I Got My Wish

I have all of the Calvin and Hobbes treasury collections, and this is one of my favorites! I have it hanging on my wall above my desk. It reminds me to make small wishes and goals that are conceivably attainable. Everyone should have big wishes and “impossible” dreams, but it’s the achievement of the little dreams that help make those big dreams possible. 

So eat a sandwich and then get back to work. You can’t begin to plan on achieving ownership of a private continent without first filling your belly!

May 2012 hold many wonderful surprises for you and yours! Cheers to a happy, healthy, productive, prosperous, and blessed new year to all my amazing blog buddies! Have a fabulous weekend, Zigzaggers!!!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

John Orozco (USA)

On the weekends, prompts keep my creativity warmed up so I don’t “pull a muscle” on Monday morning. During the week, prompts jump-start my writing routine. Consider using your own characters and settings for these prompts. You might come up with dazzling new ideas for your WiP! All you’ll need for these exercises is your writing materials and an open mind. Remember to drink lots of water and stretch!

Start it up!

Exercise 1

You already know the phrases “green with envy” and “red with anger” (or embarrassment). Make up other metaphors using colors.

Ramp it up! 

Exercise 2

Write a scene as a fly on the wall at a New Year’s Eve party, offering no entry into the minds of the characters. Describe only what the fly sees, and offer clues in the details to how the party people are thinking and feeling.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3

Write a story about a person’s obsession with collecting something.

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

Use these last days of 2011 to reflect on your writing goals this past year. Did you fulfill them? If not, what kept you from achieving those goals? Think about what impeded your goals and how you will overcome them in the new year. Make new goals for 2012!

Every Wednesday I post prompts and exercises for your “writing workout” so keep checking back! Happy writing!!!

Books and Socks

“Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair [of socks]. People will insist on giving me books.”

{Albus Dumbledore ~ J.K. Rowling}

Great books and super fun socks are two of my favorite things! I hope all of you were good girls and boys this year so that Santa Claus was good to you in return. ;) Have a wonderful week!

“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.”

{Roy L. Smith}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

Merry and Bright!

Miracles are of Spirit, not any one faith. Miracles are for anyone who believes. That is the heart of Hanukkah and the soul of Christmas. The more we allow ourselves to recognize the wisdom and truth in other spiritual paths, the closer to Wholeness we become.

{Sarah Ban Breathnach}

If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things; if we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have the time to make the long, slow journey across the desert as did the Magi? Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds? Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary? For each one of us, there is a desert to travel. A star to discover. And a being within ourselves to bring to life.

{Author Unknown}

☆ The secret to a merry Christmas is simply to believe. ☆ 

May the magic of the holiday season be with you and yours now and throughout the new year! I hope you all have a most marvelous weekend!

The Ghosts Posts of Christmas Past you may enjoy:

• Cookie & Cocoa Recipes

• 6 Favorite Christmas Scenes in Children’s Literature

• Christmas Won’t be Christmas without Any Presents

Christmas 1993. I still have this zebra folder! It's a
little beat-up now, but it holds pictures and articles
about zebras I've collected over the years.

This is a picture of me and my
then-boyfriend-now-husband from our
high school yearbook senior year.
It was taken at the Christmas dance,
December 2003.

Wednesday's Writing Workout - Christmas Theme!

Alexandra Raisman
(USA)

On the weekends, prompts keep my creativity warmed up so I don’t “pull a muscle” on Monday morning. During the week, prompts jump-start my writing routine. Consider using your own characters and settings for these prompts. You might come up with dazzling new ideas for your WiP! All you’ll need for these exercises is your writing materials and an open mind. Remember to drink lots of water and stretch!

Start it up!

Exercise 1

Imagine a world where humans need no sleep. How would this effect Christmas Eve and children waiting for Santa Claus?

Ramp it up! 

Exercise 2

Rewrite Clement C. Moore’s poem A Visit from St. Nicholas as an ode to your family’s holiday traditions.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3

My Christmas tree!

Expand any classic Christmas carol or contemporary holiday song into a short story or flash fiction story.

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

Describe a snowflake, Christmas tree, Hanukkah candles, or any symbolic item from a holiday or event you celebrate to someone who has never seen it and doesn’t know what it is. 

Every Wednesday I post prompts and exercises for your “writing workout” so keep checking back! Happy writing!!!

Happy Hanukkah, Happy Winter, and Happy Wednesday, Zigzaggers!!!

Monday Quote Day!

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more commonplace than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and Determination alone are omnipotent.

{Calvin Coolidge}

A house without books is like a room without windows.

{Horace Mann}

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home. 

{Anna Quindlen}

If you want to be successful, it's just this simple: Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.

{Will Rogers}

If you are not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.

{Sir Ken Robinson}

Mrs. Austen: JANE! 

Lady Gresham: What is she doing? 

Mr. Wisley: Writing. 

Lady Gresham: Can anything be done about it?

{from the 2007 film Becoming Jane}

Wouldn’t it be better for you to discover a meaning in what you write than to impose one? Nothing you write will lack meaning because the meaning is in you.

{Flannery O’Connor}

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason: they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.
{Charles Caleb Colton}

Cheers to a week overflowing with love, laughter, miracles, and magical surprises! 

Have a happy Monday, Zigzaggers, and keep on writing!

Déjá Vu: Creating Your Personal Universe Deck!

This is my recycled post for the Déjá Vu Blogfest! I originally posted it this past April as part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge for the letter I. A great big twinkly thank you to DL Hammons @ Cruising Altitude 2.0 for putting together this clever blogfest!

Index cards have many uses in a writer’s world. Anne Lamott suggests carrying a couple cards on you at all times so when an idea smacks you upside the head, you’ll have an index card with you to write notes.

Other authors suggest outlining your novel with index cards by writing scene notes on them. By laying out the cards, which are all your scenes, you can visualize the novel in a more concrete way and test how scenes might work elsewhere in the novel.

I have another way to use these delightful index cards: creating a Personal Universe Deck! My college creative writing professor had every student do this exercise. It’s a way to spark new ways of thinking, break through writer’s block, create fresh unexpected angles for your story, or to ignite a new story idea. This is how it works:

• Get 100 index cards (they come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and colors)

• Write one word on each card: the words are to be significant to you for any reason and sound good to your ear (whether it’s a favorable or unfavorable word)

• Write 16 words for each of the five senses and be specific; can be adjectives, things, people, places, or whatever you think of for the senses (80 cards)

• Write 10 words of motion; these words don’t have to be only verbs or adverbs (10 cards)

• Write 3 abstraction words (3 cards)

• Write 7 words of anything you want (7 cards)

Once you have your 100 words on your index cards, it’s time to play! Shuffle the deck and lay out 15 cards. Do the words suggest any scenes, narrations, voices, characters, stories? Group them by categories to see if you can find or forge connections. Write down what you discover. Play another 15 cards and do the same thing. Play fifteen cards as often as you need to in order to get over your writer’s block or start writing a new scene or story.

I made my Personal Universe Deck my junior year of college, and I’ve used it ever since. Since my deck was created five years ago, I did it all over again and made a new one. I was surprised how many of the words had changed. So now I have two different decks to work with. If you like this exercise and it’s helpful for you, I suggest updating your Personal Universe Deck at least every five years! 

What are other ways you use index cards? I hope you make your own Personal Universe Deck. Let me know how it goes!

Have a happy and sunshiney weekend, Zigzaggers!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

Yevgeniya Kanayeva 
(Russia)

On the weekends, prompts keep my creativity warmed up so I don’t “pull a muscle” on Monday morning. During the week, prompts jump-start my writing routine. Consider using your own characters and settings for these prompts. You might come up with dazzling new ideas for your WiP! All you’ll need for these exercises is your writing materials and an open mind. Remember to drink lots of water and stretch!

Start it up!

Exercise 1

In 25 words or fewer, write an opening sentence–just one–to a story incorporating the following words: frost, bauble, naughty.

Ramp it up! 

Exercise 2

List the top five experiences of your character’s life so far. How do those past moments effect your current story?

Burn it up!

Exercise 3: from Writer’s Digest

You've developed a cold only to discover that instead of sneezing, you (fill in the blank) every time feel like you have to sneeze. This side effect proves to create a fairly entertaining scene at the office with coworkers during your weekly budget meeting. Write this scene.

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

Describe snow without using the words wet or cold. 

Every Wednesday I post prompts and exercises for your “writing workout” so keep checking back! Happy writing!!!

Monday Quote Day!

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. 

{Frederick Douglass}

No book is really worth reading at the age of 10 which is not equally–and often far more–worth reading at the age of 50 and beyond.

{C. S. Lewis}

So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall.

{Roald Dahl}

A library is infinity under a roof.

{Gail Carson Levine}

Ideas move fast when their time comes.

{Carolyn G. Heilbrun} 

Good books don't give up all their secrets at once.

{Stephen King}

Rejection is a challenge. 

{Veronica Purcell}

No great goal was ever easily achieved.

{Margaret Thatcher}

A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge.
{Friedrich Dürrenmatt}

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one. 

{Terry Pratchett}

Curiosity has its own reason for existence. The important thing is to not stop questioning.
{Albert Einstein}

When you’re creating your own shit, man, even the sky ain’t the limit.

{Miles Davis}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!

It’s Easy to Become an Author

Last month while participating in a three mile walk for the American Heart Association in support of my brother-in-law, my 11-year-old niece said to me, “You write novels and stories, right?” We talked about that for a little while, and then the inevitable question came: she asked me why I wasn’t published yet. 

Then, in the all-knowing way only a girl on the cusp of teendom knows how, she went on to say,  “It’s easy to become an author."

Yeesh. I envy the ignorance of children. It truly is pure bliss.

I tried to explain to her how difficult it is to get published and how much hard work goes into it. The skeptical look on her face remained. I could tell she either didn’t get it or didn’t believe me, so I let it go. The shock of adulthood will be upon her soon enough!

I slightly changed the subject and asked her if she likes to write, and to my delight she said yes! She’s writing a story about a ghost cat, and on Thanksgiving she let me read a story she wrote about a princess. So cute! It brought back memories of my own animal and royalty stories I wrote when I was a kid. How wonderful it is to know kids today are still reading and writing and being creative! 

Even though children don’t have a clue what it takes to be a real writer no matter how simply it’s explained, that’s okay. It’s best to encourage the writing and leave it at that for now. We don’t want to scare them from ever trying!

If you’re not published yet, has a child ever asked you why and remained skeptical when you tried to explain? Whether or not you're published, how do you talk to the children in your life about your work?

Have a happy weekend, Zigzaggers!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

Viktoria Komova
(Russia)

On the weekends, prompts keep my creativity warmed up so I don’t “pull a muscle” on Monday morning. During the week, prompts jump-start my writing routine. Consider using your own characters and settings for these prompts. You might come up with dazzling new ideas for your WiP! All you’ll need for these exercises is your writing materials and an open mind. Remember to drink lots of water and stretch!

Start it up!

Exercise 1

When you were a child, what did you imagine your happiest moment in life would be? Has this turned out to be true? Write it.

Ramp it up! 

Exercise 2: from Writer’s Digest

Choose an inanimate subject (an object, place, idea, or emotion) and describe it using action verbs.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3

Write a scene or story that’s supposed to be romantic but make it funny!

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

Write a flash fiction story based on your favorite song from your teenage years.

Every Wednesday I post prompts and exercises for your “writing workout” so keep checking back! Happy writing!!!

Monday Quote Day – On Revision!

Whether or not you participated in NaNoWriMo last month, I’m sure a lot of you are diving into revisions this month or perhaps getting ready to start revising. So today’s quote day will be about writing’s most vital (and sometimes most difficult) process:

At first glance it may appear too hard. Look again. Always look again.

{Mary Anne Rodmacher}

I love revisions. Where else in life can spilled milk be transformed into ice cream?

{Katherine Paterson}

The great thing about revision is that it's your opportunity to fake being brilliant.

{Will Shetterly}

In baseball you only get three swings and you’re out. In rewriting, you get almost as many swings as you want and you know, sooner or later, you’ll hit the ball.

{Neil Simon}

When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.

{Stephen King}

The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.

{Robert Cormier}

I've found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it.

{Don Roff}

That’s the magic of revisions–every cut is necessary, and every cut hurts, but something new always grows.

{Kelly Barnhill}

Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.

{Colette}

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And you edit to let the fire show through the smoke.

{Arthur Polotnik}

Tonight is St. Nick’s Eve! When my siblings and I were little, we would put our shoes on the staircase the night of December 5. The next morning, St. Nicholas Day, our shoes were filled with candy canes, chocolate candy, coins and a wrapped gift, usually a book or small Lego set. It was a wonderful way for us kids to hold out a little longer until Christmas! Does your family celebrate this tradition?

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

I’m Baaaaack

I'm baaaaack!

HELLO, blog buddies!!! My blogcation is finito. It’s GREAT to be back. Though it was very pleasant some days not having to wonder what to blog about, I missed all of you a lot. Thanks to everyone for sticking around! Somehow I even gained a few new followers, for which I am very happy and grateful. Welcome to Wavy Lines! *waves to you new Zigzaggers*  

NaNo was as much fun as ever, my novel sucks just as much as my others, but I think the suckage is improving (ha!). I love writing a novel when I know thousands of others are doing it at the exact same time. I know we novelists are writing all year, too, but it’s different in November when you know for sure you’re not alone for thirty days! 

This used to be the coolest
cell phone to have.

My blog’s facelift never happened, obviously. I don’t have the programs to do it, and I’m not really liking Blogger’s new template selections. So it looks like we’ll have to put up with my same old blog until I get a new computer…which won’t happen until my current laptop dies. (OMG, I hope I didn’t just jinx it. *knocks on wood*) I have a PowerBook G4, which Apple doesn’t even make anymore. It’s four months shy of being 8 years old. My OS is Lion. I know, I know, it’s ancient, but I love my baby! I’m not easily lured in by shiny new things. I take good care of and keep what I’ve got until it’s dead and gone. That’s probably why my closest friend is my BFF from kindergarten and I ended up marrying the boy I had a crush on in 2nd grade. And I still have a hot pink Motorola Razr flip phone, which is only my second cell phone ever. Do you see a pattern here??

Okay, okay, enough rambling. I know some of you really missed my blog’s weekly quotes (Saumya, I’m talking about you!), and my regular scheduled posting will be back next week! I’ve got some good quotes and prompts and fun ideas to share with you. I enjoyed my blogcation, but I’m happy it’s over too!

Tell me what’s new with you! Anything exciting happen last month? What have you got going on this weekend? Who has a book releasing Winter or Spring 2012 so I can add your awesomeness to my Must-Reads page?

Happy Friday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!