Getting Your Peeps Together

        As a writer, it's important to get together with my writing critique friends. I'm lucky. I am part of two groups, I go on at least one writing retreat every year, and I have some long-distance writing colleagues who help me out from time to time.

My son, husband, daughter and granddaughter...
My husband played Santa at a Masonic Christmas party.

       However, even more important than writing get-togethers is gatherings of family and friends. If we spent all of our time hunched over our laptops, tapping away, we wouldn't have anything to write about. Life--and living life--primes the pump. It fills the well. It gives us fodder to write about and it gives us time to reflect on our writing.

      I hope that 2016 is the best year ever for you. Some of us have new struggles to deal with. Some of us have had new issues rear their heads in 2015 and are still working them through. Some of us have scary things to consider (for me: retiring from public school in May and finding a private school job). However, obstacles make us stronger--if we survive them--and oftentimes we find we have more inner strength to draw from than we knew we had.

      Happy New Year!

What's in Her Pocket?

        I once read that if you know a character well--a character you've created--you should be able to list what they have in their pocket (or purse or wallet).

        For sure, you should write a character and make it so fleshed out that you know their gestures, their quirks, their likes and dislikes.

        And what goes without saying:  the reader should also know the character as well as you do. It can't just be in your head. It has to be down on paper as well...

          As I'm working on my WIP, I hope my characters are becoming well-developed. I hope the reader--if there ever will be a reader of my WIP--ends up caring for my characters.

         Speaking of characters--my son is a character. A really quirky character. A character that I know all too well. (After all, he is responsible for most of the gray patches in my hair.) He's musically talented, a voracious reader, a god in his niece's eyes and a 2nd year med student. Which is why this story might make you shudder... 

       On Christmas we were enjoying a couple of varieties of wine. A moscato and a cranberry wine. Ian went into my mother-in-law's kitchen to open a new bottle, and came back with a full bottle of cranberry wine. He acted like nothing odd had happened. Unfortunately for him, someone had witnessed what transpired... and was eager to share the story.

       It seems that my son had an unusually easy time with the corkscrew. That sometimes reluctant cork popped out like it was on a kamikaze mission was nonexistent. 

      There was no cork. It was a screw-top bottle (nothing but the most high-falutin' libations at our family gatherings). We did make sure there were no bits of metal in the wine, shook our heads at da boy, and took several photos for blackmail posterity. (We're hoping he can soon crack open a person's chest with more knowledge than he can open a bottle of wine.)

     And to let my many three followers in on what I did last week, here's a photographic clue. I gift-wrapped books at Half-Price Books, and Radar prostituted himself for donations to Love a Golden Rescue. That pesky pup would roll over on his back and accept belly rubs for a buck a crack. If you'd like to help us get more stray goldens from Istanbul (we're getting 6-8 more in April), click on Love a Golden's link, then click on the airplane.

       Is there a photo of you that is brought out occasionally when some levity is needed? Please share... 

For Lisa, I Will Be an Employer of Ladies of the Evening

      

         Lisa Ricard Claro has launched her own writing and editing business. Ricard Writing & Editing offers a variety of services at various levels.

          Do you have a HM (hot mess) of a WIP? Are you in desperate need of help when it comes to your manuscript? Have you begged for an objective pair of eyes, but are suspicious your writing friends are being kind telling white lies hitting the opium pipe failing to be honest when they respond to your work?

          Yes? Then Lisa is the answer to your problem. Not only will she help you with your manuscript, she'll also craft a book blurb, a query letter or (shudder) a synopsis.

          If you've read any of Lisa's work--her short stories or her novel (her 2nd novel is coming out in January)--you know what a gifted writer she is. If you've ever read her comments on other people's blogs, or her replies to comments on her blog, then you know what a deft touch she has with humor and encouragement, along with how in tune she is with each individual writer she encounters.

        Since Friday, I've been camped out at Half Price Books. I'm wrapping gifts for Love a Golden Rescue. It's my favorite bookstore. (And they're coming to Atlanta, for you folks in Georgia). Each HPB location has a huge assortment of used books, records (33 rpm's, baby!), movies, comic books, CD's, and even videotapes (what are those?). They will literally buy anything except yesterday's newspaper. Old People magazines? They'll buy them. Your beloved Bee Gees concert videotape? They'll buy it but might snicker over the images of the brothers Gibb in feathered hair and leisure suits once you've left the building. They also have new books, but with way-cheaper prices than their competitors.

        What book or magazine do you have that you might be reluctant--because of the guffaw effect you might cause--to take to a used book store? And since I won't be posting until next Monday, have a wonderful Christmas (if you celebrate Christmas). Eat an extra piece of pie for me...

 

          

Doggone! It's Time for a Few Lessons

       On Saturday, Radar (our 75-pound baby boy) had his picture taken with Santa at Purina.

       After the photo was taken, I connected the experience with a few writerly things and since I'm always badgering willing to share any tidbits I happen upon, here goes:

• Don't be afraid to ask for what you want from your writer friends. If you need just a read-through, to see if they connect with the story, ask. If you need help with the ending, request they really hone in on the end. (I was 2nd in line, and saw that the example photos they had on display took in the whole holiday backdrop, with the dog and Santa a bit small. I asked--nicely--if they could get a close-up of Santa and our dog. They were glad to oblige.)

• Use any trick or prop you have handy in order to get the job done. Do you work well with music? Play it while you write. Do you write better with a cat curled up on your lap? Beg them to take a nap there. Do you write more when there's a candle burning? Light one up. (There was a plastic hamburger they had for dog photos, but the family before us needed it. The little boy kept turning away from the camera, and I said, "I think you need the hamburger for him," and they squeaked it and got the boy's attention.)

(By the way, did you know there is a squeaky toy app for phones, which means you can attract your dog's attention--to the phone--while you're taking the picture? It really works.)

• Rearrange things if necessary. If you had what you thought was a great beginning--so funny and so sharp--but it doesn't go with the tone of your story, you have to put that lead somewhere else... no matter how much it hurts. If you have some great writing as part of the piece, and it's part of the story but not part of that story, you're going to have to delete it, no matter how horrible it is to subtract from your word count instead of adding to it. (The photos were supposed to be taken with Santa and Mrs. Claus sitting on the bench, with the dog and/or kid in-between them. I said to Mrs. Claus, "I know you're important, Mrs. Claus, but would you mind standing up for a moment so Radar can get onto the bench and sit next to Santa?" She happily obliged.)

        And now, here's the photo:

      And before anyone says anything, I must explain. I know Radar looks like a big, fat barrel-of-a-dog, but he really isn't fat. The camera adds 10 pounds... or didn't you know that?

What have you learned about writing or life from the holidays?

A Poem... On Your Bookshelf

      My teaching partner got me on the trail of these: book spine poems. How much fun. Imagine--having the lines of a poem already written. All you have to do is pull some books off your bookshelf.

      Granted, the added punctuation is mine, along with the "and" but the rest wrote itself. (And that is so rare--when your lines just come flying at you with little or no effort.)

The Things They Carried:

Prayers for Sale,

A Thousand Splendid Suns,

The Yellow Birds

and

The Unknown Errors of Our Lives

        Now your mission (if you choose to accept it AND if you're old enough to remember the opening bit of every "Mission: Impossible" show) Create a book spine poem. Have fun with it. After all, this poem will be almost effortless...

Troublesome Timothy

         This Saturday I spent the night with my granddaughter. Her parents never go out--just the two of them--so this was a real treat.

        On the agenda: 

• do some fused glass (using a microwave oven kiln)
• make some chocolate goodies for Riley's mom (bake brownies, then crumble them up. Add a 1/3-1/2 cup of Nutella, and a splash of kahlua or vanilla. Roll into balls. You can then roll them in cocoa or sprinkles or crushed nuts, but it's not necessary)
• eat dinner (or those brownie things)
• watch a movie (or two)
• entertain my granddaughter with my ability to fall asleep in a sitting straight-up position repeatedly
• make my granddaughter laugh with my snorting-myself-awake skills

       After she went to sleep, I had a secret thing to do--do something with her Elf on a Shelf, named Timothy. Apparently this Elf is a way to get revenge on your kids, because the first year, and during the first few days in December, it's fun. They alternate with who is responsible for making sure Timothy has the chance to get into some mischief. 

       But after the first year, or on the 24 day of keeping up with that prankster elf, parents are getting into fistfights. 

        "It's your turn with that %$#@ elf."

        "I'm too tired. And besides, I've run out of ideas. YOU do it."

        "Go, and do something with that elf."

Last night, Timothy slipped into a giant vase-like bottle.
What is that next to him?
(The opening looks huge, but my arm is a bit fat, and I almost got it stuck as I dropped Timothy
into the bottle. THAT would have been like an episode of "I Love Lucy.")

Here's a close-up. Timothy was eating some of
Riley's Cheezits in the middle of the night.
The nerve of him! Riley told me that no matter
how much aggravation he causes, he always has a smile on his face...

          We got everything accomplished. In fact, I was a true over-achiever when it came to the last two things on the agenda.

        However, as I read for a few minutes before falling asleep a little after one o'clock in the morning at a reasonable bedtime for a nine-year old, I came upon a solution for a pesky problem I was having with my WIP. 

        I wasn't fretting over it. It just came to me.

        Agatha Christie said, "The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes," and I'd have to agree. When our brain is not engaged--or so we think-- it is engaged. The cogs turn without our prodding. Things surface.

          So, if you have a grandchild and would like to get back for all the gray hair their parents caused you, it's not too late for "Elf on a Shelf."

           And if you're revising/drafting/puzzling over a piece, do something that is off-track (like washing the dishes or walking the dog) and maybe... just maybe... you will get back on track in no time...