L. M. Montes

The Write Review

Posted on March 25, 2021March 22, 2021 by L. M. Montes

Sometimes we’re asked to write a review of a book. At first you smile and agree to do it. You’re excited to finish it so you can write it, so you set out reading. You read it cover to cover and loved it. You loved it so much you couldn’t put it down. However, there were some parts you felt could have been improved upon. So you jump onto Amazon or some other book venue to leave your review. Once at the appropriate page to write your review, the cursor blinks back at you in rapid succession. Your brain goes blank. What do you write?

For starters, whenever you are critiquing someone’s writing, it’s best to start out with the positives first. What did you like about the book? What worked really well? What was your favorite part and why?

After you finish the positives, you get into the negative aspects of the writing. Now, when I say negatives, I DON’T mean rip it apart with nasty, rude comments. That won’t get anywhere with anyone and it isn’t mature or professional. A better way of putting this is BE HELPFUL. Tell the author what it needs more of. What did you not like about the book and why? Point out a few places in the text that didn’t quite work and why.

Lastly, sum up your critique with a conclusion. This doesn’t have to be lengthy. A few quick sentences that reiterates your overall impression, is fine.

Editing

The Binder

Posted on March 24, 2021March 22, 2021 by L. M. Montes

In December 2019 I wrote an article entitled Writing Stability. In that article I mentioned keeping a writing binder for the writing project you’re working on. It really doesn’t matter if you write by the seat of your pants or plan your novel out in advance, a binder to keep all of your information straight can only serve to help you.

Possible Sections to Include in Your Binder

Characters— This section will include everything about each of your characters. Possible types of information include: physical features, likes/dislikes, occupation, their role in the story, fears, character arcs, just to name a few. You could even create subsections for each character if you like.
Settings— Included here can be maps, setting descriptions, list of places and their significance, etc.
Story— I have a section in my binder with this label. What I use it for are ideas for my novel. Sometimes I’ll do a free write or I’ll write a quick plot summary for an idea.
Style Sheet— Here I keep a style sheet to keep the technical details consistent. For example, are you going to write your numbers out or not, make a list of words that MUST be capitalized consistently throughout, names and dates of events (It’s easy to lose track of this information when you’re writing). This is just a small list. What you decide you need to go in this section is up to you. When you’re editing later, this section will be your friend.
Doodling— This would be where you jot down any revision ideas or play around with language (If you’re writing fantasy, making up words can be fun).

You can always add to the above list. It depends on what kind of story you’re writing. I write urban fantasy, so I have additional sections such as, realms, fantasy creatures, photos, and questions. I love my binder because it frees up room in my head (kind of like a memory extension for my brain, LOL). If you don’t want to use a binder, a journal works well too. I’ve used both.

Writing

A Blue Streak

Posted on March 23, 2021March 22, 2021 by L. M. Montes

You wake up on a Monday morning. The day is gray outdoors, much like the weekend had been, and the temperature is 42 degrees Fahrenheit. Already you have a dull ache in your head that starts traveling down your neck to your extremities. Coffee isn’t helping either. You sit in your favorite easy chair, drink a second cup of coffee, and watch the morning news. Thinking the day has to get better than this, you get up and go to the bay window and look out. Then you see it. It’s a silver lining in your current humdrum Monday.

In the distance this silver lining is coming in the form of a streak of blue sky across the horizon. Hope. Is it a foreshadowing of the rest of the day? Will the blue sky reach through the gray clouds, pull them back, and shine in all its glory?

Sometimes our writing goes like this as well. We can sit at our computer for days at a time punching out 400 to 500 words. Your goal was 1000 per day or more. Then the inspiration hits. Is this the inspiration you needed for your writing to take off again?

Whether that blue streak of sky gets bigger or not, and whether that writing inspiration grows or not. Use it anyway. Make it grow intrinsically and use it. Focus. You can do this. Relish those humdrum days because it gives you more opportunities to experience the great ones when they come.

Writing

Why Write?

Posted on March 22, 2021March 22, 2021 by L. M. Montes

On Twitter the other day an author I follow asked this question: ‘In four words, why do you write?’ I tried to answer this in four words, and I couldn’t do it. Why? I couldn’t find the right words. My mind went blank. Then later I realized, I couldn’t quite capture the joy writing gives me using any amount of words. It makes me feel that great internally. Inside, when I write, my self-worth heightens, my joy and excitement about creating something heightens. Yes, it may need to be worked on and rewritten later to perfect it, but that’s part of the fun. So, if I had to choose four words to explain why I write, I would choose these:

Heightened self-worth, excitement, joy

In four words, why do YOU write?

Fiction

Real Life with a Twist

Posted on March 21, 2021 by L. M. Montes

You are up in the mountains hiking with a friend. Along your path you come across a lone pint size milk carton. You’re a fiction writer, and you’re looking for ideas for another story but coming up with zilch. The hike in the mountains you feel will do you some good and perhaps get the wheels of creativity going. The milk carton accomplishes this goal as soon as you see it. It’s as if an electric spark shocked that story center of the right side of your brain. In an instant, your mind has a ‘What if ‘ scenario in place.

What if the milk carton had drops of blood on it, and the blood belonged to someone who vanished without a trace 50 years ago? The blood is fairly fresh too.

In reality, the milk carton is just a milk carton and it most likely belonged to another hiker. They finished the milk and didn’t want to take the carton with them, so they left it there. BOOM. That’s it. BUT, what you did with your ‘what if ‘scenario is put a twist on reality. That’s what fiction does. I love to put a creative spin on things. It makes life interesting.

Writing

WarmUp

Posted on March 19, 2021 by L. M. Montes

Do you warm up your writing engine before you start working on your writing project? I guess I would have to say, for me, it’s split 50/50. Sometimes I will warm up and sometimes I won’t. It all depends on whether or not the creative juices are flowing when I sit down to write. If I know what I’m going to write next in my work in progress (WIP), I don’t do a warm up. If I’m stuck, I do a warm up. That will get the ideas flowing again.

Types of Warmup Exercises

Writing prompts
Journal writing
Writing a blog article
Write a poem
Look at a painting/picture:
- Describe the setting
- Describe what’s is going on (Remember, a picture is worth 1000 words)
- Write a poem using your descriptions (Who knows, you might be able to use it in your WIP)
Take a walk in a cemetery. Speculate about the people who once lived. What do you think they looked like? What do you think they did for a living? How do you think they died and/or what’s the story behind it? Come up with scenarios/stories regarding random people. Did they know each other? If so, what was their relationship? You could go on and on with this.
Go to the beach. What do you see? What connections can you make with what’s in front of you? Maybe the people you see walking along the beach are sea people. If so, why are they there on the beach? What’s their story? (FEEL FREE TO STEAL THIS IDEA IF YOU LIKE)

Don’t be daunted by the blank page ever again. The only reason the blank page is a stopper is because nothing is there. So put something in your head first before you look at that blank page, then you’ll be able to readily transfer it to the blank page when you look at it.

Social

Pick Yourself Up

Posted on March 18, 2021 by L. M. Montes

We all have days when we feel less than adequate. It’s a battle we all face at one time or another. When we feel this way, it’s all to easy to slip into that ‘I don’t want to do…’ mode. Yet, there are deadlines we have to keep, whether they are self-imposed deadlines or otherwise. What is one supposed to do when we feel this way? I’m not going be unrealistic; it’s difficult to climb the ladder out of this mode.

I felt like this yesterday (3/17/2021). My creativity was sapped and I couldn’t think up anything that would contribute to my current WIP. Have you felt this way at times? I was full of self-doubt. Have you had these thoughts too at one time or another? On Twitter I read a tweet by another author who wrote about feeling just this way, and she felt like giving up her writing. She went on to say that one of her fans (not knowing she was feeling that way) sent her a tweet telling her how much she enjoyed her books and even included a photo of the newly purchased book this author just released. What a joy that must have been for that author. That simple act from a fan renewed the author’s faith/confidence in herself.

Since we are all different with different interests, jobs, and hobbies; we will get lifted up in other ways. Sometimes we have to lift ourselves back up. That isn’t always easy to do. I think we need to find the source of our doldrums ourselves at times.

What can we try?

Talk to someone
Meditation
Workout and get the blood/endorphins flowing
Get off your phone. Yes, this means stop playing the games/scrolling social media, etc…
Pray (yes, this really does work). You have to be receptive to this. Spend time with the Lord. He enjoys your company. Sometimes we are the impatient ones and expect results NOW. It doesn’t always work that way.

Even though negating moments such as this don’t feel very good, I firmly believe it keeps us humble and in check. Stay strong. Ask yourself what can be done to turn the negative feelings into positive feelings. You CAN do it. I have faith in you.

Social

Sea Breeze

Posted on March 13, 2021 by L. M. Montes

Sea Breeze

Writing

The Writer’s Mark

Posted on March 5, 2021 by L. M. Montes

Whether you know it or not, you leave tracks of yourself in places. No, I don’t mean visible tracks. Although, I bet that’s what many of you were thinking after you read that sentence, LOL. Seriously though, when we write and others read our work, something from you is left behind. It could be a mental picture, an emotion, a thought(s) or opinion about the story or stories, a yearning to read more (or less). Whatever it is you leave behind, a mark is left, and it’s a mark no other writer can leave.

Each writer has his/her own mark that is indigenous to them. No other writer can replicate it no matter how hard they try. It’s all in your word choice and expressions you use. When someone edits your work, be sure they don’t alter the YOU you put in it. If they do, then they’re putting themselves in it, and you don’t want that. I don’t think they do this on purpose. It’s something that happens and we need to be aware of it. But hey, you might like what they did with it and keep the changes they made.

Leaving a mark also means giving of yourself, so others can take the good you pass on and use it. Maybe it will inspire them to become a writer. That happened with me. When I was in middle school, I read a short story my older sister wrote about a young girl who goes and stays with her grandpa for the summer. It was a very heart warming story, and it left me wanting to write like that too. Although, I don’t write like her. I write like me, and I write fantasy fiction. That’s the only story she ever wrote, and I wish she wrote more. She’d make a great children’s author. But I was inspired by her because of the MARK she left by her own writing.

Writing

Out of the Way

Posted on February 18, 2021 by L. M. Montes

Sometimes we put up barriers when we write. This is different for everyone. Some of us analyze too much, while others plan too much. Yet some may strive for perfection before moving on. My barrier is the analyze thing. I question everything. Not that questioning things is bad to do. We should do that, but when you continue questioning whether what you wrote or in which place a scene/scenes was put, it takes up precious writing time.

Another author I follow and get advice from, told of a first time writer working on his first novel. This young writer asked his advice on his first chapter. So the author read the young writer’s first chapter and ended up being very impressed with it. He asked for more. The young writer didn’t have anymore to show, as he had been working on the first chapter for months trying to get it just right/perfect. The author shook his head and told the young writer to stop striving for perfection. Why? If you do that, you will never get your book written. As long a time it took him to get chapter one finished, he could have had multiple chapters finished had he focused more on getting the story out.

The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. You just need to get the story written. When that first draft is finished, THEN go back to square one and change what you don’t like. This may be difficult at first, but with practice of letting go and letting the story unfold as it comes, perfection will take a back seat eventually.