Adventures in Writing wins the Liebster Award!

Thank you so much for the Liebster Blogging Award, Raimey. You really made my day. I am truly honored! Blogging can sometimes feel like a lonely gig. However, Raimey Gallant’s brilliant Author Toolbox Blog Hop helps writers of all stripes connect and support one another. Thank you for this too, Raimey!

Readers and nominees, here are the rules for being nominated as a Liebster:

Liebster Award Rules and Nominees:
Rule 1: Thank the person who nominated you for the award.

Rule 2: Answer the 11 questions the person asked you.
Rule 3: Nominate 11 people (comment on their blog to let them know)
Rule 4: Ask the people you have nominated 11 questions (My questions are at the bottom of this post.)

Here are my answers to Raimey’s questions. I must admit. Some of them were tough.

1. Who is your favourite author that you haven’t listed as a password backup for a financial institution.  

Mary Higgins Clark

2. Invent a hashtag that you would like to see gain traction.

#ContemporaryYAAventurestory

3. The wackiest writing prompt you can think of on the fly.

A parrot led a boy into a cave to find a treasure chest. When the boy broke the lock and opened the chest, he discovered…

4. What genre(s) do you write in, and what subgenre(s) do you spice in?

Adventure and Mystery,    Subgenre- throw in romance

5. What does your plotting/pantsing technique involve? Please describe using morse code. Kidding. You can use letters. 

I always need to know where I’m going in story. Scene cards are very helpful with this. In other words – I only wear pants, not write by them.

6. Using only three-word sentences, tell us about your childhood (i.e. I hated hockey. Mom re-married dad. Toaster broke window.)

School was tough. Helped at home. Watched little sister. I prepared dinner. Was not popular. I loved mysteries. I wrote stories. I loved music. Acted in plays. I loved hiking. Sea shore adventures. Work, no college.

7. Write the eulogy for one of your characters in less than 100 words.

Yikes! I don’t want to kill my characters. [OK, so that’s one of my problems!]

He was famous for his wood carvings, at least the family thought so. And when he tapped danced in the living room, all the children’s card houses collapsed. He made his world laugh. He held them with his voice. He was a protector. No one cared more for his family.

8. Tell us something quirky about you.

Each summer, I journey and explore the United States and parts of Canada, from coast to coast, in a small conversion van with 5 noisy kids, camping in a tiny pop-up trailer that sleeps 7 in three beds. …And having the time of my life. I think the children are too!

9. I’m gonna need you to dig deep for this one. If chances are slim, how can something be fat about it (fat chance)?

Wow! Good point. A literal person, I’m going to ignore the sarcasm in this question and assume it’s psychological. Humans are usually positive creatures. I know I try to be. It’s hard when writing, though. We are always looking for the big—or fat—chances in life. At least we should try, for how can we better ourselves if we never attempt difficult endeavors?

10. If you could change one thing about a social media site, what would it be?

New comments, posts, or pop-ups continually surfacing when I’m trying to read or comment. My husband says I take too much time to think about what I want to say. True! But I want to say something pithy—or at least not embarrass myself.

11. How many plots do you have in your head on any given day?

A full plot? Only 2 or 3. Possible various threads or themes to plots? Oh…maybe about 50 or 60.

Here are 11 more wonderful bloggers who deserve the Liebster Blogging Award and what they write about. Congratulations, everyone!

http://gilbertcuriosities.blogspot.com Marie Gilbert writes about life, family, and her sci-fi series.

http://www.obligatorytraveler.com/ Sarah is a world traveler and recounts her adventures here with gorgeous photos.

www.miriamdiazgilbert.com Miriam writes about the running life. She offers tips and experiences.  

https://lorettasisco.com/ Loretta writes about pets and animals and life.

http://dawnbyrne.blogspot.com/ Dawn writes about the writing life and family.

http://positiveletters.blogspot.com/ Hilary Melton Butcher writes fascinating posts on English culture, food, and history.

https://ematimar.com/posts/ Erika writes about social media, writing, and technology.

http://jenniferrhubbard.blogspot.com/ Jennifer writes YA literary fiction and ponders the writing life on her blog.

http://taratylertalks.blogspot.com/ Tara blogs about the writer’s life and her fantasy and sci-fi books.

http://christianediting.co.nz/blog/ Iola writes about technology and social media and Christian topics.

https://onceuponatimeinhaz.blogspot.com/ Morgan talks about her camping fun with the family.

Okay everyone; here are my 11 questions for you to answer. Don’t get lost in details. Just have fun!

1.     You are thrown into a favorite story. [Not your own.] Which story and who would you be?

2.     What is the hardest part of writing for you? Why?

3.     When and where do you write? How did you discover that was best for you?

4.     If you could be anybody or anything, who or what would you be and why?

5.     How do you push forward when the inner critic won’t shut up?

6.     Do you need to write inside a bubble or library [like me] or do like to listen to music or other inspiring background sounds or “white” noise to write?  

7.     How do you keep the wolves…ahem…I mean convince your children or other people to leave you alone to write? Does it work? Provide tips—please!

8.     Who was your favorite author as a child? Who is your favorite author now?

9.     If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Why that?

10.  How do you find inspiration?

11.  What book or movie or writing workshop or blog post has affected your work the most? Why?

Once again, thank you, Raimey, for nominating my Adventures in Writing blog for the

Liebster Blogging Award. It is appreciated more than you realize. Thanks for stopping by, everyone!

Memoir Made Easy: What to Remember When Starting Out #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

Hello and welcome, everyone, to Adventures in Writing and my first Author Toolbox Blog Hop post. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Victoria Marie Lees and I write YA short story adventures, poetry, and memoir.

            Memoir is a story—yes, even though it’s about the writer’s life, it is a story. “Just the facts, Ma’am,” is autobiography. Memoir is usually about one specific time period in the writer’s life, a period where discoveries are made. Memoir interprets the events for the reader. Occasionally, the timeline of memoir may be scattered throughout the writer’s lifetime, but the focus will be narrowed to one topic.

My memoir is about the ten-year journey I took through academia to acquire a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania while still being a mother to my five children during their growing-up years. It encompasses the trials a parent needs to face and understand when attempting such an endeavor and how to survive it successfully.    

Memoir needs to be true. You must include the fiction elements of:

protagonist vs. antagonist[s], even if the antagonist is a concept like time or academic understanding;

tension and problem resolution;

an overall-story ticking clock;

setting and pacing;

the creation of believable characters out of real people.

This is what makes memoir so difficult to write. You are telling a story about yourself with all these fiction elements in place.

Then you need to consider that memoir is not all about you. Memoir needs to offer critical insight for the reader.

So how do you do this?

By looking inside yourself to understand why you did what you did at that time, why you thought what you thought at that time.

Remember. Just like in fiction, the reader needs to be in the scene, understanding your every move. Everything from why you think it’s best to drop a course, as in my memoir, to why any parent would ever attempt an Ivy League education after starting her education at a community college close to home.

            The often misunderstood “Show, don’t tell” helps with this. “Show, don’t tell” means to show the reader why what’s happening matters to the protagonist. Fiction or memoir, you need to show how the protagonist came to that decision—internally. Inner thoughts are at the heart of any story or memoir. In other words, to borrow from Hemingway, to write a memoir, you need to “bleed” on the page.

            Readers want to be in the head of the protagonist, hearing the inner thoughts and understanding any logic for decisions made, no matter how flawed that logic may be.

            Remember, the protagonist is flawed. This is the most difficult part for memoirists.

Now you’re thinking: “Me? Flawed?”

Okay, so I don’t know about you, but I’m greatly flawed. Just ask my children.

As in all creative writing, the writer must decide what to put in the story or essay and what to leave out—especially in memoir. Memoir is not your whole life. That’s autobiography. Memoir is only a small piece of it.

For me to choose which flaw to showcase in my college memoir, I needed to consider the flaw that would resonate most with the story question of why I waited until I had five children to attend college. My youngest, twins, started second grade and the oldest, who is learning-disabled, started high school when I began my college journey.

            To dramatize that moment in the memoir, I needed to consider my own personal backstory, my past, my growing up years to discover the origin scene for the flaw in my own logic.  

            There is so much to consider when creating a memoir. This should get you started if you plan to write one in the future. I’d like to continue this topic for next month’s Author Toolbox blog hop.

Please feel free to share any good memoirs you have read or leave any questions you may have about memoir or writing in the comments section. Again, thank you for visiting Adventures in Writing. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. I’ll be sure to do the same for you. To continue hopping through more amazing blogs or to join our Author Toolbox blog hop, click here. 

Insecure Writers want to know: What is one valuable lesson you've learned since you started writing?

            So many valuable lessons, so much still to learn. I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned since beginning to write is to believe in myself enough to send a story out. And if it comes back, to brush it off, and send it out again. And again, and—yes—even again.

            Many times, writers are a fragile creature. I know I am. We try so hard to believe in ourselves, in our stories, in our writing. And in my case, I’m crushed again and again. To be able to pick yourself up and continue to believe is a power all writers have. It’s just difficult to find sometimes. 

            Where can we find this inner strength to continue calling ourselves writers, to actually be writers? Here are a few tips that help me.

            Safety in numbers. Writing groups help writers find confidence. I belong to South Jersey Writers Group, a friendly group of writers in many genres who support one another, critique one another’s work, and offer presentations about writing, publishing, social media, and other tools of the trade.

            Writers helping writers. When writers learn something new, they don’t keep it to themselves. The very nature of the writing beast is to share what they’ve learned with others in their number. I do this through South Jersey Writers Group and reading other Insecure Writers Support Group blogs and sharing information on my Adventures in Writing blog and through workshops I present.

            Here are a few excellent writers and bloggers that I have come across: Jennie Nash, Lisa Cron, Writers in the Storm, The Editor’s Blog. You might like to follow them as well.

            Finding a quiet space to think. We are a multi-tasking society, and writers are no different. I believe writers need a peaceful place to leave the world and all their obligations behind in order to look within and consider what’s working and what’s not in their writing in progress. Some writers attend writing conferences, which not only allow for the first two points in my post, but also some time for uninterrupted thinking and writing. I realize they are expensive and some writers don’t have the money or time to go away to write.

I find thinking time in chunks, a few hours lost among the stacks in a library—away from the five children and home obligations. But I also find quiet in a walk through the woods or around a local lake. Sometimes just a walk in my neighborhood gets me away from the computer screen and into my thoughts about story flow, pacing, and logic. Writers can’t be afraid to look within to find answers; both for their writing and in life.

If writers are lucky enough to share these three key pieces of the writerly life, then they can find the courage to let go and send their stories and essays out into the world time and again, whether through traditional publishing or self-publishing. No. It’s still not easy. But it can be done.

I wish you all a solid belief in what you are doing in your writing life. Thanks for stopping by Adventures in Writing and sharing any thoughts you might have about this or about writing. Writers sharing with other writers. It’s what the writing life’s about.

This post was written for the Insecure Writer’s SupportGroup. We post on the first Wednesday of every month.  To join us, or learn more about the group, click HERE.