Just for Fun

How did I not know about this website?

OK, the t-shirts are a little expensive, especially since I usually buy the $5 variety at Wallmart but who wouldn't want one of these?

I have to admit I love the Pride and Prejudice one.  Peacocks are my favorite.  I love the Old Man and the Sea. And in the kids section they have Harry the Dirty Dog and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble!

There's a lot of good books on there, which ones are your favorites? 

Unwriting

The other day as I finished a writing session I commented to The Engineer that I had cut 200 words.  He replied "I know I'm new to the whole writing thing but isn't that counterproductive?"  First, he's an engineer, it's all about cost/value  effort/progress.  Second, he thinks he's funny.  "Now that you're done writing are you going to unwrite it until there are no words left?  I believe those kinds of novels are called reams of paper but hey, at least you'll be able to tell the agent it's perfectly grammatically correct.

Even with no words I doubt I could make it grammatically correct. 

The thing is that there are a lot of aspects of writing that could make us feel as if we were taking a step back.  A shrinking word count, Or growing word count if we're trying to cut the size, starting a new draft, getting feedback and having to write that one scene yet again.

As writerjen said on her blog,

"If I'm on the right road, it doesn't matter how rocky it is; I know I'll get there. All I have to do is deal with each pothole and hairpin turn as it comes."

Keep moving, keep following the path and we'll reach the end eventually.  

Dear Favorite Author...

I've come across two posts this week that made me think.  I hate it when they do that. If there had only been one I might have blown it off but two posts coming so quickly after thanksgiving made me pay attention. 

The first one is here where they challenge us to write a letter of thanks or appreciation to an author.  Let them know how their book affected you.  In a good way of course.

The other post is here.  At the end he asks if we've ever had a book that changed our lives and did we write the author. 

If we can step back for a moment I'll tell you of an experience I had in college.  A couple students and the professor were sitting in our classroom hanging out and chatting.  I remember asking the professor a question though I no longer remember what it was.  He looked at me for a moment as if I was some harmless but repulsive bug, turned to another student and started a different conversation.  Situations like this happened all the time.  I don't know if my question was lame, or maybe he just didn't know who I was or why I would talk to him (yes, he was my professor)  I do tend to be invisible.  Thing like this have made me wary of approaching people.  And there's also my fear of coming off as a teenage groupie or kiss up. 

These things have stopped me from telling people how much I appreciate their work.  The few times I have it was a casual "hey, I enjoyed your book"  That meant so much more than what I said.  These two blog posts made me reevaluate.  If- scratch that, when I become published I will want people to tell me they enjoyed my book.  In fact I think I'll bask in the praise and buy a new hat since my head will be so big.  I won't assume everyone is a stalker or kissing up to me.  I can imagine that hearing how their book changed someone's life will be an amazing experience for an author who worked and loved that book long before it was published.

Have you ever written or received a letter such as this?  How did you feel about it?

Do You Like People?

I found this article which was a funny read.  Writer is number three on the list of careers for people who don't like people.  Good to know, especially since it's not as if we need to do our own promotion.  Also I was very happy to see that the median salary for writers was over 65K a year.  I should be getting my check in the mail soon, right? 

In all honesty I'm pretty sure they lumped in technical writers, add writers, copywriters, and others like that. And I doubt the average salary included those of us wannabes who are working but not getting paid.  Yet.

Personally I'm not very outgoing in real life.  Shocking I know.  But I love the writing community I've found on line.  When we're with other writers we're a pretty outgoing bunch. 

Life is a Highway

Welcome back!  How was everyone’s week?   I admit that I didn’t do a lot of writing last week.  I was too busy taking care of sick kids, cooking a traditional thanksgiving meal, and helping The Engineer lay a wood floor in our basement.  I did get some reading time in.  It was very nice actually and I was able to catch up on my big TBR pile. 

One book I read had a huge “stop” moment for me.  As we know “stop” moments aren’t good in books.  They pull us out of the narrative and keep us from becoming involved.  It it’s bad enough it could keep us from finishing the book. 

In this book some people had driven to another city for a food festival.  On the way home they had a discussion about what road to take.  Not a big deal right?  It doesn’t have anything to do with plot, characterization, or story.  But the author got it wrong.  First off they were talking about a connector from two freeways that don’t actually meet.  Also the author had them going the wrong direction, they were supposed to be going north but they were going south. 

Many thousand people will never even blink at it.  They won’t know it’s wrong.  But it so happens that that is where I live.  The Engineer drives that stretch every day to and from work.  As I said it doesn’t affect the plot but it bothered me enough I had to stop reading for awhile.  I did finish the book but I had lost some trust in the author and reading, in essence, is all about a reader trusting the author and story. 

I hate that this bothered me because now I’m terrified.  What have I done wrong?  It’s impossible that I haven’t got anything wrong.  While my book is a fantasy, it’s a mild fantasy and the world is based on the mid 1800s.  While there are some things I have to change to make the story fit (it is fantasy after all) I want to be as accurate as possible so readers have something to connect to.  I know some historical authors that basically give themselves the equivalent to a master’s degree in whatever time period they write in.  I haven’t done that.  Yet.  Maybe I need to.

Do small things like this bug you or do you blow them off?  How far do you go to be accurate in your research?   

Happy Thanksgiving

Thursday is a holiday here in the states.  Thanksgiving.  This, much as it sounds, is where we give thanks for our blessings.  With the world and economy the way it is it could be easy to think about what we don’t have so I’m grateful for this holiday. 

First and foremost I’m grateful for my family.  My wonderful husband who is handsome and patient, hardworking and sensitive.  My two wonderful children who can be a trial but who I wouldn’t change for anything.  And my extended family.  I wished I lived closer to them. 

I’m grateful for my husband’s job and the fact that we can support a family.  We have a home, food, clothes and computers.  What more could you want?  We are truly blessed.

I’m so happy I can be a stay at home mom.  First, it’s the most rewarding job ever.  Not monetarily, but in every other way.  I guess I could even say monetarily because we save so much money by my staying home.  We don’t have to pay for extra gas, clothes and childcare for me to work.  Plus we save a lot since I can prepare all our meals and we don’t have to eat out all the time.  Yep, rewarding in every way.  Also, it gives me some flexibility so I can write.

I’m grateful to the birth families of our children.  People so strong and brave they knew that for their children it would be best to make an adoption plan, even thought it was terrifyingly difficult.

I’m grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who guides and directs me. 

I’m grateful I can write, that I have the time and tools to do so.  Even though it’s hard and I don’t know what the outcome will be I’m so grateful I can do it.  It is who I am and I love that I can be me. 

I’m grateful for a mother who taught me to read and a father who taught me to work. 

I’m grateful for friends and neighbors (this includes the blogosphere and internet) who keep me sane.

This is only a small sample.  I have so many things to be grateful for. I’m going to be enjoying my blessings this week and won’t be blogging much.  I hope you all enjoy yours too.

Happy Thanksgiving.

New Beginnings

Over at Compuserve the writing exercise has been about beginnings.  Beth, who is presenting the exercise this month, posted some fabulous thoughts about book beginnings.  I'll copy it here.  I hope you find it useful.

Nancy Kress, in her book Beginnings, Middles, and Endings, says that compelling openings show character, conflict, specificity, and credibility. "Begin with an indication--subtle or overt--that something is not going as expected, or someone is experiencing disturbing emotions, or something is about to change."
In light of that--
1) Open with a character in action. This will probably be the main character, though it doesn't absolutely have to be.
2) Give him a problem to solve, a goal to attain, a danger to avoid.
3) Include specific, interesting details of setting, character, and situation. This is crucial for bringing the story to life.
4) To make the reader fall into the world of your story, it has to be credible. If the reader can't buy into the situation or has no empathy for the character in the opening pages, then she won't keep reading.
5) Good openings also require good writing. At its most basic, that means no grammar issues, no clumsy sentences, no misused words or poor word choices, and no misplaced punctuation. But good writing is more than that. Good writing has voice and style. Good writing is smooth--every word, every sentence, every paragraph in the right order, which is key to employing the line-by-line tension that pulls the reader through the story.
6) And finally, good openings establish the tone of the story (dark? comedic? lush and romantic?) and possibly foreshadow the ending in some way.
By contrast, learning writers will often employ one or more of the following:

--unattributed dialogue in the opening line

--contextless and/or boring dialogue

--opening in a trough. I.e., the character is reacting to some event that took place prior to the opening, and has not yet begun to take new action.

--opening on a journey, unless the journey is the story. This frequently goes hand-in-hand with the trough opening.

--character alone, thinking

--character is dreaming

--character waking up

--mismatched tone. Funny one minute, tragic the next.

--too much backstory

--long descriptions

--unlikeable protagonist: self-pitying, whining, boring, heartless, evil

--vague, generic writing, descriptions, characterizations

--too many characters or character names

--unclear POV

--POV changes too often (head-hopping)

Now, there are always exceptions. For instance, I listed "unattributed and contextless dialogue" above, but then I remember the opening to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Pure dialogue. You don't know who's speaking, or where they are, or who they're talking about. But it's brilliant, and it works because what they're talking about is so intriguing.

All the rules can be, and probably have been, successfully broken. But the items on that list are what agents and editors most frequently see in submissions they reject, and I've noticed the same things occurring in fiction posted on critique sites around the web.