Copyright © 2009
Riverbend Publishing
$14.00 paperback
ISBN: 978-1606390139

One of the things I enjoy most about the independent author scene is the fluidty of the background in which we work. The process can be dynamic and it is fun to watch some of the iterations that books go through. For example, a book may be released under a one cover and then the author receives some feedback which sparks another idea, and shortly thereafter the cover has been changed. Or based upon reader feedback, the author may subtly change the focus or emphasis of a book. And there are the triumphs as well. Back in August the LL Book Review posted reviews of the winners of our review contest, and there was one conspicuous entry missing. Six-Hundred Hours of a Life by Craig Lancaster was reviewed and should have been the third review posted in August, however, we were contacted by Craig and requested to hold back the review as he had some very exciting news. Six-Hundred Hours of a Life had been picked up by a small publisher, Riverbend Publishing, who specializes in books about Montana, and Craig was in the process of working out the details with his new publisher. We were very excited and pleased for Craig and held back the review as per the wishes of the author. The book has now been released under Riverbend Publishing under the title of 600 Hours of Edward and we are able to publish the review of this fine book. One item of personal preference before jumping into the review. The new cover created for the title under Riverbend Publishing is pictured at the top of the review, but I prefer the original cover (right) which was created for Six-Hundered Hours of a Life.

What would life be like if you were a 39 year old man plagued with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and Asperger’s Disorder? What would happen if your routines were upset and suddenly life seemed to be spiraling out of control? 600 Hours of Edward takes you into the heart and mind of Edward Stanton, and through 600 hundred hours, or 25 days, of life with Edward. As a prelude to the story, Edward sets up the framework for why the book was written, which I have included in Edward’s own words, so the intention can not be misconstrued. Edward would prefer it.

This is a story of how my life changed. That is what one could call a dramatic statement. It‘s like when people find God; they say, “I found God, and it changed my life.” I did not find God. I am dubious that anyone can. When someone says he has found God, he doesn‘t mean it in the way that one would say he found a penny or something else tangible. He is talking about inner peace or something like that, I suppose. I don‘t know. I haven‘t found God, and I don‘t like supposition. I prefer facts.

Even without God, my life did change, and Dr. Buckley suggested that I write about it. She said that writing about it would be a good project for me and one that might even help me understand how it happened and why. Dr. Buckley is a very logical woman, and I always need a new project.

In looking back, I can fit what happened into 25 days, or 600 hours. I prefer to think of it in terms of hours, as I live my life more by a clock than a calendar. I will tell it as it happened, from where I viewed it. Others may have seen it another way. They can tell their own stories if they want to.

I‘ll start with the last day that everything was normal, or what I believed normal to be. That‘s the problem with belief: If you rely on it too heavily, you have a lot of picking up to do after you find out you were wrong. I prefer facts.

Edward Stanton has his days rigidly mapped out, with several rituals to complete as milestones throughout the day. Every morning upon waking, he must record the hour and minute of his waking, and then later, after retrieving the Billings Gazette, the actual temperatures from the previous day, as well as looking at the forecast which is not to be trusted, because Edward prefers facts. He breakfasts on corn flakes while reading the newspaper, frustrated by the way certain features, such as Dear Abby, appear in different sections of the paper and have no pattern as to where they will appear.

Edward is frequently frustrated by the rest of the world’s inability to keep to a precise schedule, and lack of consistency. When he becomes frustrated he writes letters of complaint. Prior to what is referred to as the Garth Brooks incident, Edward would draft his letters of complaint and send them out. At the culmination of the Garth Brooks incident, Edward’s father, Ted Stanton, bought him the house he now lives in after persuading Garth Brooks to drop the restraining order against Edward.

I think that my letters of complaint to Garth Brooks were entirely justified. If you look objectively at country music, you cannot come to any conclusion other than he ruined it. He also ruined a lot of pop music, especially when he pretended to be that Chris Gaines person and when he covered that song by Kiss. I merely wrote to him and let him know about the damage he was doing, because I thought that maybe he didn‘t know and would stop if he did. I had to write to him 49 times before he wrote back, but it wasn‘t really him. It was his lawyer.

Being a lover of country music myself, I laughed out loud about the Garth incident, and I have to agree with Edward on the whole Chris Gaines thing. Since the Garth Brooks incident Edward’s therapist, Dr. Buckley, convinces him to continue writing his letters of complaint, but to file them instead of sending them. In this way, he is able to alleviate some of his frustration with whatever incident caused his ire, and yet not bring himself any grief from repercussions. So the writing of complaint letters has become part of Edward’s ritual to follow his nightly viewing of Dragnet episodes (just the color ones between 1967 and 1970). In 2000, Edward recorded all of the episodes, in order, on videocassette, and watches one episode a night at 10:00 p.m. sharp, starting on January 1st with the first color episode and continuing throughout the year. They are all one of his favorites. Edward identifies with Sergeant Joe Friday’s love for the facts and his detachment from those he is dealing with.

Taking a leaf out of Edward’s book, I would like to document a complaint, albeit a minor one.

Dear Edward,

I’m sure you have your reasons for telling the reader each time you recorded your waking time during the course of the book that it was the XXX day of the year (287th – 311th) because it is leap year. While this repetition is entirely consistent with your character and I understand you gain some comfort from the repetition, I didn’t know if you were aware that for some readers, this tends to be a little monotonous. I realize you are chronicling the 600 hours where your life was turned upside down, but there are mundane parts which have been left out. Perhaps you should trust that the reader will know that it is leap year after the tenth or so iteration, and no longer need to tell us.

Respectfully, as always,

Your Reader

During the 600 hours chronicled in this book, Edward makes a foray into online dating, makes friends with a nine year old boy while painting his garage (three times because the unhelpful clerk at Home Depot couldn’t help him come to a single selection, which triggered a letter of complaint), later becomes friends with the boy’s mother, and feels helpless as his relationship with his father deteriorates. Due to the Asperger’s, Edward lives an isolationist life, so to actually take steps to reach out to connect with another human being through the online dating process represents a huge step forward for him. Through his growing relationship with Kyle, the nine year old boy, we are given a glimpse of Edward’s social developmental level as well, which is on par with Kyle or even a little lagging. I fell in love with the character of Edward though because while he has quirks in his view seemingly the rest of the entire world lives without, he tries so very hard to overcome those, and he has a good heart. Edward is truly an endearing character. He is simply confused, or to use one of Edward’s favorite words, flummoxed, by social interaction conventions, and has never had any practice with them.

In my own personal life, I am very familiar with the traits and symptoms of someone with OCD, as I have a brother-in-law who is afflicted with this disorder. Edward’s ritualistic behavior with recording his time of awakening, the weather, watching Dragnet precisely at 10:00 p.m. each night, eating the same foods week in and week out, are all very recognizable as traits of OCD. Lancaster touches very lightly on the fears which are associated with a break in these routines, and does not allow us into the twisted rabbit warren of rationale which is entailed in the compulsions. The obsession with Dragnet is well portrayed. It started around the same time Edward was forced to leave home and live on his own. Sergeant Joe Friday, with his non-emotional (normally) delivery and liking for the facts, is someone with whom Edward can gain a measure of comfort. Edward feels Sergeant Joe Friday would be more patient with him, and listen to the facts of the issues at hand, than his father, who increasingly communicates with Edward through a lawyer. The greater the divide with his father, the more Edward replaces him with the surrogate, Sergeant Joe Friday.

My familiarity with Asperger’s was limited to the character of Jerry on the TV show Boston Legal, so I took the opportunity to educate myself as to this disorder after reading 600 Hours of Edward. I was very interested to find that Asperger’s is actually a mild form of the Autistic Disorder, and here in the United States is classified as Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). As I read the diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s, I marveled anew at how beautifully Lancaster penned the character of Edward. The characteristics of Asperger’s were clearly evident, but subtly drawn so as not to get in the way of the story itself. It is humorous to look back upon a scene where Ted Stanton rushes in to save Edward, and is telling someone Edward has OCD. As Edward hears this, he thinks:

This shows what my father knows. The full story is that I‘m obsessive-compulsive and that I have Asperger syndrome.

After reading up on Asperger’s I realized how clearly evident this fact is and again paid homage to Lancaster’s pen. I could go on and on about all of the really fine points of this book, to the point where I might rival the 80,000 words of the novel itself. The bottom line is this is a book which should be experienced. It is a wonderful read, and since this is his debut novel, I eagerly await Craig Lancaster’s next offering. It’s time for you to pick up 600 Hours of Edward. What are you waiting for?

Preview 600 Hours of Edward on Craig’s Blog

Originally reviewed for the LL Book Review.

The single best piece of advice I can give you for being able to tell whether your work flows well or not is to read it out loud. Hearing the words gives you a sense of how they actually flow. Any time you stumble reading something out loud, mark it and continue on because you know that you need to go back and re-look at that passage. There is probably something that can be done to make it better. I realize that, at first, reading your work out loud will be uncomfortable, but it is a very important step to make sure that everything “sounds” right in your story.

I don’t embarrass easily, but when starting out writing, any time I read my work out loud (or heard someone else read it) I would turn bright red and wish the floor would open up so I could sink through it. When I was writing Misfit McCabe, I took a writing class and the structure of the class was that we had to bring in two typewritten pages each week and hand them in, and the class reader would then proceed to read everyone’s work one at a time, and then the class would discuss it and provide the feedback. When I realized that I had to sit in a class of strangers and hear my work read out loud by someone else, I was mortified. What if I wasn’t a very good writer? What if what I wrote sounded stupid? I was the youngest person in the class – what if I was just too young?

When it came my turn and the reader started reading my two pages, I couldn’t lift my eyes from my desk and I felt like my face was so bright red, I could have replaced Rudolph at the front of Santa’s sleigh to lead the way. I managed to survive and the teacher liked my work and provided some positive comments and gave me one or two pointers where I might make it even better. After the class, one of the other students asked me if I saw the teacher’s face when my pages were being read, and of course I had to say “no”. Week after week, it got a little easier to hear my work being read by someone else, and after that first week, I was able to read my own work (while by myself) without blushing.

Why am I sharing one of the moments in my life when I felt the most embarrassed? Because I want you to know that even though it may feel weird to read your work out loud, to hear the words you have written, that it will get easier with time and it’s very important to do. If you have someone who can read the words out loud while you follow along with a printed copy, it’s even better. The reason is that when someone else reads it, they don’t know the story and they will stumble over words that you as the writer know in advance and can unconsciously tweak so that they don’t sound awkward to you. It’s just another way to help you make your work better.

I have caught more mistakes in my writing by the simple method of reading the words out loud. Before I sent the book to a test reader group, I sat at my computer and read every single word in the book out loud once again, to make sure that I had taken care of all of those areas where the words might not be quite right.

____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2007 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

1. Where do you do your best writing? Is it in your bedroom, the living room, or somewhere outside? Where do ideas seem to flow for you? Wherever that place is for you, that’s where you should set up your writing space. While I was writing Misfit McCabe, my best place was the kitchen table. I thought it was my room, but for some reason, in my bedroom, I kept getting off track and couldn’t focus on writing. Now I do my best writing in a spare bedroom, also known as our computer room. Wherever your best place to write is, make sure it is comfortable and you have everything you need to hand.

   A comfortable seat – it could be a chair, a bean bag, a nice tree to lean against.
   If you write using pencils, make sure that you have several sharp pencils and erasers available. Or if you use pens, keep more than one on hand so you won’t run out of ink.
   Do you have enough paper?
   I work on the computer, so I don’t have to worry about pencils, pens, or paper during the creative process, however, I do need to make sure that where I am working is properly setup and comfortable.

2. What time of day do you get your best ideas? Is it morning, during the middle of the day, or at night? Of course, during the middle of the day will probably be hard for you because of school, and for me because of work. I have always done my best work at night going into the wee hours of the morning. For some reason, the creative juices seem to flow much better for me then and I can concentrate more clearly while my characters become alive for me. It’s almost like I can feel the creative vibrations in the air.
3. Noise is definitely a factor. Some people can’t work with noise and some people can’t work without it. I find the noise of television or conversation a distraction and for the most part like to work with only the sounds of nature creating the background noise. Sometimes, I do like to listen to classical music while I work as well. If you do like noise while you work, then play music or have the television on low sound. The last thing you want to do is to distract yourself from what you are working on.
4. Light makes a difference in your concentration factor as well. Do you like the light soft, or bright, or even no light at all? I do the majority of my writing now while looking at a computer screen, so my optimum light is a soft, indirect light. Overhead fluorescent lights tend to bother me, so if I am in a place that has those, I turn them off so I am do not get a headache from the glare that they cause.
5. Pay attention to the temperature of your writing area. If it is too cold, or you get too hot, you will start thinking about your comfort, which interrupts your writing process.
6. Do you write better with things to eat close to hand or not? I myself like to write with a big mug of tea to the right of my keyboard, within easy reach, so I don’t have to think about where the mug is, but can just grab it while I am thinking.
7. Make sure that your writing area is well organized. Some people believe that the area should be uncluttered to lead to an uncluttered mind, but others like to have toys around to help them in the creative process. I like to have a few familiar things around me as a stark writing area for me creates a blank mind rather than an uncluttered one.

By the way, all of the above are also good tips for creating a good environment for doing homework as well.

____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2007 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

Voice: Are you going to write using the first person or third person voice? When writing in the first person voice, you use “I” (or for first person plural, “we”) and the storytelling is limited to one character’s viewpoint. When writing in the third person voice, you use “he” or “she” and you have some additional options, like telling certain parts of the story from different characters’ view points. Most of Misfit McCabe is written using first person. See if you can tell when third person is used.

Point of View: What point of view boils down to is who is telling the story? Is one person telling the story, do you need several people to tell the story? Does the reader only get to experience the thoughts and feelings of one character or do you want them to know things that happen outside of your main character’s perspective? Sometimes a story will have so many different points of view that it becomes confusing to the reader because they are not sure who is telling the story now. If you are writing a story that has a shifting point of view (you want to tell the story from more than one character’s perspective) then you need to make sure that when you change point’s of view that the shift is well defined. Some ways to capture this is the start of a new chapter or paragraph (for shorter stories). As someone is reading your story, they should always know who is “talking”.

Misfit McCabe is written in first person and from the point of view of Katie for the majority of the book. We know what is happening to Katie, what she is thinking and feeling and we know it as if she herself is telling us the story. We don’t know anything outside of Katie’s perspective, what is happening to other people in the story when they are not with Katie, and we don’t know what the other character’s are thinking or feeling. If you choose to write something in first person, you can only write about that one character’s thoughts and feelings. For example, when Katie and Timmy are in the shed, I couldn’t write what Timmy was thinking or feeling, I could only tell you what seemed to be happening through Katie’s eyes, or what Katie thought Timmy might be thinking. What first person allows the writer to do is to bring a reader closer into the mind and feelings of their character. The use of first person is less common than third person, because in some ways it is more limiting. Sometimes detective or mystery stories are written in the first person, because the writer doesn’t want the reader to know anything outside of the point of view of the detective. That helps the writer to sustain a little more of the mystery. I chose to write Misfit McCabe in the first person because I thought it would help the reader’s identify more with Katie and help them to understand some of the way she was feeling.

When using third person to write your story, you can introduce the point of view of more than one character and you can describe thoughts, feelings, and actions that happen away from the main character. You can also choose to write a story from one point of view, but use third person to create a little distance between the reader and the character whose point of view is telling the story. For example, if you were writing a horror story and your character was a horrible person who went around killing people, you could choose to tell the story entirely from that character’s point of view, but you might want to use the third person voice because you want to create some distance between the reader and the character. In this case, you probably don’t want the reader to identify with the killer.

I am going to try and illustrate how the use of first person can help the reader identify with the feelings of a character vs. how third person can create a little distance.

Here is the first person example:
I was so mad that I felt like my head was going to burst. I had taken all of the insults from him that I could stand. It felt like they were churning inside me and any moment would come spewing back in the bitterest words I could find.

Now for the third person example:
Lorraine was so mad that she felt like her head was going to burst. She had taken all of the insults from him that she could stand. She felt like they were churning inside her and any moment would come spewing back in the bitterest words she could find.

Because first person uses I, it is easier for us to think in those terms of ourselves. We can say – “Yes I have felt just that way before too.” Using third person, we, as the reader, feel more like it is happening to someone else.

There’s actually a lot more I could say about point of view, but I think I’ll save that for another time. I just wanted to give you something to think about so that when you write a story, you know that you do need to think about these very important items and make a choice about which voice and point of view you want to use and why.
____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2007 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

There is a popular theory that if you had a room of monkeys typing on a keyboard and infinite amount of time, they would be able to replicate all of the great works of fiction or indeed any book ever written. So I guess my biggest problem is not having enough monkeys to do the writing for me.

Another theory is that to write a story, you start at the beginning, keep writing until you reach the end and then stop. This sounds easy, but when you start to put the words down all sorts of questions start cropping up. What is the beginning? How will I know when to end? How do I get from the beginning to the end?

Some authors create a very detailed outline of their story before they start to write it. They need to know every plot point before they can start writing the story. Once they have all of the details mapped out, they put the words on the page and the characters in the story follow the map.

Some authors don’t know where the writing is going to take them, they don’t map out their story line first, but just start with a concept (a setting, a character, an event) and see where it takes them. They approach writing with a “let’s see what happens next” attitude.

I actually fit in between the two. I need to know the basics of my story, but as I write, there are twists that happen that I didn’t know were going to happen. It’s almost like the story takes on a life of its own and the characters go in directions that I didn’t know they were going to go in, but eventually, they meet me back at the story line that I started with. It’s actually kind of fun when your characters start taking on a life of their own, because at that point, they start writing the story for you (maybe I do have monkeys in a room somewhere).

One thing that is very important to me is that I need to know my characters very well. They need to become “real” people to me. I imagine different scenarios (that are not in the story) and need to “know” how they will react. I have imaginary conversations with my characters to get a sense of who they are and what their opinions and attitudes are.

Not all authors have to “know” their characters like I do, but for me, if my characters are not like real people to me, I can’t write the story. So, how did I start Misfit McCabe? I had the basic story line from a dream I had and thought it would make a good story. Next, I had to get to know Katie really well because she was the main character and therefore the most important for me to know. Why was she a rebel? How did feel about the things happening in her life?

Did I have the entire story from the dream? No. Just the basic story of Katie being sent to live with her Uncle and a few things that happen to her there. I knew that she and her Daddy loved each other very much, but she had to leave anyway. Once I had decided what the major events would be for the story and knew Katie, then I started to write the story.

One very important thing to know about writing is that writing the story is just the beginning. Once you get the story down on paper (or on a computer file), you then go back and re-read and revise. You are looking for mistakes (like missing words) as well as changing some of the story (like adding a burning shed to the beginning). EVERY writer makes changes to their work because they always find something that they want to change, something that will make it better. No one starts with a story that doesn’t need changes. It doesn’t matter how many times I review a story, I will always see something that I want to change, so for me the hard part is determining when the story is good enough.

One teacher I had once told me that the ability to write a story was the ability to keep your behind in the chair long enough. Inspiration of what to write is the wonderful part because your brain is bubbling with ideas and they take hold and “haunt” you until you put them down on paper. Then comes the work of staying in a chair long enough to get the whole story down – and review it more times than you can count.
____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2007 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

     Man against Man
     Man against Nature
     Man against Self

I won’t go into too much detail on the categories right now because what you really need to understand is that without some sort of problem to overcome or struggle within a story, there really isn’t a story. Let’s see if I can help you understand what I mean.

Once upon a time, there was a bunny hopping through the forest. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. The bunny, Bernard, was happy because he had a good home, a loving family, and plenty to eat when he was hungry.

While the above might be a start to a story, it isn’t a story in itself because there is no conflict. There is nothing that the bunny has to resolve or work on. Everything is good and there is nothing wrong. While this is a happy state of events for Bernard, it doesn’t make anyone want to turn the page and find out what happens. Now if we use this as the start to a story, we need to put some conflict into the story.

Once upon a time, there was a bunny hopping through the forest. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. The bunny, Bernard, was happy because he had a good home, a loving family, and plenty to eat when he was hungry. While Bernard was hopping along without a care in the world, a shadow crossed the path in front of him. Bernard slowed down and looked around to see what was causing the shadow. His heart started racing, there was a hungry looking coyote to the left in the bushes, just waiting for Bernard to hop on by. Bernard turned quickly and started hopping away as fast as he could, looking furiously for a hole to hide in. Somewhere that the coyote would be too big to follow him in. His heart was racing and he could hear the coyote’s paws pounding on the grass behind him getting closer with each step. As the coyote lunged, Bernard hopped to the side and he could feel the hot, stinky breath of the coyote as he gnashed his teeth, just missing Bernard. Finally Bernard spied a hole and hopped as quickly as he could down the hole. Bernard took a deep breath and his heart started to beat more slowly. He was safe at last.

Now we have a story because there is conflict (the coyote wanted to eat Bernard, and Bernard did not want to be eaten). We also have resolution of the conflict (Bernard hid in a hole where the coyote could not get him). With Misfit McCabe, we have conflict right at the start because Katie is doing something she knows that she shouldn’t do and burns down a shed, her Daddy wants her to go live with Uncle Charley and she doesn’t want to, and her Daddy being ill are all examples of conflict. You’ll have to keep reading to find out what happens and whether Katie faces more conflict and what happens to resolve them.

One other thing that a story must have is a plot. The plot is the structure of a story. It is how the author arranges the events in the story. Each change in the direction of the story or event is called a plot point. In the story with Bernard, the first plot point is when he sees the shadow. Let’s imagine for a moment that a story is like a clothes closet. In the closet is a rod to put all of the hangers on. We’ll call this the story line. It has a definite beginning and a definite end. A story line is the bare bones of the story – almost like a summary. The hangers are the plot points and you put them on the rod or the story line. The clothes that go on the hangers are like the descriptive portions of the story; what things look like, feel like, smell like, taste like, and sound like. How you arrange the hangers with the clothes on them is what makes the plot or structure. Do you arrange them by color? by time sequence? fabric type? Are the hangers close together or far apart? All of these things make a difference in the story.

____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2007 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The easy answer is: LIFE

Actually, there are several ways in which an author can come up with an idea for a book.

Through reading or hearing about a current or past event. Maybe you read about a historical event and something about the situation intrigues you and you start imagining characters and how they deal with the events occurring. This can be through newspapers, something you see on TV, or even other books you read.

Visual imagery – You might see a picture that draws your attention and you can start building up a story about what happens in the picture. I still have one book that I haven’t written where I came up with the idea in this very same way. I was visiting a friend’s house and she had a picture on the wall of sketching of two girls and just looking at the picture, I started to imagine the story of what was happening in the life of those two girls. I even knew their names just by looking at the picture (Cassandra and Alexandra). I have jotted down my ideas for this story and one day will get around to writing it.

A setting – I once went to school in Owatonna, Minnesota, and realized that the school I went to would be a great setting for a story. I knew that my main character would be someone who was not used to having any rules enforced on her, and the school rules were very strict. This story will actually (when I finish it) cover the course of 3 books, because the story that I want to tell with it is too long for one book.

Daydreams – Sometimes your mind wanders off on its own and something you see or hear sparks a line of “what if” thinking or imagining and you realize that when you get through to the end of the “what if” that you have the basis for a story.

Dreams – Believe it or not, Misfit McCabe was the result of a dream that I had. When I woke up from my dream, I knew that I had the making of a story – I knew the beginning, the middle and the end. I didn’t know all of the details of course, but the major points of the story were all there and all I had to do was write it.

Reading another story – Sometimes you read a story and think to yourself “that’s not the way I’d write it”, and then write your own version of the story. Or maybe it’s just part of the story where you think an underlying part of the story was left out.

Study an author whose books you like. Identify what it is that you like about how they write. It’s also important identify things that you don’t like and know why. It helps you to avoid the same thing in your own work.

Some writers carry a notepad wherever they go so they can jot down ideas as they come up. Or they will keep a journal to at least write something down every day. The more you write, the better you can become.

The internet is like a cornucopia of ideas waiting to be found. Google or Yahoo writing prompts and you will find several exercises to give you ideas. Something like: Start with a character that has an unusual fear. What is the fear? How does the character react when he/she has to face that fear? If you start with an idea like that, you are well on your way to creating a story, as well as character development.

These are just a few of the ways in which you can come up with a story. Can you think of others?
The main thing to remember is that you shouldn’t try to force yourself to come up with ideas. Sometimes the biggest obstacle to coming up with an idea is the fear of not being able to come up with an idea. Just relax and let your mind wander. Something will pop in sooner or later.

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Copyright 2007 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

From the class:
We really like your story. It is easy to visualize. We liked the lesson we learned about the kids in the burning shed. We think other chapters will be good to teach us lessons too. We have just finished the first chapter. We tried to draw connections to our own lives. We learned that authors use their own lives to help them write sometimes. Ms. Pam says that you have long hair and blue eyes just like Katie. Were you thinking of events in your life when you were writing this story?

We hope Katie gets to go back home someday. We would really like to finish the book in one day, but Ms. Pam won’t let us go ahead yet.

We did find one sentence with an editing correction to make. There is a word missing in the following sentence (we are writing the missing word in red).

“Katie, sweetheart, it’s because I love you so much that I want you to go live with your Uncle Charley.”

We can’t wait to read the rest! Ms. Pam says we might get to start taking parts of it home to read so we can come back to class and discuss it.

My response:
Thanks so much for sending me the email. I am glad you are enjoying the story so far and hope that you enjoy the rest as much as you have the first chapter.

Thank you for your sharp eyes in finding the missing word. Believe it or not, something that easy to see can be very hard when you go back to proof your writing. Proof means to review your manuscript (the book) for errors. I’m sure Ms. Pam proofreads your writing work and marks the mistakes to help point them out to you. The reason it is difficult to find those errors, whether the error is punctuation, spelling, missing words or any type of error, is that by the time you are reviewing the manuscript for errors, you know it so well that your mind fills in the missing bits or corrects the punctuation. Since your mind knows that the word is supposed to be there, it supplies it and your eye does not “see” that it is missing.

This is the reason why an author should ALWAYS have someone else proofread the manuscript after they have gone through it, because the last thing you want to do is submit something to a publisher with mistakes in it. (It’s a good idea for homework too.)

An author does draw on their own life to help them create their stories, but not just about the events of their lives, but on the emotions, opinions and attitudes. While it is true that Katie and I share long, blonde hair and blue eyes, we are also two very different people. (I never burned down a shed.) She, like me, is somewhat of a tomboy, trying to find out who she is, and is very emotional. The actual experiences that Katie is going through, experimenting with smoking and drinking, running away from home, being sent to live with relatives, has never been a part of my life.

How can I write about it then? Well, I watch people and listen to their stories, and because I have a good imagination and am very empathetic (the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner) I can imagine how they feel or would feel if certain things were happening.

Since you have just finished the first chapter, I can tell you that when I originally wrote this book, most of what you have read so far was not even a part of the story. In the original manuscript, the story started with Katie getting on the bus and leaving home. I then had a flashback sequence where Katie was thinking about the events leading up to her being put on the bus to go live with Uncle Charley. In that version, the shed did not burn down and she and Timmy didn’t try smoking or drinking. That part was actually added a few years after I finished the book.

Why did I change it? I had the book accepted by one agent who had it for a few years trying to find a publisher for it, and then the agency was changing direction and they were no longer going to handle my genre (a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content) of book. So, I started sending it out to other agents trying to interest them in helping me to get the book published. One agent responded that she would like to see a more action packed beginning, so I went back to the drawing board and tried to come up with something that would grab your (the reader) attention from the get-go. I think burning down a shed was a pretty good way to get your attention, don’t you?

To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review