Category Archives: Nandy Ekle

Spaces

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Spaces

by Nandy Ekle

What is your writing space like? Do you like dark or bright? Do you like quiet or mild chaos or even outright bedlam? My space used to be child’s bedroom. The child grew up, moved out, and I got the room.

I painted the walls a green-blue-gray, what I call Right Before the Storm. There’s still a bed in there (have to have it for grandkids), but I’ve also put a good desk, a bookshelf and a file cabinet in there. Because I love trees and forests, my husband gave me a piece of redwood tree bark and a picture of the Redwood Forest. I have a haunted house calendar and a wooden plaque shaped and painted to look like an old manual typewriter. I also have a plastic clock that’s supposed to look like it’s melted.

There’s another object I have that I am very proud of. For my birthday this past year, my friend gave a black enamel candelabra that holds three candles. I told her I had always wanted to walk through a dark house holding a lit candelabra just like in an old gothic horror movie. She didn’t laugh at me or make me feel silly at all. In fact, she knew exactly what I meant.

I love to write dark themed stories and these things help get my mood set for a lot of horror fun. If you have trouble getting in the mood for your story, you might try rearranging your writing space. Sometimes the muse hides somewhere that’s been the same for a long time.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Pantsin’ It

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Pantsin’ It

By Nandy Ekle

I have a cast of characters. I have a situation. I have a setting. I drop my characters with their situations into their setting and say, “Okay, go.” They begin to act and speak to each other and to me and the story appears.

I am a pantser, one who writes “by the seat of my pants.” Some of my best tales are those where I put my hands on the keyboard, or pick up a pen and paper, and just start to write. I usually have an opening sentence in mind, or at least an opening situation, and a vague idea of an ending. I try not to be too attached to an ending because I know that anything can happen.

And what usually does happen is magic. The zone comes down and blots out the rest of the world and I focus one hundred percent on the character. I see her face, her home, her clothes. I hear her voice and the way she speaks her words. I see through her eyes and feel everything she feels and hears. A lot of times I am as thrilled and surprised by the story as I hope my readers are.

The advantages to this are limitless. This brings an intimacy between me and my characters and I trust them when they want to go in a different direction from my plans. Also the story is more genuine than if I planned every single detail (intricate planning feels very clinical to me). My favorite aspect of “pantsing it” is the spontaneous fun and adventure I have when I write.

I had the story planned just the way it should have gone. I knew the theme of my story and I had the events in place to bring the characters to the ending I had planned. Everything was going like clockwork. As I type I watch the characters act and speak as I knew they would. Then, suddenly, one of them—the one I thought was neutral—turns to look at me with a glint in his eye. That’s when the true ending springs to life in my head. My skin prickles with goosebumps and my eyes tear up. I cry and giggle at the same time all day long.

That is why I write as a pantser.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

 

 

Clean Your Plate

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Clean Your Plate

By Nandy Ekle

You sit at the table and the food server brings you a plate with several wonderful looking foods. You like the chicken, the squash, the potatoes, the salad. Your entire plate is full of food and you pick up your fork and start to eat. Then someone next to you finishes their food and their dessert is served to them. That’s when you realize you have too much food. What was a great dinner has now become a drag. So you start to stuff the food in your mouth just to get your plate clean enough for the dessert.

Writing is a little like that. You are involved in several projects that you enjoy doing.  When out of the blue, the muse comes back with a great story line. She’s got a clever beginning, an air-tight plot, and a punch-in-the-gut ending and she’s giving it all to you on a silver platter. But the tasks you normally savor have now become drudgery.

Time for concentration. You want your work to be quality, but you want it to be quick. So, the only choice you have is to buckle down and get it done. Getting all the other projects out of the way will make your actual writing experience all the more exciting.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

NANO NANO

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

NANO NANO

By Nandy Ekle

It’s almost here! I can feel it in the air and smell it everywhere I go. There are whispers of excitement all over the world! Writers everywhere are gearing up, tucking in, researching, outlining, planning, reading, listening to music, dancing, whatever else they do to get ready for National Novel Writing Month.

November has been deemed National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, also affectionately known as NaNo. And what a month of adventures this has come to be. For thirty days a writer is encouraged to live totally inside their story. If you join the website, which, by the way, is absolutely free, you can register as a writer and meet thousands of other writers, make new writer friends, and converse about writing things twenty-four hours a day. But that’s only a small part of NaNo.

The goal of every November is to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. This actually can be done with a lot of discipline, commitment, perseverance and support from those around you. Yes, the 40-hour a week job still has to be done so you can buy groceries and soap to do the laundry that also still has to be done. But the rest of your waking hours, and some of your sleeping hours, will go into the story you have been waiting all year to put down on paper during this adventurous month.

The rules are simple. Write a novel of at least 50,000 words. It must be a brand new piece of work, meaning not one single word of the story has been written before. You are allowed to research and outline before you begin, but not actually start the story. And believe me, you will want to do as much research before November first as you can so that the rest of your time will be for writing.

It’s a very fun, challenging and exciting month. The work you produce will in no way be publishable, but it will be a novel-length manuscript giving you something to build on. The NaNo site even has a list of published books that were written as NaNo books.

Go to  http://www.nanowrimo.org to register. Look around and search for Nandy Ekle. I’ll need all the support I can get!

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

The Empty Room

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

The Empty Room

I stand here in this room listening for any sounds at all.  Nothing.  Dead silence.  I do hear echoes from past rants and raves, parties, fun, news casts, but all is quiet now.

The room is dark, but a little light comes in from the hallway where there are thousands of lesser doors.  The bit of light sneaking in behind me shows confetti, glitter, tissues, and even candy lying on the floor as a reminder of the phantom cheers and cries of the characters that are normally here.  There is a table near the podium in the corner covered with sheets of paper that contain words—happy words and lonely words, funny words and mad words, velvet words and loud words.

Where are the characters that inhabit this room?  There was someone in here not long ago, but they are all gone now and the silence is deafening.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Nandy Ekle

The Promise

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

The Promise

He stood in front of me with a sad look on his blotchy teenaged face. He didn’t speak at all, but I could see in his eyes he had plenty to say. I held his hand and promised that I would get his idea out to the world; in return, he allowed me to torture him.

I wrote my new character’s story. The point of view was unconventional but effective. His words were deeply ingrained in the sequence of events I put him through. Happy with the outcome, I allowed my character to rest from his troubles and pushed the “submit” button. What came back to me was a disappointment. THEY didn’t want the story of my thwarted young man. His story didn’t fit their needs.

I immediately felt a stinging in my eyes. I had made a bargain: his promise to allow me to put him through the fire and my promise to get him to the public.

I opened my computer browser, did a search and found another public place to send my story.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Nandy Ekle

 

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Postcards From the Muse

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Postcards From the Muse

The old house sits on its own little acre of land.  It’s beautiful in its dilapidation, sunburned gray siding, broken windows, roof falling in.  You can’t stop looking at it and wondering about its story.

How many old buildings have you seen as you drive down the road, ancient places full of history and drama?  Do you notice shapes moving around inside?  Do you think that if you listen closely you will hear whispering?  Eerie music?  Phantom laughter?

Congratulations.  You have received a postcard from your muse.

Nandy Ekle

A Writer’s Vacation

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A Writer’s Vacation

We took a trip out of town just to get away for a couple of days. Now two days is not very long and there’s no reason to drive far, so we ended up in a small town four hours north of our house. The town doesn’t have very many activities, but I’ve always told people that a creative person is never bored. And I think we proved this again.

Forty miles from our hotel was a museum dedicated to a well-known outlaw gang. This was a small museum, but full of character.  The tour started in a barn that had been renovated and made into a gift shop. The loft had been converted to a museum full of items depicting life in the days of the outlaws and history of the county. Back down on the first floor of the barn, one wall opened up to an underground tunnel leading to the main house on the property. The property had been owned by the sister of the brothers in the marauding gang and they were known to visit her when they needed to “cool their heels.”

As I stepped into the tunnel, a sense of adventure in a different time crept up my spine. Tunnels and secret passages have always fascinated me, and this one delivered that scrumptious snack for my imagination. I could almost hear the voices of the bad guys as they flew through the underground space to the house up the hill from the barn. I pretended to hear them shush each other and climb the stairs into the kitchen of the little house.

The next attraction on our itinerary was the Wizard of Oz museum. As a child, my life revolved around this movie, and even now as an adult who recognizes and loves good writing and good plots, this was my holy grail.

Our tour guide was a young actress dressed as Dorothy and she led us through the little white house that the museum society had erected to represent Dorothy’s House, which was full of period items to illustrate what life was like at the turn of the century. After going through every room of the house we headed to “the Land of Oz” where movie scenes had been built to re-enact the movie.  My heart beat a million beats a minute and I had to fight tears of excitement, just as if I was a little girl again. And, just like in the outlaw hideout tunnel, my imagination took over. A story concept popped into my head and heightened my experience even more.

When you feel writer’s block coming on, try taking a sight-seeing road trip. Even a small, unknown place will have a story hiding behind a door or in a barn, under a rock or just out in a field. It’s up to you to find them.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Nandy Ekle

An Inspirational Book

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

An Inspirational Book

It might as well be midnight for me. I get up very early in the morning, work an eight-hour job, cook dinner when I get home (and other domestic activities), work a couple of craft projects for friends , and then settle with the computer in my lap. And then it hits me. I have not written my blog and my brain has already counted down, said its prayers and gone to bed.

I reach for the little green book that stays near my writing space: The Pocket Muse, by Monica Wood.

This book is a life saver. I cannot tell you how many times I have gone to Ms. Wood for help, and been sent on my way with a pocket full of inspirational ideas from the pages of her book. Just one tiny little nugget catches my attention tonight: “Write a piece – fiction or nonfiction, poetry, or script – in which three objects exist at the beginning and only one at the end.” I read it several times and begin to feel something inside my head split and unwind like an orange peel.

First, I’ll find three random homemade objects with absolutely no connection, then I’ll make up a connection for them. A couple of characters line up and their dialogue escalates the story into, um, a misunderstanding which leads to a couple of the children disliking each other. Two objects disappear and the kids must find them before the bell rings at 3:00 sending them home.

Now it’s your turn to write something from one of Monica’s amazing jam-packed idea book. Ready? Here it is:  “Write about a person whose reputation rests on the appearance of an inanimate object.”

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Nandy Ekle

 

Passing Time

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Passing Time

This room is gray, gray as in dull, colorless non-white. Drab walls and drab carpet, buff colored desks and glass windows letting in the gray light from the overcast sky.

Against one wall is a black metal book shelf holding numerous books of different sizes, colors fonts and genres. There is a space between two books in the middle of the shelf. This space is the exactly the size of another book, which is not in its place. It is missing.

As I look closer a the titles, I see that the owner has kept the books in order by titles in their various series. I wonder which title is missing and where it could be.

This is an illustration of what to write when you don’t know what to write. Start describing a room in as intricate detail as you can. Every single time I’ve done this exercise, I have seen sudden threads of stories begin to show up, and before I know what has happened, I have a plot and a character.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Nandy Ekle