Thoughts on Pages

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins *****

2012-02-08T20:29:00.000-08:00

I read this book back in November, thought I had posted my entry, and realized I hadn't when I finished book two and started book three today. So, I'm remedying this issue right now.

I started to read this book because a student of mine asked me to. She was right. It's brilliantly done. Granted, the copy I got had a few typos (and typos drive me bonkers when I read them in non-professional writing, my own included, but even more so in something that was supposedly professionally edited). However, the story and the characters are memorable. The voice of the main character, who narrates the story as well, is practical, ironic, and smart. She rings true to me and I love her character. She is a girl forced to choose.

Katniss Everdeen is a girl caught in a world she can't escape. She lives in a post-apocalyptic world where the Capitol, a city of excess and cruelty, runs everything. She grows up in District 12, the coal mining district, where she breaks the law by hunting for food to feed her family with her best friend Gale. The Hunger Games are somewhat like the bloodiest Olympics-meets-gladiators you can come up with. They are an annual event used to remind the twelve remaining districts of their former rebellion by forcing each district to have a lottery to elect one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to go into an arena and fight to the death until there is only one victor left alive. The Victor receives supplies for their district for a year, keeping people from starvation, a new house, and many gifts from individuals and sponsors.

When her sister's name is called during the Reaping, Katniss chooses to volunteer herself to go instead. She ends up going to the Capitol with a boy named Peeta. They are prepped and primped to within an inch of their lives and their prep teams and stylists offer some lightness to the story and well as some gorgeous images. They are the humanity within the Capitol, the people who make you hate President Snow and the Gamemakers, but not everyone who lives in the city. They go through parades, give interviews, and go through training. Peeta and Katniss choose to play the romantic duo and go into the arena with the support of people who see them as star-crossed lovers.

While in the arena, Peeta chooses to go with the Careers in order to protect Katniss and she chooses to team up with Rue in order to both protect and learn from the small girl. In the end, Peeta and Katniss must choose whether to live as a team or die as a team.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King *****

2012-02-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

Now, I am not always such a fan of books that tell you what to do or not to do when it comes to your own writing. My reasoning for this is that I feel writing is a very personal journey and I think a lot of the how-to-write books are condescending. This one, however, is not.

I don't say that because Stephen King swears like the millworker he is. I don't say that because Stephen King talks about being a raging alcoholic who doesn't remember writing certain books. I don't even say that because Stephen King talks about how he got sober and what happened in 1999 after he was hit by a van.

First off, I love the two quotes (yes, we all know I'm a sucker for a good quote or two) he chooses to start off with: "Honesty's the best policy." ~Miguel de Cervantes and "Liars prosper." ~Anonymous. The reason I love them is that they truly set up this book properly.

King repeatedly tells his reader that they must be honest. Writers should be honest about the world as they see it and as their characters see it. If you're writing a blue collar worker in one section and a prim and proper southern society lady in the next, they should not sound the same. If they did, it would not be honest writing. For example: They should not say "sugar" instead of swearing if they are the blue collar worker and they smack their thumb with a hammer. That would not be honest to the typical blue collar worker. If they are not typical and they would say "sugar" you need to use it to explain why they are different. However, if your character is a super proper southern belle, she would most likely be more careful with her language, especially in public. The author needs to be more worried about being honest and authentic than they do about the language/manners/polite society police.

However, King also points out that as a fiction writer, you cannot write only what you know. If you only wrote what you knew then fantasy, science fiction, supernatural fiction, many mysteries, and many horror books, movies, radio, and TV shows would not exist. While your character must feel real and true and honest, their world may be completely made up. By definition, this would make it a lie. However, it is a lie that conceals the truth, allowing the reader to discover what is real through the fun of the made up.

King gives very few maxims in his book. Be honest. Cut unnecessary words. Work on your craft. Do what you love. You should write to live, not live to write.

I can agree with all of that. He admits to being a workaholic when he is writing. Says that his wife has helped him keep writing and that his writing has contributed to having a healthy marriage and family life. It is clear that after all these years, he is still madly in love with Tabby (his author/activist wife) and that he adores his three kids (one of whom is a minister and two of whom are authors).

Thank God there is an author out there who got his life under control and has lived a normal, healthy life since. Very rarely do we see successful authors who have become famous and have a brilliant, happy home life.

I also think that King's conversational voice allows the reader to take from it what they will. He admits that he is not a planner and that he is not one for character sketches. He explains his process of starting with a situation and then going from there. However, he also explains that this is not the only way to do it—may not be the "best" way to do it—but it ishow he works.

For me, that was refreshing. I am not a planner. I do research on things as my characters bring them up. I have had countless people tell me that I needed to plot out every little thing. But I've written eleven books and only started outlining the first one to check for consistency last year. It was nice to hear that an author that I adore has a similar process to mine. He is, however, much less obsessive during the editing phase and explains how he works his drafts. This is something that I am working on so finding that he writes his books in 2-4 drafts gives me some different ideas on how to cut back on my overkill. However, I do think I've finally figured out what needs to be and how to do it. And for me, this book helped me work that through on my own without condescension.

Life is a Series of Fractures

2012-01-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

Life is a series of fractures. I don’t just say this because I’ve been known by thesomewhat offensive, but warmly meant, nickname of “Gimpy”—after I fell down twoflights of cement stairs and busted myself up thoroughly on the first day ofclass—or because I’ve been known as “accident prone” since I was twelve,injuring myself so often that when I moved back from the East Coast I donatedfive pairs of crutches meant to be used in different types of weather. I say this, because, in my experience,it is the truth. Whether thosefractures be emotional or physical, there will come a time when something willdamage you, fracture you, but you will come out of it a stronger and betterperson.

Bones are commonly believed—but not scientifically proven—tobe stronger after they heal from a fracture or a break. Like these healedbones, every person carries the hidden scars of events that made him or her astronger, more beautiful person who can positively affect others.

Although many events have been significant in my life, I cantrace my current path to one moment. I have always been a dancer. It is a well-known family story that I potty trained myself so that Iwould be permitted to take ballet. After all, only “Big Girls” are allowed to dance. I was the youngest girl in my balletclasses by several years and both the oldest and quietest in school, so I wasoften teased. But when I danced,the whole world faded away and I was, if only for that moment, wholly alive andthe stage was a world where I belonged. My dream was always to be a professional ballerina and much of my life revolvedaround me going to classes and rehearsals.

In the Spring of my twelfth year, I was two weeks away fromgetting fitted for the ever-coveted pointe shoes, when I blew out both of myankles, both knees, and my left hip in one fell swoop. I crumpled to the ground and my lifewas never the same. The doctorstold my parents that the only way to fix it was to break my legs in six placesand correct the damage through surgery, resulting in a period of time in awheelchair, then crutches. Maybe,after all that, I could dance again and reach my goal but they were warned thatthe surgery and rehab were no guarantee; many companies don’t take dancers withinjuries like that. My parents said,“No”—not telling me until I was in high school because they knew I would havebegged for the surgery— and I spent the rest of the year in physical therapy,watching the other girls get toe shoes, bake them, gain the calluses andblisters, and use endless rounds of tape and wads of cotton. I had never wanted something so badly,nor had a dream so close without being able to achieve it through my owndetermination. Physically, I hadreached the limit and for years anything ballet-related was painful to thepoint of tears. However, theanguish of that loss forced me to grow.

Science tells us that for every action there is an equal andopposite reaction, and when I lost ballet, the reaction was astounding. Until I was forcibly removed fromballet, soccer, tennis, and track—in my mind, sports conditioned me for dance—Inever considered a career that was not ballet related. That summer, my mothergave me a journal and I went from writing short stories to writing my firstnovel. I poured my heart into piano and chanting at church while learningeverything I could about stagecraft. Once my legs had healed enough, I studied hip-hop, lyrical, and jazzdance. I even joined my school swim team and started working at an afterschoolprogram where I found that I had an abiding love for sharing my passions.

When we moved to California I was fourteen. The first person I met was a boy who belongsto a family of actors, musicians, hospital owners, restaurateurs and everythingin-between. They encouraged me tokeep on with all of my pursuits and I became progressively more serious,getting involved with every play, competition, and recital I could find. By the time I got around to applyingfor college I didn’t know what I would be, but I knew that it had to involve theArts.

During college applications, my mother asked me what I wasgoing to do with my life. Ishrugged and went out with my friends. When I came back I simply said, “I’m going to be a teacher” and justlike that, I had a new goal. Because of the variation of activities that camefrom losing ballet, I received the Boston Pops Scholarship, which allowed me toafford Boston College, where I continued pursuing the Arts and became involvedin inner-city education.

While teaching inner-city, I found that two things wouldhappen each time I had new students: 1. Some brave soul would ask me if it bothered me that I was the only whiteperson in the room (to which I would respond, “No, does it bother you?”) and 2.The students who didn’t quite fit, were a little different, felt marginalized, orwere searching always found me. Being forced to evolve at twelve meant thatwhatever they were into, at some point I’d tried it or wanted to learn aboutit. Although not all of mystudents loved my class, we respected each other and they felt empowered in myroom, a fact recognized by those who dubbed me “School Mom.”

In Fall River, we created a family of our own. My English Language Learner classes,dance programs, and involvement with theatre there meant that students who feltlost found a home. Some students sawme from seven in the morning to ten o’clock at night with only certain classtimes for separation. Thosestudents became “Ms. T’s Kids” and once again, my life was never the same.

In 2009, many teachers lost their jobs, myselfincluded. Most my kids are incollege now, some have graduated, and some have even gotten engaged or married,many are parents. I still get regularupdates from a goodly portion of them, and regardless of being three thousandmiles away, we are still family. For all I lost when my joints blew and all the pain of the injuriessince, I wouldn’t For all I lost when my joints gave out and my bones startedcollecting fractures, I would never trade the life Idreamed of for the one I have.

Nook Tablet

2012-01-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

I have a To Do List a mile long (which is next to absolutely no surprise if you know me) and have more books than I really know what to do with. I read incessantly and my collection of books is proof of this (really, I just need to buy a library and retrofit it to make a home of the place). I've got books under my bed, above my closet, on 5 bookshelves, in a drawer, stacked on my nightstand, and 15 boxes of them in storage. I love books. I adore the feel of the paper and the scent of the ink. I'm in reverent awe of word on page. I am deal gently with my books, caring for their spines and page corners. I do not highlight anything other than a textbook. I will not dogear. I certainly do not hold them so the front cover is wrapped around and touching the back cover like inappropriately gleeful siblings having the "I'm not touching you" argument. Some day, if I get published, I'll be excited for an e-book but madly, ecstatically in love with a paperback or hardback copy.

That being said, my family decided this Christmas-past that I needed to have an e-reader, if only to prevent me from covering every spare inch of the house in tomes that I adore. As a result, I now have a Nook Tablet. I've chosen to make it look and feel like one of my notebooks as much as possible. I also have a fascination with handwriting and love black and silver as a colour combination. This means that it's cover is this one over there to the right.

It's not until you open it that you see that it's a mad Star Trek-esque tablet. That's the first thing that struck me when I opened it and turned it on for the first time, by the way. We are living in The Future. We now live in a world where I can write on, access information on, and draw on a tablet light enough to hold in one hand. The first image that popped for me was Picard reading a book on a tablet much like the one I now have, listening to opera, and drinking Earl Grey. If you switch out opera (which I find too distracting for reading) for Pandora, I am now that person...the one drinking tea and reading a story while also listening to music.

Now, I will never give up paper books. The Tablet is too bright for me to read just before bed in order to relax, but it's great for when I'm out and have five minutes. I went to the salon to get my hair super conditioned, since I'm really rather partial to not looking like I have the Burning Bush on my head, and I started a murder mystery, played 2 rounds of Words with Friends, listened to music, and drew a simple picture while I was waiting under the drier for the tandem treatment to set. I'm officially addicted to Words with Friends and have 5 games going currently. I can play Oregon Trail (though it's not quite so historically accurate anymore...I mean, really, eagles stole my siblings...eagles?). I get to read National Geographic, ImagineFX, Time, Asimov's, Poets & Writers, The Writer, and Analog without much fuss and beautiful, clean pictures. Best thing ever, I will never have to throw away a magazine as it will always be in my library and will simply be added back again if I have a problem with it. Drawbacks: You can't mark up a magazine and you can't print out pictures that you love and stick them on your wall, nor can you pull those pages out and keep them in a journal or file all their own for inspiration.

For a book that I want to mark up, it's great. I can highlight, make notes, and place bookmarks so that I can always go back to those pages. It's great for writing analysis. So, it frees me from my reverence of books and I can lend them as I chose most of the time, but I miss the feel of a book with it. It's light. It prevents me from keeping 3 notebooks, 2 novels, and a play in my purse at all times. If I like an e-book especially, I still buy it in paperback. I am a bibliophile to an extreme degree, I know.

I also find that, while it has a keyboard, it doesn't quite work for writing. Short notes? Sure, but not much beyond that. I still prefer my computer or a simple pen and notebook/envelope/napkin/piece of paper if I'm writing much more than a sentence. My family's right, it was a good gift for me and it'll be awfully entertaining next time I'm on a plane and the seats are so bloody cramped that I can't open my laptop. I'll be able to watch movies, listen to music, and read magazines while I'm on a plane without need for light or really anything other than my new Star Trek-ish toy. But I will never give up real books because as Giles said, "Knowledge should be smelly" and every book, fiction or non, contains knowledge of something or other.

If you need hope for the new year...

2012-01-02T11:22:00.000-08:00

http://kidsgivemehope.blogher.com/?noLW

http://www.givesmehope.com/?yLW

http://love.givesmehope.com/?noLW

My New Year wish for family, friends, and kids

2012-01-01T09:18:00.001-08:00

(Sorry it's long...I'm nothing if not verbose...):

I hope that your year to come is filled with specialness and magic. I hope you make something, something beautiful and wonderful, that fills you with joy, whether that be art of some sort, a relationship with another human being, or some combination of the two. I hope you do this with the passion for life that only you can have and that audience or partner responds in kind. I hope that you have enough pain that you both grow and recognize the joys. I hope that you have enough joy that it outweighs the pain 10-to-1. I hope you face a fear and come out on the other side, turning it into a joy. I hope that you read some fantastic books, blogs, articles, and watch some movies and tv shows that make you dream of how things should be and that you are inspired to act. I hope that you make the mistakes only a wise person can make, the ones that you learn from and make the world better with, because only a wise person learns from the past and we need more wise people in the world these days. I hope that your year is filled with dreams-come-true and dreams-yet-to-be-had. I hope that it is an awesome year.

New Background, New Year

2011-12-31T16:43:00.000-08:00

All right, reader's mine. I've made a new colour scheme. If you know the creator of this background, please let me know. A friend sent it to me with the note, "Thought you would like this." She had gotten it from another friend, who'd gotten it from another friend, who had no idea where they found it. Anywho, it eventually made it to me and I thought that I would go colour crazy for the new year.

I have set myself goals for 2012 (because I feel guilty if I haven't completed a resolution):

Get more balance back in my life so that I can get myself back to the gym and have a social life again.
Finish editing Book 1 and get it sent off finally.
Do everything I can to keep the job I love and make it full-time next year.

What are your goals?

The Christmas Wedding by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo ***1/2

2011-12-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

Another book mailed to me, another review to write.

This book was interesting. It's format was different than pretty much any other book I've ever read. First off, we get a guest list with a summary of important characters at the beginning. Then we get transcripts of videos sent to family members throughout the book. Then we get first person narratives from the perspective of each of Gabby's kids and from Gabby herself. In this way, we get to peek into each person's life. Gabby, the English teacher do-gooder who has invited her children and their families home to the farm for a Christmas day wedding with the caveat that she will not reveal who she is marrying until the ceremony itself. Seth, the novelist in Boston who loves his artist girlfriend and is waiting to have his book bought while working as the receptionist in an ad agency. Claire, who lives in Myrtle Beach with an abusive, pothead, alcoholic for a husband and three kids who are witnessing the crazy. (You really get to know and like her son Gus, regardless of the stuff he puts his mother and grandmother through). Emily, the high powered lawyer who's married to a high powered surgeon both of whom are kind and caring individuals you don't actually want to smack even though they are possibly perfect on paper. And Lizzie, who takes care of her sick husband and her little daughter with strength and patience while her doting husband cracks jokes to make her laugh.

This book is really less of a romance and more about the strength of family, particularly those families that are also friends. Sure, there are three men who have proposed to Gabby, but they all remain friends. There is almost no tension between the three suitors, all of whom have decided to do things the way Gabby wants because all they want is for her to be happy. Some of the book was really powerfully written and realistic. Some of it, like the men not protesting in earnest and having to be convinced that this was the best way, seemed a little out there to me. I know, I know. I can hear the protests already, "But you read and write fantasy and science fiction. Not like Dragons and Elves are real! Not like you've ever talked to an alien!" And, yes, you're right, readers mine. I do read and write fantasy and science fiction. However, the reason I love them so is because I can strip away the ordinary faces of people to show you the psychology and the reality of what goes on while doing it in a way that doesn't hit you over the head with it. To me, the fact that the three men proposed and not a single one of them ever truly pushed for an answer seems strange. In the end though, if any of them had it would have made this story more dramatic, but not the feel-good story it was meant to be. Light and fun, this is a novel that really was meant to entertain and to remind you about the Christmas spirit without hitting you over the head with a wooden mallet. Overall, it achieved it's goal and left me feeling all warm and fuzzy.

Shaun Tan, Neil Gaiman, Characters and Planning

2011-12-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

So, I read the conversation between Shaun Tan and Neil Gaiman (Renaissance men involved in about a billion projects, look them up if you don't know them) that was featured in The Guardian and this bit popped out to me because, even though they're planners, they can understand and explain those of use who are not and cannot be. I know that I have said before, if you can be a planner, do so. It will make your life infinitely more easy. I, however, don't seem to be able to. I can polish plan after the fact to fix up "dodgy bits" but I can't do it beforehand.

ST: I don't know about you but when someone first mentions an adaptation, I have, probably a little bit inappropriately, a feeling of weariness at revisiting that work after I'd struggled with it for so many months or years. But then the second thought is "Wow, what a great opportunity to fix up all those dodgy bits."

NG: It's so nice to hear you say that. Somebody asked me recently if I plot ahead of time. I said yes I do, but there is always so much room for surprise and definitely points where I don't know what's going to happen. They quoted somebody who had said: "All writers who say that they do not know what's going to happen are liars, would you believe someone who started an anecdote without knowing where it was going?" I thought, but I don't start an anecdote to find out what I think about something, I start an anecdote to say this interesting thing happened to me. Whereas I'll start any piece of art to find out what I think about something.

ST: Exactly.

NG: I'm going to learn something I didn't know when I began. I'm going to discover how I feel and what I think about it during the process. I will break off little bits of my head and they will become characters and things will happen and they will talk to each other.

ST: Exactly, creating a character is like impersonating another being, so that you can find out what you think about something. You really find out what your style is when you diversify – setting something in a fictional landscape, the far future or distant past. A lot of people think of style or personality in terms of things you do often, but it's not really. It's what you do under duress, or outside of yourself. I don't feel I know myself really well because – again it's that emotional thing – sometimes I feel a little embarrassed by the amount of emotion that comes out in a story. I don't realise that there's so much of it locked up or in denial and then it comes out in the process of doing this conscious dreaming exercise.

If you want to see the rest of the conversation in The Guardian, go here.

Writing and Rejections

2011-12-07T21:40:00.000-08:00

Found originally at this blog.
Rejection and writing go hand-in-hand, but sometimes it feels that those pesky publishers simply don’t know what they are talking about.
Here’s eleven reasons writers might just be right after all…

Madeline L’Engle’s book, A Wrinkle in Time, was turned down 29 times before she found a publisher.
C.S. Lewis received over 800 rejections before he sold a single piece of writing.
Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind was rejected by 25 publishers.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 121 times.
Johathan Livingston Seagull was rejected 40 times.
Louis L’Amour was rejected over 200 times before he sold any of his writing.
The San Francisco Examiner turned down Rudyard Kipling’s submission in 1889 with the note, “I am sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just do not know how to use the English language.”
An editor once told F. Scott Fitzgerald, “You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby Character.”
The Dr. Seuss book, And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was rejected for being “too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant selling.”
George Orwell’s Animal Farm was rejected with the comment, “It’s impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.”
The manuscript for The Diary of Anne Frank received the editorial comment, “This girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the curiosity level.”

The Santa Anas

2011-12-05T14:45:00.001-08:00

In California, we have these crazy winds. They made my high school uniform a pain. Short skirts and high winds don't go together so well. They dry out vegetation and wildfires are more common when they're blowing. They cause property damage, make driving more difficult, and knock out power.

Regardless of all this, I love these desert winds. They come whipping out of the canyon behind our house and buffet our house. It sounds like a ship at sea in the middle of a storm. I feel like I'm in an adventure novel at night without any of the crazy rocking back and forth. It always gives me the best dreams.

56 similies to make your English teacher laugh so hard they cry...

2011-12-03T11:51:00.001-08:00

I found this at this blog.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree.
Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at asolar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
Even in his last years, Grand pappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it hadrusted shut.
He felt like he was being hunted down like a dog, in a place that hunts dogs, I suppose.
She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.
She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
“Oh, Jason, take me!” she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night.
It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.”
The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
Her pants fit her like a glove, well, maybe more like a mitten, actually.
Fishing is like waiting for something that does not happen very often.
They were as good friends as the people on “Friends.”
Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein’s Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances.
The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton.
He was as bald as one of the Three Stooges, either Curly or Larry, you know, the one who goes woo woo woo.
The sardines were packed as tight as the coach section of a 747.
Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in mucus and then held up to catch the light.
The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas.
I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either.
She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can’t sing worth a damn.
Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.
It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.
Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.
You know how in “Rocky” he prepares for the fight by punching sides of raw beef? Well, yesterday it was as cold as that meat locker he was in.
The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.
Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist.
The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at 10percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10 percent black.

The Ideal Man by Julie Garwood ***1/2

2011-12-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

I've been sent a bunch of books by different people asking me to review them and so, you dear readers, will be stuck reading a bunch of reviews. That's how this works, after all. I get asked to read something, I read it, I write a review, and then you read that. Vicious cycle, really.

Julie Garwood's book, The Ideal Man, falls under the categories of mystery and romance. I figured one out of two of my norm wasn't so bad. Then my friend pointed out that the romantic lead was an FBI agent and that he's chasing down a modern day Bonnie and Clyde pair and falls for a girl who's stalked by a nut job. I was like, "Okay...sounds more appealing." Then my friend said, "And by the way, the girl isn't flaky. She's a brilliant doctor who doesn't realize how gorgeous she is." I was sold on reading the book.

On the plus side: The plot was fun. Both the main characters and the side characters were believable. The characters were more realistic and had more psychology going on than I expected. I came to really like Max--who is built like a mountain, quiet but sharp, and is both fiercely protective and kind at the same time. I like that he had a bit of a rough past but that the family who adopted him was loving. I like that he was strong enough to tell her when she had to listen to his better judgement as well as strong enough to know that he needed to compromise. I also came to really like Ellie, whose history makes he both afraid to love and desperately in need of it (even if she doesn't realize the latter). I like the fact that she's so smart that she went to college at twelve but that it doesn't make her a total dunce emotionally as an adult. I like that having a crazy stalker who tried to kill her as a kid has an effect on every single member in her family and that she tries to protect them as best as she can. I like that her twin sisters had opposite personalities and that both had their own problems that they were dealing with.

On the minus side: I was a little confused at first by how often and without warning the point of view shifted and because of that, it felt a bit choppy to me. It sometimes took me a couple of sentences to figure out who was talking now, but typically, the voices were distinct. I wanted the book to be a little longer and more drawn out because I wanted to see a little more of background. We got told about when Ellie was a little girl, but I wanted to have a flashback or two. I wanted to see how she felt when she had to move away from her family and I wanted a little more interaction with the people who took her in. I also wanted a little more on the cases, but that's just me loving a hard boiled detective story and more cop/fed shows than you could shake a stick at. On the other hand, if someone says that they want more, it's always a good thing from a writer's point of view.

Overall, I would recommend this book. It had enough going on that the romance was just one of the many plots, albeit a pretty significant one. I enjoyed being in the characters' heads. It was a fun romp on a cold, rainy afternoon and it was a fun introduction to a new author.

First Drafts

2011-11-15T18:14:00.001-08:00

Over at Clarion's Blog they're writing about first drafts today. I thought that it was interesting that she basically says that her first draft is an info dump and her subsequent ones are where they all get whittled down. I work something like that, only I add to it first and then subtract. So, I thought I'd write about how I did my first drafts for the trilogy-turned-series when I first wrote them at the age of 12.

Convention dictates that I should say that I start with an outline, my research, and/or character sketches. Unfortunately, I don't. My life would be a LOT easier if I did. If you're just starting as a writer, please give that method a try before you do anything else. It will save you time. Since I was little, outlining has always killed me. No matter what I do, I can't outline a book before I write it (though now I can outline one after so that I make sure things line up).

First off, my friend Tombo used to tease me that they looked like a crazy person wrote them. Like I was some nutter seer living in the back of a cave, ranting in my weird little notebooks. I never quite understood what he meant. The other day I looked back at them again and went, "Oh! My first drafts from back then look like a crazy person wrote them." Tombo was right. As he often is. Just don't tell him I said that...Let me explain.

We're talking, I tell you every thought my characters are thinking and every detail that they notice. If they're visual, it's every single colour in a flower or how many worms are on the ground. If they're auditory, it's literally every sound they can hear. My first draft reads like a Bulwer-Lytton line. [If you don't know who he is, he's the guy who came up with, "It was a dark and stormy night" and then continued the line with, "the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." Seriously. He chose to start a novel like that.] My first drafts of the trilogy-turned-series have that much detail. Also, they're hand written upside down, backwards, in mirror, and rightside up and forwards. They're in multiple colours, including orange and yellow and the palest of green. There are notes to myself in a language my friend and I made up in 8th grade (that I no longer know how to read), French, and English. The notebooks are half beat to death with how much I carried them around and decorated with more stickers than really belong on any surface. They have drawings in the margins and the middle of pages. I've got pages stapled and taped in. I paid no attention to keeping in one voice so I've got the voices of ten characters in one "chapter" and whole chapters crossed out and then notes scribbled across the cross out and the words beneath it. I know, I know...I'm not that old. I had a computer at the time. What was I thinking? Am I really a nutter? What a waste of paper! Who does that? Answer: Me.

Thank God I've grown out of that, right? Well, I haven't entirely grown out of it...I've just gotten more organized about it thanks to Scrivener. Luckily, it allows me to type after I've got my initial hand written bit and then do all the colours I want to see what has changed and how it's changed. It also allows me to keep pictures I find and scan those I draw into it, add word documents, and throw in note cards in every colour under the sun. It makes order out of all of the chaos that is my first drafts and the subsequent 15-20 edits that are written over that first draft. I throw in timelines and events. Colour-coding of scenes by character, narrator, weapons, races, year, etc. I can do a search for anything I don't have right at my fingertips. Brilliant stuff, really. I do miss the smell of the ink and paper, but it's so much easier and I end up printing out a completed draft and going through by hand anyway, so it's not that big a deal. When I look at the comparison between Scrivener drafts and handwritten drafts, the ones on the computer are a LOT more organized. Like, someone who isn't me could actually understand them. I figure, that's a good thing. It's all about progress, right?

So, how has the way you write your first drafts changed over the years? I'm curious. Do tell.

"Sail" by AWOLNATION

2011-11-12T14:31:00.001-08:00

So, I know that I don't usually post songs on here, but this one has been playing in my head on the music track almost exclusively for the past 72 hours. For those of you who know me, you know how rare it is for a song to stick with me like that. I found it by watching Break ton Neck on one of my dance video searches. The way that kid combines yoga and break dancing is both bizarre and amazing. However, the thing that really captured my attention was the music. There are a few reasons for it--and I'm not sure I really know all the reasons it's sticking--but one is the music and the guy's voice, another is the music video (which really is a trip), and the other is the mention of ADD. Never heard a song where that is featured so prominently. I'm going to give you the video, lyrics, and break down what I think he's talking about from the perspective of ADD and the lyrics. (The video brings up paranoia, Illuminati, aliens, and any number of things all of which can be put down as allegories for just about any sort of issue or problem someone is face where they feel that they are under pressure and segmented off from the rest of society because of how they see the world. So, I'm sticking with ADD since it's the only thing actually mentioned by name in the song.)

Sail!	Every time he uses this I think of “sail away” or being able to walk off, something that Aaron Bruno (the lead singer) says earned him the nickname of AWOL in high school. He’s also mentioned the Styx song “Come Sail Away” as an influence.
This is how I show my love I made it in my mind because I blame it on my ADD baby	When a person has ADD (or any sort of learning disability, really) the way they interact with people is atypical. Their brain chemistry works differently and it is sometimes harder to express feelings or to control how those feelings are expressed.
This is how an angel cries I blame it on my own supply Blame it on my ADD baby	In this case, I read it as he did or said something that has made the other person cry and he’s blaming it on the fact that the chemicals in his brain don’t work quite right. There are a few theories on why ADD occurs (no one knows the cause for sure), one being that there is too much of something in the brain and another that there is too little. Either way, it’s a supply and demand issue.
Sail! Sail! Sail! Sail! Sail! Maybe I should cry for help Maybe I should kill myself Blame it on my ADD baby	Obviously, with the way I’m interpreting “Sail” the urge to run away is pretty strong here. If the first line is him wondering if he should ask for help because he’s not sure if he can handle what’s going on. Then the second line is him wondering if the suffering he puts people through is worth it.
Maybe I'm a different breed Maybe I'm not listening So blame it on my ADD baby	For me, the key to this verse is the word “Maybe”. People with ADD often feel like they’re not quite in sync with the rest of the world. Hence, the first line. Maybe he’s something different from the rest of the people around him. Also, those with ADD are often accused of not listening because it’s almost impossible to tune out background noise. To me, this line reads as someone throwing a line back at someone in anger. Like, sure, maybe I’m not listening, but maybe I can’t listen. In other words, it’s not that he tries to hurt the other person by not listening or doing something time and time again, it’s a result of the ADD that he wishes he could fix so that they could feel like they are on the same page.
Sail! Sail! Sail! Sail! Sail! La la la la la la oh! La la la la la la oh! Sail! Sail! Sail! Sail! Sail!!	Basically, the need to get away.
Sail with me into the dark Sail! Sail with me into the dark Sail! Sail with me into the dark Sail! Sail with me, sail with me Sail!	Here, I think of it as asking the other person to come with him into the unknown. He doesn’t know that he won’t hurt the person again, but he’s asking them to stay with him just the same.

So, perhaps I'm reading too much into this. But it pretty solidly relates to the way ADD works for a lot of people. You can also interpret it for almost any learning disability (or mental illness, for that matter). When your brain works differently, it can be hard to relate to those around you in a way that is understandable to them. It may make sense in your head, but it doesn't mean that it's easy for others to get.

When I was tested for ADD it took months for them to give me a diagnosis. My friend Jonathan Toomey looked at me and laughed. His response when I told him that they gave me a diagnosis was, "You had to get tested to learn that? I could've told you that the first day I met you. Have they never tried to have a conversation with you?" According to a lot of my friends, my "high IQ and ADD make for interesting conversations" (granted, I point out each time someone says that that they can't test my IQ accurately because of the different learning disabilities and my friends just roll their eyes and say, "It's obvious" or "Why do you think I have to ask you to slow down and explain again?" Personally, I think it's because I jump around so much in my explanations, but whatever they want to think, I'll go with.)

My ADD is also part of why I don't sleep well, part of why a lot of people can't hold my attention that long, and part of why it's taking me so bloody long to finish my books. When you're a perfectionist with ADD, writing a novel that's up to snuff is like training an elephant to paint. It can be done, it's just going to take some serious time and effort. In my case, over 16 years to get the first book done (edits and rewrites are still ongoing). Nevermind the fact that I have no sense of conventional time, when it comes to 16 years, I notice that.

However, there are some good things that come with my ADD. I notice details that other people don't. I overhear conversations without meaning to and pick up on the phrases and sounds that they make for specific accents. I notice things visually that others don't, so while we're talking I will notice the bird in the sky, the puddle on the ground with the leaves in it, and the squirrel in the tree. While this can make walking with me a real pain when I have a camera in hand, I do get some truly beautiful shots of everyday things that other people don't notice until I show them the beauty in a manhole or a leaf by the hospital. This also means that my writing is very sensory rich (often I have to take details out because it's overload for normal people). Beyond details of our world, I also have knowledge of a lot of different things. When topics don't hold your attention for long periods but you are endlessly curious, you learn a lot of information that other people don't and because I've learned them in small bits, I remember them. The other benefit of my form of ADD (and yes, there is more than one kind) is that I can become hyper-focused. When I get this way, it's a zone where nothing else exists. I don't hear my music or the background noises. I don't see anything but what I'm working on. This means that I can be working on my writing or art and you may be in the same room talking to me for a half hour and I won't notice you. People have been known to touch me (which makes me jump half out of my skin) or throw a pillow or stuffed animal at me to get my attention when I'm in the zone. I have no idea when these times are going to be and no control over if they happen or not. But when they do, I can get work done so rapidly it kind of blows my mind.

Anyhow, that's my interpretation of "Sail" by AWOLNATION and the reason I see it the way I do. Sorry for the loooooong post.

2011-11-09T13:43:00.000-08:00

http://thebloggess.com/2011/11/lets-pretend-this-never-happened/ <-- Read this. That's right, you read correctly. Read it. I dare you to try to read it without laughing. Bet you can't!

New Look

2011-11-07T22:52:00.000-08:00

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! (Mainly, I think, because stores purposely forget that Thanksgiving exists. It's hard to make a turkey and Puritans sexy or super cute, and while it's easier with Native Americans, it is not so PC to do so).

In honour of the fall/winter days and the time change that comes with them, I thought I'd switch over to some red velvet. Upon asking my friend Tombo what he thinks of the new look, our conversation went like this:

Tombo: It's cozy, and not so bright. Also a bit sinister.
Me: hahaha. Is that good? And here I was thinking it was more along the lines of Christmas...
Tombo: Haha. Well, I see red velvet, and I think of Satanic seduction...the tempting side of evil. ;-)

Which makes me wonder two things: 1. What makes you think of the holidays? 2. What do you think of when you see red velvet?

Doctor Who

2011-11-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

I've gone on a strange Doctor Who kick of late. I loved the old ones and I love the new ones, but my focus of late seems to be on the 2005-current series. It's a show that makes me smile. It does dark and creepy. It does rage and fire. It does funny and sarcastic. It does old school sci fi and new school sci fi. It does philosophy and faith. It does history and future dreams or nightmares. And let's be honest, there is practically no other show on the planet that combines Shakespeare, magic, aliens, murder, and wit all in one episode. Obviously, for someone who loves all of these things and is always interested in seeing the world in a new way, writing that encompasses all of human emotion, tendencies, history, and does it all in a way that doesn't take itself too seriously is going to be entertaining and thought provoking.

That said, the thing that I truly love is, in fact, The Doctor. For those who don't know, the title of the show is actually a question. Throughout the show, various characters will see into The Doctor's mind and see that he doesn't actually know his name. He is literally just "The Doctor". He is the last of his kind: a lonely god, a Time Lord, and there is truly no one else like him. He is nine hundred years old and eleven all at the same time.

If you've never seen the show, let me explain what I mean by that statement. The second bit first, as being eleven is easier to explain than being nine hundred. He finds joy in the little things. In ball bearings you can eat. In bananas. In tea. In adventure. In his TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) A.K.A. his time machine/space ship. He enjoys aliens and Shakespeare and mad escapades where he's always in life threatening danger and always lives. He's like a little boy who sees the universe as one grand adventure after another. He's curious and knowledgeable, wise and witty. He is the constant wonder we all remember from childhood and often lose as we age. Only, he hasn't lost it.

As you would expect from someone who is nine hundred years old and can jump through time in a spaceship cloaked as a blue police call box from the 1950s, he has seen many things. He is a war veteran and it haunts him. He is the last of his people, and it too, haunts him. He has lost his family, friends, and his planet with it's burnt orange sky. He is eternally lonely, excepting those times where he has a companion. Sometimes human, sometimes alien, sometimes robot dog (as we find out). The one thing he really needs to cross time and space beyond his ship is a hand to hold.

Which brings me to Rose. I love the episodes with Rose because you see him gradually opening himself up to her, regardless of the fact that he feels old and tired oft times. Rose, the beloved companion who knows she's loved even though he can't say it, makes him brighter and happier. Though he questions the reality of religions and faith because of the many things he has seen, in the darkest of times, literally when they are separated and have to face off with the Devil while sitting on the outer edge of a black hole, the one thing they have faith in is each other. To quote the show directly (mainly because I love his brilliant, sometimes mad, speeches):

"I accept that you exist. I don't have to accept what you are, but your physical existence, I give you that. The Devil is an idea. In all those civilizations, just an idea. But an idea is hard to kill. An idea could escape. The mind—the mind of the great Beast—the mind can escape! Oh, but that's it! You didn't give me air, your jailers did! They set this up! All those years ago! They need me alive. Because if you're escaping, then I've gotta stop you. If I destroy the prison, your body is destroyed. Your mind with it. But then you're clever enough to use this whole system against me. If I destroy this planet I destroy the gravity field. The rocket. The rocket loses protection, falls into the black hole. I'll have to sacrifice Rose. {the Beast laughs.} ...Except that implies—in this big grand scheme of Gods and Devils—that she's just a victim. But I've seen a lot of this Universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demigods and would-be gods. And out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing—just one thing—I believe in her."

After he loses Rose, though it is not in that episode, there's a darkness there that mimics that Devil, and he becomes the fire that burns in the center of the universe and the white knight who tries to save everyone he possibly can. There's a quote from the show that goes, "Demons run when a good man goes to war," and that is true of The Doctor. He gives one warning, even commenting once on how he used to have so much mercy, and if you do not retreat or surrender, God help you. This is especially true after he loses Rose and is mourning her loss. Several episodes use the metaphor of fire for his rage. Surrounded by fire, he is like the Devil from "The Satan Pit" episode. In another episode, when the fire from a living sun possesses him, the line of the enraged entity inside him echoes his pain. "Burn with me," he says over and over, while trying to fight the darkness inside. And then a couple of episodes later, he goes cold in one of the creepiest, gooseflesh creating scenes as the bad guy of a two-part episode explains his rage like this:

"He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing - the fury of the Time Lord - and then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden. He was being kind. He wrapped my father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star. He tricked my mother into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy to be imprisoned there, forever. He still visits my sister, once a year, every year. I wonder if one day he might forgive her, but there she is. Can you see? He trapped her inside a mirror. Every mirror. If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you just for a second, that's her. That's always her. As for me, I was suspended in time and the Doctor put me to work standing over the fields of England, as their protector. We wanted to live forever. So the Doctor made sure we did. "

There is, to this show, a brilliance that you rarely see. The moments of darkness are truly set off by moments of great light. The seriousness set off by the humour. The philosophy by the wit. The rage by pure joy. The haunted, angry man by the wondrous, awed little boy. And all of it--really, I do mean all--is social commentary. The Doctor, a man with no real name, is two sides of the coin. He is the duality of human nature. I could go on and on (and possibly on again) about The Doctor and the joy his character brings me, but the genius of The Doctor is something I think you should find for yourself. I can relate to him on so many levels it's almost frightening, but every episode leaves me wanting more and loving this alien--who seems so human--even more than I did the episode before. And that, readers mine, is my rather random post on why I adore Doctor Who.

So, my question to you is as follows: What character do you love and why?

Writing, Life, and Questions

2011-11-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

A couple of things, dear readers...

November has snuck up on me this year. Normally, I'm doing NaNoWriMo at this point. I haven't missed one since college. However, I don't know that I'll do NaNo this year. I think taking my focus off of what I'm doing to write 50,000 words (which turns into whole other books I need to finish and edit) is really doing myself a disservice this year. I don't need another book in my head. I need to finish the one that I'm editing now and get the darn thing sent off already. If, instead of doing NaNo, I focus on editing (rewrites, the bane of my existence)I think I'll remove some serious stress from my life. While writing is release, rewrites are frustrating. I've been stuck in the cycle of rewrites for too long on this book. I need to get things set and done, move on to book two in the series (which is also written and awaiting rewrites) not to mention books three through seven of this series or the two other series and the children's book I have partially written. I will get there eventually.

As far as my life outside of being a writer is going, I think it's good, if a bit crazy. I'm teaching part time and making friends at work. I'm beginning to hope that a certain person wants to be more than friends (and yes, the guy from a few months ago has fallen by the wayside). I'm directing a show, working as an essay specialist, tutoring kids and adults, and working in the nursery at church. Last week, I got pulled from nursery duty to chant for the archbishop of Tanzania about twenty minutes prior to me needing to go up and sing in Swahili because "We need an anchor voice and we don't have one. Please?!?!" I said yes, because honestly, while the people who asked me are sweet and well-meaning people, they cannot sing. I am glad that I didn't know that we had a professional opera singer attending church that day though. Strangely enough, foreign dignitaries make me nervous when I have no prep time and don't know the language, but professional musicians make me more nervous. She apparently asked around about me and was told "Oh, that's Father's oldest daughter." She said she was both surprised and happy to find that there was another singer in the parish. I looked up at the choir, who I thought did a great job that day, and she smiled, said that they did beautifully but that it's harder to be a soloist and complimented me on my voice. It was nice. I haven't sung for a while, so I wasn't up to snuff in my mind, but it was cool to get positive feedback from a professional and from various people at church who, apparently, forgot that I grew up chanting and singing. So, life is busy, but I'm happy.

I thought that I would give something a try here and start asking you guys to respond to questions. You know, see if we can get a dialogue going here on ToP. So, for my first question: What is your favourite book and why do you love it?

Fiction Brigade Voice Blog

2011-10-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

As you guys know, I do love me some Fiction Brigade. If you click on that link you'll come to an article I wrote about finding Voice in your writing. See, the love goes both ways. :-)

Cast in Ruin by Michelle Sagara *****

2011-10-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

*Click on the book cover to go to it's Amazon page*

With Cast in Ruin,I have to give Michelle Sagara what is—in my mind—the highest compliment: Herbooks make me want to write. Ialways come away from a Chronicles of Elantra book wanting to pick up pen andpaper or get to a keyboard and go all BIC HOK TAM. They feel like home to me and the characters leap off thepage and live in my head like only true friends and enemies can.

This book seriously delighted me. Kaylin is growing and changing now that she has finallystarted dealing with her past, but her past has not left her. I relate to Kaylin more than any otherprotagonist I’ve ever read. Shefeels real and like she’s one of those people I would insist on being friendswith. Always late. Always short on money. Forgets to eat or doesn’t havetime. Doesn’t prize manners abovejust about anything. Is messy andsometimes just purely a mess. Shedoesn’t sleep much and when she does it’s always interrupted. Sure, the girl has flaws and it makesme love her all the more because she also is fiercely loyal to her friends,loves children and will do anything to protect them, and will give everythingshe can to help those in need. She’s intuitive, smart, and a little more street than tame. She’s also endlessly curious and alwaysasking questions that would often be better not asked.

And in this book, the guy I’m rooting for—SevernHandred—finally seems to be rooting for himself. They actually have that talk that I’ve been waiting for—youknow, the one where Kaylin explains what she’s so afraid of being withhim—and it’s a credible reason given her background. He’s finally started to say what’s onhis mind and I’m grateful. I’vehad a soft spot for the scarred man of few words and boundless understanding since we learned what actuallyhappened and Kaylin realized she didn’t need to hunt him down and killhim. I’m hoping that eventuallyshe’ll realize that he is Home. Asto the other man people seem to be rooting for, we see less of Nightshade buthave promise of a goodly portion of the next book focusing on both him and theWest March, which is always interesting.

Speaking of focus, every book seems to close in on one of the races andthis is a story about Dragons. Though we have yet to meet the Emperor, all of the other Dragons make anappearance except for Emmerian, who is only mentioned once. I have always loved the Dragon Courtcharacters and even the danger represented by the Outcaste so I was exceedinglyhappy about this turn of events. The murder this time happens in Tiamaris’ new Fief and the fact that itis where Kaylin had the darkest times of her past just adds layers. That the refugees, now known as theNorannir, moved to the Fief formerly known as Barren, and now known as Tiamaris,means that this book is also largely about them. New cultures always hold intrigue for me so I love the factthat we get to learn a whole new history in this one. Add on top of that a new Dragon who haseven less reverence than Kaylin and I am one happy reader.

Between the Norannir, the new Dragon, the Barrani, theongoing investigation into the Exchequer, and what is sure to be more of a pushand pull between Severn and Nightshade, this next book looks like it will bejust as fun and interesting as this one.

Banned Books Week

2011-09-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Banned Books Week!

I think it's important to read great books that are just chock full of ideas that expand the mind or make you think about things you maybe haven't before. Therefore, I adore banned books. Go check out the site.

2011-09-21T13:14:00.001-07:00

Go here:
http://strugglingsingletwentysomething.blogspot.com/2011/09/suicide-prevention-and-awareness-month.html?showComment=1316636011657#c8915851854050385221
Simple enough.

General Insanity

2011-09-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

In no particular order, over the past four months I have: been working with students who are trying to get into college (I'll talk about why that is important in a bit), visited Fall River, started a new teaching job, gone on a few dates (one of which was particularly amazing), been visited by my aunt, uncle, and my first cousin from my dad's side of the family, my cousins and great aunt on my dad's side, and my first cousin from my mom's side of the family, sprained my ankle and knee, spent time on the Santa Monica Pier, helped a friend plan her wedding, found out what my bridesmaid dress will look like for another friend's wedding, been to Vegas for another friend's wedding, been to my college reunion seen Neil Gaiman live, and learned to fly a plane (okay, so the last one's a joke...but all the other stuff really has happened).

What I have not done for extended periods of time is focus on my writing (neither in blog nor in book form). I've been completely scattered and when I work on my books it's through guerrilla writing and editing methods. I think my characters are starting to feel a bit neglected. But, I just have to promise them that they'll get the time they deserve when I have the time and focus on the things I get paid for. Writing may be my passion, but it's not what pays the bills.

What does pay the bills is my many jobs. When working with kids trying to get into college, I have found that the lack of writing skills is disturbing and that I am essentially teaching them how to write. Some of the kids have not read a book for school or written a single paper since sixth grade. We should all be horrified by that, by the way. If you're not, you should really start wondering what it's going to be like twenty years down the line when the kids of today are the leaders of tomorrow and they can't communicate their thoughts coherently in a written form. Are you cringing yet?

My new teaching job has me working on Honors World Literature and Composition, Beginning Drama, Advanced Drama, Journalism, and Yearbook. It's eclectic, but at least I don't get bored. The kids are sweet and generally pretty focused. It's a nice environment to teach in and my room is gradually becoming owlriffic since me and my roomie are owl people!

My friends all seem to be getting married or are on their way to marriage. I, on the other hand, am single. This has lead to some pushing on the part of my mother which may, possibly, have paid off. I've had some dates that were true duds. That hasn't changed at all. But I did meet one really sweet guy who smiles all the time, is smart, into his career and education, looking to move to the UK at some point, is a dancer and sometime actor. Not to mention the whole REALLY good-looking thing. So, there is some potential there, though I don't want to jump the gun and say that something will happen between us, there is a connection and a true friendship (if not more) developing and that's a fun thing. Either way, I've been a total spaz about things but I'm having fun with it and he seems to be having fun too, so that is to the good.

The world is an interesting place my dear readers. You can never tell what's going to happen. I went from teaching inner-city to a private Christian school. Super single with many of my friends getting married to finding someone that it is possible for me to see a "something" with, though I'm not sure what that is yet. And am focused on a million things other than writing at the moment, but you know what? I'm happy with what's going on in my life.

Now...if only I could remember to bring my lunch to school with me...

Quotes Part 25

2011-07-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

"Mostbooks on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because mostbooks on witchcraft were written by men." — Neil Gaiman (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of AgnesNutter, Witch)

"You'rericher than you think ... but probably not financially.” — WaynePearson

"A trulyelegant taste is generally accompanied with excellency of heart.” – HenryFielding

"I think what I love most [about writing] is that feelingthat you really nailed something. I rarely feel it with a whole piece, butsometimes with a line you feel that it really captured what it is that you hadinside you and you got it out for a stranger to read, someone who may neverlove you or meet you, but he or she is going to get that experience from thatline." - Andre Dubus III

"Most people do not believe in anything very much and ourgreatest poetry is given to us by those who do." - Cyril Connolly

"One man is as good as another until he has written a book."- Benjamin Jowett

"I have never known any distress that an hour's reading didnot relieve." - Baron de Montesquieu

"The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of allthe bad and good bad books, create in one's mind a sort of false map of theworld, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd momentsthroughout the rest of life, and which in some cases can even survive a visitto the real countries which they are supposed to represent." - George Orwell

"I write what I would liketo read – what I think other women would like to read. If what I write makes awoman in the Canadian mountains cry and she writes and tell me about it,especially if she says, ‘I read it to Tom when he came in form work and hecried too’, I feel I have succeeded.’ - Kathleen Norris

"The writer who possesses the creative gift owns somethingof which he is not always master - something that at times strangely wills andworks for itself." - Charlotte Bronte

The Fiction Brigade

2011-07-08T11:33:00.001-07:00

So, today we have a ToP first, readers mine. An interview. (Cue the dramatic,news-type music.)

A long-time friend of mine, Sabrina Ricci, has started aproject that I find very interesting. It’s called The Fiction Brigadeand I think she and her co-editor have some interesting ideas. Sabrina and Bethany focus on flashfiction and even go so far as to have an interactive Twitter Story every week. I have sent around messages to variouswriting groups and friends of mine who write. Now, I figure I could do even more to spread the word aboutthis writer-friendly epublication and have bothered Sabrina into letting meinterview her.

C: Why did you choosepublishing as an industry to get into at a time where it is seeing so manyfluctuations?

S: It’s partly a fluke that I got into book publishing lastyear, and now that I’m in it, I see all the changes as opportunities. I’ve always been interested insome form of publishing—my background is in journalism—but after I graduatedcollege I decided daily newspapers weren’t for me. I took a year off topractice my creative writing, and then I realized I was interested in books.When I started the publishing program at NYU last September, I was excited tolearn how much the whole industry is changing. eBooks became a bigger deal whenAmazon released the Kindle in 2007, but the book industry did not seriouslystart to change until 2010. So now it’s a really exciting time to be here.People are finally seeing the importance of digital, and the whole idea ofhaving to climb the corporate ladder is going away. Anyone with ideas isencouraged to try something new—at least on a small scale. No one has anyanswers yet, which has leveled the playing field and set up a mindset whereyoung people are encouraged to develop their online talents, and even starttheir own businesses. Sure, there’s uncertainty within the field. Magazinepublishers still rely mostly on print advertising for revenue, and it’s scary thatBorders went bankrupt, but at the same time ebooks have a greater audiencereach and anyone with basic web knowledge can launch their own site—though itstill takes a lot of investors to actually be successful! I could write pagesand pages about this, but I don’t want to bore you so I’ll stop here.

C: What do youlove/are passionate about in the publishing industry right now?

S: So many things! I’ve never been able to have only onefocus, and right now I’m mostly interested in the editorial and digital side ofthings. I like reading and taking apart stories, trying to figure out itsstrengths and weaknesses—which helps a lot with my own writing. But I also likedesigning and creating. I learned Photoshop and InDesign in college, this pastyear I’ve taught myself HTML, CSS, and XML, and in the fall I’ll be working forSimon & Schuster helping them produce ebooks.

C: What is somethingyou would like to see change about the publishing industry right now?

S: I wish the industry as a whole were a little moreexperimental. Book publishing traditionally has always been very conservative,and many of the big players (Random House, Simon & Schuster, Penguin,Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan) all seem hesitant to change much. They’regetting better, but in a lot of cases people are watching one companyexperiment, seeing whether or not they fail, and then deciding if they want tochange something. One example of this, I think, is the New York Times paywall.A paywall means you have to pay a monthly subscription fee to the NY Times inorder to see it’s online content. But in the NY Times version, it’s cheaper topay for a print subscription and receive access to the digital newspaper ratherthan paying for digital access only. It was a big deal when that went up inMarch, and other companies were waiting to see if it worked before they decidedto try it themselves. But now we see the paywall is meant to drive moresubscribers to the print version—partly because of the price, partly becauseit’s also easy to get around the paywall via Twitter, blogs, etc.—, andnewspapers are still struggling to increase their digital revenue.

C: What gave you theidea for putting together Fiction Brigade?

S: I have wanted to start a literary magazine for the lasttwo years. During my year off learning how to write creatively, I took a lot ofwriting classes and I was inspired by my classmate’s work. But most of myclassmates (including myself) were unpublished and having a hard time gettingpublished. And what was even more frustrating was that most of us, aftersubmitting a story to a publication, often didn’t even get a rejection letter.We just had to assume that our stories didn’t make the cut. I wanted to createa publication that was friendlier to writers. Of course, I could never do italone, so I’m glad Bethany and I are working together. She came up with our nameand the idea for the Twitter Project.

C: Why did you decideto work with flash fiction and can you define it for my readers?

S: There are a few reasons we chose flash fiction. Part ofits appeal is that it’s so short, which means we can be more efficient whenreading submissions. It’s also a learning process. I see flash fiction as agreat challenge for writers—it’s like an exercise in conciseness. I think peoplewho can write flash fiction well can write anything well.

During my year off writing, I spent a lot of timeresearching all the different types of writing. None of the sources I foundhave the exact same definition of flash fiction, but basically it’s fictionthat falls within The Fiction Brigade’s guidelines. Flash fiction is a storybetween 50 and 1,500 words. The trick is it still has to be a complete storywith a beginning, middle, and end (though obviously not everything can befleshed out), and it has to employ fiction techniques (imagery, dialogue,theme, etc.)

C: Do you haveanything specific that you look for in a flash story for FB?

S: We look for well-written, complete stories. I know thatsounds vague, but the best thing for aspiring writers to do is read a lot ofthe type of writing they want to pursue. We have a page devoted to links wherepeople can find examples of flash fiction or you can Google “flash fiction” andfind a lot of results.

One of the most famous examples of flash fiction is ErnestHemingway’s story, which goes like this: “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” Ofcourse, that’s an example of extreme flash fiction, also known asmicro-fiction—which we’re not looking for—but you get the idea. In just sixwords, we can project a whole back story.

C: You have somethingcalled the Twitter Project going right now. What do you see as the future of the project?

S: We’d like the Twitter Project to be both a way tointeract with our readers and contributors and a channel to create new flashfiction stories. A couple weeks ago we did a test run where Bethany and I tookturns writing our own flash fiction story, and we posted it on The FictionBrigade. Now we’re inviting anyone who is interested to take part in writing aflash fiction story on Twitter. Each week, we’ll post the beginning of a newstory, with the hashtag #fb1—or whichever number story we’re on. Then, at theend of the week or once we reach 1,500 words, whichever comes first, we willpost the new Twitter story on our site. Before each new issue, we plan onhaving people vote for their favorite Twitter story, and we will feature thestory in the magazine.

C: What do you see asthe future of The Fiction Brigade?

S: Ideally, we want The Fiction Brigade to be a communityfor writers. We’ll always publish the magazine, but we want to build up ourforum to be a place where writers and readers can have discussions, andpossibly even give each other feedback. We have a lot of other long-term plansin the works, but we’ll have to see how it goes. For now we’re focusing onpublishing a great first issue and promoting our Twitter Project andparticipation in our forum.

C: Are you planningon keeping archives of the stories that are published so that readers can go onand look at things from the past?

S: Absolutely! All of our issues will be accessible on ourwebsite, for free, and we will also email free PDF versions to anyone who wantsthem.

C: How often will youpublish new stories?

S: Our first issue will be released October 1. In themeantime, we plan on posting a new Twitter story each week. We’re tentativelyplanning on having three to four issues per year, but if we get enoughsubmissions, we’d like to publish every month. In between issues we’ll alsohold contests, so there should be new content on the site regularly.

I’d like to thank Sabrina for being willing to do thisinterview. If you want to learnmore about the Twitter Project or submit a piece, please go to The Fiction Brigade.

You won’t regret it.

Why I love Neil Gaiman

2011-07-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

So, I owe you all a post about the LA stop of Neil Gaiman's tour (because AWESOME!) but I'm in a writing groove so instead you're going to have to be satisfied (or at least placated) by videos of cool things that cracked me up from Neil's blog about his tour and links to places with pictures (I figured that we wouldn't be allowed to take pictures...something I found out too late was wrong). So, be placated readers mine.

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;object width="560" height="349"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6_O5VqmY-LI?version=3&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;hl=en_US"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/param&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/param&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/param&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6_O5VqmY-LI?version=3&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/embed&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/object&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Bucket List

2011-07-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

So, I stole this idea from my college/grad school roomie and friend Katie over at Struggling Single Twenty-Something. We've been talking a lot about what we want to do with our lives since the reunion and the idea of a "Bucket List" kept coming up. As a result, I wrote something up and was rather surprised to find out that it's three pages long. We shall see what happens. I'll link to things as I go. Check the new tab if you want. I'd love to hear what people think of these goals and what other people want to do.

Collective Nouns

2011-07-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia again....

labour	A labour of moles^[1]
leap	A leap of leopards^[1]
leash	A leash of deer^[1]
	A leash of foxes^[1]
	A leash of hawks^[1]
	A leash of hounds^[1]
litter	A litter of any young (animals) born as a group^[2]
lounge	A lounge of lizards^[3]
mob	A mob of people, animals or kangaroos^[2]
murder	A murder of crows^[4]
murmuration	A murmuration of starlings^[4]
muster	A muster of storks^[3]
muster	A muster of peacocks^[4]
mute	A mute of hounds^[3]
nest	A nest of mice^[3]
	A nest of rabbits^[3]
	A nest of vipers^[5]
	A nest of snakes^[6]
network	A network of computers^{[dubious – discuss]}
neverthriving	A neverthriving of jugglers^[7]
nide	A nide of geese^{[citation needed]}
nucleus	A nucleus of physicists^{[dubious – discuss]}
number	A number of mathematicians^{[dubious – discuss]}
nye	A nye of pheasants^[4]
obstinacy	An obstinacy of buffalo^[3]
ostentation	An ostentation of peacocks^[3]
pace	A pace of asses^[3]
pack	A pack of hounds^[3]
	A pack of rats^[8]^[9]
	A pack of wolves^[3]
	A pack of grouse^[10]^[11]
paddling	A paddling of ducks (on water)^[3]
pandemonium	A pandemonium of parrots^[3]
pantheon	A pantheon of gods^[12]
parade	A parade of elephants^{[dubious – discuss]}
parcel	A parcel of hogs^[13]^[14]^[15]
	A parcel of deer^[16]^[17]^[18]
	A parcel of penguins^[19]^[20]
parliament	A parliament of owls^[3]^[4]
parliament	A parliament of rooks^[4]
party	A party of jays^[3]
passel	A passel of hogs^[21]
passel	A passel of possum^{[citation needed]}
patch	A patch of flowers^{[dubious – discuss]}
peep	A peep of chickens^[3]^[22]
peloton	A peloton of cyclists^[23]^[24]
phalanx	A phalanx of storks^{[citation needed]}
pit	A pit of snakes^[3]
piteousness	A piteousness of doves^[22]
pitying	A pitying of doves^[3]
plague	A plague of locusts^{[dubious – discuss]}
plum	A plum of seals^{[dubious – discuss]}
plump	A plump of waterfowl^{[dubious – discuss]}
plump	A plump of ducks (flying)^[25]^[26]
pod	A pod of whales^[27]^[28]
	A pod of seals^[3]
	A pod of dolphins^[29]^[30]^[31]
	A pod of USBs^{[citation needed]}
pomp	A pomp of pekingese^{[dubious – discuss]}
ponder	A ponder of philosophers^{[dubious – discuss]}
pontifica	A pontifica of prelates^{[dubious – discuss]}
portfolio	A portfolio of stockbrokers^{[dubious – discuss]}
pounce	A pounce of cats^[3]
poverty	A poverty of pipers^[32]^[33]
prettying	A prettying of doves^{[dubious – discuss]}
prickle	A prickle of hedgehogs^{[dubious – discuss]}
pride	A pride of peacocks^[34]
pride	A pride of lions^[3]^[22]
quarrel	A quarrel of sparrows^{[citation needed]}
quiver	A quiver of rebuttals^{[dubious – discuss]}
rabble	A rabble of butterflies
rabble	A rabble of rats
raffle	A raffle of turkeys
raft	A raft of coots
	A raft of auks
	A raft of ducks^[3]
	A raft of penguins
rafter	A rafter of turkeys^[3]
rag	A rag of colts
rainbow	A rainbow of butterflies
rake	A rake of colts
rake	A rake of mules
range	A range of mountains
rascal	A rascal of boys
riches	A riches of matrons
richness	A richness of martens
rookery	A rookery of penguins^[3]
rouleau	A rouleau of coins
rout	A rout of wolves^[3]
rout	A rout of snails
	A rout of wolves
	A rout of knights
ruck	A ruck of football players
run	A run of salmon
run	A run of poultry
sault	A sault of lions
scale	A scale of fish
scathe	A scathe of zombies
school	A school of whales^[3]
school	A school of fish
scold	A scold of jays
scourge	A scourge of mosquitoes
screech	A screech of gulls
scull	A scull of friars
sedge	A sedge of bitterns
sedge	A sedge of cranes
set	A set of mathematicians
shiver	A shiver of sharks
shoal	A shoal of fish
shoal	A shoal of herring
shower	A shower of bastards
shower	A shower of meteorologists
shrewdness	A shrewdness of apes^[3]
shuffle	A shuffle of bureaucrats
siege	A siege of bitterns
siege	A siege of herons^[3]
singular	A singular of boars^[3]
sitting	A sitting of eggs
skein	A skein of geese^[3]
skulk	A skulk of foxes^[3]
slither	A slither of snakes
sloth	A sloth of bears^[3]
smack	A smack of jellyfish
sneak	A sneak of weasels
sord	A sord of mallards
sounder	A sounder of pigs^[3]
	A sounder of swine^[3]
	A sounder of boars^[3]^[4]
sowse	A sowse of lions
span	A span of oxen
spring	A spring of seals
spring	A spring of teal^[4]
stable	A stable of horses^[3]
stand	A stand of flamingoes^[3]
stand	A stand of trees
stare	A stare of owls
state	A state of princes
storytelling	A storytelling of crows
streak	A streak of tigers^[3]
string	A string of ponies
stud	A stud of mares
superfluity	A superfluity of nuns
swarm	A swarm of ants^[3]
	A swarm of bees^[3]
	A swarm of earthquakes
	A swarm of eels^[3]
	A swarm of flies^[3]
	A swarm of rats
taboon	A taboon of horses
team	A team of horses^[3]
	A team of oxen^[3]
	A team of ducks
thicket	A thicket of trees
thought	A thought of barons
threatening	A threatening of courtiers
tiding(s)	A tiding(s) of magpies
trace	A trace of hares
trembling	A trembling of finches
tribe	A tribe of monkeys
tribe	A tribe of goats^[3]
trimming	A trimming of finches
trip	A trip of sheep
	A trip of dotterel
	A trip of hares
	A trip of goats^[3]
troop	A troop of kangaroos^[3]
troubling	A troubling of goldfishes
tumult	A tumult of tubas (players)
turmoil	A turmoil of porpoises
turn	A turn of turtles
ubiquity	A ubiquity of sparrows
ugly	An ugly of walruses
unkindness	An unkindness of ravens^[3]^[22]
unbrewing	An unbrewing of carvers^[1]
vagary	A vagary of impediments
volery	A volery of birds
waddle	A waddle of penguins
wake	A wake of buzzards
walk	A walk of snipe
watch	A watch of nightingales
wedge	A wedge of geese (flying)
wedge	A wedge of swans (flying)^[3]
whiteness	A whiteness of swans
wing	A wing of aircraft
wisdom	A wisdom of grandparents
wisp	A wisp of snipe
wrack	A wrack of kittens (rabbits)
yoke	A yoke of oxen^[3]

Happy 4th!

2011-07-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

For all of my American readers: Happy 4th of July!

Tomorrow there will be another collective noun posting. There's just something so odd about collective noun phrases. I mean, who decides what's an army or a ghosting or whatever the term may be? How did things gather the particular descriptives that are used for them? Thoughts?

Collective Nouns

2011-07-03T15:34:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia...

Collective term	Collective phrase
army	An army of frogs^[1]
bale	A bale of turtles^[1]
band	A band of gorillas^[1]
bank	A bank of swans^[1]
banner	A banner of knights^[2]
barren	A barren of mules^[1]^[2]
bask	A bask of crocodiles^[1]
bed	A bed of snakes^[1]
bench	A bench of Bishops^[3]
bevy	A bevy of quail^[1]
bevy	A bevy of swans^[1]
bind	A bind of salmon^[2]
bloat	A bloat of hippopotamuses^[1]
bouquet	A bouquet of pheasants^[1]^[2]
building	A building of rooks^[2]
business	A business of flies^[1]^[2]
business	A business of ferrets^[1]^[2]
cast	A cast of eagles^[2]
	A cast of falcons^[2]
	A cast of hawks^[1]^[2]
	A cast of merlins^[2]
	A cast of vultures^[2]
charm	A charm of bees^[2]
charm	A charm of finches^[2]
clattering	A clattering of choughs^[2]
cloud	A cloud of grasshoppers^[1]
cloud	A cloud of gnats^[1]
clowder	A clowder of cats^[1]
cluster	A cluster of cats^[1]
clutch	A clutch of eggs^[2]
clutch	A clutch of chicks^[2]
clutter	A clutter of spiders^[1]
convocation	A convocation of eagles^[1]
corps	A corps of giraffes^[1]
covey	A covey of quail^[1]
crash	A crash of rhinoceroses^[1]
den	A den of snakes^[1]
descension	A descension of woodpeckers^[1]^[2]
desert	A desert of lapwings^[2]
dissimulation	A dissimulation of birds^[2]
disworship	A disworship of Scots^[2]
dole	A dole (or dule) of doves^[1]^[2]
down	A down of hares^[1]
draught	A draught of butlers^[2]
draught	A draught of fish^[2]
dray	A dray of squirrels^[1]
drift	A drift of swine^[1]^[3]
	A drift of hogs^[1]
	A drift of fishers^[2]
drove	A drove of pigs^[1]
drove	A drove of cattle^[1]
drunkenship	A drunkenship of cobblers^[3]
exaltation	An exaltation of larks^[1]^[2]
field	A field of runners^[3]
flight	A flight of doves^[1]
fling	A fling of oxbirds^[2]
flock	A flock of sheep^[1]
flock	A flock of camels^[1]
flush	A flush of ducks^[2]
gaggle	A gaggle of geese^[1]
gam	A gam of whales^[1]^[2]
gam	A gam of whaling ships^[2]
gang	A gang of elk^[3]
gaze	A gaze of raccoons^[1]
glaring	A glaring of cats^[1]
grind	A grind of blackfish^[2]
grist	A grist of bees^[1]
hastiness	A hastiness of cooks^[2]
herd	A herd of elephants^[1]
	A herd of zebra^[1]
	A herd of walruses^[1]
	A herd of deer^[1]
	A herd of antelope^[1]
	A herd of buffalo^[1]
hive	A hive of bees^[1]
horde	A horde of gnats^[1]
host	A host of sparrows^[1]
hover	A hover of trout^[1]
hover	A hover of crows^[2]
husk	A husk of hares^[1]
kettle	A kettle of hawks^[1]
kit	A kit of pigeons^[2]
knob	A knob of waterfowl^[2]
knot	A knot of toads^[1]

A reunion, kids, a job, birthdays, and a wedding = crazy fun

2011-06-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

So, a couple of updates for folks.

This has been a month of things changing for me. My old college friends have changed in many ways and in other ways, are just the same. My kids are growing up on me while I'm far away from them. Some are making money as they follow their dreams of becoming musicians. Others are pursuing math, theatre, dance, psychology, cosmotology school, motherhood, fatherhood...the list goes on and on. I got my first sunburn in fourteen years (man are they itchy...how do people put up with these things on a regular basis?) One of my closest friends has gotten married to his girlfriend of five years, another has chosen her wedding date, and yet another has told me that she thinks she truly in love. I've gotten information on my new job, new emails and accounts that go with it, and am waiting on the contract that will ensure I get paid.

BC girls.

My college reunion was awesome. It was all four years of college minus the classes squashed into sixty hours. I saw friends and professors I haven't seen for years. The best thing about it was that all barriers were gone. In college, I don't think that there was ever anyone that I absolutely hated or was angry enough at to avoid them except for my freshman boyfriend (who had mental health issues). However, I can't say that people always got along with me. I am, if nothing else, a unique individual (as my parents' birthday card to me stated) and sometimes I'm hard for people to understand. This being said, people who were angry at me for choosing to hang out with one friend or another, people who had ditched me because I stood up for someone they didn't like, or people who simply didn't understand what went on with me in college all forgot about the old issues and were just happy. It was brilliant!

Me and my mentor

They put us in the dorm they want to knock down and had our class party in the not-so-temporary "temporary housing" from the '70s called "The Mods". It was probably wise. Around campus you saw people from other reunions had their kids with them or were dressed to the nines for dinner. At Edmonds, it was straight up chaos and revelry at all hours. Together, we compared college pizza shops, ate Mike's Pastries cannolis, played flipcup, had parties that covered entire floors but somehow did not qualify as a "large party" according to BCPD, and ate pancakes made for us by res life and delivered by the campus police. You haven't lived until a cop is personally delivering chocolate chip pancakes to you at 2am. We went to BBQs, ate sandwiches from Flatbreads, and walked around a campus that is changing rapidly.

More BC girls

A place that I once considered home, is no longer the same as when I left it. The people I left when I graduated from undergrad, then graduate school, then moved to Fall River, and finally when I moved to California are no longer the same people as they were last I saw them. I am no longer the same person that they remember. And yet, there's a familiarity between us that means that the love we have for each other has simply grown and changed, not disappeared. It made some people re-evaluate their lives, made me realize how quickly change happens, and made us all feel just a bit older.

Karaoke at Applebee's after we sang "We are Family"

After the reunion, I went down to Fall River. I saw a bunch of my kids, karaoked, and stayed with one of my dear friends. Lidina and her family were gracious enough to let me stay with them during my time in Fall River. They made me feel completely included in their family. I met the little ones. I hung out with Lidina's mother, talked with her little brother (who graduated this year from high school), and spent time getting to know her brother and sister-in-law. Lidina and I went out with her friends, stayed up late talking, and squeezed in every possible moment of hang out time. She's a doll and really lights a room up with her big heart and her big smile. Poor thing even drove me and my kids around at all hours when she worked in the morning, insisting that I need to see my kids more than she needed sleep. We went to Applebee's two nights in a row. We sang, I met some of one of my son's (not by blood, but he--and many others--are a part of my family of choice) professors/advisors. I was so very proud of all the work that my kids are putting in and all they are accomplishing in their lives. I've missed them every single day since I left Fall River and they know that. They made a point to spend time with me if they possibly could find a way and talked/texted me if they couldn't see me in person. I adore them for that and many other things. Honestly, I can't wait until I have enough money saved up to see them again. My heart belongs to my kids in all honesty and I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried a bit when we dropped them off the last night.

After Fall River and Boston I came back to California for five days. My brother turned 29 and I turned 28. My mother claims that this makes her feel old and that in a year (when Chris turns 30) she'll have to re-evaluate her life. I jammed in as much time with my family as I could at that point. My youngest sister is home from college and learning how to drive. (In our family house rules say it's not possible to get your permit until you're at least 18 years old). She's doing a good job with it and she'll be taking her test next month.

The BC people wedding photo

The day after my birthday I went to Vegas for Jon and Steph's wedding. I met Jon freshman year of college and he's my brother (family of choice again). We've been through so much together it's really amazing that it's only been nine years since we first became friends. I met Steph junior year super briefly and she roomed with my college roomie/graduate school roomie our senior year. Some of the people at the wedding I've known for years and others became people I feel like I should have known for years. Somehow, in the 5 days we were there from bachelor/bachelorette party to a couple of days after the wedding we all came together. The only thing that marred the trip at all was an incident with a skeevie taxi driver. The rest of the time was just sheer joy and fun. The girls mostly stayed in the 4 Seasons and the guys stayed mostly at Mandalay Bay. The place was amazing, the ceremony was beautiful, and the reception/after party were a blast. I was sad to leave on Monday (and not just because a falcon died investigating the plane engine). In my short time there, I managed to be part of a bachelorette party, go clubbing, see the Celine Dion concert, see amazing animals like komodo dragons, play $100 worth of slots for $20, attend a wedding, attend a reception, attend an after party, see my friends off to their honeymoon, and make a bunch of new friends from all over. Granted, I was so exhausted when I got home that I slept straight through to the next day and I still think I'm in recovery mode but it was a great time all around.

This weekend, I've got the Greek Festival. I'm running the Baklava Sundae booth. June is a CRAZY month. I'll let you know how that goes soon.

Quote Query

2011-06-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

These quotes are a little different than the other quotes. I'm thinking about picking one and putting them up on my wall in the room I'm redoing. If you have thoughts, please share in the comments.

So, here's the question: Which quote belongs in a bedroom over a writing nook and between a set of bookshelves?

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Chinese Proverb
Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea oftime. ~E.P. Whipple
Medicine for the soul. ~Inscription over the door ofthe Library at Thebes
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A house without books is like a room without windows. ~Heinrich Mann
There’s no such thing as too many books…
“Write to beunderstood, speak to be heard, read to grow...” ~Lawrence ClarkPowell
“Writing onlyleads to more writing.” ~Sidonie Gabrielle
There is no friend as loyal as a book. ~ErnestHemingway
I left my heart in the library (No idea who said this. If you know, please share).
When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left,I buy food and clothes.~Desiderius Erasmus
The pen is the tongue of the mind. ~Miguel de Cervantes
In good writing, words become one with things. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writers aren't exactly people.... they're a whole bunch ofpeople trying to be one person. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
All good writing is swimming under water and holding yourbreath. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. ~Franz Kafka
Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside thelie. ~Stephen King
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and inretrospection. ~Anais Nin
To hold a pen is to be at war. ~Voltaire
“The only cure for writer’s block is insomnia.” ~Merit Antares
“You neverhave to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” ~ Saul Bellow

See, look at that! When I design things you get more than twice the quotage! I should design rooms with quotes more often.

MIA

2011-06-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I'm going to Boston (college reunion and awesome people) and Fall River (awesome people and my kids) for the next 10 days. Then I come home for 6 days and go to Vegas (friends' wedding) for 4 days. Consequently, I'll be MIA for a while most likely.

Be spiffy!

2011-05-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

To share the fabulousness that my friend EJ sent me, check out this collective noun sheet from wondermark.com

Maps

2011-05-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

I love maps. I always have. They can be truly beautiful. One thing I adore about fantasy and sci fi books is that they often have maps. As a result of my great love of mapping, I have gone around and collected some fun sites about maps (fictional and real) and thought I'd post them up.

http://briansibleysblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/mapping-imagination.html

http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps

http://fuckyeahfictionalmaps.tumblr.com/

http://www.tor.com/component/content/blog/38123

http://www.nicholastam.ca/2011/04/18/here-be-cartographers-reading-the-fantasy-map/

http://www.google.com/search?q=fantasy+maps&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=ZuZ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=L8HVTbj3CI_BtgfO3P2qBw&ved=0CDEQsAQ&biw=1103&bih=651

http://www.fantasymapmaker.com/

http://www.fantasy-atlas.org/

http://www.ehow.com/how_2101149_draw-original-fantasy-maps-fiction.html (didn't know you needed instructions on this...but, hey, whatever works :-P )

What do you call a group of...Part 2

2011-05-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

According to the Oxford English Dictionaries:

Boys: a blush of boys
Cobblers: a drunkship of cobblers
Cooks: a hastiness of cooks
Foresters: a stalk of foresters
Hermits: an observance of hermits
Ladies: a bevy of ladies
Merchants: a faith of merchants
Nuns: a superfluity of nuns
Pedlars: a malapertness (= impertinence) of pedlars
Prisoners: a pity of prisoners
Taverners: a glozing (= fawning) of taverners

Quotes Part 24

2011-05-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

"The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time.” - Frank Miller

"It doesn't matter who my father was, it matters who I remember he was." - Anne Sexton

"A simple child that lightly draws it's breath and feels its life in every limb. What should it know of death?" - Wordsworth

“You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.” - Merce Cunningham

"No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies." - Daisy Bates

"It is a wise father that knows his own child." - William Shakespeare

"I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury...fury that brings upon

mortals the greatest evils." - Euripides

"For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won." - Lucy Maud Montgomery

"...within the core of each of us is the child we once were. This child constitutes the foundation of what we have become, who we are, and what we will be." - Neuroscientist, Dr. R. Joseph

All men are in some degree impressed by the face of the world; some men even to delight. This love of beauty is taste. Others have the same love in such excess that, not content with admiring, they seek to embody it in new forms. The creation of beauty is art. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy Birthday Eeyore!

2011-05-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

Eeyore is my favorite character of the Winnie the Pooh books/movies/tv shows/media empire. Go here to read about his awesomeness: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/may/09/eeyore-literature-archetypal-outsider

Some people say that his birthday is in April. Some seem to think it's Christmas. Some say he's 140 years old. Some say he's 90. I'm curious, are there actual Winnie the Pooh historian types? And if they do exist (which I'm sure they must) then how old is my favorite sarcastic, slightly depressive, tail-losing donkey of delightfulness?

What do you call a group of...Part 1

2011-05-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

So, I've started collecting something other than quotes. This is going to a nice little mini series I think. I'll give you 15 names of things in groups. These are proper names garnered from dictionaries and encyclopedias. Some ridiculous. Some sublime. Welcome to "What do you call a group of..."

Antelope: A herd of antelope

Ant: A colony or an army of ants (How very military)

Ape: A shrewdness of apes (Why are apes particularly shrewd?)

Baboons: A troop of baboons (And back to the military)

Bacteria: A culture of bacteria (Because all bacteria like the arts, dressing in particular fashions, and eating particular foods.)

Badger: A cete, a brock, a company, or a clan of badgers (What is a “cete” or a “brock” you may ask…apparently, they’re groups of badgers. I can find no other feasible definitions.)

Bass: A shoal of bass

Bear: A sleuth or sloth of bears (So, bears are either detectives or lazy…interesting…)

Beaver: A colony of beavers

Bee: A swarm, grist or hive of bees (I get the other ones…but, a “grist”? Really?)

Bird: A flock, flight, congregation or volery of birds

Bittern: A sedge or siege of bitterns (I’ve no idea what a “sedge” is but one has to wonder if bitterns ever actually laid “siege” to a city somewhere.)

Boar: A sounder of boars (Why? What exactly is a sounder anyways besides a member of the Seattle Sounders Football Club?)

Bobolink: A chain of bobolinks (This one had me cracking up. Why a chain and who named that poor bird in the first place?)

Buffalo: A herd, an obstinacy, or a gang of buffalo (What do you think their gangs are called? The Hairy and The Shaggy?)

Quotes Part 23

2011-05-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

'Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.' - William Wordsworth

‘Writing is a deeply immersive experience. When the words are flying, the house could be burgled and I wouldn’t notice. I have a low boredom threshold and I like intensity – writing is a way of escaping the quotidian.’ -Monica Ali

'Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.' - William Saroyan

'Anyone could write a novel, given six weeks, pen, paper, and no telephone or wife.' - Evelyn Waugh

'The art of writing, like the art of love, runs all the way from a kind of routine hard to distinguish from piling bricks to a kind of frenzy closely related to delirium tremens.' - H L Mencken

'You just have to work with what God sends, and if God doesn't seem to understand the concept of commercial success, then that's your bad luck.' - Michael Frayn

'What creates a writer is huge, psychological dysfunction.' - Kathy Lette

'Those of us who had a perfectly happy childhood should be able to sue for deprivation of literary royalties.' - Chris Patten

'There is no need for the writer to eat a whole sheep to be able to tell you what mutton tastes like. It is enough if he eats a cutlet. But he should do that.' - W Somerset Maugham

"Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean." — Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book)

"Dreamland" by Lewis Carroll

2011-05-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

When midnight mists are creeping,
And all the land is sleeping,
Around me tread the mighty dead,
And slowly pass away.
Lo, warriors, saints, and sages,
From out the vanished ages,
With solemn pace and reverend face
Appear and pass away.
The blaze of noonday splendour,
The twilight soft and tender,
May charm the eye: yet they shall die,
Shall die and pass away.
But here, in Dreamland's centre,
No spoiler's hand may enter,
These visions fair, this radiance rare,
Shall never pass away.
I see the shadows falling,
The forms of old recalling;
Around me tread the mighty dead,
And slowly pass away.

People who know me, know that I love Lewis Carroll. The man was brilliant, even if I think his pictures of children are a little on the creepy side.

Emotions

2011-05-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

Some people have a hard time phrasing emotions differently in your writing. If that person is you, this sheet may help:

http://blogsold.psychcentral.com/adhd/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Sheet-for-Emotions.jpg

On adding MacGuffins...

2011-05-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing about adding a MacGuffin when you've got the whole series written already: It's really hard to add one in that will work for a seven book series and still give the reader satisfaction at the end of each book.

I've come up with belts, bracelets, swords, necklaces, potion ingredients, and just about every other possible way to work it in. I think I've settled on a necklace...maybe...

Creating another plot line this far in is kind of like banging your head against the wall and hoping it doesn't crack. (The "it" actually being two things: the wall or your skull). If you add in something too complicated it takes the story away from where it should be. If you do something too simple, why bother putting it in.

Now, those of you who know me, know that I am a stubborn perfectionist with my writing. This means that now that I know it's missing, I will work at it until it's fixed and I figure out how to layer one in without disrupting things too much.

Wish me luck!

Under the SPELL of English

2011-05-06T23:08:00.000-07:00

Under the SPELL of English, by Arthur Bennett

Would you like to be Carnegie's heir,
With never a worry or ceir?
That most of us would is well understould.
One who would not would surely be reir.

When one makes a hole in eight
It's a very sad story to releight
Bad work with the putter and he will mutter
"I'll correct that at some leighter deight."

Once there was an infantry colonel
Who fought where the blitz was infolonel
Want to know the result? You'd better consult
The obituary writ in the Jolonel.

The groom advanced down the aisle
With a smaisle he thought to begaisle
The crowd into thinking he wasn't shrinking
But was scared to death all the whaisle.

A poem is writ word by word;
May be lofty, or may be absord,
May picture the sea, or a bord wild and frea,
Or tell of hope long deford.

If a fellow is a regular guy
He'll aim for marks way up huy
He'll push to the top of the hill, witha will
Never pausing to loiter or suy.

Kayak and Seabiscuit raced
They were urged to move and make haced
But for humans to hurry, speed up or, worry
Would be breaking the rules of good taced,

What causes a horsie to neigh,
And what causes a donkey to breigh?
Is it because of their diet they shatter our quiet
Or for pride in their vocal displeigh?

To fly a plane over the ocean
Is possibly not a bad nocean.
Such a perilous flight will turn out all right
If you are able to keep up the mocean.

Look back at the deeds you have done,
Tale stock of your griefs and your fone.
Can you really feel pride and frankly decide
You approve of the race you have rone?

Who gets to play with my words...

2011-05-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

Over at Clarion they asked about who edits your work yesterday. I thought I would answer it here as well as there.

I have a few different sets of people that get to play with my words. All of them are free and willing to help for various reasons. Once all of these rounds are done, I’ll hire a substantive and line-by-line editor and a separate proofreader before sending it off to agents.

Large Writer’s Group:

· Pros: The larger group lets me know where they are confused or where I did well in general (i.e. choreography, images, dialogue, impressions of characters). I know I'm doing really well when they consistently tell me that they forgot to write down their comments because "even though it's science fiction" they got so engrossed in it. There are a lot of soldiers in it and a guy who is a former CIA operative so my battle scenes and spy stuff work better than they used to.

· Cons: They don't know the difference between science fiction and fantasy because there is not a single spec fic author among them. They don't know the standard jargon of either genre.

Small Writer’s Group

· Pros: They get into more detail. They know more of the story because I can read them larger chunks of it. They can nail me on little things and look at it through a different lens because they know the characters better. Most of them are mystery writers so they like the puzzles of science fiction and fantasy novels and can tell me where those puzzles are working, even though they don't read anything in my genres other than me. Because they know that there are certain things they cannot help me on, they actively hunt down science fiction and fantasy resources/conferences for me.

· Cons: They are essentially the same as the large group since there’s not a single author who writes or reads in my genre among them.

Alpha Readers (good friends who know a bit about what I’m writing)

· Pros: They know how my mind works so if something doesn’t feel right they can explain why in a way that makes sense. Each one of them focuses on different things. One nails me on grammar. Another looks at how the romance works. Another looks at overall structure. And so forth and so on. I can send them the whole book or just pieces and they’ll look at it as I need it. There is no real schedule and email is fabulous.

· Cons: Only one of them lives near where I currently live so sometimes things take a while. The next closest person is an hour and a half away. After that, it takes a plane or several days to drive and see them. It can be expensive if I need to print out and mail a copy to someone.

Cold Readers (2 people who know nothing about my writing who are willing to read for me):

· Pros: I am not with them to explain so it’s down totally to their impressions. They are science fiction and fantasy readers. They know me well enough to know how I work as a person but not well enough to get inside my head. They want the whole manuscript as one piece.

· Cons: It is way expensive to print out that many pages and bind them together.

Quotes Part 22

2011-05-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

"There was a girl, and her uncle sold her. Put like that it seems so simple.

No man, proclaimed Donne, is an island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived and then by some means or other, died. there. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes- forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'll mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection) but still unique.

Without individuals we see only numbers, a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, "casualties may rise to a million." With inidividual stories, the statistics become people- but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themsleves are numbing and meaningless. Look, see the child's swollen, swollen belly and the flies that crawl at the corners of his eyes, this skeletal limbs: will it make it easier for you to know his name, his age, his dreams, his fears? To see him from the inside? And if it does, are we not doing a disservice to his sister, who lies in the searing dust beside him, a distorted distended cariacture of a human child?...

We draw our lines around these moments of pain, remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearllike, from our souls without real pain.

Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book and resume our lives.

A life that is, like any other, unlike any other.

And the simple truth is this: There was a girl, and her uncle sold her." — Neil Gaiman (American Gods)

The English Joke Read Around the World...

2011-05-02T23:12:00.000-07:00

Twenty-one Reasons Why English Is Hard to Learn

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there was no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen on how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

The Guardian and Writer's Rules

2011-04-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

Gee, this sounds like some of my students...

2011-04-27T12:59:00.000-07:00

Quotes Part 21

2011-04-26T12:44:00.000-07:00

"...So what I want to know is why it is that I can no longer find you, in my mind. You are still there, just, but you are there like a ghost, a will o' the wisp. Not long ago you burned--your heart burned--in my mind like silver fire. But after that night in the inn it became patchy and dim, and now it is not there at all."

"Could it be that the heart that you seek is no longer my own? ...I have given my heart to another."

"The boy? The one in the inn? With the unicorn?"

"Yes."

"You should have let me take it back then, for my sisters and me. We could have been young again, well into the next age of the world. Your boy will break it, or waste it, or lose it. They all do."

"Nonetheless, he has my heart. I hope your sisters will not be too hard on you, when you return to them without it." — Neil Gaiman (Stardust)

The King's English

2011-04-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

The King’s English

AnonymousI take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: It’s said like bed, not bead --
For goodness’ sake, don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat…
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
A moth is not the moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, nor broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose --
Just look them up -- and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart,
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Why, sakes alive!
I’d learned to speak it when I was five.
And yet, to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn’t learned it at fifty-five.

A New Term & Interesting Blogs

2011-04-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

There's this term that I find fascinating. It took 15 years for someone to point out that I didn't have a clear one. And I'd never known the term for what it is. Gain knowledge of MacGuffins people. Once you do, it'll be endless. The One Ring, bomb plans, a watch, a person, a piece of artwork, casino money, etc.

So, I've found a whole slew of interesting blogs on writing this week and thought I'd share some links.

Check out the Pet Peeves on Parade series going on over at Author! Author!

For a lesson on The Yin and Yang of Adverbs go to Flogging the Quill.

Find out what agents don't like over at Writer Unboxed.

Look at How to Amp Up Sexual Tension over at Fiction Groupie.

For help on a ton of stuff hie thee to Kay Kenyon's website called Writing the World. (Not only is she a brilliant author, but she's a nice lady--which I can say since I met her a couple of weeks ago at Literary Orange--who gives good advice.)

If you need a laugh...

2011-04-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

Go here to see funny cartoons created by readers of the site:
http://www.funnytimes.com/playground/gallery.php?tag=writer

Why you shouldn't rely on spell check (round 2)

2011-04-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques for my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it to say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
It's rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
Eye am shore your pleased two no
It's letter perfect awl the weigh
My checker tolled me sew.

Margo Roark, I salute you too.

Apparently I set this for the wrong date

2011-04-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

So, I wanted this blog to be published on April 1st. I set the timer to publish is May 1st. I am officially a dunce. When I read Neil Gaiman's blog today I was a like, "Oh yeah, I should double check to make sure my entry got published on that. Don't remember seeing it even though I wrote it months ago so that I could make sure it was published on time." Sure enough, it wasn't. This one is purely informational and has nothing to do with writing, but everything to do with being someone who cares about this topic.

March is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month in the U.S. Colleges have programs like Take Back the Night in March typically. It's an important program. Check it out and donate/buy gear if you can.

RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network - http://www.rainn.org, is another program that helps deal with the aftermath of Sexual Assault. They have a great helpline, the National Sexual Assault Helpline, 1.800.656.HOPE. They have a list of the all of the Rape Crisis/Trauma centers if you need help: http://centers.rainn.org/ It's a great resource for men and women to find something nearby. You can donate directly at donate.rainn.org

The proceeds from Neil Gaiman's Blueberry Girl go to RAINN so go and buy it. Direct from Neil himself: "Your purchase of Blueberry Girl still supports RAINN too. And if you donate over $250, RAINN will send you a get a free signed poster from Neverwear.net, while stocks last." Here is a beautiful video of the book that always makes me smile:

Here are some infographic statistics for you:

Quotes Part 20

2011-04-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

There are a few Gaiman quotes that I think are worth their own entry due to length and awesomeness.

"CHORONZON: I am a dire world, prey-stalking, lethal prowler.

MORPHEUS: I am a hunter, horse-mounted, wolf-stabbing.

CHORONZON: I am a horsefly, horse-stinging, hunter-throwing.

MORPHEUS: I am a spider, fly-consuming, eight legged.

CHORONZON: I am a snake, spider-devouring, poison-toothed.

MORPHEUS: I am an ox, snake-crushing, heavy footed.

CHORONZON: I am an anthrax, butcher, bacterium, warm-life destroying.

MORPHEUS: I am a world, space-floating, life nurturing.

CHORONZON: I am a nova, all-exploding... planet-cremating.

MORPHEUS: I am the Universe -- all things encompassing, all life embracing.

CHORONZON: I am Anti-Life, the Beast of Judgement. I am the dark at the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds... of everything. Sss. And what will you be then, Dreamlord?

MORPHEUS: I am hope. " — Neil Gaiman (Preludes and Nocturnes)

Why English is Hard to Learn

2011-04-17T22:48:00.000-07:00

I found this on a number of websites and thought I'd share. If anyone knows who it's originally by, please let me know. I'd love to give them credit.

Why English is Hard to Learn

We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
This was a good time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I read it once and will read it agen
I learned much from this learned treatise.
I was content to note the content of the message.
The Blessed Virgin blessed her. Blessed her richly.
It's a bit wicked to over-trim a short wicked candle.
If he will absent himself we mark him absent.
I incline toward bypassing the incline.

Why you shouldn't rely on spell check

2011-04-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

CANDIDATE FOR
A PULLET SURPRISE

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

Jerrold H. Zar, I salute you.

Why I love Stumble Upon...

2011-04-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

September 24th 1945 by Nâzım Hikmet Ran

The most beautiful sea:

                   hasn't been crossed yet.
The most beautiful child:
                   hasn't grown up yet.
Our most beautiful days:
                   we haven't seen yet.
And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you
                   I haven't said yet...

Here is an index of his poetry.

Quotes Part 19

2011-04-12T12:36:00.000-07:00

"He couldn’t see why people made such a fuss about people eating their silly old fruit anyway, but life would be a lot less fun if they didn’t. And there was never an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it." — Neil Gaiman (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)

'All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?

Philip Pullman

'Writing is not a job description. A great deal of it is luck. Don't do it if you are not a gambler because a lot of people devote many years of their life to it. I think people become writers because they are compulsive wordsmiths.' - Margaret Atwood

‘If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?' - Emily Dickinson

'I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all, they are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.' - Somerset Maugham

'The art of writing is to explain the complications of the human soul with the simplicity that can be universally understood.' - Allan Sillitoe

'Once a book has been declared a bestseller, its sales accelerate - like the freshwater polyp the best seller breeds from itself - and the book-buyer can happily accept the judgement of the great majority.' - Frank Muir

‘If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.’ - Isaac Asimov

'I think readers who aren’t used to reading contemporary poetry are surprised to find it’s about our world now, our experience; it talks about movies and pop music and stuff. It’s not some fuddy-duddy thing, and most of it contains a good deal of imaginative brilliance. My experience is that when people read contemporary poetry they are engaged and interested in a way they did not expect to be.' - John Stammers

'The "greatness" of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.' - T S Eliot

Go here

2011-04-09T23:15:00.000-07:00

Really. Go here. It's hysterical.

The Moth and Neil Gaiman

2011-04-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

So, I love The Moth because I get to hear all these really fun stories from authors about their lives. I think I'm going to do kind of a series of recorded author talks to post up. This seems like a good one to start with because everyone can relate:

Purple Prose

2011-04-07T00:02:00.000-07:00

In my writing group on Wednesday we talked a little bit about "purple prose" and wondered where the phrase actually came from. I decided to look it up and shared it with the group. I thought I'd share the origins of the phrase with you.

The term "purple prose" is derived from a reference by the Roman poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65–8 BCE) who wrote in his Ars Poetica (lines 14-21):^[2]

Inceptis grauibus plerumque et magna professis
purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter
adsuitur pannus, cum lucus et ara Dianae
et properantis aquae per amoenos ambitus agros
aut flumen Rhenum aut pluuius describitur arcus;
sed nunc non erat his locus. Et fortasse cupressum
scis simulare; quid hoc, si fractis enatat exspes
nauibus, aere dato qui pingitur?

"Your opening shows great promise, and yet flashy
purple patches; as when describing
a sacred grove, or the altar of Diana,
or a stream meandering through fields,
or the river Rhine, or a rainbow;
but this was not the place for them. If you can realistically render
a cypress tree, would you include one when commissioned to paint
a sailor in the midst of a shipwreck?"

(Purpureus meant lustrous or dazzling in Horace's Latin.)

The phrase is basically used to mean that your writing is so stylized and flowery that it undermines itself. Here are some great examples:

Grand prize: ``Ace, watch your head!'' hissed Wanda urgently, yet somehow provocatively, through red, full, sensuous lips, but he couldn't, you know, since nobody can actually watch more than part of his nose or a little cheek or lips if he really tries, but he appreciated her warning.'' From Janice Estey, Aspen, Colorado.

Historical: Ulysses Simpson Grant, having just finished a meal of Virginia ham, stretched out in his underwear of Mississippi-grown cotton, puffed heavily on a Georgia cigar, swilled straight bourbon whiskey, and thought how good it was to be in the Union Army.'' From Albert Klar Ogden, Stansbury Park, Utah.

Urban realism: ``The city at night has a million stories, like the woman who, even now, was weeping over the bloody corpse of her lover lying where she had slashed him from neck to kneecap, or the 12-year-old kid prostrate on the sidewalk after a drug deal gone wrong, or the babe, desperate to find the stuff that stopped your dress from sticking to your legs after you ironed it and couldn't find a convenience store at this black hour in a city without a name.'' From Michael Davies, Mississauga, Ontario

Purple Prose: ``Nigel lifted his Mont Blanc pen and held it in brief repose as he gazed past the conflagrative crackling of the fire in the hearth, through the triple-plate bay window, watching the incandescence of the twinkling stars like the detonation of a million flashbulbs, and the preponderance of frothy snowflakes blanketing the earth as creamily as marshmallow fluff, then, refreshed and inspired, he began to compose his annual Christmas form letter.'' From Linda Gauer, Norton, Ohio.

Western: Following the unfortunate bucking of his horse when it was startled by the posse's shots, Tex who now lay in a disheveled heap in the sagebrush pushed back his sweat-stained Stetson from one deep-set eye, spat a stream of tobacco juice at the nearest cactus, and reflected momentarily that the men approaching him with ropes probably weren't just out for a skip, and if they were his freshly broken ankle would have to cause him to decline any entreaties to join them.'' From Becky Mushko, Roanoke, Virginia.

Dishonorable Mention, Pun: ``Baron Frankenstein looked up from his sewing, smiled benignly across the laboratory at his similarly engaged creation and protege and called, `Yes, yes! Put on a happy face; tonight will be your first date with the rest of your wife!'' From Anthony Buckland, of North Vancouver, Canada.
These are all examples from The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which is held annually and has the wonderful mottoe of "Where 'WWW' means 'Wretched Writers Welcome'." The contest is based on the opening line of Paul Clifford (1830) by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. You'll recognize the first phrase, though you probably have never read the rest of the sentence. It cracks me up every time I do.

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

Seriously, that is how this guy decided to open his book. No joke.

If you want to read the winners from this contest for the part 28 years, go here. It always brightens my day.

On being a pastry...

2011-04-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

I heard something a couple of weeks ago that somewhat irks me. Apparently, if you're unmarried by the time you're 30 it's a problem. Specifically, men are untrustworthy at that point and women are no longer any good. The metaphor that's used for this is the Christmas Cake. This is a cake that is given on the 25th of December and is no longer edible by the 30th.

Apparently, I am this delicious looking confection and this is somehow a bad thing.

Being 27, almost 28, and unmarried is seen as a bad thing. It bothers me that I catch flack from people for not being in a serious relationship that will lead to marriage. It's done out of love by people who are engaged or newly married and want me to live in that happy glow that they're living in at the moment. It's done out of both love and fear by people who worry that I'll never be "fulfilled" if I'm not married with kids soon. This bugs me, but I'm used to it. For some reason though, being called a pastry makes me alternately laugh and grit my teeth in anger. Why are men no longer trustworthy after 30? Why are women no good after 30? What if they were late-bloomers or just concentrated on their work?

This is something I found online about women and their paths in Japan:


TIMEasia published this at http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501050829/manga.html

Interesting, no? Career women envy housewives. Little Princesses are the ultimate feminine housewife and can't understand people who aren't. Desperate Housewives lead a miserable existence because their man doesn't have it together and they have too many kids. Bad Girls are the key to things falling apart and upping the birthrate of Japan single-handedly Because, you know, they climbed up on themselves and got pregnant...there was no man involved in the act who should be taking responsibility for their children. <--(Sometimes, I wish there was a sarcasm font.) The point of this cartoon is that there is no good choice for women in Japan. I think that's an incredibly sad statement.

If a woman wants to be married. Great. If a woman wants to be single. Great. If a woman chooses to put off marriage for a while until they find the right one, regardless of age, I think that's better than jumping in young and not fully understanding who you are, who your partner is, or what you're really getting in to and then having kids, falling apart, and then getting a divorce.

So, my father asked me the other day, "Do you want to get married and have kids some day?" My response (and I stand by this) was, "Sure. If I find the right man, someone I can see myself with for the rest of my life. If not, there are other forms of happiness and fulfillment." I think that there is no age at which you no longer become valid and good person simply because you choose to be married or not. Anybody else wonder why people worry so much about being married by a specific age?

Quotes Part 18

2011-04-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

"It is a small world. You do not have to live in it particularly long to learn that for yourself. There is a theory that, in the whole world, there are only five hundred real people (the cast, as it were; all the rest of the people in the world, the theory suggests, are extras) and what is more, they all know each other. And it's true, or true as far as it goes. In reality the world is made of thousands upon thousands of groups of about five hundred people, all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other, trying to avoid each other, and discovering each other in the same unlikely teashop in Vancouver. There is an unavoidability to this process. It's not even coincidence. It's just the way the world works, with no regard for individuals or for propriety." — Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys)

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

"Half my life is an act of revision." John Irving

"Writing is rewriting. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with the first draft to the point where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the prospects of never publishing." Richard North Patterson

"I have rewritten- often several times- every word I have ever written. My pencils outlast their erasers." Vladimir Nabokov

"Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential." Jessamyn West

"I rewrote the ending of 'Farewell to Arms' 39 times before I was satisfied."- Ernest Hemingway

"When I was a young boy they called me a liar. Now that I'm all grown up, they call me a writer." Isaac Singer

"The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business." John Steinbeck

I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of the things they do well, of the things they need to look at again, of the wells of material they have not even begun to dip their buckets into. Tobias Wolff

Neil Gaiman and a Priceless Conversation

2011-04-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

Funny Conversation (I agree with him, if I read it in a book I'd be a bit worried.)

I thought this was beautiful...

2011-03-31T11:07:00.000-07:00

White Flowers for Japan Go check this out.