Category Archives: Nandy Ekle

Did You Write A Blog

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Did You Write A Blog

 Ten forty-one p.m, Thursday night, a few moments before exercise time and I still have not written my Freaky Friday blog. What to write? What to write?

I sit here with my fingers on the keyboard willing words to scroll across my brain in some sort of order that looks like an interesting piece. My fingers tap on keys and letters rush together forming words on my screen. But do they make sense?

Well, the theme is here: breaking through the block. The tools are working: letters to words to sentences to paragraphs. The form is here: big title, middle title, by-line. But is the meaning here?

Sometimes the best way to break a block is to pick up a pen or pencil, or put your hands on the keyboard, and starting typing words. Most of the time, the first few words come out forced and silly, but will soon become exactly what you were looking for. If you doubt that, just read this blog.

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

Nandy Ekle

What If . . .

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What If . . .

We all play the game and sometimes it’s not a very healthy game, as when we can’t sleep because we’re too worried about something with a very remote chance of happening. But there are times when the What If game is good for us.

For example: You at the planetarium with your granddaughter and she asks you, “What if the stars are not just pictures on the wall and an alien walks in the room while the lights are off.” Does that sound like a story?

Or how about this—what if you’re reading a book written by a very popular horror writer and a spider crawls out from the pages? After jumping around and stepping on the little monster, can you think of something to write about?

One more. You are watching your favorite singer on television during family time and loving his show when there’s a knock on your door and there on your doorstep is the singer himself grinning as if he’s very happy to see you.

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

Nandy Ekle

A Delicious Torture

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A Delicious Torture

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I crave the pain.  Nothing can compare to this torture—the sweetness, the aching and the longing.  And I must have more, more, more.

I’m talking about the torture of the bookstore.  Inside the glass doors, among the page laden shelves, the torturer calls me.  It waits to dazzle my senses, blind me with colorful beauty and hypnotize me with the perfume of printed paper.  My fingers itch to touch and caress every single tome.  Even my hearing is involved.  The quietness of the store itself makes it possible to hear the books whisper their stories.

I look across the shelf at the bright colors and catchy titles whose sole purpose is to violently capture the attention of shoppers wandering through the aisles.  There have been times that I’ve seen, from the corner of my eye, a book move on the shelf and turn to watch me pass as if praying that I will pick it up. They beg to tell me their stories.  As I witness such extreme measures, how can I resist? Before I know what has happened, I have the book in my hands.

Then my fingers and ears twitch anxiously as my eyes search the cover.  How does it present itself?  What does the artwork say to me?  I measure the heft of the book and the warmth of the cover.  Does it appreciate my touch?  Turning the book over I examine the back and read whatever words are speaking to me.  Finally I open the pages to see the print and smell the feelings in the book—even adventure has a smell.

The torture of this exciting process is making a choice.  How I wish that I could take the entire store home with me.  There are about twenty books that I am seriously considering.  Which of these children, which of these little darlings is the most worthy? Aahh – the torture of deciding on one book from the entire store.

Wait a minute—here’s a shelf I haven’t seen.

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

Nandy Ekle

Everyday Sights

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Everyday Sights

Look around you – what do you see?  Dirt in the sky during a wind storm?  Trees?  Stars in the sky?  A trailer house that has seen better days?  A room full of toys?  A sky with no clouds and so blue you think it’s made of water?

There are stories here.  The dirt in the sky during a wind storm:  What else is there?  Where did the dirt come from?  What sound does it make?

Trees?  Is it a forest or an orchard/grove?  What kind of trees?  Do they hide secrets?  What history have they seen?

Stars in the sky:  Do they appear normal?  What is normal?  What if they spelled a message?

A trailer house that has seen better days:  What better days?  Who lived there?  How long ago?  Is it abandoned?  Why does it appear empty?

A room full of toys:  Are there children?  Who are the children?  Why are the toys laying around?  What are the toys?  Where have the children gone?

A sky with no clouds and so blue you think it’s made of water:  Could it actually be made of water?  While you look up, what happens?  Do you fall?

There is a story in everything around us.

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

Nandy Ekle

Visiting Old Friends

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Visiting Old Friends

We had some really good times together. We laughed, we cried, we made mistakes and cured mistakes together. I listened when they cried and complained and they led me in directions I wasn’t sure I could go. I haven’t seen some of these friends in a while and getting back to them has been a wonderful experience.

These terrific friends of mine are the characters in my stories. I have spent a great deal of time with some of them, a little less time with some others, but every one of them has a huge spot in my imagination. Even after I write “The End” on a story, the characters live on in my head.

I like to visit these friends when I feel like I’m in a rut. Re-reading something I wrote a while back is like reading something brand new written by someone else. The theme is easier to see, as well as what works and what doesn’t. And the voices of the characters are more distinct.

Go back and read some of your earlier work and see what you learn from the characters and their stories. You will find a new way to relive an adventure with old friends.

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

Nandy Ekle

A Boring Life

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A Boring Life

My life is so boring. Nothing ever happens to me. I just want to have a good adventure.

Does that sound familiar? It does to me. I said that for years and years. I was a stay-at-home mom of three energetic brilliant children while my husband traveled for business constantly. Then one day I suddenly realized that as boring as life seemed, I actually was having huge adventures daily.

These adventures have occasionally made appearances in my writing, sometimes as just a cameo appearance or an extra complication, sometimes as the centerpiece of the story.

If you get to a place in your writing and you’re not sure what comes next, think about some of the things you’ve seen or experienced. Dwell on some of the conversations you had during the day with your kids, parents, co-workers or spouses. A writer told me once that when she gets stuck, she looks at current events and works them into the action. Not only does that move the story along, but it gives it an air of realism.

Never forget the saying, “I’m a writer. Be careful or you might end up in one of my novels.”

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

By Nandy Ekle

Let’s Play Cards

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Let’s Play Cards 

My hands hover above the keyboard. They don’t tap any keys, they just hang in space waiting for my brain to send some words to them. My brain sends nothing and so my hands stay motionless.

Sometimes, no matter how hard I try to think of something to write, the quieter the words in my head become. I simply cannot count the times I’ve said, “I’m going to write now,” and nothing happens. So I repeat the announcement, and still nothing happens.

Time for a game of cards.

Take a package of three by five index cards and write one random word on each card. Shuffle the deck and close your eyes. Pull out five cards and use the five words to come with a story. You have to do it fast, don’t give yourself time to think. Type the words on your computer and watch as more words grow around them.

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

Nandy Ekle

 

In The Beginning

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In The Beginning

Once upon a time I had a teacher in high school who wasn’t a whole lot older than we were. She was easy to talk to because we were almost peers. One day she told a funny story about her brother. She told us that her whole family had gone out to eat in a restaurant one day and they were all talking and laughing and having a good time. Her brother, just a little kid at the time, wanted some of the attention, but no one noticed him at all. He finally stood up on a chair in the middle of the restaurant and yelled at the top of his lungs, “UNDERWEAR!” Needless to say, he found his attention.

Our stories are kind of like my teacher’s brother.

Our readers are busy people with homes, families and friends, jobs, shopping, and tons of other things to do in their lives. If we want their attention to tell them our stories, we need to shout something riveting in the first few words. We should start with something that will catch their attention immediately, or we will lose them quickly. Action is a good way to start, and humor opens their hearts. Then there’s the mysterious beginning such as, “If I had known things would turn out like that, I never would have done it.”

Try different opening sentences, reading them allowed and listening to the words. Look for a group of words that are provocative and attention grabbing. Your readers will be hooked for the remainder of the story.

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

Nandy Ekle

 

Why Do I Write

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Why Do I Write

From time to time I run across a writing exercise that asks the question, “Why do you write?” I have read other people’s answers, and they are as varied as face shapes. Some people write to make money, some write for release, some write for therapy.

I thought about my answer. Why do I write? I write to tell a story. I write to connect with people. I write for the fun of it. I write because I can’t stop. However, I think my favorite reason to write is the rush I get from creating. I love to sit with my hands on computer keys and my eyes pointed at the monitor. I get a thrill to feel a rush of words flow from my brain to my hands and then onto the screen. I get a little giddy when I come out of my “zone” long enough to realize that several pages have appeared and I had no idea I was even doing anything.

So, why do you write? Do any of the reasons mentioned above describe you, or is there a new one?

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

Nandy Ekle

The Brick Wall

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The Brick Wall

In writing my story, I have smacked into a brick wall. I never even saw it. I was just bopping along, taking dictation from the characters who talked and acted while I wrote it all down. I was in “the zone” and everything moved smoothly. Then, POW! The wall appeared and knocked me so hard the characters temporarily lost their voices.

As I sat on the ground and looked up at the brick wall that had suddenly grown in front of me, I looked back at the steps that brought me here. Good intro/prologue, consecutive chapters that built on each other, plenty of twists and turns, and enough hints of the future to keep it interesting. And then, in the middle of an intense scene, nothingness.

Now, it’s not as if the whole thing disappeared from behind the wall. I still hear voices and I know what should happen next. So I mentally changed my visual of the problem from a brick wall to a bridge over a river, only the center of the bridge is broken. Now I can see the characters on the other side motioning for me to join them, but there’s no way to get past the gaping hole.

I take words out of my tool kit and try to fill in the missing part of the road, but the words are hollow and unstable. Still, the characters urge me to keep trying.

As a writer, I cannot leave them alone on the other side of the bridge without me for long. As a writer I will have to get to the other side, even if I have to jump over the broken part of the bridge. And, as a writer, I know I can’t wait forever to do it. So I put my hands on the keyboard—pen to the paper—and just write words.

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

Nandy Ekle