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At first glance (and second and third glances, too) my writing process is chaotic. I pick up and put down the laptop, I write at stoplights, I grab my moments. All summer I wrote wherever my kids–and their friends–wanted to go.

My sister called me out of the blue (she lives here in town, but 45 minutes away from me) and said she had a conference for her work that was going to be held at Disney World. Did I want to go? I could stay with her in her hotel room, and write all day long until her conference got out at 5:00.

Of course I jumped at the chance. :) It was the perfect opportunity to freeload.

On Monday morning, my sister went to her conference and I opened my laptop. I had nothing to do but write! No laundry, no cleaning, no cooking, no watching of children. I only needed to write.

It was too quiet.

I kept trying to write in the quiet. The last time I was at Disney, I was there with my children. We stayed at Pop Century at the resort and it was a noisy, buzzing place.

The Hilton? VERY QUIET. Very serious people are at the Hilton, doing very serious things. Very quietly.

I went to the pool. This worked well for a while because there were two noisy preschoolers there. But when they left, I was faced with the Very Quiet hotel room to write in.

So I went to Epcot. I sat at Mexico, had some food, and wrote. Perfect!

Now I’m thinking that I don’t need to mess with success. Right now, I don’t know how to write on command. I don’t know how to do it when it’s very quiet and still and there’s no visual stimulation at the same time I’m writing. I don’t know how to force it.

I’m sure I can adapt to peace and quiet…someday. Right now, I’m just going to stick to what works. However crazy it might be.

I’m going to take a walk on the wild side this Friday morning. Here we go: what role does luck have in getting published?

This is something of a controversial topic. I’ve heard it said that mentioning the role that luck plays in getting a publishing contract is discouraging to writers who are working their fingers to the bone honing their skills and making the perfect queries to the perfect agents and editors. After all, if it’s just a matter of luck, it’s out of our hands. (My missionary brother in law would question even the existence of ‘luck.’ But I don’t want to go even farther into the wild side and delve into religion this morning!)

There are many talented writers who research the industry. They’re miles ahead of the people who slop together a poorly-crafted, rambling, error-ridden manuscript and snail-mail it to a YA publisher (when they needed a Sci-Fi publisher).

But what about all the gifted writers out there who are doing everything right?

I think luck plays a part. I think my unrequested manuscript landed on Midnight Ink’s desk at exactly the right time…accidentally.

Talent is important. Self-editing is important. Researching the industry’s expectations on submissions is important. Targeting the right agents and editors is important.

Timing is important. And that’s out of our hands.

To me, that means perseverance is key. If writers keep sending out well-written, well-targeted submissions, they increase the chances their work gets into the right hands at the right time.

I got a ton of rejections from agents and editors. But I kept submitting, sometimes to the same people—after I’d done more touching up on the manuscript and if they’d given me even an inkling of encouragement. Actually, I don’t think I even needed encouragement. I resubmitted anyway, after a decent interval, some significant changes in the manuscript, and a reworked submission.

What do you think? How important is luck? How can writers increase their chances at getting lucky?

Yes, it’s Thursday morning again. Today I’m sharing a bowl of chicken soup…with all the ailing passengers I encountered on my flights to Orlando and back. Enjoy!

Yesterday I touched a little on my thoughts on Disney’s talent for entertainment and how I think we can capitalize on some of their ideas. You’re not going to be able to write War and Peace with their approach, but I think some of their general entertainment techniques are sound.

Sometimes, simple is effective. Nearly all of their rides combined humor with thrills. They didn’t get too analytical. They didn’t get too complicated.

Suspense. They kept me wondering what was going to happen next. I never knew what was around the next corner. By not giving their riders too much information, they kept us guessing and engaged.

Their endings were satisfying. They didn’t leave their guests hanging at the end. Everything was tied up and ended on either a humorous note or a relieved one (you survived whatever scary ride you were on.) Life isn’t like that. But neat endings for novels can be satisfying for a reader who’s stuck with you through an entire book. If you’re writing a series with a continuing storyline, it’s still important, I think, to tie up some loose ends for the reader, even if they’re just minor plot points.

Disney was a unique experience—I didn’t have my kids with me this time! The pure creativity and imagination spilling out of the place was inspiring to me.

Say what you will, Disney is one of the long-time masters at presentation and delivery. If you go to their parks with the mindset that you want to have fun, they’ll do their best to make sure you’re not disappointed (long lines not withstanding.)

I’m flying home probably as you’re reading this (unless something dire happened at the airports with delayed flights).

But here’s what I learned from my 3 days at Disney:

They were masters at quickly identifying real characters among their guests and immediately capitalizing on the find. I went to an interactive show (the Monsters Inc one). They’d studied us as we came into the room and the people who became characters in their show had vividly-colored clothing on and an unusual manner. There was a bald man who looked like Uncle Fester from The Addams Family, a sweet-looking middle–aged woman who later exhibited an unexpected devilish look in her eye, and a suspicious-looking pre-schooler who glared fiercely whenever the camera was directed at her. They were hilarious. There was just something unique about them. And Disney had spotted those qualities during our 5 minutes in their holding tank before the show.

Using their technique, I took some great shots with my camera of some really interesting people. Disney World is apparently rife with interesting characters. I think I got 3 books worth of characters that I could accurately describe and create entire storylines around.

Want to learn how to write engaging beginnings that pull in the reader quickly? Disney’s got it down pat. They had, as far as I could tell, several techniques for doing it.

• The big one was directly addressing the audience in a conversational manner. (e.g.: “Oh! Hi there! Come on—come a little closer. Not that close!”) You know the technique. That works well for rides, but pulls the reader out of the book a bit if you’re writing it.

Their technique can be modified, though. The point is that they’re beginning with engaging dialogue. Honestly, most of the books I read don’t start with dialogue between interesting characters—they start out with some sort of narrative (which can lose me sometimes).

• Another technique they used (well) was foreshadowing during their rides’ beginnings. Now, there is plenty of talk about writing ‘rules’ and foreshadowing frequently makes the list of no-nos. Well done, though, I think it can be enormously effective. A hint of some kind of upcoming turbulence. Or even an emphasis on how happy and perfect everything is. They know their audience is mistrustful when everything seems to be going too well. Something’s got to go wrong. The audience itself has foreshadowed disaster, then…they didn’t even have to do it for them.

Their entire aim is entertaining their guests. They don’t go off on self-serving tangents. They don’t preach to their audience (even environmental messages are housed in an entertaining fashion). They don’t lose sight of their ultimate goal. They don’t stick in bits and pieces that have nothing to do with the tightly plotted show or ride theme. Too many books that I read start rambling about description that I’m not interested in, or observations that don’t seem to stay on-topic.

Honestly, they entertained so effectively that I’m going to touch on their techniques again tomorrow, including their satisfying endings. Hope you’ll come back by.

Driving my car to the airport, I was nearly blown off the road by a car on the highway. It flew by, then cut directly in front of me and sped off.

As I was being passed, I knew what state and county would be on the car’s license plate. Fulton County, Georgia.

Atlanta.

Sure enough (and I’m always delighted when my setting stereotypes prove true), the car was indeed from Atlanta.

Charlotte, NC drivers are very aggressive, too. I’m sure when I’m speeding through small towns, the drivers look resentfully at my North Carolina tag and guess I’m from Charlotte.

Sometimes I think a book’s setting alone—without description—can set reader expectations: e.g., a small town. The reader might immediately conjure up a slow-paced, friendly, gossipy place. You don’t really have to work too hard if that’s what you’re interested in portraying. But if you want to twist it and show how cliquey, insular, and suspicious of change these towns can be, you’re taking the reader in a different direction.

I’m not a big fan of setting description; actually, I tend to skim through it when I’m reading unless the setting is very interesting to me—like Louise Penny’s books set in Canada. But just like I enjoy describing characters through dialogue and quirks, I like giving the reader a sense of place through the residents’ behavior and mindset.

Although I would have initially been disappointed if the car blowing me off the highway was from a small town in Mississippi, I think it would have intrigued me more. Why are they driving so fast? Are they late for their plane? Have a medical emergency? What’s the story?