Saturday, July 21, 2007
Divine Secrets
Call me late to the party. I just finished reading "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," which was all the rage a number of years back. I see from the copyright page that the hardcover version of this book, which is by Rebecca Wells, came out in 1996. Okay, so I'm over ten years too late, well beyond the major hoopla. So sue me.
For those who are in my same good company, the story is about the strained relationship between a mother, Vivi, and her daughter, Sidda. Vivi has a core group of friends, Caro, Necie, and Teensy (the stripper), all of whom make up a group called the Ya-Yas. The characters are well developed. There's nice suspense concerning the specific problems between Vivi and Sidda. The book opens with Sidda deciding that she can't get married to her fiance because she doesn't know how to love. She traces that inability back to Vivi, who sends her a scrapbook called the "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. " Cute title. The book lagged in a few spots. I sometimes found myself saying, "Get on with it. Get back to the problems between Vivi and Sidda." Other than that, it's worth the read to watch how the characters act and what they say. I have a sudden urge to say "yall" and "dahlin" from the book.
How long do you think it'll be before I get to the seventh Potter book? (Especially seeing as how I haven't read books five and six?)
For those who are in my same good company, the story is about the strained relationship between a mother, Vivi, and her daughter, Sidda. Vivi has a core group of friends, Caro, Necie, and Teensy (the stripper), all of whom make up a group called the Ya-Yas. The characters are well developed. There's nice suspense concerning the specific problems between Vivi and Sidda. The book opens with Sidda deciding that she can't get married to her fiance because she doesn't know how to love. She traces that inability back to Vivi, who sends her a scrapbook called the "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. " Cute title. The book lagged in a few spots. I sometimes found myself saying, "Get on with it. Get back to the problems between Vivi and Sidda." Other than that, it's worth the read to watch how the characters act and what they say. I have a sudden urge to say "yall" and "dahlin" from the book.
How long do you think it'll be before I get to the seventh Potter book? (Especially seeing as how I haven't read books five and six?)
Labels: book, divine secrets of the ya ya sisterhood, harry potter, rebecca wells, story
Monday, April 30, 2007
Good News
Today, on this my writing day, I officially finished story number 7 out of the 10 I've been working on. Woohoo! And double woohoo!
Labels: happy happy joy joy, story, writing
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Stuck, Yuck!
I'm working on a new short story. The first page or so came tumbling out last week. Now that I've had a break, I'm finding it hard to get going again. This morning, I sat down to figure out how to continue and suffered writer's block. I started and stopped and started again. It would have been much easier to read a book than to keep going, but keep going I did. When I get stuck in my writing, I tend to work myself out by writing with paper and pen, rather than on the computer. In this case, I had to rewrite the sentence I was continuing from several times and add on several continuations of the story. After struggling with it for a while, I think I finally got it the way I want it. Whew!
Labels: problem, reading, story, stuck, writing
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Beaming
I'm beaming. A dear friend of mine just gave me feedback on one of my short stories and her comments were so positive, so thrilling, so wonderful, that I was grinning from ear to ear as I read them. A couple of days ago, I asked how you defined success. Well, for me, it's as simple as this. Pleasing a reader. Woohoo. Double woohoo!
Labels: happy happy joy joy, readers, story, success, writing
Monday, March 19, 2007
It Could Go Either Way
Here I sit at the computer, periodically looking out the window facing our backyard. The snow is melting rapidly and I can see the hole my children dug last summer. They've arranged some old bricks and pieces of cement at one end of the hole in a strangely Stonehenge fashion. Further back in the yard, almost to the alley, they've constructed a snowboarding ramp of snow (what else?). It's a sizeable pile, the most sizeable in the yard, but no longer any good for snowboarding. Our compost heap is exposed and almost looks larger than the snowboarding pile. Spring and winter are mixed in the wind. It could go either way.
The weather perfectly mirrors my writing mood today. I've finished a story and am ready to start a new one for the series I'm working on and I realized yesterday that while I've got a character, I've got no plot yet. So, I've done a little online research and am mentally messing around. No sense in forcing these things. I'm tempted to take a little detour. I've always got several story ideas brewing, but have been setting some of them aside while working on my series. One of them has been poking at me to write it out. We'll see . . . .
The weather perfectly mirrors my writing mood today. I've finished a story and am ready to start a new one for the series I'm working on and I realized yesterday that while I've got a character, I've got no plot yet. So, I've done a little online research and am mentally messing around. No sense in forcing these things. I'm tempted to take a little detour. I've always got several story ideas brewing, but have been setting some of them aside while working on my series. One of them has been poking at me to write it out. We'll see . . . .
Labels: backyard, characters, children, hole, idea, minnesota, mood, research, snow, spring, story, winter, writing
Monday, March 12, 2007
What Does This Mean?
Now that I've finished a story, I'm sorting through my writing stuff, making copies, filing & etc. I came across the following in one of my writing notebooks:
If gas is your bread & butter,
Then you live & breathe
The price of wheat & cream.
Underneath this little ditty, I've scribbled "What does this mean?" I almost know, but the full meaning escapes me. If someone could explain it, I'd be most grateful.
If gas is your bread & butter,
Then you live & breathe
The price of wheat & cream.
Underneath this little ditty, I've scribbled "What does this mean?" I almost know, but the full meaning escapes me. If someone could explain it, I'd be most grateful.
Labels: bread, butter, cream, gas, meaning, story, wheat, writing
Story Finished
It's a writing day and I'm happy to report that I've finished a story, one that I've been working on for a couple of months. It is a nice feeling, especially because I went through a couple of periods where I thought I'd gone off mark. The story made me cry as I was writing today. This has happened before . . . me, bawling my head off in front of the computer because a character reaches an understanding, or another one acts in an unexpected, yet sympathetic way. It's a good sign when one of my stories moves me. At least I'm having a reaction to it, which makes me hopeful that other readers will too. Although, maybe I'm not the best test subject for my writing because I can make myself cry pretty easily. Whatever the case, I'm done. Four more to go.
Labels: characters, emotion, readers, story, writing
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
House
Surely the blogs are all a'twitter about Dave Matthews' appearance on Fox Network's TV show House last night. I have to admit that last night was the first night I watched the show and I was drawn to seeing how Matthews would do as an actor, rather than as a singer. He played a savant with the mental age of a little kid, but had an outstanding musical ability. He did a fine job of being guileless and properly vacant. If I'd had the part, I would have been lucky to affect a vague distractedness, rather than all out blankness. I found I was wishing they'd given Matthews more lines, just to see how he'd deliver, but then realized that it's got to be harder to act through facial action without the veil of words to hide behind. If Matthews continues his acting career, which seems likely, I hope he picks a character that requires a lot, and I mean A LOT, of makeup and prosthetics. The trouble with a person switching from a music career to an acting career is that he is so recognizable that the audience can't help but think, Why, I know everything there is to know about this fellow, and this familiarity makes it difficult to give him a fair shake.
The storyline involving Matthews' character was a backdrop piece to what was going on with the main character, Dr. House, who is played by Hugh Laurie. I'm familiar with Laurie's work on the British comedy Blackadder, which also stars Rowan Atkinson. I especially liked Laurie's character in the Elizabethan episodes of Blackadder. His nickname was "Shorty Greasy Spot-Spot." In House, Laurie plays a complete smart-ass, which I loved. He reminds me of the Dr. Cox character on the TV show Scrubs, only House is darker. Definitely a show worth watching again, just to see what Laurie will do.
Say, does anyone more familiar with the show know whether the cane and limp are part of the House character? This limp is so convincing that it has me thinking Laurie has a long-term injury, but I don't remember him being this way in Blackadder.
The storyline involving Matthews' character was a backdrop piece to what was going on with the main character, Dr. House, who is played by Hugh Laurie. I'm familiar with Laurie's work on the British comedy Blackadder, which also stars Rowan Atkinson. I especially liked Laurie's character in the Elizabethan episodes of Blackadder. His nickname was "Shorty Greasy Spot-Spot." In House, Laurie plays a complete smart-ass, which I loved. He reminds me of the Dr. Cox character on the TV show Scrubs, only House is darker. Definitely a show worth watching again, just to see what Laurie will do.
Say, does anyone more familiar with the show know whether the cane and limp are part of the House character? This limp is so convincing that it has me thinking Laurie has a long-term injury, but I don't remember him being this way in Blackadder.
Labels: acting, blackadder, dave matthews, house, hugh laurie, music, rowan atkinson, story, tv
Saturday, March 03, 2007
User I.D.
I've finished reading the book "User I.D." by Jenefer Shute. The plot revolves around identity theft. The author alternates chapters between Vera, who has had her identity stolen, and Charlene, the identity thief. There are lots of great details about identity theft and how to deal with it woven throughout the story. Jenefer Shute also covers the existential angst felt by both women in relation to the fluidity of identity in the digital age. She makes Charlene a sympathetic character, despite her illegal activities. I wish she had bolstered Vera's character more. By the end of the book, I felt like slapping Vera for her whiny, limp-wristed attitude. There was one other thing about the book that set me on edge. Periodically, it seemed that the author played a bit heavy with the description. It wasn't enough to make me stop reading, but it subtly hit me that some of the details were overdone. Because I picked up on this, I wondered if I do the same thing in my fiction writing. I'll have to check to be sure. Precision excision is the solution.
Labels: books, editing, identity, identity theft, jenefer shute, story, technology
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Result - 10 words, 20 minutes
I took my writing exercise, 10 words, 20 minutes, to writers group last night. Each of the four of us set to work on the 10 words I posted on this blog a few days ago, only we had about 15 minutes to work, rather than 20. Strangely enough, all of us started what might amount to short stories, even though we had a couple of poets in the group. The words were thus:
cream, irony, notch, beg, scarab, taste, harmony, juvenile, leather, scribble
Upon hearing the list, one of our writers said that it sounded vaguely sexual. Hmmm.
Here's what I came up with during the exercise:
"He sat back in the chair, thumped his heels on the wooded table, and put his hands behind his head. He was pleased with himself - another notch in his leather belt, is what he was thinking. If he'd had a cowboy hat, he would've tipped it low and tasted the irony. His mother would've called his coup no more than the workings of a juvenile delinquent. Instead, he was lapping up the cream of his antics.
They were begging him to join Scarab Industries. The company's representative was sitting here before him, scribbling an offer he couldn't possibly refuse on a napkin. He'd take his sweet time giving them an answer - long enough, but not too long. Couldn't let them think he was too eager. He had to see if the figure the company rep was about to show him was harmonious with his lifestyle."
By far, the most difficult word to deal with in this list was scarab. It's an interesting word, though. One of our writers came up with a scarab ring. I thought my use of the word as a company name was a bit of a cop-out, but when I consider it further, I want to know what exactly Scarab Industries produces. Bit of a mystery there.
cream, irony, notch, beg, scarab, taste, harmony, juvenile, leather, scribble
Upon hearing the list, one of our writers said that it sounded vaguely sexual. Hmmm.
Here's what I came up with during the exercise:
"He sat back in the chair, thumped his heels on the wooded table, and put his hands behind his head. He was pleased with himself - another notch in his leather belt, is what he was thinking. If he'd had a cowboy hat, he would've tipped it low and tasted the irony. His mother would've called his coup no more than the workings of a juvenile delinquent. Instead, he was lapping up the cream of his antics.
They were begging him to join Scarab Industries. The company's representative was sitting here before him, scribbling an offer he couldn't possibly refuse on a napkin. He'd take his sweet time giving them an answer - long enough, but not too long. Couldn't let them think he was too eager. He had to see if the figure the company rep was about to show him was harmonious with his lifestyle."
By far, the most difficult word to deal with in this list was scarab. It's an interesting word, though. One of our writers came up with a scarab ring. I thought my use of the word as a company name was a bit of a cop-out, but when I consider it further, I want to know what exactly Scarab Industries produces. Bit of a mystery there.
Labels: exercise, story, words, writers, writing
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Kinky Boots
During the middle of the snowstorm last night, the hubby and I ventured out to the video store and rented the movie Kinky Boots. It's a Miramax film. The screen shots are stunning and gorgeous. The story is fabulous. Kinky Boots didn't get much press upon release, but it is well worth seeing. Do not let the title scare you. It's rated PG-13. The basic plot is about a man who inherits his family's shoe factory in England. He doesn't really want the thing and the men's shoes the factory makes are going out of style. Enter a drag queen, who is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, and the plight of the factory shifts. Chiwetel has quite a list of professional credits, although this is the first movie I've seen him in. Judging by his performance, which was dead-on fantastic - especially his singing as Lola - he should reach a high level of fame. Here's hoping he does.
Labels: chiwetel ejiofor, drag queen, husband, kinky boots, movie, shoe, snow, story
Friday, February 23, 2007
A Promised Snowstorm
We in Minnesota are waiting with baited breath* for a promised snowstorm. Forecasts all day have been saying to expect 12 to 14 inches over the weekend. We're thrilled at the prospect, but a little doubtful all the same. The situation reminds me of a short story that I once read in an Alfred Hitchcock anthology. The story was about a girl who was originally from Earth, but her family had immigrated to another planet. On this new planet, the sun only shone once every so often - at some ridiculously long, but predictible interval. The little girl missed sunshine and was teased for her weirdness. She was in class the day the sun was due to shine, but the mean little buggers who were her classmates locked her in a closet and she missed the whole thing. That's where the story ended, leaving readers to wonder whether she went insane and slashed her wrists or mowed the little snots down with a machine gun.
So, here we are, Minnesotans chomping at the bit for snow. The grocery store was packed with people stocking up in hopes of hunkering down all weekend. The results remain to be seen. The ten o'clock news showed that the system had shifted about 100 miles south, so some of us might not get the promised snowstorm. Darn it, darn it, darn it. Please, please, please . . . if we promise to be good, can we have some snow? A great big dumping? Please, please, please?
*Baited breath - What is that exactly? The fumes from an anchovy and onion pizza?
So, here we are, Minnesotans chomping at the bit for snow. The grocery store was packed with people stocking up in hopes of hunkering down all weekend. The results remain to be seen. The ten o'clock news showed that the system had shifted about 100 miles south, so some of us might not get the promised snowstorm. Darn it, darn it, darn it. Please, please, please . . . if we promise to be good, can we have some snow? A great big dumping? Please, please, please?
*Baited breath - What is that exactly? The fumes from an anchovy and onion pizza?
Labels: alfred hitchcock, baited breath, earth, grocery store, minnesota, reading, snow, story, winter
Monday, February 19, 2007
Sand in my brain
It's a writing day today. Lucky me, I had one yesterday, too. Yesterday, I added a smidge to my current story and found a bit of a plot hole having to do with whether one can unclog a toilet using a drain cleaner. I've never done this because a plunger usually does the trick. It didn't occur to me to try it because the drain pipe is so big compared to one for a tub or sink. I wondered if there was ever any condition under which one would throw drain cleaner down a toilet and did a little online search. While a few sites indicated it was possible, it is NOT recommended. Too dangerous if you put in drain cleaner and then try to plunge after. So, I had to fix my story and not have my character use drain cleaner.
Today, I have the start of a headache, with pressure at the base of my skull and at my temples. It feels as though my brain is filled with sand. Thoughts keep sifting around, tough to grab. It's hard to write under this condition. I have to baby myself through it. "Only two or three sentences, that's all you have to do," I tell myself, and pretty soon I have a couple of paragraphs. I'm thankful for the editing process when this hits, yet I've never been able to tell the difference between a bad writing day and a good one when I reread my work. I would assume that a bad writing day would leave some major section that would have to be cut, but that isn't the case. Bad day or good, there's stuff all over the story that needs revision.
My analogy of sand in the brain may have a basis in the South Park episode I watched last night. It's the one where everyone is up in arms about Mohammed being shown on the Family Guy. This show was created after a Dutch newspaper ran a political cartoon showing Mohammed and Muslims got upset. On the show, most of the adults in South Park want to have the epidsode pulled from the air in order to avoid retaliation from Muslims. Fox, the station that airs Family Guy, has announced that they will be showing the episode because the writers will stop working if it isn't shown. After this announcement, the people of South Park decide that they need a plan to show Muslims that they aren't complicit in this affair. They figure that if they literally bury their heads in sand, that'll prove to Muslims that they didn't watch the show. Meanwhile, Kyle, one of the South Park kids, tries to fight for free speech. South Park, crude as it can be, is heavy on social messages. It's what I like about the show. Also, there is always something suprisingly funny in the situations presented. For instance, if you haven't seen this episode (which is a two-parter, I believe), you'll get a kick out of who the writers for Family Guy are.
Today, I have the start of a headache, with pressure at the base of my skull and at my temples. It feels as though my brain is filled with sand. Thoughts keep sifting around, tough to grab. It's hard to write under this condition. I have to baby myself through it. "Only two or three sentences, that's all you have to do," I tell myself, and pretty soon I have a couple of paragraphs. I'm thankful for the editing process when this hits, yet I've never been able to tell the difference between a bad writing day and a good one when I reread my work. I would assume that a bad writing day would leave some major section that would have to be cut, but that isn't the case. Bad day or good, there's stuff all over the story that needs revision.
My analogy of sand in the brain may have a basis in the South Park episode I watched last night. It's the one where everyone is up in arms about Mohammed being shown on the Family Guy. This show was created after a Dutch newspaper ran a political cartoon showing Mohammed and Muslims got upset. On the show, most of the adults in South Park want to have the epidsode pulled from the air in order to avoid retaliation from Muslims. Fox, the station that airs Family Guy, has announced that they will be showing the episode because the writers will stop working if it isn't shown. After this announcement, the people of South Park decide that they need a plan to show Muslims that they aren't complicit in this affair. They figure that if they literally bury their heads in sand, that'll prove to Muslims that they didn't watch the show. Meanwhile, Kyle, one of the South Park kids, tries to fight for free speech. South Park, crude as it can be, is heavy on social messages. It's what I like about the show. Also, there is always something suprisingly funny in the situations presented. For instance, if you haven't seen this episode (which is a two-parter, I believe), you'll get a kick out of who the writers for Family Guy are.
Labels: brain, family guy, fox, freedom of speech, muslims, sand, south park, story, television, toilet, writing
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Superhuman Abilities
Several of my writer friends are aware that I have written a story where synesthesia figures prominently. I just found this posting via reddit that shows 8 Diseases That Give You Superhuman Powers. One of those listed is synesthesia. The post details a couple of the ways it can manifest. The list also mentions epilepsy. Epilepsy has been linked to a high artistic ability. Strangely enough, my grandpa had petit mal epilepsy through a portion of his life and was a prolific landscape artist. The final disorder listed is hypergraphia, something you writers out there might wish for. It's the overwhelming urge to write. Of course, to have this disorder, you'd also have to put up with mania and epilepsy.
Labels: artist, disease, epilepsy, grandpa, hypergraphia, reddit, story, superhuman powers, synesthesia, writing
Friday, January 26, 2007
Who's on the Other Side?
This whole Web 2.0 is the wildest ride. Through my blogging and reading of other people's blogs, I've become acquainted with a handful of new folks that I wouldn't have met any other way. I've also emailed (using the old Web 1.0 technology) people that I have yet to meet. It makes me intensely curious. Who are these people on the Other Side? One could write a story about such things, using the imagination to conjure all sorts of characters on the Other Side (even conjuring the look & feel of that Other Side). I just know that, when I get a response to an email or a comment on the blog, the Other Side is populated with sentient beings.
Labels: blog, imagination, internet, other side, people, story
Friday, January 19, 2007
Movie Recommendation
If you haven't already seen it, I recommend renting the movie Little Miss Sunshine, which hubby and daughter and I watched tonight. Fabulous, quirky story.
Labels: daughter, husband, little miss sunshine, movie, story
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Band-ographies
I'm in the middle of reading "Bono: In the Name of Love" by Mick Wall. You know, I've read a few band-ographies (and believe me, this is more a band-ography than a biography, albeit a band-ography from the Bono point of view) and most of them leave me feeling oogie. There's a sloppy passion about band-ographies that detracts from telling the story. Now, when you're writing a book, you definitely have to have passion about your topic, or you're not going to get through the 100 to 400 pages you've set out to write. However, there can be such a thing as too much passion, a drippy, sticky syncophantic fanaticism that draws the attention away from the band at hand. I'd like to see a band-ography written by a historian who understands how to communicate passion with a fair amount of dispassion. Maybe it's easier to write historical biographies because, in many cases, the subject is dead and there's no need to impress a dead subject.
Labels: band-ographies, bono, deadline, history, passion, reading, story, writing
Friday, January 12, 2007
Repeating Myself
It's an unusual day for me to write, on a Friday, rather than a Monday, but I had to work Monday, so I took today off in order to keep from getting too far off track on my current story. Last week, I reread what I had written and had this horrible sinking feeling that I was repeating myself, that my work was stale. I couldn't pinpoint the problem, so I asked everyone at Writers Group on Monday evening. They were so helpful. One said that a certain amount of repetition is to be expected. Another said that I should keep going and the problem leading to my feeling would become apparent over time. Everyone seconded the idea that I should just keep writing. Here it is, the dead middle of the project, story six out of ten, and this is where I'm getting bogged down.
This morning, I woke and realized that part of my repetition seems to be coming from the fact that all of my characters are undergoing a shift in awareness. They are realizing that their current issues are mired in past events & psychological wounds and I'm doing quite a bit of flashbacking to show this. Literary types will tell you that this is a death-knell for a story and that a writer must keep the action going in current time. I don't know whether this is really a story killer, or whether I'm guilty of having my characters slip into memoryland, but I do know that it's very human to compare the present to the past and gain insight from the comparison.
The one thing I don't want to do is reread all of the previous stories at this point. I'd rather forge ahead with this one and fix it later if need be. No need to be thinking all of my stuff is crap just because I'm wading through some now. That'd be frosting the frog for sure.
This morning, I woke and realized that part of my repetition seems to be coming from the fact that all of my characters are undergoing a shift in awareness. They are realizing that their current issues are mired in past events & psychological wounds and I'm doing quite a bit of flashbacking to show this. Literary types will tell you that this is a death-knell for a story and that a writer must keep the action going in current time. I don't know whether this is really a story killer, or whether I'm guilty of having my characters slip into memoryland, but I do know that it's very human to compare the present to the past and gain insight from the comparison.
The one thing I don't want to do is reread all of the previous stories at this point. I'd rather forge ahead with this one and fix it later if need be. No need to be thinking all of my stuff is crap just because I'm wading through some now. That'd be frosting the frog for sure.
Labels: flashback, frost the frog, problem, repetition, story, writers, writing
Friday, January 05, 2007
A Day Off Used for Writing
I took a vacation day from work, which I used for writing. I'm pleased with my output today - an additional 1,100 words on the story I've started. I already had 550. The funny thing about all this word counting is that I don't know where I'm headed. Is the story going to be 5,000 words or 10,000? In the end, it'll be the length it needs to be to properly tell the story. That's the way it works. The crazy thing is that the characters never cease to surprise me, like when some past event one of them has experienced comes to the surface and explains a psychological trait. That's the fun of fiction.
Labels: characters, fiction, story, vacation, word count, writing
Monday, December 18, 2006
My, Aren't We All Just So Responsible
Quickie post today. It's a writing day and I want to get back to my story.
Got a new survey in from Gallup Polls that shows what people would do if they suddenly got either $1 million or $100 million dollars. Turns out, most of us would use the money for paying off bills, helping out family members, or giving to charity. Lower on the list was frivolous stuff like buying luxury items or taking trips. A few people actually thought about paying the taxes on the sudden gift, but I think this almost goes without saying. Uncle Sam always gets his cut.
Got a new survey in from Gallup Polls that shows what people would do if they suddenly got either $1 million or $100 million dollars. Turns out, most of us would use the money for paying off bills, helping out family members, or giving to charity. Lower on the list was frivolous stuff like buying luxury items or taking trips. A few people actually thought about paying the taxes on the sudden gift, but I think this almost goes without saying. Uncle Sam always gets his cut.
Labels: gallup, money, story, survey, taxes, writing
