It's Taking Shape...And I'm Nervous

No, not a wip. A group. A writing group. My very own. In person. Live.

I've been wanting to join one, but all the RWA chapters are two+ hours away. Add to that a meeting of only 2 hours long or ones that start at 8am or ones that charge $30 per meeting, and you can count me out.

I get lonely for other writers. I'm busy all day with kids, patients, friends. I'm rarely at a loss for company. But I do crave the companionship of fellow writers.

I love these words of wisdom from Judy Reeves:

Within our writing community we connect with others of our own tribe, which opens us and ignites our spirit.

In writing groups, we are with kindred spirits speaking a common language with a shared passion.

It just doesn't get any more "on target" than that.

Do you belong to a writer's group? Tell me about it, all of what you love, all of what you hate and everything in between -- I'm taking notes for mine. If you don't belong to one, describe your vision of the perfect group.

Read more...

Inspiration

I'm revising at the moment...hence the related quotes. (Edie, Linda...I know you're revising, too. How's it going? Hope these touch your funny bone. Anyone else revising?)

Books aren't written -- they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

~ Michael Crichton

The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.

~ Robert Cormier

Rewriting is like scrubbing the basement floor with a toothbrush.

~ Pete Murphy

Read more...

Blog Feeds Tutorial or Primer or ???

I've been blogging now for about 2 years -- 1.5 with Romance Worth Killing For and my personal blog for about 6 months prior. Once RWKF got off the ground, I shut down my personal blog--I didn't have enough to say for two blogs.

Somewhere along the line, I (obviously) decided I did have enough to say.

Today, I figured out feeds. For those of you who don't understand feeds, like I didn't understand feeds, this might serve as a rudimentary start. And all those feed experts out there (yeah, I'm talking to you, Spy and Linda) can tune in and offer their experience.

A web feed allows users/readers to subscribe to a blog. Most people subscribe to several feeds and use a feed reader (or aggregator) to combine all the feeds into one location where the user /reader can view all of the fresh information at the same time.

The obvious benefit to the user is that they can get notified by whichever aggregator service they want to use when new information is posted on one of the user's flagged sites/blogs. No more skipping around from one blog to another to see who's posted yet that day or whether they've posted something you want to read or not.

But there are benefits to the blogger, too. Typically, a blog with an available feed enjoys increased readership, because access is easier--and that's why we all blog, right...to be read? Also, if you subscribe to your own blog, you can see how many other people have a feed to it (but only those utilizing the same service as you). And if you're counting hits, it's important to know that those who read your blog through a service won't be shown on your hit stats--so you may have more viewers than your typical hit counter shows.

I use Bloglines. Linda turned me on to it a while back, but I didn't feel like figuring it out, so I skipped it. Now I'm on board, and I love it. I only subscribe to about a dozen blogs (nothing compared to Spy's 100+), but I've found it very convenient, and blog hopping has become fun again. I find myself more willing to read and comment when I'm not thumbing through tens and tens of blogs looking for topics of interest. Now I just click on a blog, scan it and either read or click to the next blog.

Because there are so many feed reader services out there, I suggest using Addthis, because it allows the user to add the feed to the feeder of his/her choice vs. the "blogger feeder" or the "blogline feeder" or the "yahoo feeder".

To add a button with your feed info:

• click on the "Get your free widget"
• choose "feed widget" from the top drop down list
• select your widget style
• select where you will place your button
• enter the URL of the blog where you're placing the button (i.e. http://joanswan.blogspot.com/)
• choose your blog platform
• select "no stats" if you want no strings (or you can get stats by creating an acct. with Addthis)
• click "get your free button"

A new window will display the HTML code for you to add to your blog template to incorporate your new feed button.

Wha-la. You've got a feed. (BTW, Edie -- your blog needs one!)

How'd I do? How many of you use feeders already? How many of you have them linked to your blog?

And a thanks to Spy for getting me with the program.

Read more...

The End...Sadness or Celebration?

This is an excerpt from an article off of Absolute Write, a writing ezine.

*****

"Typing 'The End'"
By Aaron Paul Lazar

There is a time in every author's life when he or she experiences a sudden pang of loss, and sweet sorrow descends like soggy tissues on a broken heart. Man or woman, romance or action writer, sensitive poet or straight-shootin' scene churner, it hits us one and all. It's the moment we reach at the end of our long suffering days, those focused, driven, passionate hours, plastered with outpourings of words that evolved into our current work in process. The moment we type "The End."

It happens to all of us. Sometimes there's a delayed reaction and suddenly it sneaks up to slay us the next day. Macho man or lyrical lady, none are immune. In my case, I don't actually burst into tears. But my throat tightens, a lump forms, and I fight back moisture that puddles and threatens to overflow.

My God. It's over. What will I write tomorrow?

Read the whole article here.

*****

How about the same damn thing, all over again? It's called REVISION. And I work on revisions until I'm about ready to kill off my hero and heroine, turn all the good guys bad and form a victor of my villain.

I have never had the feeling this writer talks about. Maybe I'm not emotionally invested enough in my story. Maybe I'm past emotional investment--like a marraige ending in divorce.

Have you ever felt this loss at The End?

Read more...

Funny

A writer died and was given the option of going to heaven or hell.

She decided to check out each place first. As the writer descended into the fiery pits, she saw row upon row of writers chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they were repeatedly whipped with thorny lashes.

"Oh my," said the writer. "Let me see heaven now."

A few moments later, as she ascended into heaven, she saw rows of writers, chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they, too, were whipped with thorny lashes.

"Wait a minute," said the writer. "This is just as bad as hell!"

"Oh no, it's not," replied an unseen voice. "Here, your work gets published."

Read more...

Question:

I haven't posted in a while because I don't have much to post about. And every time I start to consider drumming up topics, I wonder what the whole purpose of that would be, other than to keep a stream of blogging going.

Blogging is a lot like selling on eBay--to do well (i.e., get faithful buyers/readers) you have to be consistently "on". It's an interesting phenomenon.

Hey -- I've got a question for you.

I've been toying with the idea of posting one of my earliest stories to my website -- maybe one chapter per month? One scene per week? I'm not sure. But I think it would be fun for me to play with the story again (it's one I like and one I think will eventually sell, which major overhauls), it would be productive and it might be fun for others to read.

What would the downside of posting that to my website be? I suppose someone could steal it and claim it as their own -- but honestly, anyone who would do that would have to go under my Believe It Or Not column of stupid criminals. I'd like to see someone get that puppy published -- really. But maybe there is a bigger, badder downside that I'm not seeing -- or maybe the one I'm seeing is bigger and badder than I'm giving it credit for being.

What do you think?

Read more...

Believe It Or Not

I'm constantly amazed at how stupid, evil or selfish people can be. This is going to be a new thread called Believe It Or Not and will contain stories about said stupid, evil, selfish people.

My first post is about evil people:

*****
Mom Indicted for Selling Daughter
Girl Taken to Mexico

[Source]

A 37 year old woman was indicted Monday on charges that she sold her teenage daughter for $3000.

Tina Valdez is accused of selling the 15 year old girl to a man last August. At first, Valdez told authorities in Archer County that her daughter had run away. She even gave police a note that she said her 15 year old daughter had written about going to look for her father.

But investigators say Valdez admitted last month that she sold the girl to 35 year old Jason Carlile who took her to Mexico.

So what kind of man would even think of the idea of offering money for a child? In this case, it is the same kind of man who has a past that involves charges of indecency with a child and possession of child pornography. It is rather obvious that his primary motiviation behind “purchasing” this 15-year-old girl was to use her as a sexual slave. He absconded with her to Mexico to lose himself in that country, most probably thinking U.S. law enforcement would not search for her for long. Luckily for her, there were dedicated officers who never stopped trying to find her.

Valdez and Jason Carlile are now in prison, in Texas, indicted on charges of purchase or sale of a child, a third-degree felony.

The girl is back in Texas and has been placed in foster care.

*****

My oldest daughter turns 15 - TODAY. I can't even imagine...

Read more...

Funny

On Saturday I went to Walmart to exchange our propane tank so we could barbecue.

I put the empty tank in a basket and walked through the door and straight to the counter in the garden area which was about ten feet away.

The greeter, a man in his seventies with a long buzz cut that reminded me of Gomer Pyle's Sergeant, jumped up. "Oh, no, no, no. Wait right there. We can't have that in here."

I didn't get it. Have what in where? But I didn't get a chance to ask before he pulled the cart from my hands and wheeled it out the door. "No propane tanks in the store."

"But it's empty. I'm just exchanging it," I call to him on the way out.

"Doesn't matter."

He wasn't rude, just diligent. And I have to admit, his diligence was executed in a relatively polite way.

So I paid for my refill and went outside where the Sergeant is standing by the propane cage grinning a little sheepishly. "Sorry, 'bout that. But the Fire Marshall goes up a wall when he sees these inside the store."

I almost laughed. And I almost...almost said, "Actually, the Fire Marshall is sitting on his ass in front of the television developing remote-induced carpal tunnel, and I do about a dozen other things that would drive him up a wall before this propane incident."

(My husband is the county Fire Marshall)

But I didn't. I just thanked him, told him I understood and came home to tell my husband, who got a good laugh.

Read more...

Did you know...

... about Google alerts?

I just learned that you can input a keyword or combination of words and Google will email you when anything matching those keywords is posted on the www.

I tried it out using key phrases related to the ms I'm revising with phrases like: human smuggling Mexico and U.S. border security, and I've gotten some great hits.

Nothing better than having research delivered to your inbox.

Sometimes I love technology!

Read more...

People

I love the tag line the television channel USA uses: Characters Welcome.

We all have our idiosyncrasies. I have more than a few, which my best friend and my husband like to remind me of...often. But I've discovered there are idiosyncrasies and there are ... well ... idiosyncrasies.

The people I meet in my work at the radiology clinic make me wonder -- seriously wonder -- how they get through the day. I have to have seen hundreds of personality disorders. Some people are chronically anxious, some are hypochondriacs, some think they're allergic to everything.

Some are sure I don't know how to do my job and proceed to tell me just how, some tell me I'm studying the wrong area of their body--regardless of what their doctor ordered or how I explain what I'm looking for and why, some want me to do several scans that their doctor didn't order.

Some people complain endlessly, no matter what you do, you can't do right by them. Some people feel they're entitled to be seen the moment the walk in the door--to hell with the other patients, to hell with the fact that they came at the wrong time or on the wrong day, dammit, they want to be seen!

Some people can't even take directions as simple as, undress from the waist up and put on this gown. Seriously.

It makes me wonder how they deal with an erroneous late fee on their cable statement or a long line at the grocery store. More than once a day I find myself shaking my head wondering, "How the hell do their friends and family live with them?"

Neat way to form some quirky characters for fiction, but man am I glad I don't have to deal with them on a daily basis. Talk about stress...

Do you know people with personality issues that go beyond idiosyncrasies? How do they get by? What problems do they encounter? How do their loved ones cope?

Read more...

Huh? What?

I think I sometimes think too deeply. Then again, maybe I'm just way off base and nobody has the heart to say so.

I posted what I thought was a rather insightful post on character over at RWKF today, but nobody has made any comments all day.

When I tackle a complicated issue like that, I often struggle to smooth out my thought process. There are so many tangents I could go off on to try and explain what I'm thinking. I often have to think and rethink, write and rewrite and article on a topic such as that one to get my point across. Alas, I also think I miss the wagon most of the time.

Guess it's a good thing I write fiction, huh? No instructional manuals or writing wisdom for me. But that's okay. My brain was wired for fiction, always wanding around other make-believe people's lives and dreaming up their stories.

Do you have trouble expressing ideas about complicated subjects or does your mind work in that linear fashion? Do you write better fiction or non-fiction?

Read more...

I Need A Life Makeover

You know those shows that give you a fashion makeover or a home makeover or a landscaping makeover or even a car makeover?

I need them all -- I need a life makeover.

I'll keep my husband (I've invested years in training), keep the kids (they'll be taking care of me in my old age)...but everything else needs a face lift--including me!

Ignore my grumbling...I get like this when I've switched to overwhelmed mode.

Let's see--news:

• I finalled in the Daphne du Maurier for Single Title Romantic Suspense. Very exciting. I polished my entry and submitted it for final round judging by Kimberly Whalen and Charlotte Herscher. Very, very exciting.


• I actually started on my revisions to Safe. After brainstorming ideas and discussing them with my agent, then collecting more information to support those changes, I got through chapter one today. Whoo-pee! Only 21 chapters more to go. (Someone shoot me now.)


• The response to my RWA chapter on the central coast of Ca hasn't been what I'd hoped. I sent out reminder postcards, and I've submitted a blurb to our local writers association to see if I could garner more interest, but it's not lookin' good. The RWA's truckload of rules, regulations and bylaws make it burdensome to start a chapter...and for a dozen people? I think not. Not sure what's going to come of that.


• A portion of our tax return went toward the purchase of new computers for our daughters. Only six months after the purchase of my own new laptop my 11 and 15 yo are getting better, faster computers for less than mine cost. (I was going to hand-me-down mine to one of them and take a new one, but since I don't need a stellar video card to use Microsoft Word or the Internet I decided it wasn't worth the grief I'd have to take.)


• I lost my iPod about a month ago, which has hampered my walking efforts. ( I CAN'T walk without my iPod or my walking buddy). Hence, my weight loss has stagnated. So, I bought myself the combo mother's day-birthday gift of a new iPod and have spent as much time loading my music onto it as it would have taken me to edit two more chapters of Safe. (Priorities, priorities.)


• I spent the weekend painting our cabin, getting ready to sell it. Therefore, my house is, once again, neglected and in disarray.

Enough about my exciting (HA!) life...what's up with you?

Read more...

Thinking Blogger Awards

I have been bestowed a great compliment! Spyscribbler has tagged me for the Thinking Blogger Award. The fact that she has found my blog thought provoking is a high compliment, IMHUO. (Thank you, Spy!)

In accordance to the guidelines, I have listed five other blogs that make wheels of my mind turn:

• Anatomy of a Bookdeal


• A Newbie's Guide To Publishing


• Hey, There's a Dead Guy in the Living Room


• Buzz, Balls & Hype


• Edie Ramer

In all fairness, there are quite a few blogs out there that offer humorous or fresh perspectives on writing and life and the writing life, but these were the first that came to mind.

What are some of your favorite blogs?

Read more...