And after the success of her boy wizard series, she received a rejection from a publisher when she submitted a manuscript under a pseudonym. That manuscript later went on to be another bestseller. Even if we're never as famous as J.K. Rowling, we're inspired by her story and her persistence.

What have you learned from other authors? Let us know in the comments. In the meantime, happy Smoke and Mirrors Day...and happy reading and writing!

***

When her father is accused of fraud, seventeen year old Vandy Spencer discovers her entire life has been built on a heart-shattering deception.

Seventeen year old Vandy Spencer lives like a princess. Sheltered by her wealthy family, she happily makes plans to spend a fantasy before-college gap summer with her gorgeous boyfriend.

Then her dad is accused of a huge financial fraud. Vandy is thrust into a frenzy of media attention as accusations and innuendos pile up daily. The victims of her dad’s swindle vow revenge, and her dad flees.

As her perfect life disintegrates, Vandy retreats to a hermit-like existence in her childhood tree house and struggles to separate reality from lies. Was her perfect life truly so perfect? Did she ever really know her father?

When family secrets come to light, revealing an unimaginable betrayal, Vandy learns to appreciate the simple richness of sincerity and truth.

EXCERPT

A branch cracked behind me and leaves rustled. I scrambled to my feet.

Stenny had come after me! He really did love me, enough to follow me, and…

Pete Hawthorn stepped out of the woods, holding a flashlight. The backglow lit his face, which was drawn into the frown he wore lately whenever he saw me, and his mouth turned down into a scowl. “Don’t you have any sense at all, Dandy-Vandy?”

I should have known Stenny wouldn’t traipse through the woods searching for me. Running through the dark wasn’t his style. He’d use his phone.

My own phone, tucked in the pocket of my shorts, burst into the first bars of Boyfriend. I ignored the noise and poked a finger at Pete’s chest. “Quit calling me that. Don’t you have better things to do than skulk around the woods in the dark? Like maybe going to work?”

“I took the night off.” He peered at me. “Why are you crying?”

“None of your business!” Then, as his words sank in, I asked, “Why’d you take the night off? Is Gus okay?”

“Gramps is the same as he always is.” Pete slid the button on the flashlight and the bulb dimmed. “I stayed home because we heard the news about your dad. We’re going to help, in whatever way we can.” His voice barely carried across the small space between us, the words and tone sincere.

“That means a lot. Thanks. Tell Gus thanks too.”

“Yeah.” Pete turned the flashlight on bright again and waved it in a searching arc. “Where’s the jerk-off? He leave you alone out here?”

My gratitude evaporated like dew off grass. I planted my hands on my hips as my phone played Boyfriend again. “Stenny’s not a jerk-off, and he’s probably at the tree house, where I left him.”

“How nice to know he’ll stay where you tell him to. At least you won’t need to put a leash on him when the two of you are wandering around France.” Pete narrowed his eyes. “The woods are really dark, Dandy-Vandy, in case you haven’t noticed. Do you have a flashlight? Or am I gonna have to walk you home?”

I didn’t need him to babysit me. I opened my mouth to say so, and then reconsidered as the sounds of the night surged around me. He was right. The darkness crackled with noises I hadn’t paid much attention to during my rush to get away from the hurt of Stenny’s doubt. The air seemed ominous too, full of a sickly-sweet odor, a combination of gasoline, motor oil, and damp dirt. The mix stunk the way I imagined zombies – or worse, vampires – would.

“Thanks, Pete. That’s a good idea.”

“I have them occasionally.” He gestured with the flashlight. “The path’s this way.”

We strode along single file without speaking. The dry leaves crackled beneath our feet and the occasional haunting cry of a bird shredded the air.

“Nightingale,” Pete said.

We reached the end of the path, coming out of the woods behind a row of bushes fencing Kingsway’s open lawn. A line of solar lights illuminated the back yard, glowing against the pool cabana and the house’s white walls beyond – big, ornate…and home.

I smiled despite my worries. “I love how pretty our house is at night.”

Pete shut the flashlight off. “I’ll send you pictures while you’re enjoying your European adventure with the jerk-off.”

I was turning to him when a man carrying a portable video camera dashed across the lawn. I gasped. “He’s headed for the house! I have to warn Dad.”

Walled In, a stand-alone young adult novel of approximately 70,000 words, is available as an ebook at Smashwords, and in ebook and paperback format at Amazon.

Smashwords       Amazon

Mother/daughter author duo HL Carpenter write family-friendly fiction from their studios in Carpenter Country, a magical place that, like their stories, is unreal but not untrue. When they’re not writing, they enjoy exploring the Land of What-If and practicing the fine art of Curiosity. Visit HLCarpenter.com to enjoy gift reads and excerpts and to find out what’s happening in Carpenter Country.

Stay connected on Pinterest, Linkedin, Google+, and their Amazon Author Page.

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins - not through strength but by perseverance. 

- H. Jackson Brown

Hard But Worth Doing

 I'm not big into making New Year's resolutions, but this year I resolved to make walking every day for fitness a priority. So far, so good. Do I feel I have time to drop everything each morning and walk a mile? No. It's hard to pull myself away.

When I was a teenager in junior high – yes, there were junior highs in those days – I wanted to join the gymnastics team, even though I hadn't developed any skills in that area. I worked hard at learning to do the splits. I worked at it all the time, doing stretches and expanding my splitability. I also worked on teaching my body to do a backbend. That, too, took perseverance. When I had the bending backwards part accomplished, it took more work to be able to stand back up. But it meant a lot to me to be able to do gymnastics, so I stuck with it. Eventually it was a joy for me to be able to do the various tricks and use the apparatuses.

I don't know where that Lynn went to. The Lynn who could try and fail over and over and stick with it regardless, looking to a certain point in the future when I assumed I would be successful. I had that Lynn's pluckiness into adulthood and it helped me write my first two books and forge a career in freelance writing. But at some point, life, in some ways, became a long therapy session, as I began exploring my inner world and what motivates me to do and not do things. It has been fascinating work that has broadened my awareness. But with more awareness has come, well, more awareness. This awareness has been amazing at the same time that it has prompted things that put the brakes on my writing. It seemed like it was too hard, for a variety of reasons. I needed all the right conditions to write or I couldn't make myself do it, even though I wanted to.

Another key moment in 2013 has been my awareness that, like prioritizing fitness, a lot of things are hard. But being hard doesn’t actually have to mean much. I've been giving that feeling too much say in what I do. I'm reclaiming my ability to face hard things and get what I want, and acknowledge that sometimes I have to create conditions that support the choices I want to make. I’m grateful to my family for reintroducing me to the opportunity in taking hard things in stride and doing them anyway. These people do marathons, triathlons, climb mountains, do rock climbing, and more things that are challenging but offer benefits they enjoy. I've latched onto a saying one of my daughters-in-law brought to my attention. It's credited to former professional basketball player and author Art Williams and it goes like this: ‎"I'm not telling you it's going to be easy, I'm telling you it's going to be worth it." This is an inspiration to me and is supporting my endeavor this year to say "Yes!" to things I value but find difficult to do, like walking a mile and writing pages every day in my WIP.

Here are other things that are hard to do but worth it:

Submitting books to reviewers, not knowing what they might say.
Sticking with reading Jane Eyre.
Cutting portion sizes at meals.
Reducing sugar in my diet.
Being direct and facing the response.
Hiking a hill.

I'd love to learn what you find hard but worth doing anyway. Share?