Category Archives: Blog

Writing is like…

Ray Bradbury

From the Blog: Advice to Writers:

Writing is like sex. You have to save your love for the love object. If you go around spouting about your idea, there’ll be no “charge” left. You can’t father children that way.

RAY BRADBURY 

Just thought I should share. Happy, uh, writing? 

Last minute holiday gifts for writers

By zharth

Oh Christmas! You are nearly here and knowing my family and friends like I do, they are worried about the perfect gift for me.  So in helping them out, I will help out others whose squirrelly writers have given them worries lines this holiday season. Here for all to read is my list of perfect writer’s gifts ideas … part two.

1)  Nook, NookColor, Kindle, or something similar.

A writer isn’t worth their salt unless they read…a lot. Although having tons of books in a nice bookshelf is nice, if they are anything like me they ran out of shelf space along time ago.  So reward your favorite writer on your list with a Nook or Kindle. I personally own a Nook (the original) and I adore it. I’ll write another post about why I chose Nook at a later date.

As a writer, it’s nice to know that a book (or nearly any book) I may want is in electronic form and I can download them when I want and, more importantly, when I need them.

2) Apps, apps, apps

There are tons of apps on both Iphone and Android formats that cater to the writer. Some cost nothing but most cost at least .99 cents.  There are several apps to keep your writer happy–from organization, to plotting, to prompts to help jump start their brain in the morning.  An Itunes card and a list of such apps is useful. The app I used to write my two most recent prompts came from an app called Writer’s Hat.

3) Itunes card, playlists, photos, and such

Not all writers are like this but most of the ones of the ones I talk to use their senses to get into their character and story.  Among some of the tricks we use are creating a soundtrack to the story or character.  If you know what your favorite writer is working on (a theme, an emotion, etc) try to create a list of songs that would help them get there and an Itunes (or similar) card to help them pay for it.

In addition to audio, lots of writers are visual.  If they have a specific setting in mind, a picture book from your favorite bookstore will be helpful.  Another more creative way is a trip through Flickr. Using only photos with a specific Creative Common’s license, you can put together a slideshow or book that will help your writer gather atmosphere quickly.

4) Netbooks

Mini and relatively inexpensive laptops may seem like an odd gift to give but think about it.  They are lighter than conventional laptops, they don’t have a lot of frills — mostly the basics for Internet connection and Word, and they can fit in a purse or book bag.  It’s just perfect for the writer who doesn’t want to sit in the coffee shop and would rather go to their favorite park bench and type from their lap.

5) Membership to their genre organization of choice or convention of their choice

Writers need to join clubs. If they say they don’t, they’re lying.  At the very least they need to network.  My first pitch to an agent happened because I went to a mystery writer’s convention that I didn’t think I should go to because I had written a women’s fiction novel.  Odd? Yes. But it paid off.  The agent asked for a partial just because I networked at the mystery writer’s convention.  Networking with agents, editors and other writers are important. Writing is a solitary event but the writer doesn’t have to be alone and, actually, shouldn’t.  But by purchasing convention fees or memberships, it opens doors for the writer to network and to get some pretty interesting perks like writing contests and online classes given by award-winning members.

That’s all the new gift ideas I have for now. Hope this helps the procrastinators.  Remember everyone, it takes a  village to raise a writer.

Write On!

Badassness and the directions to it.

Edwidge Danticat

If I had to chose the theme derived from my reading this past semester it would have to be the following:

How to develop the path to your own badassness?

What is badassness?  It’s a state of being so comfortable in your skin, in your art, in your brain and your voice that it is strong, confidence, natural.  Your voice has been through the wringer of life and has nothing to prove to anyone, it can just be, i.e. badassness.

On the road to finding my voice, I find there are lots of guides helping me along the way.  I call them guides because they help keep me on my path, challenging me at every turn.  Of course, as a student you do the heavy lifting: the writing, the reading, the thinking, the blogging, rise, lather, repeat.  But the guides are there to remind you that where you have traveled they have traveled. They found their voice, their Muses, their path.  You will find your own.

That’s easier said than done obviously.  I lost my voice once before.  It was a slow process but it was lost, I traded it for the easy path. (More on that at a later date).  Getting it back again…not as easy as I thought.  Of course I made no delusions of regaining my voice within the course of a semester. But I would think that it would come back in small increments like how children grow.

The path to badassness fixed that for me.  It’s not about regaining to the voice but about taking that voice by the hand and having it come along the path with you. It is about growing and experimenting and being okay with it all.  It’s about acknowledging you’re different, you always were, and that’s okay.  And it’s also coming to terms with the fact that maybe everyone else is different and you are probably the only normal person left on the planet.

But above all else, the path to badassness is taking that difference and slapping it on paper.  That’s what makes you you, kid. You are not Cristina Garcia or Edwidge Danticat though they are your guides down this path.  You are not Isabel Allende or Walter Mosley though you love them.  You are you.  Every annoying, perplexing, deranged, awe inspiring, awesome, surprising thing about you is you.  You make not like something about yourself but it’s there, asking to be written and explored.  That thing you find so annoying and are trying to avoid is the truth. And from there, fiction, good solid storytelling, begins. There is where you’re path lies.  The only question now is do you chose to follow it?

Did I chose? I think we all know the answer.  Am I better for it? Absolutely. Am I in the badassness level? Not yet. It’s coming. I know it is. And when I arrive at that level, I will pay it forward and guide other writers who have lost their way.  For I will know the direction to the kingdom of Badassness, and I mean to be its ambassador.

Write On!

Reading an addiction. Nah, I’m in an MFA program

You would think that at the end of a semester that all I would want to do is veg.  
I do. But I really want to keep reading books. Good ones. And not so good ones too. After all you can learn from any teacher put in your path. 
I’ve been spending my time writing and reading. It feels divine without the pressure of a deadline. So what am I reading during the break?  I’m re-reading Allende’s House of the Spirits. Lots to learn from that book.  Also a biography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I may end my time off with some A Tale of Two Cities.

So when do I write? In short spurts. In the morning. Late at night. In my head. On pieces of paper. In the shower. In my dreams. While I’m reading.

This will be a busy semester.  The preparation will be intense. And I relax by doing exactly what will be stressing me out in about a month. Why?

Uh, have you noticed the name of this blog yet? 

Writing, outlining and paying the piper

I owe you guys a blog.

Yes. I. Do. I also own you an explanation. So here it is.  I’ve been busy writing. Not an excuse by any means but it explains my here-I-am-no-I’m-not presence.

I am excited about what I’m writing. My thesis is coming along and as of an hour ago it’s been properly outlined. And I love knowing what’s going to happen next and how it will end (well, officially).

But that doesn’t mean I’m done at all. It’s the opposite, actually. Now that I know where all the pieces fit, I have to put the pieces together…and make the prose nice and true and fresh.  Does plotting allow the writer to focus on words? Eh, maybe. Knowing that the next step of the story has already be sketched out certainly helps with keeping things in line but, to quote a cliche, the writing is in the rewriting.

So while I know loving and outlining my thesis is the first step, I still have to write the darn thing so I can really write it.

Make sense?  I hope so.

Now, I know I owe y’all a story. That will be worked on soon. Really soon. Like you may get a treat for Christmas. Until then, keep writing. I know I will.

Write on!

A challenge to my readers: Tell me what to write

By Pink Sherbet Photography   D. Sharon Pruitt

As the deadline for my final packet of the semester looms and the procrastination stage of my process goes into high gear (Ipod right next to me, cat sleeping under the chair, and I am REALLY considering catching the midnight showing of Harry Potter later) I’ve realized that my posts on the blog have been entirely TOO serious.

Yes, my dear readers, I am in grad school and what I’m writing about (my thesis) is not funny. It’s actually quite serious.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun! I am fun a lover after all. Me and the fun, we’re like PB&J– we make sense! And as we ALL know, I have tons of fun on my Twitter account.

Anyway since it’s about to be the end of the semester and my schedule is loosening up I thought I do something fun for my readers.  Two previous posts (number 1 and number 2) were prompts that were given to me by an Ipod app. (more on that app later) and names given to me by my Twitter followers.

So here’s a challenge to all my readers-I will write a short, short story 250-700 words based on info you give me. Submit in the comments section of this post some details of what you want me to incorporate in my story. Fill out the following:

Who: (give names and a characteristic)
Where: (a place)
What does: (what action)
The secret: (what big reveal or small reveal needs to be in the story.)

I’ll pick the best one from the comments and I’ll write a story and post it Monday, Nov. 29.

So I dare you to post some suggestions and see if I pick yours. The winner will win something fabulous that’s yet to be determined but it’ll be cheap GREAT.

Go ahead. Tell me what to write!

Prompt 11/13/2010

Prompt:
Who: A girl who has recently become vegetarian
Where: An abandoned car in the ditch of a county road
What does: Checks out the correspondence accumulated for days
The secret: Already knew that she could not back down now and must go on although she knew it would not work.

My kingdom for a piece of meat! My kingdom for a piece of 16 oz prime rib, medium rare with A-1 steak sauce and a Coke the size of my right arm. That’s all I need really. Forget breathing or shelter. Hell, forget sex. Just give me a T-bone steak!

I hate salads. And tomatoes. And beans. And anything that can’t be fried or breaded. I was okay with that lifestyle but when I saw fine-ass Lucas it was over for me. See, he was an Adonis, arms like sculpted masses of soft rocks and an ass that begged to be slapped.  He had hair that I wanted to play with and skin so smooth I swore was made of velvet. I wanted him…bad. Here’s the problem, Lucas was a vegetarian who only dated vegetarians. So…you know know how that went.  I total him I was a vegetarian virgin and bam! Instant boyfriend.

Three months. Three long meatless months with out a chicken breast or a wing. Torture! (Oh but watching Lucas wake up in the morning is poetry in motion.) So to celebrate by bunny-food eatin’  boyfriend decides to take me on a romantic weekend getaway. Great, huh? Yeah, until this fool told me where we were going.

“We’re going to Mt. Max.”

“What’s Mt. Max,” I asked naive to what was about to go down.

“A yoga retreat.”

“A what?”

“A yoga retreat for couples. I thought it would help with your stress, Jenai.”

“Lucas, I’m not stressed. I’m hungry.”

Then he proceeds to hand me a granola bar.

I went on the damn trip anyway. I grabbed my mail from the mailbox on the way out and thought, if push came to shove, I’d read my mail on the trip. I am nothing if not productive.

So there we were, 200 miles out when the car begins to cough like an old lady on an oxygen tank. And then steam starts to bellow out from under the hood. Lucas pulled over.

“Oh darn. I just had this worked on.”

Begins to tinker under the hood.  Lucas doesn’t cuss at all so the next thing I hear are a string of “goshes” and “darns” “dang its”.  When I finally hear doggoneit in a tone most people would say “damn”, I rolled down the window.

“Lucas, you okay?”

“Everything’s fine Jenai. I think I’m going to have to get us some help. I saw a gas station a couple of miles back. You going to be okay by yourself?”

I nodded and Lucas began to hike back toward the gas station.

After awhile, I grabbed for the pile of mail I brought with me. And there it was. A coupon for the annual all you can eat steakfest at Brandy’s.  I loved their steakfest. All kinds of cuts. All kinds of grades. All meat, all the time. It was the only other time besides Thanksgiving that I wore the big pants. Oh for the love of the cows in Texas, why do I have to be a vegetarian right now!

My mouth began to water.  Lettuce never made me feel this way. Salad dressing never made my mouth water. Soy and tofu never tastes as good as a freshly grilled hamburger with toasted buns. Ugh! Being a vegetarian was so un-natural like seeing cats and dogs get along or watching the ugly guy get the girl. It was an alternative universe.

That’s when I knew, it wouldn’t work out between me and Lucas. But I just couldn’t give him up. It was the best sex I ever had and walking away from that is its own alternative universe.

A knock at the window bolted me from my thought. A rotund and greasy man with dark blue overalls motioned for me to roll down the window.

“Are you Jenai?”

I nodded.

“Your boyfriend, Lucas said to come fetch you.  He’s trying to get everything squared away with the dealership.”

His shirt said Darcy and I nearly laughed. Another alternative universe. Wouldn’t Jane Austin be proud.

The truck smelled like the number six from the Wendy’s menu and to me it was perfume. We chugged along the highway toward the gas station when I spotted a Whataburger.

“Do you mind?” I pointed to burger joint.

As I bit into a double cheeseburger, I thought to myself: What Lucas doesn’t know won’t hurt him.