Heidi Ruby Miller, author of AMBASADORA and GREENSHIFT

It was my way of seeing if I could write more. And it worked.

Believe me, I was more surprised than anyone. Over the past five years I had steadily worked out of the century club (100 words per day) to the millennium club (1000 words per day), but then I stalled. I have always been a slow writer, probably because I labor over every word and character motivation, each plot point, the cadence of individual sentences, blah blah blah.

Outlining helped me tremendously once I started graduate school. The planner that I am, I usually had a nice beginning/middle/end worked out, then went from there. When I began to do more extensive outlines (80 pages long), which detailed each scene, I had a rough first draft in no time and a direction to move with the story. That’s when the 1000 words a day came quite easily.

To jump to the next level (like Robert J. Sawyer with his 2000 words a day or Susan Mallery with her 20 pages a day) I needed a little extra mojo. Turns out the solution was simple—write first.

I decided to try my new tactic in 2012 after talking with horror writer and my co-editor of MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT, Michael A. Arnzen. Instead of New Year’s resolutions, he does focus words—words that he focuses on all year in order to make improvements in his life and career. My words were WRITE MORE, but that seemed too broad, so I decided upon WRITE FIRST.

And that’s what I’ve been doing since January 1. I wake up half an hour early to… work through a yoga routine.

Okay, I know you were expecting me to say “write,” but with as much time as I spend on the computer, I wouldn’t be able to move if I didn’t stretch and breathe first thing in the morning. But then I write. Before I change out of my pajamas or make a cup of tea or surf through all my social media sites or before my husband gets out of bed, I sit down and write for at least 30 minutes. That may not seem like much time, but it’s enough to get a few hundred words in or a few pages revised. More importantly, it brings my story front and center in my mind where it stays all day long.

It becomes a trance-like state for me during the rest of the day. No matter what I’m doing, I’m thinking about my characters, plotting scenes in my head. This compels me to sit back down in front of the laptop and keep writing. Before I know it, I’ve sometimes had 3000 words by day’s end or revised four chapters. More typically, I hit 2000 words, but that’s double what I was doing last year at this time.

Granted, I accrue this word count during various sessions throughout the day, not in one sitting—I would have a constant migraine if that were the case. But it’s working. January 2012 was my most productive month ever. So far February is falling a little shorter with only an average of 1500 words per day, but that’s still 500 more than most days last year. I blame the small lapse on the launch for my latest novel GREENSHIFT, which came out on Valentine’s Day. Obviously, more marketing time was required this month. I fully expect my productivity to kick into overdrive in March… by simply writing first.

GIVEAWAY!

Be entered to win a copy of GREENSHIFT or AMBASADORA or both by telling us in comments what you’re reading right now and leave your email address disguised something like heidirubymiller AT gmail. Winners will be drawn randomly on March 1, 2012, and announced on March 2, 2012. Good luck!

About Heidi Ruby Miller

Heidi Ruby Miller has been putting too much sex in her Science Fiction since 2005 because she believes the relationship is as important as the adventure. She loves high-heeled shoes, action movies, Chanel, loud music, and video games.

Heidi also teaches creative writing at Seton Hill University, where she graduated from their renowned Writing Popular Fiction Graduate Program the same month she appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The writing guide MANY GENRES, ONE CRAFT, which she co-edited with Michael A. Arnzen, is based on the Seton Hill program and her novel AMBASADORA was her thesis there. Another tale in the Ambasadora-verse, GREENSHIFT, was just released this month.

Heidi is a member of The Authors Guild, Pennwriters, Broad Universe, SFR Brigade, and Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA).

She lives near Pittsburgh with her writer husband, Jason Jack Miller.

You can find out more about her books and read her author interview series at http://heidirubymiller.blogspot.com.

Vampires, beasties, zombies, and ghouls… NIGHT MONSTERS presents four stories to read with the lights on.

Get NIGHT MONSTERS from Amazon now!

You are Danny, one of five children born to poor Southern parents in the late 1950s. You move from one ramshackle house to another, most in ill repair and without adequate heat. When your Papa loses his arm in a farming accident, hard times grow harder.

Your saintly Mama puts up with a lot of abuse from Papa, whose moods swing deeper and darker and dangerously more violent with every imagined offense. You young’uns do your best to steer clear of trouble.

How do you feel reading the previous two paragraphs?

Jim Grimsley’s Winter Birds (Simon & Schuster, 1984) is part of my self-study plan for second person point of view. The initial effect of second person is an unsettled feeling, then a distancing: “That’s not me—I’m not ‘you.’”

But the more you read of it, the more it draws you in, creating identification with the narrator/protagonist. Ultimately, it forces you to participate in the story events against your will—probably one reason why Grimsley chose this POV.

Being held in an uncomfortable POV underscores the plight of an impoverished mother and five children trapped in a house with nowhere to escape abuse. All you have are your thoughts and each other, waiting for Papa to come home.

Grimsley ratchets up the tension with the dangers that Danny’s hemophilia pose: a misstep on a glass shard or Papa’s drunken backhand could mean a week in the hospital until the bleeding stops. Like Danny, as a reader, you continue to bleed until the final page.

Winter Birds is one of the most beautiful and excruciating stories I’ve ever read. At times it’s so intense that I had to put it down, and I’m no literary sissy.

Turning away is the prerogative of the reader; never the writer. Grimsley doesn’t flinch. American publishers rejected this semi-autobiographical work for a decade because it was “too dark.” When the book was finally published in English, it won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as being cited for a PEN/Hemingway Award. Well deserved.

The narration, the dialog, the POV, the description all blend into a cohesive package that delivers a poignant, dark dream of childhood. Occasionally, second person comes off as incredulous when the narrator describes things he couldn’t be privy to. But the floating, fantastical elements interspersed through a child’s imagination allow you to accept the tale as told.

If you’re studying narrative or second person POV, you must read Winter Birds. If you read it for any reason at all, I daresay you’ll be moved.

]]> http://leeallenhoward.com/2012/02/14/book-review-winter-birds-by-jim-grimsley/feed/ 2 buildingthebridge WINTER BIRDS by Jim Grimsley http://leeallenhoward.com/2012/02/13/movie-review-the-haunting-of-24/ http://leeallenhoward.com/2012/02/13/movie-review-the-haunting-of-24/#comments Tue, 14 Feb 2012 03:20:09 +0000 leeallenhoward http://leeallenhoward.com/?p=1226 ]]> John is down on his luck, so he moves into grimy little apartment house #24 where the paint is stained, the water drips, and all the tenants share a bathroom. But his situation is only temporary, until he finds a job and gets back on his feet.

The landlord says the place is fully occupied, but the only neighbor John sees is a wanton old woman who counsels him to accept that he cannot leave. All the other tenants, she says, are dead. “They’re all dead. Simple as that.”

When John’s ex-girlfriend Veronica disappears into the little black and white television from which only hostile faces stare, John realizes he cannot escape the building or his fate. There’s a grave in the backyard with a stone engraved with “Lie Still.” And the man in the photo he cannot destroy is the man in the basement, the original owner of the house, who eventually comes to visit him.

There’s no all-star cast, no fantastic makeup, no dazzling special effects in #24. But what this British horror flick does have is loads of atmosphere, disquieting despair, and a mounting level of apprehension reminiscent of David Lynch’s Eraserhead.

Is apartment #24 real, or is John mad? What he comes to realize is just what the old woman tells him: “There’s no help here. No friendly neighbors. No one at all. No one lives here. No one to help you. No one. Why fight it?”

This movie disturbed me like the short stories of Ramsey Campbell. Its ghosts will stalk the corridors of my mind for some time. 3.7/5.0 stars.

The Haunting of 24 was originally release in the UK as Lie Still in 2005. Written and directed by Sean Hogan. Starring Stuart Laing, Nina Sosanya, Robert Blythe, Susan Engel, and Granville Saxton.

]]> http://leeallenhoward.com/2012/02/13/movie-review-the-haunting-of-24/feed/ 1 buildingthebridge The Haunting of #24 http://leeallenhoward.com/2012/02/08/severed-relations-free-promo/ http://leeallenhoward.com/2012/02/08/severed-relations-free-promo/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:16:39 +0000 leeallenhoward http://leeallenhoward.com/?p=1220 ]]> Pulp Horror Free for Kindle Until Midnight Feb. 9, 2012!

SEVERED RELATIONS is a duo of deadly stories that brings you the best in matrimonial butchery. Everyone has experienced a choppy relationship. But just wait until you read these two tales of horror… In “The Butcher’s Reunion,” a cuckolded butcher slaughters his wife and seeks her lover only to find he cannot escape dire prophetic justice. WHAM! Equally dark and suspenseful, in “Almost Betrothed,” a timid woman unlucky with love finds the courage to break what her daddy thinks is a promising engagement and discovers her boyfriend is Mr. Wrong. Dead wrong. WARNING: These stories are not for the squeamish! But if you’re into good old pulp horror, you’ll love SEVERED RELATIONS—chock full of blood and cutlery! Get SEVERED RELATIONS for Kindle while it’s free!

On June 24 last year I spoke at Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction In Your Write Mind alumni retreat on the topic, “Alternative Methods of Idea and Story Generation.” I talked about being open to receiving story ideas and writing assistance from higher consciousness.

As always, feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

]]> http://leeallenhoward.com/2012/02/07/inspiration-from-higher-sources/feed/ 2 buildingthebridge Open Channel http://leeallenhoward.com/2012/01/29/desperate-spirits-on-the-loose/ http://leeallenhoward.com/2012/01/29/desperate-spirits-on-the-loose/#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:48:46 +0000 leeallenhoward http://leeallenhoward.com/?p=1158 ]]> New Supernatural Thriller Now Available at Amazon.com!

In this duo of supernatural thrillers, Calvin Bricker deals with desperate spirits right in his own neighborhood.

In “The Vacant Lot,” a supernatural presence beckons from the empty neighborhood lot. Calvin’s curiosity leads him to an aged portrait painter with a terrible secret about a dead undertaker and his missing wife, who seeks eternal release.

In “How I Was Cured of Naïveté,” a seemingly innocent spirit appears in the foyer of Calvin’s home. When he discovers her fate, he sets her free—only to find that little girls aren’t always made of sugar and spice. Snick, snick!

If you like crime and mystery with a supernatural bent, succumb to the call of DESPERATE SPIRITS!

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