Sherry Alexander Writes - Blog

Character Hugs!!

4/7/2021

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Hugs used to be a way of life for most of us until COVID came our way. The isolation, masks, social distancing, and staying clear of non-family members stopped all physical hugs cold. For someone who thrived on hugs from her grandchildren, this has been quite challenging. Hugs help your blood pressure, stress, and your emotional health. I wondered how I was going to survive! A hug less COVID could have been the death of me! Oh, NO!!!

Okay, I know way too dramatic! No physical hugs had only one possibility-character hugs. As a writer, I have dozens of characters crisscrossing my mind at any one time. It can get a little crowded in there, so I wondered what if my character friends could help. And, they did!

I found that my more caring characters held me tight in their thoughtful response to the awkward situations I drug them into. My humorous characters made me see the brighter, more laughable, side of a hug less society as they clambered their way through one of my more unusual plot lines. Of course, the saddest ones in my repertoire had their own problems, so I wrapped them words and squeezed the heartache right out of them. What's my point?

Someone once said that "Nothing brightens the day like a hug from a friend," and who has more character friends with them 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, but writers. So if you need a hug, there is a character waiting for you to put your imagination to work and feel the embrace.

Pineapple Characters

12/24/2020

photo by Phoenix Han unsplash.com

I enjoy using pineapple characters in my stories. To me, they add depth, contrast, color, and even a bit of humor. What do I mean by pineapple characters?

Let's think about it for a moment. A pineapple has that tough, prickly outer shell that protects it's sweet but tart interior. It takes something sharp to pierce that hard shell before you can taste that luscious tropical fruit inside, but if you accidently get some of that outer shell on your lips--ouch! Even the juice can have a bite, and for most people eating too much can cause a sore mouth, lips, and acid reflex! Do you get it now?

For me, pineapple characters can be good or bad, old or young, protagonist or antagonist, but never simple. These characters are always complex with a back story that can become the main plot if you want or only viewed from a distant in a few, sparsely inserted flashbacks or hints. Regardless of where they fit into the story, pineapple characters need three things to make them work. They are:

A physical appearance that makes them noticed. This can be strong or weak, but it has to fit the second thing-
A personality that is hard on the outside and rarely cracked to see the sweet or biting temperament that lies within. The nature or disposition of the person is determined by your story. This will require a lot of thought and a thorough background to maintain that prickly exterior.
A flaw is important to incorporate since that is the result of whatever happened to Mr. or Ms. Pineapple in the past. It can also be what pierces through that rough wall built around that softer interior. They could be impatient, reckless, stubborn, blunt or even rude, arrogant, egotistical, or what I call, "crusty". (Remember, I write MG books and children's stories, so "crusty" is an easier flaw to portray)

It really doesn't make any difference what type of story is written, but having a pineapple character in it can always add depth, contrast, color, and yes, even a little humor to the plot. Try it, you might enjoy it. I know I do.

Writing About Prejudice

12/4/2020

Photo by Ichio on Unsplash

Since I enjoy writing about history, there are times that I portray one group's actions as hostile over another's in a story. Take for instance the American Indian Wars fought from the 1600s until the 1900s. Depending on the story, it is likely that the Native Americans and the pioneers were enemies. Neither understood the culture of the other or understood why they lived the way they lived. Each had their own way of doing everything from hunting to surviving during the cold, wet, winters. A lack of understanding and the willingness to live by the Golden Rule led to horrendous battles and the loss of lives--and to prejudice. That same prejudice lives and breathes today. Even as a child, I was faced with prejudice. Prejudice because we lived "on the wrong side of the tracks" as it was called. Prejudice because my mother was a single parent in the 1950s. Prejudice against my siblings because they looked more Cherokee than I did. The cost of all that prejudice? Hurt, pain, and lots of fights!

So don't fool yourself, prejudice is not new. It's been around since the beginning of history. Oh, it might have been called preconceived, distorted, twisted, bias, or even envy like the reason Caine killed Able. It's all prejudice. It's an opinion made beforehand without true knowledge, thought, reason, or insight about a person, a group of people, a place, or things, and it can be good or bad.

For instance, before I even smelled oatmeal cooking on my grandmother's stove, I was prejudice against it. I knew it was bad. It had to be because how could anyone like something that I heard was mushy, gummy, tasteless, and old. At least that was what I had "heard", so I was prejudice. On the other hand, before my baby brother came into this world, I was already prejudice for him. I knew he would be the light of my life, and that I would love him over anyone else until the end of time. How? I had neve seen him. I didn't even know he was a boy. All I "heard" was "baby." I was prejudice. I know this is simplifying it, but you get the idea.

Today, all we hear is prejudice. This person is prejudice against that one because of the color of their skin, or their living conditions, or their culture, or the slant of their eyes, or their job, or their associations,
or affiliations. In actuality, NONE of that matters. The only thing that does is what type of man or women, girl or boy, or human the person is. Like them or don't like them for what and who they are after you gain true knowledge of the individual.

That, however, is the difference between writing and real life. In writing, you can make your characters as prejudice as you want in order to dramatize your story. In real life, though, life is too short, and there is so much to do and enjoy. Everyone would do well to drop the word prejudice from their hearts so they can be much happier.

(As a side note, I still hate oatmeal, but the hate didn't come until after I tasted it. And, I still love my baby (not so little now) brother ad will until the end of time.)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

11/24/2020

Photo by Liane Metzler on Unsplash

Remember Aretha Franklin belting out, "All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect" like only Aretha could? I was a naïve teen in 1967 when that was released, and while the music and her voice made my feet automatically dance, it was the R-E-S-P-E-C-T that made me stop and think. The Viet Nam War, race riots, and protests were in full swing. Everyone wanted to be heard, and some decided the only way to be heard was through destruction. Cities were demoralized and parts like Detroit were even destroyed. Yet, there it was, Aretha's cry for RESPECT when it seemed there was no respect--anywhere! So what's my point?

Look around, don't you see it? Once again, there is no respect. No respect for property, for people, for your neighbor, for the elderly, for the science of this virus, or for family values. Life, has taken on an attitude of "My opinion is the only opinion, and if you don't like it, I will silence you!"

What? When did we lose respect for opinions that are different than ours? When did we lose respect for the work and energy people put into their small businesses? When did we lose respect for our elders who are in danger with the virus? Respect is the admiration or deep regard for the feelings of others, their traditions, their beliefs, their age, their right to speak, and their humanity. Wherever that is hiding right now, it needs to reemerge.

In the meantime, we need to remember that parents start teaching, and we start learning, about the importance of respect shortly after birth. We learn to give our seat to our elders, to listen to our parents, to say please and thank you, to excuse ourselves when we interrupt someone, to appreciate what we have, and to listen respectively to others. Those are the values we instill in our children.

As a writer, controversy offers abundant story ideas. Some are good and some are bad. However, as a human, controversy offers us a chance to demonstrate our respect for others. This may not be what some want to hear or read as the case may be, but a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T goes a long ways. Say it, hear it, write it, do it. We will all be better for it. Thanks Aretha!

Sheltering in Place

3/30/2020

Photo by Sam Goodgame on Unsplash

Sheltering in place is more than just isolating oneself. It is in fact--forced aloneness. it is also: confinement, desolation, remoteness, concealment, exile, and quarantine.

Just the idea that this virus can force all of us into our homes and away from family and friends creates depression. Not your everyday depression, but one that only comes when someone feels total loneliness. It is enough to feed all those negative feelings that inhibit our writing. Instead of imagining futuristic worlds, the pioneer life, or what it was like to wander among ancient Greeks, we, writers are wondering if we need a face mask to cook our dinner.

Maybe we need to be more like the Saguaro Cactus. No, I don't mean prickly. I'm thinking more about the tap root and the blossoms.

The tap root goes straight down in the earth to find water. Our taproot is our imagination. It stretches out from each writer is all directions. Some stretch all the way into space, another dimension, or even into a mystic world. Others stretch across the desert to unearth the bones and stories of long-ago peoples and dinosaurs. Still others venture into the psyche of humankind in the hopes of discovering why we do what we do. At times like this, when we are sitting in our homes waiting for the latest report on COVID-19 we need to remember to sink our tap root deep. There is no need to recoil. The pandemic might have tried to prune our imaginations, but it has not sapped it! We can even take a lesson from the blooms that appear once a year on the saguaro. They are beautiful but they bloom at night and fade by day. And, don't we often do our best writing in the middle of the night when the house is quiet? If you truly are alone, or at least feel that way, just pretend it's night and write, write, write.

Stay Healthy--Keep Writing!

Writing with Secret Sorrows

3/3/2020

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

Sadness, unhappiness, sorrow, woe, melancholy, out-of-sorts, low spirits, gloom, dejection, or the blahs are all words we use to describe those "secret sorrows" that eat at us and keep us from writing. When those sorrows get to heavy to lift then it is easy to sink into depression. Extremely prolific and creative authors such as Mark Twain, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and even Emily Dickinson all struggled with depression in one way or another. Some psychologists believe there is a link between that writing creativity and mental illness.

Whether their belief is true or not, we writers do face isolation and a feeling of inadequacies as we rewrite and revise dozens, if not hundreds, of times. Creativity is expensive in personal and emotional terms. The cost is measured in the emotional highs or lows of sharing our imagination or original ideas with others. If they are accepted, then WOOHOO! If they are rejected, then BOOHOO! Writing is a roller coaster. So how can we snap out of it, and increase our emotional stability so that we feel free to share our imagination and creativity? Here are a couple of tips:

Embrace your emotions-creative people are usually hyper sensitive that's why writers can become part of the book they are writing or get lost in their characters
Learn how to self-regulate by pausing, or taking a few moments doing something you love, when you feel that secret sorrow creeping into your thoughts.
Change the way you think--this is called cognitive re-framing. Simply put, it means trying to to take things personally. If you are looking at how that sorrow affected you, try to change the way you look at what happened. Maybe instead of being upset over a rejection (or many rejections), you can be proud that you completed another manuscript. It's not just "Look at the bright side", it's concentrate on your accomplishment

Secret sorrows are always going to be part of our lives, but we, as writers, can't let them keep us from our imagination or from sharing our creativity. We need to keep on. The world is waiting for what only we can share. SO, KEEP WRITING!

Julie Hedlund's Anti-Resolution Revolution

1/1/2020

First of all this is not a Xmas celebration. I don't do Xmas. It an end of the year event that Julie has mastered since 2012. Julie is an author, lecturer, teacher, and my one and only jump-starter for writing. Each year she helps writers get off to a good start by helping them to remember their accomplishments not their failures. That is why this is not a resolution.

Julie says, "I believe the reason resolutions often don’t work is because they start from a place of lack, of negativity, of failure. We think about all the things we weren’t happy with in the previous year and set out to “fix” them in the new one."

I totally agree. 2019 was not a good writing year for me. I didn't submit anything. I didn't keep up my blog. I didn't meet any of my writing goals. There was too much depression and too many things out of my control. I could stay in my little world of fog and failure for another year, and I believed that I probably would. However, at my lowest point, I received Julie's email that reminded me about her Revolution. So in spite of being lost in the fog, she has encouraged me not to look at my failures but at my successes. I have to admit, this was an all day, 5 day, process because I could not think of one success for the entire 2019. I had to change my thinking--and then, and only then, was I able to see a tiny light through my mental writing fog. My successes are not huge, but they are mine and here they are:

I wrote something everyday--sometimes it was only a paragraph, sometimes it was a diary entry, and sometimes it was a list of all the reasons I had to end my life by jumping off a cliff. (I told you, it was a year of depression)
I kept up with almost all of my daily check-ins with the most encouraging and non-judgmental group of writers I have ever known. That check-in is what made me write each day, so that I could maintain my honesty.
I revised the outline, introduction, and first chapter of a MG novel I had set aside.
I finished revising two picture books to the point that I am ready to submit.
I did not delete this blog and write myself out of the writing picture.
I made school visits.
I encouraged my 15 year-old granddaughter to write--and she has now completed 3 episodes of a script that has rumbled through her mind all year.
Finally, I asked my doctor for help to climb out of the darkness.

I am not saying that 2020 will be a booming year for writing, but I sure am happy that 2019 is over and I am here to write.

I want to be a mermaid!

12/2/2019

Photo by Joe Pregadio on Unsplash

My granddaughter and I were enjoying a quiet afternoon together, when she asked me if she could share her dream. "Of course, you can share your dream. You can share anything with me," I said, not really listening.

"Then, look at me because this is important!" she demanded, griping my hand and waiting until I turned to face her. "I want to be a mermaid, a real mermaid! Is it possible? You told me anything is possible."

My first instinct was to explain all the reasons why that would not happen, but the need for assurance sparked from her eyes, and I didn't have the heart. Instead, we sat in quiet for several minutes. Her watching me intently. Me peering into her soul. There was so much to consider. After all, this is the dear one who believes, as I do, that the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot are real. This is the one who can reiterate every sighting of Big Foot or Nessie for the passed 30 years. And, this is the one who learned how to make foot print casts just in case we happen across a size 20 barefoot print on a journey through the woods. Is it possible to become a mermaid? No. Is it possible to want to be a mermaid? Yes. And, in here laid my dilemma. I decided to go through the physical facts.

We spent the afternoon analyzing the possibility of transforming from a human into a half-human fish. We looked at anatomy charts, the advancements in medical technology to create limbs for those who have lost them--both human and animal, and several accounts from sailors in the 19th century who claimed to have a mermaid encounter. In all, it was an enjoyable journey into the world of research. But, finally, in the end, I had to say it was not physically or medically possible. For a few minutes she seemed reserved and extra quiet, but then she started giggling.

"What's up?" I asked. "Were you serious or were you not?"

She leaned over and patted my hand. "Nana, sometimes you take things too literally. I meant that I wanted you to write a story where I was the mermaid--a real mermaid, and I wanted to help you write it. But, today was so much fun! I know more about mermaids now than I ever did before."

Moral of the story--when your granddaughter makes an unusual statement, ASK MORE QUESTIONS! Isn't that what we writers are suppose to do?

Writing From the Precipice

11/14/2019

Photo by Leio McLaren (@leiomclaren) on Unsplash

There are times when my writing brings me so close to a precipice that I am not sure if I can take the leap. Why? In a word----fear.

Have you ever stood at the end of a rocky crag and looked over the edge? Did you feel your stomach jerk as you wiped the sweat from your brow? Did your palms suddenly become wet, and before you knew it, you were taking careful steps backwards? That is how I feel when my characters take me to the edge of that rock and then disappear. It's as if all that went into creating them, making them part of my subconscious, and living with them for weeks, months, or even years, breaks. That is when I have to decide whether to take the leap to meet them on the other side of my creativity, or step back and wait for their return.

The American author, Henry Miller, said, "All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience."

Miller's quote haunts me as I thumb through the masses of partial manuscripts piled on top of my writing table and in the back of a file cabinet. There have been so many times that I felt my creativity peter out close to the end of a character's story. Why? Did I just lose interest? Did my lack of experience keep me firmly planted on the ground instead of leaping into the darkness? I really had not thought about it until my granddaughter started doubting her journey to the precipice.

For the last two years, her mind was consumed with an epic of her creation. She has over twenty characters telling her their story and how they fit into her fantasy saga. It took her over a year before one day she decided to begin putting it down on paper. Not in the form of a novel, however, but as a script with not just five or ten episodes, but with five or ten seasons of multiple episodes. Now, after only a few months, she has pages and pages of scenes and is on her third season. I am amazed at her progress, but she wants to quit because she feels she does not have the writing experience to continue. Sound familiar?

Last week we decided to help each other. She picked out an unfinished manuscript from my pile, and I picked out one of her characters who has a separate story. Together we are setting goals and changing things up a bit. Here is part of our plan for the month.

Set a weekly goal--we decided on one scene
Let each other read our progress--no editing just reading for continuity
Fall in love with the character by finding an emotional tie--for me its a motherless child, for her its a girl with a split personality--one that wants to live and one that wants to die (I told you she is creative)
Talk daily about where we are going and how our characters are faring
Reward ourselves with a walk through the forest at the end of the week
Enjoy our leap in the dark!

Happy writing!

t

A Shadow, A Campfire, and A Story

10/6/2019

Photo by Tirza van Dijk on Unsplash

Early in my reading journey, I discovered westerns. I loved and love westerns! Not the new ones filled with saloon romances and lonely ranchers, but the down and dirty shoot-out, action adventure, that took me into the lives of cowboys, horses, and the rawness of the Old West. The books I read over and over were written by one of my favorite authors, Louis L'Amour, America's Storyteller. Books such as Hondo, Guns of the Timberland, Crossfire Trail, Silver Canyon, Sackett, and How the West Was Won, provided an escape from reality and a longing to write.

I admire this author for statements such as this, "I think of myself... as a troubadour, a village storyteller, the guy in the shadows of the campfire."

That statement alone should give pause to a writer. A shadow occurs when someone stands between the campfire and the forest of trees. Is that not what most writers do when we share our version, or story, of what happens in either the dark and in the light? Is it not what happens when our imagination or our curiosity drives us until we describe it in great detail on paper? Is it not the stuff that dreams are made of? Yes, indeed that is exactly what happens. As a final thought, here is another quote from Mr. L'Amour that makes a writer pause and think. "Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on." So start writing! Maybe your faucet will cause the bathtub of ideas to overflow or at least light a spark under your campfire. I know it does for me.

Happy writing!