I suppose everyone has a favorite Christmas. The year they got the bike they had so wanted. Or maybe a Chatty Cathy doll when those were popular.
My favorite Christmas was the year my daughter Carolyn was born.
My husband and I moved to Anchorage, Alaska when we were first married. He was a civilian engineer assigned to help the Air Force keep their missiles operating. For me, a native Californian who had rarely seen snow much less lived in a snowy climate, it was all quite exciting. And truly beautiful.
I was pregnant as our second Christmas approached. (Which, by the way, gave me an excuse not to tramp through the woods in a foot of snow to cut down our own tree and freeze my feet in the process as I had the previous Christmas.)
As I walked through town doing my Christmas shopping, I admired the decorations draped from lamp poles and the store windows painted with holiday themes. Like most first-time moms-to-be, I wanted to shout to everyone that I would soon have a baby! And thank them for decorating the whole town in honor of her upcoming arrival.
On the evening of December 23rd, my water broke. Off to the hospital we go, which was no easy trick. We’d had a Chinook, a warm spell that melted the snow during the day and turned it to ice at night.
Newly-built Providence hospital was at the end of a long, dirt road, not uncommon in Anchorage at the time, and was crowned over with ice. Driving no more than 5-miles an hour, my husband managed to keep us on the road instead of in the ditch. I was so grateful we, and the baby, were in no hurry.
Baby Carolyn definitely wasn’t in a hurry. She didn’t make her grand entrance until the afternoon of December 24th. It is not possible to describe the surge of love I felt the moment I saw her. Wow! I was a mother. A scary and wonderful feeling.
And the best Christmas present ever! What was your favorite Christmas present?
Wishing you a lovely Christmas and holiday season.
Books that leave you smiling
by Charlotte Carter
Big Sky Family, Love Inspired, available now. Montana Love Letter, Love Inspired, 10/2012
Secrets of Mary’s Bookshop, Guideposts Books, 2012 www.CharlotteCarter.com
Tis the season. Bell ringers with kettles stand outside stores, vying for territory with candy sale fund-raisers. We’re receiving charity requests every day in the mail, and at work, we’re adopting needy families for the Holidays.
Sometimes it seems easier to shut the door and close yourself in a nice quiet writing room. But when you do that, you also shut out everything you need to become a great writer and a better person.
This time of year especially, I count my blessings, and ask myself how I can give back. I make my goals for volunteerism for the coming year.
I was suspicious if this was even a valid word, so I looked it up in Dictionary.com:
vol·un·teer·ism vɒl ənˈtɪərɪzəm/ [vol-uhn-teer-iz-uhm] noun The policy or practice of volunteering one's time or talents for charitable, educational, or other worthwhile activities, especially in one's community.
I’m NOT here to preach – everyone has different life circumstances and schedules to keep. But I’d like to make a suggestion in regards to your writing life…volunteer.
If you belong to RWA or another writing group, volunteer to be on the board of directors, join a committee, or help at meetings.
Befriend the newbie writers in your world. Mentor them: critique, give advice, refer good articles, blogs, etc to them.
Even if your time is limited to tweeting good craft, market, or agent advice, it really does help. You never know when something will spark a flame in a reader.
Aside from obvious altruistic motives, there’s a selfish reason as well: When you give, you benefit twice over. I know, that’s an old saw – but those old saws exist because at their heart, they’re true.
I’m in the submission process with editors. It’s been a huge emotional roller coaster, and without the tight-knit community I’ve developed in several different places, I shudder to think where I’d be. If I only had my crit group to burden with all that whining (no, seriously) they’d have gagged me and tied me to a chair by now.
This journey is fraught with disappointment, and it’s not easy to pick yourself up and move on when you get knocked on your butt. But my efforts to help others over the past several years means I have gained many friends -- in cheerleading skirts. They scoop me up, dust me off, and pat me on the back as I soldier on.
While giving is great, it’s good to remember to say thank you too. So please consider this a big kiss, and thank you all my amazing friends. Bottom line, to quote a stupid commercial, “I love you, man!”
I’ll leave you with my home chapter’s (OCCRWA) motto:
“One hand reaching forward,
one hand reaching back, in a continuing chain.”
Today, I’d like to introduce you to the late, great mystery and TV writer, Stephen J. Cannell. Trust me, most of you have watched his shows.
As many of you know, all of us at Writers In The Storm are blessed by geography to live near an active RWA chapter that gets incredible speakers.
Several years back, Stephen J. Cannell came to our monthly event to speak and there was a huge flurry of excitement. At the time, I hadn’t a clue who he was, but I still got caught up in the buzz.
So Mr. Cannell gets up to talk and he just looks like a Hollywood guy: sexy in a lanky-guy way, salt and pepper hair, snappy dresser. His easy smile and raspy voice commanded attention.
Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know when I arrived at the meeting that day:
He was dyslexic and overcame huge hurdles to be a writer.
Ex: he frequently had to dictate ideas or even complete scripts to a personal secretary and typed on an IBM Selectric typewriter unless he was doing research.
He would unlock the mystery of 3-Act structure for me.
Obviously this man changed my life and had enormous impact on me as a writer.
When it comes to a story, 3-Act structure is…everything. And I never quite understood what it was until that first day Stephen spoke. I’ll never forget that moment, when he stood at a podium in front of 100 writers and broke down When Harry Met Sally in easy 3-Act detail. He did a few other movies, but this post is going to be long enough as it is, so we’re sticking with my favorite one.
A paraphrase of Cannell’s description of When Harry Met Sally:
When I ask young writers what 3-Act Structure is, they say it has a beginning, middle and an end. This is not the answer. A lunch line has a beginning, middle and an end. The Three-Act structure is critical to good dramatic writing, and each act has specific story moves.
Take the movie, When Harry Met Sally. The First Act is all about the hook, or the premise. In this case, it’s that “men and women cannot be friends.” So you’ve got the set-up where they meet and then decide they’re not going to be friends.
Act Two opens with Harry and Sally meeting up again in the bookstore and slowly becoming good friends. Their friendship becomes the single most important thing in their lives and the worst thing in the world would be to lose it. The scene in the wedding is the dark moment climax of Act 2 because it is the end of their friendship as we know it.
They’re off to the side of the reception, speaking in furious whispers about why they’ve been at odds since the night they had sex:
The scene ends with her slapping him across the face, saying, “F*ck you, Harry!” and storming away. The curtain closes on Act Two because the WORST thing has happened…the two of them are no longer friends.
Act Three is the “clean up” act, the resolution to your story. In this case, it’s all about Harry trying to get back into Sally’s good graces so the two of them can be friends again, justas they were. Sally’s having none of it.
Finally, on New Year’s Eve, Harry has his turning point and we get the final scene of the movie where he runs through New York City to get to Sally before midnight. When he sees her at the party, he gives his now famous "I love you" speech:
Harry Burns: I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
If you want to wallow in the brilliance of When Harry Met Sally dialogue, click here.
I don’t know if this quick breakdown turned the lightbulb on for you, but it sure did for me the first time I heard it. To see Stephen Cannell’s “official description” of 3-Act structure click this post – he does a fantastic breakdown of the movie, Love Story.
More Stephen Cannell Trade Secrets:
Cannell discusses a myriad of “trade secrets” in this entire series on writing that he did on WritersWrite.com. But the main piece of advice that I remember, besides my 3-Act Epiphany was the way he’d refer to the villains in a story. I can hear his voice in my head right now.
He called his bad guys “the Heavies” and he was brilliant with them. It’s no surprise to me why his television shows were so wonderful. Whenever, he’d get stuck in a story, he’d ask himself, “What are ‘the Heavies’ doing?” Once he wrote the story from their angle for a while, he’d get back on track.
If you’d like to hear his voice too, he’s got more than 60 videos recorded on YouTube. Here’s some simple, yet sage advice from the man himself.
Advice for Aspiring Writers by Stephen J. Cannell
[youtube=http://youtu.be/u03tC9aWLlA]
If Stephen Cannell is a new discovery for you, enjoy! He’s awesome. His mantra was: “be honest, be sensitive, be reasonable, be fair and you can succeed marvelously in business and in life.” Go, Steve.
Who has made the biggest impact on your writing life? Do you have any other 3-Act or story planning tips to share with the rest of us?
About Jenny Hansen
Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after the newly walking Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing.
When she’s not at her blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at jhansenwrites and here at Writers In The Storm. Every Saturday, she writes the Risky Baby Business posts at More Cowbell, a series that focuses on babies, new parents and high-risk pregnancy.
