Tag Archives: Nandy Ekle

Meet the Author – Melanie Miller

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Meet the Author

 

Since the creation of WordsmithSix as a critique group, we have evolved in many ways. While every member is like family and brings their own valuable insights to the group, sometimes there are changes. Some of our members have moved on in their life’s journey, however their contributions continue to influence our writing forever. Others have filled the empty chairs and have started their journey into the world of writing.

Each member of WordsmithSix is excited about our writing journey. For the next few weeks we will dedicate a Sunday blog to letting our readers know a little more about who we are. Each author will be asked a few questions to help you understand their desire to write and what motivates them. Maybe their answers will influence you in your writing.

This week we want to highlight a young writer who has been a recent guest at our critique group. She has a great talent and we are sure that you will be seeing her writing in the near future.

Please welcome Melanie Miller.

Hello!

  1. When did you start writing?

I started writing in High School. My first attempt at writing a novel began when I was only a sophomore.

  1. Why did you choose the genre you write?

I write Young Adult Fiction because I love reading it, and I want to write something that my younger brother will enjoy.  Young Adult has some of the most fluid and dynamic characters–seeing how these characters grow and change makes me happy.

  1. What’s the best thing you’ve done to help your writing?

I went to the West Texas Writing Academy in 2015. Being there connected me with a bunch of writers and help me see that my writing aspirations were fully within my grasp.

  1. What’s your writing routine like?

Procrastination. I find that I am most inspired to do creative writing whenever I have something else that needs to be done. Like taxes. But normally, I will drag my self out of bed at six in the morning and write until I have to go to class.

  1. How do you reach that personal place that allows the writing to flow?

I usually go somewhere where I put on my headphones and sit with no distractions or friends trying to talk to me. After ten to thirty minutes of gutting out the words, things start to flow.

  1. Are you an outliner?

I don’t think I can be impartial when answering this. Whatever answer I come up with would be muddied by by own egocentric bias. Still. I would like to think that me and my writing style are different, but then again, who wouldn’t?

  1. What has been your biggest writing challenge?

Finding the will power to actually write. Actually sitting down and writing is the hardest thing in the world. There are a hundred-thousand distractions, especially if you work on a computer.

  1. What are you working on currently, future?

I am currently writing the first draft of my first novel. I also have tentative plans for two more books using this same world and main character. I also have several other commenting worlds and storylines that I plan on exploring in the future.

  1. What advice would you give to new writers?

Forge connections with writing groups. Once you get yourself in a strong writing group, it gives you reason and motivation to writing, even if that motivation is only to not be embarrassed by bringing in shoddy work or no work at all.

  1. What’s the most positive thing you could tell writers today?

The publishing business is becoming more and more accessible. With ebooks and online publishing, it is increasingly likely that your book will be published in some form or manner.

The Constant Reader

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The Constant Reader

By Nandy Ekle

Anyone who reads Stephen King recognizes what a “constant reader” is. If you haven’t heard this phrase before, it’s the term of endearment Mr. King gives his fans, especially those of us who have been around since the 1970s, when Carrie came out, followed by Salem’s Lot, and then The Shining.

So what is it about his work that we crave? Some of his stories are unbelievable, some border on absolute silliness. But I find myself devouring even these as if they were coated with the fudge syrup I pour generously on my ice cream.

Well, I can tell you exactly why this genius’s words keep me glued to the page. And it’s exactly what I just said. He’s a genius with words. When a writer can make you gag with disgust after one sentence, that’s talent. If, after reading a page or two from a book, you find yourself hiding all the alphabet letters from the refrigerator, you’ve been immersed in greatness. If a hotel becomes a living character in a novel, and standing in the door of the hotel makes you feel like you’re shaking hands with a celebrity, that’s the work of a word genius.

My personal favorite Stephen King book is The Shining. In my opinion, this book is a masterpiece. I’ve read it more times than I can count, and I find a new layer every time I open the cover. The last time I read it I noticed something I had never noticed before. The first three or four chapters are back story. However, he does not info dump on us, the readers. What he does is place us inside the characters’ heads. We see, hear, feel, taste, smell, everything they do. And it’s in this state we learn why the characters are the way they are. And it is so real that it took me 30 plus years to analyze it.

In some places during the reveal of this backstory, Mr. King writes continuously without the interruption of punctuation. I believe the absence of commas, periods, and even spaces between words gives the feeling of swirling, as going down a drain.

And that’s incredible.

So, hear’s to you, Mr. King from a consummate Constant Reader.

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

The List

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The List

By Nandy Ekle

 The best place in the world to find inspiration to write is from those who have proven themselves to be brilliant geniuses, masters in the field. Here is a list of those authors who, when I read their work, I forget to breathe.

Stephen King

JK Rowling

Neil Gaiman

Nora Roberts

James Patterson

Diane Setterfield

Terry Brooks

Piers Anthony

Anne Rule

Janet Evanovich

Mary Stewart

Dr Seuss

Moe Willems

JA Applegate

RL Stein

Ray Bradbury

Gillian Flynn

This is by no means exhaustive as I’ve had 50 years experience as a reader. And I’m always looking for new masters and stories to get lost in.

Tell me whose work gives you goosebumps, thrills, and makes you swoon with joy?

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

Mysteries

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Mysteries

By Nandy Ekle

 

Of all the genres of stories, I really think mysteries are the most fun. You start by introducing your character and the inciting incident, which is usually a crime. Then the rest of the story is like a jigsaw puzzle. The reader is busy trying to put the puzzle together, and when the final piece falls into place, they are either surprised because they didn’t see it coming, or they’re satisfied because they knew it all along.

But, when you stop and think about it, every story is a mystery. It has to be. If your reader opens a book and knows the whole backstory, the whole future story, and everything in between, what fun is that? Even a tale we call predictable is still a mystery. If it’s done correctly, the reader has to go all the way to the end to prove they are right.

One of the ways to keep ‘em guessing is giving clues that might or might not lead them in the right direction. Now, I do not mean lie to your readers, because we must always be honest. But we can cross some signals.

We know that in real life, there are not clear-cut, all good points or all bad points. Every person has strengths and weaknesses. Heroes have flaws and villains have good points. And what we perceive as good or bad is not always the truth of the situation.

If you have a character named Bob who is short and balding, growing thick in the middle and wears bottle bottom glasses, what do you think about him? What if I told you he is middle-aged, been married 20 years to the same woman, and has three children who love and respect him? But the other side of the story is a new talent has shown up, and because of this he is gone most evenings, telling his wife he is working late. When he comes in he smells like cigarette smoke, perfume, and he’s so tired he can barely stay awake. What do you think about him now?

So, in the final scene, when he jumps through a plate glass window during a hostage situation in a restaurant, followed by his secretary who as become his assistant, and together they rescue the hostages and seize the real bad guys, is that what you were expecting?

Did you notice that his wife is one of the hostages that he saves?

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

 

 

 

It Starts With a Song

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It Starts With a Song

By Nandy Ekle

 

 

The way to start a story is with a song.

I have never claimed to be a musician. But I love music. I love country, rock, country-rock, opera, show tunes, instrumental, folk, seventies, zydeco, techno . . .

And sometimes, something I hear sparks a story.

Ballads, of course, openly tell their stories, and it’s easy to take their poetry and turn it into prose. Love songs also give us stories. Usually it’s easy to catch the meaning, but there a few you have to dig out. I’ve even ‘seen’ a story play out during an instrumental.

I love to listen to a piece of music with my eyes closed. I can feel beats and the notes. The words come to life for me and begin to act out the tale.

Some music inspires me by its melody. I’ve noticed a calming piece of music allows my imagination to open up as much as a story song. And bold sounds, along with fast beats will create adventure, danger, and urgency.

So the goal to writing stories while listening to music is to serenade my reader. I want to sing them my song of seduction, pull them in close to me and waltz them through the scenes. I want them to feel the change of atmosphere as the tones and beats change. And by the end, I want them tired, but willing to come back for more.

And this is the pay off.

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

It Starts With a Picture

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It Starts With a Picture

By Nandy Ekle

 

 

The way to start a story is with a picture.

I love photographs. I love to look back at my babies, all the homes I’ve lived in, cars I’ve driven, places I’ve been . . . Just different times in my life. We have wedding pictures, anniversary pictures, pregnancy pictures, pictures of illness, pictures of storms, mountains, oceans, clouds, pets, and snow. And we have pictures of children sleeping, playing, bathing, reading, fighting, and hugging. And each and every picture has a story.

Another kind of picture I like is something obscure in a magazine. I have never been there, I did not see it first hand, but it sparks my imagination. I can look deep into the glossy print and play-like I see myself running through the tall brown grass, dark clouds in the horizon and the sun behind me. Or maybe I’ walking the halls of a beautiful ancient estate looking for my lover. I wind my way through enormous trees following fairies and gnomes. I cringe under the cover of my giant canopy bed as the ghost tears its way through the room in the middle of the night.

So, as a writer, my job is to transport my readers to the same picture I’m seeing. I want them to live through the same adventure I’m having, and feel the same things I’m feeling. As soon as they turn to the first page of my story, I want to grab their hand and shout, “Come with me!” I want them to stay close to me and trust that I will get them through to the other side. And in this journey, they will want something, love something, lose something, learn something, and win something.

At the end, I gently drop their hand, kiss them on the forehead, and invite them to come again. And this is the pay off.

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

It Starts With a Word

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It Starts With a Word

By Nandy Ekle

 

The way to start a story is with a word. Can’t be just any word—it must be the absolute perfect word. Choose it carefully because it has to capture your reader and not let them go until they read the last word.

So you find your word and you know it is exactly the right word to start with. To this perfect word, you add another word, and to that, another. Soon, you have a sentence. And this sentence starts your story. At the end of this sentence, your reader should be so enrapt that walking away from your story is impossible.

But if you stop with one sentence, your reader will walk away after all. So you must put together another sentence. And then another, and another. Before long, you’ll have an entire paragraph.

Paragraphs are very important. For one thing, they are tools to give your story logical organization. Since a paragraph is a group of related ideas, it gives your reader a sense of what comes next, leading them in the direction you want them to go.

Paragraphs are also used to emphasize points. There are instances when you need an idea to stand out on its own. If you separate this idea away from other words and sentences on the page, your reader gets the sense of boldness.

Another thing paragraphs do is make the page appear more inviting. If you have a page of one sentence after another, no breaks, the reader feels like they have run a marathon. There’s no stopping place, no place to take a breath. This will cause them to get tired and give up before even getting to the end of the page.

So your paragraphs lead the reader through, building the story one paragraph at a time, one sentence at a time, one word at a time, you create a chapter, which has the same uses as paragraphs, but on a larger scale.

And then you have your book. And this is the pay off.

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

Jump Start

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Jump Start

By Nandy Ekle

 

 

I was innocently scrolling through Facebook yesterday, minding my own business, and reading about everyone else’s business. I was taking a short fifteen minute break from my intense day job.

As I scrolled, I came across a short video. Now, since I joined Facebook all those years ago, I have seen tons of videos, I’ve read tons of memes, and I’ve even participated in one or two. But there have only been a few that have stuck to me as if they had glue on them.

There was once a video of two cats playing Patty Cake that I enjoyed very much. I also fell in love with a video of a wedding where the entire wedding party comes into the auditorium dancing like it’s the happiest day of their lives. I’ve had a lot of fun with some of the music videos, and, of course, pictures and videos of children and cats/kittens are always fantastic.

But this short little flick I saw yesterday was really not funny, unless you have a twisted sense of humor like I do. It was a 60 second story that ended with a scare. I watched it and broke out in giggles, which is what I do when I’m scared or nervous (I’m a total riot walking through a spook house in October). So I watched it again. And then again.

And that’s when it happened. A new story. I immediately had a plot, characters, scenes, and an ending. The biggest problem I had was deciding the best place to start. So I just put my hands on the keyboard and began typing. I was halfway through the second page when the title to my new project flung itself on the screen. The title was so perfectly diabolical that I sat giggling as much as if I actually was walking through a spook house.

The point of all this is that inspiration can jump out and attack you at the most unexpected times by the most unexpected things. Don’t be afraid to look at anything.

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

 

O.C.D.

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O.C.D.

By Nandy Ekle

So, I seem to have a few obsessive tendencies, as well as a few compulsive tendencies. I must have order in my life. I binge watch TV shows, and I have to start with Season 1, episode 1. In performing my day job, I must hand write all my notes, then retype them into the computer, putting them in chronological order. And if I have to search through lines and lines of check numbers looking for one specific check, I must write them all down by year, color code each year, and number them.

Sometimes being a little obsessive is disruptive. When you have 15 minutes to complete a task, but the more you do, the more there is to do, you have to learn to let go of the least important pieces.

But there are times when an obsessive tendency is a huge asset. Such as writing. You get the proverbial light bulb over your head and realize you have the perfect plot for the perfect story. Immediately you are transported to the world of your story. And you’re so deeply involved that nothing else in the world matters until you get the whole thing written. But even that’s not enough. The story stays with you for days. And even after it leaves the front of your mind, it comes back later, and later, and later. And when it’s perfect and you find a public home for it, you still can’t stop thinking about it.

And that is a worthwhile obsession.

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

Fill In the Blank

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Fill In the Blank

By Nandy Ekle

 

The last couple of weeks I talked about my need for organization in my every day life, but the total lack of structure in my writing life. And I’ve studied and been told and shown what an important tool outlining, planning, and plotting can be for a writer.

Let me just say, whatever your writing habits are, I will never tell you you’re doing it wrong, especially if you can successfully write “The End.” I very firmly believe each writer’s methods are right for them. But I also feel it’s important to have an open mind and trying something new to be sure you have the most effective way for your writing.

Last Friday I ended in the middle of telling about one story I wrote in a completely different way from my normal seat-of-the-pants method. This particular story, I did the plotting and planning, the story boarding and characterization, and the theme and each event. Even though this story is one I love very deeply, I didn’t have as much fun writing it as I normally have. The spontaneity was gone. The surprise was gone. I felt as though I was filling in blanks to a story already written.

But as I mentioned last week, something very interesting happened. The story was successful. I entered it in a contest, and it won second place and it earned the second spot in an anthology (available on Amazon). The other thing that happened was that the main character became one of my all-time favorite characters. And I think the reason that happened is that in my characterization of her, I realized she represents both of my grandmothers rolled into one.

Now, there’s another story I wrote in my normal way. This story, I had a theme and a situation. My character had a paranormal ability, but she didn’t want to reveal her talent, so she made up a story when caught using her gift. This was where I started. As I wrote, events of the story came to life as if I were a reader reading it. For me, this is the “funnest” part of writing. The tale unfolds in my head as if I’m watching a movie. In fact, as I headed into the final scene, I still was not sure who my villain was. As one of my “movie” scenes played, the secret bad guy turned his face to me and winked. This was when I saw the end of my story. To this day, I get cold chills when I remember the scene.

This story has not found a home yet, but that’s one of my resolutions for this year.

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