Wavy Lines

Five for Friday: 5 Headlines That Ask, What If?

2012-01-27T08:20:00.001-05:00

Every now and then I read a news article that has potential for a fascinating story. Below are five articles I’ve recently read that made me ask all kinds of questions. I thought maybe some of you could use it for inspiration. These are just seeds for possible character and plot ideas: remember to think outside the box. Any story can be manipulated in dozens of ways for whatever genre you write!

Man Returns Money He Stole from Sears in the 1940s He even included interest! How old was this man when he stole the money? What if he needed the money for food? Would that make it okay? What if he stole the money to get revenge? What if he sent the money overseas to a loved one in WWII? What made him want to return the money now? What if the man who returned the money isn’t actually the person who stole it? Is he covering for someone, or perhaps fulfilling a death bed wish to make things right? Read the article title again: Could this be a time travel story? What if he went back to the 1940s the day he stole in the money? Write it!

After 92 Years, Millionaire Miser’s Heirs Finally Split $100M What happened among this family to make this wealthy man keep his contemporary heirs out of the will? Who are the heirs today and how will this unexpected wealth in a foundering economic future affect them? Write it!

Huguette Clark, Montana Copper Heiress, Signed Two Conflicting Wills Before Death Why was this woman a recluse? What could’ve happened to make her avoid her family? Was there a family feud that caused Clark to remove relatives from her will? What if the lawyers are crooked and greedy like the family claims? Write it!

Library Book Two Decades Overdue Who returned the book? Was it found by a new owner of the house? Or perhaps a relative returned it for a deceased relative? Why did he/she even bother? What happened the day the person went to the library? What happened to make the borrower not return the book on time? Write it!

Teen Girls’ Medical Mystery Baffles Doctors This story could be really interesting for those of you who write YA, thrillers, or horror. What if the girls are faking it? Why would they want to do that? What if it’s something supernatural making the girls have these symptoms (aliens, ghosts, demons…)? If it can be scientifically explained, why can't doctors figure it out? What if it becomes an epidemic in the near future? Or what if it’s just the beginning of bizarre things to come as the world comes to an end in December 2012? Write it!

Have you read an intriguing news article lately that made you ask what if? Do you see here some kind of potential for a new story in your future? Have fun! I hope some of you get an idea for a brilliant story from these articles!

Have a wonderful weekend, Zigzaggers!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2012-01-25T08:05:00.002-05:00

Sui Lu (China)

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

Ask your parents, grandparents, or an elderly neighbor what their favorite singer or band was when they were young. Listen to a few songs. Write about the feelings and thoughts that come to you. Write a scene or story from that time period with your parent or grandparent as the main character.

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

Sharon Creech got the idea for her Newbery Medal-winning novel Walk Two Moons from a Chinese fortune cookie. Order Chinese food this week and write a scene or flash fiction story based on the fortune in the cookie. Maybe it’ll turn into something more!

Burn it up!

Exercise 3

Write a winter story about two estranged people (family, friends, lovers) during an unexpected lightning storm during a blizzard.

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

Monday Quote Day!

2012-01-23T07:35:00.001-05:00

You can’t depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus.

{Mark Twain}

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

{Sylvia Plath}

It is impossible to discourage the real writers–they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.

{Sinclair Lewis}

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.

{James Bryce}

I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.

{E.M. Forster}

‘Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are’ is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you re-read.

{François Mauriac}

When you re-read a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than was there before.

{Clifton Fadiman}

When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them–then the rest will be valuable.

{Mark Twain}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

Overheard in the Bookstore

2012-01-20T11:00:00.004-05:00

I’ve happily spent my bookstore gift cards from Christmas and bought a wonderful pile of new books. While browsing the bookstore, this is what I overheard:

Two teenage girls in the YA aisle:

1st girl: “I can’t wait to get home and read all these!”

2nd girl: “I could just read all the time, all day.”

1st girl: “I just looooove bookstores and libraries.”

2nd girl: “I could sooooo live in a library.”

Girl (age guess: 5) with brother (age guess: 8) and dad in middle-grade section:

Girl: “I want these! Please?” (I don’t know which books she was pointing to.)

Dad: “They’re a little too old for you.”

Brother: “You can’t read much anyway.”

Girl: “I can learn more!”

Brother: “I could read them to her, Dad.”

Dad: “You can get them when you’re a little older, honey.”

Girl: “Harumph. I can read some old words.”

Boy (age guess: 4) with dad walking by the DVD aisle:

Boy: “Are we in a movie store?”

Dad: “This is a bookstore.”

Boy: “Oh. We’re at the library? It looks different.”

Dad, chuckling: “No, at the library we borrow books and have to return them so other people can borrow them, too. At a bookstore we buy books and get to keep them.”

Boy: “Wow! I like bookstores. What are you buying me?”

I love it that with all the rage over eBooks, young people are still embracing ink and paper books and are enthusiastic about reading the old-fashioned way!

Have you overheard any funny conversations at the bookstore or library recently? Please share!

Have a wonderful weekend, Zigzaggers! Be sure to make time to read for yourself or read aloud to the children in your life!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2012-01-18T10:20:00.000-05:00

Ana Porgras (Romania)

Start it up!

Exercise 1

Everyone has a first memory. What is your wip’s main character’s first memory? Write the scene.

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

Write about an intense board game incident that ends up with the game on the floor, no working lights in the room, buffalo chicken dip all over the cat, and one of the players missing.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3

What have you been whining about lately? Turn those complaints into a humorous story.

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

Monday Quote Day!

2012-01-16T09:50:00.000-05:00

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

{Stephen King}

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.

{Stephen King}

Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.

{Stephen King}

Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.

{Margaret Atwood}

Don't say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, ‘Please will you do the job for me.’

{C.S. Lewis}

Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you're working. Tell them it's research. Tell them to pipe down and leave you alone.

{Jennifer Weiner}

Nothing's a better cure for writer's block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton.

{Don Roff}

A word after a word after a word is power.

{Margaret Atwood}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

Hating the Writing and Persistence

2012-01-13T06:40:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite books to re-read when I’m out of sorts is the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. Stephanie and friends always lift my spirits. I laugh out loud at something on every other page! Last year I was happy to hear about Evanovich’s newest books, The Unmentionables series, featuring the oh-so-hot character Diesel from the Plum books. This new series is pretty much written in the same voice, tone, and style as the Plum series, except it has a paranormal twist.

In the series’ first book, Wicked Appetite, the main character, Lizzy Tucker, is a pastry chef who makes especially delicious cupcakes. Since she inherited an old dilapidated house, Lizzy is also writing a cookbook with the hope that the money from that will help pay for some home repairs. Lizzy’s cookbook dream is a very minor part of the novel, but of course I latched on to it because I was interested to see how Evanovich would have Lizzy handle rejection.

At first, Lizzy is optimistic. When she gets home from some wildly hilarious adventure with Diesel and Carl the monkey, she checks her mail in which there is inevitably a rejection letter. She sets the letter aside and firmly says, “Persistence.” She’s determined. She is going to sell that cookbook.

Sometime later (page 310 in the mass market paperback edition), it’s this reaction after reading an agent’s rejection letter:

“Damn, damn, damn!” I said. “I’ve had it, I’m done. What the heck do you have to do to get published anyway? I bet this guy didn’t even read my proposal. I hate him. I don’t even know him, and I hate him. I hate the whole publishing industry…”

I tore the letter into tiny pieces, threw them on the ground, jumped up and down on them and kicked them around. I stopped jumping, closed my eyes, and counted to ten.

Sound familiar, anyone? I imagine Janet Evanovich might’ve been writing from experience, and I know I’ve had moments like Lizzy’s! Afterwards, Lizzy admits she didn’t mean a thing she said, but still, we writers sure do think it.

The key to opening what you want is persistence. Sure, it’s okay to hate everything about writing and everyone in it sometimes. Then let it go and embrace persistence again. That’s the important part. As long as you’re venting about rejections in the privacy of your own home and NOT on the internet (or in a publisher’s face) then it’s okay. Let it out. Shout. Cry. Jump up and down and pretend you’re kicking a certain someone. But then take a deep breath and count to ten and get back to writing.

Persistence.

What has been your worst reaction to too many rejections? Have a happy weekend, Zigzaggers, and I hope it’s full of acceptances, in writing or otherwise!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2012-01-11T11:35:00.000-05:00

Yevgeniya Kanayeva (Russia)

Start it up!

Exercise 1

What is on your character’s grocery receipt? What does this say about him? Take it a step further and compare what's on your character's grocery list to what she actually buys.

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

Think of a time when you ignored or were indifferent to someone. Put yourself in that person’s place. Write how she might think or feel.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3: from Writer’s Digest

Only two weeks into the New Year had passed and Tim had already broken his first resolution: Don't kill anyone. Write this scene.

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

Monday Quote Day!

2012-01-09T11:30:00.000-05:00

No writers ever forget their first acceptance. One fine day when I was seventeen I had my first, second, and third, all in the same morning’s mail. Oh, I’m here to tell you, dizzy with excitement is no mere phrase.

{Truman Capote}

The first line of a poem is a hawk which won’t let go of its prey.

{Gabriel Preil}

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

{F. Scott Fitzgerald}

Effective writing depends on showing through action, dialogue, or detail.

{Olga Litowinsky}

Fine writers should split hairs together, and sit side by side, like friendly apes, to pick the fleas from each other’s prose.

{Logan Pearsall Smith}

A productive writer learns that you can’t wait for inspiration.

{Susan Sontag}

Many a book is chosen by a reader because the title seemed promising.

{Barbara Seuling}

There is no better feeling to me than writing. I love to make a picture come to life and dance under my pen.

{Lolita Prince}

Every word only has to be perfect.

{Ursula Nordstrom}

In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give to your style.

{Sydney Smith}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

Making Your Story As Unpredictable As the New Year

2012-01-06T10:15:00.001-05:00

Who knows what 2012 will hold? We won’t know until we get there. But what’s ahead for you may not necessarily be something bold and totally shocking. The things that make a difference for you in 2012 may be something small. Just like in life, not all original writing has to be that obvious either.

When introducing something unexpected to your writing, it doesn’t have to be that your hero is the son of his arch-nemesis or that your wife cut and sold her gorgeous long hair to buy you a new chain for your family-heirloom watch, but you sold the watch to buy your wife fancy hair combs. Sometimes surprises are subtle. Sometimes surprises are in the writing itself, which gives the story and characters an extra edge and fresh twist.

The following are some writing techniques I found that make a story unpredictable. The examples I’ve given are short stories so you’ll be able to read and study the example in a few minutes if you want:

Change the POV. Most stories are told in first or third person singular. It’s most familiar to readers–and writers. Maybe writing in second person or in third person plural is the spice needed for that unexpected flavor. Examples: “How to Become a Writer” by Lorrie Moore and “Camp of Low Angels” by Silas Dent Zobal.

Withhold Information. Readers shouldn’t be underestimated. Is your story telling too much and not leaving anything open for interpretation? Ambiguous dialogue, as long as actions give clues, keeps the ending open for a reader’s own conclusion. Example: “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway.

Challenge Convention. Controversy gets readers thinking, and flipping a traditionally conservative event, theme, or symbol upside down and inside out might be what your story needs to keep readers interested. Example: “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter.

Background Check the Characters. Do your characters need shaking up? Make them step out of their comfort zone and do something crazy. Figure out why they’re acting like they are or why they want to act a certain way. What’s their story before this one starts? Example: “Through the Tunnel” by Doris Lessing.

Break the Rules. You know the quote about learning the rules properly so you know how to break them? Maybe it’s time to break the rules. Do something completely different. Forget proper grammar. Write in stream of consciousness. Or incomplete sentences. It might be all wrong, but it could also provide another direction to make the story more compelling. Example: Dream Lives of Butterflies by Jamie Wriston Colbert (It’s a short story collection. The author does not use quotation marks or italics to set off the dialogue.)

Have you tried any of these techniques in your writing? Have a fabulous weekend, Zigzaggers!!!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2012-01-04T10:20:00.001-05:00

Ana Porgras
(Romania)

Start it up!

Exercise 1

Write a scene in which your character is mistaken for someone else by a stranger.

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

Write a story from the perspective of a woodland animal during a snowstorm. Too cliché for you? Try it from the POV of a tree or an abandoned cottage.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3

Consider this past holiday season: What was the weirdest gift you received? What was the worst thing you ate? What was the most embarrassing thing that happened, to you or someone else? What was your favorite surprise? Who did you avoid being around? Who avoided being around you? Who were you most looking forward to being with? Write a story incorporating all of these things.

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

Monday Quote Day – Writing in the New Year!

2012-01-02T09:55:00.001-05:00

Write for yourself and celebrate writing.

{Melinda Haynes}

You have the itch for writing born in you. It's quite incurable. What are you going to do with it?

{L.M. Montgomery}

If not now, then when?

{Sarah Ban Breathnach}

We must first see the vision in order to realize it; we must have the ideal or we cannot approach it. But when once the dream is dreamed, it is time to wake up and get busy. We must do great deeds, not dream them all day long.

{Laura Ingalls Wilder}

Whatever you do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

{Johann Wolfgang von Goethe}

Work begets work. Small actions lead us to the larger movements in our creative lives. What can you do, right now, in your life as it is currently constituted? Do that thing.

{Julia Cameron}

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.

{Maya Angelou}

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.

{Buddha}

You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.

{Sheila Graham}

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

{Henry David Thoreau}

…She gave her a reason to write her own words, to see that words had also brought her to life. ‘Don’t punish yourself,’ she heard her say again, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.

{from THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak}

A sobering thought: what if, right at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?

{Jane Wagner}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!! May 2012 be your best year yet because you will make it happen!

I Got My Wish

2011-12-30T10:45:00.000-05:00

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!

2011-12-28T14:00:00.000-05:00

John Orozco (USA)

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

2011-12-26T08:30:00.000-05:00

“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!

2011-12-23T07:15:00.001-05:00

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!

2011-12-21T07:20:00.002-05:00

Alexandra Raisman
(USA)

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!

2011-12-19T10:50:00.001-05:00

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!

2011-12-16T07:00:00.001-05:00

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!

2011-12-14T07:05:00.001-05:00

Yevgeniya Kanayeva
(Russia)

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!

2011-12-12T11:10:00.000-05:00

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

2011-12-09T07:15:00.002-05:00

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!

2011-12-07T07:15:00.001-05:00

Viktoria Komova
(Russia)

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!

2011-12-05T09:20:00.000-05:00

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

2011-12-02T10:25:00.000-05:00

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!!!

A Visit from the Nine Muses

2011-11-30T06:50:00.001-05:00

On Monday I finished and won my third National Novel Writing Month challenge! I planned on returning to the blogosphere next week, but I figured I may as well get back to posting now. This past weekend I decorated for Christmas! So last night with such festive cheer all around and my most recent novel-writing triumph, I was inspired to write a NaNoWriMo poem in the style of Clement C. Moore’s famous A Visit from St. Nicholas. The speaker represents all writers, though I admit the snoring husband is based on my own, heehee. I hope you enjoy it!

A Visit from the Nine Muses

by Laura Marcella

’Twas the night before NaNoWriMo’s end

And with 50,000 words just around the bend,

I was up late aimlessly surfing online

Knowing I couldn’t possibly finish on time.

My husband was snoring, sound asleep in our bed,

While visions of failure prowled around in my head.

I couldn’t do it, no more ideas. Where are you, oh Muse?

I shouldn’t be a writer. I know I will lose.

I checked the clock, ’twas an hour ’til midnight,

Decided to give up and turn off the light,

When all of a sudden my door flew widely open

And into my office glided nine ethereal women.

One stood before me, a writing tablet in her hand,

And said, “I’m the first-born Muse of the Greek land.”

“My name is Calliope,” she continued, her voice so stern,

“You, dear writer, have much to learn.

“It’s not the quantity or end result we value here

But in the quality of the journey. Do I make myself clear?”

She stepped aside and said with a smile,

“Let my first sister Clio explain more for awhile.”

Clio stepped forward, holding an armful of scrolls.

She said, “You think you’re the only one with incomplete goals?

Thousands of writers before you in history

Have faced a blank page with frustrating misery.

“Yet they persisted, their courage didn’t abate,

No matter if they had to meet a deadline too late.”

A third woman, with a club in her hand and a mask on her face,

Said to me, “Some days you’ll for sure be in last place.

“But I, Melpomene, the Muse of great tragedy,

Was once the Muse of joyful singing and glee.

I know sometimes you’ll be favored, sometimes not,

The important thing is to never give up on your heart’s plot.”

A fourth woman, smiling brighter than the North Star’s light,

Laughed and said, “I am Euterpe, the Muse of delight!

Have joy in all that you write, in all that you do,

And enchanting thoughts will come forth from you.”

She stepped aside for a fifth Muse holding a lyre.

“I am Erato,” she said, “And I sense your fear.”

She looked at me keenly, on her shoulder sat a turtledove.

“I’m here to inspire you to words of passion and love.”

Behind her another Muse danced around the room.

She said, “You’re having trouble writing, I assume?

My name is Terpsichore and I’m here to proclaim

To despair and give up is a path to no author fame.”

The seventh Muse said, “It is true, I am Urania,

I see an intense passion for stories, you’re a bibliomania.

If you channel that energy into your heart

There’ll be no problems with your novel’s last part.”

Suddenly laughter, long and loud, filled the room.

An eighth Muse said, “I’m Thalia, I know nothing of gloom.

Yet I’ve been around a while and know very well

All writers sometimes feel as if this is hell.”

A ninth woman entered, at her mouth she held a finger,

Pensively she said, “No longer can we linger.

I am Polyhymnia, on your story I’ll help you meditate.

When you awake you’ll see your novel won’t be late.”

The youngest Muse put her hands on my head.

“You must sleep now,” she said. “Off you go to your bed.

When you awake, we’ll be back in our native Greece

But when you awake, you will have a masterpiece.”

I slept, I must have, I dreamed a great dream.

When I awoke I dashed to my computer screen.

A 50,000 word manuscript written, perfect and done,

My NaNoWriMo profile in purple meant I had won!

And on my desk I see from Calliope and Euterpe, Melpomene and Urania,

With Clio, Erato and Polyhymnia, Terpsichore and Thalia

Was a note addressed not only to me but to all writers like you:

“Happy writing to all, and to all bestsellers and fortune for you!”

Good luck to those still finishing your NaNo novels! Perhaps you’ll get a special visit from the Muses tonight. ;)

NaNoWriMo and Hiatus!

2011-11-04T06:50:00.003-04:00

I’ve been blogging for 19 months, and I have yet to take a blogging break. I’m definitely overdue for one. This is the perfect time to be on hiatus since, at the moment, I am feverishly banging my head against the keyboard hoping a novel will fall out of it for National Novel Writing Month!

I think Wavy Lines needs a boost in looks and content, too. Changes are grand! But I’m just not sure how I want to revitalize my blog. So this break will be a good time to brainstorm on that.

I’ll still be lurking and commenting, but I won’t be posting. Probably. Unless something comes up and I feel like it. But most likely I’ll be stuffing my face with chocolate writing my novel this month and enjoying what you have to say on your blogs and letting my blog take a much-needed rest!

Have you taken a blogcation yet? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? How have these past three days been for you so far? Please buddy me: I’m Sunshine21!

HAPPY WRITING, ZIGZAGGERS!!!

See you in December! :)

Photo Credit

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2011-11-02T09:55:00.001-04:00

Nastia Liukin (USA)

Start it up!

Exercise 1: from The Writer’s Idea Book by Jack Heffron

Mona Simpson begins her story “Lawns” with the sentence I steal. Begin a story, poem, or scene with the line “I ______.” Push forward from there. If you can think of one action that speaks to who you are, what would it be? Write at least a few paragraphs. Try this experiment a few times, using different actions.

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

People use symbols all the time, whether by arguing over who burned the toast or by giving someone flowers. Language itself is a complicated set of symbols. Construct a tense conversation about “nothing” between two characters who are having a problem in their relationship (may be any type of relationship: neighbors, lovers, parent/child, etc.). Put some thought into how the characters are arguing by using symbols.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3

Write a short story on the back of an index card. Since you’ll have to manage a conflict, crisis, and resolution in such a small space, the conflict must be introduced immediately. (This is fun but challenging! It’s great to practice being concise in a scene and writing only what’s relevant to the overall story.)

Cool it down.

Exercise 4: from Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Begin with “I remember.” Write lots of small memories or fall into one large memory. If stuck, just repeat “I remember” again and keep going. (This is great for generating new ideas. Consider having your character do this prompt and see what she/he remembers!)

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

13 Spooktacular Quotes on Writing – Haunted Writers Edition!

2011-10-31T06:40:00.000-04:00

Night time is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.

{Catherine O'Hara}

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

{Gene Fowler}

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

{Jack London}

Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.
{Jessamyn West}

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.
{Clarence Budington Kelland}

All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
{George Orwell}

Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies.
{Terri Guillemets}

The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.

{Carl Gustav Jung}

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.
{Raymond Chandler}

The sinister thing about writing is that it starts off seeming so easy and ends up being so hard.

{L. Rust Hills}

Writing is both mask and unveiling.

{E.B. White}

Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to be a writer–and if so, why?
{Bennett Cerf}

Being an author is having angels whisper in your ear–and devils, too.

{Terri Guillemets}

When you were a child on Halloween, what was your favorite candy to receive? Is it still your favorite now? Is that what you buy for trick-or-treaters?

I wanted any kind of chocolate candy bar, especially Snickers and Kit Kat! Those are still two of my favorites. And yes, I bought those for tonight’s trick-or-treaters! I also bought Take 5, regular and peanut M&Ms, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Wait, did I eat all of it already…?!? ;)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Five for Friday: How to Stay Inspired during NaNoWriMo

2011-10-28T10:40:00.000-04:00

NaNoWriMo.org

National Novel Writing Month begins on Tuesday! Do you have your novel planned? Or are you going to sit down on November 1 and be surprised with what shows up on your computer screen/notebook page?

Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, it can be difficult to get and stay inspired all thirty days when the ambitious goal of 50,000 words looms ahead. I participated in (and won!) NaNoWriMo the past two years and on the days the writing burned out, I developed a few tried-and-true ways that always sparked my creativity.

This is a recycled post from last year, but I’m going to make it more succinct this year for those of you who haven’t seen it yet!

Get Out of the House. There’s a life beyond the one chained to your computer. (There really is, I promise.) The mall, the park, the grocery store, the cemetery–these places are alive with intriguing people, inspiring sights, nostalgic smells, and dramatic conversations just waiting to be put into your story. Can’t get away from the house? Check out my blog’s page Useful Links and see the Inspiration Nation list for fun, fabulous blogs to fire up your imagination.

Take Pictures. Take a walk and bring your camera (or use the one on your cell phone). Observe nature’s November beauty and the people around you. Exercise is terrific for keeping up your energy and activating cerebral activity! If you can’t get outside, consider googling images of your novel’s topic. Do you have a favorite artist’s images that inspire you? (Some contemporary suggestions: Banksy, Mary Engelbreit, Frank Frazetta, Mary GrandPré, Christian Riese Lassen, Michael Whelan, Johanna Wright, Wyland.) Have you seen Hannah Kincade’s Tuesday blog posts? Go to this link for a series of spectacular pictures for creative inspiration.

Writing Prompts and Exercises. Every Wednesday I post writing prompts on my blog. (See my blog archive for past posts always titled Wednesday’s Writing Workout.) Some writers claim they have no time for writing exercises, but that’s just another excuse! Try them with your already formed characters and settings. The purpose of writing prompts is not to hinder you but to open up your mind. Don’t look at it as something stringent, like a school assignment. Approach writing exercises and prompts like a channel to discovery; you may just come up with a unique angle and unpredictable conflict for your novel.

Read. Any reading is helpful, but when I’m feeling uncreative, I like reading something completely different from whatever I’m writing. Reading poetry inspires my muse. Poetry is sometimes ambiguous, which is ideal for opening the brain to curious thoughts and fresh possibilities. If you choose to read poetry, don’t limit yourself to the classic poets you read in school (though they’re terrific!). Consider contemporary poets like Catherine Barnett, Robert Lee Brewer, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, John Taggart, and Terresa Wellborn. (See these sites for more on poets and poetry: www.poets.org ; famouspoetsandpoems.com ; www.poemhunter.com ; International Poets & Poetry.)

Pursue Other Arts. Color a picture. Draw your characters. Knit a scarf. Bake a cake. Cook like the French do. Paint with your fingers. Make a friendship bracelet. Visit an arts and crafts or office supplies store and stock up on some new supplies; sometimes just looking at new art and writing supplies motivates me. Freeing your mind, working with your hands, and opening your heart will relieve stress and push you through those creative blocks.

If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo this year, please leave your NaNo name in the comments so I can add you to my writing buddies! My NaNo name: Sunshine21

When writing is a struggle, what are things you do to find inspiration and spark creativity?

Wednesday's Writing Workout - Halloween Theme!

2011-10-26T07:35:00.000-04:00

Catalina Ponor
(Romania)

Start it up!

Exercise 1

It’s nearly Halloween! Think about what frightened you as a child. In the spirit of this bewitching holiday, write a children’s story or poem based on those fears.

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

Mark Twain said, “I have spent most of my time worrying about things that have never happened.” Write a story in which your character’s worst worries do happen, or write a scene in your wip where your MC’s worst fear comes true.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3: from Writer’s Digest

You planned to attend a friend’s Halloween party and plugged her address into your GPS system, but the system guided you somewhere else. Oddly enough, there is a strange man waiting for you at this mysterious place. “Sorry I had to rig your GPS, but this is urgent,” he says.

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

Write six ways to describe the smell of fear.

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

Monday Quote Day!

2011-10-24T12:55:00.000-04:00

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.

{Samuel Johnson}

Many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.

{Stanley Schmidt}

Dare yourself to believe in your creativity, wherever it may lead you. Trust that where it leads is exactly where you’re supposed to be.

{Sarah Ban Breathnach}

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is one comes from a strong will, and the other comes from a strong won't.

{Henry Ward Beecher}

Detail makes the difference between boring and terrific writing. It’s the difference between a pencil sketch and a lush oil painting. As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colors.
{Rhys Alexander}

It is perfectly okay to write garbage–as long as you edit brilliantly.
{C. J. Cherryh}

Try any goddamn thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.
{Stephen King}

If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.
{Woody Allen}

If you are pointing out one of the things a story is about, then you are very probably right; if you are pointing out the only thing a story is about you are very probably wrong–even if you're the author.
{Neil Gaiman}

The human mind is like an umbrella. It functions best when open.
{Max Gropius}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

Happy Day-after-Birth to Me!

2011-10-21T11:10:00.002-04:00

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.

{unknown}

Yesterday was my birthday! I’m in my late middle twenties! I can remember being twelve years old and thinking I’d never ever be a teenager. Now here I am, very much out of my teens and just four years away from my thirties. Yeesh! How the heck did that happen?

I love it though. I may not be exactly where I thought I’d be by this age…I’ve had a lot of failures in my twenties so far. But I’ve had some successes, too, plus some wonderful bonuses: I’m healthy. I’m married to a super sexy man who appreciates me and makes me laugh every day. I’m welcomed into an amazing blogging community of super talented writers. My kitchen is filled with good food. My bookcases are full of delightful characters to meet and places to go. I have more than enough pens and pencils to keep me writing forever. I have supportive family and friends and the cutest niephlings ever. I have a roof over my head and warm blankets on my bed. And I have leftover chocolate birthday cake for dinner dessert tonight!

It’s a blessing to celebrate birthdays every year. Too many amazing people never get to see their teen years or their 26th or 30th or 45th or 70th birthdays. So remember the above quote the next time you start freaking out about your birthday. You are SO lucky to be the age you are each year!

When is your birthday? Remember to celebrate big and be happy and feel grateful!

Have a sunshiney weekend, Zigzaggers!!!

Today You are You! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is Youer than You!

{Dr. Seuss}

My 2nd Birthday

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2011-10-19T01:45:00.000-04:00

Jordyn Wieber (USA)

Start it up!

Exercise 1

Write about your character’s hair. What kind of cut/style/color does he like? Does she switch it up every season or has it been the same since 1987? What does this say about your character’s personality? High maintenance? Low maintenance? Insecure? Proud? Indifferent?

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

Remember the odd kid in middle school no one wanted to sit next to? He (or she) returns to town, looking and acting completely different. Write it.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3: from Writer’s Digest

Your kids have spent years asking you to get them a dog. You finally break down and get one, only to discover that this dog talks—but only to you. More interestingly, the dog loves to gossip about your kids and their lives. Write a scene where your dog rats out one of your kids for doing something they shouldn't.

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

Write a scene from your life as it would be now if you had married your first boyfriend or girlfriend.

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

Monday Quote Day!

2011-10-17T10:45:00.000-04:00

The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.’ And the artist either says, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord,’ and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses.

{Madeleine L’Engle}

Some things arrive in their own mysterious hour, on their own terms and not yours, to be seized or relinquished forever.

{Gail Godwin}

Have fun. If this isn’t fun, then what the heck are you doing it for?

{Tawny Stokes}

A low opinion of our abilities is a handy cop-out when facing creative challenges… Anyway, our degree of talent is a moot point because the Work always knows more than we do–a fact for which we can all be eternally grateful.

{Sarah Ban Breathnach}

…I found out it is not what happens, it is how you tell it and who does the telling.

{Nancy Willard}

Write the truest sentence you know.

{Ernest Hemingway}

The only way to write is well and how you do it is your own damn business.

{A.J. Liebling}

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

{Helen Keller}

Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.

{H. Jackson Brown Jr.}

Use your imagination. Trust me, your lives are not interesting. Don't write them down.

{W. P. Kinsella}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

Five for Friday: Chilling Antagonists in Adult Novels

2011-10-14T07:05:00.001-04:00

Actually there are six villains in this post, but Six for Friday just doesn’t have the same ring to it as five does! Around this time last year I wrote a post featuring my favorite fantastic villains in children’s literature. You can see it here if you missed it: http://lauramarcella.blogspot.com/2010/10/five-for-friday-best-villains-in.html

This year I thought it would be ghoulishly fun to feature who I think are super chilling villains in adult novels. Villains are some of the most fascinating characters, and while I wouldn’t want to meet any of them in real life, I do like reading about them especially around Halloween!

Sometimes I can’t decide who is scarier: those who know they’re doing wrong and choose it anyway, or those who really-truly believe the wrong they’re doing is so right. Both kinds of villains are chilling, and both kinds are featured here:

Blue Duck

from Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

This is one of my favorite novels (and the TV mini series had casted each character perfectly) but I really hate it when I get to the Blue Duck part (though it’s a small portion compared to the novel’s length). I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t read it! It’s good, but it makes me shiver. Blue Duck is part Comanche and part Mexican, so he grew up never fitting in anywhere. The U.S. western territory doesn’t want him. Mexico doesn’t want him. Even the Comanches don’t want him. Blue Duck keeps to himself, gathering a pack of like-minded bandits and renegades who he has no problem killing if they slow him down in any way. He murders, pillages, and rapes all over the territory and is never, ever sorry.

Waleran Bigod

from The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Does he get what he deserves in the end? I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t read it, but I guarantee you will certainly hope he doesn’t come out #winning. Waleran Bigod makes my blood boil. He is much too ambitious and uses his position as a priest to achieve whatever he desires all in the name of God. He’s one of those alarming villains who knows the right choice, yet chooses the wrong one anyway to advance himself and his religious career. He’s selfish, manipulative, and loves himself even more than he loves God (though he would never admit it). He knows he can get away with anything because he claims to be a humble servant of God.

Silas

from The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Silas is one of those villains who blindly follows whatever anyone tells him. He truly believes the Teacher is in the right, so he has no qualms about murder and other hideous crimes. It’s all in the name of the Lord’s good work, the Teacher tells him. Silas believes it, and he does whatever is needed. I pity this kind of villain. He’s a terrible person, but I feel sorry for his ignorance and how he’s manipulated.

Benito Ramirez

from One for the Money and High Five by Janet Evanovich

The Stephanie Plum novels are mostly fun, hilarious, and bawdy, but a couple of the novels are chilling. The Trenton boxer Benito Ramirez is one of the creepiest antagonists, and he shows up twice in the series. Since he’s somewhat of a celebrity in Trenton, he often gets away with brutal crimes against women. If he does end up in jail, it’s never for long and the victim who put him there mysteriously disappears. He hungers for his opponent’s fear; it excites him and feeds his murderous nature. In the boxing ring, he “plays” with his opponents before brutally attacking them to unconsciousness. Outside the ring, he does the same with women…but sometimes they don’t regain consciousness.

Percy Wetmore

from The Green Mile by Stephen King

Whether you went to school with him or work with him now or perhaps are related to him, some of you might know a character like Percy Wetmore: the annoying, frustrating individual who does anything he wants because he has connections and knows the right people in high places. In the novel, Percy is the governor’s nephew. He’s an arrogant spoiled brat who cares for no one but himself. Percy knows he is inferior to the other prison guards and because the other guards know it too, Percy does everything he can to make them miserable. He knows they won’t retaliate since it would risk their jobs. Percy is chilling in the sense that he has no compassion, no empathy or sympathy. He feels nothing except hate and rancor.

Saruman

from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

This kind of villain is the one that bums me out the most! The character who you think is the protagonist’s loyal friend, but he betrays him when he’s needed most. Saruman is a powerful, ambitious wizard, and he uses that power to join forces with the evil Sauron in order to eventually gain power for himself. In the end when the One Ring is finally destroyed, his life is spared. But too much bitterness rages in his black heart, and he retaliates by nearly destroying the Shire. Those villains who keep on retaliating even though they’ve lost everything and know they were wrong are some of the worst!

Who are your favorite villains in adult literature?

Who is more chilling to you: the villains who know they’re doing wrong and choose it anyway, or the villains who really-truly believe the wrong they’re doing is so right?

Happy weekend, Zizaggers! May it be filled with good, loyal friends and family!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2011-10-12T10:15:00.001-04:00

Team USA 2011 World Champions!
L to R: Anna Li, Jordyn Wieber,
McKayla Maroney, Sabrina Vega,
Alexandra Raisman, Gabrielle Douglas

Start it up!

Exercise 1

Do you have Mad Libs? Play with whomever is with you right now (or by yourself) and then try and turn those crazy sentences into a story that makes sense!

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

What’s your favorite moral? Perhaps it’s Patience is a virtue. Or Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Now UNmoral it. Go ahead and count those chickens before they hatch. Make impatience be the way to go. Write a story based upon this new unmoral. (Click here for a list of morals from Aesop’s fables.)

Burn it up!

Exercise 3: from Writer’s Digest

You're watching an old home movie when you notice a note in the hand of your late grandfather. Thanks to your giant TV, you’re able to read the note. It says: "If you can read this, dig up the southeast corner of our house's backyard. There awaits a surprise.”

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

Write what first comes to mind when you hear these words: phantom, spooky, eyeball, concoction, slimy. Can you turn it into a Halloween story?

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

Monday Quote Day!

2011-10-10T12:00:00.000-04:00

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.

{Dr. Seuss}

I don’t edit scenes that are still smoking. … The longer it sits…the better I am able to see the good points of it–and the flaws.

{Judith Guest}

Working that hard is not that interesting if you don’t dream big.

{Valeri Liukin}

The two hardest things about writing are starting and not stopping.

{Stewart O’Nan}

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

{W. Somerset Maugham}

I’ve been married for twenty-five years, and I drive a four-door sedan around town, and I try to pay the bills on time. My characters are much, much more interesting than I am.

{Charles Baxter}

Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.

{Virginia Woolf}

People are very unkind about unpublished authors.You know, the minute you say you're a writer, they say, "Have you been published?" and if you haven't, they think that doesn't make you a writer. But you're a writer if you're writing. And it may take longer than you want to get published. But keep at it. I think persistence wins the prize in almost anything.

{Danielle Steel}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

What is the Average Age of a First-Time Novelist?

2011-10-07T06:35:00.001-04:00

Consider the track record of your naysayers. How many dreams have they successfully brought into the world?

{Sarah Ban Breathnach}

A couple months ago I read a post in which the blogger stated that someone told her this: If you’re not published by age 30, you never will be.

That is such BULLSHIZ!!! How insensitive and completely wrong!

So what is the average age of FIRST-TIME published authors? I did a little research and this source says the average age is 36 and the mode (value that occurs most frequently) is 37 years young. So does that mean if you’re not published by age 40 you’ll never make it? Of course that’s not what it means! People are first-time novelists as young as 16 and as old as 65 (and probably older).

Don’t believe me? I’ve posted this before, but you might need a memory refresher:

Richard Adams (May 9, 1920) published his first novel, Watership Down, at age 52. It immediately gained international acclaim.

Nirad Chaudhuri (November 23, 1897 – August 1, 1999) published his first book, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, at age 54. Thirty-six years later at age 90 he published the sequel, Thy Hand, Great Anarch! Finally, his last book, Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse, was published at age 100!

Pat O’Shea (Jan. 22, 1931 – May 3, 2007) published her first novel The Hounds of the Mórrígan at age 54. It was immediately published in five languages and became an instant bestseller.

Anna Sewell (March 30, 1820 – April 25, 1878) published the classic Black Beauty at age 57. It was her first and only novel. Its successful sales broke publishing records in 1877 and has continued to be one of the bestselling books of all time.

Laura Ingalls Wilder (Feb. 7, 1867 – Feb. 10, 1957) published her first novel Little House in the Big Woods at age 65. She wrote and published seven more novels in the series over the next eleven years (for the math challenged, that’s through age 76!). Five of Wilder’s Little House books won Newbery Honor Medals.

This is just five authors (and I know there are more!) who became first-time novelists after turning 50 years young. And consider Nirad Chaudhuri: there’s still plenty of time, well into your nineties, to publish novels! There are many authors who continue to publish amazing novels well passed the expected retirement years. So don’t listen to the naysayers making grandiose claims about what you should have accomplished by now and couldn’t possibly accomplish later. Cynics are narrow-minded and have NO IDEA what they’re talking about!!!

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

{Oscar Wilde}

What do you say to people who try to discourage your dream? Have a happy weekend, Zigzaggers!!!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2011-10-05T11:20:00.001-04:00

Nastia Liukin (USA)

Start it up!

Exercise 1

Write a monologue in which a character praises a loved one’s recent accomplishment. As the monologue develops, add clues that suggest the character is more jealous than happy.

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

Write a scene in which a character hears another character laughing. Before he even sees her face, he’s fallen in love. (This prompt is based on a true story. My mom heard my dad laugh before even seeing him when they were freshmen in high school, and that's how she noticed him. The rest, as they say, is history!)

Burn it up!

Exercise 3

You may think you know your neighbors well, but you never can tell what’s going on behind closed doors. Write a story in which the people you thought you knew are not what they seem.

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

Use your five senses to write about autumn. Challenge yourself to avoid the obvious, overdone descriptions.

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

Monday Quote Day!

2011-10-03T11:35:00.000-04:00

Art must take reality by surprise.

{Françoise Sagan}

Whatever you are doing, just dive as deep as you can. That’s the hardest part, to me, of writing. The easiest thing you can do is censor yourself, so I try not to do that.

{Pat Conroy}

I think you find your voice when you quit censoring yourself. It isn’t external. It’s inside you. You find it like a treasure hunt.

{Billy Collins}

I was worried about the book’s ending while I was writing, but I told myself to have faith, and that if I stayed true to the characters, the story would finish itself.

{Elizabeth Strout}

Some who have read the book [The Lord of the Rings], or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.

{J.R.R. Tolkien}

The great character archetypes–Emma Bovary and Leopold Bloom and Raskolnikov–resulted not from their authors’ desire to create archetypes, but from their desire to create authentic individuals. Similarly, great style tends to be a result, not a cause. Style happens while we attend to other, more important matters.

{Peter Selgin}

For God's sake, do not write about something. Let the writing be the thing itself. Every sentence should be its own evidence.

{Ralph Waldo Emerson}

Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page.

{Cornelia Funke}

Happy October, happy Monday, and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

I'm so glad we live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?

{Anne Shirley – L. M. Montgomery}

FALLing into a Bookstore Near You!

2011-09-30T10:10:00.003-04:00

On March 4 and May 27, I spotlighted novels that were releasing in the near future. That near future has now passed, so here’s another congratulations to everyone whose novels released in the spring and summer!

Now this is a good time to once again spotlight our blog buddies who have novels releasing this autumn!

Please see my blog’s page Must-Read Books by My Blog Buddies which features all of the following books in this post and also the novels that were released this past spring and summer.

I want to start putting together Winter/Spring 2012 releases! If you or a blog buddy you know of has a novel or book releasing early next year, please let me know in the comments. (I know you’re out there!!!)

Before we get to our blog buddies’ books, I want to spotlight a debut novel by a friend of mine. He’s actually the best friend of my best friend’s husband, so we’re really just acquaintances, but I think it’s super cool I know a real published author! (You know, outside of wonderful Blog Land, haha.) Huntress by Andrew Joseph is available now at BarnesandNoble.com!

Huntress by Andrew Joseph

In the early hours of a spring morning, a groggy college graduate lies alongside the Monongahela River across a set of train tracks. He awakes to questions and pain and a whirlwind of dreams even more bitter than concrete realities. There in the dim, cold confusion he begins a journey that reconciles the turbulent relationship between mind and body...and reinvigorates both with an open acceptance of human love. A gracefully poetic novel, Huntress follows the protagonist Andrew as he travels from an urban university campus to a tranquil farmhouse in Virginia and on to Russia... Full of rich symbolism and the kind of personal struggle that unites all people, Huntress encourages its readers to find themselves somewhere along this nebulous path of year-in-the-life experiences.

You can pre-order the following fabulous novels here:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Books•A•Million

October 1

The Christmas Village by Melissa Ann Goodwin

October 8

The Next Door Boys by Jolene B. Perry

October 13

Audition by Stasia Ward Kehoe

October 31

Darkspell by Elizabeth Mueller

November 1

Hickory Smoked Homicide by Riley Adams (a pseudonym for Elizabeth S. Craig)

It’s the 3rd novel in the Memphis BBQ Mystery series.

String Bridge by Jessica Bell

Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller's Collection of Odd Things Lost between the Pages by Michael Popek

My Very UnFairy Tale Life by Anna Staniszewski

Nightshine by Lynn Viehl

November 4

The Girl Who Remembered Horses by Linda Benson

November 15

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

November 30

Watching Willow Watts by Talli Roland

(Kindle edition is available now!)

Sometime This December

Build a Man by Talli Roland

Congratulations to all of you!

*tosses glittering confetti*

*passes out cupcakes*

Am I missing a fabulous blog buddy who has a novel or book releasing soon? Please share in the comments anyone you know with an upcoming 2011 release or a Winter/Spring 2012 release!

Have a happy weekend, Zigzaggers!!!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2011-09-28T05:55:00.000-04:00

Ana Porgras (Romania)

Start it up!

Exercise 1

If you character had a vanity plate on his or her car, what would it say?

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

Write a story based on a simple white lie that begins to spin out of control.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3

Write a scene or story in which a character faces an unexpected complication: perhaps she broke her leg, lives on the fifth floor, and her apartment has no elevator. Or maybe he’s been tricked into babysitting twins when he thought it’d be one puppy. Now add another character who is more of a hindrance than a help!

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

Write a postcard or letter to a soldier you don’t know who is overseas. Make it into a story. Or maybe mail the letter and make someone’s day!

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

Quotes on Censorship for Writers – Banned Books Week Edition!

2011-09-26T06:25:00.002-04:00

To write what’s worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and to get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.

{Charles Caleb Colton}

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
{Mark Twain}

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.
{Oscar Wilde}

Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.

{J.K. Rowling}

The trouble with censorship is that once it starts it is hard to stop. Just about every book contains something that someone objects to.

{Studs Terkel}

Fear of corrupting the mind of the younger generation is the loftiest form of cowardice.
{Holbrook Jackson}

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.

{Claude-Adrien Helvétius}

Image found here.

Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and will always be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.

{Eugene Gladstone O'Neill}

To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor’s prohibited list.

{John Aikin}

A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad.

{Albert Camus}

To reject the word is to reject the human search.

{Max Lerner}

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

{Mark Twain}

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

{Alfred Whitney Griswold}

I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.

{Mae West}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!! I hope you read lots of banned and challenged material all your life! ;)

Fun Fact Friday: 13 Surprising Banned Books

2011-09-23T09:55:00.003-04:00

You can cage the singer but not the song.

{Harry Belafonte}

Photo credit: American Library Association

Banned Books Week starts tomorrow! I posted this last year (clicky here for original post), but I have some new followers since then so I thought it’d be a good idea to share it again! By now we all know that the Banned Books List is really just a shortened form for the Best Written, Greatest Storytelling, Most Beloved Books List! If I write a novel worthy of inclusion on the list, it would be the best day ever. What a prestigious club to belong!

Everyone knows about the most famous banned novels and can probably figure out why someone wanted them banned: magic, religion, sex, and violence are the usual (and unoriginal) reasons. In other words, any novel that paints an honest picture of humanity and urges people to become better is challenged and banned.

I thought it’d be more interesting to find banned books that are “question marks”: the books that are banned for REALLY ridiculous reasons. While searching for the most surprising ones, I found out it’s already been done! Here’s the link to the article, but I’ve summed up some of it for you here and added a couple of my own:

The Dictionary

Banned because... Educators were upset about the articulate definitions of sex. (Then how come biology and health classes were never banned?!?)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Banned because... It’s a negative portrayal of the U.S. during the Great Depression. (In other words, authority figures were upset about our country’s honest portrayal.)

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig

Banned because... It literally portrays policemen as pigs. (Now this is a creative reason! Ridiculous, yes, but definitely original.)

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr.

Banned because... A character shares the same name as a Marxist theorist. (Didn’t you know that all kids are aware of this and are secretly forming a communist future?)

James and the Giant Peach and The Witches by Roald Dahl

Banned because... Obscenity, violence, and devaluing the life of a child. (See this brilliant quote by Holbrook Jackson: “Fear of corrupting the mind of the younger generation is the loftiest form of cowardice.”)

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Banned because… Sexually explicit entries. (I’ve read this book a dozen times and I don’t even recall such entries. That’s definitely not what most people remember when they read this amazing book.)

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.

{James McCosh}

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Banned because... According to the article, the reason is obscure. But it may be because Jo marries a man older than she who is also foreign and–wait for it–boring. (Gasp! I can’t believe my own grandmother encouraged me to read such scandalous material when I was a child!)

A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

Banned because... The poems are filled with disrespect, horror, and violence. (Oooh, okay, must be referring to “Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony.” Hahaha!)

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Banned because... Some think this novel is really a dangerous religious argument. (And I first read this from my Catholic school library. How could they let me read such a book?!?)

The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Banned because… The pretend magical elements and its theme of death. (Apparently, imagination should be banned as well. And kids should never ever know that death is a part of life.)

Fairy Tales by The Brothers Grimm

Banned because… Some of the endings aren’t happy. (Make your children believe all endings are happy until they must experience an unhappy ending for themselves!)

Where’s Waldo? series by Martin Hanford

Banned because… Some of the people are “doing dirty things.” Like aiming a club at the person next to him. And supposedly there’s a topless lady on a beach. (I can’t stop laughing at this one long enough to make a comment!)

Check out this terrific webpage of 50 banned books. It includes a description of what the book is about and why it’s banned. I guarantee you’ll laugh out loud at a lot of the reasons! (See especially #9 And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson; #17 The Lorax by Dr. Seuss; and #42 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.)

Be fearless in every aspect of your writing life.

{Meredith McCardle}

Is one of your favorite books on the banned list? A whole bunch of my favorites are!

Happy Banned Books Week, Zigzaggers! I hope you read copious amounts of challenged and banned material all your life!!!

Wednesday's Writing Workout!

2011-09-21T10:45:00.000-04:00

Danell Leyva (USA)

Start it up!

Exercise 1

You find a huge dent and chipped paint on your fancy-schmancy expensive car. The suspects: The teenager with a new driver’s license. The spouse with road rage. The neighbor with jealousy. The trash collector without a tip in five years. Write it!

Ramp it up!

Exercise 2

Write a scene or story in which trouble brews from a typo: a misspelled road sign, a mistaken measurement in a cookbook, the wrong name on a wedding invitation.

Burn it up!

Exercise 3: from Writer’s Digest

Around mid-morning one day, you realize that everything that’s happening seems really familiar. After much thought you discover that: A) you’re reliving a day from your past; B) a dream/nightmare that you’ve had is now happening for real; or C) your life has fallen into a terrible rut and now you must take drastic measures to find a way out of it. Write one or more of the three.

Cool it down.

Exercise 4

While cleaning out your closet, you find an undeveloped roll of film. You develop the photos and long-forgotten memories come rushing back to you. Write the scene.

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

Sorting through Your Past…

2011-09-20T07:40:00.001-04:00

…blog posts, that is! I don’t usually post on Tuesdays, but Carla Jansen @ Carla’s Writing World gave me the 7x7 Links Award! I’ve seen this around the blogosphere and I think it’s a cool award. It’s a fun way to go through old blog posts! For this award, I must choose one of my blog posts for each category:

MOST BEAUTIFUL: K is for Kindergarten

MOST HELPFUL: This one is probably last Friday’s post (5 Grammar Pet Peeves), but I’ll go with a more fun helpful post– Creating Your Personal Universe Deck

MOST CONTROVERSIAL: 5 Classic Novels I Really Want to Like...but Don’t :(

MOST SURPRISINGLY SUCCESSFUL: The Rejection Numbers of 14 Famous Writers

MOST UNDERRATED: Christina Aguilera and Reinvention AND (I know, I’m sort of cheating here, heehee) 2 Things Learned from a Baseball Game

MOST PRIDE-WORTHY: Everything I Know about Writing I Learned from Gymnastics (10 Lessons)

Thanks for the award, Carla! It was fun journeying along memory lane. If you don’t know Carla @ Carla’s Writing World, be sure to go over and say hello! She’s super sweet and her posts are fun and insightful about writing for children and children’s books/publishing.

I would like to pass this award on to the following blogs:

• Bluestocking @ The Bluestocking Blog She posts every Wednesday with helpful advice and terrific resources!

• Crystal Cheverie @ Little Bundle of Contradictions Crystal is a new pal I met through a blogfest. Her posts on book reviews and the ups and downs of the writing life are filled with her delightful personality!

• Susan Sipal @ Harry Potter for Writers Even if you’re not a Harry Potter/J.K. Rowling fan (which would probably mean you’re visiting from another planet) you can learn A LOT from Susan’s posts. She dissects and turns upside down and inside out everything there is to know about the world of Harry and how Rowling managed it all. It’s a fascinating resource for all writers!

Happy Tuesday, Zigzaggers! Hope you’re all having a great week!

Monday Quote Day!

2011-09-19T09:50:00.000-04:00

Good writing...is its own best advertisement.

{Steve Kloves}

That’s what a good crime novelist–any good novelist–should do with you: play with your perceptions while showing you everything in plain sight.

{Harlan Coben}

You first chapter sells your book. You last chapter sells your next book.

{Mickey Spillane}

Keep writing bad stuff until you’re writing good stuff.

{Steve Hockensmith}

Don’t give up. Don’t write safe.

{John Hart}

Inspiration can come from…anywhere. In the end, though, the story has to be right for it to be written.

{Nicholas Sparks}

I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.

{Steve Martin}

Reading usually precedes writing and the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.

{Susan Sontag}

If a writer has a block, it’s usually because she doesn’t believe in what she’s writing.

{Sarah Ban Breathnach}

Every moment spent whining about your writing career is a moment of creative energy lost.

{James Scott Bell}

Happy Monday and happy writing, Zigzaggers!!!

Five for Friday: Grammar Pet Peeves

2011-09-16T06:55:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I was featured at Sarah & Megan’s blog Sisters in Crime...and Stuff! Head on over and say hello if you haven’t seen it yet: clicky clicky for my interview!

English, grammar, spelling, reading, writing and all that jazz were my best subjects throughout my school days. I really liked diagramming sentences! Even though I’m good at grammar, there are still some things that make me stumble. Sometimes I still don’t know if I’m using lay or lie and bad or badly correctly, ha! So here’s a handy little guide for some of my five biggest grammar pet peeves. #1, 2, and 3 are ones I often need to double-check for myself. #4 and 5 are what I notice others often use incorrectly probably because the wrong way is widely accepted.

{1. Lay vs. Lie}

{2. Affect vs. Effect}

Affect is a verb meaning have an effect on; make a difference to; move emotionally. Example: How often you communicate with your spouse will affect your marriage for better or for worse.

Effect is a noun meaning a change that is a result or consequence of an action or other cause. Example: The negative effects of smoking is well documented.

By thinking in terms of the effect, you can usually sort out which is which, because you can’t put the article the in front of a verb.

{3. Bad vs. Badly}

Bad is an adjective used to modify nouns and pronouns. Example: I am never a bad girl.

Badly is an adverb that answers how about the verb. Example: The rookie quarterback was hurt badly from the tackle.

{4. A lot vs. Plethora}

A lot means many or abundance. Plethora is often used as a more intelligent-sounding word for a lot, which is wrong wrong wrong! Plethora means overabundance or an excess of something; it has a negative connotation. So if you say your sister has a plethora of shoes, what you’re really saying is she has too many shoes for her own good. (And should probably give you a few pairs!)

{5. Less vs. Fewer}

Less is used when referring to mass nouns, which are things you can’t count individually or nouns that don’t have a plural (such as money, clutter, air). Less is also used for expressions of measurement and time.

Example:

• How ironic there’s less garbage in the dumpster than in the park.

• I’d be more enthusiastic about living in the U.K. if it rained less.

• Their marriage lasted less than six months.

• A full-grown Shiba-Inu weighs less than an English Mastiff puppy.

Fewer is used when referring to count nouns, which are things or people you can count individually.

Example:

• This check-out line is for ten items or fewer.

• My best friend wants fewer kids than the Duggar family.

What are your grammar pet peeves?

Have a happy weekend, Zigzaggers!!!

At an autumn festival last year
for my friend's bachelorette party.
I was appalled at this sign's spelling!

If I Could Be Anyone, I’d Be…

2011-09-14T07:00:00.007-04:00

Talli Roland’s second novel Watching Willow Watts releases today on Kindle! (Paperback release is November 30.) In the novel, Willow Watts gets her chance at stardom from a YouTube video impersonating Marilyn Monroe. In celebration of her novel’s release, Talli is hosting a If I could be anyone, I’d be… launch party!

For more about the launch party and to see who else is participating, go here: http://talliroland.blogspot.com/p/watching-willow-watts-launch-sept-14.html

For more about Talli Roland, visit: http://www.talliroland.com/

For more about WWW, see here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9813499-watching-willow-watts

To purchase the Kindle edition of WWW go to Amazon UK or Amazon.com

I had a really tough time with this! For each person I thought I’d want to be, I could think of a bunch of reasons why I wouldn’t want to be that person. I wish I could take the best aspects of them and combine them with the best aspects of me and be that individual, LoL!

Finally, I decided on someone…

MULAN!

Mulan has more gumption than all the Disney characters combined times a million. Courage is something I lack, so I have a lot of admiration for brave women who don’t let fear overwhelm what they want. I wish I had such confidence and spunk!

Mulan dresses as a man to replace her fragile father in the army, saves her battalion from a surprise Hun attack, and then goes on to save the entire country of China. Does she do this by exploiting her beauty? No way! Remember, she looks like a plain young man. She uses her intelligence, wits, wisdom, and inner and physical strength. The emperor is so impressed with her that he offers her a job on his council (unheard of for a woman especially in China at that time...of course, it's fiction, but still!). Mulan decides to return home instead, where her family and village finally respect her for who she is. She even gets the handsome captain, Shang, in the end. But we all know who wears the helmet in that relationship, ha! Shang isn’t afraid of female authority, and that’s a real man. (And he’s totally ripped!)

So there you have it. If I could be anyone, I would be Disney’s most kickass herione, Mulan!

Who would you be if you could be anyone?

FYI: Sarah and Megan over at Sisters In Crime...and Stuff have been featuring awesome interviews with fabulous writers/bloggers! Last week they featured DL Hammons, Deirdra Eden-Coppel, and Shelley Sly! This week they featured Jen Daiker and tomorrow will be ME! Be sure to check out those interviews and mine tomorrow at Sisters in Crime...and Stuff!

Happy Wednesday, Zigzaggers! Hope you’re having a great week!