TIPS FOR THE NON-PLOTTER by Mary Gillgannon

MUSE MONDAY

Please join me in welcoming Mary Gillgannon to Discover Yourself. It's always fun to read how an author works! 

I am what I call an “into the mist” writer. I don’t really plot, but come up with an opening, characters or story idea and start writing. I do it this way not by choice, but because if I try to plot out my story, the creative part of my brain refuses to cooperate.

My theory is that in order to write, the two sides of my brain have to work together. The creative side comes up with story, but the rational/organized side then has to find the words and structure to describe it. It’s as if my consciousness has to jump back and forth between the two sides in order to write.

Over time, I’ve learned some things that facilitate this process. The first one is that basic physical activity increases this connection between the two sides of my brain. If I’m totally stuck and get up from the computer and do something—make tea, use the bathroom, walk downstairs—any one of those very mundane activities seems to unlock something and make the words flow.

Along with walking comes driving, another activity where part of my brain is engaged. While the rational part of my brain is calculating distance and speed and helping me make the decisions of when to pass and when to slow down, another part of my brain is making creative connections and furthering my story.

I’ve also discovered that dreaming and daydreaming both represent a state where the creative part of my brain works best. I’m not a morning person. I’m basically dysfunctional until about 10 a.m. And yet, I can get up in the wee hours and write. It works because the dream state you experience while sleeping is related to the state where the creative part of the brain is most accessible. I’ve learned that if I get stuck in a story, if I think about the story while I’m trying to fall asleep and when I first awake, my unconscious will often tell me where to take it.

The third thing that seems to help me is simply telling someone about my plot. It has to be live and in the moment. And it has to be an oral description/explanation. But something about the physical act of verbalizing my story seems to free the creative half of my brain. Again, the physical process apparently fires the neurons I use to create the story.

For me, the process of writing is mysterious and magical. And incredibly messy and wasteful. For my few books, I probably wrote an extra 30,000 words for every 100,000 that ended up in the finished book. I’ve gotten better over the years. I don’t get quite as off track as I used to. I’ve learned to recognize when I’m headed down a blind alley and stop and figure out where my plot needs to go. My muse is stubborn and independent, but she will listen to reason occasionally.

But the true test of my getting better at this is whether I can manage a mystery plot. My current work in progress has a murder, and there may be more deaths. (I don’t know yet. Which probably seems odd, but it’s true. I won’t know until my characters find another dead body.) When writing a mystery, everything has to make sense and tie together at the end, and yet keep the reader guessing throughout the book. You have to set up the clues and also throw in some red herrings to misdirect and confuse. This is real plotting and it takes more logic than instinct and intuition, which is how my romances evolve. But I’m determined to master this. Because someday I’d like to write a real mystery. And that’s a bit daunting when you don’t plot.

Blurb and buy links for Wicked Wager:

When hardened gamester Marcus Revington wins Horngate Manor in a card game, he is delighted to finally own property. Even discovering he must marry the heiress of the estate doesn’t deter him. The heiress, Penny Montgomery, is happy with her life raising horses at Horngate and has no desire to wed anyone. When she learns about her guardian’s Wicked Wager, she schemes to convince Marcus she’s unsuitable as a wife so he’ll forget his plan to marry her. Who will win this battle of wits and wills? Or will they both discover the name of the game is love?

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VU8L64K

Barnes and Noble:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wicked-wager-mary-gillgannon/1121799505?ean=2940151266314

The Wild Rose Press:  http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=195&products_id=6209

ADVENTURES IN DRIVING by Mary Gillgannon

FEARLESS FRIDAY

I love Fearless Friday. Mary has a fun story for us so read on!

When we decided we needed a rental car on our trip to Ireland and Wales, both my husband and I presumed he would be the driver. After all, he’s been driving since he took his mom’s car joyriding at age ten. For many years he had a commercial driver’s license and in the early years of our marriage, he drove trucks for his jobs.

But all those credentials didn’t prepare for him for the reality of driving on the wrong side of the road while seated on the wrong side of the car. We’d only gone a few blocks after picking up our rental car in Wales when he scraped the side of the car maneuvering through one of the crowded, narrow streets. Appalled, he pulled over and said, “I can’t do this.” So we switched places and I became the driver.

I really had no choice. The only other person in the car was our son, who was only 18 and not legally old enough to drive a rental car. And we knew we were already in trouble with the rental agency because of the long scratch on the side of the car. So, with knuckles white on the steering wheel, I maneuvered out of the narrow lane, found the main highway and we headed off.

It took all my concentration at first, and I could barely even risk a glance as we passed Conwy Castle or dare more than a glimpse of the ocean as we followed the coast. The lush green hills and picturesque mountain vistas I’d come to see also passed by in a blur. And I’m sure I left some swearing drivers in my wake. I drove slowly and cautiously, and hesitated at more than a few turns and roundabouts (more on those later). But I got us to our destination, and from then on I was the driver.

A few days later, we took the ferry to Ireland and met up with my husband’s brother and his girlfriend, but my driving tasks weren’t over. My brother-in-law has poor peripheral vision and didn’t feel comfortable driving. And his girlfriend, although experienced at driving “on the wrong side of the road”, wasn’t very enthused about driving. After all, she’d come on this trip to relax. So once again, that left me. I now had a whole carload of people to help me navigate. And it took all of them to get us out of Dublin, with its one way streets, streets that seem to go in circles, crazy traffic and highway construction. But once outside of Dublin, I discovered something even more daunting:  roundabouts. 

There had been a few roundabouts in Wales, but it’s a fairly rural country and I could at least catch my breath in between them. In Ireland it seemed like every intersection was a roundabout or, worse yet, a double roundabout. I approached each one with a sense of growing panic and confusion. And the whole carload had to coach me through them and tell me exactly where to turn. Even then, there were plenty of times when I turned in the wrong place and we had to backtrack. They finally convinced me that if I missed the turn I should just go around again and try to catch it the second time. For a while I had nightmares about driving endlessly around in a circle in a roundabout.

But we all survived and it was a wonderful trip in every other respect. And I did get better. With the result that when I went to England and Wales with my daughter a few years later, I planned an itinerary that included driving in and out London, navigating the narrow, serpentine streets of Cardiff during rush hour and a horrendous experience in

Reading where we followed the main “dual carriageway” in a circle around the city about a dozen times. We asked for directions in three different places, but were still hopelessly lost. It’s quite possible we would still be trapped there, going around and around, if a kind stranger hadn’t taken pity on us. He told us to follow him in his car, then literally stopped and got out and said “turn here” (while pointing) when we reached the road we needed to take to our hotel.

I’ve since driven on two more trips to Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I really feel I’m getting much better. I sail through roundabouts and only take the wrong turn and get lost about a third of the time. People are always amazed that I can do it. My secret is that I’m not an intuitive driver, which means I always have to focus very hard to figure out where I am in regards to other vehicles. So, driving in the UK just means concentrating a little more intensely. I’m also highly motivated. In these trips, I’m always on the way to some magical destination that I’ve dreamed of seeing, and if the only way I can get there is by driving, then that’s what I’ll do!

Mary’s next book is a Regency historical to be released on May 6^th.

Pre-order from Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/ B00VU8L64K

 You can connect with Mary here:

Website:  http://marygillgannon.com

Blog: http://marygillgannon.blogspot.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/mary.gillgannon

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MaryGillgannon

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONFLICT by Mary Gillgannon

MUSE MONDAY

Please welcome Mary Gillgannon to Muse Monday. Read on!

Years ago, a romance editor told me what she looked for in a synopsis:  “Tell me what she wants, what he wants, and why they can’t get it.”

I was trying to figure out how to condense my ten-page synopsis down to the two pages she’d requested, and at first her advice puzzled me. What about the development of the romance? What about character growth? I eventually came to realize that what she was talking about was conflict. Because something is keeping the characters from getting what they want, there is conflict. And conflict is the engine that drives the story. It is what builds suspense. If the characters get everything they want, the reader isn’t going to care about them, or keep reading to find out what happens. Without conflict, you don’t have a strong plot. 

In a romance, the conflict often starts between the hero and heroine. Sometimes it’s overt and they are actual enemies. In one of my books, she’s a Saxon and he’s the Norman knight who takes control of her home. Their first response upon meeting is wariness on his part, and outright hatred on hers. There is a big conflict between them and it takes a long time to work out.

In a contemporary romance conflict may be more subtle. They may be on opposite sides of a political issue or work for competing businesses. Or they may just rub each other the wrong way. She’s a free spirit and he likes things by-the-book. She may be fiercely independent and he’s a take-charge kind of guy. Whatever it is, they clash from the beginning. Sometimes in big ways. Sometimes in little ones. The tension of their conflict is part of what draws them together. It makes them think and behave in different ways. By its very nature it changes them. And the reader follows along, wanting to see what happens.

Then there is the conflict that takes place inside them. They may be very clear in their goals at the beginning of the book, but by the end, they have often completely changed direction. What they think they want turns out to be unimportant, and something they didn’t think they cared about turns out to be crucial to their happiness. We enjoy this process of the characters growing and changing as they work out the conflicts happening inside them.

Very often the conflict that drives the story changes over the course of the book. The internal conflicts at the beginning are resolved as the hero and heroine fall in love. Meanwhile, outside forces threaten to destroy everything. The villain who has been lurking in the background takes center stage. But the hero and heroine, who have learned to trust each other and work together, now take on the threat together. The conflict has shifted from the dynamic between them to something outside them. Depending on the story, the threat may be psychological or very real. But either way, the struggle with this opposing force will take them to nearly the end of the book.

As they—together—triumph over the obstacle to their happiness, the reader experiences the satisfaction of their success and a sense that all is right with the world. The happily-ever-after is the payoff. But it would not be nearly so sweet without the conflict that made the story come to life.

Tell us a little about your latest book, Mary, and something about you...

In the ninth-century, Irish warrior Connar fell hopelessly in love with Aisling, one of the Nine Sisters, a group of priestesses skilled in healing. When Aisling came to a tragic end, he used magic to travel to the future to reunite with her. But someone has followed Connar from the past, and they are determined to keep Allison and Connar apart. As Allison struggles with terrifying visions, she must learn to trust in a love that transcends even death.

Buy links: 

AMAZON    B & N    KOBO    THE WILD ROSE PRESS

Mary Gillgannon writes historical romance and fantasy, often with Celtic influences. She’s married and has two grown children. She now indulges her nurturing tendencies on four very spoiled cats and a moderately spoiled dog. When not working or writing, she enjoys gardening, traveling and reading, of course!

Blog: http://marygillgannon.blogspot.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/mary.gillgannon

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MaryGillgannon