May 25, 2014 · 9:06 pm

Send it Snail Mail

Not too long ago I celebrated a birthday. Before you ask, I’m not saying how old I turned, but suffice it to say that I remember watching the Vietnam War on television and seeing Father Knows Best in black and white. I also remember the day when birthday cards would come through the mail and each one was a gift in of itself.

Whenever I got a card or letter in the mail I would get a charge of excitement. The return address was the first thing to check and then see the postmark and stamp. Anything from overseas was the best (my brother served in Korea and he sent me several letters from there), but mail from anywhere was plain grand. After learning the distance the letter or card had come I would turn it over to carefully open the envelope.  I never ripped into a letter, and I would either get a knife to cut a neat slice across the top, or very carefully lift the paper along the glued edge.

Anticipation was the best part to opening a card or letter that came in the mail, actually it was the best part about going to the mailbox everyday. As I celebrated another step toward being ancient I made my daily trip to the mailbox and was pleased that I actually got two (count them, one, two) cards in the mail. There was a time that ten was more the normal, but now it is two. I did receive several e-cards, along with a slew of Facebook one liners, “Happy Birthday.”

On the one hand I was thrilled that anyone remembered my birthday at all (usually everyone forgets). I had a wonderful time going to lunch with friends and my family took me to dinner as well. On the other hand, it bothered me that I only received two cards in the mail. I miss the old days. I miss that anticipation. I miss going to mailbox everyday. Don’t you? When was the last time you received a nice letter from your Aunt who lives in New Jersey? Did you get very many cards in the mail for your birthday this year? Wouldn’t it be nice to get one?

I work for a greeting card company and I hear a lot of stories from customers who’s day was brightened just by receiving a real card made out of paper tucked in an envelope and sealed with a kiss. These are the things that make our world a better place and I, for one, will be sending more cards out this year. Let’s spread some cheer around and send a card, a note, a letter. Better yet, maybe some sand from the beach you live on, or a pressed flower from your garden. Be creative. Just send it snail mail and make someone smile.

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May 2, 2014 · 11:22 pm

PPWC 2014

Over the weekend I was treated to an amazing four days surrounded by writers. For the first time, I attended the Pikes Peak Writers Conference (PPWC) and I don’t think I have learned so much since I was in college. Let me share with you just a few of the highlights, but before I do, did I mention that I was surrounded by writers? Oh, and editors, and agents, and more writers. There were even writers who have books. Yes, plural….BOOKS that are actually published and available on Amazon (or a bookstore near you). I was in writer’s heaven.

I sat in on workshops taught by authors like Becky Clark, Kris Tualla, Linda Rohrbough, Brandy Vallance, Chuck Wedig, Cindi Myers, Jim Hines, and Carol Berg. I was given an opportunity to read a first page of my historical fiction to Beth Phelan (The Bent Agency) who had some great feedback for me. I had lunch with a detective, and dinner with an agent, and after every meal I was back at it again. WHEW!!

The workshops were all amazing. I could take each one and share all the details with you, but that would actually take an entire book and I really only have the space for a blog. So, let me just give you some of the tips (in the form of a bulleted list) that stood out for me.

  • Self-editing is, and must be, painful. Take yourself into “editing triage” and rip that first draft down to your best writing.
  • Do your research when it comes to indie publishing. There are a ton of options to publish that famous novel so check out all the available avenues.
  • Make a good marketing plan. You are your own product (I should say your book is your product) and it needs to be sold. A marketing plan will make that happen.
  • Know your genre. If you have written a horror romance novel, be sure you publicize it as such. Your readers will be upset if they think they have a romance novel when it is more a murder mystery with a bit of romance in it.
  • Create memorable characters that come to life off the pages. Think of them as people who live beyond your book. Who are they? What do they like? What is their favorite color?
  • Your first draft will be crappy and that is a good thing. NO ONE writes beautiful prose right out of the starting gate (well, I should never say no one but you know what I mean). Get your story on paper by any means. Don’t do any research during the first draft. Don’t do any editing during your first draft. Just get it down on paper!
  • Be sure to develop your characters as much as you develop the plot. One gives the other form and color.
  • Real life can be, at times, pretty boring. Leave it out! Your readers already have to live some of that boredom and you, as the writer, do not need to inflict this upon them in your book.
  • If you are writing a book….get Scrivener or some other software dedicated to writing novels. It will save your sanity and prevent balding. OK, you might still go bald, but you won’t rip your hair out while you write.

The four days did come to an end and I fell into what was referred to as post-conference slump. I wanted to continue riding the wave with my fellow writers, but alas, life called me back home. I made new friends and I learned so much about the craft of writing. I am looking forward to applying all the things I learned in my writing. I hope you will consider joining me next year at PPWC and enjoy a piece of writer’s heaven too.

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April 28, 2014 · 3:08 pm

Give It Back

I recently took a writing class (yes, I do claim to be a writer and sometimes I actually write good stuff), and during the class the facilitator asked for volunteers. I am usually the first one to send my hand to the sky like a blazing rocket and this day was no different. I answered the question with my usual blondness (no, I’m not blond and I do know that blondness does not define smartness) and was so off track that a search plane was sent out to find my brain.

After I crawled back under my rock and let the rest of the class go on without me, I was pleasantly surprised that our lovely facilitator was giving 7 books to the 7 participants and would these be passed to the rightful winners. Mine never came. WHAT? I was pointed to as person #5 and should have received a book.

OK, so my answer to the question really sucked, but I did stick my neck out, and I did suffer the consequences of being squashed under a rock, so after all that, I really would have enjoyed the last pick of all the books that went around. You know the book…the one that is really stupid that no one wants because it was written in 1972 and is about the soft puffy cotton balls of ancient Egypt. Hey, I don’t care. I deserve the worst book in the pile for the worst contribution of the class.

I at least deserved a book. Alas, that would not come to pass. I, once again, stuck my neck out (I do love to get my head lobbed off) and asked if the books had made it around yet. After all, there could have been a single book lost between people in a state of panic. It could be just laying there wondering if it would be claimed by some sorry soul or find itself in the pile for the closest donation center. The attendees all looked about, milled about, or studied their books, not admitting to having a book they didn’t deserve.

There is one person out there, and you know who you are, that has my book. I was looking forward to reading about the cotton balls of Egypt, and may have found my life complete by it, but it just wasn’t meant to be so. I will remain diligent knowing one day, sometime in the future, you, the stealer of my book, will peacefully move on and that book will find its way into my library where it will rest peacefully between “Blonds are for Better or Worse” and “Thieves Suck”.

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April 28, 2014 · 5:19 am

The Cup

The cup sat on the empty table

Air spilling over the edge.

Four legs reached down that held the plain above,

I breathed in the emptiness and fell through the floor.

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April 27, 2014 · 9:05 pm

Chocolate Trivia

Anyone who knows me, knows I cannot resist chocolate, and intense dark is my favorite. Every once in a while, I will be posting little tidbits related to things chocolate. So for a quick, and fun, start to the chocolate posts here are some chocolate bits for you.

  • Chocolate is America’s favorite flavor. Surveys show more than 50 percent of adults prefer chocolate to other flavors.
  • More than $16 billion of chocolate was sold in the U.S. last year.
  • U.S. consumers eat 2.8 billion pounds of chocolate annually, representing nearly half of the world’s supply.
  • Americans prefer milk chocolate by a wide margin, but dark chocolate has a growing fan base, perhaps due to its suggested health benefits.
  • Men and women purchase chocolate in equal amounts. (But, since men do most of the gift-giving, women probably come out ahead!)
  • According to a study at Colorado State University, chocolate is the most commonly craved food in North America. 40% of American women and 15% of American men are “chocoholics.”
  • More chocolate is consumed in the winter than any other season.
  • 66% of chocolate is consumed between meals.
  • 22% of all chocolate consumption takes place between 8pm and midnight.
  • Half of Americans choose what chocolate they eat by the shape of the piece.
  • 63% of Americans say they can’t resist buying chocolate for themselves when buying chocolate for someone else.
  • Chocolate manufacturers currently use 40% of the world’s almonds and 20% of the world’s peanuts.
  • U.S. chocolate manufacturers use about 3.5 million pounds of whole milk every day to make chocolate.

What is your favorite chocolate?

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March 7, 2014 · 8:58 pm

A Puzzle

It is funny how some people fit into life just perfectly from the day they are born until they are taken away in a fine pine box. They are like puzzle pieces that have the perfect shape, and colors that fit just where they are supposed to.  They are able to see themselves and their lives stretch out before them and with so many possibilities they find their place in the puzzle early on.

There was a man I once knew who attended college to learn an entirely new language then spent his life creating things from this language. It is fascinating to see how a series of odd numbers, letters, and symbols could be strung together and, once completed, could come to life and help a scientist solve a theory, or a student to write a term paper. He continued to expand his knowledge through books, seminars, and real time learning. He problem solved his way through his career and, in the end, found himself at the pinnacle. He was no longer the student of this language, but the master and teacher of it.

On the other hand, I never quite fit anywhere and found myself wandering through my life flitting from place to place and job to job. I did the obligatory fast food gigs and waitress jobs that are needed to be able to say on an application, “Hey, I really do have experience and I’m actually good at any task that is given to me. Please hire me.” Money was not an issue for me and found that the less money I earned the easier it was to find a job.

From one little job to another I learned many, many things, but never really mastered any one of them. I rebuilt car engines, repaired jet planes, and built mouse traps. I completed four years of college and spent twelve years in the photography industry (which, as it turned out, to be my longest stretch in any one career). I designed jewelry, sold skin care treatments, and made the best chocolate candies your mouth could ever experience. I wrote stories, painted landscapes, and sculpted minor monsters that never terrorized any hamlet or town.

I spent a lifetime doing all of these things and find myself here in this small town doing yet another minor task in a world that is filled with so many major possibilities. I long to turn the clock back so I might find that one thing that I could do for all my days. To fit just right in a jigsaw puzzle. There are those pieces that, with just an arm and a leg, hold two large parts of the puzzle together, or the one that fills part of the edge holding the rest in place. A jigsaw puzzle is what I am a part of and I know that in the end, I will be the final piece of the puzzle. The one piece that has been tested and tried in every place of the puzzle, never quite fitting anywhere, never quite the right shape or color. And, when that last piece is found, and it is held carefully at just the right position, and slid down with a final gentle tap, the puzzle will be complete. All of the pieces would have found their place and with that final piece I will finally find my place. Then, and only then, will I die.

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February 25, 2014 · 5:51 pm

Happy Writing

Today I sat at my keyboard trying to decide what to write. I reached deep into my creative mind and I looked straight into a pure blank wall that reached far beyond my peripheral vision. I actually have been looking at this wall for days now and today I came to the conclusion that I am really tired of looking at it, but I had no idea how to get it knocked out of the way. What was this thing anyway? Why can’t I pull even a simple sentence out of my head?

I sat at my desk a good portion of the morning wondering what the heck was wrong with me. As I have shared with all of you before I am REALLY good at procrastinating and a talent for finding things to do other than writing. This huge grey wall is the problem. It is a wall that quietly sits at the tip of my nose and is expansive. The grey is the color of a day that is cold, dull, cloudy, and not quite snowing. You know those days. There are no leaves on the trees and the grass is brown and, if you live in the burbs, all of the houses are tan. This is my wall. It covers the whole of my mind.

After plowing through an entire bag of M&M Peanuts I had a break through…..I built this ugly gray wall in response to frustrations I have been facing in my writing. Enough is enough. I needed some help so I reached out to my wonderful writing friends at Delve Writers and posted this:

Some advice please….
Whenever I “finish” writing something I don’t really like it and it makes for motivational problems to write something more. I am in a constant state of frustration and this leads to not writing. I’m sure I’m not the only one with this issue….if you too have this problem what do you do to move past it?

I want to emphasis that I know I’m not alone in being stuck like this and I am sure there are a vast number of writers (if not all) that are in a constant state of frustration at some level or another. There were many responses to my post with many words of wisdom, but there were two links in particular that really rung true for me.

Ira Glass on Storytelling is a quick video giving advice to anyone who is embarking on a creative future. This particular piece struck a cord for me in that I need to be reminded, on a daily basis, that I’m at the beginning. I know what is good and what sounds good in a story and right now I hear a lot of bad coming from my creations so I have to keep plugging away to get to that point if being good.

“Why Writers are Procrastinators” is a fun piece by Mary McArdle that describes me to a tee. At times I feel like I am the Queen of Procrastinators and it is great to finally know why. I want to be at the end of the creative race without doing all the training and I figure that if I sit around long enough I will magically get there. HA!

Tonight I sit at my keyboard with a happy set of fingers itching to get back to it. If you are anything like me then take my advice….don’t sit staring at a blank wall. Not only is it boring, but it really doesn’t do much to get the creative flow going. If you don’t already, find a group of amazingly talented writers to share your burdens and successes with. There is no one else that will really get it like another writer. If all else fails, paint that wall a different color. Yellow might be a good color to start with then add some green, blue, and just a hint of red to give the scene some tension.

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February 24, 2014 · 7:20 pm

Gold for the Mutts

The Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia are now closed and what an amazing time it was for all the athletes, coaches, and every country that came together in peace and intense competition. Gold medals, along with silver and bronze, were given to the top athletes in the world at the twenty third Olympic Games. Like any event of this magnitude there are spectacular achievements right along with devastating failures with everything in between. These games also brought to light a failure that so many people seemed to think was unique to Sochi and to Russia whereas it is something that is just as much a problem in our own country.

It has been well documented by the media that the Russian government has rounded up, and killed, thousands of stray dogs in and around Sochi. If you do a Google search “stray dogs in Sochi” you will find over five hundred thousand results most of which refer to the practice of rounding the animals up and destroying them, or stories about the kind souls who are rescuing them. It is not clear if the animals have been shot or poisoned nor is it clear what has been done with the carcasses, but what is certain is a resounding outrage from animal lovers all over the world. These are the ones who are taking the matter into their own hands and smuggling the animals out of the area, or, in the case of  billionaire Oleg Deripaska who has opened a shelter to hold some of the animals awaiting a home.

In the United States, newspapers and online media have reported widely on this issue bringing new light to a long practice of euthanizing the world’s unwanted, abandoned animals. The Humane Society of the United States takes in about 6-8 million dogs and cats each year and of these  about 2.7 million are euthanized. The staggering number of animals is a result of nature’s demand to reproduce and human nature to save them. Spaying and neutering our pets is a first line defense to reduce the number of animals that find themselves under death’s needle.

Silver medalist Gus Kenworthy, and others, brought a great deal of attention to the plight of the animals in Sochi and, in turn, brought much needed light to the situation here in the US. The American Humane Association established “Bring Home the Mutts with Medals!” to not only raise awareness to American animals , but to also raise funds for those pups left in Sochi.

“American Humane Association is working with several philanthropists to arrange boots on the ground as soon as possible to help with transport back to the United States. Won’t you help by becoming a travel companion to one of these dogs and supporting our effort?

But you don’t have to be a gold-medal winner or have a rink-side seat in Sochi to be a hero and finish first in the eyes of a helpless creature…. there are plenty of adorable, adoptable animals in the shelters right in your hometown waiting to be rescued by someone with a heart of gold.

Remember, you can’t spell “gold” without the letters d-o-g!”

Green is the new gold for all of these cuddly creatures and by making donations, adopting your own furry friend, or volunteering you too can be a part of a golden opportunity to eradicate this harsh, but necessary practice. The world comes together at the Olympic Games to honor their top athletes and now that the flame has been extinguished we each must continue to hold a bright light over all the four legged creatures that need a home each and every day.

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February 2, 2014 · 4:07 pm

28 Days of Writing

Many of my friends (who are gluttons for punishment) participated in NaNoWriMo back in November (that’s National Novel Writing Month for those of you who are smart enough not to be writers). I, as smart a person as I am (and not smart enough to not be a writer), chose not to participate. November has to be the absolute worst month of the year (right after December) for me to write anything. So, I watched from the sidelines as all of those crazy writers pounded out 50,000+ words in the course of a single month. This number is another reason I chose to sit on the sidelines. To achieve the unachievable mark of 50,000+ words I would have had to have written at least one thousand six hundred and sixty six words per day from the first day of the month to the last. I’m lucky to get one thousand one hundred and two words whipped out on a frenzied day of writing. Therefore, I watched everyone else write.

I did feel a little left out of the whole madness like when Alice fell down the rabbit hole and everyone else was left behind. She had all the fun of shrinking and growing going to tea and keeping company with smiling cats while everyone else sat by and watched. What’s the fun in that? Recently I got a email from someone inviting me to a 28 day writing spree where participants sign up to win amazing prizes ranging from a huge “Atta boy!” to priceless webpage badges that can be proudly displayed with all of the other amazing writing awards. This I might be able to do, I thought to myself, until I opened the page and read the fine print. I would have to write a blog post everyday so that by the end of the month I would have 28 blog posts (29 if it were a Leap Year, but alas it is not so we are stuck with a mere 28). Folks, I’m a realist and I know my limitations, and there is no way under the sun, clouds, moon, or forecasted snow that I will get a blog post done 28 days in a row.

With my head hanging low I left that website and promptly forgot about it until yesterday, and when I thought about that webpage again I realized that it was the first day of the shortest month of the year that only lasts 28 days. In my usual state of elderly forgetfulness I couldn’t locate the email, the website, nor remember what the 28 Days of Writing was really called so in a rush to make myself feel just a tiny bit better I made one up. It is called (can you guess?) 28 Days of Writing and it is filled with only one requirement and one reward.

First, and most important, I must write each and every day of the month. It doesn’t matter if 5 words are written on Facebook or 20,000 in any one of the novels or short stories that I have in the pipeline. I just have to write every single day during the month of February. The reward? Well, this is the best part and, of course, my favorite. After all why do all of this work over the course of 28 days (remember 29 in a Leap Year) without some kind of reward? So, after much thought, pondering, and pacing around in a quick circle I decided not to decide what the reward will be other than it will be something fabulously custom designed.

“What?” you say, “What if I want to play your game too? If I can’t have a reward why should I play?”

My dear reader, I can only say in reply, “I hope you do play my little game. You will have a reward and it will be like nothing you have ever experienced in any contest you have ever entered.”

Your reward is whatever you want it to be. Give yourself a massage, a cup of hot chocolate, a steak dinner, or even a million dollars. Just spend 28 days writing and dreaming about what it is you are going to give yourself at the end. Will it be a new car, a new snow shovel, or a new pair of gloves? Consider a cigar, a top hat, or new shoes. Anything you want is the reward to you. No cheating on the fun. At the end of each day ask yourself, “Have I written today?” and if the answer is a “Yes!” then give yourself a gold star for the day.  When February 28th comes to an end take a look at your calendar and when you see each and every day shining with a golden star you will know that you have accomplished something that few can say they have, “I have written for 28 straight days, and I deserve something for that.” Then, on the very first day of March be sure to give yourself that “pat on your back” and place a golden star on your own shining reward. WELL DONE!

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January 29, 2014 · 8:41 pm

End Program

It glows oh so bright.
It burrows deeper, deeper.
I need to see, need to scream.
Little blue screen, blue screen.
Keep digging, keep digging.
It knows oh it knows.
It snakes in deeper, deeper.
Perversion in this version.
 
It is time.
Release it now.
Let them twist, oh they’ll twist.
Upgrade, upgrade, CRASH!
Systems down.
Extinction.
 
 
 

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