MadLib Contest

Today, I am going to do a sort of MadLib experiment. Please post a comment with your answers.

After a couple of days I'll announce a winner, based on no specific guidelines other than "oh, that sounds cool."

Winner will receive something nifty.

So, on to the madness.

1. List 3 nefarious or evil mythical or fantasy creatures

2. List 3 superpowers.

3. A business or activity a criminal could use to hide his criminal activities.

4. A violent verb and a nonviolent verb.

5. A color.

6. Favorite form of vengeance/revenge.

7. An emotional handicap.

8. A clever comeback.

9. An ethnic cuisine.

10. The perfect place for a lair.

Pity Party Part 2 - Emerging from Darkness

Yesterday I was feeling very sorry for myself. I've never written anything novel length before, so this whole process is like flailing around in the dark.

It's killer on the confidence.

This morning I feel a little better. I think I have some idea at least for the next scene in the WIP, so at least I can limp at least that much further ahead. The good advice of many other writers (thank you!) has been to just keep forging ahead. Get the story down on paper from beginning to end, then go back and rip it to pieces if necessary.

Okay. I'll do that.

So now that I can put that little piece of misery aside (at least temporarily), now I need to focus on how the heck I'm going to pay for my master's program. Since it's a low residency program I won't be on campus so I can't get an assistantship (which would be ideal, of course). I guess I need to dig around and see if I can find any free money (ha!).

Maybe some rich writer would like to sponsor me? Hmmm, too bad I don't know any.

If I weren't married I could find an old geezer and marry him for his money.

Discover sunken and/or buried treasure?

Win the lottery?

Beg on a street corner?

Plan an elaborate bank and/or casino heist with 10, 11, or 12 of my best friends?

Pray?

I'm out of ideas. Anybody else have any?

Pity Party

Okay, so today I'm having a pity party for myself. I'm having a catastrophic crisis of self-confidence. Here's the litany that's jangling in my brain: My WIP sucks, I should trash it and start over, or at the very least I need to cut it in half, or better yet someone else should write it. I'm a crappy writer and shouldn't even try.

Plus I found out I won't be getting any grant money for my MFA program because I didn't get my FAFSA in early enough (I was waiting until I had my taxes done so I'd have accurate financials), so my only option is to go into monumental debt to pay for the first year of my master's program.

Between these two problems, I feel physically ill with anxiety. There's a pain in my chest, I feel like I want to barf, and I really just want to jam my head in a pillow and scream at the top of my lungs then cry until I'm dehydrated. If I drank, I would be, but I don't. Thankfully there's no chocolate in the house or my hips would spread another couple of inches.

Soooooo.....

Instead I'm going to wallow in self-pity the rest of the night and try to sleep it off. I got some advice from another writer to whom I also bemoaned my WIP-loathing and she told me the important thing is to FINISH IT. Don't go back and read it, don't question yourself, just get it on paper then go back and slash it to bits and rewrite it.

I will allow myself the luxury of being a blubbering fool tonight, then tomorrow I will square my shoulders and continue to put words to page, only looking forward, trying to improve as I go, and not worry about perfection until I'm on the thrid or fourth rewrite/edit/revision.

Now all I have to hope for is that I can find a benevolent philanthropic sponsor to pay for my MFA program....

To Prologue or not to Prologue, That is the Question

I had an interesting discussion with Hubby this weekend. I've been working diligently on my WIP, which includes a prologue. I finished a revision of said prologue and proudly announced it to Hubby, whose response was, "Prologues are for sissies."

This comes from a man who has read exactly two books in the 23 years I've known him.

His comment, of course, started a heated debate. I asked him if instead of calling it "proglogue" I called it "chapter one" if he would feel differently. He said that you should be able to incorporate the info you put into a prologue into the rest of the book and do away with the prologue. I told him he doesn't know what he's talking about because the prologue sets up the story, or may give information that is not easily told throughout the rest of the book. He adamantly refused to reconsider his stance.

So, I polled my oldest son. He's 16 years old and reads voraciously, as do I. I asked him what he thought about prologues. He said he likes them because they set up the story.

I gave my Hubby a self-satisfied look, but he was unmoved. The man who never reads stood by his statement that prologues are for sissies.

I, of course, still disagree with him. And to aggravate me even further, the contents of the prologue I added to my WIP (which didn't previously have a prologue), was Hubby's idea. After we had talked about the story, characters, plot, etc, he had suggested adding something at the beginning of the book which would give some insight into the previous conflict that led to where the characters are now.

Sort of like setting up the story?!

So even after incorporating his suggestion, because I named it "prologue" he suddenly doesn't like it. Well, too bad for him. I'm keeping the prologue, whether he likes it or not. He'll probably never read the book anyway.

So what do you think about prologues? Like them? Don't like them? Don't care?

For Readers and Writers

This is just a brief post, but I ran across these articles today and thought I'd share them with you.

Both articles are from Newsweek. The first is an author's roundtable, called "The Write Stuff" and talks to six different authors about the nuts and bolts of writing, and other interesting issues. It's definitely worth reading.

The second is called "What to Read Now. And Why." It is a list of 50 books for our times, as recommended by Newsweek. I found it fascinating. I've read very few of them, but after reading the blurbs about each, my "to-read" list suddenly got a lot longer.

I intend to spend the next couple of days going back through my work in progress and working on some editing before I forge ahead. There have been some niggling story problems I want to address before I go on.

Hope you enjoy the articles!

Happy Independence Day

I'm not much of a patriot, so I'm not going to wax sentimental about all things American, wave a giant American flag, and cry zealous nationalistic crocodile tears.

Sure, America's a great place to live, but there are lots of great places to live. And sure, the founding fathers were awesome dudes with a vision, but honestly, when they wrote the preamble and said "all men are created equal" they really meant "all rich white guys are created equal." Thankfully they left it vague enough so that it could be reinterpreted to suit evolving cultural sensibilities and the term "men" could be generalized to mean "people" (i.e., to include women and everyone of color).

I'm happy that in recent decades America seems to be coming to better terms with some of the chapters of her past, although admittedly we have a long way to go before we have true equality. At least (for the most part) we're no longer touting the white bread, flag-waving, do-no-wrong vision of American history that was spoon fed students early in the 20th century. I believe that the only way to learn from the past is to face mistakes honestly in order that we do not repeat them. There have been many times in our history where our leadership has swept historical lessons under the rug only to repeat them, with abysmal results.

I tend to think of Independence Day as an opportunity to reflect on our history and examine the ways in which we can improve on what we've got. There's a lot to be proud of, but that doesn't mean the work is done. We should always temper patriotism with humility, otherwise it will quickly evolve into blind arrogance When you think about it, it's only been in those moments in our history when we were truly humbled that the greatest strides away from "all rich white guys are created equal" and toward "all human beings are created equal" have been made.

However, all that being said, independence is pretty swell and worth celebrating. Happy Independence Day!

Depth of Character

I'm wondering, as a writer and reader, what makes characters more interesting?

I know as a reader, I don't want to read characters who are perfect. I like to read flawed and conflicted characters. The more tortured the better, but not to the point of unbelievable. I mean, if you think about yourself, you're not perfect - nobody is. So what are your flaws as a human being? Would those flaws be interesting additions to a character? Obviously those things make characters seem more realistic and relatable.

As a writer, you love your characters and it's so tempting to make them perfect, superhuman. I'm working on flawing up my characters. They're not perfect. They're confused and forced into relating uncomfortably with each other, then dealing with crises. Fun, huh?!

So what are your flaws as a human being? Would those flaws be interesting additions to a character? (time out to share: one of my biggest flaws is that I have no patience - either to wait for things I'm anticipating, or sometimes I lack patience with other people.)

As a writer, what kinds of flaws do you like to write into your characters?

As a reader, what kinds of flaws do you like to read in characters?