Busy Weekend

The personal life is chock full this weekend, so the blog will suffer. Sorry about that, folks. (Even though my blog stats drop dramatically on the weekends, I still feel bad when I don't post.)

Anyway, I might be back tomorrow night, but I'm not promising anything.

At least, even if I'm not blogging, I'm getting the writing done.

Now, though, I'm too pooped to type another word. Must've been the homemade lasagna, or the chocolate cake... maybe the cinnamon rolls? Yes, I've fallen off my diet, and no, I'm not feeling the least bit guilty. (I'll leave the guilt for Monday.) It's a special weekend, and good food goes along with it. (Can't tell ya why. Nothing writing related, I assure you.)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Deranged and Lovin' It

Yesterday as I was going through my daily blogroll, I found an interesting link on Jennifer Jackson's blog (in case you don't know of her, she's an agent with Donald Maass Lit Agency) that lead to Other Writers Are Crazy on Justine Larbalestier's blog. As I read Ms. Larbalestier's funny and so true words, I found myself looking at the reality of the situation...

I'm one of those crazies.

Think about it for a second. If I wasn't deranged, would I be talking to myself and to the people in my head? And who else but a crazy person would sit day after day typing words no one else may ever read--ruining eyes, wrists and brain cells along the way (not to mention getting a flat butt and atrophied muscles)?

Justine also said we were masochists. This is also true, in a way. Writers put themselves out there expecting to be rejected. They open themselves up to the pain of bad reviews, red ink edits, hate mail... They lay their hearts bare for anyone to stomp on. And after it happens, they keep working on their next book to start the process all over again. (I said 'in a way' because while we do ask for the potential of pain over and over again, masochism implies we enjoy it, and I'm not sure many of us actually do enjoy it. We accept it, we take it like a man, and we wade back in to get more, but I don't believe we like it.)

So, I guess in the scheme of things, I'm deranged. *shrug* I've been called worse. I admit it. I'm nuts, wacko, fruity, bananas, stark-raving mad. Truth be told, though, I'm lovin' it. I can control whole worlds, I have lots of friends to talk to, and I can go places I've never been without ever leaving the comfort of my home. (And with gas prices the way they are, I'm better off this way.) I can not only meet new and interesting people every day, I can create them. Being crazy ain't so bad when you look at it that way.

Sure, my ass is flat on one side, and I've spent so much time at this computer lately, my eyes are fried. I'm beginning to wonder if my leg muscles resemble wet noodles. I talk to myself, and my characters. I phase out in conversations with real people to think about my imaginary ones. But I'm happy in my little world. And while it's true that I may be killing people in my head, I'm harmless to the outside world. No 'I love me'* jacket required. Despite all that's going on in my fictional world, I can move through the real world like a normal person. I can interact with human beings and no one ever knows.

I am deranged, but the men in the white jackets can go looking for someone else... for now.

;o)

*'I love me' jacket is another term for straightjacket. After all, if you're wearing one, you do spend all day every day hugging yourself. LOL

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Grammar on the Brain

Lately, I've had grammar on the brain. I've been helping my niece with her college papers, and doing school with my daughter, and of course, writing. Then this morning, BookEnds had a post (Change of Punctuation) on their blog where they answered a writer's question about grammar. To top it off, over at Query Shark, Ms. Reid critted a query where the writer didn't seem to have a grasp on the basics of grammar.

So, this morning, I'd like to talk about grammar.

Now, before I start, let me say I'm not the god of grammar*. I do my best, but sometimes I fail. Sometimes I put a comma in the wrong place, or leave one off entirely, but I like to think that, for the most part, I'm getting everything where it ought to be. (And sometimes I get typing so fast, my fingers put things where they don't belong. Stupid digits.)

Ahem.

Grammar... Like every other part of the English language, it has rules, and those rules are there because without them, we wouldn't be able to communicate with each other. It's the same reason we all spell words the same. (Although in the past, they didn't - but that's another story.) I think our profession should place more importance on the use of proper grammar than any other. After all, we're writers. The point of our occupation is to communicate our ideas, and we need grammar to do that. Therefore, it follows that we should do our damnest to learn the rules and follow them. (Or at least know when it's okay NOT to follow them.)

With regard to proper grammar, my own skills were seriously lacking after I left school. (Elementary didn't get it done. High school assumed elementary already taught it to me. College assumed I knew it all already. You get the picture.) One thing that helped me was homeschooling my daughter. I had to know the basics so I could teach her. (Or rather re-teach her, since public school had her for the first 7 grades... but that's a rant for my homeschooling blog.) Something that helped us both in that capacity was O.W.L. - Purdue's Online Writing Lab. Need to know how to use commas? It's there. Need to understand why a semicolon and a colon are not used in the same places? They've got it. And all of their materials are simple enough to understand that I had my daughter reading them when she was twelve.

As I've told my niece many times--so many, I think she's getting sick of hearing it--get thee over there and learn. (If you need it, that is. She does. You might. I don't know. Hell, I could probably use a refresher myself.) Print the pages off if you need to. After all, we're talking about your work here. If it's important to you, it's worth the time and the paper.

Once you have the rules down, of course, you can play with them a little. Use a sentence fragment, if the story calls for it. End a sentence with a preposition. Begin a sentence with a conjunction. Mix it up. But only after you know what the rules are, and can break them without sounding like an illiterate. (Unless you're writing a scene from the POV of an illiterate, and even then watch that you don't confuse your reader.)

*I'm not the god of grammar, but I have been called a 'spelling nazi'.

(Note: If you feel the need to correct any mistakes in this post, knock yourself out. I make mistakes, especially on this blog where it doesn't count as much. But remember, any time you take pointing out my mistakes takes away from time you could be writing, or learning about writing, or querying... and really, don't you have better things to do?)

A Theory on My Writing

The other day in my post You Got Romance in my Suspense!, I mentioned how I don't read much romance because I have plenty of romance in my life. Well, I did say that was a whole nother post, so here it is.

Throughout a large portion of my life, there's been no romance. (And sometimes, the romance I had was piddlin' poor.) During these arid wastelands of romance, I inhaled romance novels. Harlequins, Silhouettes--all the big name houses--I was there and I was buried up to my eyeballs in romance. Looking back, the theory is I needed to read about it because I didn't have it. (I'm just talking about me here, so if your life is full of romance and you still read them by the dozens, good for you.) When I had romance in my life, I didn't have the urge to pick up those types of books.

Now my life has romance. I think I read one old romance last year, and I only picked that up because I wanted something short to read that wouldn't tax my brain too much. (Romantic suspense I read by the bushel, but only for the suspense parts.)

I think this is also why I've had problems writing the romantic scenes in my current book. The well-used phrase in writing is 'Write what you know', right? Well, for me, not in this case.

Back when I had no romance, I wrote romance. (I wasn't a writer yet, so they never got finished.) Not that I wasn't writing what I knew, but more a case of I knew what it was, I just didn't have it at the time. Trust me. And I wrote some pretty darn good stuff, if I do say so myself. I think those early attempts at writing filled a gap I had in my life.

No gap, no need to write about it.

On the other hand, right now my life is not exciting. (Interesting and on occasion irritating, but not exciting.) So what do I write about? Suspense. Excitement. The future. Oddly enough, I'm reading the same types of books.

Just postulating on a theory here. Well, rambling really. I'm wondering if perhaps the stories I write are somehow subconsciously driven by things that might be lacking in my life. *shrug*

Do you ever wonder what drives you to do the things you do? Why do you write what you write?

Confessions of a Coffee Addict

I need coffee. Tons and tons of coffee. Today especially. Stayed up too late; woke up way too early. And since my husband woke up before me, he made the coffee.

Now I love my husband, but his coffee is too weak for my tastes. Me? I need sludge. When we first got married, my usual strength of coffee floored the poor man. His usual strength made me wonder if he just whispered the word coffee over a cup of brown water. We found a balance (read as: I toned it down some), but on days like today, I need to add instant coffee to my coffee just to stay alive.

I credit it to too many years as a road warrior, when sludge in the morning was the only way to survive rush hour traffic between Flint and Detroit (or Flint and Ann Arbor, depending on where my sales calls were that day). A gal has to be alert in order to stay alive amongst drivers who are distracted making phone calls, applying makeup, doing their nails, and... yes... READING. Not traffic jam reading, but 75 miles an hour reading. Not maps and single sheet memos, but novels. (I saw it more than more once, and the thought of it still shocks me.)

Every morning, sludge at home, then gas station cappucino for the ride. In the afternoons, I'd switch over to Surge (which they don't make any more, but it was like Dew with attitude). If you've ever almost fallen asleep driving, you understand why I did this. When the road is scrolling underneath your car, and the trees are blurring by, and you've been looking at the back of the same semi for what feels like hours... zzzzzzzzz. Hence, the coffee.

I first started drinking it when I was in high school. It wasn't peer pressure. I just needed a boost to get me through first period. (I don't remember what the class was now, but I remember it was boring.) In college, I didn't have a coffee maker of my own, so I switched to Dew, but I never forgot the lure of the java. I'd still sneak it when I could slip away - the cafeteria made something that was hot and brownish, but it never passed for coffee in my opinion, so my coffee intake was limited to when I could afford to buy it off campus.

I'm not particularly picky about brands. Folgers and Maxwell House for daily use. Fresh ground beans for special occasions. (Yes, I broke down and bought my own grinder.) During the cheap times, I've been known to buy off brand just to feed my addiction. I don't really care, as long as it tastes like coffee and it's strong. (Okay, amend that. The really really cheap coffee that tastes like the bottom of a factory worker's shoe? That's just gross. Even on my worst days, I can't stoop that low.)

To treat myself, I drive down to the gas station and get me some French Vanilla capp or some English Toffee. Hot, frothy goodness. Mmmmm. I can't make that stuff at home. I've bought instant capp, and it's just not the same.

What say you on the wonders of the coffee bean? Do you crave it? Do you need it? Can you live without it? Or should you be standing in front of a crowd saying...

"Hi. My name is... and I am a coffee addict." ;o)

(BTW, I just put a snipped scene from Spectacle over at Tabula Rasa, if any of you are interested.)

Telling Stories

Sorry about last week. Life was intruding, I was getting way too little sleep, and just generally feeling bleh. Since I finally got a good night's sleep, I'm feeling way better today. Way.

Anyway, I was laying in bed last night and my brain was whirring like a supercomputer when I thought of the idea for today's blog post. (And I even remembered it this morning!) Before there was the printed word, man told each other stories. Oog made up a scary story and told it to his fellow neandrathals around the camp fire. Igg made up a sweet story and told it to her children before she tucked them under their mammoth skin blanket. Ubu thought up a funny story and told it to his hunting buddies while they were stalking through the underbrush (which unfortunately got him eaten when his friends' laughter woke up a sabertooth, but I digress).

Those are our occupational ancestors.

What writers do is make up stories to tell to other people. Sure, we do it on paper, or on a computer screen, but at the most basic level, we really aren't any different than those ancient storytellers. We have to go through a whole lot more to get our stories in front of people, to be sure, but the essence is still there.

When I was a child, I didn't have anybody to tell stories to. (Yes, I have a huge family, but I was the youngest, and who wants to listen to a baby when there are real books available.) Instead, I told stories to myself. I had a wildly imaginative and exciting fantasy life. I was the queen of a warrior tribe whose territory stretched the boundaries of my bedroom walls; I was a great explorer with whole nations to discover in my backyard. I was Oog and Igg and even Ubu, telling stories to my clan. (Me and my dog were the whole clan, but it worked for us.)

Looking at what I do now, it's pretty much the same. I'm still telling myself stories. They're nowhere near as weird as they were when I was a child, and they aren't based on someone else's world either. (Would I be too much of a geek to admit some of my own stories were based on MadMax and Battlestar Gallactica and Star Trek?) Now I'm telling stories that are entirely my own, and I'm telling them in the hopes that someday the rest of the world can know my stories, too.

Sure there are differences between what I do now and the storytellers of old. They never had to query, edit, or synopsize. But in all the essential ways, it's the same process. Oog had a goal to share his story with his people, to make them scream or jump or have nightmares. Igg wanted to share hers with her children so they would sleep and be happy. Ubu just wanted to make people laugh (though in hindsight, he probably should've waited until they were safe at home). Each of them perfected their stories to get the desired results (okay, Ubu maybe perfected too much).

In the end, isn't that what writers do?

So, as you sit down to tell your story, think of the storytellers who went before, and remember to tell yours in the best way possible for your audience. If you're unpublished like me, your audience is out there waiting to hear it.

Dry Spell

Sorry the blog posts have been sparse lately. Sorry, too, the blog commenting hasn't been up to its usual prolificness. I don't know what the deal is. For the past few days, I've had nothing to talk about.

The writing, on the other hand, is going well. And that's the most important part of all this, isn't it?

One of the reasons for blogging is to advance the PR part of the writing, and to network with other writers to improve the writing. (And let's face it, I like to talk about writing with other writers.) So if I'm not staying on top of the blog because I'm writing, I can live with that.

Bear with me. The dry spell will pass. It always does. I'll be my usual opinionated, mouthy, and I hope, insightful self soon.

In the meantime, tell me why you blog, or if you don't, why not?

Halfway!

I took yesterday off from the blog, and writing. I wish I'd taken the day off from yardwork, too, but the lawn needed mowing. First mow of the year, and tonight they're predicting frost. Stupid weather. Gah.

Anyhoo, enough about that.

Tonight, I hit the halfway mark! I'm projecting a final product of around 80K, and I rolled over 40K just now. Yay me! I think the first draft is going to end up short of the 80K, but that's par for the course. Since Spectacle, my first drafts always run short. I stopped laboring over every word, you see, so now I just forge ahead, and fix it in the edits. Very liberating, let me tell ya.

So now that's done, I'm going to try and catch up on some of the sleep I missed this past week. (And rest my aching lawn-mowing legs.)

Hope all y'all are reaching your goals, or if not, at least trying to reach them. If you never try, you'll never succeed.

And with that ponderance, I'll bid you goodnight.