Tomorrow I will have a guest blogger, Kenneth Weene, who will introduce readers to his latest book, Memoirs From the Asylum.
I have not yet read his book, but the few excerpts I’ve read have me intrigued. Here is a SAMPLE from American Chronicle, where Ken was a guest blogger on May 14th.
Kenneth Weene is a New Englander by birth and disposition. He grew up outside of Boston and spent his summers in Maine. Although he lived for many years in New York and now resides in Arizona, Ken has never lost his accent nor his love of the northeast.
Having gone to Princeton, where he studied economics, Ken went on to train as a psychologist and to become an ordained minister. Over the years he has worked as an educator, pastoral counselor, and psychotherapist.
Married to Roz Weene, artist and jewelry creator, for over forty years, Ken is a strong believer in the joy of love.
Ken’s writing started with poetry, and his poetic work has appeared in numerous publications – most recently featured in Sol and publication in Spirits, and Vox Poetica.
An anthology of Ken’s writings, Songs for my Father, was published by Inkwell Productions in 2002. His short stories have appeared in Legendary, Sex and Murder Magazine, The New Flesh Magazine, and The Santa Fe Literary Review.
In 2009 a novel, Widow’s Walk, was published by All Things That Matter Press, which has also just published Ken’s second novel, Memoirs From the Asylum.
In his latest novel Ken answers the questions: What is it like to work inside a state hospital or to be a patient in such a hospital? What is it like to live inside the mind of such a patient?
The book has three central characters: a narrator who has taken refuge from his fears of the world, a psychiatrist whose own life has been damaged by his father’s depression, and a catatonic schizophrenic whose world is trapped inside a crack in the wall opposite her bed.
This is the interwoven story of those lives, a story that includes love, sexuality, violence, deaths, celebrations, and circuses. As the plot unwinds, the reader learns a great deal about the nature of futility, frustration, and freedom.
Please stop by over the weekend and say hello to Ken and read more about his book.
Sounds like an interesting book. I’ll try to get here tomorrow.
Thanks, Carol. I think you will enjoy what Ken has to say.
Sounds intriguing. Will o my best to drop by.
For writers, outlining can be extremely helpful. Not only for PLOT but for MOTIVATION. Outlining doesn’t only occur before the story starts but everyday as I work through the novel.
In the beginning of June, I start a 50,000 word novel for BuNoWriMo and have 30 days to write it. And, if my math is correct, that’s 1500 words per day. That’s a lot. It’s tough to motivate yourself to write that many words if you’re only used to writing up to 1000.
That’s where outlining comes in.
Now, I’ve already got my novel outlining done but when writing a novel, I like to do a daily outline. What’s a daily outline? Well, here’s what I do.
1) I take my novel notebook and break a page or two into 15 sections and number it 1-15. (That’s 1500 divided by 100.) Why? Because in my mind 100 words is about a paragraph. And, in my mind, writing 15 paragraphs is easier to swallow than writin 1500 words. Below is what a 100 words looks like.
‘Not going to happen, Sport,’ Moses replied. The phone rang and he went to answer it in the hall. ‘This stomach is as strong as iron.’ He punched his paunch and watched his round belly wiggle up and down in front of him. Who was he kidding? In the ten years since he got married, he went from the healthy weight of a naïve, doughnut-eating student working on his doctorate in history to a pastry-loving Detective Constable who went from home to car to desk and back again. Sadly, now at forty-one, climbing stairs left him out of breath.
2) Think about the scene you will write for that day. It may be two scenes or part of the scene from the day before. Just think of the scene and what goals you want to accomplish from writing that scene.
For example, if you’re planing a scene from the POV of the murderer, you may have the goal of explaining the killer’s motives or feelings. You have the goal of describing the murder and reaction of the victim.
3) Break those goals into 15 parts. You don’t have to do it in the order you write the scene, just in the order you think of them.
For instance, in the example above, the first 100 could be – the murderer catching sight of the victim and describing how the victim looked. The second 100 could be, what does the murderer say to the victim before he kills him. The third, describe the weapon. The fourth, description of the murderer’s feelings of guilt or hate. And so on…
4) When you begin your writing for the day, use these points to write your words for the day. If you end up with extra points after your 1500 words for the day are complete, either move the points forward to finish the scene the next day or if the scene is done, discard them.
Maribeth, thanks for the tips. Best of luck with your writing challenge. I know better than to commit to something like that. I do a lot of words a day, but not that many for a book. Too much journalism work that doesn’t leave enough time for fiction. But I’ve got to pay the bills somehow.