Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Roaring at Writing Game Buddies




Lovely Carol, of Northwest Ladybug, gave me this wonderful award, for which I'm very grateful! It comes at a particularly good time for a whole variety of reasons. Thank you, Carol!


So here are the rules:

List three things you believe are necessary for good, powerful writing and then pass the award on to the five bloggers you want to honor, who in turn should pass it on to five others, etc. Let's send a roar through the blogosphere! (The image above can be copied and pasted onto other blogs.)

Three qualities I believe are important for good, powerful writing:

1. Discipline. What I mean here is that you need the discipline to sit down with that manuscript over and over again until you get it just right. (This is the part I hate the most, and therefore I most admire writers who do this beautifully, like Charity of Writing Wrongs).

2. Honesty. Write what you know or research what you want to write. Be clear and honest with your characters, your voices and your settings. Don't be afraid to make your characters do something awful, if the story warrants it.

3. Write your passion. Write what gives you passion in life. When I say "passion" it might even be something you hate, but then know absolutely why you hate it. Passionate writing will trump anything that's anemic. Always. I don't care how much beautiful imagery you use, if you don't have passion you ain't got nuttin'.

Here are some bloggers I think deserve the "Roar for Powerful Words" award. It's actually a group, and it's actually a group of more than five. These are the brave souls who took me up on my Writing Game challenge at the end of October/beginning of November, along with their posts:

1. Anno of Anno's place. Anno was given ideas by Leslie of My Mommy's Place and she turned it into a wonderful story of love and betrayal, called "Storm".

2. Gunfighter of The View from Here. Gunfighter gave us a slamming start of a suspense series (while fighting off the flu no less!) with ideas generated by yours truly. His wonderful piece is called Gunfighter of "A Murder in Washington, DC".

3. Leslie of My Mommy's Place. Leslie took the ideas of SMID of Soccer Mom in Denial and turned them into an untitled Leslie of story of bittersweet internet intrigue.

4. SMID from Soccer Mom in Denial. SMID took Anno's ideas and turned them into a lovely story about an artist breaking away from a difficult mother in SMID from "Be True".

5. Veriano of Haikuku. I really want to encourage everyone to read this one for two reasons - 1. This entry came a little late and was missed on the Writing Game day itself (November 12th) and 2. This is the debut offering of my very own DH's blog! Veriano took Wholly Burble's rollicking ideas (I've had the pleasure of working with Wholly Burble in my online writers group for over five years now, and her ideas are always rollicking!) and turned them into a suburban mother's escape into her rock star wannabe past in "Strut at 40".

6. And finally, Ms. Wholly Burble herself, of Rocking Chair Ruminations. Gunfighter, who never does things halfway, gave WB a very specific group of historic characters to work with, and she did them proud with a Revolutionary War story that she now plans to lengthen into a novel: "The Road Home".

8 comments:

anno said...

Congratulations on a well-deserved award! Having personally witnessed your commitment to "getting it right," I think you exemplify all three of the qualities you listed as necessary for powerful writing. Thanks for including me on your list -- it's an honor!

Wholly Burble said...

Oh my, I'm touched by your comments and inclusion of my work. I'm so pleased by this post. Thank you.

I think your points are all so spot on!

And now I get to read "Strut at 40"! How exciting--thanks for getting this posted for all of us.

soccer mom in denial said...

Awwww shucks! You are so kind. Really. And I will do something with it. I would never ignore you!!

Luisa Perkins said...

So excited! You completely deserve it.

Jan said...

Congratulations to all of you ! You all deserve it.... very good writing.

Jan

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much, Jen! You are truly deserving of this award. Me? I'm not so sure, but I will gladly accept it and pass it on.

Goofball said...

Now I know why I'll never be a good writer: I don't have the discipline. If I can't just blur it out and hit publish, it looses the fun for me. Rereading....pfffffffff.


Hurray for all who can!

nyc/caribbean ragazza said...

Congrats on your award!!

These are great suggestions as I start to research book number two.