Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m taking the day off. No writing unless I feel an uncontrollable urge. Ugh! No! Errrgggghhhh…let me go, black hole of NaNo, let me go!!!!!!!!!

Whew! That was close.

Please join me in celebration this non-commercial holiday by reading my story, The Cautionary Tale of Silas Rockport at Laughter Loaf online humor magazine, written in response to Paul Molyneaux’s (editor of Laughter Loaf) remark, “It’s hard to commercialize a holiday based on gratitude and humility.”

MA

writing prompt: What is your main character most thankful for? What is your main antagonist most thankful for? Undetectable poisons count.

NaNoWriMo–WIN!

I did it I did it I did it! I made 50,000 words, and I still have five days to go!!!

The story isn’t over. I’m going to keep working at DOWN AND DIRTY DEATH until it’s done, although I expect progress to be much slower once November is over and the Christmas season kicks in. It’s almost time to start Christmas baking, then it’ll be time to start the Christmas eating, and that takes up a considerable amount of my time.

Speaking of eating, so far I’ve managed to come up with a recipe for each chapter of this book. On my #4 daughter’s advice, I don’t put the recipes in the text unless they’re abnormally short, but I’ll include them at the end of the book. For some reason, I’ve been ravenously hungry, the whole time I’ve been writing this….

I had all day to work, and I couldn’t get going. It was like pushing chain uphill, all day. I finally realized what I’d done wrong and went back and fixed it, and then the pace picked up. In a way, I wish I wouldn’t do that, because it does stop things, but I guess that’s better than writing full-tilt and then having to rip it all out. At least it didn’t happen until I was almost at the end of the challenge. Buck Leatherbury just came into the book. I don’t know yet how much he’ll have to do, but I’m thinking he’ll be in it quite a bit here at the end. Moms and J.D. from my unpublished short story, “No Quarter” are in it, too, which I didn’t really expect. BUT NOT BUD! I’m not even setting this in Bud’s town, although I think it’s on the same river. BUT BUD ISN’T IN IT!

MA

writing prompt: Have your main character win something the reward for which is the striving.

NaNo Marches On

I’m up to 46,000+ words, now, still ahead of schedule for the challenge but behind on my personal goal. I may very well catch up, though. I’m getting a good view of the last part of the book, with some scenes I need to put in that’ll go fairly quickly. I hope.

LeJune and Packy aren’t getting along any better. Every so often, I think things are going to get all warm and fuzzy and familial between them, but the family feeling seems to be staying pretty duty-versus-heartfelt. For instance:

Packy was in the kitchen, reading diaries, and Mama was winding up a conversation with one of her friends.

“I better let you go, then,” Mama said. Then she said, “Uh-huh. No, really?” and they were yakking again. It was worse than having a teenager.

Packy had a glass on the table in front of him, empty except for the leavings of one of those effervescent stomach powder drinks.

“After all the bean soup you ate for supper,” I said, “I’d think you were fizzy enough as it is.”

“Gave me indigestion,” he said.

“More likely, it was that hindquarter of beef you had for lunch. A man your age ought not to eat that much in one sitting, especially if you have a delicate stomach.”

I could see he wanted to contradict me, but either he had indigestion or he didn’t.

I’m having a blast with these characters. None of them is anybody I know, but they all have bits of different people I know included in them. You who write, you know how that is. Even if you start out intending to parody somebody or, worse yet, pay a grand tribute to somebody, unless the character becomes somebody else, that character is cardboard. Or, as I prefer to say, a sock puppet.

Haven’t you read books where at least one of the characters is obviously standing in for somebody real? Where a character is just so awful or so perfect the book ought to have a label on it that says Reality Not Included? Or where all the action stops so a character can flap his or her literary lips while the puppeteer makes a speech?

Anyway, I’m in the middle of a fight scene, in which each character participates in his or her own particular way, and it’s getting a little loopy. Gotta go!

MA

writing prompt: Is there a relative you tolerate for the sake of kinship but don’t much like? Use him or her as the basis for a character, but make him/her sympathetic.

Preacher WIN!

I missed my church this Sunday, because Mom and I went to her church and then to the Opera (HANSEL AND GRETEL. Don’t ask.). So today, I got caught up with some of the news, and WE HAVE A PREACHER! At least, we’ve called one, and will have a reception for HER on December 6.

I’m like–YAY! I mean, I really really like the interim ministers we’ve had. They’ve both been blessings, each in his own way, but there’s a sense of unsettledness (not a word, but should be) about having an interim. In a way, it’s been great, because each interim has challenged the congregation and made at least some of us look at our church from different angles. On the other hand, Disciples of Christ are all ministers and don’t really technically HAVE to have a professional minister. Before we got our first interim, we took turns preaching, and it was fine. Still, I think we’ll feel like we’re buckling down to business if this call goes through.

They tell me that the minister before the one who was preacher when I joined was a woman, and she was fantastic. She came back as guest preacher one Sunday not long ago, and I agree–she’s fantastic! I hardly think being a fantastic preacher is gender-specific, but I’m ready to give it a shot.

I sure will miss Marc Wessels, our current interim, but I miss Dean Bucalos, who was interim before him. Still, I’m WAY excited about our having a regular minister again. I have a feeling it will revitalize our congregation. W00t!

MA

writing prompt: If you were a minister or just a lay preacher, what would the theme of your first sermon be?

Going 2 Opera 2day

This post intentionally left blank bcos i m bizzy.

MA

writing prompt: What story/book/legend/song would make a great opera? What would the arias (main chunks of song) be?

The Dangers of NaNoWriMo

There were some dangers I expected, based on last year: Boring people silly by wanting to talk about my plot problems, confusing people by telling them stories about the childhood of one of my characters, going to the grocery instead of church because I’m thinking about the book instead of where I’m going…. This year taught me a new one.

Charlie woke me up in the middle of the night, protesting that I was kicking him. Hard. I apologized, and we both went back to sleep.

Amazingly, I remembered why this morning.

I was dreaming. I do sometimes dream in storylines. I’ve even finished a dream, dreamed I had been watching a movie, applauded in my dream, decided to sit through it again, and dreamed the same dream all over again.

This time, I was unlocking a post office box with a safety deposit box inside it when I suddenly realized there were two Russian generals–or it might have been Fu Manchu–standing behind me, waiting to grab the box. The generals were certain my box contained their military secrets, but it really contained a fortune in priceless gems that Fu Manchu would kill to possess. I took out the box and swung into action, defeating the villains with my awesome kung fu skills.

I also kicked the crap out of my ever-lovin’ husband.

Sadly, neither the Russian army nor the scourge of the Orient appear in DOWN AND DIRTY DEATH. Awesome kung fu skills might, though. They just might.

MA

writing prompt: Why is your main character kicking in his/her sleep? If asked, does he/she tell the truth, or make something up?

Excited!

Tomorrow is my Toys For Tots book signing! It’ll be at the Harrison County Library from 1-4. I’ll have this year’s benefit anthology, THE GIFT OF MURDER, and last year’s, DYING IN A WINTER WONDERLAND and SWORD AND SORCERESS XXIII. I bought a truckload of SSXXIII, for some reason. I could built a freakin’ house out of them, I got so many. I think they’ve been multiplying like coat hangers.

Anyway, I don’t have all that many copies of TGOM. I bought a bunch, but I’ve been selling them, and now I hope I’m worrying with good cause. It would totally suck if nobody showed up, especially since there’ll be a toy collection box there.

Meanwhile, I’ve been zipping away on DOWN AND DIRTY DEATH. I have over 40,000 words, way ahead of schedule, but right on the mark for my personal goal. I think I’m ready for the story to take another turn. Wheeeee!

MA

writing prompt: Have a character go shopping for a child/elder that he/she doesn’t know.

The Problem With The Power Of Attraction

I’ve been trying to use affirmations to lose weight.

I love weighing 150 pounds.

It’s great, being able to fit into those pants I had gathering dust in my closet for so long.

My wedding dress fits again!

If visualization works, it might have been a mistake to make my National Novel Writing Month project one which has a main character who weighs as much as I, in fact, do. I spend maybe 5 minutes a day, total, thinking my affirmations and several hours inhabiting LeJune’s big-boned body, so, let’s see, which one is a stronger visualization? Not to mention true?

MA

writing prompt: What affirmation does your main character think he/she needs? Which one does he/she REALLY need?

Best. Sweet. EVAR!

Mom reminded me that I forgot to say anything about the dessert we had at A.J.’s on Sunday. We had our choice of apple pie or baklava, and we chose baklava. In terms of sheer calories, you get great value for money with baklava. It’s probably Mom’s favorite sweet. I like it A LOT, but next time I think I’ll get apple pie, especially if they serve it with cheddar cheese.

Today, I’m going to Louisville to have lunch with Jane. I’m telling you, there’s nothing in this world to beat the sheer joy of meeting a friend for lunch. It’s like recharging your batteries. We dump all our troubles out on the table between us and beat them to death for a while. We may have to face them again when we go home, but by golly we kill them for a couple of hours, at least!

Oh, my dear goodness, it’s deer hunting season, and the dog just walked past with something in his mouth that I do not want to examine too closely. And there goes Forrest, the big white neighbor’s dog (the dog is big and white, the neighbor is average-sized and white). We hadn’t seen him for a couple of months, and I was starting to worry about him, but he’s been around almost every day for the past week, so apparently he’s okay.

Well, Mom just toodled me on my cell phone, so I’d better go see what that’s about.

MA
p.s. I’m up to 34,000+ words on DOWN AND DIRTY DEATH!

writing prompt: Have two people who have been friends for, like, forever, meet for lunch.

NaNo Is Still In Progress

I wrote over 3,000 words yesterday! W00t!

DOWN AND DIRTY DEATH is past the 30,000-word mark, and it’s true what they say in the pep talks: By the time you have that much material, you have so much in your mind about plots and characters and motifs, you can’t type fast enough.

I’m very proud of myself, because this morning I wrote my first out-of-sequence bit. I tend to write a bit, then write a bit more and go back and stuck something in and write some more, then go back and insert something or change something else. This year, I’m making heavy use of the Comments feature of Word (and OpenOffice), opening the Comments window and making notes to myself about what to go back and put in later, not now. Now, I’m writing. Later, I’ll revise. And I always write in sequence. I have to write A and transition to B and transition to D through C. Today, I wrote a paragraph and realized it belonged later in the ms and just double-spaced and went on with the scene I was writing. It’ll still be there when I need it. Maybe someday, maybe this very year, I’ll get loose enough to have a file called Bits To Put In Later, where I can stash paragraphs and ideas and conversations that come to me out of sequence. This may not seem like a very big deal to some of you but, to a control freak like me, this is major progress.

Here is a snippet from the book. Mama and LeJune have uncovered a crime their cousin Packy is involved in. They’re investigating it themselves, hoping to keep the family from getting involved with the police. Packy is staying with them temporarily. Packy tends to comment negatively on anything he possibly can, including LeJune’s weight.

~~~~~~~~

“I usually have a snack before bedtime,” he informed us. To me, he said, “I know you do.”

“Can I turn him in now, Mama?” I said, which was just mean.

“I’ll fix it,” Mama said.

Packy and I sat and watched part of some doctor show until Mama came back with toast and hot chocolate.

Packy made a face after his first sip. “What is this?”

“It’s Black Forest flavor,” Mama said. “Got cherry flavoring in it.”

“Well, it tastes like cold medicine.”

“We like it,” I said, dipping my buttered toast into the cocoa and slurping up the soggy bread.

“Ugh!” Packy said, but I notice he drank every drop.

While Mama and I washed up, I said, “I hid the car keys, but I’m afraid the sneaking skunk will call a cab and go back to Aunt Mimi’s house and raid those diaries.”

“That’s just the kind of thing he would do,” Mama agreed. “That’s why I put a shot of cold medicine in his cocoa. He’ll sleep like a baby until we wake him up in the morning.”

~~~~~~~~

Back to work!

MA

writing prompt: Print out five random paragraphs from some of your unfinished pieces (don’t try to kid me–I know you have them). Shuffle them. Put them together in the order they come out. Try to make a coherent storyline out of them.