Tag Archives: writing

Aug 3 2019

Daydreamer a Vlog by Janice Seagraves

 

Daydreamer

By Janice Seagraves

 

Hi, I’m Janice Seagraves a writer and a proud Daydreamer.

I wrote this a while back. After I was triggered by a memory about one of my grade school teachers. She caught me daydreaming while I sat gazing out the window. She got in my face and shouted, “No daydreamer has ever gotten anywhere!”

Now that I am older, I beg to differ. If this woman was still alive today, I would like to ask her why? Why did she feel it necessary to crush a young girl’s spirit?

Why?

Crush and embarrassed—I was, but it didn’t stop me. I am to this day a daydreamer.

If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be an artist or a writer. I proudly proclaim myself to be a stubborn daydreamer.

As a child, I watched too much TV.  I can only blame Gilligan’s Island reruns and as a grown up becoming addicted to the Survivors show which led me into the what if’s that inspired my writing.

What if a person could survive alone on a deserted island, and found another person washed up on shore? What if they fell in love?

My what if’s turned into daydreams then led me to write a manuscript called Windswept Shores, which became my first published book.

My Daydreams helped create it, the rest was hard work. I kept my butt firmly planted in my chair keep my fingers moving.

Here are 8 more daydreamers:

  1. A daydreamer went on vacation in Spain and dreamed about the speed of light, his name was Albert Einstein.
  2. A daydreamer dreamed about perfecting the bulb, his name was Thomas Edison.

 

  1. A daydreamer dreamed the last movements of The Messiah oratorio, his name was Frederic Handel.
  2. A daydreamer dreamed about a mocking crow and wrote a poem. His name was Edger Allen Poe.
  3. Two brothers dreamed about flying, their names were Orville and Wilbur Wright.
  4. A daydreamer dreamed of being a kid again and floating down the mighty Mississippi on a raft. His name was Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain.
  5. A bored socialite daydreamed of being in the South before and during the civil war, her name was Margaret Mitchell. And you may remember her big hit, Gone with the Wind.

 

  1. A Baptist minister went to Washington and gave a speech called “I have a Dream,” which prompted the 1964 Civil Rights Act. His name was Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Where would we be without our daydreamers?

 

Are you a daydreamer? Leave a comment and let me know if you are.

 

 

 

Apr 16 2019

Write Time in scenes by Janice Seagraves

 

Writing Time In Scenes

by Janice Seagraves

 

Hi, my name is Janice Seagraves.

Today, I thought I’d talk about time in writing. I don’t mean the day or week or month, but the speed in which things happen. Have you ever had someone tell you that your scene went too fast or maybe the opposite, your scene was very slow? And not in a good way.

Here’s some tips on how to fix that.

First, if your scene is going fast, you can odd more detail to slow it down. Believe me this trick works. Don’t know what to add in? Then I suggest describing what is happening in minute detail. Add in colors, textures, how things smell. Was the scent in the area nice, sour, or did it smell like something died? Maybe there is a background buzz that is irritating or soothing one of your characters? Add in details in all its glory: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Go deeper into your characters’ feelings. Add a pause as something else happens.

I had a scene that my critique partners said went too fast, so I added in more detail, more feelings, and more internal dialogue of one of the main characters. Then as they headed out, I wrote a pause. The heroine speaks to someone, while the hero is chumping at the bit to get her walking again then takes her arms and drags her down the road. And having one character wanting to leave the area, while the other is speaking to a secondary character can make the scene tense.

If you need to speed up a scene, then you’ll need to lose some of the detail. One time I added what in the business is called a ticking clock to speed things up. One of the characters is urging the others to hurry. His frustration shows whenever anything slows down. Have the characters speak in quick, short bursts.  One liners. No long dialogues. And if there is only two characters, you can leave off some of the dialogue tags. No one ambles anywhere in this scene. It’s all dashing, sprinting, and doing things fast.

Apr 9 2019

Blog Post

It was my turn to post on Romance Books ‘4’ Us Blog.

I wrote about how I handled harsh critiques. And it has one of my vlogs attached to it.

Please like and subscribe.

https://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2019/03/harshcritiques-harsh-critiques-by.html