Tidbits

Happy Leap Day! Look what I found:

On the Writers' Road Less Traveled has been critiqued and found somewhat deserving...



I popped over to blogged.com and discovered a bunch of virgin blog territory (for me at least)

I've decided to take up the gauntlet thrown down by Melissa (for fun and because nothing else occurred to me) and participate in yet another meme. Although...this is the 'six things you may not know about me' meme, and I'm not sure I've got six things left to reveal. We shall see...

From Melissa, here are the rule:
1/ you link back to the person who tagged you.
2/ post these rules on your blog.
3/ share six unimportant things about yourself.
4/ tag six random people at the end of your entry.
5/ let the tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Here goes...

1. I dislike eating wet bread. Intensely. That's everything from french toast to au jus sandwiches, to bread pudding. Yuck.

2. I've never had a brussel sprout, nor the inclination to try one.

3. I have a fondness for certain words, and I like sneaking them into conversation whenever possible. For instance...preposterous, shellac, shimmy, etc. There aren't too many opportunities for, say, shellac, but I do my darnedest.

4. I hold a mean grudge--I can forgive (mostly), but I don't forget.

5. My favorite colors, for as long as I can remember, have been red and turquoise.

6. This might be a tad controversial, but I don't consider football to be a true sport. If it's necesasry to switch out half the players for offense vs. defense, that seems like a pretty big cop out. *Whistle* 'Okay send in the muscle!'...*whistle* 'Muscle out. Send in the nimble, wiry guys!'

Whew! All done. Now I'm just going to go for the gold here and tag some people whom I have no certainty will play along. For all I know, they may have already played and I missed it.

Kate Diamond
Barrie Summy
Sally Lawton
Joanne Rendell
Sarakastic
Travis Erwin

Monday

Believe it or not, this is Post 400 for me!! I don't have anything prepared, but I'd like to thank my devoted blog readers--I couldn't have done it without you. I would have switched to an off-line diary long ago if I didn't have the daily encouragement and spirited comments to look forward to. So thank you!

Now...on to Post 400...

To update everyone who was slighty squeamish over the handsy dad who I blogged about last week: I asked my husband what he thought about it, and his reaction was 'Where's he from?' I'm not sure exactly, but I have a suspicion that he's from Louisiana (based on his accent). And from what I understand, they're more overly affectionate there. Friends of mine from New Orleans hug/kiss all their friends hello. I'd meant to post this as an addendum but then forgot. So when I told my husband I suspected Louisiana, he said, 'Well that explains it.' Clearly he's not jealous.

Today's news: the two Labs next door alerted me to the impending approach of the ice cream man by howling and whining in a downright pitiful fashion. It's FEBRUARY and 80 degrees here, and the ice cream man is making the rounds! Texas really is a like its own country. The dogs do their little complaining bit everyday, but they never get ice cream bars. Poor babies. Maybe I could smuggle this something.

I started reading a new book to my boys today. It's called The Giggler Treatment by Roddy Doyle, and they just love it. Evidently it's a NYT Bestseller, but I've never even heard of it. It chronicles a couple days in the life of the Gigglers, whose job it is to punish grown-ups who've been mean to little children. Their revenge of choice is collecting dog poo and placing it in the path of the offending grown-ups. The word 'poo' is liberally splashed over the pages, making it a rip-roaring good read for a six year old and eight year old boy. The quote on the cover is by J.K. Rowling, hailing Doyle as 'pure genius'. How can you argue with that kind of endorsement?

Now, on to the next 400! Who's with me?!

Dr. Seuss Excitement !!!!

My younger son is in kindergarten, and while he's been learning plenty of new sight words, his teacher has also apparently been covering punctuation as well. He brought home his weekly reader, and in the middle of reading it, a book about rockets and space, read: Five, ellipsis, four, ellipsis, three, ellipsis, two, ellipsis, one... Blast Off, exclamation point!

I of course thought this was very cute and put up with it for a while, but eventually, I asked him to keep the punctuation silent. So then he started with the exuberant reading of words followed by an exclamation point, effectively shouting them. We read The Cat in the Hat the other night. Little did I know how many exclamation points are in that book (ellipsis) This is how the reading went:

We LOOOOOOKED!

Then we saw him step in on the MAAAAT!

We LOOOOOOKED!

And we saw HIIIIM!

The Cat in the HAAAAAT!

This went on and on and on--for pages. I thought he'd get tired of this high pitched, screechy shouting, but no, he just kept on, despite his scratchy throat, until finally I took over.

I have to wonder if this is how he reads in reading groups. If so, the teacher must LOOOOOOVE him!

In case you'd like to celebrate, Dr. Seuss' birthday is next Sunday March 2nd.

Overly Friendly?

There's a dad I see occasionally when I go to pick up my sons. I walk up to the school through the subdivision where I live and the kids come out the back door. Lots of other parents do this too, and since we're not all tucked away in our own private cars, there's an opportunity to chat. Anyway, while I pick my kids up this way everyday, I only see this dad every once in a while--maybe three-four times a month. I don't know his name, and as far as I know, he doesn't know mine. Over the course of the past two and a half years, we have gone from polite smiling to casual hi's to your basic chit-chat. Lately (on the rare occasions that I've seen him), he's given my shoulder a squeeze. You're probably thinking to yourself that there's nothing wrong with that, and I'm not saying there is...I'm just putting out feelers. Then today, it was pouring as we both walked up the path. We're both huddled under umbrellas and he reaches out for the standard shoulder squeeze, and I get a quickie neck rub too. So now I'm wondering: is it just my not so touchy-feely self that thinks this is weird, or is this weird? If it's not weird, when will it get weird? When he hugs me hello? Kisses me on the cheek? Inquiring minds...

A Fine Frenzy

I had to do a heinous amount of driving this weekend in my husband's truck, and the only thing that made it somewhat pleasant was having the just-purchased A Fine Frenzy CD ride along with me. I stumbled over this CD on Amazon, looking for something else. It was in the 'Customers who purchased this...' display, so I listened to a few short clips. I don't buy too many CD's--really hardly any--but I decided this one had a special sort of sound. And now, having listened to it in its entirety a least three times, I must say, I'm completely hooked. The songs seem mysteriously unique, and I love the lyrics. And I can't help but love the name of the band...A Fine Frenzy. It sounds British--the Brits make everything sounds good--and full of potential. Evidently the signature sound is 'Hypnotic piano arrangements under classic American melody fused into irresistible, atmospheric songs'.
My favorite song (for now) is You Picked Me.

Puddles of Pee

There was one little aspect of the presentation I mentioned in the last post that sort of put me off--I remembered it last night. Ms. Lawson tries to associate her hightlighter colors with something easy to remember: blue for dialogue (i.e. talking a blue streak). So, when it came time to talk about yellow--the color for internal thoughts, she tells us (I'm paraphrasing) 'Yellow is the color of urine. When you highlight all those lines of internal thought, think of it as little puddles of pee.' First of all, that's disgusting. Second, WHAT IS SO WRONG WITH A LITTLE INTERNALIZING????? I think the publishing world has been brainwashed. Everywhere I turn I'm hearing, 'minimize the time in your heroine's head', but the books I'm reading, the books I'm loving have it spades. And these (at least most of them) are well-received, very popular books, and for good reason.

A little internal thought can do magic for a book, and it certainly doesn't have to be the death knell. People think. People in books should therefore think occasionally. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

And I really don't care to picture my hard-won WIP with little puddles of pee all over it. But that's just me.

Egad! More Editing

Yesterday I drove across town to attend a special meeting of my local RWA chapter. Margie Lawson, a trained psychiatrist, spoke on Deep Editing: 'new psychologically-anchored editing systems and techniques which can take your writing to a higher level'. It was a LONG day: 9-5, plus 45 minutes of drive time on either end, but I'm glad I went.

For one thing, she is a very good speaker. Both engaging and intelligent, she's also very calming. It feel almost as if I was being talked down from a ledge--so soothing, so encouraging. If it weren't for the crick in my neck, I could have been laid out on the couch telling her my writing woes.

Anyway...she covered 25 'rhetorical devices', many of which I already knew about, despite not knowing the term 'rhetorical devices'. I'm talking about things like alliteration, metaphors, oxymorons, similes, etc. But there were a bunch of new ones (new to me anyway) with names I'd never heard of and probably won't remember by tomorrow: anaphora, epistrophe, polysyndeton, etc. And while this new information gave me lots of hints on how to make my writing more emotionally gripping, it also boosted my confidence just slightly, because I'd actually used almost all of these methods somewhere or other without realizing it. Of course we spent the day going over the first three chapters of our current WIP...chapters I'd thought were pretty darn good. And now they're covered in red ink!

She also covered her EDITS System, which color-codes different types of writing: internalization, dialogue, emotion, etc. But I don't see myself using that as much. I'm generally pretty well balanced if I remember to keep my internalization in check. But still, it was useful.

If you get a chance to take one of her online classes (she's offering one in March) or to see her at a conference, I'd take it. She knows her stuff, she has great examples, she's a writer herself, and she's eager to help other writers. Now up and add 'em! ;)

Two Questions

I have two questions I'd like to run by the readers of this blog. One is a recent development, the other has been bugging me for years. I'd appreciate any help.

1. Is the correct saying 'Up and Adam'? I always thought it was 'Up and at 'em', but I just read a book that used the first phrase.

2. Which movie can claim the quote: 'My heart and my hips cry proceed.'

Please, people....help a girl out.

*****LATE BREAKING NEWS*****
I have just discovered the elusive answer to #2. It's not from a movie at all--it's from a Simpsons episode--Doh! No wonder I can't remember. It's been a LONG, LONG, time since I've seen a Simpons episode. In case anyone's curious, it's from the episode where Marge takes bowling lessons from a French-accented Albert Brooks. Whew! What a load off my mind! Except that I've occasionally been heard jokingly quoting the Simpsons...

It's Over...

My husband and I finally plugged our way through the final season of the Gilmore Girls, and I have to admit to being quite satisfied with it. I'd read a few reviews or maybe some blog commentary that it was too pat, too sugar-sweet, but I disagree. I think there was plenty of sad to temper the happy-go-lucky, and I think it tied up several loose ends very nicely.

I had fun watching. We never watched the show while it was on television, and after it went off the air, I just had to see what I was missing. So we plowed our way through seven seasons worth, borrowed from the library, and Lorelai and Rory wormed their way into both our hearts (my husband's very grudgingly)

I love the fast pace and the in-your-face dialog, but one thing that kinda bugged me about the show was that everybody talked fast and furious. Initially I got the impression that it was just going to be the Gilmore girls, but almost everyone in the show talks at a fever pitch. What's up with that? It's a small town--slow down and take it easy!

Anyway...just thought I'd put that out there. I haven't watched Pushing Up Daisies yet...maybe that's next for me.