An Exhilarating Ride!

Today I sent my book off to the printer. It’s print-on-demand, so in a few days I’ll have hard copies in my hand!

It's been a long journey. The idea for the book came over 35 years ago, and I've been working it on in a focused way for the last fifteen. At times, I was exhausted, and discouraged, but I kept going because the story wouldn't let me stop.

I was reminded, last night, of “The Bicycle Poem.” This morning I read it again and realized it’s the perfect poem for writers. If I’ve shared it before forgive me, but here it is again.
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The Road of Life

At first I saw God as my observer, my judge,
Keeping track of the things I did wrong,
So as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die.
He was out there sort of like a president.
I recognised His picture when I saw it, but I really didn’t know Him.

But later on when I met Christ,
It seemed as though life were rather like a bike ride,
But it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Christ was in the back,
Helping me pedal.

I don’t know when it was that He suggested we change places,
But life has not been the same since.

When I had control, I knew the way.
It was rather boring, but predictable. . .
It was the shortest distance between two points.

But when He took the lead,
He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains,
and through rocky places at breakneck speeds.
It was all I could do to hang on!
Even though it looked like madness,
He said, “Pedal!”

I worried and was anxious and asked, “Where are you taking me?”
He laughed and didn’t answer, and I started to learn to trust.
I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure.
And when I’d say, “I’m scared,” He’d lean back and touch my hand.

He took me to people with gifts I needed,
Gifts of healing, acceptance, and joy.
They gave me gifts to take on my journey,
My Lord’s and mine.

And we were off again.
He said, “Give the gifts away; they’re extra baggage.
Too much weight.”
So I did, to people we met, and I found that in giving
I received, and still our burden was light.

I did not trust Him at first, in control of my life.
I thought He’d wreck it.
But He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners,
Knows how to jump to clear high rocks,
Knows how to fly to shorten scary passages.

And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places,
And I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze in my face
With my delightful, constant companion, Jesus Christ.

And when I’m sure I just can’t do any more
He just smiles and says. . . “Pedal!”

Author unknown

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So, dear author/writer friend, look on Jesus’ face today. See His triumphant, delighted smile.

And just pedal.

Photoshoot Do's

So Kristen, bless her, has asked for a post on the Do’s and Don’t’s of Photoshooting. I’m happy to oblige. There’s lots of fun stuff to say, so I’ll do this topic in two posts.

In this one I’ll give you a list of my Photoshoot Do’s. Next post I’ll give you the Don’ts.

I wanted a photoshoot to get pictures I could use for my book cover, in my book video trailer and on my website. Since I’m marketing and selling the book only online, both my trailer and my website are extremely important. I wanted to find models to represent my characters and film them doing things from scenes in the book. I was very blessed to find models for six of my characters among my friends and family. Many of them not only looked like the characters in my head, they also had personalities to match. It was serendipitously/miraculously fun to find them, and they were delightful to work with. So here’s how it went.

First, a warning: In these posts I might talk like I’m a Photoshoot expert. I’m not. I’m a rank amateur who’s too unpublished and too poor to merit the services of a professional. I’m just having fun here, spouting off about my own experience as an amateur.

Remember that.

If you’re an author with a backer, this post will do you no good. In fact, it might even do you some harm. It might harm everyone, for that matter, but if you’re an amateur, you won’t figure that out so it won’t hurt too much.

Having now been warned, you are welcome to read about my photoshooting experience if you like.

If you are going to do your own photoshoot,

Do:

1. Plan, plan, plan. Every idea you have for a picture should be listed on an excel sheet, with side columns entitled, Photo #, Shoot Time, Models, Setting, Description of Scene, and Props. All the boxes in those columns should be filled in with details, details, details. Then the whole sheet should be re-organized and re-worked until you have the most efficient plan. You will run off a copy of this excel sheet for every person involved in the shoot, so everyone will know what’s happening, when and how.

2. Be considerate of your models. The shooting should be timed for their convenience, and/or for ease of movement from one setting to another. I scheduled all shots of my main character alone at the beginning. Next came shots of him with one other character. Then came shots I needed of those two with a third, etc. I estimated how long each shot would take, and set specific times when each of my models needed to be present. That way they didn’t have to hang around long before their shoot time. Most came for the whole day, just for fun, but I wanted to give them that option.

3. Pay attention to transportation demands. If your shots require several different settings, plan to do all shots in one place at the same time if your model schedule allows. We were able to do all the shots within walking distance of my main character’s house, so this was not a huge problem. We had some shots on his front lawn, some in the city park behind his house, and the ones that needed to be taken against a plain backdrop, so the backgrounds could be easily removed for photoshopping, we took against the concrete wall of the tennis court next door.

4. Make the event fun for everyone. Your mindset and attitude is key for this one. We all agreed beforehand to approach the whole project as an experimental adventure. If a photo worked, that was great. But “the world as we know it” was not going to end if the whole project bombed, so we were able to relax and enjoy the process. The creative juices flowed freely, and so did the laughter. The only downside was that I couldn’t get pictures of my characters scolding each other, because they liked each other and were having too much fun to glare. I kept saying, “This is not funny. He is going to kill you. You have to look at least a little bit upset.” After the shoot was over, Zinovy took us all to lunch at a local restaurant. A good time was had by all.

5. Make provision for contingencies. Especially if the shoot is outdoors. It poured rain the week before our photoshoot, in a month that was supposed to be full of summer sun, and the forecast was for solid rain the day of the shoot. I prayed off and on all night. It poured until 4:00am, when the rain suddenly stopped. By 6:30 it had not started again, and, though the sky was full of threatening clouds, we decided to go for it. We had a beautiful morning. The overcast skies pleased the photographer, who didn’t want to deal with sun glare, and it only began raining again toward the end of the shoot, which we finished with an umbrella over the camera and a total disregard of the wet by everyone else involved. Our camp followers—a motley crew of friends and family members—carried jackets and kept the dog from running in front of the camera as much as possible. Everything worked out just fine.

6. Take a series of action shots for action scenes. This was one of the most important specific decisions we made. Because the director (moi) was an amateur, and we were not working with trained actors, we knew it would be hard to get natural or realistic poses. So I asked the cameraman (also an amateur, though a very talented one), to take a series of shots of the models in each of the action scenes. Then we could pick the best photo from each series. We ended up with so many frames of some of the shots that we could have made a video out of them, and I had lots of choices when I selected the stills. Most of the shots looked very natural, unless the characters were supposed to be mad at each other.

So that’s all I can think of at the moment. I’m sure there are other ideas I could share, but it’s 3:00 am, I’m brain dead, and I have an appointment with my web designer eight hours from now. In any case, I’m pretty sure if you follow these suggestions, you’ll have a great time and everything will work out well.

Not@hng caaan g#o rong.

Too Much to Say

I've been so busy working on "the book" I haven't had time to blog about it, and now I have so many things to say I don't know where to begin!

I wonder if anything I say here is even helpful to anyone. If it isn't I might as well stop wasting cyber space! Or ethernet?? (I need to get out my handy-dandy Usborne Computer Dictionary and look up some vocab words. Will it matter that the dictionary was published six years ago in England??)

So I'm going to ask you to suggest where I should start with the blog topics. Are there any of these you'd like to read about?

To Swear or Not to Swear
Googling your Story World
10 Ways the Find Tool can Streamline your Revision Process
The Photoshoot, Do's and Don't's
The Value of Critiquing for Friends
Finding an Editing Soul Mate
Getting Endorsements For Your Book--Who, How, What and Why
My Love/Hate Relationship With My New Apple Computer

Are any of these topics of interest to you? Please comment. I need a kick in the pants. If no one says anything, I'll take that as an excuse to ignore the blog for a while.

The picture is one from the photoshoot, photoshopped, of course. The sky was not really that color ;-), though it is in my storyworld. It's a picture of my two bad guys plotting the kidnapping of the little boy.

Footprints

I woke up this morning with an idea about changing the dialogue in one of my scenes. In this scene, Eric asks Zinovy if he’d like to be the commander. Zinovy says, “No. Too much responsibility.”

I think I can make the scene more powerful if I have Zinovy go on to explain that, while not wanting to command other people, he feels it is very important to be in command of his own life.

Zinovy’s near obsession to be in control of his own destiny is his driving motivation throughout the book, and from the first scene that control begins to be wrested away from him . The central conflict, then, becomes his struggle against the forces at work to take that control from him.

At 8:00 a.m. I got a late call to go to teach at one of the local high schools. The teacher needing a sub had entered his request wrong in the call-out system, so the TOC supervisor was calling for me at the last minute. I rushed off to school, still thinking about my new dialogue scene.

I wanted Zinovy to use an idiomatic expression in the conversation but I didn’t know how a Russian would say it. I thought, “I need to talk to a Russian about this.”

I got to school just before the end of the first class. The office had pulled another teacher-on-call from the music room into the class to keep a lid on things until I got there. The TOC reached out to shake my hand as I came in and introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Alexei.”


This pleasant young Russian man has given me his contact information and is pleased to hear more about my book. I plan on asking him to be my Russian consultant. If he’s willing, I’ll pay him to read the book and give me feedback on it’s accuracy in language and customs, and I’ll also ask him for his opinion on how the story would come across to Russian readers.

My secret desire has always been to one day publish the story in Russia. (Well, I guess it’s not secret any more!)

This encounter was another little step on my writing journey. I see the footprints in the Russian winter snow Zinovy is plodding through—the footprints left by the One Who is going down the road ahead of us both.

Killing Three Vultures With One Smooth Stone

I’ve been busy. I’ve got editorial suggestions coming out my ears (never use cliches) and I’m wading through them (don’t mix metaphors), trying to decide what to change and how.

Jeff Gerke has given me great suggestions. Some of the problems he’s pointed out are minor and some are major. I’ve fixed most of the minor ones. One or two major ones I don’t know how to fix. But what I’m most satisfied with is the way (I think) I’ve fixed three pretty major problems with one solution.

THE VULTURES:

Jeff said my three problems are that:

1) I’ve started the main story too early in the book. I need to set things up—show Zinovy in his normal life—before I “drop the bomb.” If I don’t, the reader has no reference point for normal, so (s)he won’t be super impressed with how greatly things change. Even more importantly, the reader hasn’t had a chance to develop a connection with Zinovy, so (s)he doesn’t care when the bomb drops.

2) My characters aren’t well developed enough. Jeff says I’m a “plot first” writer. Plot comes easily for me but creating real, differentiated (from each other and from me!), complex characters is not so easy. Zinovy needs to be rounded out more.

3) I have way too much information dumping at the beginning of the book, and much of this is in backstory, and so it’s telling instead of showing. That’s a triple no-no, especially in the first few chapters.

To sum up, Jeff says: So in two senses you’ve given something too early—the main story trigger and all this backstory and explanation. For the former, we can’t comprehend it yet because we don’t know what it’s a change from; and for the latter, we just don’t care enough yet about your story or your character to tolerate any telling without getting bored.

So I decided to start the story earlier, when Zinovy is in Russia before he goes up to the Space Station. I added a long first chapter at the beginning of the book, full of action and dialogue.

When I did this, I was able to give the information I’d previously “told” in backstory by showing it in action, as it happened, in real time. The readers got to know Zinovy better by seeing him in action. The reader also now knows “normal” so the change, when it comes, will be more powerful.

AN “AHA” MOMENT!

Another amazing thing happened as I wrote the new beginning. Zinovy’s personality changed. It was as if I got to know him better by putting him in Russia on his home turf.

The “aha” moment—when I discovered Zinovy was much rounder, and more interesting than I’d realized—came as I was reading K.M. Weiland’s book, Crafting Unforgettable Characters. (Highly recommended!) She quoted James Scott Bell, who said that an unforgettable character needs to have “at least one of the following characteristics—grit, wit, and “it.”

Zinovy already had grit. I thought he had “it” (star power), but maybe that’s because I’m his mother and mothers always think their children are stars. But what I suddenly realized was that he could also have wit. Instantly he became more interesting. Still independent, secure inside his fortress walls, but outwardly he now became more personable and a little more approachable. More human. I like this Zinovy much better.

I’ve reader-tested my new beginning and am getting positive responses from my critics. It was fun to write. I felt I finally got into my stride, so to speak. Writing is so much more satisfying when it happens this way.

God Works, In and Around Us

This morning I’m pondering the great mystery of how God’s sovereignty works in and around our personal choices to fulfil His gracious plan in our lives and in the world.

This thought comes to me as I open my Bible and flip past the page that lists all the books that tell of Israel’s history.

Joshua, Judges, Ruth.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.

Stories rich with evidence of God’s compassionate determination to work salvation for us “in and around” our circumstances, our mistakes, our evil inclinations.

My heart swells with praise.

It occurs to me, as I prepare to write today, that more of those kinds of stories need to be told, so that others can come to know this wonderful Creator. I turn to the Psalms, with a sense that God will lead me to a passage that relates to the thoughts I suspect He has just placed in my mind.

My eyes fall on Psalm 77. It begins with lament. “I cried out to God for help, I cried out to God to hear me.”

The Psalmist then asks himself some really hard questions. You can hear the moan behind them.

Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?

Through the moaning pain of Asaph, God leads us to the truth:

The Lord will never reject us.
He shows his favor, over and over and over again.
His love is unfailing. It cannot vanish. Ever.
His promises will be fulfilled—all of them, gloriously.
He will never forget to be merciful.
He will pour out his compassion on us forever.

I’m surprised this Psalm doesn’t talk about proclaiming His goodness to others. I’d half expected it to, considering the thoughts I’d had before reading it. I reach for the page, to turn back to the beginning, to read again, and Psalm 78 catches my eye.

I will open my mouth with a parable; I will teach you lessons from the past—things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.

So I begin my writing today, telling more of the Zinovy parable, trusting that Zinovy’s God will take my ideas and weave them into another story of His mercy and compassion. A story future generations will read. A story of the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power and the wonders he has done.

Yes, Zinovy's story is fiction, and it's set in the future, not the past, but it's full of truth about God's unfailing love. Zinovy's story demonstrates how God, in his sovereignty, works in and around our circumstances and our choices, to fulfil His loving purposes.

Sigh. Now I have to get to work. I really don't like writing. It's so much work. Will someone give me a swift kick in the rear?

I found a good article in Writer's Digest today called "Three Secrets to Great Storytelling." If you're looking for a good resource, I recommend this one. You can either subscribe to the magazine, hard copy, or subscribe to their e-mail format online.

The Miracle Has Happened!

Tonight I received the following message from the woman who performs the song on You Tube, "I Won't be Alone."
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Dear Ginny Jaques,

I am glad that you chose to use my song "I Won't Be Alone" for your book video trailer. If you are still interested in using it, can you please provide some information on the book?

Sincerely, Marina Baranova

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Two days ago, taking a step of faith, believing the permission would come, I went with Stuart and William to the beach to film the intro to the video trailer. It was perfect weather--cold and cloudy with no wind. William managed to look suitably mournful as he trudged up and down the beach, calling for his mother. He looked so much like my protagonist, Zinovy, when he was a little boy. So cute dressed in his bomber jacket and black woolly Russian hat! Stuart got some good shots. I am so encouraged. Another minor miracle along the way. Thank you, God.

I've also heard back from my editor, Jeff Gerke. He has given me really good feedback, but it involves a lot of re-writing. The revising will be worth it, but it will be very HARD WORK!!!! Some significant changes, to the story and the characters, are in the offing.

Meanwhile,I continue the journey with a joyful heart tonight. This little miracle was really important to me.

Next post I'll give you some of the revision suggestions Jeff has made. They're good ones.