MMWUC for October 8, 2007

EXERCISE: Columbus Day cancels class, but the writers gather on their own. They do that you know--writing on--despite events going on around them. Downtown, Norwegian descendants fight Italians financed by the Spanish over the right to claim land inhabited by Native Americans who wandered across the Being Sea from Asia 14,568 years ago. I figured out the exact year, ya know. The writers don't care. They conjecture about landing on other worlds with strange beings, the emotional angst of growing up in a two mother or two father family, how to murder someone in a way that hasn't been done before, and what would happen if Bambi really DID meet Godzilla? Somewhere an ape throws a bone high into the sky and hits a butterfly. The dying butterfly flaps no more and causes the mother of all hurricanes to hit Wrightsville Beach on October 19th. It will be just my luck. Chaos.

MUSINGS: I think I've mused too much already. "Close your eyes (unless your driving), take a deep breath (but not if you're in a fire at the moment), and relax (unless you're fleeing a Grizzly Bear in Yellowstone Park). For the next ten minutes, write from the protagonists POV, 'The clown approached...'."

NANOWRIMO

I'm in. Are you? User name is anilyb. (For those who haven't had their cup of coffee, that's my last name backwards.) I have no idea what I'm writing about, but I'm going outside to cut up some firewood with my chainsaw and think up an outline of a story. Chainsaw? Story? Murder? Naw. It's been done to death. Oooo. But what if the tree falls on me. And I'm alone. And it starts snowing. And the chainsaw is out of reach. And my wife has just left to go up north for a week of ice fishing with her brothers. Naw. But I'll figure something out by next week.

New Word Definitions

There just are never enough good words.
---
Here are the 2006 winners of the Washington Post Mensa Invitational, which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying (or building) a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid AND an a- -hole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which only lasts until you realize that it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting some.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
12. Karmageddon: It's when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes and it's a serious bummer.
13. Decafalon: (n. ): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
14. Glibido: All talk and no action.
15. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
16. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

"Farewell, My Lovely" by Raymond Chandler

The move to read the classics continues. Marlowe is a hard-headed detective in this novel of twists and turns, and which cheats just a bit on the plot. I can't see the pivotal picture at the center of the plot twist, but that's okay. It fits the noir category perfectly with most of the action occurring at night or in a seedy environment filled with booze and more cigarette smoke than fog in San Francisco. The element that nothing in life is fair rings true. One thing I did learn was that slang and product placement erode after sixty-seven years to the point of footnotes. Not as bad as reading Shakespeare, but it is something to keep in mind as you contemplate the latest cool word that will disappear from our vocabulary next week. Someone commented that Chandler swept Hammett out of the room. Perhaps. "The Maltese Falcon" was a better story; this was better written. The Marlowe here is better drawn (and slightly more likable) than the Spade in the "Falcon" book, but not the movie. F,ML is a five star lovely book.

Oral Traditions Database Now Available

The Center for Studies in Oral Traditions at the University of Missouri is offering it to anyone worldwide with an internet connection and a browser. This site contains nearly 500 articles and 10,000 pages, with all of the contents downloadable as pdf files that you can read online or print out as you wish. The entire electronic archive of Oral Tradition is also searchable by keyword or author name, with phrase-based and Boolean searches possible as well.

Thanks Jeannette for the heads up. This could be a great muse tool.

Writing tip for the ages

Monday's writing tip: "Hook your editor with a strong opening sentence to bring attention to your writing." Are we listening?

Can PNS create POS?

If you have POS (Piece of S---) syndrome about your writing, it may actually be PNS (Perfectly Nice Syndrome) that created it, and you just don't realize it. "Follow the highlighted link, follow the highlighted link, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the highlighted link."

"She's in the castle, you dummies," Toto barked. His nose twitched and his ears stood on end as Dorothy's three companions shushed him. He bit the lion, tasting the sweet meat. No one had feed him in days, and he tired of his situation with the three stooge's.

"Murder on the Mind" by L. L. Bartlett

After a brutal mugging in NYC, Jeff Resnick struggles to patch up his life, accept his new psychic abilities, and attempt to use those abilities to help solve a gruesome murder of a banker in Buffalo, New York. The slim book is tightly written and moves briskly forward, a great asset for any mystery. A former insurance investigator downsized out of a job prior to the mugging, Jeff takes the tantalizing clues his on again/off again psychic abilities provide and combines them with sound detective skills to hunt down the killer until he pushes the killer too far threatening his domestic situation. The main plot is intriguing, well done, and a solid read for any mystery lover. The secondary plot surrounding his domestic situation plodded a bit and lacked depth. Still, "Murder on the Mind" is a four out of five star read for the mystery reader in me. For those mystery readers who like the psychic angle, it might climb a bit higher.

MMWUC for October 1, 2007

EXERCISE: A disheveled writer collapsed into his seat in the classroom. "Sign up for NANOWRIMO starts this evening." The words tumbled out of his mouth to no one in particular. His thoughts centered on a plot that didn't exist, dialogue that hadn't been spoken by characters who hadn't been born, and scenery which coloured the mood and tone of the non-existent story. This year he would do it. Fifty-thousand words and a new novel that can be polished over time. Isn't that the hardest part? Getting down a complete original story. The instructors words crashed through the wall of thought. "Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and relax. For the next ten minutes, write from your protagonists POV, 'The shoestring lay in front of me...'."

MUSINGS: Some people view NANOWRIMO as a fools earned--fifty thousand useless words thrown together in a meaningless rush just to create. Perhaps for some people that's true. But for myself and many others, plowing ahead and reaching that goal provides us with the jump start we need once a year to create another story to refine over time. Two of my three completed novels are NANO winners. One year I wrote 79,000 of the initial 84,000 first draft words of my completed novel of 87,000 words. Another year I wrote 38,000 words of a novel I never finished. Someday I might go back to it, knowing I have the germ of an idea to work with. NANOWRIMO generated nearly a billion words last year. This year, I stake my claim to 50,000 words, and who knows, with a little planning, maybe I'll complete an entire novel. Now where are my notes for the workshop I attended?

Steal this idea - "The Methuselah Mess"

Ah ha! Someone recognizes a problem I thought about years ago--aging criminals. You can go a lot of ways with a story idea like this. (comedy) Octogenarian inmates escape during a visit by retiree volunteers and stir up trouble in Tampa, Florida as they hunt for a hidden bounty of jewels from a 1940s heist. (crime) Septuagenarians, Billy and Bob Jones, seek revenge on the woman who testified against them in their 1949 conviction only to discover that she gave birth to a child--one of theirs--who's now a cop. (horror) Ninety-year-old Samuel Leumas is harassed by a vicious prison warden and a sadistic guard shortly before his release and then discovers he's not aging, but getting younger by the day and has revenge on his mind.

Yeah, I know, there are a few movies with aging criminals, but they are mostly vibrant (and way to mobile) sixty-year-olds.

Is my muse the past?

Am I getting old and nostalgic or is my muse my past? Memories have be rushing at me while I drive, when I dream, when I...ya know... and they come faster than I can write them down. Is there some age we attain when the past comes rushing back with a certain clarity and urgency? And what is the urgency? Are these memories the road crew of our mind trying to flag us down, get our attention, before we drive on and forget them in the wake of the information overload we deal with on a daily basis? Should I move to a cave and emerge years later with these thoughts scribble on the wall for the future to ponder them?


Oh, wait! I have paper. I have a computer. I have an Internet Web Log (blog). Nah! Who wants to read about the first spy I uncovered and what he and I did when I worked for NSA and lived in Berlin, Germany?

Where do you find inspiration?

After leaving the service and armed with the G.I. bill, I lived in a small college town for four years while pursuing my degree in English. I had selected a creative writing course for the fall term. I wanted to get a head start on my coursework, so I decided to write a few short stories during a three week period between the end of summer and beginning of fall. Splat. The brain froze at the moment of need. I needed to do something radical.

Over breakfast one morning in a local diner, I heard someone lament, "The most exciting thing in this town is watching the light change." Yeah, it's a cliche of sorts, and we did have only one light, and when schools out, there isn't much to do in a dry town in a dry county in which there are more deer than people. So I decided to test the theory. I would spend 24 hours watching the light change.

I reasoned it would be best to start in the late afternoon after rising at noon which was par for the course in the summer. Watching the light change from my post on the only bench downtown turned out to be a rewarding experience. I was harassed by a cop several times for being a vagrant (I wasn't because I had money on me). I got propositioned three times (only one seemed remotely legitimate--the other two would probably be passed out before we got anywhere--a dry town and dry county doesn't mean there wasn't alcohol). I got four items thrown at me (a beer can, empty cup of coffee, wad of paper, and a light bulb--maybe it was Diogenes' cousin). It is colder than you might think in northern Pennsylvania in mid-August in the middle of the night.

3:30 a.m. is the dead of night not midnight. At 3:30 a.m. all the drunks have made it home or have driven off the sides of the mountains and those early-bird workers haven't hit the streets yet. I saw two fender-benders, lots of trucks at night (I was surprised), a Model-T, two corvettes, had various people sit with me, but none for more than an hour (wussies), and had some woman very concerned about my mental state tempting me with chocolate cookies to come into the small downtown clinic. I was able to snatch two cookies without going in. Animals are about more than we realize, and at 4 a.m. a deer jaywalked from behind a closed frat house across the main road and through the Mr. Donuts parking lot without pausing to look both ways. She stood by a dumpster for a few minutes. Disgusted that there were no leftovers, she kicked the refuse container and left.

Did it inspire some great stories? Not until years later, but I did get an "A" in the class, primarily on the strength of my story, "I've Got Them Old Lovesick Cafeteria Blues Again".

A female townie thought what I was doing was bold, cool, daring, and I even remember a few "far outs". My last few summer nights turned out to be exceptionally exciting, and I did learn that watching the light change wasn't the most exciting thing in my small college town.
---
So where do you find inspiration?

What?

Which witch was which when we went with Wendy watching witches watering wilting willows with wet water while waning Wilbur wept wantonly without William's woollen woven windbreak which was whisked westward with windy whirs when wheezy witches winked wickedly.

Banned Books Week - 09/29-10/06

Thanks for LZ in reminding me that banned books week is coming up. This is but one link to an organization "celebrating" this week. For a more global view, there's Amnesty International's site for banned books and the authors who suffer from the process.

"At least he is not a book burner, you Nazi cow." - Annie Kinsella, "FOD"

MMWUC for September 24, 2007

EXERCISE: James Frey walks into the classroom. Students stare. The shackles of his past impede his progress. He leans forward in an exaggerated manner as though Jacob Marley's chains drag behind him like an anchor. The arrows of outrageous fortune stick to his back like porcupine quills. A large O is branded on his cheek and an editor's arm dangles from behind, the fingers clutching the torn pocket where the memory of his wallet stains his pants. Mark Twain waits for him at the lectern stone-faced. As Frey takes his place in front of the students, Twain clasps Frey's shoulder. "The truth is a harsh master, but you're a master of good writing." Frey straightens his posture and faces the students. "Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and relax. For the next ten minutes, write from a protagonists POV, 'The mirror reflected...'."

MUSINGS: It must be Writers Angry With Anyone (WAWA) week. I've run into a plethora of postings, articles, complaints, and tear-stained web pages with writers angry at agents, publishers, geckos, critiquers, editors, parents, significant others, reviewers, and mailmen. I've been known to vent a bit about the frustration of getting published, but I've never asked a million people to come read my weak writing so I can prove something to an agent and disguise it as some sort of helpful venture for other writers. Yep, the owner a self-serving site to which I won't link believes that one nasty agent needs to feel this writer's wrath by having a million people visit the site in 90 days. I visited and offered constructive suggestions to a first chapter that was serviceable but in need of an editor. I'm sure I will be ignored. I've learned with rejection, that in reflection, it's yourself that needs writing maturation. I doubt any agent will be humbled by any writer's web-based retaliation.

"The Virgin of Small Plains" by Nancy Pickard

A mystery with a solid arc that pays homage to the story's emotional centerpiece from the first to the last page. Characters react to events at two critical points in their lives, and their core values are put to the test in light of their maturity. Though I figured a few things out early on, the road to get confirmation was filled with doubt, as twists kept plopping down on the page like debris from a twister. It is a story of considerable power dealing with the choices people make throughout their lives, how they justify those choices, and how they reach for redemption later on. The few quibbles about coincidences are insignificant. Highest praises...5 out of 5.

My wife said, "Eh...another good mystery." and then went on with her beading.

Steal this Idea - "Calling All Brains"

You may be able to create a story out of this, but in any case, store this information in your calendar regarding when YOU have to sign up again for the DO NOT CALL list. Start now to write your horror story where aliens get ahold of the list and program a secret message to spread via the telephone to all the people on the list so that they become slaves to the aliens. You CAN buy it. It's a cheap and efficient way to start taking over the earth. Lot cheaper for the aliens then exposing their superweapon to Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum for destruction.

Nothing to do with anything, but the best places in the world to live list is out. Damn, I can't find Mongolia on it. Finland is tops; Eithopia is the bottom.

New Interesting Resources

I've added two links under Writing Help that may be of interest to some.
* A collection of 42,000 war stories from the BBC (thnx RH) is available to inspired your next story for those writing historical fiction.
* Podcasts about writing in general on American Writers (thnx AH) are available. Since I still work on a 28.8 modem, I've not heard the quality of the podcasts, but I've been told they are quite good.

Now let's get out there and make every adjective count. "Adjective!" Leonard Elmore squints jets of ink onto your manuscript.

True Passion

"Write!" Bubba was a man of few spoken words. He scribbled with his Number 2 pencil on yellow legal pad, smugged with grease from the brake job on which he'd been working.

Hours later, he lay down the pencil worn to the nub next to the thirty or more pages of paper. He smiled at me as he gently pulled a stick of gum from the pack like a debutant pulling a tissue from her sleeve. He growled with satisfaction as he chewed it, and then stretched like a panther ready to pounce on an unsuspecting gazelle.

With six lengthy strides, Bubba stood before the car with his large hands, calloused in ways not normally associated with a mechanic. He flipped on the compressor and grabbed the pneumatic wrench. Bubba tightened the last nut of the tire, and then lowered the car.

"Done," he said.

"Thanks." I looked him in the eye. "Sometimes you just have to strike...." I let the rest of the cliche get sucked into the garage's exhaust fan like a rank fart in a small bathroom.

"'Nuff said." He took my check.

As I drove away, I saw him get another pencil and pad. He plopped them beside his stool before he raised the next car in a long line of tired and patient customers that would keep him busy until late at night.

NANOBLOGMO?

This may be old news to some, but Blogger has partnered with the NANOWRIMO. It's no longer National; it's galactic. Get your plot and character sketches in gear for November.

First and last comments on these side notes:
* O.J. I yawn discomfortably at the media's ability to keep him in the limelight and how quickly the conspiracy theorists concocted the "Goldman set him up" defense. Almost as good as the Chewbacca defense (aside to "South Park").
* Spector. Convict him already. His impact on the music industry doesn't give him a free pass to commit murder.
* Spears. Whichever parent gets the kids, the kids lose. To quote Keenu Reeves from "Parenthood", "You need a license to drive, you need a license to hunt, you even need a license for your dog. But they'll let any butt reaming asshole be a father [or mother]."
* Lohan. She'll either be dead and sainted or a superstar at age 27. We are a forgiving society.

Now I must return to the garden and pick the bumper crop of beans, green peppers, and Jalapenos, not to mention the okra.