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!
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.
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012  Bugs Bunny fans will recognize the phrase, “I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque.”
I’m sitting here saying the same thing as my current manuscript is no longer recognizable: It’s taken a left turn into erotica.
You regulars will know that I write dark fantasy and science fiction. (Those of you who came here after googling “erotica” know that now, too.)
So, it’s as surprising to me (as you) that I’ve written three complete — and soon to be four — scenes in my current manuscript that are so steamy, I had to step outside in the cool air for a minute before I sat down again to finish them. (And nobody’s even had sex yet!)
I was reluctant to release them to my critique partners for their review. (But they enjoyed them — even the men — so that’ll show me to want to hide my work.)
What’s strange to me is that I think the male lead in the erotica section is going to become a major character. At first, he was a walk-on. In the second scene he tempts the book’s main character, not only with the promise of really good sex, but with heart’s desire: healing a demonic wound which will not heal.
I can’t decide if she’ll go all the way with him in this next scene. If she does, she damns her immortal soul. But she’ll be whole again, gain a huge amount of knowledge about something, and have incredible sex all night long.
She just might be tempted. After all, her immortal soul is only lost to her if she dies. There are ways to cleanse it before that happens, right?
Yeah, I’m still working out the sticky bits of the plot. This is what happens when the characters start talking to you and they refuse to play the roles you’ve cast them in.
I can’t wait to see how this turns out.
But I’m curious: as a reader, would you be willing to pick up a book not quite like the last you read by an author, or would you bypass it in favor of something else?
Saturday, February 11th, 2012 Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is one of those ‘famous’ books on writing that writer-type folks talk about whenever the subject of good-books-to-learn-writing-skills comes up. I’ve wanted to read it for a long time.
However, I found it very difficult to get through.
The premise of the book is based on a wonderful 30-year-old memory: Faced with the insurmountable problem of writing a book report on birds, Lamott’s 10-year-old brother is in tears and wondering how he’s going to get it all done. Their father puts an arm around his shoulder and says, “Bird by bird, Buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
Fabulous advice.
But I realized after reading the introduction the book was not for me. It’s written in a literary style, a bit verbose for my tastes, and the takeaways aren’t what I need in my writing life right now. In my mind, Lamott spends a lot of time rambling about she thinks about things, rather than adding any concrete “how to” to the information. And there are a few chapters where she talks about something that happened to her, and you’re sort of left to wonder what she wanted you to get from the aside.
In the first chapter, “Getting Started,” Lamott talks about writing the truth and writing what’s real. She advocates starting with writing down everything you remember from school and kindergarten and holidays and such, along with your feelings and what you knew at the time. If you keep hacking at it, you’ll find the truth, or what’s real to write about. And that’s where you should start writing.
As a writer of speculative fiction, this isn’t what I needed (or wanted) to hear. I make things up. And while my stories might contain a kernel of something that happened to me (or someone else I know) it’s not going to resemble anything in the way of this exercise. The feelings, the emotions, yes – else how could you identify with my characters? – but the rest doesn’t make sense for me.
(From a genealogical perspective, on the other hand, I find this chapter fascinating. And, I might have to give it a whirl when I find the time.)
Other chapters in the book offer sound advice for beginners:
- Start small. (Especially if you are easily overwhelmed by large projects.)
- It’s okay to write terrible first drafts.
- Stop being a perfectionist. Perfectionism is “the voice of the oppressor,” according to Lamott.
- Plot grows out of character.
- Care passionately about what you write.
- Trust what your inner voice – your intuition — is telling you about your writing.
Then there’s a chapter called, “School lunches,” where Lamottt talks about a writing exercise she uses in her classes. Everyone writes down what they remember about school lunches and then they compare. She says when they discuss the differences of lunches throughout the states, it’s where they “see in bolder relief what we have in common.”
She gives some examples of what she wrote, which seem over dramatic. I think they’re supposed to be funny, but aren’t to me. It’s like she’s trying too hard.
One section of the book is called, “Help Along the Way,” where I suspect Lamott meant to suggest some useful tools for writers. But she spends an entire chapter discussing index cards, where the advice amounts to “Always carry something to write on.”
In another chapter, “Calling Around,” Lamott advises, “There are an enormous number of people out there with invaluable information to share with you, and all you have to do is pick up the phone.” Again, good, but we don’t need entire chapters to get the point across.
Two chapters, “Writing Groups” and “Someone to Read Your Drafts” are all about finding critique partners and getting feedback on your work. These are the two best chapters in the book. They contain good information, especially for beginning writers, and I agree with most of what she says.
(Unlike Lamott, I don’t advocate getting feedback from relatives, because in most instances they’re too afraid to hurt your feelings to tell you what you need to hear.)
The chapter on writers block is encouraging, but not instructional. There are no suggestions for how to overcome it (although an earlier chapter on writing letters could be useful. Lamott does not tie the two together.)
If you want to learn more about the author Anne Lamott, read this book. There are long passages about what she thinks about the writing process and how she handles it. She’s admittedly neurotic about it, and makes the assumption that most writers are as well. I disagree.
If you’re looking for concrete examples on how to write, new tools for your toolbox, or tricks of the trade, I’d look elsewhere.
Friday, February 10th, 2012  February 10 is National Umbrella Day in the United States.
(I didn’t know this until I sat down to write this post.)
Seems kind of silly to me. (But fun, too. For some reason it makes me wish it were raining today.)
I suspect that “National Umbrella Day” must be the product of a greeting card company, because I can find no congressional evidence of a “national” day being declared for it.
Do you have a favorite bumbershoot? I have this wonderful golf-sized umbrella that I got free from drinking lots of Lipton Tea. It’s red-and-white-striped with the Lipton logo. It’s my go-to umbrella when it’s raining…and people laugh and laugh because it’s so huge. But it keeps me dry, so I’m keeping it.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Write a poem using the imagery of an umbrella. It can be any kind of umbrella: rain umbrella, beach umbrella, an umbrella in a mixed drink, one of those silly hat umbrellas, etc.
- If you journal, write a letter to your children (or nieces and nephews) about the time you needed an umbrella and didn’t have one.
- Consider the things that “umbrella” is a metaphor for: a shield for protection, something to hide behind, as a cover from risk, or a folded umbrella representing untapped potential, etc. Write about the time you or a character in one of your stories could have used an umbrella — metaphorically.
Friday, January 27th, 2012  “Taking Our Geese to Market”1909 W. H. Martin Decades before the software program Photoshop was a gleam in anyone’s eye, photographer W.H. Martin was creating photo montages. Judging from the few postcards I’ve seen, his themes were mostly agricultural, with some based on “old wives tales.”
All the ones I’ve seen tell a tall tale.
According to Wikipedia:
“A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories (‘the fish that got away’) such as, “that fish was so big, why I tell ya’, it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!”
Other tall tales are completely fictional tales set in a familiar setting, such as the European countryside, the American Old West, the Canadian Northwest, or the beginning of the Industrial Age.
See Wikipedia for more information about tall tales.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Write a tall tale about what happened to you today.
- If today is too hum-drum :(, write a tall tale about another day in your life.
- Re-write a tall tale you already know with yourself as the main character, and using modern day events.
- Like Martin, create a visual pictorial of a tall tale: draw it, use photography software to create it, or tear pictures from a magazine to make a collage.
- Write an exaggerated poem about something that happened to you yesterday.
Friday, January 13th, 2012  I was halfway home from work today when I realized I’d not scheduled the writing prompt for today.
Whoops!
I’ve had so much on my mind that I forgot.
So… in honor of forgetting, today’s prompt is about forgetfulness.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Your character forgets something very important. What happens?
- One of your characters forgets something she thinks is no big deal, but her best friend/ significant other/ spouse completely disagrees. Write the argument that ensues.
- If you journal, use either of the two above prompts, only from your point of view.
- Write an acrostic poem using the word Forget or Forgetful.
- Here are some famous quotations about forgetfulness to spark you:
- It is the lot of man to suffer, it is also his fortune to forget. – Benjamin Disraeli
- Though the past haunt me as a spirit, I do not ask to forget. – Felicia Dorothea Browne Hermans
- There is a noble forgetfulness–that which does not remember injuries. – Charles Simmons
- When out of sight, quickly also out of mind. – Thomas a Kempis
Thursday, January 12th, 2012  I still need to post the results of my 2011 Goals, but that’s going to take some effort to get together. Things sort of fell apart toward the end of the year, and while I kept paper-based records, I didn’t enter anything into my spreadsheets.
I’ll get those together soon.
Even without punching the numbers, I realize I haven’t met many of last year’s goals. I might have been able to do so, but I didn’t anticipate the writing funk I fell into after losing a manuscript, as well as the time-sink The Great Roof Debacle turned out to be.
But instead of scaling back most of the number-based goals, I’m going to re-target them toward fiction. That aligns nicely with my overall plan.
Here are the goals:
1 – Write 250 days in 2012
Last year I tried to write 302 days out of the year, and I found it nearly impossible to reach. Working full time with a long commute just doesn’t allow for it. But I’m hoping that by cutting other “writerly” commitments (like no longer serving as the Secretary for my county’s writer’s association) – I’ll be able to manage a few more days.
2 – Double last year’s fiction output.
3 – Finish the first draft of my current work-in-progress.
4 – Write stories for three separate anthologies I’ve been invited to write for – before March 30.
5 – Write an average of 3 blog posts per week (at least 156) for 2012.
6 – Fifty-two (52) of the 156 must be Writing Prompts.
7 – Clean out my office, and clean off my virtual desktop.
Those of you who have seen my computer’s desktop know what a jungle of files it is. I want to organize all that. Likewise, I want to re-organize my office. Things are still in boxes due to the roof issues, and living out of boxes is really annoying.
I think that’s going to take a whole separate “project plan” to accomplish, but it will be worth it.
How about you? Posted your goals yet?
Friday, January 6th, 2012  I was heading to work Wednesday morning this week — my first day back in the office after a long Christmas Holiday — when I’d finally reached the exit for the highway.
The signs loomed above me: east in one direction, west in the other. Usually, I’m on autopilot at a little after 5 a.m. in the morning, and veer eastbound strictly out of habit.
But Wednesday I had the strongest — the strangest — urge to take the westbound ramp and just keep going.
The closer I got to the ramp, the stronger the urge grew, so much so that I had to grip the steering wheel hard and make a conscious effort to make the left hand turn instead of drifting into the right hand on-ramp.
Even after I made the turn and was heading east, something inside me cried out for a U-turn (impossible on this divided highway – I would have spent time playing the clover leaf should I have succumbed to my urges).
Urges are motivated by something, either conscious or unconscious, and I’ve yet to decipher what my motivation was.
We could argue that it was some ghostly pull inspiring the desire to drive westward, but it could have simply been that I had such a blast with family and friends over the holidays that I was reluctant to end that euphoria by schlepping back to work.
Another motivation could be that work is such a heinous place (yeah, it has its moments) that I didn’t want to go back. Somehow, I think my westward urge would have manifested before Wednesday morning if that were the case.
Whatever the reason, I managed to suppress the desire and arrive safely to toil at my workaday endeavors without further incident.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- If you’re a journal or diarist, write about the time you succumbed to the will of an urge. What was your motivation? Did you anticipate the action with glee only to end in despair? Did giving in prove wildly exciting? Do you have any regrets? Do you wish you’d given in to more urges?
- Write a story or a scene in which a character falls prey to an urge that is completely out of character for him. Why did he do it? What was the motivation? Did it end badly or well??
- Write a story or scene about a character who stands firm against an urge…something she’s not known for doing. Where did she find the power to resist? Does the scene end badly, or well? Does she regret not giving in, or feel self-righteous that she was able to stand firm?
- Some quick prompts:
- a friend urges another to rid herself of a (real or perhaps not) physical imperfection
- a wife urges her husband to overcome a sexual inhibition
- a psychologist urges his patient to face a truth
- a student urges another to deface a university building
- you feel the urge to tell a lie to someone close to you
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Photo obtained from NY Times Web site.
Friday, December 23rd, 2011  So…
Things have been pretty quiet around the blog lately. I’ve been baking lots of cookies, and working more than I want to at the day job, but it’s been hard to concentrate on the writing stuff — mostly — because I was being sued and had to go to court.
In short: I was leaving a parking lot nearly three (3!) years ago when a man backed out of a parking space and struck my car. He brought suit against me this July. He claimed it was my fault, and he sought recompense for doctor’s bills, pain and suffering, damage to his car, etc.
The amount he sued me for elevated the case out of the lower court and we had to go to trial.
My lawyer successfully defended me, so all is well. (Now, maybe I can get back to the writing.)
A funny part of the story: I learned I was being sued by advertising. I received three letters in the mail, all from attorneys offering to represent me, before I’d even been served.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Involve one of your characters with the law: have them be sued (or sue someone) and need to go to trial. Or, have them witness an event at which they have to testify. Worse, have him or her be held up at gunpoint, or be standing at the register when someone comes in to rob the establishment. Tell what happens.
- Create a fictional legal system to use in a short story or novel. Design the laws (and the reasons for them), how they are broken, and what the punishments are. If the punishment includes working off the debt, define how this is accomplished. If lawbreakers are punished with incarceration, design the jail system and holding cells. If punishment includes banishment, include information on where people are banished to (the living conditions, the environment, what they’re provided with, etc.). What other ways are people held accountable for their deeds in your world?
- Imagine a world where no laws exist. How does the world function? Is it a good or bad place to live in? How do people protect themselves against (human) predators? How could a legal system evolve? Would people want it to?
- Define our legal system as you would to a child.
- Write about the time you broke the law: Have you broken the speed limit? Ignored a ‘Do Not Litter’ sign? Walked off the path in a public park? Were you caught? What happened? Did you talk your way out of the situation? Did you have to pay a fine? Did you go to jail?
- Imagine being arrested for a crime you didn’t commit. The evidence against you looks bad. It’s so bad, that if you didn’t know you hadn’t done it, you would have thought you’d done it. Does the jury find for you or against you? Write how the trial proceeds.
- Imagine you are an attorney when “the case of the century” is handed to you to prosecute or defend. You know the outcome of the trail will change the world as you know it. What is this case? What is your argument as the prosecutor or defender? What will happen if you win or lose the trial?
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Writers - Maryland Writer's Assn.
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