Pens and Pages Writer's Guild

Poetic Asides -- Feb. 1 -- Plan On It!

2012-01-18T09:52:00.002-06:00

You think you can't write poetry. Think again! Poetry is not always perfect verse and rhyme. Poetry can take many forms. I wrote one and mentioned this might not be a form but was fun to do. Another poet said, "It is now!"

Try this February Poetry Challenge by Robert Brewer found at
http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides.

You will be amazed at what comes out in your poetry!

November

2011-11-08T17:22:00.000-06:00

Greetings

2011-11-08T11:38:00.002-06:00

Greetings to those that are new to eBlogger Pens & Pages Writers Guild page! This is a great site. Thanks to our facilitator who maintains it for us. Hope your session on the Library Computer Lab went well and you can visit the site often and add your own unique wisdom!

Go! NaNoWrimo-ers, go! Check out http://www.nanowrimo.org/ to see the fun members are having. Hope you can join the fun next year! If you get the bug before then you can participate in April's Script Frenzy sponosored by the same kind people.

One other way to motivate yourself to write is join a poetry challenge in February. This is a little less hectic month for many than November. Be watching for more info.

Time Management Exercise

2011-11-08T11:33:00.003-06:00

At the library meeting (Nov. 8) of Pens & Pages, our Fearless Leader suggested that we just maybe might need to work on the most important stuff first. She had us list five things that we felt were most important that needed doing this week. Then as we looked over the list, we put a star beside the thing that should get done first. Before the end of the meeting we had established three lists: "Things to do this Week," "Things of Writing Importance," and "Things to improve my Writing." Some of these overlapped, but it made us more aware of how to accomplish more in less time. In my case, "Straightening up the mess around my desk" seemed to end up as more important than anything else. That should take up the rest of this week. Who knows --- I might actually get some writing done NEXT week. I hope the rest of you are more efficient.

Free Ebooks from Writersdigest.com

2011-11-08T11:22:00.004-06:00

I haven't tried this, but just found out about it this morning:

There are 6 or 7 free e-books available in various formats (Nook, Kindle, I-Tunes, etc) on writersdigest.com until the end of the week (November 12), in honor of Nanowrimo. As far as I can tell, they are the full versions of these books, and though it is in honor of Nanowrimo, you don't have to be a participant to get the free e-books.

Link is: http://writersdigest.com/nanowrimo

2011-09-28T10:05:00.000-05:00

9/28/11

Total today

8880

Keepin On Keepin On

2011-09-27T15:22:00.003-05:00

Sept. 26
780 words today
6670 approximate total word count
Wrote 14 days

2011-09-25T15:35:00.004-05:00

Sept. total through 9/25 is 7951

2011-09-25T15:35:00.001-05:00

September 20 word count

2011-09-20T20:14:00.000-05:00

Word count Sept. 20 365

9/15

2011-09-15T09:52:00.002-05:00

word count today: 284

total word count 5523

2011-09-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

word count for Sept. 12 is 262

2011-09-14T10:45:00.000-05:00

word count for Sept. 13 is 299

2011-09-11T19:57:00.001-05:00

Sept. 11

word count 274

2011-09-10T12:35:00.000-05:00

word count for Sept.9 and 10 : 1103

Some Thoughts on the Skeleton

2011-08-02T18:14:00.004-05:00

So, at the meeting where I presented Angela Hunt's skeleton diagram for outlining a story, I said I wasn't sure that the part about the character reaching a point of despair and receiving outside help held true for all stories. I'm still not sure it does, but from watching movies, I've decided that part of the problem for me is that it may be presented much more subtly than Glenda's help to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

For example: in the movie Hidalgo, the main character (an ex-cavalry soldier from the American West, whose name escapes me) is involved in an endurance race on a mustang named Hidalgo in the deserts of the Middle East, against all-purebred Arabian horses and Bedouin riders. Near the end, he reaches a moment of despair, and is about to shoot his horse, who has succumbed to the heat, lack of water, and injuries, and seems unable to go on. He is deeply attached to the horse, and can't, when the moment comes, bring himself to do it. At that time, the heat also begins affecting him, and he sees a mirage/vision of Sioux ghost dancers, his ancestors, one of whom may or may not have been the his mother. Seeing them allows him to embrace the Sioux half of his ancestry, which is his Hidden Need, and that decision, coupled with Hidalgo's near-miraculous recovery, allows him to finish the race bareback and win.

When I was thinking of "help", I was not thinking of heat-induced hallucinations that gave no explicit advice. I've noticed in other movies that both the moment of despair and the "help" are even more subtle and hard to spot. However, this makes it easier for me in working on my current novel, where the outside help is similarly difficult to spot. At least, it makes me feel better.

On an unrelated note: there is a great article by Holly Lisle here about creating conflict.

Notes on the Keynote Adress at the 2011 PPW Banquet

2011-06-29T16:01:00.002-05:00

Julia asked me to share my notes on Angela Hunt's speech with her, and I thought I'd just go ahead and post them here for everyone while I was at it.

The Writer's Toolkit

Writing is like building -- a writer can write anything (any genre) with the right tools and blueprint.

Tape Measure - a love for reading. You need to love to read and do it often.

Screwdriver -- for joining and prying. A willingness and ability to ask questions, both of yourself (what if? What next?) and of others (interviewing, listening) and to ask yourself what the reader needs to know.

Hammer - a drive to communicate - writing is hard work.

Saw - enables the builder to make things that fit - the writer must understand and adhere to genre guidelines; must check fact and do research.

Stud-finder (get your mind out of the gutter, romance writers!) -- you have to know where you can anchor -- how to be true to yourself in what you write -- don't prostitute your skill just to make a buck.

Vise -- perseverance holds the writer together, especially at the beginning; there WILL BE a learning curve. You must have willingness to keep learning and working to improve. Learn to wait.

Level - Someone who likes you and can give an honest critique of your work. The professional writer needs perspective - we can't see all the flaws in our own work.

A blank sheet of paper - the builder can build whatever he can sketch (subject to skill and budget restraints). The writer can write whatever his/her imagination can create.

Glue -- we need it to keep us in our chairs. Sit, write, repeat.

Stuff to look forward to...

2011-03-14T21:52:00.004-05:00

Pens and Pages writer's group is in the middle of hosting Lauraine Snelling's "Writing Great Fiction" cd seminar at the Library. The group is currently on the fifth of seven discs but the group owns the set so if you missed a session, I'm sure you'll be able to catch up!

Our group is also hosting Dianne Sagan on April 16th, starting at 10:00 a.m. From 10:00 a.m. to noon, Ms. Sagan will present a workshop on Plotting and Character Arc, followed by a member-provided potluck from noon to 1:00 p.m. Ms. Sagan's husband will then present a workshop on Rewriting and Editing Your Manuscript from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Members are collecting gas money for the Sagan's. You can make your contribution to Diane or Brenda.

And from my perspective...
After a little bit of a rough start with Ms. Snelling's workshop (technical difficulties, etc) I can say that I'm actually taking a lot of useful stuff away from her presentation. I'm in the middle of reading a book by Larry Brooks (an affiliate of Writer's Digest) titled, Story Engineering. I have a great deal of difficulty grasping story structure - call it a mental block. (For me, Ms. Sagan's upcoming workshop couldn't come to soon.) Mr. Brooks' Story Engineering clearly and concisely outlines the architecture of a story and I think I'm gaining the insight I've desperately searched for lo these many years. I highly recommend it if you are looking for some advice on the more technical aspects of storytelling.

I haven't "written" anything lately... but I've been furiously jotting down little scraps of characterization, scene outlines, and possible plot points for my two flagging NaNo novels. I'm getting excited again - but I'm trying to temper my excitement with caution.

See, I tend to "binge" on "writing procrastination". I can come up with a million reasons why writing every day just isn't convenient, or not possible because I lack inspiration or a topic or any number of real and imagined road blocks. Just like a person who procrastinates in developing that healthy lifestyle through daily moderation, exercise and nutritious food choices, I put off developing the daily practice in writing that will make me a "healthy" writer. Then, I will get excited about something, and I'll go on a writing "diet" - much like the person trying to lose 10 pounds before some event - and I'll write like crazy... for a while. But eventually, I start cheating, and before I know it, I'm off my "diet" and haven't written anything for a week... and well, you know the end of that story. Once you've gone so long, you tell yourself you can't get back on that wagon again.

So, I'm trying to change that pattern, hence the caution, this time. I want to develop a writing habit... not a writing diet.

How about y'all? What's going on with you?

P&P Opps

2010-10-08T17:28:00.003-05:00

A place to encourage writers to further their writing skills by considering:

Writing contests

Magazines

Presses

Internships

Grants and Scholarships

And much more…

　

Poets & Writers --We may want to consider subscribing to this magazine for our group if individuals haven't subscribed. This is possibly the best thing we could do for ourselves!
Find many opps here like: mags, presses, conferences, workshops, agents

http://www.pw.org/submission_calendar
Poets & Writers, Inc., is the primary source of information, support, and guidance for creative writers. Founded in 1970, it is the nation's largest nonprofit literary organization serving poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. Our national office is located in New York City. Our California branch office is based in Los Angeles.

Take a moment to see “Tools For Writers”

Looking for accurate information? Our staff carefully sifts through piles of claims, statements, and announcements to compile resources with real value to writers.

　

Love those Chicken Soup for the Soul books?

Find all the info here:

http://www.chickensoup.com/cs.asp?cid=guidelines
Guidelines for a Chicken Soup for the Soul Story

1. Tell an exciting, sad or funny story about something that has happened to you or someone you know. Make sure that you introduce the character(s). Please know that your story should be written in the first person.

2. Tell your story in a way that will make the reader cry, laugh or get goose bumps (the good kind!) Don’t leave anything out — how did you feel?

3. The story should start with action; it should include a problem, issue or situation. It should include dialogue and the character should express their feelings though the conflict or situation. It should end in a result, such as a lesson learned, a positive change or pay-off.

4. Above all, let it come from your HEART! Your story is important!

The most powerful stories are about people extending themselves, or performing an act of love, service or courage for another person.

Stories and poems should be non-fiction, ranging in length between 300-1200 words.

Submit online only.

I wrote this out several weeks earlier but am going to be lazy and post it as is. One benefit was gaining first hand experience with the "auto reminder" feature in Poets & Writes. It was excellent! Give it a whirl.

If you have more suggestions for P&P Opps either post them with "P and P Opps" in the labels or send them to me and I will post them. This will make it easier for us to find them months or years later. Heroic writing to you!

Just get started!

2010-08-02T09:32:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, just getting started is the hardest part of writing something that's in your head.

I just read a blog about this, and I'll post one paragraph, which I thought was great, here, and you can follow this link to Scott Berkun's blog to read the rest.

"Writing is easy, it’s quality that’s hard. Any idiot who knows 5 words can write a sentence (e.g. “Dufus big much Scott is”). It might be grammarless, broken, or inaccurate but it is writing. This means that when people can’t start they’re imagining the precision of the end, all polished and brilliant, a vision that makes the ugly clumsy junkyard that all beginnings are, impossible to accept. Good voice, tone, rhythm, ideas and grammar are essential to good writing, but they’re never introduced all at once. I promise you, the first draft of Strunk and White didn’t follow Strunk and White. The secret, if you can’t start, is to begin without constraints. Deliberately write badly, but write."

Failure as Opportunity

2010-06-12T09:46:00.004-05:00

I was reading an old Readers Digest article a few weeks ago, about how a flexible mindset helps you bounce back from failures. And of course I was tying it into writing, because that's what I do.

Basically, it says people have one of two mindsets: a fixed mindset, or a growth mindset. Fixed mindsets are grounded in the belief that talent is inborn, and that as such, a person is entitled to sucess without much effort. Failure leads a fixed-mindset person to blame, withdraw, and even avoid future challenge and risk. A growth mindset assumes that no talent is entirely inborn, and that effort and learning make everything possible. The growth mindset sees failure as an opportunity.

Opportunity for what? Opportunity to learn. Thomas Edison is famous for his growth mindset (oh, you thought he was famous for inventing the lightbulb?). One of his frequently trotted-out quotes is "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." That perfectly illustrates the growth mindset. Failure isn't a disgrace, it's just a chance to figure out what went wrong and do better next time.

Often it's hard to escape the fixed mindset. It's HARD to think of failure as a good thing, it's HARD to examine our own failings critically, when all we want to do is crawl into a hole and lick our wounds.

In writing, the classic example of this is rejection slips. Many writing books advise that the writer needs to look forward to rejection slips as an opportunity to learn. If you don't, it can be too depressing to go out there and try again, sending your work off to another market to be rejected.

I don't think any of us can do this perfectly. Sometimes I let failure get the best of me. Last year I got back my entry to the Frontiers in Writing Contest and didn't do as well as I'd hoped. The judges comments stung, even though they pointed out things that subconsciously I knew were off, and just hoped no one else would notice. I put the judge's comments away after reading them once, and went off to lick my wounds, abandoning that novel's revisions.

I still don't think I'll work on that novel again. I really do think it has flaws too big to be worth dealing with. It was a learning experience in many ways, though. But this year, before I sent out the first pages and synopsis of my second novel to the Frontiers in Writing contest, I went back over the judge's comments from last year. Lo and behold, there was useful information there, information that helped me craft a better synopsis.

So sometimes, I guess what I'm saying is, even the failure to deal with failure well can be looked at with a growth mindset. It's never too late.

Take A Break

2010-05-28T11:50:00.005-05:00

If your writing is getting boring and cliched, it's time to take a break and gather some new inspiration; read a book, watch a movie or TV show, then tomorrow get back to the old word processor (or typewriter, or yellow tablet) after giving your brain a little time to revive.

I've seen a few movies in recent weeks which seem especially good for those of us who write:

"Stranger Than Fiction" is the story of a writer (Emma Thompson) who confronts some major problems while planning to kill off her main character (Will Farrell). This is a little more serious role for Farrell than his usual slapstick comedy style.

"Miss Potter" is a great movie for those who write for children. This biographical story evolves around Beatrix Potter of London who wrote and illustrated the classic Peter Rabbit series of children's books at the turn of the last century. Here's a lady who got things done in spite of obstacles in her path. If you rent this one, be sure to check out the extra film clips about her later life in rural England explaining how she preserved the country environment around her. A lady WAY ahead of her time.

"Shadows in the Sun" is a pretty good movie about writer's block; losing your ability to write because of of emotional trauma. It stars Harvey Keitel and Joshua Jackson. Beautiful scenery, set in Italy, with a little romance thrown in just to lighten up the story a bit.

Someone in our group, I can't remember who, recommended the book "Home Safe" by Elizabeth Berg. Surprise --- it isn't about baseball! The main character is a well-known writer who conducts writing workshops similar in scope to the writing exercises we do at P & P meets. This is another story line dealing with emotional trauma following the death of a spouse.

I also enjoyed the recent TV series "Castle" (ABC) which centers around a mystery writer who works closely with a lady police detective. Of course there is some romantic comedy involved, but you can pick up a few writing tips along the way. One such tip goes thusly: there are only three reasons to kill (murder) your main character; money, love, or to cover up a crime already committed. Interesting! I hope this series returns to the small screen next Fall.

I'll close with a quote I picked up somewhere: "Bad decisions make good stories." I'm planning to think about the worst decisions I've made during these past seven decades and write them down. I've got plenty to choose from.

Grannie Carol

Visible, Verifiable, Virtual!

2010-05-11T10:30:00.005-05:00

Whoops! I am late again.

First of all, wish me a Happy Birthday. I'm 46. I'm resolved to never lie about my age. It's not like I could get away with it anyway.

I'm thinking a lot about the author's platform lately. This is a concept which attendees to last years FiW Conference will recognize immediately, as -- along with the repetetive drumbeat of "More likely than not, you won't be published" -- the concept, buzz word, what-have-you seemed like an unofficial theme of the 2009 conference.

I think I only mentioned a little about your 'platform' as a writier at a PnP meeting but, like critique, I believe it's a subject that stands up to a little periodic refreshing. I want to disclaimer right now that when I first heard of building your platform at the FiW '09, I was a little miffed and put off. I mean, I want to be a writer, for goodness sake! If I'd wanted to be a salesperson, I would hit the pavement and apply for sales jobs!

Because, like it or not, that is what "building your platform" is all about. Some folks have a ready-made platform in some other area -- like sports or politics -- and don't need to work at getting name recognition to help boost sales of a book. Like former presidents don't have to be writers to get book deals, see. Some are "industry names" -- not known to folks outside of their industry, but very well known within it -- all they need to do is demonstrate their saleability to a publisher and bam! = book deal.

As it is with success breeding more success, so it is with your author's platform -- you gotta have it to get more. In the just-linked article from Writer's Digest, the author mentions visibility, and if I had to use one word to describe "platform" -- say I was on a desert island and I could only take a few words with me -- this would be the one I'd use. This can be problematic for a technophobe like me! (I don't even have a - gasp! - Facebook page!!) But like it or not, in this day and age, visibility - high visibility -- usually evolves out of digital social media.

I despise knowing this! I really do. If there were any way around it, I would take it, you betcha. But the more I look into the world of writing/publishing, the more the truth of the matter crystallizes: you must be visible, you must be verifiable, you must be Virtual! (okay, that middle "v" word is questionable, but I gotta do things in three's. It's an OCD thing.)

So, in the spirit of the subject of the above post, I encourage you to hit the highlighted links embedded in the post and get educated on how you can build your 'author platform' from scratch.

Because we can't all be Paris Hilton, now can we?

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge?

2010-04-25T18:25:00.002-05:00

Can you imagine having a name as Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge?

I am very thankful that I do not although I absolutely LOVE the book by the same name. The book has the most delightful and honest illustrations which I described in a poem:

The illustrator has the most remarkable way of capturing truth
Truth in an honest and loving and somewhat embarrassing way
A way we all look in our honest and everyday real self
Softened with watercolor gentleness displaying big bellies and skinny legs
Big lumpy bottoms, hangy down breasts and almost bald heads
Pants held up almost to necks with suspenders
Pantyhose stockings rolled down past knees with lavender dress shoes and orange dresses
Wilfred Gordon Patridge McDonald didn't mind any of these things in the least
He peers at his friends in an honest, loving and somewhat embarrassing way himself

note: This is part of a poem I wrote for the April challenge of writing a poem a day. As you can see I don't follow poetic rules but they haven't seemed to mind, so far. ;-)

As you can see the illustrator deeply warmed my heart and roused a warm "yummy" feeling for "our honest and everyday real selves." Julie Vivas is an outstanding illustrator

The story itself is a gift of warmth, love, deep longing and sadness, mixed with unabashed love that bringing the young and old together can often do. After being asked "is there actually a man living by that name? Or is it poetic license you're taking?" I, myself, became curious.
The first site listed after one Google search with "wilfrid gordon mcdonald partridge by mem fox" was
http://www.memfox.com/wilfrid-gordon-mcdonald-partridge.html

What a treasure on every level this site is. This is a precious jewel you will cherish. Do yourself a favor and relish all the finds there. This website has many gifts for the young and old. I can't wait to dig into it more.

Thank you, Mem Fox, for sharing with our world.

The Writer's OTHER Full-Time Occupation

2010-04-07T09:21:00.006-05:00

Most any "On Writing..." book published, whether authored by a famous-name Fiction author or by an academic author, will mention -- almost as an aside the fact is so unanimously understood -- that 'real' writers are also serious readers. I've come nowhere near consuming every single "On Writing..." book ever written and yet I will stick my neck out and say nearly every single one will, at very least, allude to writers being nearly tireless readers.

I invite any and all to provide me evidence to the contrary; I will happily admit I was wrong. But we'll both know I was actually RIGHT, because the author of the work you cite will have simply edited their own oblique or pointed statement to the effect of 'writers are readers' as it would be superfluous to state an obvious fact, anyway... and they needed to bring the word count in a little.

I'm the one who snapped up Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott from the Library after our meeting on Tuesday. But don't worry, those of you who were hoping to be next in reading it -- I'm already nearly half through it and will get it back to the Library in a timely fashion.

I mention Lamott's book, not to rub anyone's nose in the fact that Nyah-nyah, I got the book! but because she mentions the 'writers are readers' adage in her book -- which is very good, by the way -- a couple of times in a couple of different ways.

Anne Lamott really likes reading. And writing. And her son Sam. She's extremely relateable. I like her, I like her book, and I really like her take on writing. And reading.

I'm in something of a slump, actually. 'Well, duh!' those of you at Tuesday's meeting might be saying to yourself! Not that I'm the center of the universe or anything, but my face? She does not lie. I don't mean to insinuate that everyone was looking at me and paying attention to me and wondering what was up with me... Only that I tend to eminate my feelings in such a way that -- for those around me -- it's kind of like trying to dodge the fine mist issuing forth when someone sneezes. Only like, emotionally. So, yeah.

What I like about Lamott? She is like me. She is in over her head, confused, full of "psychological illnesses" (her ...well, if not her exact words, it's at least her concept), and all sorts of insecurities and shortcomings.

Which makes her a FABULOUS writer.

Reading Bird by Bird is like going back to the "Square One" that Heather Seller's Page after Page (huh. Bird by Bird ... Page after Page ... hmmm -- similar titles, there. Anyway -- back to the thought -- ) rescued me from almost two years ago when I was knee-deep in a deja-vu like slump as well.

Do you ever get into one of those? What does it feel like? How do you describe it? -- Here's how I describe it: Shane Falco, describing 'Quicksand'. The most important question, however, is How do you get out of it?

Well, I've obviously answered the first question, twice over (at least) just in the time I've been a member of PnP! As for the second question... well, it feels like... well, I cannot say for sure how it feels to have a limb amputated or to be paralyzed, so I'll have to go with that awful 'pins and needles' feeling you get when a limb falls asleep. As to describing it... well in addition to the 'Quicksand' quote, see the previous answer. (I'm nothing if not redundant and repetitive.)

As for the last, most important question? Well, I think I'm in the midst of developing a strategy... I think I'm going to buy those "On Writing..." books that I find especially inspirational, especially uplifting... and when I hit a slump, I'm going to close my eyes, do an eenie-meenie-mynie-moe and pick one.

Then I'm going to do that thing that Every Writer Does, and read.

W-W-W-W-W Poem

2010-03-29T21:12:00.004-05:00

It has been a long time since I have reviewed different ways to write poems, so I've been wondering about helps since I plan to "practice" some poetry writing next month. Then, would you believe it? I was keeping the grandchildren today, and the fourth grader brought home poems he had been writing to different formats. Some of the formats I had heard of before such as Haiku. One I was not familiar with was the W-W-W-W-W Poem. I'm sure you can guess that the W's stand for--yes, one could answer the questions Who-What-When-Where-Why to form a poem. The poems should be five lines long. The poem should tell a story or give a strong picture of someone or something. Each line should answer one of the "w" questions in the same order. When you read the poem, it should sound like two sentences put together.

Example:

"A Visit"
WHO: A college friend
WHAT: visited
WHEN: last Monday
WHERE: in my home.
WHY: She just couldn't stay away.

By the way, the idea came from www2.redmondk12.com. (I think.)

Nana

2010-03-25T20:31:00.002-05:00

"Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy."
----Mark Twain

I forgot to blog last week, and have just now remembered. What I want to talk about is audiobooks, which have been around for years, but haven't really been "on my radar" until recently. Recently, I bought an MP3 player (I may be the last person my age to do so), and besides music, it will play audiobooks, and both the Friona and Clovis library have added downloadable audiobooks to their repertoire of services.

My reading time, as all of my free time, has been curtailed by the kids' arrival, and listening to auidiobooks gives me a chance to "read" while also doing housework, or cooking.

I find it both satisfying, and unsatisfying. I am getting more "reading" done, including some classics, like Great Expectations (and a lot more junk food, like Twilight and some werewolf book I don't remember the name of). On the other hand, listening to a book doesn't allow for the re-reading and relishing of good passages, or flipping back to get things straight. The voice that is reading also affects my enjoyment a lot. Most of them seem to be quite mediocre in that respect.

What I really can't decide is whether listening to an audiobook counts as reading a book. Can I legitimately claim to have read Great Expectations, or is listening to the (unabridged) audiobook along the same lines as watching the movie? It seems to straddle a line between the two, since while the listening is a passive form of enjoyment, as is watching, it is not an adaptation being listened to, but the work in its entirety.

What are your opinions?

Writing Is Communication

2010-01-24T16:53:00.006-06:00

We are told to write like we speak. I hope not! Our speech has deteriorated into something unrecognizable. I believe the following list of phrases should be eliminated from the English language:

"Put a lid on it." (Meaning Shut Up!)

"Not a problem." (Please just say You're Welcome.)

"We're on the same page." (Meaning I Agree with you.)

"It is what it is." (So exactly what is it?)

"A win-win situation." (There is no such thing. Somebody wins, somebody else looses.)

"Let's connect the dots." (Couldn't we just use some logic?)

"You have to understand." (I don't HAVE to understand anything.)

"Don't go there." (Go where?)

"At the end of the day." (Would that be around midnight?)

"24/7." (From here to eternity maybe?)

"Step up to the plate." (Please! I'm trying to eat here.)

"Boots on the ground." (Can't we respect them enough to call them soldiers?)

Other popular idioms that make me gag are: "Not a happy camper," "A teachable moment," "The bottom line," "Pushing the envelope," "To die for," "Bring it to the table," "Shovel ready," "They came to play," and the much over-used "Awesome!"

Wouldn't it be simpler to say what we actually mean? Y'know what I'm sayin'? Stick a fork in these --- they're done!

Revision - GO!

2010-01-02T09:35:00.003-06:00

Okay, today I am printing out a copy of my Nanowrimo novel and I'm going to start revising that puppy. It's my New Year's Resolution. I should have started this yesterday, but somehow that didn't happen.

In one month, I want you guys to start asking me if you can read it. Seriously. Because by then, I want to have something I'm not totally ashamed to have others read.

I found an interesting writing website - hollylisle.com - that I think is a great resource, not only on revision but on many aspects of the writing life. The particular articles I am going to reference for my revision process (although I can already tell that I won't be adhering to her method entirely) are "How to Revise a Novel" and "One Pass Revision".

So I want to know - What are your writing goals for the New Year?

Why I participated in 2009 NaNoWrimo

2009-12-21T19:28:00.003-06:00

*As a fluke
*Just for fun
*To have the experience
*To see if I could do it
*To see if I would do it
*To participate with Solard
*Solard was so passionate and involved in it last year and I wanted to be a part of that (she participated the previous year, also, but I don’t remember hearing her talk about then)
*I wanted the growth as a writer

What are some of the benefits I have gained from it:
*Persistence- (about the third day I came home from work, very tired, thinking “Do I really have to do this?!? I just want to eat a bite and go to bed!)
*Perseverance- esp. after losing my first 25,166 words half way into November…then choosing to continue
*Deeper friendships- with people caring about me and trying to help me recover my 25,166 words
*Deeper understanding of God- and his ways, how big He is, His grace, mercy, love and the meaning of the sacrificial blood shed for all of us
*Joy- from sticking with it and seeing the word count reach the 50,000 mark
*Commitment- I am showing my family and friends that I can commit to something and stay with it to completion.
*Respect- from Pens and Pages group They already loved and respected me but showed it often during this experience. I love them so dearly for it.

*Being able to say this: I did it! I am a novelist. I will not doubt myself about being a writer anymore.

Thank you dear writing friends for your encouragement and support in this endeavor!

Anyone care to join me for FAWM?
February Album Writing Month
Goal: Write 14 original songs in a month

Feminine Spirituality

2009-11-28T19:38:00.003-06:00

When I signed up to write a blog in November, I thought I would write about "being thankful" because that's where my focus is in November. And I do have much to be thankful for this year! However,I've just read an interesting book called The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. It is her first novel, and all the while I was reading, I kept trying to figure out why her name seemed so familiar. I finally googled her name and found out that she used to write for Guide Post. She is now known as a contemplative, feminine spiritualist--thus the title for this blog. I found it interesting that Dr. David Jeremiah of "Turning Point" lists her along with Rick Warren and Brother Lawrence and others as "people who have discovered how we can bring real living excitement into this life".

One thing I find especially interesting about her is that her first full length publications are highly acclaimed memoirs. Regardless of what one might think of her "theology", I think The Secret Life of Bees shows a rich imagination at work. Lily, the main character will "stay with me" for awhile.

Nana

Nano Bits

2009-11-18T10:15:00.002-06:00

I should have known better than to sign up for a blog in November, when I planned to do NaNoWriMo. SO I am a week late. But if we're all a week late, we'll be on time, right?

The good thing about having the external motivation of Nano is that I'm getting more writing done than I think I've ever done in such a short amount of time.

The bad thing is that it is at the expense of other important things in my life, like housecleaning. Luckily I'm not expecting a lot of guests this month.

SInce I haven't had time to organize a coherent thought that doesn't involve my novel, I"m going to link to some resources I've found during the course of this month.

First, I was relieved to find this article on "Dialogue Spines", because it is something I'd been doing in my first drafts anyway. Now I know it isn't just lazy writing to let my characters yammer on and then add the scenery and flesh out the scene later.

Something that bothered me a lot in my first novel was the unwieldiness of using Word (or the shareware equivalent, Open Office, which is what I actually use)for the two-hundred page plus document that was my novel, plus the multiple smaller documents that were things like scene lists and character lists, plus my handwritten outlines and character studies and such. After I put that novel aside, I sort of forgot about it.

Last week I stumbled across a computer program specifically for novelists that has all those features and more. It's called Liquid Story Binder, and you can download it for a free month trial, which is what I've done. There are so many features that it's overkill for me, actually, but if I can at least figure out the basics that I would need and use, I think it will be just what I need. I'm going to try to master it enough to figure out if it is indeed what I want by the end of the month, as it is on sale half off for November.

The Nano Pep Talks are available online here and are good reading even if you aren't doing a Nanowrimo novel.

Whoops.

2009-11-09T18:04:00.004-06:00

I missed my blog post deadline, but forgive me: I'm NaNoWrithing.
Yes, you read that right. I'm doin' the NaNoWriMo, and I'm at the point (it hits me late, I guess) where I'm going, "WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!" So, yeah. I'm NaNoWrithing.

For those of you who don't know what NaNoWriMo is, look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanowrimo. It's wikipedia, so not the final authority, but a pretty good start.

If you think you might want to participate (you'd be starting kind of late, this year, but it's not unheard of either) go here: www.nanowrimo.org.

It's the best thing I've ever seen other than Dr.Wicked's "Write or Die" (here: http://writeordie.drwicked.com/)for slapping those words down on the virtual paper (or real -- many people still do it old school) and turning off the crabby little internal editor.

If you wanna write, you'll write, but sometimes you have a hard time getting over that hurdle of perfection. The NaNo helps with that.

So does Dr. Wicked...but you better be prepared to suffer if you don't keep typing...

Write on!

Edited to Add: (and show I don't endorse without trying first ;-)

Dueling in Purple

2009-10-24T22:23:00.010-05:00

Violet Black and DJ just finished a purple prose competition.

Purple prose is over-writing. It is when a bubbly, over enthusiastic writer uses far too many exciting, colorful modifiers; sensationally sizzling verbs; and excessively dramatic hyperbole. Well... you get it!

Purple prose is bad writing.

But, purple prose has many good uses.

Here are some we discovered:

1. Purple prose is great for loosening up and overcoming writer's block.
2. It helps a writer discover colorful words.
3. It stimulates new ideas.
4. It can be used to breathe life or fun into a piece, and edited for the best portions.
5. Purple prose is fun to write, and creates momentum and energy in the writer.
6. It is great for inspiring melodrama and humor.
7. It is a fun way to explore plot twists and turns.
8. It is especially useful in November when fatigued and starving Nanowrimo competitors are gropingly desperate for words to count!

We had a competition to see which of us could create the worst (or would that be best?) purple prose in three categories. We decided to post it here and let you determine which ones are the most purple. This will get long, so feel free to skim or skip if you like. That is typical of purple prose anyway.

We hope you are inspired, or at least laughing. We challenge you to duel as well. To participate, pick a winner for each category, and leave one or more of your best efforts in the comments. (You don't have to be a member of this blog to participate.)

Category 1: Where you live

A: She looked out her kitchen window at the miles and miles of glorious, flat, spacious, open land. Only an occasional tree or house interrupted the horizon. Nowhere else in all the remaining sphere of the earth could one find the vastness of this marvelous free ranging land!

B: The wind lashes through like a death angel: uprooting all plants except the most strong, demonic weeds. The land is saturated in brown death; the air at times putrid with rotten grain and fresh, brown pies. The sun glares, often bleaching the sky like parchment. The air is so dry you feel as though you are suffocating. Hawks circle, ravens chortle, and the doves sob. But in the midst of this desolation... a spot of green sheltered by elms, and willows, and pines. And there stands a brick house the color of sand -- the place I call home.

Category 2: Where you shop

A: I pushed open the door, and stopped to take in the intoxicating smell. My eyes caressed the items surrounding me, longing to touch and hold everything. Colors were dancing and prancing, trying to snatch my attention. I basked in it all for a moment, taking in deep luxuriant breaths. Joy and passion swelled inside me, longing for just one piece. "Fabric! Oh, how I love you!"

B: She entered Porky's. The grocery store was the only respectable, genteel, gracefully aging business on one side of a shabby, old, run down shopping center. The strip mall, appropriately called, had been stripped of all usefulness, beauty, and respectability. The grocery store was the one remaining spark of life and goodness in the area. Compared to the overblown parasitic commercialism of the larger supermarkets; Sandy loved the smaller, cozy size of this store, and the ever gracious, hospitable, solicitous helpfulness of the employees.

Category 3: Your transportation

A: She climbed into the red monster of a vehicle. At her age, getting into the suburban was like climbing Mt. Everest, and about as dangerous. She furtively reached up to grasp one of the hand-holds. It seemed to be light years away from her desperately extended fingertips. Finally, with gasping, choking breaths, she stretched far enough to grasp it. She lifted her leg up to the floor of the monster, then pulled with her arm and pushed with her leg to lift herself past that vast gaping chasm between the gravel and the vehicle. She pulled and pushed with all her strength, stretching every sinew, straining every muscle, bursting capillaries and veins until at last she heaved herself onto the seat of that cavernous beast. In exhaustion, she looked out over the blood-red hood of the vehicle, imagining that it had gotten its scarlet color by slaking its thirst with her life-blood, which now flowed dripping off its vast cold side.

B: I am sleek and red as a poppy. But I am tough and dignified like an army tank. I prefer to call myself Gladiator, but the ignoramus who orders me around calls me "Suburban". What an indignation!

Sending Up a Test Balloon

2009-10-09T12:32:00.003-05:00

Being a writer, I can't just sit back and enjoy an experience. Some part of me is always living in the third person, writing about it, looking for metaphors and interesting imagery.

Today we (Brandon, the kids, and I) are in Albuquerque for the balloon festival. Today is one of the days where the shaped balloons are highlighted. We got up at 5:30 (but it sounds more impressive if I say we got up at 4:30, which is what it was New Mexico time) in order to eat breakfast and get out there in time to see the balloons go up at sunrise.

Row by row, the balloons billowed as they filled with hot air and slowly rose. The shape and colors of each balloon weren't fully discernible until they were completely full and ready to take off. What is that black and white one? Felix the Cat? No, Mickey Mouse. It turned out to be Pepe le Pew.

Then, amid cheers from the crowd, they would rise and float away, seemingly as effortlessly as soap bubbles (and there were vendors, coincidentally, selling soap bubble guns).

A couple of unflattering comparisons arose in my mind about writers, ego, and hot air, but I discarded them in favor of this:

An idea is like an empty hot air balloon. In fact, for me, it's like a balloon that someone else has given me, that I didn't work for at all. I have a lot of ideas, more ideas than I have time or energy. I don't know where they come from, and I don't take full credit for them.

The hard part isn't the idea (for me, but that may vary from person to person, I'm sure), it's making something of it. A hot air balloon isn't much to look at until a lot of energy has been expended to fill it up and flesh it out. Features become obvious that were previously hidden. Finally, the work is finished, waiting to be set free like the balloons bobbing, tethered to the ground.

Then a pilot and some other crew members are needed to make sure it gets up in the air. The final completed work, published, looks as effortless as a soap bubble, but in truth it took a lot of work and guidance by various individuals along the way, more than any casual observer could understand.

There was also something particularly appropriate about this metaphor since many of the balloons that we saw this morning were completely fantastic--a gargoyle, a goldfish, a steam locomotive, a witch, a haunted house—imaginations set loose in reality.

Out of Time...

2009-10-03T15:35:00.005-05:00

I started to read a book by that ^ title (or one very like it) but I just couldn't finish it. It's at the Book Shoppe, now, probably ;-) The subject was time travel -- apropos, yeah? -- a subject, I think, which is very hard to tackle. (I've only ever read one that I really liked -- The Time Traveler's Wife -- so, so good! (Sigh!) I'll lend it, but I must have it back)

Anyway, I'm way off the beaten path, here. So, back on track, here.

Do you ever feel that you are just out of step with time? Like everyone around you is moving on one scale and you're just a half-beat off? That's how I feel sometimes.

I remember seeing a sketch on Saturday Night Live once using that premise. It starred the host, Rob Morrow (Doc. Joel Fleishman on Northern Exposure) as a guy who, while lunching with his friends, attempted to engage in the conversation and interject jokes or funny anecdotes...but his attempts kept falling flat. Like they were just a hair off, one half-step too late. The friends at his table kept looking at him in that uncomfortable way, trying to muster a genuine laugh, yet only managing half-hearted, embarassed chuckles. After several failed attempts, he finally excuses himself to the restroom and instead goes into a time machine sort of booth, resets his time, steps out and rejoins his friends at the table. Now, magically, everything he says just...fits right. And the sketch fades out.

That's how I feel about my writing... like my perspective is just...a hair off; not needed... out of sequence. Like my observations and viewpoint are just...out of time. Almost as if the time for my writing/ viewpoint/ perspective has, sadly, passed.

Now I sound like I feel sorry for myself. That's not true. I can't see anything other than how I see it, so there's no use in lamenting the fact, yeah? Maybe ...my viewpoint isn't commercially viable. So what? One could make the argument that Jane Austen's small worldview didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Her writing was critiqued by the Bronte's (blech. Can't stand them.) as being too naive and innocent. She was criticised for not venturing beyond her limited country upbringing for subject matter. Yet look at the impact her little world -- with the limited society and restricting manners -- has had on the larger literary world.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a Jane Austen, my ego will never be healthy enough to make that claim. What I am saying is this... if Jane Austen hadn't shared her talent with the people in her life -- because she shared her writing with her family and a few select close friends, at least for the most part -- if Cassandra had burnt all her stories in addition to most of her personal letters...imagine what we would have lost! Thank God, Austen showed her stuff to her family. Thank God they thought enough of her writing to seek publication on her behalf posthumously. Thank God her little world and her way of processing it has a treasure trove of interests for those of us who read and reread her works...treasuring them as the priceless legacy they are.

I have no such hope for my own stuff, because I'm 1) realistic and 2) ridiculously unintuitive. Austen had a grasp, in her short life, on the motivations and idiosyncracies of the people who populated her world. I am not sure I have either her intuitiveness nor her fearlessness in portraying, faithfully, the people who populated her world.

It takes courage to write what you know; to be true -- especially if you think it's uninspiring or uninventive or lacking in creative initiative -- to your own viewpoint, world view, 'limited' experience. Yet, you are the ONLY "You" in existence. No one else can have your unique viewpoint, no one else can inhabit your specific time/space continuum, no one else can hold the exact opinions and insights you hold.

Share that "You" in whatever way you can. Someone will find their life enriched by your gift.

Harry's New Book

2009-09-28T23:00:00.012-05:00

Saturday I attended the Panhandle Professional Writer's meeting. It was good to see Harry Haines again. I was also looking forward to attending his book singing later in the day. Unfortunately, his books will not be ready until October 15th. Still, it is exciting to know that he will soon see the completion of his second book of a three book series.

It is hard to believe that we had him as a guest speaker just last February. Then he was singing copies of Orphan, the first book of the series.

Orphan tells the story of a colt that is the only survivor of a fatal accident. The colt is taken to Dr. James Robert Masterson, a local veterinarian, for care. They name the horse Orphan. It seems that the horse will become another member of the family, and Masterson's daughter finds Orphan to be the therapy she needs to help her face a deadly bout with cancer. Then it is discovered that Orphan was sired by a valuable race horse. Soon the Masterson's are embroiled in troubles they never dreamed of.

Harry has a talent for keeping a reader in the story -- wondering what is going to happen next. In his upcoming book, Texas Panic!, he again has Dr. Masterson embroiled in more trouble than any of us would want. Here is a brief quote from Harry's web site:

This is the health scare with everything -- a gruesomely exotic disease, unknown dangers, bungling bureaucrats, and a common food item found in virtually every home. ...the sensation-hungry American press finds the story irresistible.

But we don't have to deal with it. Instead, we can settle into our favorite chair to enjoy another adventure as we see how Dr. Masterson deals with this new set of trials and tribulations.

You can find out more about his newest book here, or look at his schedule for book signings and speaking engagements here.

I look forward to reading his new book when it comes out. If you get a chance, send him an email of congratulations!

2009-09-24T21:42:00.001-05:00

Twilight

I believe in twilight
The end of day beginning of night
When most of creation sleeps
Resting for a new day tomorrow
Rain is washing away this day
Refreshing the streams and flowers
Before bedtime
The sounds I hear sing a lullaby
Putting me to sleep.

Submitted for mcj by Solard...

2009-09-17T17:53:00.002-05:00

It's a humpty dumpty fence - a wall fence
I've been intrigued with it these days
Looking out the sunporch windows
It is held together, the mountain rocks
With red mortar - a standout scene
And I picture humpty dumpty sitting there
Watching the cars and trucks go by
Until one day he turned too quickly
And lost his balance and fell
Being an egg or egghead
And needing glue and reconstruction
We all took turns trying to match
His parts - just like a puzzle
Well, (deep subject) one piece was
Missing when we finished
And we hunted everywheree
In all the grass and under the rocks
Where bugs hide
But the missing piece has never
Been found
So humpty dumpty won't sit on the wall
Without that piece to balance him.

Can you find it?

prose poem by mcj

Life's Interruptions

2009-09-11T17:10:00.002-05:00

I've heard somewhere that--life is what happens when you're waiting for it to happen--or something like that. Anyway that's how I often find myself --waiting for "real life" when "real life" is right now. Then along comes something unplanned and takes me out of my routine and leaves me floundering for awhile. Ordinarily I'm a person of plans and habits, and I feel secure when routines are established. And then I ask, "What is real life?"

Anyway, since my husband had a couple of bypasses and spent six days in the hospital, I was forced to get out of my routine. It's been good for him to need me in a new and different way, and it's been good for me to focus on him. And although it's been difficult to focus on a specific writing project, journaling has again been my "salvation" and caused me to think about LIFE and it's many blessings.

I also found a "new and right spirit" within...

Nana

Is it stopping you?

2009-08-29T20:50:00.003-05:00

Some of you may know that I attended university, majoring in Speech with a minor in Theatre, and was one class -- three credit hours -- shy of graduating. That was seventeen years ago! My catalogue has long since changed and in order to get my sheepskin at this point, I'd have to make up about a year and a half's worth of classes, at this point... Which is a topic for another blog -- namely not this one ;-) but serves to introduce the topic I'd like to blather on about in this post.

Most of the teachers and professors in Ole Miss's Theatre department had all, to some varying degree, been professionals in the field either before, during and/or after their tenure at the U of M and most of them recited a mantra on a regular basis that stuck with me, in me and went through me during my time as a ...ahem... scholar there. This mantra shaped everything about professional theatre that I still, lo these many years, believe to my core... This mantra was the very reason I suffered depression, battled hopelessness and ultimately why I, to this day, do not pursue a career in professional theatre.

That mantra was this: If there is anything -- ANYthing -- you can do and be happy in this great big world other than theatre? Do it. Leave the acting to those who simply cannot do anything else.

I knew there was a love, a passion lurking in the backstage (see what I did there? hee) of my heart... a desire much deeper and longer standing than any other that came before and, save for my husband and two children, still trumps anything else in scope or magnitude in my view.

That thing? Writing. (of course, you knew I was going to say that!)

At the FiW this year, I was reminded of that oft-repeated mantra of my former theatre professors and teachers because -- and don't ask me who, because I can't remember -- someone said it. They said, "If you can do anything other than write, do it, because you probably aren't going to make a living at it."

Now, in university, my reaction to this identical statement was, as I said, depression, hopelessness, and the sure knowlege that I'd never be a professional actor.

My reaction when I heard that mantra repeated at the writer's conference? "Pfft. I write because I HAVE to...doesn't matter if I ever make any money at it."

I hated that mantra in school -- it stripped me of my future (oh, so the drama!) and I bristled at hearing it repeated at the FiW...until I realized, Heh. It had no power over me anymore.

So...I'm not going to repeat that mantra to you today. Instead, I'm going to ask this question... When you read "If you can do ANYthing other than write and be happy, do it."

Is it stopping you?

Driven To Distraction By Deadlines

2009-08-21T10:50:00.004-05:00

Oh Gosh! Is it my turn to write the blog? Did I miss the deadline? We were just talking about meeting deadlines (or not) earlier this week as we gathered around the kitchen table at GrandMary's place for our evening meeting of Pens & Pages.

That very descriptive word "deadline" was born in the POW camps of the Civil War. Just a few feet inside the outer fence surrounding the camp, a line was drawn. When a prisoner stepped a foot or even just a toe across that line, the guards patrolling the outer fence assumed this prisoner was making a break for it and he was immediately shot dead, no questions asked. Thus the dreaded DEADLINE.

I don't know at what point the term morphed into being the final moment in time when something must be completed. As writers, we are now most familiar with it being the time after which a written document can no longer be accepted for publication. In the old newspaper days of melted lead type and linotype operators, it was when the backshop foreman in his ink blackened apron would stick his head through the door to the font office and yell, "Sorry Kiddo! I had to kill that story you turned in late. Not enough room anyway." So the story you had worked so hard to finish was just as dead as the fellow trying to escape from the POW camp.

At Monday's P & P meeting we pondered why our best writing is most often produced when we're working against a deadline, hurrying to finish up in time to turn it in. We had weeks to prepare but dawdled away the time, while the germ of an idea sort of tippy-toed around in the nether regions of our brains. Then with a final burst of creative energy, a lot of stress, a lot of self-reproach, a lot of coffee or something stronger --- Voila! The masterpiece!

Why do we put ourselves through this? Does anyone know a good psychologist who would attend our P & P meetings and offer free therapy for one and all?

Writing When You Can't Write

2009-08-17T10:43:00.004-05:00

Her chest was tight and her breathing difficult. Breathe. Relax. Go back to sleep.... She coaxed herself to be calm. It was no good. Anne hugged her stomach. She felt like throwing up. The clock said 3 a.m.. She needed rest, but the exhaustion that first allowed her to sleep was gone. She wouldn't rest anymore... not until fear wore her out enough for fatigue to again release her.

What is Anne afraid of, cancer, a new job, foreclosure, a stalker? I don't know about Anne, but sending my son off to college this week terrifies me! So I get up and read a book until I can't resist sleep any longer, and the next morning I capture all my feelings in a journal entry for later use.

Times of change bring stress. Life careens out of control--much like entering a curve too fast. All you can do is deal with the moment and hold on. Such times often devastate our writing intentions, but they can be a foundation for better writing in the future. The key is to focus on the type of writing that can best be done in the situation, rather than to give up writing all together.

For me, the busyness and stress of sending a son off to college drove out the time and the motivation to do my mystery rewrite or romance rough draft. I don't have time to remember where I am in a story, let alone focus on it. Will I lose days, or weeks of writing, until the crisis is past? When life interrupts my writing goals, journaling keeps me from being unproductive. By journaling in times of crisis, I capture the tension of those times. I step into my writing mindset and examine my feelings. What better time to grapple with describing what it is like to be uncertain, terrified, or harried than when we are feeling that way ourselves?

Life's interruptions can be a writer's road block, or they can be our on-the-job training. Learning to communicate the intensity of difficult moments will bring our writing to life. So step back, observe, write, and maybe, just maybe, you will manage to preserve your sanity in the process. Sane or insane, you will have made the most of the moment as a writer.

The Short Story

2009-08-09T15:38:00.003-05:00

It occurred to me as I was composing my first "serious" short story that perhaps I should see what I could find out about writing a good short story. How does it differ from a full length novel?
"Well, duh", you say, "It's shorter".
"Yes", I respond.

But are there differences, and is there some "secret ingredient" to being a successful short story writer?
Anyway, I googled "writing a short story" and found many useful sites. I even learned a new word--you serious, seasoned writers will laugh, but I had never heard of "denouement". I figured it meant something about resolution to the plot by the way it was used. And sure enough, it's a French word meaning a final revelation or occurrence clarifying the outcome of the plot.

No, I didn't find that there is a "secret ingredient", but I did learn that one should have a "narrow subject line" with a clearly understood point (theme) with not more than three characters. Also, one should make every word count while making "rich" believable characters.

And I loved what one site stated: Writers should "Put a man up a tree. Throw stones at him. Get him down."

Other advice I loved about writing in general. When writing a rough draft, don't continually censor. It's easy to mentally project "our mothers or other relatives looking over our shoulders."

So just write--ok?

Nana

A Day Late and a Dollar Short...

2009-08-01T23:33:00.007-05:00

The statement that stands out to me from the PPW conference was said in a session lead by DaWanna Pace. She said, "How do you know when to quit?" After she asked the question she paused and said, "Only YOU can decide when to quit (trying to be published.)" She told us that Madeleine L'Engle finally sold her first book to the 29th editor that she approached and said, "What if she'd quit at the 28th?" She said if we wanted to be writers then nothing should make us want to quit...we should keep doing it.

I liked the positive outlook of her statements, and the fact that here was this very successful writer encouraging other aspiring writers to keep up the good fight. I tend to not care for published authors who abjure aspirants to "do anything other than write, if you can." It seems to me they're just trying to clear out the competition. I much prefer my icons be those who reach the summit...

And then throw down a rope.

~***~

I got an email from the founder of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) reminding all former participants of the impending count down to NaNoWriMo '09 in 96 days. Goodness! That's only three months away! (This year has gone by sooo fast.

I'm not into high pressure sales or anything...but I will again encourage all my PnP buddies to at least think about participating in the NaNo '09. I'd like to testify, that even when I didn't "win" the NaNo '07, my participation in it yielded me a third of a novel (which garnered me an honorable mention in the PPW FiW contest) and showed me that I could structure a story and invent characters and have something real on which to work. The lessons I learned and the encouragement I received participating gave me the courage to try again in '08, and I DID "win" that year!

I've already got two characters and a rough storyline sketched out for this years NaNo -- I'm highly motivated after my "success" of last year -- so y'all will have to bust a move to catch up with me ;-). But I see no reason why anyone in our group can't try their hand at NaNo. And really...isn't it just practice?

~***~

Well, that's my mixed-bag blog post. email me if you want the link to the NaNoWriMo homepage...but whatever you do? Get your pen to the paper, pals.

Rewriting, Revision and Recycling

2009-07-12T17:21:00.005-05:00

To achieve revision and rewrite for the wonderful little piece you've just written, you'll need to print it off, read it, then set it aside for a few days, then pick up your pages and read them again. You don't just compose your tome, run it through spell check and email it off to a contest or a publisher. It must first be printed off. It reads quite differently on paper than it did on the screen. You'll make corrections and revisions, then print it off again. At some point you'll decide it might be ready for critique by your fellow scribes in P&P, so you run off about eight more copies. My, My! Are we using a lot of paper here?

Have no qualms about clicking that print button, Ladies. The paper mill companies have been heavily into reforestation for many years. Personally, I was recycling paper products long before recycling ever became popular. There is a stack of used paper beside my printer. It will be flipped over and the backside will be used for printing again. (Note: put a big X on the pre-used side.)

My people had struggled through the Great Depression of the early 1930s before I came along. They reused everything, fixed what was broken, and never threw anything out. When clothing became unwearable, buttons were clipped off and saved in a jar. The fabric became part of a quilt or a braided rug. Shoes were re-soled, tires were patched, and new cars were bought only every ten or twelve years. There was an electric appliance repair shop in every town in America.

We only became a "throw away" society when manufacturers built planned obsolescence into our appliances so we would have to purchase new ones as soon as the warranties ran out. You need take no blame upon yourself for those landfills choked with rusting refrigerators, TVs, ovens, washer and dryers, etc.

Neither do you need to blame yourself for the superstition of so-called global warming. This is being used as a political tool to control nations and their peoples. Read "Meltdown" by Patrick J. Michaels. After that, if you still believe in global warming, just be comforted to know that your old pal Grannie Carol has spent seven decades building up enough carbon emission credits for all of you in our little writer's group to be guilt free for the rest of your lives.

So write and click that printer button. Write, print! Rewrite, reprint!

Forming, Thinking, Writing

2009-06-30T13:53:00.003-05:00

In the book, Talking, Drawing, Writing, the authors credit Berthoff with the quote, "You can't know what you mean until hear what you say". Although I don't know for sure, I think this is the author, Ann Berthoff, who wrote Forming, Thinking, Writing. I've been thinking about these words in relation to the writing process. Does "talking" help the "forming", and "drawing" help the thinking? Is this process the reason many are reluctant to write? Is it too much work?

This same author has written two books about Andrew Marvell's poems. One is called Marvell's poems, The Resoved Soul and the other The Resolved Self, A study of Marvell's Major Poems. I don't know much about Marvell, but from the little I've read, he seemed to be a deep thinker. I found two other titles by Ann Berthoff called, Reclaiming the Imagination and The Mysterious Barricades: Language and Its Limits. Finally, I found a book of hers titled Too Late for the Fontier, a Family Chronicle.

I find the titles of these books challenge my thinking mainly because they seem to encompass such a wide variety of topics. I'm thinking about what Amanda shared with us about publishing. What is Berthoff's platform? It seems to me it would be--Language and Its Importance, Keep Forming, Thinking and Writing.

Thanks to the Pens and Pages writing group for challenging me!!
Nana

Thoughts on Platform from the PPW Conference

2009-06-22T09:16:00.003-05:00

Well, I wasn't able to make it to the last PPW meeting, and who knows about the next, so I'll write a blog about some of the thoughts I had on the conference, before they are driven out of my head by too much potty talk (yes, we are potty training here, and I am mildly appalled by the amount of time that I spend discussing bodily functions every day).

This year, as last year, one of the main messages I got out of the conference was that publishers, even the big name publishing houses, expect writers to spend a good deal of their own time and money promoting their own books.

Part of your ability to sell books depends on what is called your "platform". Your platform is basically the pre-existing audience for your books, and/or the things about you that would make people want to buy your book. For example, a person who is a medical doctor has a better platform for a book on health than I do. A famous child psychologist with a national column has a better platform for a book on discipline than an equally experienced child psychologist with no column, because the psychologist with a column has a pre-existing group of readers who are likely to buy her book.

Platform doesn't necessarily depend on professional credtials, however. Platform depends in part on what you are an expert on. If you are a mother of five, that can be compelling experience to sell a book on dealing with sibling rivalry. Your hobby can make you an expert. Mark Williams, one of the speakers at the conference, has several books on fly fishing published. His passion for fly fishing and finding the best spots to fish made him an expert in that area.

Having several shorter articles published also helps build platform when trying to sell longer pieces or a book manuscript.

Web presence can be a part of platform. I personally follow two blogs by writers. One of them has a novel forthcoming that I will buy the instant it hits Amazon. The other has a book I may or may not buy, but will definitely look for in the library.

Thank You

2009-06-18T13:45:00.004-05:00

Our blog has been featured in a post called Other Encouraging Words .

I have been following Bonita's blog for over a month now. It's a great place to pick up frequent tips and reminders for your writing. She has a lot of good information and encouragement. If you're in a writing slump, you may find just what you need at Encouraging Words for Writers.

Thank you Bonita!

Random Thoughts

2009-06-17T17:25:00.008-05:00

No one is signed up for a post this week. Since I have missed several of mine, I thought it would be a good time to catch up. Here are two brief pieces created during our Tuesday morning writing prompts.

For those of you attending reunions this summer:

Thread

Thread--so fragile and seemingly insignificant. "Just a thread..."

"Just a thread" can be holding something together. Many threads can be a whole garment.

Our lives are tied together with the threads of relationship, chance meetings, common experiences, and common times. Simply being in the same place at the same time with someone else can form an unexpected life-long thread of connection.

We often try to retrace the threads we've collected over the years. We go to class reunions, family reunions, and write memoirs. In these, we try to pick up the fabric of the past and revisit it.

We may want to return to former comfort and security, or we may want to mend a hole--find something that was missing. One person may hope to bask in the warmth of past esteem. Another person may wonder if people from his past will ever validate him. Will he finally gain their approval? Will they even notice him?

We try to return to relive something we wish we still had, or to change what we didn't like. Neither is likely.

The threads are there just the same. What if we pick up those connections and make something new of them? Then we may breathe new life into them again.

* * *

For those of you that can't fit any writing in because you are too busy attending reunions and other summer activities:

Time to Write

Many of us dream of having stretches of T--I--M--E in which to create a masterpiece. However, the masters, like us, had other responsibilities. They too had to write as they went about their daily tasks of life.

By all means, we should take advantage of every opportunity to carve out blocks of solitude; but if we only write in those times our output will be very meager indeed. We must also make the most of the moments snatched here and there throughout the day: the thought scribbled in haste on a scrap, the idea born in a conversation. Our writing will be much richer if we collect these things as we go and then make use of them in those larger blocks of time.

2009-06-13T10:34:00.002-05:00

Well, I think I managed to miss my scheduled blogging week again. In my own defense, a lot of things have been slipping by me since the kids arrived. One of the nifty unforeseen benefits of the laptop is now I can be on the computer, writing (or more often, surfing the internet) while still keeping an eye on the kids, though.

I did manage to get to the writing conference in Amarillo, and I found it very enjoyable and inspiring. I also bought a bunch of books.

One of the things you hear over and over at the conference, or anywhere writers meet, is this: what makes a writer is writing. Planning to write, talking about writing, and thinking about writing won't do you any good unless at some point you apply the seat of your pants to a chair and your fingers to the keyboard (or pen and paper, or whatever).

My favorite new quote (not from the conference, I found it online), posted by my computer, is this:

"The mere habit of writing, of constantly keeping at it, of never giving up, ultimately teaches you how to write."
--Gabriel Fielding

So go forth and write!

Lord Willing

2009-05-28T22:07:00.004-05:00

Close your eyes.

Imagine a person described using these words:
rugged man, rough skin, long beard, long gray hair in a ponytail, unwashed, old jeans, drives an old beaten up, rusted out pickup with a NOMAD license plate, and a topper that doesn't match.

Tell me what kind of person comes to mind. Would you talk to him, strike up a conversation with him?

Close your eyes again.

Now imagine a person described using these words:
kind, unassuming, humble, very thankful, very appreciative, soft spoken, faithful, peaceful, sincere, hard working, simple.

Now what kind of person comes to mind?

Could these images be of the same man? In your mind, could they?

My husband and I met a man that fits both descriptions. He is an exceptional "cement man" that knows his craft well. He lives in the hills of Kentucky and walks by faith like no other we have ever met. This unassuming man touched us as he worked along Kent's side and others in the Colorado mountains helping add a Family Life Center to a very special "church on the hill."

One day several weeks ago he counted all the money he had. $600 was the total and it was in his right hand. His phone rang with a man asking if he wanted to be a part of the team to build this center. The man said the only catch is that you have to have money for the plane ticket immediately. The cost? $600. The cement man looked at his right hand and decided it must the Lord's will so he said yes.

He touched our souls by his walk with God and we will always remember him and he will always remember us. He has many stories to tell and I hope to hear them all some day when our paths cross again. Lord willing.

Journaling

2009-05-25T13:46:00.002-05:00

Since many in our writing group are interested in journaling, I want to mention that Dr. Kimberly Wulfert has some timely comments on the topic in the introduction to the "Changing Times: Women's Stories 1902-1942" Ebook on page 4.
If you're interested in reading the Ebook and don't have time or don't want to read it on line, I have printed a hard copy, and I'll be glad to share.

Nana/Sharon

Never too late...

2009-05-20T07:44:00.004-05:00

Rose was an only child. Her only sibling, a brother, had died in childbirth. Her parents had been among those who helped settle midwest America. Oh, the stories they could tell! Her father, a farmer, had been left crippled after a bout with diphtheria as a young adult. Her mother began a career as a very young woman as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. As Rose grew and matured, she continued the educational path and became a writer. She wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, a practice begun by her mother. Rose became a well known journalist. A skilled writer, she would later also write several novels.

Rose began to encourage her mother to record the wonderful stories of her youth growing up in a pioneer family. Her mother had produced only one story through the years. Rose, by then a professional journalist, encouraged and assisted her mother with the writing and editing. In 1932, when she was 65 years of age, Rose's mother published her first book--a success! Over the next eleven years, mother and daughter would collaborate to write seven more books. The world had been given a gift--the series we know as "Little House on the Prairie" that began with "The Little House in the Big Woods". Rose Wilder Lane was the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Crazy

2009-05-18T07:05:00.002-05:00

What prompts us as a society to write? Is it not life itself with all its ups and downs, joys and sorrows, changes and transformations--i.e. the journey of it all? Sometimes along this journey whether you are a writer, a poet, a singer, an artist, a musician telling a story, many hands affect the way a 'masterpiece' is born.

Beauty, it is said, is in the 'eye of the beholder', the ears of the listener, the voice of a singer, the talent of a musician or the interest of the reader. The touching words of a songwriter's pen can be transformed by the singer's voice and vice versa. The words of a writer can come to life through the art of an illustrator. Sometimes these collaborations can become the perfect match.

It was his song; he wrote it--the words and the music, but she sang it and made it famous. Crazy? Yes, that was Willie Nelson's song transformed into great hit by singer Patsy Cline, the 29 year old country and western singer killed in a plane crash in 1963. The song still resonates today when you hear it, a powerful song making a powerful statement. We are moved by the emotions the songwriter and the singer evoke in us. Awesome--the power of the pen and the human artists who write.

2009-05-16T13:51:00.001-05:00

Who among us cannot relate to either our favorite animals or our favorite animal stories?

Remember Black Beauty, Old Yeller, National Velvet and Hank the Cowdog. Whether the stories are about dogs, cats or horses, we all love them. As Kentucky Derby Winner "Mine That Bird" with his trainer from Dalhart gets ready to run the second race in the Triple Crown, other famous horses come to mind. Seattle Slew won the Triple Crown in 1977, one of only 11 fine horses to do so since 1919. When Dr. John Hill, Co-owner of Seattle Slew, met Walter Farley, the author of the Black Stallion series, Mr. Farley told him that he had been looking for the black stallion all of his life--and that "Seattle Slew is my black stallion."

As the recent movie "Marley and Me" attests, animals touch our lives in so many ways, it is only natural for us to want to write of our experiences with them. These stories can be among the most touching.

Hi There!

2009-05-06T12:25:00.005-05:00

Ahhh, I like me some Peter Gabriel. A lot of my fellow PnP'ers may not know who he is, and that's okay; I think I can fix that ;-). He's a singer/ songwriter, once the frontman for a band called Genesis, before Phil Collins (he of the Disney "Tarzan" soundtrack fame) took over who, oddly, followed in Phil's footsteps and became Peter Gabriel, he of the Disney "Wall-e" soundtrack fame.

Either Genesis and Disney have a 'very special arrangement' or it truly is a Small World After All, isn't it... (heheheh -- you just knew I was gonna go there, didn't you?!?)

Anyway... I bring up Peter Gabriel, not just because one of my favorite of his songs ("Big Time") starts with a very British, very cheery, very fake, "Hi There!" like my title, but also because something that happened to him has made me think about us...

It seems that the song he composed for Disney's Wall-e, called "Down to Earth" (oi! such a sweet song -- as a matter of fact I'm putting a link..... here ;-) was nominated for an Oscar along with a few others (don't know how many, sorry)

Great, right? Wow -- what an honor, right? This great little tune, with really sweet, earth-friendly (without being anti-human, a rarity, I think) lyrics from a song written for a Disney movie -- an animated one, at that -- in the cesspool of unoriginality that is Hollywood (oops -- I think my true opinion is peeking out, sorry) What could be more of an honor for a singer/ songwriter? To be able to perform your composition at an award show for movies, in front of what is, arguably, the US's royalty? That's just WONDERF-

What? What- what's wrong? We can't...uhm -- we can't perform the whole song? We have to edit a portion of it into a special truncated medley of all the nominated songs?!?

So, let me get this straight. You have time for your self-indulgent presenters to rail against half of the country for being too conservative for your tastes for 10 minute stretches at least three times during the 4 hour broadcast...but you can't spare five minutes a piece for the nominated songs to have their "moment in the sun"? Emmmkay.

You have a plethora of laboriously over-produced song and dance numbers and inane "comedy" sketches scheduled during the broadcast to bolster the insatiable egos of your denizens...but won't allow a song you yourselves say is the absolute cream of the crop for the entire year to be played for this audience of self-absorbed dwellers of the shallow end of the pool? Hmmmm.

Guess what Peter Gabriel said? "Em, thanks...but no thanks. An incredible amount of work goes into producing that five minute song, by a load of very talented people...and I think, as the songwriter, they deserve their due. Their full due, thank you." (my interpretation -- not his exact words, but you get the drift.) I don't know how it ended up, but I don't think Peter Gabriel was in attendance at the Oscars...

Now, if you're like me, and you have a little bit of the cynical "stick it to the Man" in you, you might be agreeing with Peter Gabriel in a show of fist-pumping support. I know I did, at first.

But then I thought. Hmmm. How many peeps didn't go see Wall-e, 'cause they dismissed it as a "kids' movie"? How many have never been exposed to that gem of a song, which really celebrates not just the earth...but our fitness as people to take good care of it? And I think that's a shame. Many would love that song, who would watch the Oscars but never think to go to a ...kids' movie, who could have been exposed, at least a tiny bit to the song -- even truncated, in a medley.

So... I guess what I'm saying is -- and Nana's story getting published in the e-magazine (an e-magazine was something I just ...kind of discounted, I'm sorry to say -- I know better now) really kind of spurred me to this conclusion, so thanks for sharing your success, Nana! -- don't automatically dismiss an avenue that opens up -- even if it doesn't look "perfect" to you. You never know who could be exposed to your gift, if you relax your ideas a little and take those little avenues.

Anyways... Peter Gabriel is huge so he doesn't need the stinkin' Oscars -- Yay! Peter for stickin' it to the (hollywood) Man! hee -- but the rest of us, well, maybe lets get huge first, eh? ;-)

What Do You Do?

2009-04-24T15:12:00.003-05:00

Aren't we nosey? People meeting for the first time often ask "What do you do?" Translated this means, "How do you make a living?" Or you might be introduced to someone new as, "I'd like you to meet my friend Brenda; she's a librarian and a writer." In our society, your vocation seems to define you as a person. I guess we just automatically "profile" those around us, putting people into various categories: this person is worthy, this person is unworthy.

I know we are not supposed to judge people in this manner, but I think it is just human nature to do so, at least to a small extent.

There are so many catalogs coming to my mailbox every day. Some are deemed unworthy and go immediately into the trash. Others end up in a stack for thumbing through later. Especially during the Christmas season I see many interesting, cute and funny gift items you can order to give your friends and/or relatives who are associated with such professions as: doctors, nurses, dentists, fire fighters, teachers, policemen, beauticians, secretaries, artists, musicians, lawyers, etc. Never have I ever seen a single gift item especially designed for a writer or editor. Why is that? Are we deemed unworthy? Of course I know none of us need one more dust catcher to deal with, but still it would be nice to know that we writers are being included in some of those goofy gift items in the catalogs.

Grannie Carol

April Poetry Challenge

2009-04-23T23:23:00.005-05:00

I am enjoying the Poetry Challenge again this year. It's great to develop the discipline of working on a new idea each day, even if I sometimes have to post them later. I am also enjoying the companionship of several other writers in the challenge.

You can find the prompts at Poetic Asides, and you can enjoy the poems that are posted by clicking on the comments link under each prompt.

You can read poems from our group or post your own on our new Pens & Pages Poems .

Here is one I wrote about writing, and what has been written:

Silence Overflowing

Papers bound together with a wire
waiting for ink to give them meaning.
Pens are river channels of the mind
leaving marks in layer after layer,
like fossils caught in leaves of slate.

Walls overflow with ideas
sandwiched inside cloth and boards--
fibers smeared with ink.
Little bits of other's lives
touch my mind across the gaps of miles and time.

I speak with silent marks on empty pages,
and listen to pages full of marks that make no sound.

There is one more week to National Poetry Month. Plenty of time to jump in and write a poem if you haven't already.

Copyright and Manuscript Rights

2009-04-09T15:26:00.003-05:00

In Tuesday's meeting, I talked about copyright and handed out a sheet of the online resources I got my information from. I thought I would post them here for those that didn't make it to the meeting. Even if you were at the meeting, clicking through these links would be easier than typing in each article's web address. :)

A Novice Writer's Guide to Rights, by Claire E. White

Rights: What They Mean and Why They're Important, by Marg Gilks

Writers' Guide to Permissions, by Lynn Chu

Understanding Rights and Copyright, by Moira Allen

Rights, Rights, Rights: What Do You Own and How Do You Sell It?, by Mary Freeman Rosenblum

On Google Books:

Getting Permission: How to License and Clear Copyrighted Materials, Online and Off
by Attorney Richard Stim

New Background

2009-03-26T11:40:00.002-05:00

Hello PnP ladies,
This is your friendly neighborhood computer geek. ;) With Mrs. M's permission, I've changed the background. Comments? If you don't like it, it's very easy to use a different background, instead. Let me know your thoughts!
-Stephanie

Women on Quilts Story Contest

2009-03-17T09:36:00.001-05:00

I ran across a short story contest that some of you might be interested in entering. The deadline is April 20, I believe, and the complete rules are here. It could be based on true life stories of you or your relatives, however, it must be presented as fiction. I do not believe there are cash prizes, however there would be publication, and I think an interview as well.

WHY DO WE WRITE?

2009-03-15T12:54:00.005-05:00

At the last P&P meeting I took a survey of the members who were present, asking them to answer in a sentence or two "Why do you write? What makes you do this?" Their answers were beautifully diverse. See for yourself ............

D.J. said: I write because I have to or I would go crazy! I think I have something to say even though I'm not sure what!

Amanda said: I write because stuff is in there and it has to come out. It's something I have to do, but I don't know why.

Nana said: I write usually with a specific purpose in mind. I also write to relieve stress.

Brenda said: I'm intrigued, completely intrigued, by the effect writing has on me, the writer, and those who read my writing.

Solard said: I write because I have no other effective way of dealing with or processing my desire to make the story end the way I want it to end.

M.J. wrote in her 'free verse' style:

I write to figure it out What happened, what I thought

What that happening Means today.

I am writing And I haven't figured it out

I'm thinking, still thinking

Life is still happening Meaning I'm here today.

Darla said: It soothes my soul -- word pictures come to my mind and I have to write. It fills a void.

My thoughts on the subject are: We are the creative ones. We have that creative spark, or maybe it is a gene acquired from our elders and we pass it along to the next generation. We see visions in our heads and hear music in our hearts. I can't remember a time when I did not feel the urge to create something that wasn't there before.

Not everyone has this creativity, but those who have it are usually talented in more ways than one. I know some of you also sing, play instruments, dance, sculpt, paint, act, design, photograph, quilt, knit, scrapbook, etc. The ability to do these things doesn't just happen overnight. It requires some talent and a lot of "want to" which calls for study, practice, determination and focus to accomplish.

I think our creative energy makes us feel the need to leave something of ourselves behind --- something which will help us be remembered in future days.

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." ----John Keats

Grannie Carol

Envy and Creativity

2009-03-11T12:42:00.003-05:00

Sometimes when I read something I enjoy I have to be careful of envy. In one sense envy is a sign of admiration for the great job a writer has done. The problem is that such envy can stop me from trying to create my own pieces. I can never be another writer or create what came from their personality. See more in my post Envy and Creativity.

Rain!!!

2009-03-06T17:48:00.002-06:00

Request it!
Anxiously await it!
Insist we must have it!
Notably--crave it!

Nana

Freewriting Exercise

2009-03-06T10:37:00.004-06:00

During our latest Tuesday meeting we had fun doing a free-writing exercise from Creative Writing by Kathryn Lindskoog. We took some small pieces of paper and each of us wrote an abstract word on one paper and the name of an object on the other. Then we mixed up each pile of papers and drew one slip from each. Then we were to tell how the two were alike. We enjoyed it so much, we decided to publish! Here they are in their mostly unedited forms:

Humor-------Bird

Birds with humor tease the squirrels in my trees. Of course this thought presumes that birds are like humans and capable of thought. Humor exists in creation in like manner as birds do. It takes flight in the mind of the observer or communicate and lands where it is safe in the minds of joyful people and singing birds. The humor of the world is wrapped up in bird songs-making fun of us with their sounds.

mcj

A Toenail is Like Honesty

A toenail is always just what it is, so it is "honest".
One can paint it, cover it up, or hide it, but it will still be a toenail. Therefore, a toenail is like honesty.

Nana

Lemons & Depression

Not the bright elegant yellow of a lemon, but the sour taste of the inside of the lemon.

Is this how we present ourselves .... happy, sunny on the outside, but depressed, sour, introverted on the inside?

Depression will eventually turn a person's sunny side sour if it is allowed to take over our thoughts, our very being.

Grannie Carol

Kleenex & Intrigue

Kleenex is like intrigue because it is made up of layers, tissue thin, which build upon each other to become opaque. At least the good kind of kleenex. I guess cheap kleenex is like a failed attempt at intrigue - it tears and you can see right through it.

MadeByAmanda

Sculpture & Humor

Humor is molded like an artist molds clay. the artist presses and shapes until he gets the effect he wants. In the same way people play with words and ideas, pushing them and shaping them to have a specific effect.

Humor is like a sculpture that was chopped apart and put back together carelessly or absurdly. The sculpture had one message and was morphed into a different message.

Faith and Hat

A hat covers your head, keeps you warm, protects your vulnerability to the elements. I've heard a hat on your head is more effective than a coat in keeping core body heat in.

Like faith, which seems so small and insignificant, yet the Bible says that if it's like a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Faith, like the humble hat covers you more effectively than any single component in your belief system. It protects you from the spiritual elements that seek to "lower the core temp" of your soul.

Solard

TGIF ;-)

2009-03-03T09:36:00.005-06:00

I was supposed to post this on Friday, but it's Tuesday. I have a good Writer's Reason for being late. On Friday I was finishing up my editing to get two submissions into the Frontiers in Writing contest sponsored by the Panhandle Professional Writers!

Other than contests that were entered on my behalf by College directors, this is the first writers contest I've ever entered and, on my personal journey of writing, another step I can mark off that little "To Do" we all carry around in the back of our head.

In talking it over with some fellow PnP'ers I solidified in my own mind the Good Things (tm/ Martha Stewart) that I can get from taking this important step. And none of them include winning ;-)

First of all, I performed the steps to enter the contest -- including following all the rules, checking and double checking the items to include, etc. and that is good for me, because I have a little trouble -- like most moms of a certain age -- with covering all the bases, and keeping all the balls in the air that I juggle.

Second, I am looking forward to receiving -- no offense, fellow PnP'ers -- completely objective critique from people who have no stake in sparing my feelings, or stroking my ego. Just straight feedback as un-subjective as it can be on stuff I've written. I look to this to give me some useful stylistic and even grammatical pointers.

And Finally, I did it. The fact that I did it at all is a 'uuuge step in my pathway, as I'm usually one of the "also rans" who woulda, coulda, shoulda entered...but, alas (a big sigh always accompanies this admission) I didn't. The reasons vary, but usually follow a loosely prescribed subset of parameters. "I didn't have time", "I wasn't ready", "I'm too chicken", etc, etc, etc.

The lessons I learned in simply entering the contest have me looking forward -- even more -- to the benefits to come from the critiques when the contest is over.

Like: a synopsis isn't a four-letter word. It may be tough to summarize a full-length novel in a two-page, double-spaced, 12-point, Times New Roman font...but once you have, full-blown clarity opens out to you like a clearing in the woods. A synopsis becomes like a road map that gives you a bird's eye view. It lets you look at the novel in a different light, not from the inside where everything you're looking at is distorted because you're too close to it. A synopsis lets you spot, almost impartially, those places where the scenery surrounding your novel's path is a little...how shall I say this... uhm, thin. I am now a fervent believer in writing synopses... like my trusty road map when I embark on a road trip, I'll never "leave home without it" again. As a matter of fact, I think I will start every book with a synopsis.

The most important thing that happened, though, is that I have "ripped that band-aid" off. See, as I said before, this is the first contest I entered myself... even though I wanted to I've always let some excuse prevent me. Like an old dirty band-aid, long past it's usefulness, my fear needed to be pulled away, and fast, in order for me to progress in my writing life. So, I've done that now. I've gotten over the hurdle, and any contest I enter from here on won't be that dreaded first.

So...no matter the outcome, I've already "won".

Better late than never?

2009-02-17T13:24:00.002-06:00

Last week was my week to blog, and I wrote it on my calendar, then didn't look at it again until yesterday.

I love quotes, so I am going to list some good quotes about writing here, to inspire and maybe amuse you. They were culled from all over the internet, so the attribution given is the attribution that the website gave them.

There's only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that's a writer sitting down to write. --Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. ~George Orwell, "Why I Write," 1947

There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together. --Josh Billings

Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never! --Edna Ferber

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true. -- John Steinbeck

Books aren't written, they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it... -- Michael Crichton

I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters. --James A. Michener

Unless a writer lives with a periodic delusion of his greatness, he will not continue writing. He must believe, against all reason and evidence, that the public will experience a catastrophic loss if he does not complete his novel. The public is just clamoring to give him his fame. --From the book, "Dare to be a Great Writer: 329 Keys to Powerful Fiction" by Leonard Bishop

Writers have to simultaneously believe the following two things:

1. The story I am now working on is the greatest work of genius ever written in English.
2. The story I am now working on is worthless drivel.
. . . . Of course, believing two contradictory facts at the same time is sometimes referred to as madness---but that, too, can be an asset to a writer.
- Orson Scott Card

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say. ~Mark Twain

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov

What's Literary Fiction?

2009-02-05T09:55:00.002-06:00

This is for Julia, who asked about it at Harry Haines' reading. I am on the Writer's Digest mailing list, and one of their bloggers linked to it. Wonderful timing!

Defining Artless Fiction: 24 Basic Differences Between Literary & Mainstream/Genre Writing
By Janet Paszkowski

Typewriter, Where Did You Go?

2009-01-28T10:33:00.006-06:00

"Do I need a laptop?" I asked at a recent meeting of Pens & Pages. "I get pretty tired of sitting in front of a computer."

That's when Solard reached into her tote bag and produced the Dana.

"You need this, or a Neo," she replied.

Turns out, Dana and Neo are the two latest USB writing gadgets from AlphaSmart; primarily light weight word processors which can go with you anywhere. Really "plain Jane" with no frills or distractions ..... just writing---format it later---no internet---no email. Just writing!

Sounds good. So back in my office I surfed the net to find out more and came across the sweetest blog -- more like a forum: http://www.strikethru.net/2009/01/rebound-typewriter.html. It twanged on my heartstrings like a comfy pair of old house slippers. In addition to pros and cons re. Dana and Neo, there's much discussion (reminiscing, really) about trying to hang onto the days of pecking out stories, articles, essays, homework, etc. on the old Remingtons, Smith-Coronas, Royals, IBMs, and such.

The mission statement on "Strikethru" says:

"This blog heartily approves of typewriters, fountain pens, junk cameras, retrotech, ---- woodcase pencils, ephemera, Polaroid, rubber stamps, and fellow paper-based romantics who like the sound of a typewriter bell at the end of a sentence."

Doesn't that conjure up images of famous old authors pounding out best sellers one after another? How many of us learned to type in school on one of those big old ugly cast iron Underwoods that weighed about 40 pounds and required ten pounds of muscle just to get the keys to hit the paper? And you had to type 50 words per minute to pass the test! Yes, we've come a long way BUT I don't know how anyone can manage without a typewriter. There is surely some way to address a single envelope or print off a short note using a computer, but I haven't figured it out yet. There are three IBM Selectrics at my house. One is in the garage storage closet, one on the floor in my office and one still in operation on the desk. I'm holding my breath on that one.

I guess each individual has to examine what's out there and be aware that the new mediums might actually be better.

Thanks, Solard. I'll probably get a Neo once I've saved up a few extra $s.

Keep on writing, one way or another.

Grannie Carol

2009-01-19T11:56:00.002-06:00

Passionate Dreams

Do you ever think about a situation you are in or listen to others tell about their situation and wonder how do we get past this? How do we move on? How can we resolve this without being drug down in the mire...again? Authors Sara Orem, Ph.D., Jacqueline Binkert, Ph.D., and Ann Clancy, Ph.D. say, "Appreciative Coaching derives from the positive philosophy known as Appreciative Inquiry, created to guide change in organizations. Recent developments in positive psychology and organizational development suggest that people and organizations flourish when they focus on human ideals, achievements, and best practices. Appreciative Coaching uses positive questions, mindfulness, and other tools to acknowledge people's strengths and help them realize their own big dreams.

"This all sounds a bit "teachy" but it's really a beautiful positive way to set the tone with one person or groups of people. You set the tone by finding people's passions, dreams, the things they deeply care about. As they begin to share their successes you see their strengths and abilities. Their eyes sparkle with life and emotion. They feel hopeful and like their is a way to improve their situation.

You see ways to encourage them to think through these things and make their own choices according to what they see in themselves and others see in them. People often revert back to negative thinking but with reminders of their strengths and passions they have more hope of moving on.

Sara Orem, Ph.D., Jacqueline Binkert, Ph.D., and Ann Clancy, Ph.D. have written "Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change." This book gives many tools to use in working with people. It has some technical, teachy stuff but also some very simple and practical suggestions that apply to yourself or helping others.

I saw a film at a Sweet Adeline Summer Music Camp, "The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life" by Rosamunde Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. They have a book by the same title which can be found easily and is excellent. The film is harder to get hold of. Benjamin Zander is a dynamic speaker as well as the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. I have never witnessed a more passionate speaker. He not only is passionate himself but he gets the passion to bubble and burst out from people he works with. After he has works with a person they are illuminated; glowing from within. He speaks for groups far and wide. This film was a very special arrangement with Sweet Adelines and I believe may not be available. As I write this I want to have him come inspire my chorus! I will look into this however big a goal it may be. Would Pens & Pages members like to come? I believe we will need a larger group than just our 30 or so chorus members so it might be a possibility.

Whether you are a writer, singer, stay-at-home mom, philanthropist, baker, butcher or candlestick maker find ways to use your passion to help people and yourself. We all need it and the world will benefit from your contribution.

Communication

2009-01-13T20:32:00.002-06:00

Well--here goes!

I feel like I'm wandering in the wilderness with this bloggin' business, but I'm eager to learn (I guess.)

The subject of communication and how best for it to happen has been the topic of several conversations I've had recently. My feeling is that communication is so important whether one is dealing with a husband, a child, a grandchild, a friend, or an organization. Maybe posting blogs helps to clarify thoughts. Do you think my Hubby would read my blog??

Nana

2009-01-12T19:00:00.001-06:00

These post-its are my novel, in condensed form. I'm trying to organize things, and it is a pain. I didn't write chronologically - I wrote whatever I felt like that day, and so it has some problems that need fixed before I should even bother doing the line-editing.

Does anyone have any tips or resources for this? It seems terribly unwieldy.

I remember Robin had a nifty little board with little dividers, but I don't know that I have a board big enough for all the dividers I'd need...

Dialogue

2009-01-09T09:15:00.004-06:00

(overheard at salebarn)

"Six years he's been my father-in-law, and he despises me. And I have bought pigs after pigs after pigs. I hate pigs, and he still ain't my friend. I guess I can't buy my father-in-law...my mother-in-law thinks I hung the moon...

Kept buying his pigs...I was trying to buy his love, that's what I was trying to do. I even mowed his lawn.
(Background noise, I lost the thread of things for a minute)
...super athlete, I'm everything he doesn't want in a son-in-law. I told him, 'We need to go to counseling'. He said 'Counseling, why?' I said, 'Cause there's a lot of love lost here.' He said, 'It ain't love, it's hate"

On the one hand, it's bad manners to eavesdrop. On the other, you hear some great stuff that way. And some people obviously don't care whether you hear them or not; that conversation was basically a monologue delivered by a slightly drunk guy to his friend in a very loud tone of voice. I was sitting behind them at the salebarn, where there is a lot of ambient noise, and I had NO PROBLEM hearing most of what he said.

I had a notebook in my pocket and was sort of scribbling down these notes, thinking that basically it was like hitting the jackpot. My husband looked at me and said "What are you doing?" I said "Are you hearing this?" And he hadn't noticed it at all. Apparently I eavesdrop more than the average person.

I'm not sure if I have always been that tuned in to people around me, or if it is a habit I've cultivated as a writer, to the point that now I don't even think about it. If I catch interesting bits of conversation, I try to remember them and write them down later, to use as a detail in a story, or even the basis of a whole story.

Over Christmas, I was reading a book that I've had for awhile, which is about writing dialogue. I bought it years ago and remember reading it the first time in my freshman year of college. I don't know about when the eavesdropping became a habit, but I do know that is when I started scribbling down what other people are saying. The author recommends it, as a way to both catch interesting and unusual ways people have of saying things (to give your dialogue a more interesting and realistic flavor) and just to get a feel for the patterns and flow of real-life dialogue.

Dialogue in your stories shouldn't imitate real-life dialogue exactly, because when you study how people actually talk, you find that:

#1 - People hem and haw a lot and say umm... and you know.... a lot in ways that will drag your fictional (and memior) dialogue down and lose your reader's interest.

#2 - People say a lot of cliche things, and as writers, we need to avoid cliche most of the time. We live in a media-saturated culture, in which life often imitates "art", or media, at least. High school and college-age kids are especially prone to this, with whole conversations that consist almost exclusively of quotes from movies and TV shows.

But if you weed out the cliches, people often say things in interesting and unique ways, which reveal their character, background, and personality (Sometimes, though, a characters reliance on cliche and pop culture could say a lot about their personality. The important element here is that you know they are spouting cliches, and you intend for it to show something of their personality.) The trick is learning to pick out these gems and then learn also how to create similar gems of your own for your characters.

I think it is easy for a writer to slip into TV-style dialogue where the characters are revealing information to each other that they already know, for the benefit of the reader/viewer more than the benefit of the story. Some of that is necessary in TV, because of the limitations of the medium. There are commercial breaks, everything has to happen in 22 or 45 minutes, you can't show the inner workings of character's minds without using voice-overs or dialogue.

I found a site with episode transcripts of a variety of shows, TwizTV. It can be useful to go through a transcript of a show and notice where the dialogue works and where it doesn't.

I am curious about what others think about this habit of eavesdropping and recording it: is it something you find rude, something you do yourself, something you would consider doing? It's a pretty ingrained habit for me now, and one I don't think I will be changing. Until I saw Brandon's reaction, it didn't even seem like something that might be unusual.

Small Town Newspapers Work for Me!

2008-12-31T15:34:00.009-06:00

Michelle Malkin
Amarillo Globe-News
Box 2091
Amarillo, Texas 79166

December 26, 2008

Dear Michelle Malkin,

This letter is in regards to your article in the Amarillo Globe-News on Dec. 6, 2008 entitled "Just say no to newspaper bailout".

I am in complete agreement when it comes to government bailouts. I am against them. The only one I supported somewhat was the original financial sector bailout which was partially caused by our government. Our legislators know very little about financial matters. Most have not run a business, and most could not even figure their own families' cash-flow.

Your job requires that you stay on top of all news. It is, therefore, very necessary for you to sit down at your computer to read many different newspapers. Once you have that information, you can remain at your computer to write the articles which bring in your income. That is very understandable, but not everyone gets paid for writing opinion page articles.

Many people go about their own work, which may be just as important as yours, without time to read a newspaper until they take "a break". Personally, I need to prop my legs up a few times a day and that is when I read the newspaper.

Just because you get your information from online newspapers does not make your way superior. Just because others get their information from paper newspapers does not make their way inferior.

You could have made your case against bailouts of newspapers without sneering at small town newspapers. Our small town of about 3800 people gets its local news from our local weekly newspaper, which is also available online. It informs us of the plans of our city council and of our businesses. It also recognizes our students. Because we are a small town, many of our same students will be named on the school honor roll as well as in the sport programs.

Also, your phrase "in dead-tree form" was an unnecessary sarcasm. Just like wheat and corn, trees are also planted in order to be harvested for building supplies. One by-product is pulp for making paper.

Your article told as much about your urban bias as it did about federal government bailouts.

Sincerely,

Amelia Wright
Friona, Texas

Hello!

2008-12-26T23:32:00.003-06:00

I was supposed to post a blog entry between 13 December and 19 December. And I got behind. But here I am! Never late than better. Uhm...

Christmas is once again a memory, and all the trimmings and trappings are (mostly) cleaned up. Remnants remain, alone, to remind us of the celebration. Our kids have grown bored (already?!) with the trinkets they received and we are (almost) over the headache from the late night spent as Assistant Elves. What do we do now?!

Write.

That's right, write it down. Record the day -- the day before and the day after, too, if you want -- and use the celebration as a prompt. Crack those knuckles and flex those writerly muscles and go back to what you do: write it down.

Your kids will cherish the record written down in your hand of times spent together as family, long after the distant memory of those Christmas morning trinkets has faded.

Happy After Christmas Writing, you writers!

Observations On The Season

2008-12-10T17:22:00.004-06:00

It’s inevitable! Your level of expenses at Christmas time will always rise to exceed your level of income.

The shortest line at the check out counter requires the longest wait. Then the number of heavy packages you’ll have to carry out to the car will be in direct proportion to how far away you had to park.

Gift giving:
Children’s toys are too expensive and too complicated. Get them a basket full of batteries. They’ll need them.

Give food gifts to the people on your list who have everything. Everyone has to eat.

For the very special people, give a gift of yourself --- write a poem, an essay, or a Christmas memory, then roll it up and tie it with a ribbon. This is something they’ll cherish forever --- the cost is small but the thought is priceless.

Don’t let the problems of the season obscure the blessings of the season. You’ll find them in the sparkle of the stars in a velvet sky on a frosty night. You’ll find them in the sounds of friends and neighbors singing traditional carols at church. You’ll find them in the warm tiny hugs and moist kisses of grandchildren with innocent shining eyes.

Even Scrooge and the Grinch came to realize that “things” don’t make Christmas. It’s the feelings in the heart that make it all so special.

Wishing my sisters in writing the best life has to offer. I’ll see you all next year,

“Grannie Carol”

Another site that might be helpful

2008-12-03T22:21:00.002-06:00

I ran across Daily Writing Tips today, and it has a lot of useful information, nuts and bolts stuff like grammar and punctuation, as well as tips on fiction writing and a lot of interesting idiosyncratic articles like "40 Yiddish Words You Should Know".

Take One Moment

2008-11-28T19:40:00.004-06:00

The forces of life flow in many directions …. good and bad, happy and sad. Don’t worry. Everything always balances out.

When life begins to fall in on us, we tend to lose our creative spark. The creative process can range from joyful enthusiasm to painful disappointment. It is coloring outside the lines, finding other ways to accomplish your goals, and not always following the rules.

True, it is hard to find the time we need to express ourselves. Becoming a hermit sounds like a good solution to distancing ourselves from daily hassles and society in general, but our computers would probably not work well in a cave. So take a deep breath and calm the whirlwinds in your minds.

Creative idleness renews the spirit. Everyone has an inexhaustible fountain of ideas, whether they know it or not. We must work to keep imagination alive. The spirit cannot thrive without the creative inner self. A person does not have to be energetic and active every waking moment, filling the air with constant chatter … “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Imagination needs slow quiet contemplation in order to achieve the freedom to grow. When you sit down to write, take one moment to breathe, to clear your mind of all the clutter, then pick up your pen or place your fingers on the keyboard and off you go.

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase … just take the first step.” M.L. King

Namaste,
Grannie C.

2008-11-26T14:39:00.006-06:00

+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'
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+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'
Congratulations Solard! +-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*' +-*'+-*'+-*'
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+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'
NaNoWriMo 2008 Winner +-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'
+-*'+-*'+-*'++-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'+-*'
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Changing Gears...

2008-11-24T13:31:00.003-06:00

Thank you, madebyAmanda for posting the Orwell's Rules post -- timely information from a classic source!

Here's something I came across when satisfying a little curiosity that you all might enjoy -- since most of us have expressed interest in being published...

This link: http://www.pwcwriters.org/penpoints4.htm

Contained therein is a concise bit of information on the different approximate word counts for different types of published works. Begging pardon of anyone if you've already seen it -- I hadn't, so thought I'd share.

Happy...uhm...Day that begins with "M" day!

Orwell's Six Rules

2008-11-19T09:40:00.002-06:00

These are the George Orwell's Six Rules referred to in the article Solard linked to. This quote is from his essay "Politics and the English Language", the full text of which can be found here.

"But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous."

I think in general, these are sound principles. The key, though, is #6. Rules can be helpful, but if they're messing up your writing, BREAK THEM. The rules are only a means to an end.

Now for a walk on the wild side...

2008-11-18T11:03:00.005-06:00

Heh -- did I get anyone with the title...? Don't worry -- I'm pretty PG13, almost exclusively, and this blog post is no different.

In working on my NaNoWriMo story today, I committed the ultimate "sin" and started reading back over what I've already written (only looking for timeline stuff to keep me on track with what I'm currently writing, mind...)

But invariably, as is the case with, ahem, good intentions I found myself editing for ... wait for it -- {{{{{PASSIVE VOICE}}}}} (the little wavy brackets there? -- those are the 'echo of DOOOOM' you should be hearing when you read {{{{{PASSIVE VOICE}}}}})

Anyway, I was (hah! take that Conference Experts!!) trying to look for creative ways to replace my "was's" and such when I came across this link:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003414.html

In light of our PnP group discussion last night (and all the accompanying trauma for Robin -- God bless you today, little Writer!) I thought when I read this little article "A-HA! Eureka! and other exclamations -- This MUST go on our PnP Blog!!!

So, to you, my fellow writers in training (oops -- probably should have hyphenated that last term, but what the heck -- I'm feeling rebellious today!)

Go to the link. Read it. Live it. Damn the torpedoes, cry Havoc! and let loose the dogs of WAS.

Writers Stigmata

2008-11-15T21:27:00.003-06:00

(Iposted this on my website, some of it's redundant with y'all but thought I'd share anyway, with a few revisions!)

I am such a mess! I have some serious stigmata stuff going on! No, I do not have blood oozing out of my palms and feet. I have writer's stigmata, a whole 'nother condition.

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood formon your forehead. ~Gene Fowler (1890-1960)There you have it, a condition that I have contracted. Writers stigmata.

I joked with my writing group that I taped a nail, pointy side up on my keyboard so I could self-flagellate during the writing process to manifest drops of blood. See, in Gene Fowlers era, pen and quill or manual typewriter drew blood easier when the urge to bang your head on something during the process set in. Today's surfaces are more rounded and forgiving causing only minor discomfort when head bashing ensues, hence, the nail.

See? I really thought the whole writer's stigmata thing required actual rending of skin to be legitimate. I have since learned, that's not the case. It's a mythical, spiritual rending that must be experienced if you want to hear the Heavenly Tabernacle Choir break out in refrains of "Hallelujah" while the men in little white coats are carting your slobbering self off to the loony bin during your burst of creative genius.This condition is sneaky and can hit you at the most mundane moment. One minute you think you're fine, happily typing along while patting yourself on the back for being the possible next "it" writer and then WHAM! You realize you're done. You're shit. You suck and you by God, better not quit your day job.

My name is Robin and my stigmata set in about 14 hours ago. I have a wonderful, supportive, amazing writer's group here and I was so excited that it was "my turn" to submit a couple of chapters of my WIP for critique! So, my "other" job has wound down so I had a whole day to dig out my story, polish chapters 1 and 2 and give it to my new best friends.

I was elated! Humming like a fairy tale worker bee, I opened the file...giggled and sighed over my masterpiece...printed both chapters and sat at the table with an actual pen and began to edit (again). I applied a lot of the things I've learned over the last year from the Writer's Conference in Amarillo to the "how-to" books I've purchased from the speakers there and elsewhere. I slashed scenes I liked but that did not "move the story forward", I checked spelling, punctuation....I looked at tone and tense...I questioned using first person narrative and stayed with it. I was on a roll!

By 7:00 pm I was convinced that chapters 1 and 2 would be winging their way to my loving group for their enjoyment and fantastic idea's on how to make it better! SO! I went back to the keyboard...literally typed the whole thing over from my handwritten notes...spell checked, grammar checked...and then did the unforgivable.

I checked for passive verbs (a very common rookie mistake). We speak in passive voice so it's very easy to write in passive voice. However, when we speak we have the luxury of voice inflection, facial expressions, body language and other visual signals to make our point. We don't have that with words on paper so we have to use the strongest words we can...right? So I did the "check" for passive verbs function.

This function highlights every passive verb in your masterpiece. This function is an unforgivable bastard. I am convinced this function is the germ that weaseled into my mid-brain and set the writers stigmata into end-stage.

I hit, "find" and my masterpiece came back into view....murdered. It's blood was yellow highlights. Humans have red blood (okay, it's blue without the addition of oxygen but stay with me). A manuscript has yellow blood. Mine was pricked by the passive verb function and was in danger of bleeding out.I used "was" 42 times in 2,000 words!

I became convinced that my story did not have the necessary anticoagulant so it was up to me to go in for emergency surgery and purge the passive voice...post haste. So I scrubbed up and went in. I tried to get every last tendril of the passive verb so that it would not cause any problems down the road for my precious manuscript. I sutured it up and then did a patient evaluation post op.

Sadly, my patient was sorely diminished by my radical surgery. A shell of the story she once was. (see? that damn word "was" is my demon!)In despair I railed at fate and realized I was not God, I couldn't save this manuscript from it's true nature.

I called a fellow writer moaning about the vagaries of writers stigmata. Solard had sympathy for like, one second. Then she blasted me with the complete truth. Writing is art and your voice is your voice. I told her about what I learned at the conference about passive voice and how it was a rookie mistake and about how I had fallen prey and she stated, "Robin, I am not a writers' conference veteran, but I'll tell you one thing, if a conference took the 'soul' out of my writing?....I'd never go to another one." God bless her!

I was like a surgeon who'd lost a patient and stumbled into a church with a benevolent priest. While I am wailing about my inability to save a life I was gently reminded that there is a power greater than myself. That the "creator" was almighty and the surgeon was educated, but flawed.So, I am going to give my manuscript over completely to the creator and shove the surgeon back into pre-op until it's necessary to do some minor cosmetic surgery.

But for now, I'm going to trust that the Writing Goddess (me!) knows what she's doing and trust my wonderful group.I'm kicking this out to my critique group...a first...and it sent me on this rant. If anyone out there wants to tell me that writer's are not hypersensitive and actually WANT critique...call me up and I'll call you a liar to your face.

No, I don't want critique, I want accolades and refrains of "you're a genius! This is better than War and Peace!" Hey, at least I'm honest.

I'm a writer who has never received a rejection letter...ever. That's a major point in my favor. Shadowed by the fact that I've never submitted anything for rejection kinda makes the previous statement passe.

See, right now I think I'm a good writer, maybe even excellent. If I put it out there and get shot down then I can't hold that thought and then....the men in little white coats.

That's a somewhat amended version of what I put on my blog, and I do not have an ulterior motive for posting it right before my critique session! Unless it's subconcious and then, who knows!? I just want you to know how much you all mean to me before I kick you all out of my house for not loving my writing and swooning over my brilliance! LOL!

Tough business, wonderful pursuit and I love all of you that punched your ticket and boarded this train with me! ONWARD!
Posted by Robin at 8:42 AM 3 comments Links to this post
Sunday, November 9, 2008

Developing a Daily Writing Habit (or, How I Make Myself Crazy)

2008-11-04T09:51:00.002-06:00

I once wrote an essay comparing my compulsion to write with an addiction, like alcoholism. I'm not sure now that it's that extreme, but in some sense I still can't NOT write. My problem is getting some control over the compulsion, to not just "binge write" when everything builds up. For years, off and on, I've tried to develop a daily writing habit. After all, most of the great writers, including Flannery O'Connor and Ernest Hemingway, had one. So I guess what I'm saying is, if I'm gonna be an alcoholic, I want to be the kind who drinks a fifth of whiskey a day, instead of the kind who goes on an awful bender every month or so.

I've tried different things, and most of them work for a little while, before something disrupts my schedule and I fall off the wagon (and here my metaphor breaks down, because the correct term would probably be 'climb onto the wagon'). When I think about it, there are very few things that I do "on schedule" of my own accord. It's just not part of my personality to be consistent.

There are things that I've found that help me:

1. Keep track of my accomplished daily writing goals with stickers or smiley faces on the calendar. At heart, I'm still five years old.

2. Write on Mondays. I give myself the weekends off, and if I don't make a resolution on Monday to get back into the swing of things, I'm prone to give myself the whole rest of the week off, too. Monday sets the tone for my whole week.

3. Do some writing that doesn't accomplish anything except to get the 'blah' out of my system. Right now, I'm doing three longhand handwritten pages a day, in the morning, just freewriting whatever is on my mind. It is called "morning pages" and is a technique from Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way. I've also done similar timed freewriting excercises from Natalie Goldberg's books. Doing writing that doesn't have to accomplish anything seems to clear the small nagging things out of my thoughts when I go to do my real writing.

4. When I've been not writing for a little bit, sometimes a change of scene helps jolt me back into it. I go to a restaurant or the library with the express intention of sitting and writing. I take my notebook and a pen and sit down and write for half and hour, or whatever. This is also something Natalie Goldberg recommends, although I had to get over a little bit of self-consciousness the first few times. I've also gone with my husband in the truck with the express intention of it being sort of a rolling writer's retreat. I don't go in the truck most of the time because after a very short period of time, it gets to be REALLY BORING. When I get bored, I go back into the sleeper and write. It's bumpy, though.

5. Sometimes reading about writing will get me excited about writing again. If I'm not careful though, I will substitute reading about writing for actually writing.

6. Talking about writing with other writers (Yay writing group!) makes me feel like a slacker or a poser if I'm not writing much, so I usually go home with a renewed desire to write.

How does everyone else trick themselves into writing? Or is it just me? I feel sometimes like my inner child is the one who writes, and I am a parent always getting on her case.

Writing is easy...

2008-10-29T20:06:00.002-05:00

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. -Gene Fowler (1890-1960).

Obviously, Good 'ole Gene left something out. I would assume he banged his head against the manual typewriter, or quill, before the drops formed. I find it a bit more difficult to manifest the drops of blood with our new technology, with rounded edges and more forgiving surfaces. So, I have glued a nail to my keyboard, pointed side up...and use that to self flagellate into procuring actual blood. What is a writer without a bloody keyboard? A lazy and non pious one!

I kid, really, no nail anyway...but I have found myself pacing, pulling hair, moving post-it's around on my storyboard, pacing some more before receiving an amazing epiphany, only to sit down and start banging it out and realizing. It doesn't work. That's when the head meets the keyboard in timed sequence begins...again!

Sometimes I wonder why my soul chose this profession to be the "passion". Why couldn't accounting, or law, or plumber have been "the ONE"? I knew a boy who always wanted to be a fireman. He never wavered from his goal, ever. He grew up, went to college, went to fireman school, became a fireman, met a woman, had two point two children....retired and became an arson investigator and never once questioned himself or his decisions. He's freaking even happy! If we were really smart, we would not even entertain the thought of this right?

Someone asked me once why I wanted to be a writer and I answered honestly, "It's not that I want to be a writer...it's just that I am. I have to write." It would be nice though, if I could make a living at it! Do you feel the same?

Perhaps Thomas Berger said it best, Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.

Isn't it kind of an awesome feeling to face a blank sheet of paper? Knowing that you can create a whole world, an entire cast of characters and a myriad of situations on it? YOU create an alternate universe...the trick is to make your inner fantasy believable and real to someone else. You must make other's care as much for your protagonist and consorts as well as make them fear, despise, or dislike your protagonist and company. Therein lies the challenge n'cest pas?

I often miss my characters when I don't have the time to get back to them and let them finish telling me their story. I've listened to successful writers tell me that you must absolutely control your characters and know the end of your story before you get there. In many ways, I agree. I know "tentatively" where I want the story to end up...but once my characters develop their own personalities...I find it hard to get them there just exactly the way I had envisioned. I have to make allowances for them. Yes, I control the keyboard, but there comes a point when the characters just cannot do what I originally wanted them to so in a sense. I create, throw some ink on the screen and my fictional characters and I finish together...everything I write is a collaboration with fictional people in the end! (call the men in little white coats!) As a reader, though, nothing turns me off more than a character who is set up, three dimensional, and then does something crazy just to move the story forward. My characters wouldn't stand for that!

I don't know why anyone would think our chosen passion is easy. They've obviously never tried it I suppose. But let me totally blow that observation out of the water here: Writing is easy. Simple as breathing. You just do it.

What I've learned though, is writing well enough to be considered for publication is a long, slow, arduous process and seems to take more practicality than creativeness. Part of it I know, it IS a business. At times I feel like an athlete that loved the game until it became a job.

But, regardless...I can't/won't quit. And all of you guys in "the group" have been so amazing keeping me motivated, positive and optimistic. You wipe the blood off my forehead and share your foibles and triumphs and without your support and enthusiasm...I'd be doing this all alone! I've been doing it alone for years and years and now that I've found y'all....I realize I'm not the only crazy dreamer still free!

I'll end with this. It's hard, it's frustrating, it's joyous and moving and fulfilling and it's the only thing I want to do. I hope someday to be able to earn the right to call it my only "job". Because there is nothing, to me, more fulfilling than to hit "the end" of my story. And nothing more challenging to rewrite the whole durn thing! (and make it better!) I've never given birth, but in a way, I think it might feel something like it. To hold the pages, measure their heft, and know I'm holding a world and a person(s) that I created. That has a beginning, a muddle, and an end! And hopefully people you can care about and root for and learn from.

I just want to tell stories...that's all. Unfortunately being a bard is no longer an option and I didn't' make enough being a court jester...so into the business I try to go....bloodied forehead, cramped fingers and aching neck! All of which, I could not do with you!

Thanks for listening to my writer's rant!

~Robin

Hey, Y'all!

2008-10-25T10:21:00.005-05:00

DJ had a great idea and although it may have been collaborative in nature she presented it to us on Tuesday's library meeting. The idea was to have a weekly post for this blog, with each member of PnP signing on to take a week. If we all participate, we'll only have to do it about once every 8 weeks or so.

This is my week ;0)

As most of you know, after I mentioned that I'd suffered from writer's block in college and feared it happening again, madebyamanda suggested a book to me, Page after Page by Heather Sellers. At our last Monday meeting, I mentioned that the book was giving me fits because the exercises are so many and so... intense. The book is an Interlibrary Loan, and I'd already extended that IL twice so it was becoming a problem! But I vowed to make it through the book. At about Exercise 17 or 18, the "compost" (Ms. Sellers describes this in the book) really started to cook and I realized -- much to my own surprise -- that I was really doing some productive work following the exercises in this little book!

I think it's a book that a lot of y'all might like to read... and struggle through (!) as well. So, when I was up in Amarillo the other day, I ordered it from the Barnes and Noble! I want to retain ownership of it, but I will lend it out with a full heart to as many of you as wish to try to conquer it's summit! It's a tough little hardback, so it should withstand whatever we can collectively dish out. Hee.

Anyway, Ms. Sellers has some powerful exercises in the book and she backs it up with a rich and varied background-- not always pleasant. The woman has had her share of bumps in the road! But I feel it's been wholly a great experience going through the book, working the exercises -- even if I started the writing with an angry disclaimer as the first sentence: "WHAT is the POINT of this EXerCISE!!!" heh.

Hopefully, the book will be in my possession in a week or so -- and I will hand back the IL copy to Bren, finish the exercises in my newly purchased book, then offer it up to whomever wishes to try it out next.

The book will get you writing. I promise.

2008-10-19T23:44:00.002-05:00

You were all so kind in your critique of my essay on “Dreams” at our Sept. 22 Pens and Pages meet. I admit to being a bit nervous before the meeting; worried that you would rip it to pieces, paragraph by paragraph. Instead, you offered some great suggestions and tips that I am planning to use in the future --- not just in the rewrite of “Dreams.”

I've been reading a lot of published memoirs to get a feel for the way other writers handle the struggle. Among the memoirs I've read lately are: "Driving With Dead People" by Monica Holloway, "The Rest of Her Life" by Laura Moriarty, and "The Glass Castle" by Jeannete Walls. This last one was on a bestseller list. For a true story, it is the strangest book I've ever read.

All you pretty ladies just keep on writing. We’re making progress.

Grannie Carol

2008-10-14T15:14:00.005-05:00

We will write! There are two new books about writing memoirs. Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg is one I bought in Santa Fe. It has good suggestions to keep us writing in new ways. The other book is The Memoir and the Memorist by Thomas Larson, my next project to read. They will soon be available in the genealogy department of the library.

2008-08-16T18:11:00.004-05:00

OK, I give up!

I used to have a hard time finding things I wanted to read. Because of that, I had a lot of time to write.

Now I have too much that I want to read. With the internet and Inter Library Loan, I am able to find things to read that weren't available to me years ago.

I'm even finding great books of authors that I read as a kid. I never knew of their other books! I'm also finding a lot of newly published books on author websites. ( Deep Waters by M.D. Meyer is one of them.) Then there are the books about writing! So who has time to write?

For those of you that do, here is a website that explains many of the things writing books are frequently telling us to do, like, use the active voice, or show, don't tell, etc. This website for a high school English class explains at least eleven of these basics. So, those of you who don't mind going back to school (I could use a refresher), try out the General Writing Resources of Mr. Braiman. (And, no, you don't need to tell me where I messed up in this post... :-)

2008-08-13T19:36:00.003-05:00

Someone else please post to this blog... mcj will think I've taken over!

Thank you to everyone who indulged my leadership attempt at yesterday's meeting -- I was nervous (but not too nervous -- y'all are a nice enough bunch) and yet I got through it, and so did y'all.

-Solard

2008-07-30T09:24:00.001-05:00

SOLARD -

The book I was telling you about is called Page After Page, and the author is Heather Sellers.

2008-07-21T14:04:00.002-05:00

I write -- when I write -- in a fugue of intense concentration at the laptop until I reach the breaking point of near insanity or complete, cramped fatigue. (Hmmm... maybe I have just had a clue as to why I cannot seem to make myself sit down and write... very interesting...)

Like Amanda, when I tackle (and yeah...I mean 'tackle') poetry I like to use a #2 Pencil -- preferably a Ticonderoga (they just feel good) -- in a notebook... but I'll take any scrap of paper and have even pressed old receipts into service.

I think my hand gets too cramped trying to write out prose fiction longhand. The short bursts of actual writing coupled with the long, drawn-out plotting and planning of that 'just so wording' that goes into poetry writing (well, at least my poetry writing...) seems better served by the tactile pleasure of holding a pencil in hand.

As with everything else in my world, I'm a bit OCD about writing stories, and feel that I have to research until I'm a babbling idiot -- even if none of it ever goes into the story. I need to find a way to rein that tendency in, as I find (especially recently) that I'm all research and no writing.

I won't lie: I've reached a rough patch in my creative pursuits -- so rough that I'm ready to throw in the towel and say, 'Agghhh. Nice work if you can get it.' because 'never trying and thus having only the suspicion that I stink up the joint' is masquerading tantalizingly as better than 'trying and removing all doubt'...

But I promise not to be a whiney self-absorbed brat about it ;-)

2008-07-12T22:03:00.002-05:00

So, I am curious about how other writers in the group write.

I use the computer for the majority of my prose, but on the rare occasions I write poetry, it has to be handwritten.

I've got a composition book that I do free writing in, as well as outlining for my stories, writing down random things that might spark stories later, or might show up in one in some way. Sometimes I take it with me and write in a restaurant or the library, especially when I'm stuck on my novel. The drawback to that, of course, is that I have to write everything twice -- once in my notebook and once at the computer. It's also where I keep story ideas, research notes, quotes that I like, and whatever else comes along.

I've been keeping notebooks for years. I have stacks of them, since I can't make myself throw them away.

I prefer composition books because I like the way they look, but also because they don't have spirals to get squashed, and the pages don't fall out like the perforated pages in some spirals.

Right now I prefer blue ballpoint pens, just cheapo Bics (but they have to write smoothly), though my preference in pens changes periodically.

Anybody else? Post in the comments or as an entirely new post.
:)

2008-07-11T13:19:00.003-05:00

Amanda, here. I have a few writing books I'd like to trade (for other writing books, if possible), if anyone in the group is interested. I should be at this month's critique meeting to make the trade.

1. Building Fiction: How to Develop Plot and Structure, by Jesse Lee Kercheval. This book has quite a bit of good basic advice for fiction writers, and excercises at the end of every chapter. I liked it, but I don't think I'll be reading it again.

2. The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells, by Ben Bova. I haven't read this in years; science fiction isn't my main squeeze anymore, so I can't remember how good (or not good) this book was.

3. Aliens and Alien Societies: a Writer's Guide to Creating Extraterrestrial Life Forms, by Stanley Schmidt. Same as above, it's been too long since I read this to remember if it was any good.

I also have a copy of Grave Intent, by Deborah LeBlanc, who spoke at the writer's conference in Amarillo. I would be willing to trade that too.

What I'm interested in: I would like to trade the writing books for writing books, but would also trade them for something by Bob Mayer (he spoke at the conference, and I'd like to see where he's coming from). I also would like to read Deborah LeBlanc's Family Inheritance. Other than that, my current genre interests are mysteries (not so much the Patricia Cornwell-style ones, though, and I'm particularly interested in Raymond Chandler right now.) and Christian fiction (not romance).

My email is crum_amanda(at)hotmail(dot)com (except with the relevant symbols replacing what's in parenthesis.

2008-06-30T11:28:00.002-05:00

I have found some good sites for writers recently, and I thought I would share some of them:

Duotrope Digest is a free site with market listings (many small press markets) - they've got stats such as how long the average wait for a response is, the ratio of acceptances to rejections, etc. The listings are easily searchable by pay scale, genre, whatever you want. Also if you become a member of the site, you can keep track of your submissions with a submission tracker, which I've found useful.

The Free Dictionary. I use online dictionaries quite often to look up words, both because I am lazy (you have to get up, and drag the dictionary off the shelf, as opposed to a few clicks), and because many of the words I want to look up are not in the dictionaries that I own. I just recently discovered this site, which also has word games. The entries have an icon to click and hear the word pronounced. (I know it's not always a good idea in writing to use a $50 word you know just because you know it when there is a $5 word that will do the job, but I'm a word geek, and I enjoy learning new words, useless or not.)

Free Rice. Another vocab-building site. This is a game, multiple choice answers to choose from to define a given word, and it automatically adjusts to your vocabulary level, getting harder the more you answer correctly. Plus, for each correct answer you give, rice is donated to programs for the elimination of world hunger.

2008-06-24T22:21:00.003-05:00

Hi, P&P Friends!
Last night's critique meeting was amazing. I had a hard time going to sleep after I got home because I was so encouraged. DJ asked for permission prior to the meeting then handed my story, "Singing To the Cows" to the group for critiquing. We used guidelines that helped us be effective -- yes, I critiqued it myself! The beginning comments were uplifting and the suggestions for improvements will help me have a much better story. I learned new writing terms throughout the evening as well. ;-) I felt good about the whole experience being with people that care about me as a writer and their encouragement. I know you will have a good experience as well if you choose to let this group critique your works. (Don't know if you can tell but I sure tried to implement some of those new ideas you planted in my head!)
Looking forward to more editing -- can ya believe it?
Brenda

2008-05-19T12:03:00.001-05:00

Hey writing gang!
I'm pretty sure I'll be able to make it to the meetings this summer, starting in June! I'm looking forward to it. Just wanted to let ya'll know!
Stephanie

2008-04-11T14:40:00.003-05:00

I promised you some links recently. OK, here they are.

For you novelists and story writers, About.com has a page on Fiction Writing. There are a lot of useful articles there, and some advertising. I found it worthwhile.

For Children's writers Write4Kids.com has a lot to sell, but between the for sale links there is still a lot of free information. I have found them very helpful. The Purple Crayon is a similar site done by an editor. I've used articles from both these sites to prepare for our meetings.

For people writing family stories and memoirs, you may like Creative Nonfiction, a site that publishes on online magazine. (They do take submissions.) My favorite is the page with Essays on the Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. I plan to read one of these articles every day. One of the coolest articles I have ever read about journalism is The Fact Behind the Facts, or How You Can Get It All Right and Still Get It All Wrong by Philip Gerard. I just found this website today, so I can't tell you much more about it except that I have great expectations of finding a lot of good information.

Diane L. sent me a link for The Writer's Nook.

Thank you Solard for the link you put in your last post.

Everyone please continue post what you find and why you like it for the rest of us.

Let me know what you find helpful.

2008-04-08T11:52:00.003-05:00

That was a really good meeting this morning, aside from the sensation that we were almost missing some limbs because of our members who couldn't be there! <> Come baaaack!!

Here is the link that I mentioned: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/09/de-gustibus-and-how-to-reply-to-bad.asp (I'm crossing my fingers it works) Background, for those that weren't at the meeting, in a nutshell: Anne Rice got uppity on Amazon.com at the critics (haters!) who posted not-so-nice reviews of her book "Memnoc": the mumbledy-something (sorry! -can't remember the rest of the title --anyway, the last in her Lestat series). Fans of Neal Gaiman (a popular sci-fi writer) comment on his blog and ask him for his take on her Response. This is his blog-answer. Scroll about half-way down to get his thoughts on that. I think it's very good advice for us as we approach our whole nail-biting critique sessions!

Oh, and upon further reflection... I'm actually glad that lady had her half of that cell phone conversation during our meeting -- I'm excited at the lessons I can learn from my gut response of "HOWRUDE!!!111!!!" in learning to use EVERYTHING as a "prompt."

(Thanks, DJ ;-)