Preparing for NaNoWriMo

I am going to attempt to write every day about my progress with my novel. I believe it will give an insight into the creative process, and the do's and don'ts of writing.

As a ghostwriter, I am writing books and being creative for others every day, for many hours. I have not written for myself in some time, but the process and how a book is created is pretty much the same. It is very similar whether it is fiction or it is non-fiction.  

To me, the easiest way to write is to create an outline. You  would not take a trip without plotting out your course, and in the end taking the time to plan saves time. When you have time to write- you know exactly what you are writing, rather than sitting and staring at a blank screen.

You have a plan.

My plan has been evolving for Mr Cheevers for four years. I never said this was a quick process. It was not until waking up this morning, that I woke up with the plot gelled in my brain. My brain has been working on it while I slept- isn't our subconscious brain AWESOME!

So I am scribbling out my plot points. I have already created character cards and settings (This is from my days as a Dungeon Master. No learning is lost! See Mom it was not a total waste of time).

So come November 1st, I will be ready.

Confessions of a Writer  

So, I bought a new laptop in preparation for NaNoWriMo. Last year I bought a desktop computer, but my laptop is like 7 years old. So now I am mobile- no excuses. I bought one with a smaller screen for mobility. My last laptop had a 17 inch screen and was watermelon heavy. 

I am using new software- Scrivener. so far I love it. I can plot everything out in one place. I will update how it goes. I have been able to create character cards, plots, settings, ect. all in one place, and with easy access as I write!!

Please PLEASE- donate to NaNoWriMo. I have to be the number 1 fundraiser--- but I need your help. I don't care if it is a dollar at a time. 

If you donate- mention this blog. I will send you a copy of Sticky Rice signed. This was the original short story that introduced Mr Cheevers. Also if you donate $50 or more, I will add you as a character in the book. So DONATE TODAY!!!  https://www.classy.org/fundraise?fcid=357815

Brain Bridges Part 2- Why Speakers Don't Always Make the Best Writers

Speakers are great orators- they can speak and pontificate about a grocery list and make it interesting. If you ask many of even the most successful speakers to write, and they become deaf and mute. They look at a blank page and shiver from the cold sweat running down their back.

Someone asked me if a writer is created or born- and my short answer is that I believe they are born. It is a talent like art, or music. Some people are born with the artistic skill and some are not. If you are talented in one artistic medium, that does not mean you are talented in all of them. I can play the heck out of the piccolo solo in Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony, but all the people I draw are evolutions of stick figures.

Like any other talent, we can hone and polish our skills and techniques, but without a gift and passion it can be a fruitless process. Speakers I also believe are born. Some people just have a stage presence, and know how to work a crowd and some try and struggle.

It's ok- you don't have to be good at everything- but you are good at something. Speakers are often told to write a book to support their platform and add credibility to their brand. I have seen the attempts go three ways- 1. They nail it- their book is a success because they had some writing chops and a great marketing plan. 2. They start and then stop. They can't get past the first chapter or even the first line. 3. They write the whole book- and everyone around NICELY and POLITELY tells them its great and it sells like 20 copies.

You can have some writing chops, but need some training to polish your prose. And so sometimes a speaker has to step back to prepare themselves.

Some speakers don't have the time or the chops to write, and they hire a ghostwriter like me, or a book coach.

The important thing is that a speaker knows their limitations- because a bad book is worse then no book. Trust me!

Before Starting a Book consider these questions:
1. Have you ever written professionally before?
2. Have you ever written something this size?
3, Do you have the time to write?
4. Do you need some help honing your writing skills?
5. Do you really need to write a book or is it something you are being told you need to do?

There are no right or wrong answers, just things to consider.

In my next installment of Brain Bridges I will be talking about how writing partners can help your writing. 

Disclaimer- I am NOT selling Body Parts on the Open Market

The following emails are real. This is what happens when a writer gets tired of Scammy/Spammy emails- The amazing this is that I never expected them to reply.

Their Original Email

Dear Sirs,

There is an ongoing tender.

So we are very interested in your product for a long term contract period. If interested, kindly get back to me with your full product details/specifications to enable us give you more details on how to proceed.

I am a commission agent, I source whenever there is a notice for the bid to tender, if your company win this tender through my effort i will be entitled to 2% commission of the total contract fund as a gratification from my company, but this money will be paid to me after you must have received your full payment from the commission.

Terms of payment: If the contract is awarded to you, the commission makes an upfront/advance payment of 80% T/T to start the production and the remaining 20% will be paid to you before supply, all payments must to be confirmed from your bank before shipment.

Your urgent response will be appreciated.

Best regards,

Mr.Jacob Sako,
Accredited Agent.

My reply: 

We sell after market human organs- all kinds and some are custom made by our staff member Dr. Frank N. Stein. Let us know how many of each organ you might need- as we will have to acquire donors. 

Regards, 

Igor Master

You would think that would be the end of it right? Nope- they actually replied with the following: 

Dear Mr John Peragine,

Thank you very much for your prompt response.

The project coordinator is very interested below:

(1) Kidney.

(2) LIliver.

(3) Heart

(4) Lung

(5) Pancreas

(6) Bone marrow

Please be informed that this is a government tender, you are supplying this items to the government, i am a commission agent.

Let me know the unit price so that i can present it to him for consideration.

I am a commission agent, I source whenever there is a notice for the bid to tender, if your company win this tender through my effort i will be entitled to 2% commission of the total contract fund as a gratification from my company, but this money will be paid to me after you must have received your full payment from the commission.

Terms of payment: If the contract is awarded to you, the commission makes an upfront/advance payment of 80% T/T to start the production and the remaining 20% will be paid to you before supply, all payments must to be confirmed from your bank before shipment.

Means of payment: - Bank to Bank transfer system, to be confirmed by your bank.

Delivery time: - 360 days from the date of initial payment.

Proforma Invoice: -FOB Country of Products origin.

port of Delivery/Shipment Destination: - Tema Sea Port Accra Ghana.

Partial shipment and contract review is allowed.

Your Soonest reply is needed.

I look forward to hearing from you by return & to develop a long term business relationship with you soon.

Best Regards,

Mr Jacob Sako.
Accredited Agent.

Either they got the joke- or these are VERY scary people. What do you think? 

Inciting Hate Through Artistic Expression

I have been an artist my whole life ( writer and a musician). This is not something I chose to be- it is who I am. Music and words called to me, as they are the master and I am the servant. I am not a slave, but a willing participant, and I do not regret a single day- single moment- a single creative impulse.

To my family- both immediate and  extended have always seen me as a freak- as someone that has a screw loose- or that I have something psychologically wrong with me. They call me "weird" even now  after 44 years. I gladly wear this badge - but it took many years for me to recover from the kind of judgment I have received from those closest to me.

I don't like the same things others do. I don't dress the right way. I don't even keep my beard appropriately trimmed. I am an outcast from my blood, but what they don't realize is that on these fringes, I have been the happiest and most creative.

Do I watch sports? No. Do I say appropriate things all the time? No. Do I conform? Definitely not. Am I always neat and tidy? No. Do I eat  the right things? I try.

Do I wear designer clothes? Not unless they are on some back rack or I find them at my favorite store- Goodwill. And then, I choose it because I like the way it looks, not because of the label.

I wear wrinkly coats, and undersized hats. I like plaids, and my hair is always a work in progress.

I am an artist. Deal with it.

Can I play a mean flute? Hell yes.
Can I write? You bet!
Can I add really inappropriate lyrics to songs? Much to the chagrin of my wife- definitely.
Am I happy? I am joyous.


When I was seven, I walked into the local music store, and my parents and sales person asked me what instrument I wanted to play. I said the flute.

WHAT? FLUTE?

What was wrong with me. For many years I created a story that was half true to explain my choice. I said, " I wanted to play the flute because that was where the pretty girls were."

It is half true because, I did say that- but it was not totally true.

I got to hear lovely words like- Fag, pansy, and gay attributed to any guy who played the flute- even then at the store at the age of seven. I mean boys played trumpets, and drums- not the flute.

For the record- I am a heterosexual male. No question there. But I had to defend it. It would have been easier to give up my pursuit- but I loved playing the flute. In fact, I still do.

It was not just the kids at school, but it was my own flesh and blood that referred to me, in not a subtle way, as gay. There is nothing wrong with being a gay male, it was just that I am not gay.

Add to that, that I hated, I mean hated sports, and it was like putting nails in my coffin. Instead of baseball practice, I wanted more flute lessons, and I wanted to be in the theater. My father, a mean boy from the streets of Hell's Kitchen was fit to be tied.

In my early teens- I was depressed and stressed. I wanted to please my family, but I wanted to perform on stage too. This resulted in medications and therapy.

Three things saved my life- and I mean that in the literal sense.

One, was that I was very active in music and the theater. I was a kid, but I was treated as an equal on stage. I pushed myself to be the best- not because my family wanted it, but because the better I got, the better response I got from my music and theater family.

The second thing was a therapist that said, "Stop trying to please them, and be true to yourself. You will never match up to their expectations, and in a few years you will be on your own. You have to be yourself."

Man, those words gave me permission to let go, and just stop trying to be something I was not. That did not mean my family accepted me anymore, it just meant I cared less about their jabs and their demands to be the macho man in the Armani suit.

The third, part, and I have to thank my mother (probably the only person that understood me), was she allowed me to got to an arts school in North Carolina at the age of 14. I was dying in regular high school. I was beginning to skip more than I was going- I was not like the others- I was too artsy and too adult.

I thrived with others like me- 24/7 artists. I could have lived there forever.

I have had ups and downs and career decisions that were based on what others said I should do, but now I am at a point in my life, I am doing exactly what I wanted. 24/7 artist.

My wife gets me. My daughter gets me. And my wife's family gets me.

My family does not get me.

The reason I am writing this is because my middle daughter has electric blue hair, gauges in her ears, a ring in her nose and VISUAL ART in her soul. She dresses, acts, and breathes like an artist. She is the same as me, and now she is experiencing what I did- rejection, scorn, and judgment. People judge her by what she says, what she posts, and what she wears. I am the devil's servant for allowing her to express who she is, only to have adults at her school and my family degrade and insult her.

To them- I say two words- "Bugger Off!"

Someone said to me today- what they felt was an insult- but to me was the GREATEST compliment ever- "John, she is weird just like you."

Yes she is. She is an artist, and I will defend her to the end of my life to be who she is. (Yes- she has been called a lesbian as well. To my knowledge she isn't, but who cares if she is. Love is love).

My daughter was upset by what they said about her and I told her; "You say you don't understand them. The real truth is that they do not in any way understand you. If they did, they would see the beautiful girl I see every day,"

We are proud to be artists. So we dress quirky. So our hair has its own agenda- combed today, tomorrow pink or tousled, or maybe bald. We are not trying to be different- We are different. Why can't others understand and love us for our weirdness? Why does creative expression incite such hate?

I don't know- but at this point in my life? I don't care. Love me? Hate me? I love myself and chuckle every time I see myself in the mirror. Can you do the same?

My Brain Did Me a Dirty

Part of the mania of being a writer is that you never know when inspiration- translated a complete obsession to write down and brain dump an idea- will hit you.

My two year old son asked for a story at bedtime- I did not want to get up and get a book because it was late and so I made up a story. When I was done- he said it was a good story, and promptly nodded off. Technically I went to sleep but I left my brain on.

I woke up early- too early and had to write the story down, which I did with my fountain pen and paper from my printer.

What happened was Dr Seussian in complete iambic pentameter.

I am not a children's story writer and surely I am not a poet. But when I was done- 6 pages later I realized my brain had done me a dirty.

It had taken some serious social and societal issues from my past as a social worker and from my own personal family struggles- and had turned them it into anthropomorphic animal characters. I re-read it a couple of times out loud to my family- and realized my subconscious was giggling in the back room of my mind.

This is how creative writing occurs- not with our waking, rational mind- that is the fodder of journalistic integrity based on facts not folly.

No, true creative writing comes from that back room- and when that door opened, I could not concentrate on anything else. I had to write it from beginning to end. Then I typed it from beginning to end. Then I had my first cup of coffee and pondered  my sanity- I created rhyme? A children's story with a moral undertone as a mirror to the atrocities of what happens to children caught in the court system and between warring families? WTF?

Now what?

I can't draw worth a spit, so do I need an illustrator? Do I just pitch it somewhere and hope they pair me with an artist? Do I submit it to a ....uhh.... poetry contest? (seems very foreign to me because I NEVER saw myself writing that sort of prose).

Help me folks- I am in new territory here.

Brain Bridges- Part 1 - Professional Speakers and Brain Lag

I have different methods for writing fiction and non-fiction, and this is because I believe that we use different parts of our brain when we are writing, editing and dictating. I am creating a series of posts that explore how we write and offer some solutions to make your writing better through some unconventional methods.

When we are speaking, we are using a part of our brain involved with the production of speech. (I won't bore you with the anatomy, just realize that different parts of your brain control different functions).

I work with a lot of professional speakers and they have developed the part of the brain with reciting facts, and ideas, and depending on the type of talk they are doing they may be using the creative part of their brain, rather than the one that is involved in memory recitation. Some of these speakers are great at doing improv, while others are not.

If they add a visual element to their talk this may be distracting to them, unless they can either ignore it or have a strong bridge between the visual parts of their brain and the verbal parts. The concept of bridging is important, because when we are young we develop these pathways in our brain. Throughout our lives we continue to develop more bridges, but they are more difficult and harder to form. These are actual neural connects in our brain- think of them as roots of one tree connecting to another tree. They intertwine and fuse together. The more connections, the stronger the connections.

If  a speaker does not have a strong connection between their auditory, verbal, and visual parts of their brain, they may get tripped up and pause, and become distracted. Consider that computer you are using right now- when you have too many windows open or the computer is doing large processes, there can be a lag. The better and more integrated the components are, the greater the speed and their is less lag.

SOLUTION-

1. First you must assess if you speak and can have distractions such as sound and visual components going on at the same time.

2. If you are find you are pausing in your speaking, then remove some of the components one by one to determine where the lag is occurring.

3. Decide whether the components that are lagging you are important- if not ditch them. If they are- then you have to practice over and over again to strengthen the bridge. It's hard work, much like physical exercise, because you are actually changing the physiology and structure in your brain. You are growing connections.

4. Reassess often and determine your progress- go through steps 1-3 again.




In the next installment- You will learn why speakers don't always make the best writers.

Wine, Brownies, and Talks of Commas

When two writers meet, eventually the conversation turns toward grammar. It was not surprising that over some grilled meat and wine, that my mother-in-law and I talked about commas.

"I like the posts on grammar on Facebook," she offered.

In this picture- a comma saves people's lives!

"It's rabbit season!"

"No, it's pedestrian season!"

We began discussing the evolution of the use of a comma, and some of people's use or more importantly lack of use.

Example:

There is a bridge spanning the river from Davenport, Iowa, to Moline, Illinois.

Is there a new kind of grammar that allows us to write:

There is a bridge spanning the river from Davenport Iowa to Moline Illinois.

There are arguments on both sides ( I will take a stand that the first one is correct).

My wife's family and I drank "Barn Dance Red" red wine from Tabor Wineries, which is a winery in a century old farm near the small town of Baldwin, in Eastern Iowa. We ate chocolate brownies that were only made more delicious with the wine we were sipping.

The discussion turned to 'which' and 'that'. These are grammar rules that we were not taught but that spell checker on Microsoft Word often picks up. The rule is if you use the word 'that' you do not need a comma, but if you use the word 'which' you have to use a comma before the phrase it begins. An example is a sentence I already used.

"My wife's family and I drank "Barn Dance Red" red wine from Tabor Wineries, which is a winery in a century old farm near the small town of Baldwin, in Eastern Iowa."

We ended the discussion, and our wine with a final quandary. Why was Word so hung up on passive voice? There are sentences that just would not work any better way, so why does Word have to point out every instance. Sure, an active voice is important and more compelling, but can't we just relax and be passive sometimes? You know- sit and sip some red wine and pair it with some double fudge brownies?

It Begins- The Mad Rantings of a Ghostwriter

La Plume is mightier than the sword? Being a pen for people is the job I have always dreamed of because it was my secret super power.

When I was in my pre-teens I spent a lot of time at the local music shop- Breck's Music Center. I was learning to play the flute and clarinet and I was always looking for new music and the possibility of upgrading my instruments. One day while waiting for my lesson, I met a guy a few years older than me named Ken La Plume. He was a drummer and electric guitar player, and we hit it off immediately. We would jam, he on the drums, me on the flute, and we did some gigs at the local dinner theaters together.

One day, my father asked me what Ken's name was, and I told him. He laughed and replied,"His name is Ken the pen?"

"What do you mean," I asked him, I was a little irritated because I thought he was making fun of him.

"La Plume means pen," He explained.

I never called Ken by the moniker 'Ken the Pen' but it stuck in my brain even to this day, mostly because I thought it was a really cool name. I feel bad because I figured he was teased mercilessly by any French foreign exchange student he may have come across, but I thought of it as a cool almost mafia inspired name.

John La Plume does not really have the same alliteration even when changed to 'John the Pen', but I could definitely use it as my super hero name, but it describes my super power so perfectly.

I am a ghostwriter. No I am not a dead author, and I usually, I say usually, don't moan when I am writing.

I help other people write their books- they are the author and I am the pen. I become a useful tool to create a book that may otherwise never exist. I am called a ghost because I am transparent- no one knows I helped write a piece, unless the author wants to tell people.

If you were to look at my true resume, it will look as though the National Security Agency got a hold of it and redacted top secret information. I have to keep secrets like some kind of international spy, except the difference is that I take my martinis in the safety of my office tucked away in a old Victorian home overlooking the Mississippi river.

Maybe this Halloween I should come out to the world dressed as La Plume and have a device that squirts ink  like a small oil well out of the pen nib shaped from aluminum foil strapped to my head. Or maybe I shouldn't.

This blog is dedicated to my old drummer friend.
Vive La Plume!

John Peragine
 www.osiris-papers.com