Friday, February 8th, 2013 I had surgery earlier this week. I can’t drive (or walk, for that matter) until at least February 27.
Great! (I thought.) With all the commute time I’ll be saving to work, I can get more writing done.
And then my laptop broke.
I’m stuck using a crappy little mini (I actually used to be fond of) to do my writing. The keyboard is super-tiny, and it’s considered QWERTY, but the apostrophe/double-quote key is in the wrong place. I keep hitting returns when I punctuate my dialogue. (Bad, very bad for a writer.)
It’s slow going.
Like a character in one of my books, I’ve been stymied. (Although I have to admit, I do much worse things to my characters.)
The point is, this is creating some drama in my life (and the lives of the people very close to me) because it starts to spill over.
And life doesn’t stop. I’ve got commitments I need to take care of, so I have to work around the impaired walking and non-driving and crappy tech.
Just like a character.
Here’s Your Prompt
- In your next scene, make your character work for what he wants or wants to accomplish. Take away something important. Be devious about it: if you don’t want your character driving, don’t just take his license away, make them have foot surgery. 🙂 Make the stakes higher; take away something that not only your character needs, but what others depend on him for.
- If you journal, write about a time you were stopped in the pursuit of your goals by the loss of something (you missed a deadline, you failed a test, or lost something tangible) and how you worked around it to accomplished your desires. [This should not be a story of “oh, well, it was meant to be” or “I was better off not doing it!”]
Good luck!
Friday, January 25th, 2013  I’ve probably mentioned this before: the main character in my work-in-progress is a finder. You can tell her about things you’ve lost, and she can help you find them…with a little bit of help from the universe and a little ritual she performs.
And in Blood Soup, the lead character depends on her nurse — a midwife and a witch — who ‘rolls the bones’ to determine the gender of the unborn child.
Through time and across tribes, clans and peoples we’ve had scryers and seers to whom we can turn for answers. Today, people read their horoscopes, visit palm readers, and deal tarot cards.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Develop a character who has regular appointments with a seer (a palm reader, a gypsy, a tarot card reader). Why does she have regular appointments? What answers does he seek?
- Write a believable dialogue between two people where one begins with the question, “What’s your sign?”
- Write a scene where a skeptic is forced to confront his prejudices when something everything a seer has told him has come to pass.
- Write a poem with the opening line, “The fortune teller said…”
- Write about something that happened in your former life.
- Write about rolling the bones, or scattering runes.
- Write about a lucky charm that brought bad luck.
- Write about the last dream you remember having. Afterward, find an a book or internet resource on dream interpretation and write about what it means.
Good luck!
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The image of the hand comes from the book The Woman Beautiful, page 308, by Ella Adelia Fletcher. 1901. Work is currently in the public domain since the copyright has expired.
Friday, January 18th, 2013  Happy Birthday, Peter Mark Roget!
Roget was born January 18, 1779.
He was a natural theologian and a physician, but he’s chiefly remembered for his literary contribution of creating the first thesaurus.
His apparent obsession with list-making started it all, and he worked on it for nearly 50 years in private before it was published in 1852, with the excessive title of:
Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition.
I love my thesaurus!
I have a copy of Roget’s International Thesaurus , 6th edition (a fabulous gift from the The Husband of Awesome™ many years ago) and it sits on a small shelf below my desk. (It’s over 1,200 pages of joy!)
I can reach it with ease any time I need to refer to it.
A thesaurus is an awesome tool when you’re looking for just the right word. And like any good tool, you get what you pay for: I haven’t found a web version that does the job anywhere as good as my hard-bound book. If you’re serious about finding the right word, get a good thesaurus.
(The problem, of course, especially for young writers — or new writers — is to choose a 50-cent word over a nickle word. By this I mean, stumbling across the first 4-syllable synonym in the thesaurus and plugging that into their writing. Don’t fall into this trap! If your character is walking across the parking lot, make him walk. Having him perambulate across the parking lot is not going to make the story any better!)
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Choose a piece of writing from your drafts that seems lackluster, or one you’ve had no luck selling somewhere. Examine the words for places you could make changes. Use a thesaurus to find more specific words to use to make your point and re-write your work.
- Do you tend to use the same words over and over in your writing?
Instead of using this prompt to jump start something, use it to hone your skills. Pick five or more words you tend to overuse – particularly ones that you tend to use modifiers around to help them along, and look them up in a good thesaurus. Make lists of alternate words (and their specific meanings) and keep them handy while you write.
- For those of you looking for a specific prompt to get your juices flowing today, try a new twist on an old stand-by for prompts. Open up a thesaurus to a random page, close your eyes, and drop your finger down on a particular word. If you’ve hit the index, turn to the specific location in the book. If you’ve tapped a particular word, you’re good.
Now, choose five of the synonyms surrounding your word and write a poem or essay and use all of them (correctly!) in context in your writing.
For those of you who are too lazy, here’s a random word and some of its synonyms:
pirate: corsair, buccaneer, privateer, sea rover, picaroon, viking
Good Luck!
Friday, January 11th, 2013 A long time ago I resolved not to make New Years resolutions.
I’m not against trying to do better. I just don’t like the system: For the last month of the year or so, people start talking about what they’re going to do next year: lose weight, read more, eat more vegetables, stop kicking the cat.
Whatever.
And for a month or so, people binge eat, swear off books, eat less vegetables and kick the cat more…because they know in a few weeks they’ll have to go cold turkey. (Never realizing, of course, that by Valentine’s Day, 75%* of all those resolutions will be long broken anyway.)
* I made up that statistic. But you get my point.
And besides, it’s all so arbitrary. If you want to stop kicking the cat, do it NOW. Why wait?
That being said…
I do like to set goals for myself: reachable, measurable goals which are wholly under my control. (If they’re out of my control, they’re not goals, they’re dreams. Don’t get me wrong: dreams are awesome. But they often rely on outside influences to obtain them.)
If I miss a goal, I’ve only got myself to blame…
…unlike really good fiction.
Goals are the building blocks of stories. The hero has a list of goals he wants to achieve. The protagonist has a list of goals he wants to achieve (often at odds with the hero’s goals). Without this conflict, the story is boring.
Often, the hero’s most basic goals, let’s say, leaving a room, are stymied by the protagonist — who locks the door, or shoots the hero, or reveals a bit of information to the hero that is so inconceivable, that the hero is frozen in place (by shock, indecision, heartbreak, anger, etc.). No matter what, the hero cannot simply get up and walk out of the room.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Make a list of 3 – 5 goals you want your hero to accomplish. (If you’re writing a short story, stick with 1 goal, 2 at the most.)
- Make a list of 3 – 5 goals for the antagonist to accomplish: goals which by their very nature are at odds with the hero. Remember: at the beginning of the story, the antagonist doesn’t know what the protagonist’s goals are, so it’s cheating if the goal is a direct contradiction of the hero’s.
For example:
Your protagonist might be a retiring Firefighter looking to purchase his neighbor’s 10-acre farm on which to live out his golden years.
The real estate agent handling the transaction finds out the land contains lucrative mineral deposits, and puts in a bid for himself instead. Prices for the farm escalate into a bidding war as the realtor decides he wants to own the property for its potential value.
(So, the protagonist’s goal is to buy some property to retire on. The antagonist’s goal is NOT to stop him from retiring with property, but to invest money in a property with possible lucrative minerals. It just so happens that in this case, the property is one and the same.)
- Choose one goal for each of them, and write the scene where the two goals conflict.
Good luck!
Friday, January 4th, 2013  The holidays are officially over and it’s back to the daily grind for most folks, myself included.
The snow’s still on the ground here (it snowed Christmas Day) and heading back to work in this Winter Wonderland (albeit a little sun-dappled with large patches of grass poking through) is a bit of a letdown. Sort of like that feeling you get when you threw a rockin’ party at your house, and you’ve just ushered the last guest out the door.
The party was great!
But now you’ve got to empty the sink full of dirty dishes, pick up all the empty bottles lying around, and scrape the remains of the crab dip and shrimp pesto into the trash — and take it out — so your house doesn’t smell like a fishing pier in the morning.
In other words, the coats are off the bed, but you’ve got a lot of work to do before you can relax.
Here’s Your Prompt
- “The Party’s Over” is a metaphor for divorce, break ups, graduation, etc. What does it mean to you? Journal about it or write a poem about the loss of “The party is over.”
- Write the “clean up” scene between roommates who just hosted an awesome get-together. Use the end of the party as an underlying metaphor for something else: they’re cleaning up, and as they do so, one roommate announces he’s moving out, or that she’s taking a job in another state, or that he’s breaking up.
- Nat King Cole and Journey both wrote hit songs about this topic. Write your own song.
To give you some ideas, here are Cole’s Lyrics:
The party’s over
The candles flicker and dim
You danced and dreamed through the night
It seemed to be right just being with him
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end
Take off your makeup, the party’s over
It’s all over, my friend
(Read the complete lyrics here.)
Journey called their song The Party’s Over (Hopelessly in Love with You).
You never call me up
When I’m alone at night.
What can this poor boy do,
When he’s hopelessly in love with you?
So I will tell you now
This love is fallin’ down.
Just what more can I do,
When I’m hopelessly in love with you?
Oh, bye-bye, baby – The party’s over, I have gone away.
The party’s over, I have gone away.
(Read all the Journey lyrics here.)
- Turn the expression on its head: write about the party being over as a good thing. Don’t take the easy way out by having the “party” be something bad to begin with. This party had to be so good, it’s craziness that it’s over: but killing the party is going to be a good thing, just a little risky.
Good Luck!
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“Cocktail” Photo by Dan Mojado.
Friday, December 28th, 2012  Today in 1895, the first commercial movie was viewed at the Grand Cafe in Paris, France. Admission was charged.
The film was made by two professional photographers, Louis and Auguste Lumier, who were goaded into creating a movie when their father saw Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, and told them they could do better.
(Let’s hear it for a little parental guilt!)
The movie was a series of short scenes of everyday French life.
It enthralled the public, and the rest is history.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Write a scene as if you might be writing a movie script, rather than a novel or short story. Don’t worry about making a perfect script. Simply set the scene with a few paragraphs at the top, then write the dialogue.
- Part 2 from above: once you’ve written the movie treatment, turn around and write the scene as if for a novel or short story. Does the dialogue still work? If not, revise.
- Write a journal entry or essay on your favorite movie you’ve seen on the big screen. What about it seeing it in the theater makes it your favorite?
- In Cornhuskers, chapter, 28 Memoir of a Proud Boy, Carl Sandburg writes, “There is drama in that point: the boy and the pigs. Griffith would make a movie of it to fetch sobs…” Write about a movie bringing you to tears. What emotion stirred the tears? Why?
Good Luck!
Wednesday, December 26th, 2012 
Conversation about 20 minutes ago:
Husband of Awesome™ walks up two flights of stairs from the man cave to see how I’m doing.
Husband of Awesome™: Why does your office smell like onions?
Me: You’re probably smelling the potato salad I had for breakfast.
Husband of Awesome™: Eww.
Me: Can you do me a favor?
Husband of Awesome™: Not if it means getting closer to onions.
Conversation I imagine we’ll have the next time he pops in to check on me:
Husband of Awesome™: Why does your office smell like sauerkraut?
Me: You’re probably smelling the sauerkraut I had after the potato salad. You know – to get rid of the smell of onions.
Husband of Awesome™: (Shakes head and leaves, wordlessly)
Me: (Laughing…) What!?
In my book, there is nothing better than Christmas leftovers for breakfast the day after Christmas. Yum!
And it’s snowing again, yippee! White Christmas and more snow coming. I smell a sleigh ride at lunch time (after a ham sandwich, some crab dip and a huge hunk of fruit cake)!
What’s everyone else doing today?
Monday, December 24th, 2012  Merry Christmas!
Here’s my gift for you (or for you to give to a writer friend).
I’ve created 30 prompts – all different than the ones I’ve used on my Web site for the last few years.
Included are quotes, story sparks, one-word prompts, etc. There are prompts for journalers, short-storyists, poets and novelists. Some are thought-provoking questions, some are simple directives.
(If it sounds like it’s all over the board, it is: I wanted there to be a little something for everyone.) Nonetheless, any prompt can be used multiple ways: if you’re a poet and it tells you to write a story, well, just write a poem! If the prompt is something fictitious and you enjoy journaling, relate it to your life in some way.
The prompts are spread out, 10-to-a-page on 3 pages, with dotted lines between each.
The idea is to print the three pages, cut along the dotted lines. them fold the strips over so the cute image is showing, but not the prompt. Decorate a shoebox or a glass jar, toss them in, then keep them on your desk when you need a bit of inspiration.
Here’s the PDF Link to the free prompts. (Right-click and choose save as to download it to your computer.)
I hope you enjoy them!
You Say You Want More?
If you’re looking for a more robust gift for a writer friend, I’ve written 370 more prompts – one for each day of the year and a few extra which are available in the same format. They’re $2.99 via PayPal. Just click the link below. Once you pay, you’ll be directed to the download link. Thanks!
Friday, December 21st, 2012 That’s me today: relaxed.
I’ve got all my holiday stuff together: gifts bought, packages wrapped, etc. Now, I’m just sitting with my feet up and a cup of eggnog in my hand.
(Well, not really. Being done just means I get to play at my second job – writing. But you get the idea…)
Here’s Your Prompt:
Good Luck!
Saturday, December 15th, 2012 I read the first chapter of Ghost Hand, and was instantly hooked. So hooked, I invested in the Kickstarter project, because I wanted to read this book as soon as I could! The book is finally ready, and I don’t want to put it down – just when the plot was getting good: it got even better.
And lucky us! Author Ripley Patton agreed to answer a few questions below. I hope you enjoy…
Do pick up Ghost Hand when you get a chance. It’s terrific!
~ Kelly
 Why did you write THIS book?
The short answer is: an agent told me to.
The long answer is a bit more complicated than that.
In 2009, I had been writing short stories for about five years, and really enjoying it, and I’d even won some awards and contests, but I wasn’t making much money. I had thought about writing a novel and had started a couple, but I always lost interest a few chapters in. I was beginning to doubt I could even be a novelist. Then, out of the blue, a New York literary agent contacted me on Facebook. She had read one of my short stories online and wanted to know if I was working on anything longer. After I picked myself up off the floor, I told her I wasn’t, but I could be. What followed was three weeks of frantic writing and outlining. I don’t think I even slept. All in all, I managed to prepare four different novel synopses with sample chapters for her to look over. She read them all and gave me feedback on what she liked and what she didn’t. And of Ghost Hand she said, “I could sell this. Write this one.” And so it began…
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, by the time I had Ghost Hand done, the agent had quit the business, so I ended up publishing it myself.
Do you have a “story” about the writing of this book? Something fun, crazy or frustrating that happened while writing?
Ghost Hand took me three years to write, so yeah, a lot of fun, crazy, and frustrating things happened during that time. Probably the craziest thing was that my home city was destroyed by two devastating earthquakes. I was living in Christchurch, New Zealand at the time, and in September 2010, we had a 7.1 earthquake that, among other things, took down a wall of our house and we had to move in under six hours. Then in February 2011, Christchurch was hit again by a 6.3 which was actually much more devastating than the first one because it was shallower and hit smack in the middle of the city. This time our house wasn’t damaged much, but my neighbor was killed, my husband lost his workplace, and my daughter lost her high school. After that one, the city was under a national state of emergency for three months while we suffered the 7,000 aftershocks. Water, food and fuel had to be brought to us by our friends in the safe zone for several weeks. It was a harrowing experience for me and my family, and many other people, and I have a feeling that someday I will have to write a book about it. But at that time, Ghost Hand was my escape into a world a lot less shaky than the one I lived in.
How much of the book is realistic?
All of it. Every last word is as realistic as I could make it. If a girl did have an ethereal hand that could reach into people and pickpocket their souls, I’m pretty sure it would look and act exactly like Olivia Black’s ghost hand does in the book. That being said, it is a paranormal thriller. It is fantasy. I personally don’t like books that are too realistic. If I wanted realistic, I wouldn’t read fiction. I’d just step out my front door.
Perhaps one thing that people might find too realistic is that my teen characters do swear. Honestly, I debated that, taking words out and then putting it back in again. Ultimately, I asked my own two teens what they thought and they said, “Mom, teens swear.” To them, it wasn’t authentic without some swearing. But I’m sure it will bother some people.
What books do you love, and what authors have influenced you?
Oh, I’m so glad you asked this. Probably my two favorite YA books in the last few years have been Lisa McMann’s Dreamcatcher series (Wake, Fade, and Gone), and Neal Shusterman’s Unwind. Both are grungy and dark, have amazing plotlines, and are a unique take on your typical YA story (no werewolves or vampires). Those books heavily influenced Ghost Hand. And Neal has just come out with a sequel (promising to make it a trilogy) to Unwind called Unwholly. Which reminds me, I haven’t bought it for my Kindle yet, and I don’t know why. I shall now go and do just that.
What’s next?
When I first started writing Ghost Hand, I didn’t know it was going to be a series. But as I wrote the book, the story grew, and I soon had a three book plot arc that I was really excited about. I love to read books in a series because then you don’t feel as sad when you finish the first book, knowing there are two more to look forward to. So, what’s next is book two of the PSS Chronicles, which I will start writing in earnest in January. I’ve already done research for the book, which takes place mostly in Indianapolis, Indiana, and I have the basic plot line in my head. Given the fact that scenes have already started to write themselves, I don’t think it will take me three years this time. I’m shooting to have the first draft done by summer, and release book two of the PSS Chronicles in fall of 2013.
You can read the first five chapters of Ghost Hand using Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature. Go there now, click on this link to read!
Where can you find Ripley and her books? Right here:
Ripley Patton’s Web Site: http://www.ripleypatton.com/
Kindle Version of Ghost Hand: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AF1CM0A
Paperback Version: https://www.createspace.com/3904994
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ghost-hand-ripley-patton/1113899293?ean=2940015815030
Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Ghost-Hand/book-tcaOM1Z-bEqiPYB_TaglRQ/page1.html?s=FDxT59tXp0WF-cKDbgUOfQ&r=10
Ripley Patton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rippatton
Ripley Patton on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ripley.patton
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