Passion behind the words

If you have ever read almost anything I write you will most certainly notice that I make mistakes. Grammar mistakes. Spelling mistakes. Missing words. Added words. Pretty much if you name it, I most likely have committed it. I try to do my best to make sure that my grammar is correct, and the same with spelling, but things still fall through the cracks. You may be thinking, 'Maybe you should try harder,' or 'What's your excuse for that?' You are probably right, I could try harder. My excuse? If I was homeless, had the worst appearance on the planet earth, or was so amped up on energy drinks that I couldn't sit still, my excuse would be simple. I'd tell you, 'I'm a writer. That's why.' However, as a writer, I should have correct grammar and such, so I can't really use being a writer as an excuse. Or can I?

Show of hands: How many of you have seen the movie Finding Forrester? That's odd, I don't see a single hand raised. That's beside the point. Back to my point. For those of you who haven't seen it, it came out in 2000 and stars Sean Connery as a famous recluse writer named William Forrester, and Rob Brown who plays a young basketball player/writer named Jamal Wallace that stumbles into Forrester's life. I won't get into more details of the plot, if you are really interested in it, you can just watch it. The reason I am bring up this movie, is that somewhere in this great film Sean Connery delivers a line that I have come to live by. Forrester is teaching Wallace about writing and he says to him, 'No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!' I absolutely love that line. Thinking gets in the way too much. Sometimes, as different or difficult it may be, we must not think, instead just write. Let the words flow with the passion of the heart. I've found that the heart has so much more to say than the brain anyway. In fact, I believe that it's the key to writing a good book. A person doesn't have to be a magnificent writer in a way that they have great grammar skills, or are a literary genius. If they did just that they may write something dull. There needs to be passion behind the words.

So the next time I am imperfect and have errors in my writing, and someone asks what is my excuse. I'll be sure to tell them this: 'I'm a writer. I write, I don't think.' Saying it kind of sounds funny, but in reality it is true. Mistakes will be made, and to make it bearable for the reader, corrections should be made, but let they come later. After you are done writing. Rewriting may be something that I should work on, but until then, I will continue to write from the heart, and leave writing from the head until later. I hope my readers will learn to do the same.

-zjh

Renovations...

Hey everyone,

      If you have been following this blog, you probably have noticed a few things. One: I haven't had a post since January (sorry about that), two: my layout is a bit different, and three: my web address (URL) is different. I apologize if that causes an inconvenience, but it was time for some renovations. Moving on...

     I am making these changes, because I am no longer just writing about my J.A.C.K. series. I am also going to write about any other books that I am working on, as well as, any fun tidbits about writing, tips, or books that I care to share. I'm broadening my horizons. Yes, I know what you are thinking. How will that help with me actually having posts on a consistent basis? More range of writing options to explore, means a higher chance of me blogging. It will also mean that I might have something interesting to say! Nonetheless, I shall do my best to blog more consistently and often.

 Now, before I sign off, a quick update on my writing adventures. In my last post, I talked about how I was just getting ready to start a new novel. Well, I have started it, but I haven't gotten far into writing it. It pains me to think that I have been so busy working and traveling that I have had very limited windows to write. The last of the summer looks busy as well, but I am determined to make time to pound out some pages. Wish me luck. Until next time readers.

-zjh

Update

Hey!

    Typical me, I write a couple of posts then I fall off the face of the earth and nothing is heard from me in several months! No worries, I'm still around. I actually took a bit of a break from writing over the month of December. However, in January, I did start doing some research for my next project. It is not apart of the JACK series, but I figure I can write about it anyway! The writing of that will start soon. I am really, really looking forward to that.

  Anyway, Book 2 is still untitled. I haven't found a title that has just hit me as totally awesome that I like. Oh well, there is still time. I have been querying for Calico's Gold, and haven't heard too much feedback from that. The little I have heard, have been denials. I am not too worried. At some point the perfect agent will read it and love it!

  Well, there isn't too much more news to post. I do hope that everyone's writing is going well (those of you who are writing :) ). Until the next time minions!

-zjh

Classifieds: Titles Needed

I can hardly believe that it has been a month since my last post. Life has been super crazy lately, and the time went by so fast. In case you are wondering, no, I did not finish my NaNoWriMo. I wrote one afternoon and got about 3,000 words. I was planning on continuing to write, but since I had a major blitz to finish my last novel, I was too exhausted to be able to concentrate on writing the NaNoWriMo. Oh well, lesson learned. Next year, I will be sure to have my project finished, my novel already planned out, myself well rested, and all ready to go!

As far as editing goes, I have only done some minor things. The rest of this month I have set aside to do that (probably the project I'll start this week). I am still trying to come up with a title to Book 2. I have only gotten one suggestion. However, I have thought of a couple. Here are a few:

'The Death Triangle'

'The Bermuda Conspiracy'

'The Arena'

'Surviving the Triangle'

I, personally, like the top two options the best. They catch my attention the most out of the four. Please let me know what you think. I am still open to other suggestions to titles as well! Thanks for reading! Until next time minions!

P.S. You know how I was talking about my peice of paper with my characters on it that I lost? Well, I found it! Some how (I think while unpacking) it slipped into a tiny crack beside my desk! If only I would have known that a month ago! :)

Lost characters!

So, in my last post I told you that I had finished my novel. Well, in this post, I am going to share with you a very amusing story about that novel. It was a couple of days and around ten pages before I was done when I noticed that I had a big problem. A little back story first.

When I started the book, I was keeping track of all of my characters that I was using on a little piece of paper. I wrote down their names as they entered the story, and I crossed them off if they left the story. Well, when I went on vacation in the middle of August I took that list with me, just in case I had time to write on the trip. I didn't have any time to write, so bringing the paper was pointless, but I always like to be prepared. When I got home after the vacation about a month later, and was ready to start writing again, I realized that I was missing that piece of paper. I searched through all of my stuff, but it turned up nothing. I guess from then on I would have to wing it. No big deal--or so it would seem.

I was getting close to finishing, and I wanted to bring a character that I had used in the beginning back into the story, well since I didn't have the piece of paper that had my characters, I had to scroll back through my story to find the character. Along the way I noticed something, something very important. I had four characters missing!!! I was tantalizingly close to finishing my novel and then this comes out of nowhere! Frustrated, I searched through my story to find where I had lost my characters. Two of the characters were easy to remedy, they were close to being pointless, so I opted to eliminate them entirely from the story. A simple solution. The other two characters were a bit more challenging. They disappeared later in the story and I had issues finding them. I figured out that one of them had been sent somewhere, and that I could just say that he was going to stay there. Another simple solution. The final character was the worst. I ended up finding where he had disappeared from my writing, and I now had to add him to where he was supposed to be for the next 40 pages! Slowly, I ended up getting him where he was supposed to be, and I could finish the final pages of my book.

I told a few people about my writing misstep, and, upon hearing it, found it highly amusing. The moral of this story? Be sure to write your ideas down, and don't lose them! Or, just have a photographic memory, like my character Krista! I hope your writing doesn't have some of the same snags as mine! Until next time readers!

BOOK DONE!

If you could all see my face right now, you would see a giant grin pasted across it. The reason behind this grin? There are several reasons, the first of them being: I realize how much I don't keep this blog updated! My last post was in July. :) I deeply apologize for not writing posts as often as I should. Hopefully, it can become a good habit.

The other reason that I have a major smile on my face, is that the other day I finally finished the novel that I had been working on for ages. It took a lot of determination to grind out the final 20,000 words, but I got it done. I still haven't thought of a title yet, that I need some help with, and honestly, it can wait for a while. My plans are to let the book sit until December. When that time rolls around, I will diligently edit it so that it is polished to the best of my ability. In the mean time, I have another project to work on. You may have already heard about this, but it is national writing a novel month (NaNoWriMo). The goal is to write 50,000 words in November of whatever topic you choose. I encourage all of you to give it a try. Even if you only get to 20K by the end of the month, at least you gave it a shot. Writing a novel is a challenging thing. It takes major commitment to get it done. However, there is something very satisfying in finishing a book. If you don't get it finished, at least you will learn something about yourself. I have heard from many people that they despise writing anything, but I think their mindset would change if they gave this a try. I know I just said that writing a novel is challenging, but it is a lot of fun too. To develop a story in your head, and then get it all out in words can be very enjoyable. You are the author, you can make characters do crazy things that you are too afraid to try or aren't able to (i.e. bungee-jumping, scuba diving, high speed driving *please don't try this one*, travel to the moon, travel to a foreign country). If you don't know something, you can just make it up; there is a lot of freedom in writing a novel(with some exceptions). Like I said, I am going to do this. It is already Nov. 13, and I haven't wrote one word for my novel, and to be honest, I am not entirely sure what to write about, but I feel no pressure in this--not to pound out page after page to get it done, or to come up with some stellar plot. I am just doing it to enjoy all aspects of writing. I want all of you to feel the same joys. So, before I put you to sleep with any more ramblings, I will wrap this up.

Give a novel a chance, more importantly, give yourself a chance. You may be impressed with what evolves. Take the next month and write what is in your head and what is in your heart. Good luck! I would love to hear that someone gave this a shot! Until next time, readers!

Kick down some doors!!

Hey everybody!

First and foremost, you will probably be happy to know that I have been writing lately and that means that I am closer to finishing untitled book number 2.

So, this entry will be about something very dramatic. One of my favorite books is The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. For all of you that haven't read it, it is over a thousand pages long. The first 400 or so are really good. Then, from 400-600 it is pretty boring b/c it has to set up for the end. And then, the final 400-500 is really good as well. It took a lot of effort to stick with the book during those 200 boring pages, but I am glad that I did. There probably have been many people who have read books (maybe even that one) and at some point they lost interest in it b/c it became boring. Well, for all of you writers out there, I have some words of wisdom.

Directly above where my desk sits, I have a poster full of writing tips and inspiration. One of my favorite is, "When things start to get boring, break down a door!" Now, I don't want a bunch of people walking around their houses breaking down doors. If you really have the urge to break down a door, do it in your writing. Say, you are at page 100 in your book. You have done really well with the first 80 pages but the last 20 you needed some back story, or setup and so it got a bit dry. Your solution for the problem. Do something totally crazy, unexpected, and absolutely abrupt!  Have a random car chase, have SWAT storm a characters apartment out of the blue, or throw a giant wrench into your story that makes it have a whole new twist to what is happening. Whatever it is, make it TOTALLY DRAMATIC. This may sound kind of crazy, but it works. After you settle down your story again, your readers will be more than happy to read another 20 pages (hopefully you won't need much more than that in setup) of not so dramatic writing. They will stick with your story to see if you have any more adrenaline filled moments at the end. I am sure when they read it, they won't be disappointed.

In my second novel, I decided my story was starting to fall a little flat. I decided some drastic measures were needed. My solution was to make certain, important characters be killed in a very dramatic form. I want my readers' heart rate to increase when they read what I have wrote. I want them to be entranced by the story. Killing off characters (especially important ones) really helps do that. What helps even more, is to do it in the middle of the story, that way you have the rest of the story to figure out what the other characters should do about it.

Whatever the case may be, spice up your story. Enthrall your readers with what you can make happen. Be crazy, be creative, make the impossible possible. People read fiction to be entertained, your one and only job as a writer is to do just that. Give it your all, and watch as it comes together in a dramatic way!