Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

advice

Advice: How I keep myself from getting all mixed up about who I am

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All me, just different.

Like most writers, I have a day job.  I am a teacher.  I am also a wife and mother, so adding a writing life just increases confusion to the standard complicated life of this everywoman.
I have to keep them from overlapping.  My teaching is about the student, not about what I do in my spare time. (Did I actually say I have spare time?  Little pebbles of time I can sometimes shaped into a useful mound is more like it.)  And when my husband needs to rant on about politics, house building, or the barking dogs next door, I can’t be Mrs. Teacher Lady or the Don’t Bother Me Now I’m Creating person.  Same goes when my daughter needs to talk boys or fashion or Minecraft, where she wants to go to college or,…..  Back to keeping them from overlapping because I think you get the picture.
I found
that setting up different accounts on my computer helped.  Each is named specific to that person, has a
unique password, and the desktop and Firefox persona are designed to express the
habits of the individual.  The bookmarks
for each personality are only on the login they belong to.  So if I get confused and want to go to a
particular site, I won’t find the address in my bookmarks which is a quick hint
to me to check who I am.  Each email is
unique and won’t have the same contacts either, so I don’t have to check my
email to make sure the right name is at the bottom.  (I had one awful panic thinking I had not clicked on the write persona for an email I was sending when I kept everything on one login.  Not going through that again.)  My phone is rigged to check all the email
traffic, but they are not lumped together.  I keep them separate with different
signatures.
So when I am L. Darby Gibbs, my desktop is an ever changing landscape of mountains, trees and flowers that remind me of New Hampshire.  The mom/wife in me has a more organized setup: a single landscape of an old stone house with a bright red door and roses by the stoop.  Teacher lady sports a cubist environment.  These personalities are reflected on my Mozilla page design as well.  The profile picture for each personality is different, too.
That is my simple solution.  The person I login is who I am.  It is particularly easy on Windows 8 to have all three personalities logged in.  I can moved from one to the other fairly quickly, yet it is clear which is which. 
So if you are juggling emails, platforms, website logins, and audience, try creating different computer logins.  There is no law stating that each person must really be a different person.  Just like when you set up that account for the child/ren in your life, you can also set them up for the different aspects of your life without feeling as if you have a split personality.
Do you have a simpler way of doing this?  I am all about simplicity, and I would enjoy hearing how you manage your different selves.

Semicolons and colons: easier than you think

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Write down these simple rules.

Colons and semicolons are probably the most misused punctuation there is, and it is not because they are complicated.  The rules for the semicolon and the colon are both few and easy.

To make things simple, let’s establish some terminology.  Sentences are words placed in sequence with a capital letter at the start, end punctuation at the end and a complete thought in the middle.
Examples:  
I cried.
I cried buckets of tears that flowed down my face, dropping off my chin in rhythmic pats on my slacks.
Before I cried buckets of tears that flowed down my face, dropping off my chin in rhythmic pats on my slacks, I visited my father’s grave.

All of these are sentences.  Each one of them contains an independent clause which can stand alone.  I have underlined the part of the sentence which is the independent clause.

So when I refer to a sentence, I mean the whole kit and caboodle.   When I say independent clause, I mean the part that has a complete thought and can stand alone.  Now let’s talk about these rules.

SEMICOLON:

Rule #1
Use semicolons to combine independent clauses that are highly related.
Examples:
Dogs are the ideal companion; they will forgive their owner just about anything.

Mondays I remind myself the week will be over before I know it; I don’t always believe myself.

Rule #2
Use semicolons in lists of items that have internal punctuation.

First I will show you a list with the standard “items in a series” comma in use.
Example: I dropped by my neighbor to ask for two cups of sugar, two cups of flour and a pat of butter.

Look what happens when I add some details to my list.

Example with internal punctuation: I dropped by my neighbor to ask for two cups of sugar, one brown, one white; two cups of flour; and a pat of butter.
I needed the semicolons because I added information regarding the sugar that needed to be separated from the flour.  The information added would have become part of a list of items, and a rather unclear list at that.  It only takes one addition of internal punctuation to require the semicolons to be present, and they follow through the entire list.

Rule #3
Use semicolons when combining clauses with conjunctive adverbs and transitional expressions.
Examples:
Conjunctive adverb – I intended to get home before my husband to organize his birthday party; however, he left work early.
Transitional expression – My husband thought I was planning a surprise birthday party; on the contrary, I was much too exhausted to contemplate the endeavor.

COLON:


Rule #1
Use a colon after independent clauses when what follows is an appositive, a list or a quotation.
Examples
Appositive – There are days of the week when I can’t wait for the weekend: Monday thru Friday.
List style #1 – There are three things I must remember to buy: potatoes, red food coloring, and a bandana.
List style #2 – You must bring the following to the senior parade float party: potatoes, red food coloring and a bandana.  (The word “following” is a clear hint.)
Quotation – Who hasn’t heard of Hamlet’s famous quote: “To be or not to be, that is the question”?

Rule #2
Use a colon after independent clauses when what follows is an explanation or summary.
Examples
My brother can be such a ninny: he told my new boyfriend I was allergic to flowers when I am actually only allergic to carnations, and he brought me roses.

Rule #3
Use a colon after the salutation in a formal letter.
So not for the following:
Dear Aunt Sally,

But after the following:
Dear Mayor Sindsey:
How bad is that?  Three simple rules each.  The key is knowing when you are dealing with independent clauses, which I underlined in each sentence.

I have just spent the last three hours working on novel blurbs

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I’ve written two versions for the first book of my series.  That took the first hour and doesn’t include all the previous ones I have written, none particularly good.

I wrote four more for the second book in the series which I hope to publish in just a couple of weeks.  I don’t think I like writing blurbs.  And now there are five.

I know what I want them to do. But they are not doing it.   Excuse me while I go scream.

Well, that didn’t help.  Perhaps some sleep and another stab at it tomorrow.

Please respond with all tricks, advice and personal experience that you think can help me with this endeavor.  The dogs don’t like it when I scream.

Update:  final version complete, and I still have my hair and my dogs have their hearing.  Thank you, Marcy.

Narrative Mode ~ #4 Cain & Abel

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The Cain and Abel narrative is very versatile with lots of opportunities for adjustment:  two brothers, two sisters, two siblings, two cousins, two co-workers, two businesses, etc.

  • You need opposing factors in single or equal multiples who seem at first to be on the same side.  Brothers in the same family, friendly competitors, step-sisters who get along well.
  • They start out friendly and social, but one starts getting more recognition, more appreciation.  Parents don’t feel there is any preference, but the older child sees things differently.  Or one company notices stock market increases where the two companies used to be rising equally.
  • Some denied jealousy, a little frustration when efforts are made to get that recognition and it doesn’t work.  Everybody loves a little sibling rivalry, improves the effort.  Companies always rise and fall in value over time.
  • Things escalate, but the brotherly love seems safe from damage.  A little argument here, a friendly challenge maybe taken to extreme.  But one uses less than quality workmanship.
  • Until the tipping point arrives and one destroys the other.
  • No sign of guilt or taking reponsibility.  Then punishment, ostracism, life of misery.  Or earned forgiveness.

 The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Revisiting linear vs non-linear plots parallel plots

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Back on 10/10/12, I wrote about a redraft I was working on for In Times Passed.  I had set up two parallel plots, one linear and one non-linear.  I felt pretty good about the changes, but I was uncertain about if the reader would be able to follow the non-linear plot line.  I had chosen the non-linear scenes to match to the linear flow based on common links in dialogue, which seemed a reasonable approach to connecting the two plot lines.

You know that part of you that syncs together what you write, that manages the pull of imagery, purpose, characterization, depth of character, release of the gathering of facts?  The inner coil that tightens as you develop plot and bothers you when things are not working. Well that place, that wellspring of creativity was giving me muffled bursts of dismay at that non-linear flow, unflow.  Last week, just to check, I moved the pieces about and straightened out the sister plot so they both ran chronologically in line but not in the same time frame (one is set in the future).  That muffled burst of dismay settled down with a contented sigh.  There was no mistaking it. 

I am letting it rest as I line edit and watch out for any more muffled bursts.  My advice, if something in you is protesting, check it out.  Make the changes called for and see if you find creative peace.  You can always revert back to the original draft.

When I have trouble getting the words out

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What some might call a mild form of the infamous writer’s block.  I have never suffered from the extreme form.  I do have times when a scene I have in mind isn’t working, but I don’t call that writer’s block.  It is more a case of not having worked out the details or I am expecting something from my character that really isn’t what he or she would do, or maybe not how that character would do it.

On Goodreads recently a writer was looking for advice on how to overcome her writer’s block.  I made some suggestions but they were based on my practices to improve my effort when I felt I was failing to produce something worthwhile.  It has never been a case of not being able to put words on the page, which does sound awful, something I do not want to face.

So these are the things I do when my writing is not up to snuff.

  • I go read someone I think is a great writer and hope his or her ability will rub off or inspire my own (my writer’s muse frequently is named Heinlein.  I can’t tell you how many times I have read Door into Summer).
  • I lay my self down on the couch, close my eyes and imagine my character in the scene I am working on.  I put in all the details: lighting, decor, emotion, what happened just before, what is going to happen after.  Soon there will be dialogue of either the character talking to me or to some other character. At some point, I find something I simply must start writing, and I am off the couch.
  • Sometimes, convinced I am just tired, I will go to lie down and that will last all of two minutes.  Counter to my intentions, I suddenly have plenty to write.
  • I tell my self to just write anything, summarize what I wanted to cover, write a scene that is needed, dredge up an old hurt my character has, anything, good or bad.  At some point I am warmed up enough that I have something to write worth writing.  I never expect perfection.  I always tell myself, “Hey, you are going to redraft it anyway.”
  • When there are times that I cannot write, but I really want to, I record it on the memo app on my phone. Then when I am actually able to write and can’t think of the wording, I listen to the recording which always has some key line that I can leap off of, and then I write. 
  • A writer once told me (YA and children’s novelist Joan Oppenheimer) never leave your writing finished. Always leave yourself at a point where you know where the plot is going next or what the next issue is, whatever. Make a quick note to yourself about what is next.  Then when I come back, there is my reminder. I don’t have to stare at a blank sheet, something is already waiting for me.
  • I review the scenes I know are coming up and see if one seems ready to be written now.  I’ll write it and later fill in the missing space that I was having trouble with.  I have the start and now the end point, so filling in the middle won’t be so difficult.