Tick Tock Tick Tock

Time is couting down to the start of the NaNoWriMo competition. I'm so excited. I always get cold chills when I'm getting started on a book, but this time is even more so since I have a real deadline and people counting on me to help in a private contest between regions for total word count. So not only am I aiming for the 50,000 words by Nov. 30, but also as many more as possible to help my 'team.'

I've met some very interesting people, and am looking forward to actually getting together in person at some point.

I would imagine my blogs will be short and sweet and few and far between in the weeks ahead.

 My "real" novel manuscript is with an agent as we speak, and 2 more have partials of it. Having this new project takes some of the pressure off of 'Hot Bubbles', putting it straight on 'The Girl in the Mirror'. I work best under pressure, so, guess we'll see what happens.

Thanks for being there! I wish more of you would write comments in here instead of emailing me privately or sending PMs. But, it's always nice to hear from you no matter where it comes from. :)

 Wish me luck and bon voyage!



I'll be fine so long as the laptop battery stays hot, I stay cool
and there's plenty of books, Cokes and Hershey Bars!



NaNoWriMo Fo Me

I've heard writers talk about "NaNoWriMo" in the past and I've seen it listed in portfolios, and finally, after all these years I remembered to do a Google for it. And, now I'm officially a 2010 participant.

If you've been living in a cave as I apparently have been, NaNoWriMo is the affectionate nickname for the National  Novel Writer's Month (or something like that). November is the official month when participants sit with fingers poised over the keyboard waiting for 12:01 a.m. November 1st to start writing the Great American (or Middle Eastern, or British, or wherever the Internet hits them) Novel. And fingers must cease typing at midnight on November 31st at which time you have pledged to have 50,000 words on paper.

So far it's been great fun getting to know other participants in my area through the NaNoWriMo forums, and we're planning some 'meet and greet' work parties in the future at various Mickey D's and libraries (both sure bets for WiFi, although I've eaten orange marmalade that ran faster than the WiFi at the Guntersville McDonald's...and why should they care? You've gotten your food by the time you realize that you're eating way too many carbs and calories just to be able to get online while you do it, and then could send Pony Express quicker than getting an email to send).

Luckily, my pants have wings because I've been planning to fly by the seat of them waiting until just after midnight Sunday to let ideas flow. And then, like a bolt out of the blue, the whole novel just appeared in my head as I was waiting for sleep last night.

The title will be "The Girl in the Mirror." Story line: Protagonist is Dixie Cantrell, the proprietress of a New Age emporium (tentatively entitled "The Market Bizarre" featuring "Unique Junque and Other Curiosities...I love the English language with its spelling quirks) she has inherited from her great-aunt. She will find her aunt's journal and discover that some of her ancestors were well-known for their talents in mystical affairs. A face she sees in a mirror in the shop sets her out on a mission. While on the mission she spends time with a sexy detective who happens to be the one who answers the phone when she calls the police after a break-in at the shop, and she helps guide a troubled foster kid who desperately needs something, anything, to believe in.

Since I can't start to flesh out the characters yet and start writing, I've been searching for artwork to tape up around my desk to inspire me, something inspirational and "quirky" to use as the desktop for my computer during the month, and as always I get carried away and do something very time-consuming and silly like the 'art' up there featuring the front window of the Market Bizarre. Believe it or not, I, with my previously limited ability to do "photoshop-type" stuff, took a picture of French doors, put them into FotoFlex (online software program that I LOVE for removing backgrounds) removed the windows and pasted in bits of pieces of "curiosities" that I found around the internet. It ended up being someplace I'd like to live (Lori said the same thing, what do you think?) surrounded by crystals, wind chimes, candles, glass bottles, suncatchers, dragons, fairies, amulets and the like. You can tell when insomnia hits me by how creative I get. Obviously, I haven't slept in a while.

I tried working with the 'girl in the mirror' aspect and I came up with this, which isn't all that great, but it's enough to inspire me if I tape it to an upper shelf and look at it without my glasses on. The girl in the story is a blue eyed blonde, and this kid looks like a brunette, but...like I said, without glasses...

I'm sort of excited about the idea. I have lots of 'side stories' just aching to be worked in. So, I guess I need to focus on Halloween to get my mind off writing until I can write. Lizzie's fairy costume is pretty much done, but Buford may have to go as a Big Blue Dog Wearing Bandana at this point because I can't find clothes to fit him. (He is oh so obviously my son!)

Literary Midget Me

I posted a reply on another blog where I referred to myself as a literary midget. I got a couple of personal responses saying that I should never denigrate myself so in public.

Denigrate hell!  I am proud to wear that title. Certainly if being a literary giant means you have to write so deeply insightful that readers need a stepladder to put into the hole to get down to your level of misery. If you look at bestseller lists, books that garner the highest credits are those that 'touch nerves'. Ouch. I've had abscessed teeth before. And when the pain subsided, I admit I'm guilty of touching the tooth with my tongue to see if it's still sore. Once. And being surprised when the touch throws gasoline on the embers of the pain and it flares to life. That whole "touching a nerve" thing is way overrated from my point of view.

I think a lot of people go through life so drenched in their emotions that they forget to live the today because they're so engrossed in reliving the past. I know that what misery I've experienced is likely a drop in the bucket to someone who, for instance, had their only child kidnapped, tortured and murdered. How do you live through something like that? I'm in awe of anyone who kept even a thread of sanity after living such nightmares. But, I've had enough in my life to give me ample opportunity to walk through it wrapped in black gauze, refusing to look at the light because the dark seems so much safer.

I didn't grow up in a Disney movie. My mother was an untreated bi-polar schizophrenic and my dad was an enabler. I started life as a twin, but my mother miscarried my brother. The fact that when I was pulled from the womb I didn't have a penis was a huge disappointment to them, an emotion for which they constantly overcompensated towards me giving me all sorts of complexes.

As an adult, I've watched the people I loved most in life die slowly after a long battle with cancer. Then I had to fight that same battle (which I appear to have won....and always have to include the addendum... so far) not once, but twice. The second diagnosis occurring two days after my father, my childhood hero's funeral. I have been so miserable with my life that I prayed to die. And I have been so afraid when that life was threatened that I prayed to live. I've heard other cancer survivors say the same thing. "I never realized how good life is until I thought I wasn't going to have it any more." How many people who successfully commit suicide have major second thoughts about a nano-second too late. As the noose tightens, as they see the bullet coming in slow motion, as the car wheels leave the tarmac. I would imagine that if there was a way to get those percentages, they'd be pretty damned high.

I believe that misery, when all is said and done, is a choice.

So is writing about it. And reading about it. I choose to 'just say no.'

I will never be a literary giant because I learned long ago that touching your tongue to an abscessed tooth causes pain. And no matter what the choices life gives me, I'm ALWAYS going to take the door that definitely does NOT have pain behind it.

I want to create characters that make people laugh, and make readers wish they were real people that shared their life. I don't care about being "laugh out loud funny" ... but I never understood why the movies that critics gave the most emphatic thumbs up were always the ones that my friends told me "Oh, it was so good, I cried all the way through." Screw that. I've got enough real honest memories to cry over. I don't need to pay to watch or read someone who's create fake ones to do the same thing.

Now, I'll get down off my soapbox. If someone will get me a ladder. You know what short legs we midgets have!

A Writer Must Read, but what?

I only wish my books were so attractively displayed in real life.
This is how they appear in my head at least. (Desktop design
is my second love. When I get bored with writing I create some-
thing artistic. I love collages, weaving together bits and pieces
of art into something as warm and comfy to me as my
one of my gramother's quilts.)

I have been told that to be a good writer, you should read. I started reading long before I learned to write (remember those big chunky pencils we used to use in first grade? Do kids still use those or do they now use iPods with small printers attached?) and I haven't stopped since. I am not a book collector, I am a hoarder. They could easily film an episode for the TV show based strictly on the sheer numbers of books that are housed under our roof (not quite so bad that we simply have trails through teetering stacks, but I'm only 52, give me time). 

Our "Friends of the Library" have a small bookroom where they sell donated and ex library books to make money for buying 'extras' for the library. By this point, I think surely they should have been able to add on a new wing and probably hire thirty new employees just from the money I spend there. Even at $1 and $2 a book, it adds up. Especially since I always leave with fabric shopping bags stretched to the max with books.

When I got married recently, we added on a master bedroom. It's 24x36' with 8' off one end for a whirlpool tub bathroom and walk-in closet, and 6' off the other end for a library/office. The room divider wall (open on both ends) between the bedroom and the office is floor to ceiling bookshelves on both sides (the headboard is built into the shelving.. I love sleeping surrounded by books! How peaceful.

My husband was a little stunned at how quickly those shelves filled up. We're talking about a space of almost 275 square feet. And it's not only filled, it's filled to bursting. Leaving no place for his collection of antique car models or my dog and horse figurines for which the bedroom side was originally intended. I see more lumber in our future and another grumbling wall of books. If reading alone made you a good writer, I should be on the bestseller's list. Actually, if I could resell all the books I have on the craft of writing for what I paid for them, it would probably equal a fairly good book advance.

I have found that the one thing that is most detrimental to my writing is reading books about writing. Telling you "how I do it", or "how it should be done" or "the basics of writing" which are usually basics that if I had started out doing I would have fizzled long ago from boredom. I know some writers need the regimentation of outlines and copious notes, but I'm more a seat-of-your-pants kinda gal. If I think about it too long it gets boring. (Yes, I'm a Gemini, what are you?).

Writing is like anything else in life. It is only satisfactory if you do it your way. If you are an individual and express yourself in every as such. I am currently reading a book that was on the "every writer must have" list. I won't say what it is, because it's a really good book, beautifully written and I have enjoyed many parts of it. The author is one of my 'cyberfriends' and I hope she never knows how very close her words have come to shaking my faith in myself.

Perhaps some writers become more confident when they can knowledgeably discuss Kafka, Salinger, Chekhov and a bunch of writers I've heard of only when the more pompous among my friends toss their names into conversation. I have tried to become "better read" and all I got was "bigger bored."

Not that I don't own and read classics. Admittedly the shelf that holds that collection only whimpers from the weight, whereas the shelves that hold my collection of Robert Parker, Mark Childress, Jim Patterson, Thomas Perry, Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller, and all the rest of my heroes' work groans so loudly I keep expecting the neighbors to complain. I love the classics that I read often, but I read the ones that entertain me: Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Wizard of Oz (all of the titles), Mary Poppins, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Emma, Gone With the Wind, Sherlock Holmes... those to me are classics. Because they entertain me, they spread my mind into other places, and they make me feel good about coming home again.

In the writer's book that I'm reading now, there are constant references to authors whose works I don't think I could stay awake through if I mainlined caffeine and put toothpicks as props for my eyelids. They are gloomy, full of defeat and doom and reminders of how badly the world does suck sometime. The entire book seems gloomy and filled with dire warnings of what can happen if you stray from the norm.

Sorry, when I have time to read, I want to either learn something (I probably own more non-fiction books about subjects that have captured my fancy over the years than I do fiction) or I want to be entertained. That entertainment may come in the form of laughter, shivers, or the warm fuzzies, but for me to sit still through it, it has to leave me as happy with my life as I was when I opened the flyleaf or it will immediately go into the discard bin. (Currently I'm filling up a bin of discards for the NaNo book drive...usually my unwanteds go to the library to be resold to another bookophile.) I only discard what I think I will never want to read again, or won't ever possibly need for research.

The last thing I need in my life right now is worries and doubt. I was thrilled when I completed my last novel in 7 weeks. Then I read that if you write quickly, there will be so much editing later on that it will become a thing of drudgery instead of joy. I was thrilled that everyone who read it before it was submitted to an agent told me that it was quite funny and they had chuckled throughout. Then an agent told me she didn't find it all that amusing. My feathers drooped. They perked up a bit when one of the larger agencies answered a query with a request for more chapters. Another agent liked the book well enough to ask if I'd be willing to rewrite and if so, she wanted the entire manuscript on approval when it was completed. Another agent called with a half hour's excellent advice (which pointed out the same problem areas previously highlighted, so it made the rewrite much easier).

I guess the point of all this (and somewhere in the babbling there usually is one, if you look hard enough) is to ask... what do YOU read to be inspired to write? Or do you read at all? Is reading a hobby or a chore? Do you read books suggested by agents and publishers and other writers? Or those suggested by other readers? Do you read How-to books to "hone your craft?" Or do you spend spare time reading about gardening and bungee jumping? Do you read books you enjoy, by authors whose style you hope to emulate just enough to be a jumping board for your own creativity to make its splash? Or do you read what's on the "must read" list? Do you write better after  you've been warned how hard it is, and how many writers fail to make the cut? Or do you write better when you ignore everything around you, books and all and just write the story in your head.

Please, make title suggestions and tell me WHY you read what you read. (Meanwhile I'm headed to Amazon to check out Janet Evanovich's "How I Write" which I've been told is a "must have." I'll let you know!)

But The Best Part Is...

There are a lot of wonderful things about being a writer. There are a lot of things that suck about it too (like having to rewrite the old stuff to get it sold when you'd really rather be fleshing out the new idea you just had for the next project).

Today's blog is going to be short and sweet thanks to Verizon who sent me a whopping $200 bill for my MiFi wireless. I know and expect some months that I'll go slightly over my allotted 6 gb (which is a pittance, but I live in a rural area so my choices are limited and Verizon until now has seemed like the least of all the evils) and I always pay my over-charges without complaining...but this billing month, what with my father being hospitalized and then dying, and me getting a cancer diagnosis with all the medical appointments and surgery/hospital stay that that entailed, I know there is NO way that I logged in that many gb in a month. But I digress.

Because I'm between carriers, and grabbing Internet hookups where I can, I'm going to ask my fellow writers to reply to this question: What is the one thing you enjoy most about being a writer. The one moment when you know that no matter the downside, there is nothing else you'd rather be (even if you had a choice, which "real writers" don't). Is it the moment when you type The End? When you can get revenge or show your appreciation of someone by inserting them anonymously in your novel? The moment when an agent says "let me look at that?" The few minutes that you spend writing that you realize later was over an hour but seemed like no time at all because you were so engrossed?

Share! Let's see how much alike we really are at heart.

Do You Believe...

Boy, those are scary words to hear. They have been known to strike hearts in the fear of many a strong otherwise-fearless man who heard them from the mouth of the person who just buckled their seat belt beside him on a trans-Atlantic flight. The relief is almost palpable if the speaker finishes the sentence with something other than religious witnessing.

There are lots of things I believe in. I believe in Santa Claus. How else would you explain that feeling that you get, even if only for a brief moment, when you look at a twinkling Christmas tree? It's a flashback to the days when you believed that a fat man dressed in red snuck into your house to leave prezzies. I don't believe in the red suit or the fat any more...but I do believe in his spirit.

I believe that people are inherently good, and just as there are no bad dogs, just bad owners, I believe that even the worst of people put into the best of circumstances has the capability to surprise even himself with what he finds in his heart.

As much as I don't want to believe in Astrology, it fascinates me. And, if you know me really well, and you've ever read the description for a Gemini you have to admit I'm the poster child of the Gemini sign.

Right now I am totally overwhelmed. I've started a secret (major work) project for a friend's Christmas/birthday present.  I'm also 2 weeks out of cancer surgery and still suffering the side effects of the anesthesia to say nothing of having all my guts sliced and burned (maybe I've been watching too many Criminal Minds, Dexter and Bones reruns?). We're still in the throes of a home-remodeling project that I now have almost given up hope of being finished before I start paying for it with my Social Security checks (still a decade away). I've completed two novels and started another, and am trying to 'stay social' in the publishing industry which eats up a lot of hours out of every day. Still dealing with the paperwork surrounding my dad's death, and trying to get his house cleaned out...a monumental task at the best of times. To say the least, I'm staying busy.

But, with all of that on my plate, a few minutes ago, an idea hit me. So, with the taskbar already groaning with 3 open Word documents, a ublisher design project, a couple of games (diversion when I get burned out) and a Kindle book that I read while I download new software, I stop it all when the thought hits me that "Hey! My notes for our Recycling in the Garden seminar could be fleshed out a little bit and probably make a great e-book. And before I know it, I'm opening up those notes with an eye to starting yet another project. Throw in some yarn for crocheting an afghan and open up a paint can so I can finish painting the bedroom and I should be damned close to certifiable.

It pleases me to note that I took a deep breath, wrote my idea on a post-it note and stuck it to the new board I've recently created for these moments. You CAN teach an old dog (bitch?) new tricks!

I guess I actually have to believe there is something to this whole Astrology thing. I've read every one of the signs, and I would have picked Gemini out to describe me without knowing what dates it covered. I've got just a little tad of Taurus in me which makes sense since I was technically supposed to have been born a week earlier, which would have made me a Taurus instead of Gemini. If I'm totally honest with myself (geez, I hate doing that!) I admit I have a split personality. Not split like bipolar, but there are just two very definite sides to me. Not so much good and evil as, well, naughty and nice (does that put me on both of Santa's lists? More prezzies!?)

I like to think that this makes me mecurical enough to enjoy a bunch of different writing pursuits because of the "flightiness" of the Gemini... and the dedication and stubborness of a Taurus to "get 'er done." And most of the descriptions of Gemini state that in the field of journalism or some aspect of writing it is usually easy for a Gemini to achieve a successful status.

And now, a little-known fact about me, that my parents never told me about until my mother tossed it out as a barb in one of her bipolar hissy-fits. I am biologically a twin. My mother suffered a partial miscarriage, and lost my brother in the end of her middle trimester. I was stunned to find this out, but it explained so much to me. On so many levels.

So, those of you who know me well, this was cut and pasted from a site devoted to Geminis, boiling down the characteristics. What do you think? Is it me? Duh!

LIKES

Talking

Novelty and the unusual

Variety in life

Multiple projects all going at once

Reading

DISLIKES
Feeling tied down Following rules, such as in school Being in a rut Mental inaction Being alone

 



PS: Did you notice what the cavas is for this photo. Body art absolutely fascinates me!

Death, Love and Trying a Little Harder

I'm in the middle of a rewrite of one of my novels. I'm one of those rare people that actually enjoys it. I usually just pretend that someone I don't like very well has sent it to me to be edited and I can almost always think of ways to improve what's on the page.

Although my novel isn't a romance, there is a guy who is one of those all around good guys who is sort of a composite of all of the men in my life. I have been blessed with the men who have come into my life in the last few years. Only one truly bad apple in the bunch (and trust me, he was bad enough to ruin more than just a barrel, he could single-handedly ruin an entire orchard... one of those single men that should come with a warning label tattooed on his forehead). The picks of my litter, so to speak, are mostly men who came into my life via the Internet (I met the 'bad apple' in person, proving yet again how wrong are the folks that curse the Internet as a way to meet people).

The Internet has made the world a lot smaller, and certainly it expanded my horizons... that were already pretty expanded by being part of the show dog community that encompasses people from around the world.

Several years ago I created a forum, Over 45-Not Over the Hill, (which, because of its logo of a luxury liner became in time to be referred to as simply "The Ship") as a meeting place for a large group of us that had met online at various venues; a place to meet and chat and discuss the world and all its vagaries. Over the months, several romances bloomed and I have been thrilled to see so many of my friends finding love within our circle of friends. One of those couples was Dan and Jeanie. Dan was in Arizona, Jeanie in NJ. After the courtship that started and flourished on the decks of our little ship, quiet, reserved scientist Dan moved to NJ to be with fun-loving, outgoing Jeanie. They have been a role model for all of us, shining hope that love comes when you least expect it, and will find a way to flourish if you allow it to do so. That you're never too old to fall in love.

This afternoon, Jeanie (so very youthful and energetic) was out walking when she was hit by a car and killed. It makes me sad that I can't find any words to say to Dan to express how devastated I am for him. How much we will all miss "AuntJeanie". Because she was walking close to home she didn't have ID on her. Luckily she had her cell phone with her, and the NJ police were able to use it to contact our mutual friend Rod in Florida, who made the ID and then contacted the family to tell them what had happened.

Everyone tells me that it makes a writer stronger and a better writer if they have suffered and lost. If it's true that what doesn't kill me makes me strong then I guess I'm ready for the Olympics. Within the last five years I've lost my mom, my brother and my dad, I've been diagnosed with two separate cancers and gone through the surgeries and treatment for both. I've watched one of my very best friends of 30 years on a downhill slope fighting a battle with cancer that we all know she cannot win. I watched my mom slowly lose her mind to Alzheimer's and then watched my dad lose his to prescription drugs. I've lost "heart dogs," beloved horses, friends and special neighbors to accidents and illnesses. I was the victim of a sociopath that left me with my mind and spirit almost irrepairably bruised. And now I'm watching the heart of a friend breaking with grief.

I'm not complaining. I know people that have had it a LOT worse. And, it certainly hasn't been ALL bad. During those same years I met and been reunited with people who have become my dearest friends. I met and married the love of my adult life. I have proved that I have the commitment to make it in the world of fiction (note I said commitment, whether I have the talent or not remains to be seen) by completing two novels, and have a couple of others sitting there waiting on me.

But, losing AuntJeanie puts a new bookmark in my life story. From this point on, I promise I'm going to try harder to find two things that are wonderful about my life for every one thing that seems to go awry. I'm going to make more of an effort to write something that I enjoy every single day (my 'day job' with the greenhouse keeps me fairly busy writing newsletters, seminar notes, designing ads and working on our website). I'm going to try harder to stay in touch with the people I care about and never let them doubt that I love them.

And I'm going to do my best to lose 50 pounds. Yeah, you read it here. 50 pounds. By the time we reopen the greenhouse next spring. Y'all keep me to my word. Y'hear! You have my consent to berate me, tease me, bug me and chastise me, but this time I'm going to try...just a little harder.

The Faces I've Been

I have been many different people in my life. I have been a leader, and I have been a follower. I have been the studious salutatorian of my senior class and I have been “the friend who always makes me laugh.” I have been a thin cheerleader; I have been an overweight housewife. I have worked on a factory assembly line and I have been the director of a non-profit organization. I have been a weak and peaked cancer patient, and I have become a healthy, strong two-time cancer survivor.

Throughout all those different phases of my life, through all of the faces I’ve worn and the places I’ve been, one thing has always remained the same. If you ask me to describe myself I will say simply “I am a writer.”

Words have been there for me through all of the hard times of my life. Watching pets, friends, businesses and family members die, struggling to stay alive while deadly chemicals fought their dangerous opponent inside my body, and feeling helpless in situations over which I had no control.
Whether I read them or whether I wrote them, words have always been my safe haven. A place to go where I know there will always be a light on, a latchstring out and everyone knows my name.

I recently wrote the eulogy for my father’s funeral. For many reasons, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I had just completed a novel, Hot Bubbles and Chocolate, that took me six weeks and three days from start to finish. It took me four days to write my dad’s eulogy. If the words had come that slowly during the writing of Hot Bubbles I would have been on Social Security before it was completed.

Up until recently my writing career has been in non-fiction. I’ve written books on ferrets and rabbits and various dog breeds and have had regular columns as well as feature articles in national magazines and local newspapers. I’ve done line-editing for a major publisher and I’ve been the Associate Editor of a small newspaper. I’ve enjoyed it. I learned a lot from every project and I am proud of every accomplishment.]

But, it’s time to look ahead to yet another chapter in my life. I now have two novels completed and I’m beginning to query agents to try to find them a home. Being published in non-fiction came so easy. A friend mentioned my name to a publisher friend in conversation. The publisher friend contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in doing a feature article for her to fill a space that another write had failed to fill in time. I had the article researched, written and accepted  in half the time I was given, and the rest is now my history.

Writing fiction comes much easier to me than writing non-fiction. I have always entertained myself with movies that run inside my head (and no, they’re not voices and, no, so far none of them have told me to climb a rifle tower carrying a clock). Now, I simply type out those stories as they play out and voila I end up with a novel. Sometimes I surprise myself with the results; occasionally my characters surprise me as they do unexpected things, leaving me with a new subject to research so I can guide them correctly through the next chapters.

While the writing is easy, this whole new agent/query/rejection/submission thing is not only the farthest thing from being easy, but it’s amazingly time-consuming. I find that instead of happily typing out my little stories, these days find me cruising social networks and surfing the ‘net hoping to bump into someone who will be so pleased at bumping into me and being offered my golden tomes of humor, insight and wisdom that they will offer me large buckets of money. Or at least can give me the address of yet another blog, or yet another agency, or yet another writing website that will have the answers I need to the questions I didn’t know I needed to ask.

I’ve met some wonderful people thus far on this journey. And I find I fit as well in the skin I’m in now as I have done is so many skins in the past. Like everybody else, I make mistakes in my writing as well as in life. But, I hope that I learn from the writing mistakes as much as I've learned from the life-altering mistakes. And I hope that everything I learn continues to help me grow as a writer. And as a person.

No matter what face I wear, I am always me. And I am always a writer.

Writing Promptly

Writer's Digest has a three-times-a-week contest (I'm not sure if there is really a winner, perhaps it's more exercise?) on their blog called "Promptly." Sometimes a paragraph is started and you have to finish it, sometimes directions are given like "think of your favorite food memory" and whatever the instructions, you have to write something on the spot. Er, thus the name "promptly?" I don't usually take the time to do it, but today I was waiting on a phone call so I dashed off a very prompt reply (within 20 minutes... woulda been less but I had to cut 58 words).

Today's instructions were: "Take two of your favorite songs, and match up a line from the chorus of one with a line from the chorus of the other. Then, write a scene that starts with the first lyric, and ends with the second. 500 words or less."

This was my entry....
First line is from Dr. Hook’s “More Like the Movies” http://beemp3.com/download.php?file=7617622&song=More+Like+the+Movies
Last line is from Randy Travis’s “Too Gone, Too Long” http://beemp3.com/download.php?file=8302706&song=Too+Gone+Too+Long

“I wish I could have made it more like the movies for you.” I turned to face the window, noting that raindrops sliding down the windowpane echoed the trail of tears on my cheeks. What the poets say is true. Sometimes the world does cry with you.

“I hope you and Dani will be very happy together.” I almost choked saying the words, hating to admit even to myself how untrue they were. At the moment I don’t think there was anything I wanted less than for Derek to be happy. “But, I don’t think you are ever going to be happy until you realize that once the screen goes dark and credits start rolling, real life starts and everyone’s hair isn’t always perfect and there isn’t a screenplay to memorize so you always have the right words to say. People leave toothpaste lids off, they fart, they have bad days and they say things that can’t just be cut out and left forgotten on the editing room floor.” I always pace when I’m angry or sad, but now all I could do is just stand there. I guess that’s what I do when my world gets torn apart.

“Movies don’t depict reality, they just allow us the fantasy that maybe life could really be that way. Most people understand that. You keep forgetting.  When the movie stops and real life starts, you don’t take the time to look for depth that real life offers, you race back into another romance for the head rush of the fantasy. Poor Dani.”

Derek just sat there, his elbows on the arm of my grandmother’s rocking chair, his head in his hands. I don’t know whether my words were sinking in, or whether he was trying to pass a kidney stone, but either way he was suffering. And I’m honest enough to admit that I enjoyed seeing at least one real emotion on his face. I was stunned to see an actual tear rolling down his cheek. I took a step towards him and he put up a hand to stop me. “I never deserved you,” he said, his voice soft and filled with emotion. “You are absolutely right. About everything. Please know I really loved you. And I will carry you in my heart forever.” 

It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks that the son of a bitch was still acting out a movie. I could almost see Bogie standing there by the airplane telling a crying woman that it was for the best. I walked over, opened a drawer and pulled out a little antique derringer that my grandfather had given me. The last lines that Derek Wayne uttered in the B-movie that was his life were prophetic. “I’ve been too gone, too long. Now it’s too late to come back home.”

What did you/would you have written?

And The Weiner Is....

The header for this blog comes from a typo I saw in a newspaper years ago in the cutline beneath a photograph of the kid who had been the last man standing in a county-wide chess tournament. There stands a kid who already only needs a pocket protector and a calculator in his hand to have his likeness used in the dictionary as an example of "nerd." And his fate was forever sealed by careless fingers from an unknown typesetter who labeled this poor guy "The Weiner." Who says the written word is unimportant? Tell that to the kid who had to go back to school the next day to jeers and taunts of "wouldn't you like to be a weiner too?"

I've been dabbling with blogging for quite some time. I have a boatload of different blogs for the different hats I wear in my daily life. There's a Natural Horse blog left over from the days when I owned a riding stable. Then there's a more current Herbin' Legends blog that is followed by clients at our Unique Plants greenhouse (herbs, heirlooms and other not-easily-found plants). There's also a place where I go to reminisce and post chapters of what will someday be my memoirs... memories of Growing Up Southern. I also have a not-so-well-publicized place where I go to rant and rave over indignities suffered and to rail at the fates and powers that be. Don't tell anybody, but that one is named Pasture Prime (I'm not). There are other blogs floating around out there in cyberspace that I began and then abandoned when my interest in the subject faded (or in the case of my bunny blog, when tragedy struck and a meandering raccoon broke into our greenhouse and either turned loose or killed our family of Mini Rex bunnies).

All of that was a verrrrry long story, and it's way too late to make it short so I'll just continue. All of that was to say that all of those blogs have been done with Blogger (Blogspot.com). I have always loved the widgets and gadgets available, I find it easy to manouver, easy to create and I have been well pleased. Then I made the commitment to be more serious about my writing and I was told by those far and yon that to be taken seriously I needed to be on Wordpress.com. That I would find that I could do a lot more things with Wordpress, that Blogger was for noobs and the computer illiterate and Wordpress was created for the more serious blogger. So, I went to Wordpress. Where I was immediately overwhelmed simply by its appearance. I eventually managed to get a blog set up, The Write Idea, and I managed to find and figure out how to add a couple of useful if not creative or interesting widgets. I love the final look of the page, but the whole thing still is just not a pleasant experience. I have found it a chore to write the couple of posts that I have put there and I can't really figure out why. I just find this easier, simpler and it lets my creative juices flow (oops, sorry about that, let me get you a napkin) without having to worry about the technical side of things. So, in the big race of Wordpress vs. Blogger, according to me at least, the winnah (or weiner) is...... Blogger.com!

See you later. Same time, same Blogspot!

To Market, To Market

I'm doing a rewrite on one manuscript and starting to send out queries for the other. It's daunting to try to convince yourself that you have psychic abilities as you read the bio for agent after agent, hoping to feel a tingle that will be the signal that THIS is the agent whose heart will be touched by your words.

I belong to several writers' groups and I'm constantly amazed by some of the things I hear when they discuss querying. "I liked her picture, she's hot. I'd like to work with her so I queried." "I know he doesn't usually agent books in my genre, but I'm hoping he'll like mine well enough to..." "The submissions guideline said just to send the first three pages, but I just don't think that's enough, so I sent the first three chapters." These are usually the same writers who show up at meetings with crestfallen faces and a cluster of rejections in hand, hoping to be mollified by the rest of a group of fellow writers who will surely agree that all agents are arrogant pricks who wouldn't know good writing if it bit them in the britches.

Geez. If you're trying to sell a truckload of jelly, would you back it up to the door of a guy who sells only pickles? And if he didn't buy your jelly would you whine and complain and slam doors and kick kittens claiming that the man is obviously a fool for not recognizing your superior merchandise.

There's a fool in the equation all right, but it's not the pickle dealer. It's the person who ignores the first rule of salesmanship. KNOW YOUR MARKET.

Choose the agents to whom you query carefully. Look at what books and authors they have in their list of credits. Be honest about what you've written and what you hope to write in the future. If someone says your book doesn't fit their needs, then you've either taken your jam to a pickle plant or you've gotten a polite form letter. If the letter appears to be a form letter "Dear Author...." then perhaps it's not a true marker of the situation. But, if you get personal letters telling you that they like the book but it doesn't fit their needs, then open up your Writer's Market and start highlighting another group of lucky agents who'll be receiving your query. Somewhere out there, there's somebody who's looking for that truckload of jam that you're trying to find a home.

She's Baaaack

It was very heartening to get a couple of emails asking if I was alright because I hadn't posted in a couple of days. The "stats" don't show many readers, and I never get any comments (?) but apparently SOMEBODY out there is reading.

So, to answer the question, instead of getting all PC and saying "it was a personal matter" I'm going to ignore the PR folks who say that when the product you are trying to market is yourself (whether as an actor, a screenwriter, an author, etc) you never admit that you have personal problems and sort of like the Queen, never give anyone the impression that you do human things like fart or belch or heaven forbid get sick with anything other than "a little allergy attack."

I had cancer surgery. My second in the last five years.

I am extremely lucky. My first bout with cancer (breast) sent me through surgery, radiation and chemotherapy and all of the horrors that go along with it. But, with the pain and weakness (and being bald, which let me tell you, is NOT a good luck for a short fat girl!) came a new strength and a dedication to myself that gave me the courage to leave behind my non-fiction career and focus entirely on doing what I love best. Telling stories. We Southerners do that best anyway.

For four years I've been cancer free. My life made a 180 turn with a divorce, marriage, adoption of a bluetick coonhound and the opening of an herb greenhouse. And a lot of time spent honing my writing skills and completing two fiction manuscripts with two others close to being "in the can." I don't think I could have asked for a better "ending" for a very bad first chapter.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, my dad died. Two days after his funeral I got the results from a biopsy that came about as a result of me pressing for more testing. The results were positive for cancer. A different type. Uterine. Last Wednesday I had surgery (which included a hysterectomy, salpingectomy and oophorectomy) and yesterday received the results that the cancer was contained in the portions that they removed. I've dodged a nasty, high-powered bullet and I am now cancer free without having any further treatments! If I still wrote non-fiction, what a story I would have! My doctor sat ten feet away from where I was suspended head-down, under deep anesthesia while a robot following directions of the movements of my talented surgeon's hands, skillfully sliced and burned away the bad parts, leaving the rest of me intact and rarin' to go!

I like to think of my surgeon as an editor. Going through my manuscript/body and removing the bad stuff while leaving only the parts necessary to keep my story moving along strongly and capably.

I definitely suggest particular type of body-editing if it's necessary. I took almost no pain pillks after surgery and now my biggest problem is that I want to be doing stuff that is still on my 'don't do' list. I'm depressed (apparently that whole hanging upside down for three hours thing, combined with the deep anesthesia, PLUS all the girly aspect of this particular surgery is going to make the next three weeks sort of an emotional roller coaster for me). But, I've been way deeper with much less reason, so I just keep tossing that old black dog a bone to keep him from nipping at my heels until I get him safely put back into his cage.

I don't know whether it was the drugs or the extra rest or the sleeping pills in the hospital, but I have this story roaming around in my head. Right now it's just bits and pieces. I have the setting, I have the character well honed, I just have to figure out why we're here! What do you do when that happens to you?

Hope you pass all the tests life tosses at you. Remember, for most of them there are unlimited do-overs!