Sit, Stay, Hyperlink

For today's joy-finding expedition, I didn't have to go far! I'm trying out the gift of knowledge and the fact that this old dog can learn a new trick. Here's my attempt at putting Madison Leigh's name in link format. Woohoo! It worked!

Thank you Elysabeth and CJ :)

It gets easier with practice

Today's unexpected joy came easily: the devotion of friends.

My friend Madison Leigh (I wish I knew how to do that thing where her name is underlined and it's a link to her blog) did a little research on a problem I've been having. She put a few bits of information together and connected it to something else and voila! A clue that I can use to try to find some answers.

Thank you, Madison!

Purple Is All That It Should Be

Oops - I missed 2 days! I forgot to factor in the weekend element. One of those days was a fun-filled family day, but I don't think it's fair to "go back" so I'll just pick up where I left off.

My 14 year old son wrote a poem for school and has graciously given me permission to post it here. It made me think and it made me smile so it's my "focus" option of the day. His assignment was to choose a color and write a poem about it. He chose my favorite color :)

The Color Purple
By Sean Roberts

The gentle blaze of a fire,
To a skier trapped in the snow.
The grace of an angel,
To a fallen soldier,
Purple rewards the patient.
Purple saves the punished.

Purple is all that it should be,
The regalia of royalty,
The symbol of patience,
The image of justice,
The emblem of hope and peace,
The pattern of prosperity,
The insignia of bliss,
The mark of a higher power
For all who have earned it,
Purple is all that it should be.

Multiplication

I set out to find one positive, uplifting moment from today and ended up having a hard time narrowing the field. Here are just a few things that brought me unexpected joy, in no particular order:

• Internet shopping (less hassle!)
• talking to my other sister today and laughing together
• my cuddly dog

Although I'm tempted to tell you how the "good" things just kept piling up - like something funny my son said, how my husband kept sending me bad Seahawks jokes today, and catching my daughter in an act of kindness - I think instead I'll try to focus on a few "good" moments at a time and really absorb them.

Don't say nothin at all

Remember Thumper? If you can't say something nice...

That's why I haven't been updating my blog. I realized today that I didn't want to post anything negative on my blog, and with the stuff that's been happening in my life lately, I honestly couldn't think of anything positive to say.

I was driving at the time and the thought had such a profound affect on me that I almost slammed on the brakes.

Bad things happen all the time. We are all surrounded by negativity, stress, unpleasantness. The only control we have over the negativity is how we allow it to impact our lives, right?

But heck I wouldn't even torture my characters the way I've been tortured this year! The deaths of pets, friends and family; a devastating loss of income; head-to-toe hives...? First of all, no one would believe my life in story form if I even had the desire to write it, which I don't. Second, the melodrama is just too far-fetched. Third -- oh, wait; I had a point to this rant.

For one week, I'm going to post a "positive" thing that happened during each day. A good thought. A kind word. A small accomplishment. Something uplifting that stands out from the rest of the day. Then I'm going to see if the act of shifting focus has an impact on my life. I don't expect my perspective to banish the bad, but perhaps it will turn my health around. It certainly can't hurt. And if it makes the spots go away, I'll be very happy.

Let's see...today...

One thing that stands out from the day is hugging my sister, because she needed it - and the wonderful feeling that a hug from me means a lot to her and vice versa.

May I Have the Keys to the Literary Kingdom, Please?

I have been having an identity crisis and I have no one to blame but myself.

In April of 2008, I attended my first writing conference and the world shifted on its axis. Did you feel it? I don’t see how anyone could have missed it. There was this l-o-n-g moment when the world stopped turning, and when it started up again, everything looked different. Suddenly, I could visualize my dream of becoming a Real Writer. And then the conference I went to last month had the effect of dangling a key just out of a prisoner’s reach. I could see my greatest desire, but even while I was surrounded by scores of supportive writers, I knew the four walls of my self-imposed prison would hem me in once I stepped back into my own reality (self-fulfilling prophecies are remarkably dependable). With great fear and stubborn determination, I soaked up the conference atmosphere like a drunk on a three day bender. I pitched my novel to Kevan Lyon of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency and then, in a moment of reckless abandon, I accepted Cherry Adair’s “Write the Damn Book” challenge.

Please don’t misunderstand me: I am happy with who I am. I love my family and my life but I want – no, I need – to figure out how to make the transition from hobbyist to professional; to make writing an integral part of every day, not just something I do in my spare time; to stop treating writing like a dirty secret and bring it out into the open.

You know how much I love short stories. They are the perfect venue for the hobbyist writer. On a lazy Saturday afternoon, I can create a first draft and then spend the week toying with the story elements. For longer, meatier short stories, the semantics alone can consume months of Saturdays. All the while, new story ideas are brewing and the creative cycle repeats itself. Aside from NaNoWriMo month (November, for those of you non-WriMos), thus has been the extent of my writing for the past five years: a weekend here, an evening there, but otherwise, just a hobby. Oh, sure, I’d go through periods of binge-writing and have an occasional inspiration to enter a contest, but I always fell back into my usual routine of duty before hobby.

To be fair to myself, I have been a dedicated hobby novelist in the last year, with only a few brief diversions into short stories, but I tried to treat my novel writing like my short story writing and discovered that the two are very different from one another. Very different. My organic, spiral writing method isn't the most effective way to write a novel, but I have learned from successful writers that it can work and, as you may recall from paragraph two, I possess a stubborn determination.

So, while my fellow WriMos are dedicating this month, National Novel Writing Month, to the intoxicating infatuation of developing a new story, I am instead dedicating the month to developing a new writer: me.

On the road

The NECRWA conference is next weekend! I'm getting excited. I'll be travelling all the way across the country on Monday and staying with my writing friend Madison Leigh. Another of the members of our international writing group will be joining us at the conference. Mad and Jen and I have been busy emailing about our upcoming visit.

This will not be the first time I've travelled alone since my adrenal failure in May of 2005, but it will be the first time I've travelled alone to somewhere I've never been. You would think travelling to a foreign country on my own would have been the more intimidating experience, but there are a few aspects of this trip that have me a bit nervous. I'll be flying into Providence, renting a car, and driving to my friend's house in Massachusetts. Eek! But I'm a big girl, and I have a GPS navigation system with my friend's address already plugged in. Right now as I sit in my house in the Pacific Northwest, it tells me I have 2,454 miles to my destination.

On the aspect of writing, I have not done much of anything. I feverishly scribbled down the start of a longish short story, the one my muse handed to me when he should have been concentrating on one or the other of my novels in progress. To say that this short story is outside of my usual would be an understatement. Near as I can tell, this one takes place in the late forties or early fifties and is set in a tropical climate, most likely somewhere in South America. And it begins with the aftermath of an earthquake.

I think I'll let that story simmer for a while and get back to my mystery.

Chop-chop!

Remember how in touch I was with my story just weeks ago? And how I took a little time off from writing to get my bearings after putting my dog down? Well, my muse has escaped. I've been looking everywhere for him. The most he does these days is linger in that moment between awake and asleep and whisper sweet plot changes in my ear. (To which of course I quickly stumble to the computer and enter on my manuscript. You ought to see my surprise the next day. I've been feeling a bit like the shoemaker.)

Time to take matters into my own hands and show my story - and my muse - that I mean business.

I've printed off the first third of the manuscript and I'm rearranging the scenes until I find the best way to work in the plot changes. You know, the ones my muse has been whispering in my somnambulent ear. Once I determine how to launch the story properly, I'm off to the middles with my motive, method, and opportunity list. I intend to damage to the reputations of my characters. Sully their names. Cast suspicion upon them.

If you should see my muse, please tell him that while I appreciate the insights, I'd prefer he called upon me during normal business hours.

Confessions of a writer-in-progress

I have all these writerly thoughts swimming around my head. Character development. Story arc. Character goals. And every night I go to bed with one particular thought on my mind: Who killed Humbert Watson?

I've written this story once. It didn't work. I'm writing it again and I still don't know who killed Humbert Watson and why.

But I'm okay with that.

This story has evolved. The characters have evolved because I've let them evolve. That doesn't mean that what I'm writing now will end up in the final draft: it means I can explore the possibilities and let the characters lead the way. Sometimes that means I write a scene that has to be tossed. I've got plenty of those! But sometimes I stumble upon the direction the story needs to go, and that's exciting.

It's why I started writing, and why I love the craft.

Lyrics

Where has the time gone? While I've been busy with renovations to the house, bloggers have been running circles around me. I can't possibly bore you with the details of my life since my last blog, so instead I'll offer up an exposition.

Music. Have you ever taken music lessons? My son is taking piano and my daughter is taking flute and piano. Weekly lessons, new songs, practice, practice, practice, right? I have never taken lessons for a musical instrument, but in my youth, I sang. I had voice class every weekday morning from the 4th grade to the 12th, vocal competitions, concerts, music camp, performances, even road trips with the jazz choir. As with playing an instrument, to achieve optimum performance, I had to practice daily. I had to warm up. I had to run through all the songs I was learning. I had to practice each song until I got it right. I had to work at it.

Why is it we writers expect to write a novel without daily practice? Shouldn't we warm up our instrument? Run through the scales, so to speak? But we don't: we sit down at the computer or with our pad and pen and expect an optimum performance of ourselves. We expect that if we start writing the lyrics, we'll find a song.

Just a thought.