Kidnapping, Torture, mayhem and other bedtime stories...

I can't really have much of a blog today. I am too busy getting in touch with my dark side. I need to write some tough scenes and they have me in their clutches.

I have to be evil and I have to be inside Sam's head. I have to be the wild horse and the one to try to break it. This isn't so easy.

So I will leave you with fairly evil jokes...

What have Helen Keller,Count Dracula and the invisible man got in common? They all find a mirror totally useless....

Did you hear about the arrogant cannibal? he was accidently full of himself....

Police recently uncovered a coffin containing a large wig. The Constable said it was a hair raising experience....

And Finally....

A little girl asks her Mum, "Mum, may I take the dog for a walk around the block?" Her Mum replies, "No, because she is in heat.""What does that mean?" asked the child. "Go and ask your father. I think he is in the garage."

The little girl goes out to the garage and says, "Dad, may I take Belle for a walk around the block? I asked Mum, but she said the dog was in heat, and to come and ask you."

Dad said, "Bring Belle over here." He took a rag, soaked it with petrol, and scrubbed the dog's backside to disguise the scent, and said, "OK, you can go now, but keep Belle on the leash and only go one time round the block."

The little girl left and returned a few minutes later with no dog.

Surprised, Dad asked, "Where's Belle?"

The little girl said, "She ran out of petrol about halfway round the block, so another dog is pushing her home."

Sandra Tuttle here reporting to you live from the bathroom...

Hurricane/Tropical storm/Identity-crisis-having Ernesto is on its way towards us today.

Which means I didn't really get much written yesterday. I had to go buy stock in the water, battery and crappy canned food companies.

It also means that I was very close to getting my nice khakies dirty as I had to put all of our lawn furniture in our tiny shed, which ain't no Mary Poppins purse lemme tell you. But alas, I didn't break a nail...

Shallow enough for you? Okay seriously, it was kind of a pain having to deal with all that stuff on the off chance that Ernesto was heading our way but better safe than sorry. My sons are Boy Scouts so we needed to "Be prepared."

I did get all of 2 pages written yesterday, not bad I guess.

Instead of writing last night I got waylaid by a "cult" (I know they'd love being called that) They worship the spaghetti monster... and I don't think they are all Italian.

Pastafarians are their name, noodly apendages is their game.

In reality they are a group of... I guess... evolution supporters *cough cough* atheists.

I have no problem with people believing what they want to believe...

BUT... (you all knew it was coming)

I do take issue with mockery as a form of argument (on any side of any argument)

It is the equivalent of saying "Derrrrrrrr" in the midst of an argument.... um that really isn't a stance to take people, it just makes you look like a big friggin' retard.

Besides what can you say in defense to "der" um... nothing. It doesn't mean anything!

Try using intelligent observations and open minds in the future oh worshippers of the carb. :-P

So to all of you mocking Pastafarians out there... I salute you, with a big fat "DER!"

The end is nigh!

I've got it in my sights cap't.

I am on the scene before the big scene (which in fact is lots of little scenes, which are all very involved)

Did I just confuse anyone else?

I am getting really excited about this. I'm probably driving all my friends and family nuts talking about it, especially considering these are fictional characters haha. Seriously though, I'm feeling the build up, the suspense, rising action and am anticipating what happens next. Now i just try to imagine that I'm a reader and I don't know what's happening next (since I assure you, I do)... well I hope that would make it even more exciting!

What is in store for Sam next you ask?

Well Sam will feel betrayed by someone she cares about, then she will go through hell. And I'm not talking about some rinky-dink hell where she is all sassy and mouths off to the bad guy. No, I'm talking about the kind of hell that can break her.

This is the part where I sound all sinister and malevolent.... breaking her will be fun.

Muwahahahaha

They say it's your birthday... dah dah dah dih dah dah

It's my birthday too, yeah!

Yup, the big 2-6 today. Kinda scary really. I am now officially "mid to late twenties" eek!

As of 8 am the whole birthday isn't going so bad. I woke up before the kids had a chance to fight or the dog was barking (saying a lot for his breed Black and Tan Coonhound) As far as waking up before the kids, one of them is a morning person and despite whenever i set my alarm, he's already up. If I set my alarm for 4 am... the other one will still be awake. It's nuts.

I already opened my birthday present and all of you are benefiting from it right now... it's a laptop!!!

Oh man this thing rocks. I could be sitting on the crapper for all you know! In fact, keeping that in mind, I could write my whole book from the bathroom. Think of all the extra (distraction free) time I'd have. Mind boggling.

Speaking of my book, I wrote quite a bit this weekend. I'm making ever present progress to the end of the book, the end is nigh.

One-two more short scenes and I will be in the grips of the big climatic finish. Then it's editing time.

If I finish before the end of this month, which is doubtful, but it may be close. I will finish the book in 4 months. I think that's pretty good for my first one! [Don't you folks worry now I have more books planned for the series. Never fear!]

I think all the ones after this will only go quicker. I got a lot of the awkward parts of writing under my belt so hopefully I can move onto a smoother path. I really had no idea about writing craft, showing not telling, passive verbs (my new thing to focus on) so it can only get better in the future right?

So publishers beware... Annihilation is near! ... uh submissions? partials? query letters?

The Prodigal Muse Has Returned

I've decided that I need to whine/bitch/moan/complain on here more often.

*hears whining/bitching/moaning/complaining from the audience*

Suck it up!

It seems as soon as I let my concerns be known... they fix themselves. Not only has Sam returned to me, but she decided to let me write 3000 words about her yesterday.

That's over 10 pages in the format I use. I was trying to crank out 4 a day... so I'm doing pretty good.

Did I mention that those 3 k words I wrote, were totally rockin? I'm getting closer and closer to the end. Which is exciting and scary. We'll see how well I write the whole big to-do (climax) I figure I have at least another hundred pages to write. That'll put my book over 400. That's a lot of writing!

I'll leave you with a quote from Nora Roberts on writing...

Nora said in RWR: "....Go track down that fickle slut (i.e. muse) drag her back, chain her to your keyboard..."

Well Sam, whaddya say?

Oh Blah Dee Oh Blah Da Life Goes On.... Bra!

La la la la life goes on... whether I'm supposed to be be writing or not.

This is when we say "ain't that a bitch" All together now...

Now that my prodigal character has returned to me, the time to do anything with it flew out the window. But that's life eh? Husband, kids, homeschooling, dog, friends, getting a bit tipsy with said friends and wanting to sleep the following day away... (that may be why my blog yesterday is a bit blah)

Unfortunately for me, scheduling time to write just doesn't work. I'm one of those crazy "creative" types who has to be "inspired" and all that other namby-pamby, new-age, high-falutin stuff.

I find it very difficult to make myself write. Sometimes if I am able to muster ten minutes of solid attention I can get into it and start writing, but it's hard to get that ten minutes when there are so many distracting things.

This is when we turn "ain't that a bitch" to "aww shaddup and quit yer bitchin"

or maybe "suck it up"?

"walk it off"?

So you are getting no dorky fist pumps from me today...

But instead I need everyone to give me the proverbial football coach butt slap and a "go get 'em tiger" and yall need to do it without being creepy about it.

A rose by any other name still dies... or does it?

On Mother's Day we had a soccer game for our oldest son. Since all of us dedicated moms bore the Florida heat... the team bought us roses. I received a nice pink champagne colored rose that was just beautiful. I put it in an old blue glass wine bottle with water and stuck it on the window sill. And proceeded to forget about it... That was... how many months ago? In May? So almost three?

Well, yes three months later I decided it was time to finally check up on that rose. I cringed at the thought of what it looked like. While the rose was dead and effeciently dried in a droopy disposition... the stem was still alive. It was very alive, a fresh spring green color with new leaves on it.

Moral of the story here? I have no idea. I'm sure you can come up with something. Perhaps it is this... you can be given a gift a long time ago and forget about it... but it is always still there... If the rose is talent... it's always lurking there waiting to pounce on you... sometimes you have to search it out. Give it some time and nourish it a little and you'll have something fresh and new to work with... but sometimes you have to trim off some dead stuff for the new to grow...

Talent/natural ability like anything, needs time to rest... but it also becomes stronger when worked/taken care of properly.

So moral of the story? Still don't really know, make something up.

Blockage? We don't need no stinking blockage.

I broke through the blockage!!

I needed to work on some characterization. I wasn't really sure how to go about that. I mean, I'm the one who decides how she is to act in extreme situations.. and that may be different behavior from just a crisis.

My lighthouse among the jagged rocks? Meyer/Briggs personality test.

I took the test as Sam would... then took it as I would. While we are the same type, ENTJ, we have different percentages of things. She is more extroverted where as I'm more thinking/feeling. Well the ENTJ personality can act certain ways in certain situations... I looked up what they are like on many different websites and found some answers I was looking for.

Some of Sam's motivation was confusing to me. I don't want her to become an author's darling. I want her to have faults, I know I have them in spades and if she is anything like me, she does too. But I still want her to seem real... here is the problem, our personality types tend not to show outward expressions of emotion. Even internally emotion can be overruled by logical and rationalization. So how do you show extreme emotion on someone who is cool under pressure, who if anything gets more effective in dangerous situations... I simply have to take her to the brink.

There is point where everyone cracks, and I just need to find it in her.. I think it will be a fun road for me seeing how far she can go without bursting. Poor poor Sam. All the terrible things that will happen to you. How ever will you deal with it all?

Linkage to the personality test: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

Blockage and we ain't talkin 'bout arteries here folks

Writer's BLOCK!!! Run for your lives!!!

This is something to be feared more than the Dread Pirate Rewrites.

Have I had writer's block? Hmm... In a way I have. Recently I haven't had so much of writer's block as a lack of focus. I know what I want to happen, it's just the words aren't coming as easily as I'd like them and I keep getting distracted. I can't write effectively unless I can really get into Sam's (my protagonist) head. I think this is more imperative when writing in first person.

To be honest, a lot of the time when I'm writing I feel like a method actor. Not that it's possible to go live among werewolves and vampires but if I could... I'd definitely go check it out... At least once.

How do you make a snarky heroine who has the ability to kick ass and take names act scared in a situation? Would she quake in fear? Rage in frustration at being out of control? Make jokes out of nervousness? Fight back with everything she has?

As you see I have a lot of options here and unfortunately Sam isn't speaking to me as loud as she has been. I'm not sure that she knows what to do either. This is a situation she's never been in.

Is she the type of person who flees when all hope is lost? Is that being a coward or wisely knowing how to pick your battles so you can fight another day? Would she know the difference?

Sam's even hiding herself from me. So how am I supposed to know how to write this scene? I swear she doesn't want these bad things to happen to her so she distracts me from the task of writing. Can you imagine how frustrating that is?

A scene like this with extreme emotion, is where your characters really come out. I guess Sam has been skating by on her sharp tongue for too long. The metaphorical ice has gotten bumpy and the temperature dropped. Her tongue is frozen to the surface... What does she do now? She's not talking her way out of it, we know that much.

So Sam and I haven't figured out what is the best way for her to proceed. Is that writer's block? I'm not sure that really matters.

Regardless I'm not writing... much.

The Little Blogger that Could

Arrrgh, this be me blog of gratitude mateys.

This will be my practice acceptance speech should I ever win anything besides "Person most likely to do dorky fist pumps" My speech for that would be a lot different than this one :-P

I'm feeling pretty warm and fuzzy right now. My friends, family and people I've never met have all been very supportive of me. This whole writing thing can be a scary endeavor for me. I'm totally putting myself out there. My thoughts and all those little people in my brain called characters are out there in the open for the whole world to judge. For those of you who know me, you know this is a big deal. I'm not really one to leave myself open to ridicule. I am one of those people with a gunslinger mentality. I have to have my back to a wall and my front towards the door. Basically, I've not very trusting.

However, with starting to write, I have to be trusting. I have to, first, trust myself. I have to trust that my ideas are good, that people will like them and most importantly, that I have the talent to do them justice.

Secondly, I have to trust my friends and family. I have to trust them to be nice (which really hasn't been a problem.) BUT I also have to trust them to be honest with me. And while I'm not calling my family and friends liars... they may have been nicer to me than they should. In a nutshell, my friends and family could never be reviewers or critics... they either are too nice, or just like everything.

Then I have to trust all those people out there I don't know. I have to trust them to respect me, to respect my ideas and me as a person.

Now I'm a firm believer in having to earn trust and respect. I know you have to trust me too. You have to trust that I will keep my word and do this blog m-f. You have to trust that I will keep writing and actually finish my book. You have to trust that I will do my best and try not to corrupt my artistic integrity for a quick buck.

All I can say is that I will try. I know Yoda said "Do or do not, there is no try." But I have to try before I can do. I'm working on earning your trust and respect. Hang in there with me okay?

I don't wanna grow up cuz baby if I did...

I wouldn't be a ... well a kid.

I run into these feelings fairly often. Mostly it is when my sons wake me up before 8 am fighting (when they should be sleeping.) I dream of those college days when I could schedule all my classes after 11.

Or when I have to be the responsible one and not the fun one, which is unfortunately WAY too often. Despite my Virgo nature... there was a time when I was the fun, playful one. Now I'm the killjoy. Welcome to motherhood ladies and gentlemen, something I got a crash course in.

If there is such thing as a New Years Resolution in August I'm going to make it. I resolve to be more "FUN." but still responsible.

Our homeschool year is upon us... maybe it will be a new school years resolution.

Works for me.

Happy Accidents...

I accidentally wrote a really good scene last night. Accidentally you ask? Weren't you trying to right a good scene?

Sure I was, but I had no idea where it was going. I needed some sort of transition so I just started writing and WHAM it turned into this emotional scene that will totally affect my series later on. YES!

It started out funny and playful, turned serious angry then went to heartwrenching. I LOVE IT! My poor characters have to go through so much, its delicious.

I watched the BBC Drama North and South last night *swoon* Poor tortured soul Mr. John Thornton is. The man has quite a scowl on him. Be still my heart.

What's the time? It's time to get ill... communication.

I was woken up this morning by my eldest son making noise. My younger son had a difficult time sleeping last night, not to mention that I didn't go to bed until after 3 am. I told my eldest to go play in his room and don't make a peep. Four minutes later, my older boy is playing... HIS DRUM SET!

How exactly is that not making a peep I'd like to know?

Sure a drum set doesn't exactly make a peep noise... but I'm pretty sure he understood the message I was trying to convey. Should I have said, don't make a noise? Because technically no one can do that. Our heart pumping, breathing, moving around all makes noise. Would I have to list everything he can't do.. no laughing, no talking, no muttering, no singing under your breath, no humming, no tapping, no drums, no ..... FUN!

Is it the gender barrier? Perhaps it is because I've never had the same kind of arguments/misunderstandings with a female.

"When I eventually met Mr Right I had no idea that his first name was Always."
-- Rita Rudner.

"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
-- Henry Youngman.

If it weren't for marriage, men and women would have to fight with total strangers.
-- Anonymous

A man who marries a woman to educate her falls a victim to the same fallacy as the woman who marries a man to reform him.
-- Elbert Hubbard

If men knew all that women think, they'd be twenty times more daring.
-- Alphonse Karr

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Now here is one I can use!

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. -- Oscar Wilde

*struts her reasonable self around like a peacock*

So that's been my problem all along huh? Being reasonable... well that can be easily fixed.

*evil grin*

Blog for Today Part Deux

Not that I believe in reincarnation but I took a test to see who I was. All it asked me to enter was my current profession so I put stay at home mome... this is what It came up with...

In a Past Life...

You Were: An Insane Despot. Where You Lived: Peru. How You Died: Suicide.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

Then I typed in writer and this is what it came up with...

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Gentle Magician. Where You Lived: Ontario. How You Died: Killed in Battle.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

Then I typed in author and this is what it came up with...

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Kind Executor of Sacrifices. Where You Lived: Siberia. How You Died: Natural causes.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

I can't get a break!

Hellfire, Damnation and "They're in a better place now."

Just once I would like to hear a pastor, priest, friend of the deceased.. whatever... say "Well they're in hell now, just like we knew they would be."

Obviously (I hope it's obvious) I don't want to hurt the loved ones of those dearly and not so dearly departed... but some truth would be nice.

People talk all the time about hell, and not going to hell and being a good person etc... but when those same people talk to someone who just lost a loved one it's always "They're in a better place now." How the hell do they know? One would think that with the way they were talking everyone was going to hell (when more than likely they have the most chance of getting there.) Hypocrites! My favorite...

Really though, let's say some one who was frankly a pretty terrible person died, what do you say to the ones they left behind? Then what do you say and not be lying?

"They got what they deserved" sounds a bit harsh.. as does "They got what's coming to them."

Hmm you could say something like "I'm sure their afterlife will reflect all they did here on earth." That doesn't sound too bad does it?

I love when you talk and say absolutely nothing. That is this kind of situation. You need to say something, without saying anything.

Rant Rant Rant

Rant rant rant all day long... rant rant rant while I sing this song...

This is my less than ethusiastic rant. I am feeling pretty mellow right now and have nothing to rant about. So... I thought the perfect blog for me right now would be a rant. Ha. I'm sure by the time I'm done with this I will have worked myself into some type of frenzy.. although let me warn you, it may be anticlimatic. :-D

*insert people with monotone voices limply waving flags and saying "yay."*

I have a blog so that means I'm supposed to have some strong opinions to rant about right? Isn't that in the blog rulebook somewhere?

I was just looking at my title, "Rant Rant Rant" and the first thing that came to mind was the shower scene in Psycho... she's showering... suspenseful music comes on... we know something is going to happen... OH! there it is, a guy behind the shower curtain. We can see him, she can't... turn around stupid lady turn around! Then... we hear *rant rant rant*

Then what do we see? We see chocolate syrup going down the drain. She must've been part umpa-lumpa.

Okay so it's probaly more of a Ree Ree Ree... sue me.

Aha! I just an inspiration for a rant. Yes! *pumps fist into air like a big dork*

I finished a book last night... almost. I finished the real book but couldn't bring myself to read the epilogue. By the time I finished I didn't really care what happened to the characters after I knew they were all still alive.

I will not name the book or the author, for many reasons. I will say this, I enjoyed the book all the way to the climax... which um... is where you are supposed to enjoy it the most people! Everything was going along just fine... threat of lives, unknown foe that could be lurking anywhere, unknown planet, suspcious new magical powers, hot sex... you know the works. Then we get to the most important part of the book and what am I left with? The protagonists destroy this unknown alien foe who is pure evil by simply wrapping their love together and forcing it on him. UGH!

I don't know about most of you but I don't read books, even romances, because I want love to make the world go round. This was SO lame! I had really been enjoying the book too. It was just too obvious and cheesy. What do I think should've happened...?

Hmm, well you can even have the same basic idea but do it more subtley... as in, SHOW NOT TELL! Yes haha! I got that in again. If I say it enough it will sink in I swear.

For instance you can have a THEME of love conquers all as opposed to a PLOT of love conquers all. How do you do that? You have the characters overcome something hard that they would not have been able to conquer without the love they have for someone or the love someone has for them. This tripline in their path doesn't have to be a physical manifestation. It can be some emotional obstacle.

Here is an example. Let's say the couple has been in one life threatening situation after another. One of them has lost everyone they love in the world. They are untrusting and don't give their love freely, but then they do... although it has been a rough road getting there. Their lives are still in danger however. They don't want to be out of each other's sight, for fear that they will lose the only person they love.

Let's stop here for a moment... Does this mean that in order to conquer the foe that they should be next to each other, loving each other? NO! What should happen you ask? That's easy... you want to make your character do the one thing they don't want to...

You separate them! They have to TRUST each other... not just love each other. They will be full of anxiety because they don't know what is happening to the other one. They have to trust in many things, one, in themselves, two, the person they love and three, fate. They must trust that they were meant to be together. So with all of these things floating around in their heads like a whirlwind of killer bees, they have to fight the big bad.

This creates much more tension... adds a lot more suspense... then you can add action, not some pink glowey energy that makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy and yet destroys evil. Give me some hand to hand, cool technology, you are on an alien planet for pete's sake... gimme something interesting. And of course... there has to be a point where you think they won't make it... one of them is losing. Perhaps even they are connected in some way and they know the other one is about to die... but they still have to trust them. And I'll let you fill in the rest of the blanks yourself.

Oh man, I'd totally love this book if it were written. Give me emotional pain people. I am a sucker for tortured characters. They are so much more interesting.

Wow I think I totally suceeded at ranting. *another dorky fist pump* Yes!

New Blog Format and Triumphant Conquering

Well as you can tell, I have a new Blog format. Please let me know what y'all think about it. Either in the comments section here or on the guestbook at my site. Better, worse, good, bad or indifferent?

*insert triumphant music* I did some rewrites yesterday. Yes, ladies and gents I conquered my knee weakening fear of changing my original greatness *insert wry laughter*

Well, I have an admission to make. It wasn't really knee weakening.. well it could've been, but I was sitting down so I don't really know for sure. I just said that to make a point, it's called artistic license people

On a darker note... 56% is that totally lame of me or what? That's like an F in evil school. I don't mind not being evil though, as long as I can write about it.

You Are 56% Evil

You are evil, but you haven't yet mastered the dark side. Fear not though - you are on your way to world domination.

How Evil Are You?

Showing, Not Telling

Showing, Not Telling.

I am not talking about playing doctor either!

What I am referring to is a writing tip. Books work much better when something is shown, not told. While that might not make much sense to some of you, considering it's all words, so it's told in words, not shown in pictures (at least in books I write.)

Here is an example:

Telling: 1. "I don't understand said," Tiffany with a confused look on her face.

Versus.

Showing: 2. Tiffany cocked her head to one side and drew her eyebrows together.

While 1. is just fine and tells you information you need to know, it keeps the reader on a superficial level. 2. on the other hand makes you start visualizing things in your head and thinking... I wonder what that character means by that movement. If I made that movement what would I be thinking? It draws the reader in much more effectively and helps the reader sympathize with your characters.

I was doing my... *insert music full of dread* rewrites yesterday and was reading a scene I had written quite a few weeks ago. It is one of my favorite scenes. It's funny, it plays out well, it flows, it's exciting. I looked at it with what I like to think of as a fresh eye and tried to figure out what I did there that was so much better than the others. Not that the others are bad mind you... they aren't I swear! Seriously, in that scene, I did a helluva lot more showing than telling. It made a huge difference! This may not seem like a big deal to seasoned writers or even to people who don't write at all. But for me it is. I've only been writing for 7 months now, only 3 of which on this book. I am learning so much everyday about the craft of writing. I am becoming able to look at my work almost objectively and spot things that could use a little polishing. I think this shows that I am headed on the right path. Man it feels good!