Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
I went to the county fair on Saturday. Cool and overcast, the day was perfect for strolling.
Anytime I think of a fair, Charlotte’s Web pops into my mind and I start singing ala Templeton the rat:
A fair is a veritable smorgasbord orgasbord orgasbord…
Melon rinds and bits of hotdogs
Cookie crumbs and rotton cotton candy
Melted ice cream, mustard dripplings
Moldy goodies everywhere
Lots of popcorn, apple cores
Bananna peels and soggy sadwiches
And gobs of gorgeous gook to gobble at the fair
There’s more, but you get the idea, right?
Like Templeton, I’m on a mission when those gates open: to sample whatever I can. Alas, this year, there were no deep-fried oreos or twinkies, so I had to settle for regular fare.
But who doesn’t like pit beef, chocolate-dipped soft ice cream, funnel cake and french fries…?
And yet: I was there for more than the food. I was looking for story ideas…
(What, do you think I can go anywhere and not think about writing?)
I chalk up all the story sleuthing to my journalism training wherein I learned: there could be a story in anything…
…even odors.
I walked by a vendor and remarked to my Husband of Awesome™, “Something smells lemony and sweet and… mmmm.” (Unintentionally, it sounded kinda sexy, but falls flat in the re-telling. Just pretend for a moment, ‘k?)
I’m still trying to find the words to describe that fragrance. They’ll come.
A few steps later, we walked by an obvious patch of vomit. Remember I mentioned it was cloudy? The odor was obnoxious, but not as bad as it could have been on a humid, sunny day.
What if it were lemony, sweet…vomit? There’s a story there, I know.
And take this chicken, for example:
In the fowl barn, lined with cages and cages of gorgeous, plump roosters and hens and ducks, this poor specimen was pulling his own feathers out. I snapped a few photos. The flash startled him up to face me, but he returned to his picking almost immediately. (Was it the two prize hens on either side causing him grief? Maybe he just didn’t like being caged…?)
The rabbit barn sported one empty cage with a sign on it, “Gone home to have babies! Have a happy fair!”
How about this sheep? It’s called a Jacob Sheep (I’d never seen one before. Aren’t all those horns cool?) Both the males and females sprout horns, and some of them will grow six at once.
I also fired my camera into the crowd to see what turns up. I’m not publishing those photos here, but looking at them reveals a host of ideas in a single image: the 4-H girls in their short-shorts and shi–stomping boots, the disheveled carny folk with their bright orange shirts and world-weary expressions, an amazing number of very young children wandering by themselves.
My favorite photo is of a group of teens, perhaps 20, sitting on benches watching the crowd stroll by. Each of them had a notebook and was writing furiously. School’s not in session until next week. What were they writing about?
Even if there’s no complete story in what I witnessed at the fair, there are scads of images I can pepper my stories with, and I’ve got the pictures to prove it.
What can you find at your local coffee shop? Or see on the bus? On campus? At the ballpark?
Friday, August 13th, 2010
 Last night I left the house to get some writing done.
That’s not my usual M.O.
I have a nice roomy office with a ceiling fan, a comfortable chair and wi-fi. Not only that, I’m only a trip down the staircase to the refrigerator, coffee pot or microwave. On really good days, the Husband of Awesome™ will skim silently up the steps into my room and deposit a martini by my right elbow.
What’s not to love?
I can think of three things right away:
- Physical Distractions – It doesn’t matter how often I straighten up the desk, there’s always a hundred things on it to take me away from the task at hand: my prized paper clip collection, photos, desk toys, a new pen, etc. I’ll take a moment to think about something in the manuscript and all of a sudden I’m carried away by something shiny in the vicinity. (Or by a new pen.)
- Baggage – I’m at home, right? It won’t take but a moment to put in a load of laundry, inventory the refrigerator for my next grocery trip, sew a button on a shirt, empty the dishwasher. Being at home means being bombarded with the message of a hundred things that “need doing right now.” It’s tough to produce against that kind of pressure. (And hard to ignore it.)
- People/Pets – This only counts if you have someone living with you, of course. Even if they’re not invading your space while you’re writing, it may be difficult to block them from your mind. If your house is small enough, you may not be able to dismiss their physical presence. For me, it’s usually the mental clutter that gets to me. I start that inner dialogue with myself: Have I ignored my spouse for too long? Have I fed the dog?
So yesterday’s trip out to do some writing was ideal.
I found a coffee shop I’d never patronized before and set to work. My space was limited, as were the desk toys, and after a few moments, the homogenous decor of the establishment proved easily ignorable. I got a lot of work done. So much so, that I think I’ll be getting out a couple times a month for writing.
Here’s your prompt: This week’s prompt is two-fold. Pick and choose, or do both. Either way, begin by visiting a place you’ve never been to. If you can, go somewhere you’ve heard very little (or nothing!) about. (The reason for this will become clear in a moment.) One more thing: although I chose a coffee shop, you could you choose any kind of location which offers an opportunity to write: a mountain vista, a park bench, a national monument, a graveyard.
- Now that you’re here, write. Write about whatever you want. See if you can be more productive here than in your usual haunt. If you are, examine what’s working for you. Can you take that home with you? If you’re not, find out what’s not working. Could that — or something related — be affecting you at home, too? Create a list of changes you can incorporate at home to make the atmosphere more conducive to writing.
- For those of you thinking, “that’s not a prompt,” this one’s for you: take in these new surroundings. You should have no preconceived notions of the area: after all, you’ve never been here before, and I hope you’ve not heard many specific details about it. Do you love it or hate it? What resonates with you? What rubs you wrong? Write a story using this location and incorporate the details of what you’ve examined.
*Today’s photo comes from the Kemistry Gallery Web site, the Anthony Burrill “In a New Place” exhibit.
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
On my way to work this morning I saw a leaf fall, and then several more.
Autumn already? I thought, accelerating around a curve only to find three deer in my path. I slowed, and they leaped into a nearby hayfield.
So…I’m seeing deer in the morning again, leaves are beginning to brown and drop from trees, and school is starting. It’s early yet, I know, but I’m thinking of new beginnings.
I usually feel this way in January, when like countless others, I try to get my act together.
Maybe it was prompted by a blogpost by fellow Broad, Hunter Liguore, of Sword and Saga Press. Her article, The Fear of Writing struck a chord within me. It begins as an essay discussing the various reasons people don’t allow themselves to write, but morphs into a strategic plan for getting writing done. For folks who are already writing, but (perhaps) lament their lack of time or discipline, the tail-end of Hunter’s post is where the real meat is.
I’ve always advocated using little bits of “found time” to get writing tasks done, but Hunter goes so far as to suggest stealing time from other activities in order to gain a large block of time you can devote to your writing. It’s a different way of looking at things, and makes a lot of sense.
And it all starts with a making a list. Hunter refers to it as a “writing actions” list, but in my mind, it’s a to-do list. When you wake in the morning, you should plot out all the writing items you want to accomplish during the day. For example, this might be a typical list for me:
- Write 500 words.
- Plot chapter 2.
- Research five possible agents.
- Draft a query letter.
- Find a market for a completed short story.
- Edit a previous chapter.
Once you know what you need to accomplish, start considering what you can do during the day (at work or between classes or kids’ naptimes) in order to leave you more time for the most important tasks. I call it using “found time,” Hunter calls it stealing. Call it what you want, it’s often all that’s needed for added productivity.
For instance, I have a clipboard filled with blank paper in the car. While I’m waiting at a stoplight, I usually plot out a scene, write 30 – 50 words or jot down some ideas for a story. You can do the same while standing in line at the bank or waiting in line at the local coffee shop.
Instead of using these “found bits,” Hunter suggests using time you may have devoted to another task. Say your morning routine takes an hour. Can you shave off 15 minutes by altering it? Use the time to plot a scene or return emails (so you won’t have to do it later and cut into your writing) or do your evening chores with that morning block of time, thus freeing it later for writing.
Hunter offers other good suggestions, and has written an oath you can take to commit more time to your writing. (Is taking an oath to silly? Perhaps you won’t feel obliged to honor it, even to yourself. But, you could print it out and leave it in strategic places around the house to remind others not to bother you while you’re writing.)
I keep a running to do list of writing items, but I like Hunter’s targeted approach. With this change of the season, I’m going to give it a try.
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
 I never run out of ideas to write…they’re all around me: that conversation I heard at the coffee shop yesterday sparked an idea, so did the newspaper story on pre-teen marriages. Then there was that flash of genius I had while reading last night… the list goes on an on.
But I’m smack in the middle of the final edit on my WIP and, well, I’m a litle dry.
I want to write. I prefer to write every day…but the editing and re-writing I’m doing doesn’t leave me much time. Not only that, I feel drained by the time I complete my editing quota. (And because editing is my priority right now, I do that before I get to the fun stuff; i.e., new words.)
In that situation, it’s hard to be creative. So where do I turn?
I don’t keep a journal or carry a notebook to jot down ideas. (I know, some of you are rolling over in your figurative graves right now. Get over it. And for the record, I don’t rely on free-writing either.)
I’m currently experimenting with an idea Marcia Golub describes in her book, I’d Rather Be Writing. Her son’s second grade class used “story envelopes” to keep ideas together. They jotted down ideas and put them into an envelope for safekeeping. When they had time, out came the envelope to pick through.
Marcia talks about idea-gathering in a way that isn’t how most people think when they’re scrambling for something to say: delving into the personal.
- that weird old woman who lived down the block when you were growing up
- that dream in which you were making love to a mountain
- Momma’s gefilte fish ordeal
- the time the cops came because they thought Mom was chopping someone up
- the smell of the basement when it rains
She also talks about paranoia, reminiscences, and old photographs and feelings to be good places to look for ideas.
She says, “I found it wonderful to learn I had this storehouse of story ideas inside me, that the misery of childhood had a purpose: to give me something to write about.”
Marcia also talks about the joys of childhood being a good place to search for ideas, too – but I digress. Let’s get back to those envelopes…
Marcia’s son had one envelope for all his ideas, but I like the idea of having several envelopes into which you can place multiple ideas which might go together. Use a different envelope for each story you might write.
For example, in one envelope you could put the smell of the basement when it rains with the old woman who lived down the block. Add the idea of some toe-pinching black shoes you were forced to wear to school as a pre-teen and what can you come up with?
(If you write genre, as I do, remember that each of these ideas could be transferred to another milieu. The smell of the basement becomes the smell of something in the forest after a deep rain. The old lady becomes the witch or the crone or the seer (or the mother-figure, nurse, angel, etc.). Those pinchy shoes become sandals, or leather boots, or a uniform, etc.)
If you don’t fancy the idea of multiple envelopes, I suppose you could write the initial idea at the top of a notebook page and add subsequent ideas below. The same could be done in a computer file. But I find that reading the words sometimes isn’t enough. The tactile sensation of opening and shuffling the ideas around forces me to consider the thought literally sitting in my hand.
What do you do when you’re looking for inspiration? How do you organize your ideas?
Sunday, August 8th, 2010
 So, today is my birthday.
Really.
(I promise I’m not making that “blogiversary = a birthday for the blog” mistake again.)
So…the gift?
Blood Soup is now available in the UK. You can see the UK Amazon page here.
Interesting to note that none of the customer reviews appear in the database. I guess they keep US/UK opinions separate.
To my UK friends who may be interested, here are the US reviews.
And that is all.
I’m going celebrate! (May the day’s festivities include chocolate, peppermint and a vodka martini…)
Friday, August 6th, 2010
 One evening, eating dinner outside on the deck, my family and I were buzzed by a hummingbird. Apparently, we were invading his territory: all the flowers he likes to frequent on the deck.
I enjoyed his visit so much, I hung up a feeder.
Within days, I had more than one bird calling. And I’ve seen as many as four at a time vying for space.
I’m certain they must have all been in the neighborhood, just not visiting me at the same time. The feeder is acting a bit like a water cooler: a place where all the hummingbirds can hang out together.
Or so I thought.
The birds are fighting.
I know this because I hung the feeder in a location where I can see it from nearly any window on the back of the house. And while I’m home, I’ve been watching.
 One bird in particular, has been very territorial.
He chases off all the other birds when he’s around.
This morning, I watched them fight in the air, appearing to dance, or mate: swirling and turning, zooming high into the sky and then spiraling down, one bird always chasing the other.
Lately, the territorial bird has taken to sitting on the nail above the feeder, keeping watch for other birds. I’ve watched him watching.
His little head moves back and forth, almost as if he’s viewing a tennis match, but always alert for another hummer. He won’t allow them within even a few feet of the feeder. He attacks as soon as another hummingbird shows interest in drinking.
(Seems like craziness, if you ask me. There’s no way he’ll be able to consume everything in the feeder!)
Being able to watch these little guys has killed a lot of my preconceived notions about hummingbirds. I’m filled with awe. (And I know these creatures will soon play a role in one of my stories.)
Here’s your prompt: Step outside your door and admire nature. (Even if you live in the city, there’s got to be something you can observe: ants in the crack of the sidewalk, bees attracted to a flower box, squirrels in the park, etc.) Look for something that you’ve not paid attention to in the past. Observe until you notice something you didn’t know before. Now write about it. Write a vignette about what you’ve seen, including your observations. Use your new knowledge to flesh out the setting of a story you’re currently working on. Or, simply journal about it. If you journal, write how you feel about what you’ve learned.
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
 I had lunch with a good friend yesterday and she asked me about my novel WIP. I was going to give her my elevator pitch until I remembered she has a Masters in Literature.
So I started telling her about my protagonist who is upstanding, moral, and ethical – and who lives by a set of personal rules of honor that isolate him from others: he lacks a core group of friends and also lives apart from the main community.
He’s flawed of course, and much of the making of his rules stems from a troubled history. I won’t bore you with the details.
After I explained my protagonist, I told my friend all the things I did to him:
- made him honor-bound to escort a group of women he abhors back to their home through dangerous territory
- had him kill one of those women as he tries to help them
- required him to obtain a drug that has been declared illegal (and didn’t tell him it’s illegal)
- made him fight the militia – who inform him the drug is illegal – in order to escape and maintain possession of the drug
- tricked him into promising to help a thief, who helps him flee the militia
- had him declared an outlaw and put a price on his head
And this is only in the first three chapters!
As I sat there ticking off the ordeals I put him through, I was reminded of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Creative Writing 101″ rules, number six of which is:
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
My main character holds himself apart from everyone else, and tends to think in black in white. By putting all these obstacles in his path — and making him do things he clearly doesn’t want to do — he learns that there are many shades of gray. He’s got to learn to loosen up his personal rules before he snaps.
It’s this learning process which makes the book interesting. And it’s the obstacles that make it so exciting – and so fun to write, too!
Is your story suffering from a lack of excitement? Is your character staid or boring? Be a sadist! Put your characters in interesting and dangerous situations. Make him work. Take away the easy: make all of his desires difficult to obtain.
All you writers out there: how have you been a sadist? What kinds of things have you made your characters do?
In case you’re interested, here is more information on Kurt Vonnegut’s Rules.
Friday, July 30th, 2010
I took a lot of photos while I was away…more than 500, actually. That’s the beauty (and the horror!) of owning a digital camera. Over the next few days I’ll be reviewing those for only the best and discarding the others. With a little luck, I’ll reduce them to a hundred or less.
One of my favorite vacation pics is of these pelicans.
On the seashore, the wind never quit. There were days we couldn’t open the umbrellas for fear of seeing them launched. On those days, the pelicans (and other seabirds) had trouble flying.
Because of the wind, they couldn’t spend time doing what it is they normally do: soaring over the ocean looking for food and diving in after it. Instead, they flew over the beach houses, quite low, in fact, looking for a means to get back to sea.
On more than one occasion, the birds barely missed flying under the covered porch I sat on, hence the up close and personal pelican pics.
Poor birds! They went days without getting a meal.
Here’s your prompt: Write a story about someone unable to accomplish a goal due to something as innocuous as the wind. Make sure the stakes are high: these pelicans couldn’t eat for days because the wind kept them ashore. Choose something equally important to your main character. What actions does your protagonist take to try to circumvent the problem? How does he feel about being thwarted by something inanimate? Is he angry? Frustrated? Both? How is the problem finally resolved? In order to have a satisfying ending, make certain it’s your protagonist who finds a solution to his dilemma (and not that the problem goes away on its own).
Friday, July 30th, 2010
I’m back from vacation and already back into the swing of things. (sigh)
I love being at the beach, and I’m already missing it. To me, there’s nothing grander than sitting on the porch overlooking the ocean and hearing the waves roar and crash. It’s a nice background to writing.
While I was gone, my review of Stays Crunchy in Milk by Adam P. Knave was posted over at SF Reader Reviews. I loved the idea of this cereal box story, chock-full of 1980’s pop-culture references, and looked forward to reading it. But the execution fell flat for me. A child of the 80s who spent the majority of his existence in front of the TV or playing popular video games may enjoy it.
— and —
I posted a short time ago that Anna Marie Catoir mentioned on her blog (Anna Marie’s Corner) that Blood Soup was on her wish list. Since reading and reviewing is what Anna Marie does, I had no problem sending her a review copy.
And guess what? She loved it.
Anna Marie’s review begins with a quote from Blood Soup:
“…he found the literature could sometimes take his mind off the pain.”
She writes:
“Now there is a true statement. You can always find them in good fiction.
This was a short novella of my favorite sort. I couldn’t see the conclusion from the opening, there was recompense paid at that end, and just enough open-endedness to let the imagination fly.
This novella covers a lot a time, but never feels fractured or too compressed. It also feels like it belongs to a different time. I don’t mean it’s the historical setting. Harmon’s story feels like it belongs to the myth and legend class of stories or maybe just a scary tale told in the dark. I loved its dramatic feel (in the theatrical sense).”
What a great feeling! Not only did she rate Blood Soup 4 out of 5 but she called it “good fiction.”
Read the complete review here.
What a way to make my day. Thanks, Anna Marie!
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
I chose the Dean Koontz novel, Intensity, for my beach reading today. I’m a big fan of Koontz, having been introduced to him by my mom when I was eleven or twelve. She’d picked up Whispers and we both fought over it one summer…one of us grabbing it to read a chapter if the other layed it down for even a minute.
Intensity was published in 1995, but for whatever reason, I never got around to reading it. It’s more violent than I would have given Koontz credit for, but still written in his same brilliant voice.
I’m nearly a hundred pages in, and the villian Edgler Foreman Vess is thinking about all the “powerful” words he can make out of the letters of his name. He comes up with God, fear, demon, save, rage, anger, dragon and a slew of others. According to Vess, these, along with some mystical words (dream, vessel, lore, forever) seem to embody the type of man he is.
Of course, the character, Vess, and his name are a creation of Koontz. I’d guess Koontz chose the mystical, powerful words first and then re-arranged them to find Vess’s name.
But what about your name? What kind of mystical, powerful — or other — words are in your name?
In just a few moments, I came up with several in mine:
| harm |
hear |
more |
melon |
| hark |
lore |
roam |
harmony |
| key |
re |
loam |
rely |
| lye |
rye |
lemon |
mar |
| money |
yell |
kaon |
alarm |
| lay |
helm |
realm |
Rome |
| moan |
moral |
lone |
mare |
(There’s nothing more powerful than a lone melon, eh?).
Here’s your prompt: Find a clean sheet of paper and write your name across the top. Use your middle initial, or your complete middle name for this exercise. Your choice. Set a timer for ten minutes and see what kind of words are hidden in your own name. Don’t worry if you come up with proper nouns…this isn’t one of those games that disqualifies them. All real words count…even two-letter ones, though I doubt you could come up with any powerful two letter words. (Go ahead, I dare you to prove me wrong.)
If you want, classify the words when you’re done. Do you “own” some power words, or some mystical ones? Maybe yours are funny or soulful. Choose five words from your list and write about yourself using those words.
|
What I’m Reading PROJECT FILL IN THE BLANKS:
OTHER:
The LAST Sacrifice, Hank Hanegraaff & Sigmund Brouwer
I'm a Member of:
|
What’s Being Said