It's A Mezcla Day

Have you heard about the flying car?  It's real.  Be sure to watch the video if you can.  It's only a few minutes long.

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Peaches and mold should not go together.  Again, I'm not a gardener (I can't even spell it; I keep typing "gardner" apparently to match my accent).  I was going to wash and eat one of the peaches from the second (and last) harvest, but well, I found some that were bad.  I threw out seven, but fifteen still looked good.  Out of those fifteen, we only had to pitch two or three because the bugs had made homes inside.  But, considering how little I'd done since I'd brought the peaches in, I'm pretty happy.  Just squeamish as always, but I'm working on getting over it.  The peaches are now cut in halves, sugared, and waiting for breakfast.

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Which reminds me.  After Hadassah suggested that I use my experience dealing with the peach tree and the peaches in a story sometime, I realized some things about my next novel.  (Don't worry; I'll finish Makani's Serenity first.  I'm just world and character building in my head for now.)  This next story will take place in space, but my protagonist is going to be a bit of a gardner ;-) , so she needs a garden sort of haven.  Naturally, there will be a peach tree.  The idea, combined with a delicious breakfast of sugared peach halves I ate a little while back, led to a working title for my next novel.  And let me tell you, titles and names are tricky things for me to come up with.  It is a rare thing for me to have a title for a story, especially a novel, before it's written!

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I didn't know a butterfly could look happy until I saw one the other day, sitting on top of one of the many rotting peaches under my tree.  It worked its wings up and down, slowly, seeming quite relaxed, and wasn't bothered when I walked up to the tree to watch its drunken stupor.  I hope it didn't get pulled over for an FWI (flying while intoxicated).

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Here's a fun writing exercise I found from a quick Google search that led me to this page from fictionwriting.about.com.  I haven't looked at it in great detail, but I noticed you can read what others have written and share your own work.  If you decide you'd like to try the exercise, I'd like to see it if you're comfortable sharing.  Maybe it's because I'm now working on a murder mystery, but I think the lake description is particularly interesting and has a lot of potential.

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What's your mezcla today?

When The End Comes - The Story Has Begun

When The End Comes, my summer mystery serial tri-authored with Rebekah Roberts and Hadassah Fey, has begun!

I also now have a link to the story's main page on the left side of this blog under "there's more here" so any time you come here, you can go directly to the most recent post in the story.

I do hope you enjoy the story.  And don't forget, the character blog posts will be interactive!

This will be life threatening.  The only question is, "For whom?"

When the End Comes - Summer Mystery Serial

Bonus Post!  See what Rebekah Roberts, Hadassah Fey, and I are launching for your reading enjoyment!

I'll let you know when our story When The End Comes is ready to read!

Instead of a drop screen:

Dorathea Maynard               Rebekah Roberts              Hadassah Fey

       Website                             Website                         Website

      Facebook                           Facebook

        Twitter                              Twitter

                                               Youtube

Who Won the War? The Ants? Or Me?

I did, of course!  But the battle was not won without cost.

Earlier this week I made my final excursion out to the peach tree to pick the fruit.  I may have waited a day too long, but as it was, I think I got a pretty good crop.  Just look at what I stole away from the little insects!  (I used the same bowl as last time, so you can see these are decently bigger.)

What I had intended to be about a fifteen minute trip turned into right about an hour.  When I got back in the house, I was happy that I hadn't burnt to a crisp.

The fighting took place mostly with my own squeamishness, which is still hanging around.  The peaches this time were not romantic.  The bugs had gotten to more than last time (see that bowl? those were the only ones I figured were salvageable).  I found bug-bit after bug-mauled.  A few times, I accidentally stepped on an already fallen peach, and it smooshed under my shoe.  Another time, I shook a branch to make the bad peaches fall, only I placed my hand in a not so helpful spot, and an overdone peach smacked me on the back of my hand, sharing its gooeyness with my skin.  It wouldn't shake off, so I wiped it off on the leaves.

I know.  I wouldn't make a good farmer.  I'm not even a gardener.  Still, I'm looking forward to eating the fruit I managed to harvest.  They look pretty much ripe, but I think they could benefit from that wonderful paper bag, which was mentioned here, for a little bit.

I have been told it's not a good idea to leave the spoiled peaches under the tree.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Do I really have to pick up each and every one of the bug-eaten and rotting (and one even had mold on it..yuck!) peaches?  What else should I do to for the tree now that the peaches are gone?

Music, Please

I seem to be collecting instruments.  Through the course of my life, I have picked up one instrument after another.  Some I have taken formal lessons for, others I have attempted to learn on my own.  I have tried about six instruments (worth mentioning) and I have at least two more I'd like to learn.  Though I don't have great proficiency with any of them, I still know enough to play a little here and there.

You see, without music, I would probably go crazy.  I like having melodies surround me almost all the time.  If there isn't a radio or CD player handy, I am my own mp3 player around the house, in the store, and wherever else I go.  I like to make music as much as I like to hear it.  And every now and then I hear something that tickles or soothes my heart and I decide I have to at least try to learn the instrument that was used.  I know I wouldn't mind getting a chance to play with uilleann pipes.

When the world is too silent, music is often my answer.  Even in a book.  And that's why Makani, who lives in a town empty of happy noises, or even most noises, takes delight in the idea of music.  She longs for something to fill the oppressive silence.

Which of your characteristics, quirks, or lifelong habits have you used to make your story world and characters come to life?  Can you think of others you'd like to try?

Green Peaches

Have you read "Green Patches" by Isaac Asimov?  A bunch of little green patches show up on test animals in the story.  And green patches are scary.

Well, this isn't exactly scary, but I have a bunch of green peaches.  And I'm not sure what to do with them.

On Thursday I went back out to thin the peach tree some more.  I found that the tree was trying to make more, new peaches.  Too much, silly tree.  Since the peaches have grown, the limbs have been weighed down again.  It certainly can't support more.  The center branch, which stood pretty much straight up, was so loaded down with growing fruit, that it had sagged all the way down into the lower branches (which were also drooping).

I knew this couldn't keep up.  But it seemed such a waste to just pluck peaches and drop them to the ground if there was nothing wrong with them.  So I got a bowl and put the ones that seemed fine in it.  I got a good bunch, but I'm probably going to have to go back out and thin the tree down further.

I washed the fruit, discarded a few that I found problems with, and now I have small, green peaches, probably somewhere in the two dozen count, sitting on my counter, waiting for...well, something.  I don't know what.

Can I salvage these peaches for something?  Will they ripen where they are?

Please tell me I don't have to learn how to can fruit.

Hands On

I've been thinking about the pros and cons of both computer and handwritten rough drafts.  I've always typed out my stories because it was faster and I enjoyed the speed, the sounds of the keyboard, and the ease of editing.  However, after much deliberation (and an untrustworthy computer/thumb drive moment or two), I have decided that on my next novel, I will be using a notebook to write the first draft by hand.


Now that I'm nearing the end of Makani's Serenity, I want the freedom of taking my next novel with me wherever I go (Smalls, my laptop [remember "The Sandlot"?], is too heavy to be very portable).  And, I don't want to be limited in my writing by when the skies are clear as opposed to a thunderstorm. (I think that could make great writing weather.  It makes good reading weather, doesn't it?).

I wrote last Saturday's post, The Art of War for Writers - Two, by hand before I transferred it to the blog.  That was the first post I've written that way.  And I must say, I'm hooked.  The soft scratch of the pen on paper, the simplicity to line out words without losing them, the physical closeness to my material, and the ease on my eyes made it pleasant to write.  It was also handy that when I typed it up for the post, I was able to make tweaks to my wording that I hadn't thought of on the first run.  It was like thinking over the same material twice without getting worn out.

So, once I finish Makani's Serenity, I am eager to jump into my next novel with my new, large, hard cover, flowered notebook that I bought yesterday.

How do you prefer to write?

The Art of War for Writers - Two

Last time in this series, I shared a quote from page fifteen and asked for your response.  You had good thoughts, and for those who didn't see them, you can read them here.

Now I'll share what I penciled in the lines of my copy.

I have never wanted a specific job more than this one, sir!  I delight in writing.  And it's harder for someone outside to discourage me than it is for my inner doubts to discourage me.  But I press on because I know I have something and I refuse to be pushed or kept down for long.  It's actually easier to distract me with family and friend emergencies than it is to discourage me to the point that I would stop.

Can you tell I was motivated and excited about writing fiction when I gave my answer to the quote?

So, I wondered why I discourage myself.  Why am I sometimes afraid?

Chapter 8 starts out with this:

The biggest mental obstacle—in writing, in war, in life itself—is fear.

Fear paralyzes.  It shrinks the mental faculties.  It keeps us from action, in this case, writing words in order to get them published.

(The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell. p28. Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio. 2009.)

I have seen this restraining fear in others.  I have lived it myself.  Fear is a part of life.  As mentioned in the book, it is one of our alert systems.

The book suggests that we learn from Theodore Roosevelt who pretended to be brave until the pretense became a reality.

I was recently uneasy about my writing.  I'd had so many other urgent responsibilities that I had accidentally separated from writing and even from creatively thinking about my storyline.  So I was afraid of jumping back into the story and continuing as if there had been no interruption.

But I did.  I finally buckled down and stepped back into my character's life...and gave her my fear.

It actually happened to match where Makani was, facing a point where she was uncertain and afraid.  So, I gave her my unease, and we both plugged on anyway, facing and using fear.

Have you been stopped by fear?  What are your tricks for moving on and not letting it defeat you?

Sun Kissed Fruit

So, I went back out to look at the peach tree.  I haven't done anything to it since I thinned out all the branches (like I said, not a gardener), but I think it was looking pretty good.

Unfortunately, the ants have found the tree, and there were a few sections of leaves that had bug bitten holes throughout.  I wasn't sure what to do about that, so I did basically nothing.

But the peaches looked pretty yummy, if a bit small and still green.  They're plumping up nicely, especially in comparison to all the discarded ones that have shriveled up into skin covered seeds under the tree.  And, the peaches on the tree are, to my delight, quite fuzzy.  Fuzzy fruit is such a strange concept.

I would have taken more pictures, but the camera battery quit.

Tan line!

Library, The Bliss

This week I went to the library to pick up a book I had on hold.  I somehow managed to be an early bird and got there before it opened.  The outer doors were unlocked, but access to the library itself, well.  I had never seen the solid, oversized, garage-looking door shutting patrons out of the bliss of books in the morning before.

That may be a sad fact, since I am a writer, and supposedly an avid reader.  Shouldn't I get to the library as soon as it opens if not before?  But, alas.

I was surprised at the number of folks who were there early.  Several came in after I did to wait for the opening.  And when I arrived, three men in an elder generation (I admire you folks!) were sitting and standing around the small, raised table by the wide door, just chatting, waiting for the opening.  It was rather pleasant and relaxed, though I took no part in their group.  I could just imagine what the men were like, how they grew up reading every book they could grab, and how the library was a great place to meet and get more reading material.  The thought made me happy, whether it was true or not.

I hope I'm like that when I'm older.  Still getting together with friends, still active, still loving books.

The Art of War for Writers - One

I like martial arts.  I was able to take a semester of intro to martial arts, where we spent half the semester learning judo (read falling on purpose [properly], pinning an opponent, and getting out of being pinned - great fun!), half the semester learning karate (yelling, kicking, punching, blocking, and katas [forms - a way to display the techniques one knows]), and a couple other martial arts for a couple of weeks, of which Aikido was my favorite (for it's simple defensive moves that make one's attacker defeat himself).

But that's not what The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell is.  Not exactly.

I'm reading this book, and I've gotten through the first four chapters in Part I: Reconnaissance.  It was given to me as a gift, and I figured it was high time I read through the whole thing.  So far, it's got some pretty funny and dead on tidbits, wake-up calls, and advice, perfect for writers.  Some of the things that have stood out to me in the first four chapters are the hero and fool comparison on pages 16-17, the writer's list on pages 11-13, and the short section of quotes to respond to on pages 13-15.

Know the difference between a hero and a fool.  Chapter 3 of a page and a half is a brief but useful and amusing comparison between the two states of mind.  It can be a nice reminder if you're not acting like the fool that you are on the right track, even if you don't feel heroic.  If you are acting like the fool, well, you'd better change that or you're in trouble.

The writer must understand the essentials of success for a long-term writing career, and count the cost accordingly.  To be a writer, you've got to want it.  Chapter 2 provides a list of characteristics that writers should possess or develop.  Some of it comes down to "if at first you don't succeed" and "never stop learning" - two bits of advice many of our parents gave us when we were children, but good advice to be reminded of nonetheless.

After the list of characteristics, the book offers its first interactive challenge.  Read the quotes from George Bernau, Phyllis Whitney, and Jack Woodford and respond in the text's pages with your honest reaction (writing in a printed book is not always easy for me - I used a pencil).

What say you to Jack Woodford's statement?  I'll be back to share my reaction.

In Boot Camp, tough sergeants deliberately try to break the morale of inducted men.  Those who break they send back to civilian life, or to some more or less ignominious chore in army life.  There are two or three hundred thousand 'writers' who 'write at' writing in this country.  Ninety percent of them make next to nothing.  The few who do get by are those who were not "broken" in the Boot Camp of their own wills, or lack of same. 

(Jack Woodford as quoted in The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell. p14-15. Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio. 2009.)