Friday, April 13th, 2012  Names are important.
They provide identity, reveal the culture or interest or nature of the namer.
They’re a source of embarrassment. Or pride.
They can cause all kinds of conflict.
I went to school with a woman whose grandmother had strict policies for naming the kids in the family. When her daughter was pregnant, she demanded the child be given an ethnic name.
Many arguments ensued, with my friend’s mom steadfast against the idea, but the grandmother eventually got her way. Little wonder that our professors were often surprised when Heidi’s name was called from the roster and a black woman responded to the question.
Well, the grandmother never stated what kind of ethnic name she wanted.
In my latest manuscript, both main characters are saddled with untenable names. The girl is named with a religious moniker — thanks to the nuns at the Catholic hospital where she was born, and the male lead is given a “family” name.
(I can hear a lot of folks groaning now.)
My first beau had such a name, and it caused him all kinds of embarrassment. Luckily for my character, like my boyfriend, his embarrassment is a middle name…
Here’s Your Prompt:
- You have moved to a new county, and the laws state you must change your first name if you want to reside there permanently. What do you change your name to? How does this new name reflect who you are?
- Write about name-calling.
- Someone is saying your name…
- Some to the fascination of a name surrender judgment hoodwinked. ~ William Cowper
- He was also known as…
- My grandmother called me by this name.
- Write a story about a culture who believes names are all-powerful. Children are not named at birth, and choose their own when they are ready. They never reveal these secret names. How do people refer to each other? How do they choose the ‘names’ they go by in every day life?
- A name is a kind of face whereby one is known. ~ Thomas Fuller
- Open a phone book at random and drop your finger down on a name. Write about that person or business. What does the name inspire?
- I do beseech you, (Chiefly, that I might set it in my prayers,) What is your name? ~ William Shakespeare, the Tempest. Act III, Scene 1.
- Write the essay (or a journal entry, or a letter to your children…), “I was named this because…”
Good Luck!
Sunday, April 8th, 2012  Happy Easter!
We spent the day yesterday doing ‘Eastery’ things, including dying eggs and watching an Easter Egg hunt.
My sis made a fabulous coconut cake and we’ve already busted into it this morning. (I’ve also been into the potato salad. Shh, don’t tell Mom.)
We had Easter Dinner last night, so this morning we’re having a huge breakfast before everyone gets on the road to drive home.
Hope everyone has a terrific day!
Friday, April 6th, 2012 One of the big criticisms of fantasy fiction is ‘dining’ scenes. They often become the joke of the story, and it’s those scenes that are discussed as clichéd in reviews, no matter if they’re a key scene that the entire plot hinges on.
Three dwarves walk into a tavern…
See what I mean? Hard not to make a joke out of it.
But I’ll argue until I’m blue-faced that dining scenes are necessary to make the fiction realistic. And if you want to argue some more, I’ll state that these scenes are just as clichéd, if not more so, in other genres:
- the engagement announcement made at dinner (in any genre)
- the discussion of other worldly food (especially those slimy, living foods consumed by bug-like creatures) in science fiction novels
- the ‘let’s have a polite chat over dinner’ (but you know someone’s going to get killed) in a western or gangster story
- the cozy, steamy, dinner for two which escalates into a torrid love-fest of unusual positions and food in usual places
Your job with today’s prompts is to create a scene, a poem, a short story or vignette that is about food or dining, but isn’t clichéd.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Write about one of these things:
- hunger
- simple dishes
- eating alone
- forbidden fruit
- temperamental chefs
- eating alone
- a family meal
- a holiday dinner
- family recipes
- Someone yells from off in the distance, “Come and get it!” You hear the klaxon sound of the triangle, bell, or digital tone if you happen to be aboard ship.
- These are the ingredients…
- Use the five senses (taste, touch, smell, hearing, sight) in your writing, but focus on one of them; for instance: the smell of fresh-brewed coffee; the site of lush, colorful fruit, the taste of something hot and spicy, salty or sweet; the sound of crunchy cereal, or fries sizzling in grease; the feel of salted nuts or buttery popcorn when you lift it out of the bowl…
- “Sustain me with raisin cakes, Refresh me with apples, Because I am lovesick. ~ Song of Solomon
- The refrigerator’s full, but there’s nothing to eat…
- The cupboard is bare…
- A pie eating, ice-cream eating, hot-dog eating, you-name-the-food-eating contest at the local fair
- Write about the guy standing on the corner who “Will Work for Food.”
Good luck!
Friday, March 30th, 2012  Spring has sprung!
And it’s not always sweet. Anybody live around those horrible Bradford Pear trees?
(They’re native to China and Korea and were brought to the states in the 1900s. As far as I’m concerned, they should have kept them!)
Spring has me thinking of gardening, so today’s prompt is all about planting, sowing, and tending.
Here’s Your Prompt:
Friday, March 23rd, 2012  Monday, March 26 is “National Make Up Your Own Holiday” day.
(This is another one of those oddball ‘national’ days that has no basis in fact. It’s supposed to be supported by the “Wellness Permission League” of which I can find no verifiable data on the intranet. Although, I did find this self-typed news story which mentions the League.)
Sometimes it’s an easy thing to create a holiday: in ancient Rome, conquering generals arrived back at the gates and were often rewarded with a day of celebration in their honor. No brainer.
When you’re creating a holiday as part of world building in your story, it may not be so easy (unless some general arrives at the city gates…)
Keep in mind: Not all holidays are a cause for celebration. They may be a cause for mourning. Others may be celebrated differently in different places. St. Patrick’s Day is a case in point: in the U.S. celebrants eat Irish Food, drink green beer and party. In Ireland, St. Patrick’s day for some is a solemn affair made up of church-going and prayer.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Consider the reason for your holiday. Is it based on a military event? A national movement? A religious miracle? What time of year did the event take place? Was the ensuing event a local one? Does it remain so, or has it grown? What is the history of the celebration?
- How is the holiday celebrated? A reenactment of the original event? (Fireworks on July 4th) A religious service or blessing? Do celebrants wear anything special to celebrate? (Green on St. Pat’s.) Are traditional foods eaten? (Hamantashen) Prayers said? (Novenas) Parades held? (Ticker tape for welcoming home.) Are there any special props needed to celebrate, or which show observance? (Decorations.)
- Does the holiday include any human or animal sacrifice? (Disclaimer! We’re making up a fictional holiday here, not practicing it. Do not sacrifice any humans or animals in the creation of your holiday, please.)
Sacrifice has long been associated with celebrations. We keep the symbolism of sacrifice in our modern celebrations: burning candles, giving something up (Lent), donating money or time, etc.
Does your holiday include any other kind of sacrifice?
- Is the celebration held inside a building, or outside in the open air? (Time of year will likely have something to do with this choice.)
- Are there special symbols, writings, speeches, holy books, etc.
- What is the exact date of the holiday? Is it the date the event happened, or the birth date (or death date) of a principal participant? Perhaps it’s the date the event was thought to occur (if the celebration comes into being years or decades after the ensuing event.)
- What governing faction decided there would be a holiday? Why? What gives them the right to declare it such?
- Are there people who don’t celebrate this holiday? Why not? What happens to those people (if anything) if they choose not to participate?
Good luck!
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Photo Credit: The U.S. Army – West Point Asian Pacific American Observance Celebration. These guys look like they’re having a blast!
Monday, March 19th, 2012  You can now read, “On the Path,” for free if you participate in the Amazon digital lending program.
Here’s a link to it.
I’ve been sitting on the fence about the program until now. It sounds great in theory, but I don’t know how it will work in practice, so I’ve been “watching” it.
Though I have to say I didn’t add On the Path to the program because I’d heard anything good about it (or anything bad for that matter) – I just haven’t had any time to do anything else with the story.
I had these great aspirations to get “On the Path,” onto both the Smashwords and B&N platforms as well, but my spare time has been non-existent lately, so the story has been idling over at Amazon Kindle by itself for a few months.
(They just make it so easy, you know?)
Since my time is not going to free up soon, I’ve decided to put On the Path into the lending program for at least three months to see if the sales are any better than on it’s own.
Here’s the link again if you’re interested.
Please feel free to share the link!
Friday, March 16th, 2012  My background is journalism, so naturally I have my own morgue.
The “morgue” in newspaper parlance are the file cabinets holding all the research materials, notes and photos that went into producing a news story. All the pieces are usually filed together in a single folder by year or story. Sometimes the photos have their own morgue. Depends on the newspaper.
Pretty inefficient, really. While a lot of those records are filed electronically now, most of it still goes down the same way because who has the time to turn scribbled notes and library research into electronic documents when you’ve got to write the next news story?
And really, that stuff almost never gets looked at again unless it’s a really big story that has repercussions years later and needs to be referenced again. Or, the newspaper runs one of those “Five years ago, Ten years ago, etc. columns.
Writers tend to have ideas folders (stuff where they put ideas they’ve had, but aren’t ready to be written yet, snippets of overhead conversations, inspiring photos, etc.) and “trunked” files: a place for those stories that were written, but never got sold for whatever reason.
I have another file I keep, my “Culled from ‘XX Manuscript'” file: this is the place where I copy and paste the stuff edited out of my manuscripts. It contains idle scenes, verbose paragraphs, misplaced character thoughts in long and short phrases.
It’s a file that makes me feel better when I’m editing: I can take all that “hard work” which should never see the light of day, and keep a record of having written it. I tell myself I’ll go back there one day and make use of it.
I’ve never, ever done so (unlike my morgue or ideas folders…)
But this past week while I was doing some major edits, I realized that that file contains a lot of good stuff even if it wasn’t polished enough — or well thought out enough — to use in the current manuscript.
It’s plenty good for inspiring ideas when you need a kick.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Raid your ideas folder or junked stories for a snippet, phrase, paragraph, description, etc. to get your juices flowing: we’re not looking for an old idea to use here, we’re reading until you find a phrase that sparks a new idea. Find it and write.
- Kill two birds with one stone: edit something that needs to be polished. Take all those words and phrases you cut away and save them into another file. Likely, they won’t be ‘sparkers’ this early: they’re too fresh in your mind. Set them aside for a few weeks and then revisit. In the meantime: you’ve polished up some writing. Send it out!
- If you don’t have ideas folders, trunked files, or writing that needs some editing (Welcome, beginner!) pick a book off your shelf — something you haven’t read in a long time, or something you’ve never read — and open it to a random page. Read until an idea is sparked.
- If none of these ideas appeal, here area a few very short phrases from my latest edits. Feel free to use them for your own stories:
- “I’m damn tired of not getting my money’s worth.”
- So, what did he want me to do about this?
- It didn’t matter why the old man told him the story: he didn’t want to hear it.
- …stiff and away from the window…
- Chasing women was something he’d never had to do
- Convinced he could do no more for the creature than make her comfortable, he…
- The priestesses had long controlled the northern parts of the continent because of…
Good luck!
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Photo Credit: A story about the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot and the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch newspaper morgue.
Monday, March 12th, 2012  I had another major #bookfail this weekend, what with the local library hosting their winter book sale.
I was disappointed last year, having picked up only a few things, but this year, I got lucky. Or not. Depending on your point of view.
(The Husband of Awesome™ is, of course, shaking his head in resigned acceptance. He knows I can’t help myself. It’s a sickness.)
This year I picked up eight bags of books. I looked like a crazy person pushing my overflowing cart to the front counter to pay. And I was not embarrassed in the least when one of the bags spilled out all over the floor, and someone’s four-year-old stooped to help me pick them up.
Right on, Mama! I was thinking. Get the kids addicted from an early age.
I should note that several of the (ahem, 200+ books) are hardbacks which will be replacing some of the paperbacks on my shelves. And at least 30 of the procured books were picked up for other folks.
But what made this sale awesome was that someone had cleaned out their collection. Many of the books I purchased were wrapped in plastic, collector’s bags. They’re in fine condition and included several of the “Year’s Best” anthologies.
I’m in heaven. (When I’m not thinking that this collector has died, instead of switching over his collection to ebooks.)
Getting these books is a little like heading off on my monthly grocery shopping trip. You know the one: the trip necessitated by only having ramen in the cupboard and even the pickles and olives in the fridge are growing mold.)
What? You don’t shop every four-to-six weeks?
Well, ok, I do shop for fresh bread and cream for the coffee as needed, but the rest waits for The Big Trip.
The problem is, when I get home from a trip like that, I want to sample everything.
I want to make a deli sandwich on fresh bread. Eat fresh fruit. Break into the rice pudding. Eat some mint chocolate chip ice cream. Nibble on the vienna finger cookies. Boil some eggs. Open the chips and dip. And salsa.
You know what I mean? (Or am I just a crazy person?)
But that’s just how it’s been with these books. I’m taking a few off the top, some from the middle, and a few from deep down in the sacks and reading a chapter here and a chapter there.
They’re all so good, I don’t know which to put down and which to finish. I’m halfway through two of them. Three-quarters through another, and on the first two-to-four chapters in several others.
I hate to admit it, but there is one book that’s been sitting on the dresser in which I have only the last page to read. The last page! I got interrupted when I was reading and put it down, and haven’t finished it off.
At first, that was just funny, and now I’m trying to figure out how long I can stand it.
What about you? How do you go through your stacks of books? One at a time or several?
Friday, March 9th, 2012  I’ve talked about cliches before in my “How to Write Like a Professional Journalist” post some time ago.
In that post, I stated that writers should work to eradicate clichés from their written words.
Clichés are shortcuts: a hackneyed phrase we use in a collective to get a point across very quickly. It’s easier to tell someone you didn’t come to work yesterday because you were “sick as a dog,” instead of going into detail about your fever, vomiting and chills.
Used in context, your friends will also “get” that you had the worst hangover ever if you let them know you were “sick as a dog,” after last night’s bachelor party.
In writing, however, clichés tend to make a writer sound like an amateur. (There are some exceptions to this, of course. I’ll get into them in another post.)
One thing clichés are useful for is giving your brain an immediate picture of what’s going on. If I use the term “man cave” to describe a guy’s office, some kind of image is going to flash into your mind.
The thing of it is, what I meant when I said “man cave,” and what you perceived (or saw) when you heard “man cave,” are probably two different things. So, in writing, you should take the time to explain things, rather than settling for the cliché.
Another thing clichés are good for — since they deliver an immediate picture postcard of the idea – is to use them as story starters or scene ideas.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Search your current writing for a cliché and re-write that passage to say what you really meant. (If it’s in dialogue, leave it alone. Dialogue is one of the exceptions!)
- If you want to write, but feel like you’re blocked, find a hackneyed phrase you like and see what it conjures up. Spend fifteen minutes free writing a journal entry, the beginning of a short story, a scene from a much larger work, or a poem.
- Do the same if you’re writing your memoirs, letters or working on genealogy: use the phrase to prompt a memory, then write what you recall.
If you can’t think of a phrase, the ClichéSite has a tremendous list of clichés. Wonderful!
Thursday, March 8th, 2012  An amendment to a Scottish law going into effect April 1st (no joke!) is going to severely handicap authors — and others — from providing free readings and other entertainment to the public.
The new law requires that any event to which the public is invited, now be licensed. The license may be purchased at a flat rate of £245 (Today’s Conversion Rate: $285 USD).
In the past, free events were not required to be licensed. Apparently, non-free events licenses could be licensed on a sliding rate.
Scottish politicians are trying to spin this as “people control” and “crime deterrent,” but it’s clearly a mechanism to increase cash in the government’s pocket.
I got my information via the blog SUBROSA. You can read the full story here. The blogger talks about how a writing group she’s associated with is going to be hurt by the new law.
I encourage you wander over to SUBROSA and read the comments. Folks bring up the fact that affected events now include such things as Easter Egg Hunts and Yard Sales (I gather it’s large charity sales, such as those for Scouts or other clubs which are included, not personal yard sales).
One author mentions that it will be cheaper to take a train out of Scottland to do a reading, then to pay the flat rate fee.
How much do you want to bet that Scotland sees a dearth of free public events rather than an uptick in the fees collected for such?
It’s scary legislation. SUBROSA calls it “insidious.” I agree.
Unfortunately, I envision it happening here soon.
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