Thursday, September 15th, 2011 So, I wrote a few days ago that I’m a more productive writer in the evening.
Quite a few folks weighed in on the subject, including several who posted to lists I frequent, as well as private email. People wrote at all times of day, and for various reasons:
– early birds who get up before dawn while it’s still quiet
– parents who write at night after the kids go to bed
– students who find time to write in between classes
– etc.
Writer Jeff Goins postulates on his blog that everyone should write at night to be more productive. In a guest post there by, Jonathan Manor, he states:
The reason that most writers — “good” writers — choose to write at night, is because their mornings, afternoons, and early evenings have filled their bodies with inspiration.
I don’t know about you, but my mornings, afternoons and early evenings usually fill me with fatigue, a healthy dose of workplace annoyance and rush-hour traffic agitation. There’s not much inspiring about the routine (except the thought that I’ll *finally* have time to write when I get home).
Do you agree or disagree with Manor?
Sunday, September 11th, 2011  Years ago, at family get-togethers, I used to hear my grandparent’s ask, “What were you doing when Kennedy was shot?”
I was born long after the event, so these questions and answers felt more like a parlor game than shared remembrances — or shared horrors.
Everyone had a different story, each unique, and each remembered with such exacting detail that you could almost imagine yourself there as the tale was told.
I never dreamed I’d have my own such question to ask.
What were you doing on 9/11?
I was working in a federal building just outside of Washington, D.C. I was de facto Webmaster for a USDA agency, and working on a Web site. I’d just finished a particularly taxing page and popped over to Yahoo for a news break.
Yahoo was reporting that an airplane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Buildings. It was a one-line story, breaking news, and they had no further details. No photo accompanied the story.
I had the foresight to hit “print” and capture the page. I still have it. It reads:
Plane Crashes Into World Trade Center
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A plane crashed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center Tuesday, witnesses said.
I’m glad I printed the story, because I was unable to visit my other go-to news sites for more information. The Internet was tied up. In a ‘denial of service’ caused by people wanting more information, servers became quickly overloaded.
I tried phoning the Husband of Awesome™, but phone systems and cell towers in the D.C. area were also tied up.
We had a small black-and-white TV in the break room, which got poor reception on good days, but I remember watching President Bush, interrupted while reading to a group of second-graders, stop and make a statement.
After the second plane strike, and the hit on the Pentagon, fear began to percolate in our building. We were the tallest Federal Building for miles around. Could we be the next target?
Federal employees were eventually told to evacuate their buildings and go home. Those inside the beltway had trouble getting out. Streets were packed, people apparently walked for miles to get home. Just outside the Beltway, the roads were like a ghost town. I remember getting onto the highway and being amazed that mine was the only car there.
After a while, a few more cars came onto the road, but the eerie feeling didn’t leave, even with their presence.
I got home, turned on the TV, and sat glued there for the rest of the day. Images of the planes hitting the towers were replayed over and over again. It’s changed the way I see airplanes.
To this day, I can’t look at a plane in the sky and not remember 9/11.
What were you doing on 9/11?
Friday, September 9th, 2011 A lipogram is a form of writing (or word game) which forbids the use of a particular letter or letters. Generally, a lipogram forbids the letter ‘e,’ one of the most common letters in the English language. But many variations have been used.
Entire novels have been written in lipogram. For instance, author Walter Abish wrote Alphabetical Africa, constraining each chapter by alphabet. Chapter 1 uses only words beginning with the letter A. Chapter 2 allows words beginning with A and B, until Chapter 26, which permits all 26 letters of the English alphabet. The second half of the book removes letters in the reverse order in which they were added. Z words disappear in chapter 28, Y words in chapter 29, etc…
Over at the site, Curious Notions, the nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence” is re-written several times. Here is just on example:
| Original:
Sing a song of sixpence
A pocket full of rye.
Four-and-twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.
As the pie was opened
The birds began to sing.
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To set before the King?
The King was in the counting house
Counting out his money.
The Queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes.
When along came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose. |
No Is or Ss:
Croon a kreutzer canzonet,
A pocket full of coal,
Four-and-twenty waterfowl
Baked beneath a roll.
When the roll unfolded, well
They all began to peep —
An elegant entrée that made
The Monarch clap and leap.
The Monarch, under lock and key,
Computed all the money.
The parlor kept the Queen, who ate
Of bread and clover honey.
The flower garden held the wench,
Who hung the wool and lace.
A crow appeared and plucked the olfact’ry
Organ from her face. |
Here’s Your Prompt:
Re-write a famous nursery rhyme, poem or saying in the style of a lipogram.
Here are some resources you may need to help you:
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011 …apparently, your local contractor will happily accomplish…whether you want them to, or not.
My poor sad office:
And by that I mean, of course, help me to get rid of all those books that I have been collecting.
See that great expanse of office in the corner missing its drywall? Waterlogged. Along with a great many books on the bookcase that exactly fit that space.
A few months ago, the Husband of Awesome™ and I decided that our 30-year old roof needed to be re-done. We’ve been putting it off for years for a number of reasons, mainly of course, because it didn’t leak. But we realized we were pushing our luck, so we finally bit the bullet and signed a contract.
When newscasters forecasted rain, the local contractor put up some black paper (“guaranteed to hold through several rainstorms”) and called it a day.
I know you probably know this already, but I’ll say it anyway: paper is not waterproof. (It is my opinion, that the local contractor did not adequately prepare.)
The other local contractor at our house today–the one that handles clean up after fires and floods–spent their time ripping out drywall (wet-wall, really); sucking up standing water in my attic space, ventilation, and upper floor; pulling up carpeting, and hauling in blowers, fans and dehumidifiers.
Quoth the Husband of Awesome™: “We’ve got like a thousand machines upstairs and in the attic.”
It’s really noisy in here right now. And the machines have to run continuously until Friday.
I’ll be spending that time weeding out the books. Again.
I joked on Facebook last week that the earthquake which knocked many of these same books to the floor was telling me then that I needed to do another purge.
Okay, Universe, I get the point.
Friday, September 2nd, 2011 A drabble is a 100-word story, not including the title, which can be up to 15 words. (Here, you can read about the history of drabbles.)
When I was an editor at NFG Magazine, we published a similar bit of flash fiction in the form of a contest: 69ers – short stories of exactly 69 words, including the title. (Here, you can read all the 69ers published by NFG.)
(Until Twitter came along, these were the ultimate in Flash Fiction.)
Here’s Your Prompt:
Write a drabble or a 69er. Stick with their respective rules: if you write a drabble, it must be exactly 100 words and can include a title of 15 words or less. If you write a 69er, the title (required!) must be counted in the 69 words.
Need a plot to get started? Here are some nifty plot generators:
Monday, August 29th, 2011  I got to thinking of writing productivity cycles when I got to work this morning.
I left the house at 5:30 a.m. in total darkness.
An hour later, I arrived at work: Pink skies lighting up the day, the sun finally cresting the horizon. Fairly soon, it will be dark when I leave and still dark when I arrive.
Inside, I did a little happy dance: fall means more writing for me. More time at the computer, more time with my butt in the chair, more time with my hands poised above the keyboard…because there are more hours of darkness than light.
(I caught myself thinking this morning: It shouldn’t be so dark in the morning, yet! Doesn’t this normally occur in October or November? I’m a firm believer that a.m. darkness should be accompanied by cool weather, a windy chill, and maybe some dry leaves tumbling by.)
Fall is my favorite season, but I’m never quite prepared for it.
Nonetheless, I’m tickled: not only do I love all those wonderful Fall things to embrace (orange and yellow mums, cool sweater days, crisp evenings on the deck, Halloween!), but I can look forward to putting more words on paper.
It’s not that summer has me playing hooky (though it’s true: I blew off more than a day or two of writing this summer to do something else.)
It’s that I find myself more productive — itchy to write, even — once the sun goes down. And with fall bringing shorter days and longer nights…well, it’s a no-brainer: I’m going to be racking up the word count. (And along with it, more completed projects, I hope.)
I enjoy writing at night. There’s something about the enveloping darkness that allows me to concentrate better.
What about you? Fall: love it or hate it? Do the changing seasons affect your writing? Are you a daytime or nightime writer?
Friday, August 26th, 2011  Kids in my county go back to school on Tuesday. Others started back last week.
(I only realized that when the traffic got bad again on the way to work in the a.m….)
This summer just blew right by me.
I haven’t been fishing once. [That is a truly sad statement.]
In honor of this occasion of summer ending and school beginning, I figured we should have a back to school prompt (starting with the inevitable, groan inspiring … wait for it…)
Here’s Your Prompt:
Choose one or several items below to write about. Don’t just answer the question. Give some thought to the whys and wherefores. Write for 5, 10 or fifteen minutes. Or, write until you’re done. Hammer our a rough draft and leave it. Or, polish it up for publication. Turn these into memoir-type essays, letters to your family members, genealogical vignettes, or whatever you wish!
- What did you do on your summer vacation? (Okay, now you can groan.)
- Best. Vacation. Ever. (This one is pure fiction. If you could do anything, go anywhere, what would it be?)
- Where did the summer go?
- If it were summer every day…
- August is the only month of the year without a (U.S.-observed) holiday. Make one up! How would you celebrate it?
- I’m looking forward to __________ this school year…
- Five things I like about school.
- How I’m going to make this the best school year ever!
- What is the most significant memory (bad or good!) from each year of elementary school, high school, university or technical school?
Monday, August 22nd, 2011  The cover is available for the how-to-write paranormal guide that I’ve written a chapter for!
Isn’t it gorgeous?
It looks like there might be a change in title in this volume. It was originally to be called: The Complete Guide to Writing Paranormal: Undead, Cursed and Inhuman. Now, it just looks like it’s going to be called The Complete Guide to Writing Paranormal: Volume 1.
A tentative publication date is slated for September or October (yes, 2011!) by Dragon Moon Press.
Yay!
Until Kim Richards took over the editing for this book, I was seriously doubting that it would ever get published. I’ve had to move it up my bibliography page for the last couple of years, having been first “Forthcoming in 2009,” I believe.
I’ve never had a piece be accepted and then sit so long before publication (though I admit I have another piece out there right now that’s approaching a similar timeline…)
That being said…
Yay! (Yeah, I know I said that already, but I’m too excited to keep it in.)
My chapter is on finding and joining (or starting your own) critique group…but there is tons of nuts and bolts information about how to write anything paranormal. And there were so many contributions by authors, that there are two volumes planned.
Yay!
I’ll let you know when the book is available for sale.
Friday, August 19th, 2011  I was emptying out the pockets of my favorite jacket this week before I’d tossed it into the washer when I pulled out a note I’d apparently written to myself.
I say “apparently” because I have no recollection of making the note. I also have no idea what it means.
16,491.
Why would I jot down a number, without context, on a scrap of paper napkin? Didn’t this note deserve an entire napkin? This number must have been important…and yet, it’s meaningless now. I can’t even begin to think about how much time has passed since I wrote it.
What could it have meant?
All kinds of possibilities flood my mind: it’s a pin number for a bank account, it’s the amount of money in my bank account, it’s how much money I owe someone…
(Why does my mind think of money, just because it’s a number?)
Maybe it’s a measurement: in feet, or miles, or minutes. What if it’s the number of something my character desperately needs to complete her quest? Get on with his life? End her journey?
What if my character never figures this out?
Here’s Your Prompt:
Go dig through your pockets looking for cryptic notes!
I realize that won’t work for everyone, so here are some alternatives:
- Open the book nearest to your dominant hand, turn to a random page, and write down a few words, or perhaps the sentence, smack in the middle of the page.
- Do the same with a magazine, a newspaper, or some junk mail from today’s pile.
- Pick up a dictionary or thesaurus, turn to any page, close your eyes and point to a word. Do this five or six times to come up with a completely random phrase.
- If you’re feeling plucky, see if you can find a scribbled note tossed in a trash can at the local coffee shop or deli. (A list of someone else’s errands or grocery wants might be fascinating!)
- Do the same from a co-worker’s trash can… don’t get caught!
- This could work: Explain the task, then ask someone to write the (brief) cryptic note for you.
Now that you’ve got your note…
Write a story or poem (or song, etc.)…
The story could be about someone who finds a cryptic note (in a pocket, on the ground, in a sibling’s locked diary…), or about the ideas engendered by the words (or numbers…)
Maybe the note is a code. Maybe someone else put the note in the protagonist’s pocket. Maybe the note was written by an Alzheimer’s patient to her son, and found by him after her last will and testament is read.
The possibilities are endless….
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
If you enjoy these prompts, please let me know by telling me so in the comments. Feel free to share a snippet or two of what you come up with, as well!
Monday, August 15th, 2011  Q: So have you heard about the writer who got his screenplay blown up with a bomb?
A: This isn’t a joke.
Apparently an aspiring screenplay writer left his script in a locked briefcase in an L.A. agent’s offices Friday. The agency called the police about the bag, and, following protocol, they blew it up.
To make matters worse: he’d left his laptop in the briefcase, so that’s gone, too.
You can read the full story here in the New York Times.
This poor guy broke a pile of rules related to finding an agent:
- he (apparently) hung out at the agency and made a pest of himself.
- he hand-delivered his manuscript (which can be okay if the agent requests it – apparently, no agent requested this writer do so)
- he caused the employees in the office to be suspicious-enough – even frightened enough – to call the police to investigate
I have to wonder why he left his laptop along with the briefcase. It’s a new “thing not to do” on my radar.
(Really, it’s common sense, isn’t it, to keep your laptop and offer an agent a copy of your manuscript?)
In my book, this trumps sliding your manuscript to an agent underneath a bathroom stall door.
I don’t think this guy is stupid, he’s probably desperate, and uninformed. He should have done his homework. There are tons of sites on the internet devoted to helping writers get published.
Have you ever done anything — or known anyone else to do anything — so uninformed in a search for an agent?
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