After starting my foodie blog femmefoodiefatale.blogspot.com and working with that editor on the pages i've already got and adding to those pages with transitoinal scenes plus searching the internet for new recipes to try for aformentioned new blog i'm techno-wasted! That's right I'm done for a while. I may not make my June 30th deadline beacause the idea of sitting in front of any form of electronic device just about makes me want to vomit in a technology hangover. I need a break from all things that plug in, turn on, light up, or otherwise connect me in any way other than real life.
I made a list of all the technological thingies that i'm plugged into and realized i'm a technoholic! The online mommy forum, Facebook, Blogspot, Stumbleupon, and the many many many recipe websites and blogs that I read not to mention the online comics!!! It's a wonder I get anything done in my day at all.
Hence forth I will be WORKING more and stumbling, facebooking, and mommy foruming (is that even a word?) less. I need to FOCUS. I think maybe I might be afraid of success because everytime I get close to succeeding my focus scatters and I just quit. I'm determined not to quit. At this point even if the story turns out to be total shite at least I can say I finished it!!!
So now it's time to get writer wasted and join the 12 step program to get unplugged.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
some advice from an Editor.
yes you read that right I have found a professional editor blog who can help me refine my story. I'm so freaking excited I can barely contain my writer's heart!!!! I'm also extremely glad that I grew up in a house with five sisters and have a very thick hide LOL. Critism thy name is editor LOL.
So some advice from the editor to help me and anyone else become a better writer:
go to the last three people you’ve hurt in your life and ask them to talk to you for as long as they want about how it felt to them. Don’t respond, just listen. Endure the shame.This step is necessary to clean out the interior censor, the one who thinks there’s still time left to protect your reputation. There’s no time left. You’ve already long-since destroyed your reputation with the ones you love, the people who matter most. Welcome to the real world.If you’ve never hurt anyone, put down your keyboard and go apply for sainthood. You are the wrong kind of liar to be a writer.
So I will be making some phone calls later this evening. I'm actually pretty scared to do this because I HATE for people to be mad at me. :(
Spend one day watching children.Children are people confused by their world, without adequate skills to either communicate or function within the social norms of their tribe. Watch a family, preferably of several generations. Take copious notes on how they interact with each other—how they treat one child, how they respond to the child’s efforts to communicate and function, how they communicate with each other about the child, how they communicate with each other with no reference to the child at all. Take notes on how the child attempts or does not attempt to be involved with them. Now take the same notes on the other children, along with notes on why you picked that first child first. Sketch choreographic notes on how the members of this family move around each other in space.Write a scene in which a character is an adult using the child’s tactics, only in adult language and with adult understanding. Read it, and analyze the subtext between the characters. Write it again with a different character. And again with a different character. And again with the same character but a different outcome. And again with the same character but a different outcome.Write it as if it were your one chance in life to communicate what you need to communicate.This step is necessary to teach you compassion for every single character you create.
I'm going to work some more today on editing my current work and building those transition scenes I so desperately need. I'll report back tomorrow on my progress from these two steps.
So some advice from the editor to help me and anyone else become a better writer:
go to the last three people you’ve hurt in your life and ask them to talk to you for as long as they want about how it felt to them. Don’t respond, just listen. Endure the shame.This step is necessary to clean out the interior censor, the one who thinks there’s still time left to protect your reputation. There’s no time left. You’ve already long-since destroyed your reputation with the ones you love, the people who matter most. Welcome to the real world.If you’ve never hurt anyone, put down your keyboard and go apply for sainthood. You are the wrong kind of liar to be a writer.
So I will be making some phone calls later this evening. I'm actually pretty scared to do this because I HATE for people to be mad at me. :(
Spend one day watching children.Children are people confused by their world, without adequate skills to either communicate or function within the social norms of their tribe. Watch a family, preferably of several generations. Take copious notes on how they interact with each other—how they treat one child, how they respond to the child’s efforts to communicate and function, how they communicate with each other about the child, how they communicate with each other with no reference to the child at all. Take notes on how the child attempts or does not attempt to be involved with them. Now take the same notes on the other children, along with notes on why you picked that first child first. Sketch choreographic notes on how the members of this family move around each other in space.Write a scene in which a character is an adult using the child’s tactics, only in adult language and with adult understanding. Read it, and analyze the subtext between the characters. Write it again with a different character. And again with a different character. And again with the same character but a different outcome. And again with the same character but a different outcome.Write it as if it were your one chance in life to communicate what you need to communicate.This step is necessary to teach you compassion for every single character you create.
I'm going to work some more today on editing my current work and building those transition scenes I so desperately need. I'll report back tomorrow on my progress from these two steps.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Only Write the good stuff
Only writing the good stuff seems pretty obvious until you sit down to write. That's when you realize that you really don't want to write this scene because you're thinking of another scene thats more fun and more vivid in your mind, so you're bored, or disinterested in writing the scene before you. If i'm bored writing it it'll probably be boring reading it..that's what I keep telling myself which is why, a year later, i'm still writing the first half of this book. I'm going to buckle down and work on joining the scenes i've written and try to find some joy in doing so but this is where i'm reminded that writing is work it's not ALL fun and games. It's always fullfilling to see a story come together however and I've set myself a deadline of June 30th for the first 25 pages. Why June 30th? Because i'm taking the plunge and submitting it to a writing contest. If it's good enough to be considered for the 1000 dollars prize i'll count myself my on good and on the right track. Otherwise it's back to the drawing board. If I win...well i'll be a 1000 dollars richer and treating my only two critics Ebethteach and Roxanddak to a very nice meal ;) I never think my writing is good enough to win but I always hold out hope that i'm wrong.
So here's to One meeting my deadline and two getting up the courage to enter the Hidden Rivers Arts Awards contest.
So here's to One meeting my deadline and two getting up the courage to enter the Hidden Rivers Arts Awards contest.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Writing's Hard ya'll!!
I've said it before and i'll say it again and I'll keep saying it till someone stands up and says "Yeah I know this dude!" and we can stand there and eye each other in mutual understanding and solidarity.
No matter how hard it is and how much it breaks my heart I find that I keep coming back to it day after day after day. Like a glutton for punishment if i'm not actively writing i'm thinking about writing. If i'm not thinking about writing i'm reading, which inevitably leads me to thinking about writing. If I were catholic I'd have a name for this neurosis, Self-Flagellation, alas I am not Catholic so i'm just going to have make up a name for my neurosis. How does Writeaholic sound? Meh to predictable. What about Writerisis? Yeah I like that better too. Back to my original post, writing is hard work, it's not JUST about writing, if it were just about writing anyone could do it and let's face it we've all read some pretty bad books in our day. I live in constant fear of being one of those authors. You know the type, they wrote some pretty good stuff in the begining then resting on thier laurels they started to turn out some real crap and fed it to the masses. Of course that crap will make the NY Times best seller list regardless of the fact that everyone knows it's total crap. I don't want to write to write, I want to write to entertain and if i'm bored reading it then how do I expect anyone else to read it?
The hard part isn't writing that part is easy, no the hard part is having an idea, letting it ferment and grow and germinate and reach and unfurl until FINALLY it's all there a fully formed fetus ripe for the birthing. Sometimes that babie's ugly and requires quite a few face lifts to be digestible and sometimes it's ok looking from the start but it's, you know, average. Average is NOT what a writer sets out to be. We are telling stories people!!! You want to pay good money to see a movie that's average? No you don't!! As a matter of fact when you see the trailers if the movie looks average what do you say to yourself? You say "Self i'm not paying 9 bucks to see that average movie i'll wait till it goes to DVD and I can rent it for a buck". No one wants to write an average book and no one wants to watch an average movie. This is what makes writing hard. What seperates an average story from an exceptional story? What makes a story engaging, funny, tragic, sad, in short a story worth reading! I'm still figuring this out, i've been trying to figure it out for decades.
No matter how hard it is and how much it breaks my heart I find that I keep coming back to it day after day after day. Like a glutton for punishment if i'm not actively writing i'm thinking about writing. If i'm not thinking about writing i'm reading, which inevitably leads me to thinking about writing. If I were catholic I'd have a name for this neurosis, Self-Flagellation, alas I am not Catholic so i'm just going to have make up a name for my neurosis. How does Writeaholic sound? Meh to predictable. What about Writerisis? Yeah I like that better too. Back to my original post, writing is hard work, it's not JUST about writing, if it were just about writing anyone could do it and let's face it we've all read some pretty bad books in our day. I live in constant fear of being one of those authors. You know the type, they wrote some pretty good stuff in the begining then resting on thier laurels they started to turn out some real crap and fed it to the masses. Of course that crap will make the NY Times best seller list regardless of the fact that everyone knows it's total crap. I don't want to write to write, I want to write to entertain and if i'm bored reading it then how do I expect anyone else to read it?
The hard part isn't writing that part is easy, no the hard part is having an idea, letting it ferment and grow and germinate and reach and unfurl until FINALLY it's all there a fully formed fetus ripe for the birthing. Sometimes that babie's ugly and requires quite a few face lifts to be digestible and sometimes it's ok looking from the start but it's, you know, average. Average is NOT what a writer sets out to be. We are telling stories people!!! You want to pay good money to see a movie that's average? No you don't!! As a matter of fact when you see the trailers if the movie looks average what do you say to yourself? You say "Self i'm not paying 9 bucks to see that average movie i'll wait till it goes to DVD and I can rent it for a buck". No one wants to write an average book and no one wants to watch an average movie. This is what makes writing hard. What seperates an average story from an exceptional story? What makes a story engaging, funny, tragic, sad, in short a story worth reading! I'm still figuring this out, i've been trying to figure it out for decades.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Research????
I need to know more about biblical theology. The problem with that statement is it's theology..which basically means a lot of old dudes who can't agree on any one thing and wrote a bunch of papers on what they believe the bible is saying. Of course everyone contradicts each other and no one agrees so...yeah it makes writing a fictional story about a group of people who are a holdover from the Great Flood a tad bit harder....I need to schedule an appointment with my pastor he's a theological dude maybe he can shed some light on it for me. in the meantime I still have to find something to write about for two hours today..two total hours of writing...it's not easy folks. I mean i can write for two hours but most of it's crap, filler words, that sort of thing. Here's hoping my writers ADD doesn't distract me today...SQUIRREL!
What are the signs that Magnus is in the right or wrong place?
Here's the thing I don't really want there to be "signs" because being a Christian means we live our lives by faith and it extremely rare that we are given any kind of "sign" but today writing exercise is to do just that..so i'm off to go research some signs. I like subtle what do you think of subtle signs?
So here are some signs i've come up with the first is obvious "Stars" people are always looking to the heavens for signs and even Jesus had a special star to herald his birth. Another sign is animals, animals are used often to herald signs such as the white stag, white buffalo, ravens, owls that sort of thing. Stones and trees are used as well so basically anything that occurs naturally in nature. So a sign for Magnus...............I'm going to go with a dog now I just need to decide on a breed. I'm going to write a scene today and try out a chihuahua on the advice of Roxanne. After some research I discovered this breed of dog is decended from Mayan temple dogs called Techichi and those dogs were mute...too bad modern day Chihuahua's aren't. For the purpose of this scene i'm using the Techichi the Mayan temple dog.
What are the signs that Magnus is in the right or wrong place?
Here's the thing I don't really want there to be "signs" because being a Christian means we live our lives by faith and it extremely rare that we are given any kind of "sign" but today writing exercise is to do just that..so i'm off to go research some signs. I like subtle what do you think of subtle signs?
So here are some signs i've come up with the first is obvious "Stars" people are always looking to the heavens for signs and even Jesus had a special star to herald his birth. Another sign is animals, animals are used often to herald signs such as the white stag, white buffalo, ravens, owls that sort of thing. Stones and trees are used as well so basically anything that occurs naturally in nature. So a sign for Magnus...............I'm going to go with a dog now I just need to decide on a breed. I'm going to write a scene today and try out a chihuahua on the advice of Roxanne. After some research I discovered this breed of dog is decended from Mayan temple dogs called Techichi and those dogs were mute...too bad modern day Chihuahua's aren't. For the purpose of this scene i'm using the Techichi the Mayan temple dog.
Monday, June 13, 2011
The Verve and other random things
I need to write for two hours today...............tick tock tick tock nothings really coming to me so hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I know!!!! A descriptive scene of a place I used to live in using a Fantasia type of back drop!!! Yesssssssssss hopefully the verve will be with me today :)
Que creepy horror movie music:
This heap of rubble that Magnus stood on was known to the locals as 9 mile, not because it was located nine miles outside of town but because at it's top most peak it was 9 miles tall. Can you imagine it? A pile of rocks, loose dirt and stones dotted here and there by low lying Russian Thistles it's only inhabitants the rattlesnakes and yellow bellied marmots that built nests in the hollowed out places of the mountain. This heap of rubble was 9 miles tall and made up the outermost ring of mountains that curved around the small town of Windover and gave Magnus the vantage point he needed to scout the town below. There were six mountains in total that made up the protective ring around this valley and on the other side was the great Salt Flats. While Kyndl had warned him of the evil in this town he hadn't been able to really comprehend the vileness below him. The valley lay below dotted here and there by a handful of white lights barely visible through the dense fog of evil that lay over the entire valley. So few lights, so few true believers, he had heard of places like this at the Keep, back in St.Louis, but had never seen it himself. A nexus a place where one form of evil meets another and pools and seethes and swarms spiralling down down down until the people affected either end it themselves or suffocate and die. It doesn't matter much which way it goes they all end up dead in the end.
Windover was special it was not just a bad place it was a powerful nexus of immorality and cultic worship. Only in this town did the two things exist side by side. The divide was there clearly marked by the roads bisecting the town. As often happens in border towns this one was no different the more wealthy side that of the Nevada side had nice paved roads, clean neat yards, ok schools and a pretty little golf course, all paid for by the willing enslavement of those that both worked and lost thier wages at the casinos. On the Utah side the roads were cracked, worn through in areas, cheap run down apartments an even worse school and most of the people on this side of town lived in old run down single wide trailers permanently hitched to a lot. As a rule most Cults don't pay well but in the Mormon cult it's sort of a mandatory thing that you pay the church first. Unfortunatly for the Utah side of Windover the Church members resided on the Nevada side of the town and didn't really see the need to pay for the upkeep of the Utah side.
Kyndle had called this place a modern day Soddom and Gamorrah she had warned Magnus that the evil within was not something to be taken lightly and no amount of persuasion could convince her to come back here. She wouldn't talk about what had happened to her in this town but its after affects were there in the shadows of her eyes and the unconscious way she held her self defensively anytime the name was brought up.
My verve has run out..i had a clear picture where I was going with this and once again my own flowery words distracted me..i've got to be the worst ADD writer ever!!! I mean who gets distracted with thier own words? Some phrases i'm thinking of using: spritual bootcamp, salt of the earth, this little light of mine got snuffed out, like lambs to slaughter, Den of the Lotus People, if money's the root of all evil the great tree must spring forth from here, The underground lake in Windover is fathomless because it's collected all the tears of the sinners over the course of the centuries, It's just like a Watcher to interrupt my good time. I can resist anything except temptatoin.
well i did not quite make my two hour mark for writing :( sooo sad but on the upside i've made a new scene for my book!! yay and hopefully entertained you in the process...now tell me do you smell pancakes?
Que creepy horror movie music:
This heap of rubble that Magnus stood on was known to the locals as 9 mile, not because it was located nine miles outside of town but because at it's top most peak it was 9 miles tall. Can you imagine it? A pile of rocks, loose dirt and stones dotted here and there by low lying Russian Thistles it's only inhabitants the rattlesnakes and yellow bellied marmots that built nests in the hollowed out places of the mountain. This heap of rubble was 9 miles tall and made up the outermost ring of mountains that curved around the small town of Windover and gave Magnus the vantage point he needed to scout the town below. There were six mountains in total that made up the protective ring around this valley and on the other side was the great Salt Flats. While Kyndl had warned him of the evil in this town he hadn't been able to really comprehend the vileness below him. The valley lay below dotted here and there by a handful of white lights barely visible through the dense fog of evil that lay over the entire valley. So few lights, so few true believers, he had heard of places like this at the Keep, back in St.Louis, but had never seen it himself. A nexus a place where one form of evil meets another and pools and seethes and swarms spiralling down down down until the people affected either end it themselves or suffocate and die. It doesn't matter much which way it goes they all end up dead in the end.
Windover was special it was not just a bad place it was a powerful nexus of immorality and cultic worship. Only in this town did the two things exist side by side. The divide was there clearly marked by the roads bisecting the town. As often happens in border towns this one was no different the more wealthy side that of the Nevada side had nice paved roads, clean neat yards, ok schools and a pretty little golf course, all paid for by the willing enslavement of those that both worked and lost thier wages at the casinos. On the Utah side the roads were cracked, worn through in areas, cheap run down apartments an even worse school and most of the people on this side of town lived in old run down single wide trailers permanently hitched to a lot. As a rule most Cults don't pay well but in the Mormon cult it's sort of a mandatory thing that you pay the church first. Unfortunatly for the Utah side of Windover the Church members resided on the Nevada side of the town and didn't really see the need to pay for the upkeep of the Utah side.
Kyndle had called this place a modern day Soddom and Gamorrah she had warned Magnus that the evil within was not something to be taken lightly and no amount of persuasion could convince her to come back here. She wouldn't talk about what had happened to her in this town but its after affects were there in the shadows of her eyes and the unconscious way she held her self defensively anytime the name was brought up.
My verve has run out..i had a clear picture where I was going with this and once again my own flowery words distracted me..i've got to be the worst ADD writer ever!!! I mean who gets distracted with thier own words? Some phrases i'm thinking of using: spritual bootcamp, salt of the earth, this little light of mine got snuffed out, like lambs to slaughter, Den of the Lotus People, if money's the root of all evil the great tree must spring forth from here, The underground lake in Windover is fathomless because it's collected all the tears of the sinners over the course of the centuries, It's just like a Watcher to interrupt my good time. I can resist anything except temptatoin.
well i did not quite make my two hour mark for writing :( sooo sad but on the upside i've made a new scene for my book!! yay and hopefully entertained you in the process...now tell me do you smell pancakes?
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Too sick :(
I was going to do some more editing on what i've written and try to flesh out and finish joining the scenes that I have written..then last night I was struck down with a horrible fever..terrible cough...and full body aches and pains...yes i'm sick! I hate being sick i'm like the worst patient ever. I hate taking medicine, I hate having to leave my husband to man the fort while i'm down and out and I hate headaches. I hate being sick...period..I don't get really sick very often but when I do it's usually multiple illnesses at once..sort of like my body is trying to take it all on at one time to get it over with. BOOO So here I sit at work feeling like death warmed over and all I can think about is laying my head down and praying to God that I make it through this day. I'd sure hate to miss work tomorrow but if i'm still feeling this bad i'll miss it...regardless of how upset my supervisor may be.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
moving slowly forward
Always in the past i've written essays, poems, short stories, simple small things. Last year and yes it's been a full year I took on the daunting task of writing a novel..a full blown novel. I couldn't tell how far i'd gotten so i copy and pasted the numerous journal entries into one big word doc. so i could see the progressions all at once...here's what i've discovered..I'm a terrrible writer! Seriously! a years worth of trying and all i've got to show for it are some disjointed scenes none of which really match up with each other..so i guess my next task as a novel writer will be to work on transition scenes from one to the other and HOPEFULLY the first HALF of this novel will come together by the end of this year..HOPEFULLY!!
On to family stuff:
This summer started with a bang for sure! We've had The Dinosaru Picnic at Vago Park as part of the Passport Playdates.
We've gone to another mommy friends house for a Memorial Day BBQ and Slip n'Slide fun
We've had Magnus's 2nd birthday party with his friend Bean,
We've gone to the Aquaport waterpark and it's only June 8th!! I'm exhausted and excited to see what the rest of our summer will bring to us :)
I believe we're going to go camping with our friend Amanda and her kids in July, I know we're planning a trip back down to my home to visit my Granny and Papa and see the rest of my family, then theres the Prater family reunion in August..phew and that's just what we know about!!
I've been giving some serious thought to finding a writers group. Much as i appreciate the feedback I'm given from one lone reader (you know who you are) I feel as if i've reached a place where I need some more in depth constructive critism. I need help developing my plot and filling out my characters..it's hard to write a novel and no one writes in a vacuum.
On to family stuff:
This summer started with a bang for sure! We've had The Dinosaru Picnic at Vago Park as part of the Passport Playdates.
We've gone to another mommy friends house for a Memorial Day BBQ and Slip n'Slide fun
We've had Magnus's 2nd birthday party with his friend Bean,
We've gone to the Aquaport waterpark and it's only June 8th!! I'm exhausted and excited to see what the rest of our summer will bring to us :)
I believe we're going to go camping with our friend Amanda and her kids in July, I know we're planning a trip back down to my home to visit my Granny and Papa and see the rest of my family, then theres the Prater family reunion in August..phew and that's just what we know about!!
I've been giving some serious thought to finding a writers group. Much as i appreciate the feedback I'm given from one lone reader (you know who you are) I feel as if i've reached a place where I need some more in depth constructive critism. I need help developing my plot and filling out my characters..it's hard to write a novel and no one writes in a vacuum.
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