Category: WIP (Page 13 of 16)

Stripping My Emotional Self in Writing

December 4, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

I’m the kind of person who holds her emotions really close to her chest. I hate crying in front of people, even the ones I’m closest to, and have always, as far back as I can remember, felt this way. I don’t like openly showing many strong emotions often feel embarrassed when I do, and sometimes even feel embarrassed for other people when they are showing strong emotions (though they themselves probably aren’t feeling that way…they are simply reveling in whatever they are feeling).

It’s not that I don’t have strong emotions. In fact, it’s just the opposite; I have strong emotions, it’s just hard for me to show them. When I’m upset about something or hurt, it most often comes across as anger…because for some reason my brain thinks it’s okay to show anger if I have to show something.

Psychoanalysis aside (not really interested in analyzing myself, especially not here on a public website…yikes!), being this kind of person makes it hard for me to open up my emotional self in my writing. One of my goals this year was to push my writing to show deeper levels of emotions, and that included all forms of my writing: blogging, the journals I keep for the boys, my novels, everything.

I really stripped down and got real here on the blog with my post “How Does a Mother’s Love Grow?” back in February. I was going through a really tough time as a mother and shared some real and not necessarily flattering feelings. Frankly, that was a terrifying moment when I hit Publish on that post. But it got a lot of hits and so many wonderful comments. Though when I think about people reading that post, it kind of makes me nauseated.

My WIP is a really gritty novel, a thriller about a girl with a dark past (much of which she can’t remember) and who isn’t sure if she deserves a chance to remake herself. She isn’t even sure if that’s possible and wonders if she’s just an evil person at the core. Not that her feelings are my own per se, but the idea is to push and explore those very deep emotions and draw them out. Whatever they may be.

So I think I’ve begun to chip away at that goal. And I think it’s bringing my writing to a whole new level. Because it’s those deep emotions that resonate with readers, it’s what they connect to and remember from a story. Ultimately that’s the kind of stuff I want to write, even if it kind of makes me cringe a little on the inside. It also makes me glow on the inside, too. One of the many dichotomies of my life!

I guess the next step in this process of mining my emotions would be to allow myself to express them to a fuller extent. Not only would that aid in my writing, but it would probably be healthy for me and my relationships (not that any of that is bad, but those could always be better, right?).

So where have you pushed yourself and your writing this year and where are you taking those things in the next year?

Feeling Like Mary Poppins in My New Office

December 1, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. As you probably noticed, I took last week off from blogging, and from writing too, which was kind of a bummer because I had an awesomely productive writing week prior to Thanksgiving. Getting back on track this week, though, and thought I’d give you an update on the office attic space.

It has been coming along nicely (a bit slowly as well, but that’s life, I suppose) and I’ve been enjoying my new writing space. In fact, I’m there right now writing this blog post. The Prince is on his baby play mat behind me, and The Boy is outside playing with his grandma. I even have tea and leftover pumpkin pie to enjoy (devour!). All in all a pretty good deal.

The office isn’t finished finished…there are still boxes that need to be put away, storage units that need to be built, molding to be finished, a few doors to be installed, and we need to figure out where exactly we’re going to put my ficus tree, which I bought when I was 9 years old and has grown considerably larger since then. But it’s turning out to be a very functional space even with all the clutter.

My view isn’t the prettiest, but it kind of makes me feel like a suburban Mary Poppins. No chimney sweeps and certainly not as picturesque as London at twilight, but it’s mine and I love it all the same.

One of these days when the room is organized and clean (which may never happen with the kiddos playing up here), I’ll post some good before, during, and after photos. In the meantime, I’ll keep writing my WIP in my WIP of an office. 🙂

Visiting Gillette’s Castle for the Great CT Caper

September 23, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

Last week I dragged the whole family up to the Connecticut River Valley for a trip to Gillette’s Castle. Okay, there wasn’t really any dragging involved. I mean, who wouldn’t want to visit a medieval-style castle overlooking a gorgeous river valley? And the kiddos are still too little to protest much over what family activities we do. 🙂

I was there to do research for writing my chapter of the Great CT Caper, which starts next week! So far all I know for the story is that the castle is going to go missing…and the rest is up to us writers to create.

There’s nothing quite like physically experiencing the place you are writing about, so off we went. The morning rain scared away all the tourists (plus it was a Tuesday), so we had run of the place almost to ourselves. I had already done 664 (1) some research on William Gillette who designed and lived in the castle.

Gillette is probably best known for portraying Sherlock Holmes on stage. Seems he had quite the sense of humor and was a natural entertainer because his home was set up to simultaneously awe his guests and tease them. He had strategically placed mirrors so he could spy on his guests from other rooms, one of which he used to observe his guests struggle with a trick liquor cabinet that Gillette designed. He also had a secret shortcut on his main stairway so he could beat his guests up to the great room and surprise them.

All in all I took a million pictures (many a little blurry because The Prince was strapped to me via the Moby wrap and it made it hard for me to keep my phone steady) and learned way more information than I’ll ever be able to cram into a whole story never mind a single chapter. But I also got really inspired and earned a whole new sense of the castle that I never would have gotten from pictures and descriptions of it. I do hope I get to incorporate a little of that into my small part in the story.

Join Me on the Great CT Caper

September 9, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

Finally the time has come to let you all know about that collaborative project I’ve been teasing you about. (I know, you’ve just been dying of curiosity, haven’t you?) Drum roll, please…

Join me, 11 other Connecticut authors, and 12 Connecticut illustrators as one of our own state’s cultural treasures is about to go missing. The Great CT Caper is on! The plot will develop as each author tackles one chapter at a time, but it all starts with the missing treasure, which was on voted on by the people. And they selected Gillette Castle!

Gillette Castle was designed by William Gillette, who was actually Sherlock Holmes (on stage anyway!), as a private residence and is now part of a state park. High above the gorgeous Connecticut River, I can’t imagine a better place for a mystery to take place. As part of my research, I’ll be visiting it later this month and I’ll be sure to share my experience here on the blog.

With the Great CT Caper, the Connecticut Center for the Humanities will be the first to publish a state-specific version of a serialized story for young readers modeled after a national one done by the Library of Congress. Starting in January 2015, the story will be published online one nail-biting chapter at a time.

I think it’s going to be an amazingly fun project to work on. I’ve never collaborated on a story with so many different writers and I’m really excited to see what kind of story comes out of it. Have any of you ever co-written or done a collaborative book?

Adventures and Writing Prompts in the Backyard

July 29, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

When people ask where my ideas come from, I always tell them from any and everywhere. As I’ve mentioned in my Confessions of an Author series, coming up with ideas is not a problem; it’s whittling down those ideas to find the gems and then following through on them that’s the hard part.

Out in the backyard the other day, just playing with the boys, there was no shortage of visual prompts that could easily turn into book ideas (and it was a different black butterfly on the butterfly bush that inspired my current WIP–see first pic!). So I thought I’d go ahead and share those visuals with all of you (and of course some cuteness with pics of said boys).

Whenever I find mushrooms in the yard, I wonder what kind of magical creatures might live there. Though I knew The Boy had created the little rock formation, I thought about someone who didn’t know its origin coming across it and wondering how it came to be. And bubbles are always magical and fun!

Where do your ideas come from? What gets your creative juices going?