Too Punny For Words

I thought these couple dozen puns were pretty clever. I didn't write them -- wanted to clear my name on the plagerism thing -- but I'm posting them for lack of time to try to come up with something even as remotely clever.

As fellow wordsmiths, I hope you find these as entertaining as I did.

Enjoy!

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

3. She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

9. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, "You stay here, I'll go on a-head."

14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, "No change yet."

17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

18. It's not that the man did not know how to juggle, he just didn't have the balls to do it.

19. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium, at large.

20. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

21. A backward poet writes in-verse.

22. In democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.

23. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

24. Don't join dangerous cults, practice safe sects!

What was your favorite? I liked most all of them, except #10 is older than the mountains and I've heard number 11 before too. My favorite are numbers 2, 5 and 19.

Drum Roll Please....

And the 2008 blog awards go to...

Hey, if new car models can come out about now, and our chapter's election month is October, then we can dang well have our first annual blog awards in September, don't you agree?

So, as I was saying, before I so rudely interrupted myself, the awards go to...

Everyone!

For Alice -- The first and most faithful blog reader award. And most published books under tightest deadlines award.

Bethany -- Most books read per month, year, and decade award. Read on!

Paty -- Most marketing, most involvement in chat rooms, loops, and giving workshops and presentations award. Also the most-company-in-one-month award.

Eli -- New book contract award.

Kendra -- Most writing with kids underfoot award (shared with Eli).

Genene -- Most writing, marketing, design work, Danita's website updates, and remodel work on house completed with most dogs underfoot award.

Karen -- New great agent award.

Lori -- The best cookies and truffles award.

Barbara Cooley -- The-stepping-up-to-the-plate award.

Flo -- New editor award (shared with Eli).

Barbara Ray -- The stone award.

Piper -- Most fresh-voiced popper-inner award.

Jen -- Ebook publishing award.

Debbie -- Most active newcomer award. (You may have to guard this award carefully, Debbie. I think Thea may be in the running for this in 2009).

Danita -- Most absences in one year award.

Interaction time: Do you agree with these awards? Can you think of any you'd like to add or change? Have fun with it. I did.

Inspiration Sometimes Comes in Small Packages

What I mean by that is Lori. As in Barber. She's been a great inspiration to me.

Let me explain. In my usual roundabout way.

When I was 14, my English teacher turned in some of my free-verse poetry to the local paper. The little weekly published it, and I was hooked. I sold my flute and bought a Smith Corona typewriter. I knew I'd never be a famous flutist -- have I told this story before? If so, please feel free to skip ahead -- but I felt I had a shot at being a writer.

And so I am. Among other things.

I wrote for a while. Write, write, write. Then decided to start my own business. Yeah, that's the ticket. I'll grow plants and sell them. So, for 12 years, I did just that. But still I penned detailed signs telling customers how to grow and enjoy the plants they took home. And for the byline junkie within, I wrote a weekly garden column for the local weekly.

For a couple years, I worked at my daughter's school. Subbed for the librarian and the secretaries, and worked as a teacher's assistant. Oh yeah, and I wrote the weekly parent/teacher newsletter. I also started slinging some freelance human interest pieces at the local daily paper. And they bit.

Bylines. Way cool.

I liked seeing my byline so much, I started bugging the paper to hire me on staff. It took months of bugging. Finally they caved. I can still hear echoes of what they must have said back then, "Let's just hire that @#*! freelance writer. Maybe that will shut her up."

Woo-hoo, daily bylines!

I closed the chapter of newspaper reporting to start a new chapter as a novelist. But it took months to write each novel, more months of sending pages and chapters to contests, agents and editors, and still, for all my efforts, no bylines.

Oh, there's the occasional freelance piece published, complete with byline. You didn't expect me to whip the beast cold turkey now, did you?

My sidecar -- as Lori would say -- is full of children. I don't have the months and months of available time to dedicate to writing and polishing another novel now. The paper I usually freelance for is running out of funds, meaning fewer and fewer bylines.

Feeling discouraged here.

Enter Lori, her wonderful published story of her grandmother's blackberry dumplings, and her words of encouragement. She told me a couple weeks ago that I can publish in magazines too, and why don't I try sending material to this one, or that? It's a path I've always meant to persue, and have, half-heartedly, over the years. But during the past week, I've buckled down to the task. I've sent both stories and photos to two different magazines. And even though Lori says it took her 18 months of waiting to hear back and receive payment, I'm a fairly patient person. I can wait. While I'm waiting, I'll keep filling the magazine pipeline, and raising babies, until I can swing back into full novel mode.

In the meantime...woooot! I feel a byline coming on.

It's a grand old feeling.

Thank you, Lori.

So, when your sidecar overflows, do you still carve out niches of time to write smaller projects? Do you write other things besides romance? And has anyone in our chapter been especially inspiring and helpful to you?

Wedding Anyone?

As a photographer specializing in weddings, the business side of romance is constantly on my mind. There's a lot to it, these big weddings. So much planning, money outlay, and details, which all adds up to oodles and noodles of stress. The sheer oodle amount nearly blows my mind. It blew the minds of a young couple who booked me for August 2nd, then decided "To heck with it, let's just elope."

Bummer for me. Less stress and best wishes for them.

Luckily, I don't have to share my clients' stress. I just have to make images, capturing the tides of emotions and the intimate little moments of their big, special day.

As a sidebar here, I'm realizing that so far, this topic has little or nothing to do with writing. Although the heroine in my last book is a photographer and she winds up romantically involved with the hero. Does that count?

Anyway, back on topic -- I just shot a beautiful outdoor wedding on Saturday. I got some great photos, and I was hoping to post one of the more romantic ones here to share with all of you, but danged if I can figure out how to do that. So, tally-ho and on with the show.

Except I guess the show is about over, so on to the question portion of our program:

Do any of you write wedded bliss into your stories? (I know Alice does). Or do you ususally just hint at the eventual marriage-to-be-sometime-down-the-road?

Girls and Boys

When my latest edition of Parenting magazine hit my mailbox, one of the front cover stories caught my eye: Boys vs. Girls, Who’s harder to raise?

I recall a lively discussion about this very thing at our last writing retreat. I entered into the discussion at the rented beach house with the idea that boys were harder to manage as toddlers and preteens, but girls -- with their smart mouths and sassy attitudes -- were harder to handle as teenagers.

As the mother of two very young sons, and a nearly grown daughter, several of you mothers of boys knocked me on my proverbial butt. Girls were easier, you said, boys were more challenging all the way through their childhood years and beyond. Not what I wanted to hear. So, I ingested the article with intense interest, hoping for a new glimmer of hope.

But what, pray tell, does any of this have to do with writing romance? Bear (or bare, whatever flips your switch) with me for just a few more sentences and it will begin to shine clear.

Here’s what the article’s author, Paula Spencer, and her lineup of experts had to say:

Boys are harder to discipline. Experts blame this on boys’ weaker hearing from birth. I can almost hear (after all, I am female) all the wives out there nodding at this bit of information. And it translates to this – neither warnings nor praise work as well with boys as with girls.

Physical safety? That’s a no-brainer. Boys, little daredevils that they are, definitely harder. Again, the distinct sound of bobbing female heads. This tendency in males often transcends into adulthood. Or, as in my case, my teenage daughter rides, and consequently, falls off of bulls. I get the worst of both worlds with this one.

Boys are harder to communicate with earlier – think lack of eye contact and lack of details. Girls are harder later – enter mini drama queens at around age eight.

Self esteem is a more difficult issue with girls. How many bulimic or anorexic teenage boys do you know? Need I say more?

Keeping up in school? Mostly boys are harder. Boys take longer to develop attentiveness, self-control (ladies, let’s be honest here, you’re thinking of your men not your boys here, aren’t you?) language and fine-motor skills.

Bottom line of the article is this: Boys and girls are each harder in different ways.

Could any of this information help in your writing male and female characters? Why, or why not? I’m thinking it could be useful in my writing.

I posted this for Danita because she is having internet problems, which means she may or may not be able to comment on your comments.

Trust Your Writer's Instincts

I'm posting this for our newest member, Flo. You go, Flo!

Way back in the 1990's, after the publisher of my first two historical romances was shut down, I had some rejections. I then started getting this strong urge (writer's instinct) to research and write a proposal set in England. My agent then thought I should stick to American-based settings, which were hot at the time, not English. My gut instinct told me to send that proposal out on my own, but I failed to follow it. Instead, I turned my focus to reading and writing category romance. Historical romances dropped off my personal radar until ten months later, when I visited a book store and suddenly noticed that almost every single release was English, Scottish, or Medieval based.

Yowsa.

Was I psychic? Was this a coincidence? Nope. I think what happened was that my writer's instinct, well honed by years of following and studying the market, had kicked in.

A while after the above event, when a different, equally talented agent I had didn't want to represent one of my category romance proposals, I submitted it on my own. Even later, when a third agent in a contest didn't care for my pitch on a different book, I wrote it anyway and submitted it. These were ideas that my instincts told me were different enough and that kept me excited through the writing. Both books sold.

So if your intuition tells you to write something for a long enough time, there might be a good reason. Possibly, the emotion in that idea is holding you captive, and it could well do the same to an editor. Or the idea is innovative, or fresh enough to sell, even if the trend is almost washed away.

How do you hone these instincts?
Studying your genre or targeted publisher with an intense focus is one way. I don't mean just reading, I mean intensely reading and studying. For the three months before I started writing a category romance, I read fifty-two of them. That gave me an instinctive feel, I believe, for the rhythms of category writing and for how each of my targeted lines differed, as well as what plot lines were fresh, underdone, or not used yet. Ditto on the Inspirational romance market.

Not only read, though. When I finished a book, I would jot down the title, release date and author, and what I strongly liked about it, and what I really didn't like in it. If I had only a lukewarm reaction to some part of the book, I did not note it. The idea with these notes is to see what elicits strong reactions, good and bad, to help hone your instincts about what makes an appealing book so it will sell.

Another way of getting an instinct for possible market changes is reading writers' emails in loops to see what plot lines they are working on. When I was a writing instructor for a correspondence course in the 1990's, I critiqued many, many proposals from all across the country. I received a lot of the following plot line: a woman, hurt by her husband or long time boyfriend, starts all over again. I spent a lot of time telling students these were not category romance and back when this was going on, there wasn't a huge market for these books. But then, not too long afterwards, the chick-lit and women's fiction waves hit. The market for my students' proposals opened wide. I've heard about this "idea plain" in the sky that drops ideas, but I think what people write might more reflect current news and trends in society (at least in contemporary fiction.) The eighties and nineties were a time of marriages falling apart in greater numbers, and these stories were begging to be told.

So watch news and documentaries to see if some subject makes your mouth drop open or arouses your emotions--if it grabs you, it might grab an editor. If watching true crime shows on lost children makes you understand or see a pattern in kidnapings , that revelation could become a hook. My February book started after I saw a brutal murderer who was set free from lack of evidence. Later, they found the unarguable evidence that he was guilty--and could not arrest him for it again. That whole episode just wouldn't let go of me.

So how about you? Have you ever just felt with all your heart that your proposal is something you just have to get out there? Is there an idea niggling at you that won't let go, but it seems crazy to try it, based on what you know about today's market or on your own abilities? (Try it anyway.)

Or does the whole idea of writers' instincts make your head explode? Maybe you call it something else? Do you have other suggestions for honing your writer's instincts when it comes to creativity?

Just the Facts, or Not so Much

FICTION VS. NON FICTION

I've thought about the differences between fiction and non fiction a lot this past week. And since so many of us started our writing careers doing non fiction stuff -- Genene and Karen with text writing to go with their design work, Wavy, Lisa and Eli with school papers, maybe trade journal-type stuff, Lori with her magazine work, and Paty, Piper, Wavy and I with our journalism experience, (am I leaving anyone out?)it seemed a relevant subject to post about.

Some things are always the same, whether fact or fiction. Like using ACTIVE VERBS & STRONG, DESCRIPTIVE NOUNS. Even "dry" non fiction reading material can be jazzed up with a thoughtful choice of nouns and verbs.

But what about LET'S STICK TO THE FACTS, MA'AM? Fact checking is important to both fiction and non fiction. Of course we have greater leeway with our fictional stories -- we get to come up with fictional towns, fantasy worlds and islands (thinking of you here, Alice) pretend names and quirks for our characters, and fake situations -- but still, we need to make sure our facts, such as historic dates, or information about specific occupations is dead on.

Although PASSIVE LANGUAGE is heavily frowned upon in novel-writing -- and one of my personal pet peeves -- it seems it's hardly noticed in journalism and other non fiction areas. Why is this? Two reasons, I believe. Lazy or hurried writing by journalists. To quote Richard Gere's column-writing character in 'Runaway Bride': "Journalism is literature in a hurry". With daily deadlines always looming, reporters have very limited time for proof-reading and story tweaking. Reporters hope the editors will catch the flub ups, but they are as harried as the the writers. The other reason I believe passive language isn't such a big deal in the journalism world is, as with mystery writing, journalists don't always have a subject to pin the sentence to. Like writing mysteries, the facts are not always revealed in the beginning. For mystery, passive language is, of course, used to prolong the suspense. In a breaking news story, the facts are never all available in the beginning. Sometimes there is only a crime to write about, but no suspect. Where the heck is the subject to attach the sentence action to?

This and THAT. That is sort of a no-no, raise-the-red-flag word in fiction writing. As novelists, we use it, then we go back and take out every one (that) we can. In writing non fiction, I find myself not using the work that in the first place, then going back and adding several thats back in. In journalism, the story must always be simple to understand, or you lose your readers. That is a little word that often clears that up.


FORMULA WRITING. In fiction we can break all the rules. But there are still rules: Turning points, black moments, resolution; goal, motivation, conflict: Don't use too much flashback, too many dream sequences (unless you're writing Alice in Wonderland) or ramble on with go-nowhere scenes. In hard news writing -- murder, mayhem and car wrecks, say -- there is an even stricter formula: Open with a nut graff, which translates to give them the pared down story in the first paragraph. Also, the first quote should be an eye-cather. The last quote should be interesting. End with a conclusive paragraph. The reason behind this rather dull-to-write formula is simple. People are in a hurry. They skim the news and often don't get any further into a story than the first paragraph or two. (How depressing is that for the writer? And we thought rejections were bad!) The formulaic style of writing doesn't leave a ton of leeway for creativity, but that's the challenge, I suppose. Now with feature writing, my favorite, there is more opportunities to lope into a story, instead of entering at a breakneck gallop -- as long as the writer doesn't dawdle long -- and the author can embellish, use a clever turn of prose here and there, and make the piece fun (hopefully)to read.

So, what do you think? Does non fiction writing help or hinder your fiction work? How? Please feel free to use some examples.

Paty the Big Weiner

Woo-hooo and big congratulations to our own Paty Jager, who scored a win at the EPPIE awards at the conference this weekend.

She has finaled in several contests, but now she can proudly call herself a big weiner.

Woooooot!

Seeking Advice

I am at the shopping around period with my latest book. I'm doing so without an agent. Even agentless, I still want to get it in front of the most editors who may be interested in my work. Of course.

So, here's my dilemma: Should I send out queries or partial packages?

That's simple, you say. Send whichever the submission page for that publishing house suggests.

Ah, but it's not that simple and I'll tell you why. Often what the web submission page states and what other resources (RWA magazine or editor websites) suggest are two different things. Query vs. a partial, for example, as well as a preference for snail mail over email, or the other way around.

I posed this question to some writer friends the other day. Here are some of their suggestions:

Always send a partial. Queries are a crap shoot.

Send queries, but attach or enclose a few sample pages so the editor can see a sample of your writing style.

Send a query letter first. If that editor doesn't respond, send a partial to another editor at the same house.

As for my personal thoughts on this -- I dunno. I've had requests and gotten rejections in the past with both queries and partials, although I've gotten more form rejections when I've only sent a query.

So, what is your take? What do you tend to do? What has worked best for you in the past? ie: Gotten the most full requests? Thanks ahead of time for your help, and of course, please don't use specific editors' or house names.

A Book of Honor

As I've mentioned before, I lost my mom recently. Well, technically it was a year and a half ago, but most of the time it still feels like yesterday. I was at her side when she drew her last breath on August 28th, 2006.

I'm not telling you this to elicit sympathy. It really is relevant to writing. In my case, very much so. Three days after Mom's passing, I started writing a new book. A book of honor. The first draft took nine months, written in stolen late-morning hours while my youngest napped.

If, or should I say when, this book makes it to print, it will be dedicated to Mom.

For the main character is Mom. Well, not exactly her, but definitely parts of her. Good parts and parts not so good. For example, the heroine, Dianne, uses the phrase "wonderful" to describe something truly nice, or to describe something truly not nice at all, just like Mom did. Dianne is also somewhat of a worrier, like Mom was. Also like Mom, Dianne's life is dedicated to family, especially to motherhood. She tries to make the right choices. And she strives for honesty.

At least most of the time.

The main theme of the book, beyond the age-old good vs. evil, is grief and recovery. Dianne learns to live with the loss of her husband, then her Grandmother. I learned to deal with losing my grandmother several years ago, and am still learning to deal with losing my mom. There is, of course, a lot of myself in these pages as well.

So, is this the book of my heart? You bet your sweet bippy it is. And it was an emotional, yet healing process to write it. But penning such a book also poses its own set of problems -- a need to parry and thrust, trying to stab a target called perfection for one. This is illustrated by the fact that nearly a year and a half later (I did write a novella, several newspaper stories and essays, plus sketched out two other books during that time, but still...) I am just now at the end of the revision process on "Mom's book".

This book was written with so many tears, fears and memories that I am determined it will see press and binding. Even if I eventually have to turn to self-publishing to accomplish that reality.

After all, Mom's character deserves a permanent home between the covers of a real book, wouldn't you agree?

Have you ever thought of a loved one, alive or deceased, as you wrote? If so, how did it effect your feelings about the story? Did it help, or hinder your writing process?

Quite the Character

I love a wonderful quote. Two good quotes? Twice as good!

Here's the first one:

"It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does."
-- William Falkner --

And here's the second:

"Characters take on life sometimes by luck, but I suspect it is when you can write most entirely out of yourself, inside the skin, heart, mind and soul of a person who is not yourself, that a character becomes in his own right another human being on the page."
-- Eudora Welty --

So do either of these quotes ring true for you and the way in which your characters come out of the closet of your mind? Are you a character planner, with charts and "interviews", file card systems and photos clipped from magazines? Or, are you one to simply set your characters loose, whether inside you head or with your fingers tinking along the keyboard?

Oh When the Thoughts Come Flooding in

Oh when the thoughts come flooding in...

I was mulling ideas around last night and this morning, trying to come up with a suitable subject to blog on today. Notice I said suitable. Many, many ideas popped into my head, so we'll just go with that. Hopefully my drift will become clearer in a moment.

You see, when I'm writing -- which is all the time in a round about way -- I need a lot of down time. Hours, days, weeks even to process, digest and defragment. During this seemingly unproductive phase, ideas regularly come marching in. Which is a good thing. And a bad. Stay tuned for more details on that.

When I start to stress about this "non-writing" time, I try to remember Stephen King's wisdom on the subject which he shares in that favored book of mine he authored, "On Writing". Once Mr. King was staring out the window and his wife asked him what he was doing. His reply? "I'm writing."

If a successful, commercial writer like King daydreams without guilt, then why shouldn't we?

This week, at least so far -- there's still today and this weekend -- I have not revised or written one word of fiction. Why? I've been busy with one thing or another, you know, same old tired excuse. But I've been bombarded with thoughts, ideas, snippets of dialog and plot and backstory. And most of it isn't even on the work I'm supposedly working on. But that's good. I think. Yeah, I'm almost certain it's good, because it's moving me forward, at least mentally, to tackle the next project when this one is finished.

The only bad part is so many thoughts stomping through my brain tend to static the signal the beings from another planet are trying to send me. Ha! Kidding aside, I try to give the fresh new ideas room to stretch their long, alien legs and grow, yet still stay focused and moving along on the project at hand. This is not always an easy task, which brings me to the day's question portion:

How do you keep focused on your current project? Or do you skip around and work on several at one time? If so, do you experience guilt over it? How do you lasso that guilt and make it work for you?

Several times Alice has commented that we prepubbeds are lucky. We have the luxury of enjoying writing for the sheer joy of writing, without the ensnarement of deadlines. She's got a point there. I say let's listen to Alice and Stephen King and enjoy the journey down the road to publication. Without guilt. And with as little stress as possible.

Holiday Reads

I'm not usually one to do holiday books. Not that I have anything against them, I don't. It's just such a busy season with reading time spread thin. This year was different, for some reason. Maybe because I didn't write over Christmas and New Years. Whatever the reason, I rather enjoyed the three, no wait, make that four, holiday stories that I read.

I'll give you a brief run down:

A Simple Gift by Karyn Witmer.
This was a large-print edition hard back. The gigantic font made reading it quick work. I would label it as women's fiction. The romantic twist was between a long-time married couple. After their daughter leaves without warning and shows up back in thier home town more than a year later with a baby, but won't speak to them, it is a struggle for the couple to keep their marriage together and regain a sense of family. The horticulturist in me liked the "simple gift" theme of a Christmas cactus, whose cuttings had been passed down by the women of this family for generation after generation as a sort of passage of acceptance.

The Christmas Thief by Marry and Carol Higgins Clark.
A cozy, entertaining mystery. Also a zip to read. An elderly lottery-winner-turned-amateur-sleuth and an elderly P.I. join forces to help solve a case involving an 80-foot blue spruce and a hidden fortune in jewels. I would rate this book PG. I plan to pass it on to my grandma. I think she'd enjoy it too.

Holidays are Murder by Charlotte Douglas:
This is a Next trade paperback and a Maggie Skerritt mystery. I liked this 40-something detective, Maggie Skerritt. She seems real. She has problems at work, and issues with family, holidays and men. Of course she solves the Florida-based murder case, and in the end she gets her love life in order too. What more could a detective ask for? Or a reader for that matter. This book now lives on my keeper shelf.

Blackberry Winter:
Bummer here is, this was the first holiday story I read this season and I all ready passed it on to someone else, so I can't tell you right off hand who wrote it. It was also a Next trade paper back. It was about a daughter and her dying mother's relationship, a trip to the past, via a small mountain town, and secrets long buried finally revealed.

I enjoyed each of these books, and the fairly novel concept -- for me anyway -- of reading Christmas stories in December and January. Each was made a more special experience because my mom bought the books for me three years ago when I was having pregnancy difficulties. I couldn't get them read before January of that year -- Mom also gave me many books that weren't holiday themed -- so I shelved them for when the time was right. My mom passed away a year and a half ago. I missed her like crazy this Christmas, so the time was definitely right for me to peruse these stories.

How about you? Do you read holiday-themed books? If so, does it matter what time of year you read them? Did you read any this season? Care to share a brief review? Reading these stories made me think about someday writing a Christmas manuscript of my own. Have you ever written a holiday book or short story? Do you have any plans to write one in the future?

A Few More Words of Zen

The Chinese are a wise people. We're not talking the government control-freak Chinese people here, those folks have some mental issues, but simple words put into complex thought make wise the everyday Joes. Or, in this case the everyday Lings, Pings and Taos.

Look at the examples below and you’ll see what I mean:

Enough shovels of earth -- a mountain.
Enough pails of water -- a river.

I love this. And, I think it easily translates not only to everyday life, but to writing as well:

Enough letters -- a paragraph.
Enough paragraphs -- a manuscript.

Although some of the beauty of the original passage is lost in my pathetic translation, you get my drift.

Here's another:

Before Zen -- cut wood, carry water.
After Zen -- cut wood, carry water.

I take this to mean keep on keeping on with life's everyday tasks. So, how does this relate to writing you ask? I'm so happy you asked! Let's replace the word Zen with the word publication, and make some other slight modifications. Ready? Okay.

Before publication -- sit butt in chair and write.
After publication -- sit butt in chair and write.

You could also replace the word Zen with the words fame or fortune.

Ah yes, such a wise race the Chinese people. And man do they make good dumplings too.

Blogging Day, Blogging Day, Blogging All the Way

It's Christmas season. We're all busy. I still have my cards to get out and I need to squeeze in a workout today and get ready for another Christmas party tonight blah-blah-blah. We all know how it is, so I figured I'd do everyone a favor and keep this post, if not so sweet, at least short and simple.

As I was cleaning off my desk yesterday -- translation: As I was moving stacks of paper and notebooks from one side of the desk to the other -- I came across a slip of paper on which I'd scribbled the following words:

Every character is on their own journey. Where those journeys intersect is your story.

It's seems a wise two sentences. I'd happily take credit for writing it, but that wouldn't be right, since I didn't. I don't know who wrote it. I don't even remember where I copied it from. But no matter. I pinned the scrap of paper up on my bulletin board, where chances are good it will stay for at least several months, until I decide to rearrange piles of paper in my office again.

In the meantime, I think I'll reflect on the zen of these words, and hope for today they have strong enough meaning to some of the rest of you to open up a discussion.
Feel free to start. You. Yes you. Go ahead and open the discussion...ha!

Write On ... or Not to Write On

How do you choose?

After an earlier blog -- whose was that? -- and the discussion following about the number of books and short stories each of us have written, I've given it a lot of thought. Not a lot of thought about the numbers, but thought about writers such as Genene, who rework the same work until they come up with something saleable. Or at least something pleasing or satisfying.

I've thought about Shirley Karr (Man, I hope I spelled her name right). She labored away for more than 10 years on the same book, endlessly writing and rewriting until she finally sold it to Avon in a two-book deal.

It seems reworking the same book is more the exception than the rule. As someone said, take a look at the First Sales column in the RWA mag and count how many books most authors write before they finally sell. Usually many. Does that mean they write a book, try to interest an agent of editor with it, and if that doesn't work, the author moves on to another manuscript? Do you think a writer learns more by starting a new novel, fresh at the drawing board, or going back through an existing work, applying the tools they've learned since they first began writing the manuscript?

Shirley Jump thinks you learn more by starting fresh. When she was the guest author for Askanauthor, I wrote and mentioned my first ms. and rewrites I'd like to do. Her advice was to move on. She wrote six or seven books, I believe, before she sold. Her theory is that when I do sell, I will have a backlist to offer an editor.

But see, I'm not always so good at taking advice. I like to think for myself. Oh, I know, you find that hard to believe, but just ask my family. Ha! Anyway, I cannot let my first book go. Some of the characters in it won't leave me alone. I'm dying to go back, do major rewrites, and turn it into something saleable, like Genene and Shirley did with the books they believed in.

So, I'm curious. How many of you have gone back to an old manuscript or story and done major rewrites? Was it worth it? Did you learn a lot in the process? Or do you just leave finished, unsold work to gather dust in your computer files, chalk it up to experience, and move on to the exciting, fresh voices in your head of brand new characters?

Drunken War of the Sexes

I'm filling in for Eli's Friday spot. I have some time now, while squirt is sleeping and DH is at work. Forgive me if I'm stepping on your blog toes, Genene.

I may have forwarded this email on to a couple of you -- if so, sorry for the redundancy. This list cracked me up, but that's not the only reason I'm sharing it. I thought it offered a lot of insight into women with alcohol altered minds (besides bringing back a lot of college memories. Ha!) And who hasn't, or won’t at one time or another, write about an alcohol impaired character?

So, read the list, chuckle if you will, then check out the exercise at the bottom of the page.


WHEN GIRLS DRINK TOO MUCH.

1) WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHERE OUR PURSE IS.

2) WE BELIEVE THAT DANCING WITH OUR ARMS OVERHEAD AND WIGGLING OUR BUTT WHILE YELLING "WOO-HOO!" IS TRULY THE SEXIEST DANCE MOVE AROUND.

3) WE'VE SUDDENLY DECIDED THAT WE WANT TO KICK SOMEONE'S BUTT AND HONESTLY BELIEVE WE CAN DO IT TOO.

4) IN OUR LAST TRIP TO PEE, WE REALIZE THAT WE NOW LOOK MORE LIKE HOMELESS HOOKERS THAN THE GODDESSES WE LOOKED LIKE JUST FOUR SHORT HOURS AGO.

5) WE START CRYING AND TELLING EVERYONE WE SEE THAT WE LOVE THEM SOOOOO MUCH.

6) WE GET EXTREMELY EXCITED AND JUMP UP AND DOWN EVERY TIME A NEW SONG PLAYS BECAUSE "OH MY GOD! I LOVE THIS SONG!"

7) WE'VE FOUND A DEEPER/SPIRITUAL SIDE TO THE GEEK SITTING NEXT TO US. AND THOSE HORN-RIMMED GLASSES AND OILY HAIR PARTED ON THE SIDE ACTUALLY SORT OF LOOK GOOD ON HIM.

8) WE'VE SUDDENLY TAKEN UP SMOKING, AND BECOME REALLY GOOD AT IT.

9) WE YELL AT THE BARTENDER, WHO WE BELIEVE CHEATED US BY GIVING US PLAIN LEMONADE, BUT THAT'S ONLY BECAUSE WE CAN NO LONGER TASTE THE VODKA.

10) WE THINK WE ARE IN BED, BUT OUR PILLOW FEELS STRANGELY LIKE THE KITCHEN FLOOR (or the mop?)

11) WE FAIL TO NOTICE THAT THE TOILET LID'S DOWN WHEN WE SIT ON IT.

12) WE TAKE OUR SHOES OFF BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT THAT WE'RE HAVING PROBLEMS WALKING STRAIGHT.


I think that pretty well sums up drunken women, especially young, drunken women. However, men don't do these same things when they've had too much to drink, do they? (Except for number three). And as certain as we'll someday write about a drunken woman or two, we may also find ourselves someday in need of some drunken male material. So, let's sit down with a nice toddy or hot-buttered rum and compile our own list of

WHEN GUYS DRINK TOO MUCH:

I'll go first:

1) Guys grow increasingly invincible with each alcoholic beverage they down. As the country song goes, men grow "ten feet tall and bullet proof."

2) Their pickup lines become more and more cliché: "How yoo doin'?" "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" Or, my fave, "Hey baby, what's your sign?"

Do You Write Funny?

I love to laugh. And I love to make others laugh, often at the risk of embarrassing myself, which I do quite often in the sake of humor. If the cause behind my flaming red cheeks brings on a hearty guffaw from a friend, then, hey, it was worth it, right?

But what about incorporating humor into our writing? Here's what Gloria Kempton, has to say about it in her book, "Dialogue:

"Since humor seems to emerge out of the way certain writers view their worlds, if you're not one of them, you'll probably never write comedic fiction, creating the kind of story that is funny all the way through. But to throw in a funny line of dialogue once in a while goes a long way in holding your reader's attention. Humor hooks readers. They know if a character says something funny once, he most likely will again, and so they're watching for that, waiting for you to surprise them and make them laugh again."

So, to recap: Humor is surprise. I also like the sentence 'humor hooks readers' but then you all know what a sucker I am for a good hook. And, oops, now I have stepped away from the thrust of this blog, so let's step back onto the beaten path of humor shall we?

Okay. That's better. Surprise. Humor is surprise. Let's practice utilizing this theory with a fun little exercise that Ms. Kempton devised and I adjusted a teeny bit to suit our purpose here:

Just For Fun

Your female character is walking late at night on a downtown street of a big city. Suddenly she is accosted by three teenage boys who grab her purse. She yells something at them as they run away. What does she yell? Write one line of dialogue for one (or more) of the types of character below. Try to be as original as you can. The goal is to surprise your reader.

*a mom from the suburbs
*a prostitute
*a businesswoman
*an undercover cop
*Queen Latifah
*a grandmother
*Alice Sharpe
*a drag queen

Okay, I'll go first in the comments section. Thanks for playing along. (And thanks for letting me turn your cheeks red in the sake of making others chuckle, Alice. See, surprise! Bet none of you were expecting to see a member's name on the list -- ha!)

Sudoku, The Puzzle Sensation That's Sweeping the Nation

Hi. My name's Danita and I'm a Sudoku junkie.

It started out innocent enough. I tried one of the number puzzles here, another there. I couldn't solve a single one. I hated all nine of those blasted little 3 X 3 squares. I wadded up each newspaper in turn and threw it across the room in disgust. No solved puzzle, therefore no problem.

I think you can guess where this story is headed.

That's right, just last week, I solved one. The whole thing. Without looking at the cheat sheet. All 81 of those glorious little squares contained a number, in the right magical order.

And now, well, you already know the rest of my story -- I can't get enough. My husband had to buy me two Sudoku books because the one-a-day newspaper puzzles were no longer enough to satisfy my cravings.

I started wasting precious writing time, quit cleaning my house, I even refused to take time out to eat. Okay, maybe I'm stretching the truth a bit, and yeah, yeah, that last one is an out-and-out bald-face lie, but you get my point:

Sudoku might be sweeping the nation, but it's not lifting a finger to sweep my floors. And it's not helping me get my writing done either.


So, do you Sudoko, or do you have another favorite time waster?

What do you think, do we need to start a twelve-step online program just for writers? Ha!

Hello Blog, It's me, Danita

IDEAS, WHERE DO THEY COME FROM AND WHO DO THEY KNOW?


So, here it is, blog day, and me without a single thing to wear. I mean a single thing to say. Oh, I'm sure I could think of plenty to yak on and on about, given the right set of listening ears and a nice hot cup of Earl Grey to wrap my fingers around, but would any of that yakking pertain to writing? Probably not. Which puts my round peg right back to into the square one hole.

Hey! That gives me an idea -- thank you, blog, I needed one of those -- what about a book about a serial killer who kept track of his "conquests" with a peg on a cribbage board? Or, more twisted yet, what if the killer kept track of his victims on one of those kiddy toys, you know, the kind with the pegs that toddlers bang down into the holes with a plastic hammer?

Wait, wait! What if the killer were a woman? And what if that woman were a mother herself, and she used her own child's pegs and hammer toy? And what if to all the world, this woman appeared to be a caring and devoted mother to her children? Why would a good mother want/need to kill? Who would her victims be? Would they be men who had jilted her in the past? Cheated on her? Beat her? Maybe in her younger life, she was a runaway who turned to prostitution to support her babies, and now she is seeking revenge on the Johns who took advantage of her situation.

Okay, okay, sick and twisted, I'll agree. But also, maybe sort of interesting. And alive with possibilities. It could be written into a screenplay for CSI if done skillfully enough. And the idea grew out of the common words "round peg" and "square hole".

Which brings me to the point, if indeed, this post actually has a point -- how or where do you get your ideas? Do they flutter in on a sultry spring breeze, or clunk you in the noggin like a tumbling anvil? Do you "idea" best in the shower, while scrubbing the tub, or while driving and humming along to Nickelback, dreaming of being a rock star?

Please share.