Oysters and Angels and Writing Aerobics

By Barbara Rose Brooker

Anecdotes of a writer’s personal journey as a author, as she ascends into the world of agents, publishing, publications, Hollywood, editors, and a bestseller. The author’s Writing Aerobics are exercises that guide the writer from title, premise, table of contents, outline, dialogue, story, scene, point of view, and all elements of craft, into a beginning, middle, and end.
"I have never seen the aerobics fail," Barbara Rose Brooker says. " I have seen miracles. Read this book and you will learn to write your book in any genre, self publish and publish on ebooks and turn your life into a bestseller”!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Rose Brooker
• Release date: Oct 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465839879

Barbara Rose Brooker

Barbara Rose Brooker is currently a teacher at San Francisco State University with a masters in creative writing. She has appeared on the Today show and The Talk and has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, and more. 

Book preview

OYSTERS AND ANGELS

AND WRITING AEROBICS

A WRITERS JOURNEY AND STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE ON WRITING AND PUBLISHING A BOOK AT ANY AGE.

BY BARBARA ROSE BROOKER

Anyone at any age can write and publish a book.

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by Barbara Rose Brooker

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

PART A – YOU’RE GETTING READY TO SHAPE YOUR CONCEPT INTO A BOOK.

PART B – LAYING OUT YOUR BOOK STRUCTURE AND BEGIN

Chapter 1. TITLE

Chapter 2. PREMISE

Chapter 3. CONFLICT

Chapter 4. THEME

Chapter 5. LOGLINE

Chapter 6. POINT OF VIEW

Chapter 7, TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 8. SECRET SELF

Chapter 9. BACK STORY

Chapter 10. STORY

Chapter 11. ABC SYNOPSIS

Chapter 12. THE OUTLINE

Chapter 13. SETUP

Chapter 14. PLOT

Chapter 15. SCENE

Chapter 16. NARRATOR

Chapter 17. STYLE

Chapter 18. DIALOGUE

Chapter 19. CHARACTER

Chapter 20. Silent Angels And Oysters

PART C – THE PUBLICATION PROCESS

Chapter 21. YOU FINISHED. WHAT NEXT?

Chapter 22. THE QUERY LETTER

Chapter 23. FINDING AN AGENT

Chapter 24. THE TREATMENT

Chapter 25. SOLD!

Chapter 26. POSTPARTUM

PART A

YOU’RE GETTING READY TO SHAPE YOUR CONCEPT INTO A BOOK.

Listen…Float.

Draw imaginary maps of your dreams.—Yoko Ono

YOU’RE READY TO START

Take another breath and then stretch. Maybe change the water in your vase of flowers, there’s nothing like fresh flowers nearby when you write. Did you ever notice the light floating along a bouquet of yellow roses? Flowers provide an endless source of beauty and energy and imagination. Like birds, they live above nature, with beauty and intelligence. Creativity is like a bird, it takes flight and fights risk and obstacles as it soars towards a destination. You’re now going to develop that book concept you’ve always had. I always say writing a project from concept to the end, is like a birth. Your truths and other voices, more than grammar and commas in the right place, are what you need to begin your flight.

listen to the music…

float…

I close my eyes and submerge down the sea and float on the bottom. It is dark and green and peaceful. Fish of all colors, and sizes swim by, some in schools. Art can never imitate nature. It transcends. It is quiet here, except for the fish sounds. I like the quiet and often before I write, I imagine that I’m on the bottom of the sea, letting images from my unconscious float to my conscious. It is these images and pieces of memories that I jot in a notebook and integrate into my writing. Memories and pieces of recollections, no matter what they are, are important. I kept secret notes in a notebook. I was never one of those creative writing students who stood out in a class. I was a mouse in back of the class, a midlife, single divorced mother of two daughters. I recall a time I was in poetry class.

Writing Is A Joy

To capture one’s soul is like trying to catch a bubble softly flailing in a breeze—careful it doesn’t pop. But use your soul.

It contains a myriad of stories. It’s storage.

—Barbara Rose Brooker

Your life is a best seller. I’ve personally witnessed success stories by men and women from all walks of life. Writing is constructing something from nothing; a simple incident—a chance encounter with an old friend, a neighbor’s story, an old letter, and clouds changing formation—can develop into a great book.

Everyone is working out their bodies, but not their souls. Creativity does not mean, as they say, being creative or bright. Labels are meaningless. We are all born creative. Creativity is about angels and oysters and craft. It is about everything and anything. But then our culture places labels on creativity: good, bad, right, wrong, and early on we get the message that creativity, especially writing, is only for some people and should be only a hobby.

Believe in yourself, trust your other voices, and you will write a book. You can take all of the classes in the world, learn all of the craft, read all of the books on writing but if you don’t believe in yourself, then it doesn’t matter. With the exercises in this book and the audiotape, my goal is not to teach—you can’t teach creative writing—it’s to enable collaboration between you and your honest inner truths. We learn from each other.

Anyone can write and publish a book. All you have to do is want to, then identify what you want to say, and let your emotions reveal the story. This applies to any genre. For nonfiction material, you want the same passion and original point of view as you want for fiction, screenplays, and poetry and for all genres.

In my years of teaching creative writing to adults, I hear the same fears: I have a story, but I need a ghostwriter. I don’t know how to put together a plot. The market is flooded. I don’t have the time. There’s no money in it.

All fallacies. There are no rules in art. When you’re true to yourself, you’re true to your creativity and to your craft. Break the rules. Create your own angels and oysters and follow my writing aerobics. They work.

There are no obstacles in art. Creativity is music. Creativity asks new questions. It is perpetual discovery.

Let your imagination take you into unknown journeys.

Imagine you’re under the sea, slowly diving into your self.

You are my spirit mate. We are on an exciting new journey—beginning a new climb. Relax and let your inner voices go. I will take you through the outside steps while you float in the sea, alone with the sky and the secrets of nature and with your wildest imagination.

God did not single out Mozart, Einstein, or Tolstoy. Creativity is in all of us in different ways.

* * *

Remember, this book is not about how to write or what metaphor you should use, it’s about identifying your personal voice, finding what you want to say and feel, and why and then to let go of your creativity.

Find a private spot for your journey. It is important to pick a place that you find comfortable. Isn’t this better than being in a dusty, overheated classroom? Next, pick your notebook. I recommend a loose-leaf binder or a clear plastic folder, one of those that you slip the plastic binder down over the edge. This is to keep your hard copy and to make your book seem real.

When I’m drafting a book, I always buy a binder or plastic folder. I design a cover for my book, with the title, and paste it on the binder or slip it into the plastic folder. As the book evolves, I keep my hard copy inside. This makes it real. Imagine that this binder is your book. You will see it take shape, and like I used to do, it won’t be lost on various documents, or pages dropped in a box. As you go on writing, the draft will change, but you will have this real folder. If you’re in a café or a coffee shop, you can always work on it. You will see what I mean. This binder will provide a shape for your book. Will make it real. You can carry it; see that your book project is in process. When you convey your writing to a computer, keep a hard copy of your work in this first binder. Or if you’re writing by hand, or typing on a typewriter. Whatever your process is.

Music.

Go under the sea.

* * *

Open your workbook. Think about what you want to say. Need to say. What is your message? Your concept? What I mean is that writing is not knowing, but discovery. To get started, to exercise your creativity, it’s good to shape out your project, just as directors, and screenwriters, storyboard. Later, when you’re writing, then you can break the rules, and you might not even use your blueprint. What lies behind your motivation to write? What secret conflicts do you have? What message do you want to say, or do you want to just write about someone who fascinates you? Or, your family? Conflict is the bones of your book, and sets up your story, and plot points. Conflict is wanting something but setting up obstacles to get it. It’s a war with the soul. I always write with a Walkman on my head. I have to have the music on. Some writers like complete silence. I think of writing as producing and directing my emotions. Emotions, not proper commas or grammar, create great book projects.

Take a few more deep breaths. Relax. All you have to do is to believe in yourself. I don’t want you to think that this book, and the exercises that I call Writing Aerobics are rules; they’re just models to get you into your own process, to guide you from a beginning, middle, and an ending. Consistency, and awareness will bring your concept to fruition. The aerobics will help you find your premise, themes, the beginning, middle and end, and all other elements of structure, which will get you started. Structure is only a blueprint, to give a shape, but the creativity you will use when writing your book, is free falling and within the structure, it will change. It’s like an architect first works with blueprints, before the free flow of design.

When I had been called upon to write a screen treatment for my nonfiction book God Doesn’t Make Trash, I had to figure out the structure, identify the inner and outer plot, layout the storyline. As a tailor tears apart an old suit, or dress, I had to tear apart the book I had spent years writing without an outline and only then did I notice the holes, and how it could have been more powerful if I had thought about structure first. So anyway, remember: There are no rules.

I am remembering parts of my journey as a writer. The memories are not linear; they are not on a time line. I am submerging under the sea. It is quiet under the sea. Fish sounds are different from the array of sounds of traffic, sirens, dialogue of from strangers. Fish sounds are like a mantra, a wail, like old gates opening and closing. I think more clearly, when I’m under the sea. When I’m above, I have blocked so many memories of my life, I can’t remember. Sometimes, I can’t feel my feelings so I have to write images to open the doors to my memories. My memories aren’t linear, and they go back and forth in time. Right now I am recalling a day, when I was a reentry student at San Francisco State University and I was in the poetry department as I loved writing images any that came to my conscious from deep dark dreams, or my unconscious that stores my thoughts, dreams, and life. But I didn’t understand structure.

Little Musings about me-

Know that my anecdotes will not have any order, any linear direction. I just don’t think that way. I am living this book with you.

I’m not supposed to be a poet; I’m not supposed to be anything. I’m invisible. I write my name on the notebooks. I love Plath. Her images are odd and tell stories about her inner life. I lived in a life that wasn’t supposed to be mine. I wish I could spend the rest of my life by a window, like a seamstress, sew my life into words, into a whole thing—I search for my life in my dreams like a child searches for a lost toy.

So I can write a first draft, I arrange the snippets into a shape, and eventually into a book.

By the end of this book, you will have a binder with a title and cover, a table of contents, a logline, a premise, a blurb, a story line, a three act synopsis, an outline, and a treatment, all of which can be integrated into a movie treatment, story board, and screenplay. You will have the beginnings of a full draft and your book will be ready to start shaping and revising.

You are your life’s collaborator.

PART B

LAY OUT YOUR BOOK STRUCTURE AND BEGIN

The most pleasurable thing in the world, for me,

is to see something and then translate how I see it.

—Ellsworth Kelly, painter

We are going to begin with structure. It is an unpleasant word. Just as you don’t want to spoil love by knowing its outcome, you don’t want to intrude on the surprise that exists in creativity. However, to get to that free fall of creativity, just as a modern dance, or ballet, or poem, has a structure, it’s good to have a plan before you begin. Then you can feel free about breaking it. You are digging the parcel of land from which you will develop your book. As I told you, I had never thought about structure. I was stubborn. If I write, it will come.

A flower has a structure. Whether your project is nonfiction or fiction, an essay, poems, a screenplay, you need the same elements of structure. These elements will be the main tools, the steps, you can say, that will guide you into writing your project, flowing easily and simply. Tools need a toolbox or they get scattered all over and lost. You will carry your tools around in your Story Box. You can make a Story Box, or carry an imaginary Story Box. No matter how many books about writing you read, how many writing classes you take, you will sort out what you’ve learned, and add discoveries and tools of the trade to your own process.

Every book has a beginning, middle, and end. In the beginning of starting a book project, whether or not it is fiction or nonfiction, your narrator will begin by wanting something. Metaphorically, whether or not your book project is about love, gardening, family, or an episodic novel, I call this desire, the Holy Grail. But how are you going to get it? What events are you going to set up, to find it? What are you putting up for stake? This desire occurs in the first part of the book, then in the middle of the book, your protagonist, narrator is trying to get it, facing obstacles, revelations, discoveries, pitfalls, crisis, then on the ending, there is resolution, and new questions. I don’t believe in resolutions, but I believe in new choices, new ways of what had happened, or what had changed. (More later) So I divide every book into ABC/--beginning, middle, and end.

A Story Box is a box that I draw with a tool handle and I divide it into ABC, writing the elements of structure in each section. Sometimes I add to it, and sometimes, I delete. You’ll end up with a fully equipped writer’s toolbox that will serve you well from one project to the next.

The Moonlight Sonata is recording. I turn the music louder. It is so beautiful, so orderly, yet its variations of theme along with passion and lyrical beauty are captivating.

WRITING AEROBIC

STARTING YOUR STORY BOX

Create your Story Box. Make a box on paper. Divide it into three parts: Beginning, middle, and end. In parts A, B, and C as we go along, write into your personal STORYBOX, the craft elements you are learning and this way you are building your personal process and own writing aerobics. As you go along you can