I Wish I Were a Hero

Not a hero like someone who puts their own life in danger to rescue their fellow man (although I would hope I would do that if the occasion presented itself). No, I wish I were a hero like the heroes in the television show, Heroes. You know, the one that ran for four years, and I stopped watching after the first year because I was no longer into it. “They thought they were like everyone else … until they woke with incredible abilities.”

I want the ability to resist fire.

I’m fascinated by fire. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not a pyromaniac. But staring into a fire is hypnotic, and it’s warm, and I like the way fire crackles and sounds.

Look at that picture. It has not been photoshopped, and I swear there is a hero at the arrow. Or a monster.

Two doors down from us, a house caught fire. Everyone got out, and firefighters were quick to arrive, so the house was saved, but I was fascinated watching the flames try to claim the house for their own.

Last year, an old warehouse-type building caught fire in our town, and I couldn’t leave the scene. I’ve never seen such a large fire. The heat was intense, and the amount of noise surprised me. Noise from the fire as well as the building falling apart. It was mesmerizing.

I wish I were a hero with the ability to resist fire and some day walk through it unscathed.

Ideally, I would find out about my powers gradually. If a mean boy in high school reached across the table at a hamburger joint, and held a lit cigarette over my hand, I wouldn’t pull away. I would let him put it on the top of my hand, and I would look him in the eye until he chickened out and pulled back. I wouldn’t utter a sound, I would simply grab a sliver of ice from my coke and put it on the hole.

If I loaded wood into the wood burner, and my hand or arm banged the side of the hot burner and left a white hot mark (just about every freakin’ time), I wouldn’t flinch.

If smoking hot oil flew out of the pan when I dropped a beef roast into it, and it melted a hole in the carpet, I wouldn’t cry or fuss when the hot oil also landed on a wide area of my arm.

Joe and his screaming chicken.

If I put chicken under the broiler in the oven, and my hand accidentally hit the heating element, I would just sigh and run it under cold water.

In our house, I’m the one who can wash dishes in the hottest of water. I’m the one with white marks on hands and arms from what should have been nasty burns and scars, but the incidents only appear to have taken the pigment out of the skin. I’m the one who can’t seem to stop burning herself with little to no pain or aftermath, and I just look at the menfolk and say, “I’m a hero.”

What hero quality do you possess?

(Carrie Rubin! You better not tell me that I have some terrible neurological disease, and I need to see a doctor right away. Don’t take my hero dream away from me. I’m going to be a firewalker some day! :-))

Weekly Writing Challenge:
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/weekly-writing-challenge-i-wish-i-were/

Thank you to my friend, Charlie, who put me onto this remix video. As of this date, it’s coming up on eight million hits

(This is a fun lady, and she’s adjusting to her new-found fame well!)

P.S. – When you publish your post about fire, don’t forget about your ham and cheese sandwich in the skillet in the kitchen, or the bottom piece of bread will look like this:

National Novel Writing Month – Why?

After a beautiful week of near 80-degree temperatures, we dropped into the forties with rain all weekend. That kept us from doing yard work, but we managed to accomplish a few other tasks.

It was good to take the weekend away from the blogosphere. I watched a few movies, hubby and I dusted off the Nintendo 64 and played a few rounds of Dr. Mario, and I made some preparations for NaNo – as well as a pot of chili. Yum.

I wasn’t going to participate in National Novel Writing Month. I didn’t really see the point. All four of my books are in the 50k to 57k range, and the first three were all written in a three week period of time (with editing after, of course). House guests and a few other projects cropped up in the middle of book number four, but the actual writing was about four weeks with one day producing 7100 words. I didn’t feel the need to challenge myself by participating.

I’ve been enjoying reading about what others are doing to prepare. Some have everything planned down to the number of hours to write in a day, food choices, number of words to write daily, housekeeping schedules, etc.  I’m highly competitive, and the thought of being a “winner” is enticing, but that wasn’t a strong enough motive to participate.

The reason I finally decided to sign up is that I’ve been dragging my feet about writing at all. I only want to write two more Susan Hunter books, and I just haven’t been able to get started on the next book other than the first two paragraphs. I’m thinking NaNo is the kick in the pants I need.

But there are other things happening behind the scenes. Writing came out of nowhere for me this year. After seeing other people sell short stories for a dollar on Smashwords, I just wanted to see if I could write a story, too. The fact that a book – let alone four – came out still astounds me. I’ve said it a million times, my books aren’t extraordinary with fantastic plots, but they are entertaining, which is all I ever hoped for.

If this next book goes well, and I enjoy writing it as much as I did the others, I’ll keep writing. (I’m kind of afraid it will all disappear as fast as it showed up. Or my shades of ADD will kick it to the curb for something else.)

I did manage quite a bit of research and preparation over the weekend for the official start on Thursday: From right to left:

-My notebook with my original thoughts on scenes, characters, and how I want the story to unfold.

-More scribble notes with a scribble map of where I want events to take place.

– Printout of a Google street map in Chicago. I’m having Susan and Darby stay in a condo where I once stayed. The building and the surroundings are familiar to me and will make writing the story easier.

– Notes from a pulp fiction story that is in the public domain. It has the elements I want to use for a sub-plot in the condo.

– Another map outlining crime areas in Chicago. I can’t very well have Susan walking around in areas that are noted as high crime areas.

– Scribble notes with research needed for Susan personally, and I also jotted down some things that came to me for the opening scene at a gas station.

-Obligatory dish of m&m’s for research and writing.

– The typed pages atop my scanner are other details I previously worked out for the book, as well as all of my research into cooking contests.

I still need to do a bit more research based on the criminal element of the story, and then I’ll be ready to start writing. If I don’t make it to 50,000 words by the end of the November, that’s ok. If I do, I’ll be editing like crazy around the clock so I can publish right away. It would be awesome to have a book with a Christmas theme published in time for Christmas.

I wish everyone good luck and joy as they write during National Novel Writing Month.

Step Away From the Blog

Do people from the blogosphere infiltrate your day? Not while you’re online and actually reading blogs, but as you go about your daily routine?

I’m on the interstate quite a bit. It’s easy access to the few towns near us as well as to civilization north of us. Today, instead of taking the back roads, I hopped onto the interstate to run to the bank one town over.

As I neared the end of the on ramp, I checked my mirrors once more before merging into traffic, and someone popped into my head – John the Aussie.

A man in Australia is suddenly with me on my little stretch of road in Ohio, and it’s not the first time. I see his smiling face in my mind, and I quickly check to be sure I’ve flipped my turn signal off. Crikey and blimey, is this a forever thing? Is this one of those things that you never shake – like the time a truck full of guys from school drove by and threw tomatoes at you when you were mowing the grass? I haven’t mowed grass since then, and I still see those guys standing in the bed of the truck whipping their tomatoes at me when I see someone else mowing grass. For crying out loud, I have three brothers, why was I mowing the grass in the first place? I blame my dad for that, but maybe he was the one laughing the hardest. Focus, Maddie. Get back on topic.

Yesterday, I ran through a Steak ‘N Shake to grab a quick sandwich while I was out. Of course, I saw the milkshakes on the menu, and I thought, “Kate would have a caramel one.” A fabulously funny girl in New Zealand is causing me to think about milkshakes!  For the record, I didn’t get one.

I turned my television on two nights ago, and it came on to the World Series. The announcer said, “Detroit,” and my mind instantly thought, “I bet Tim is all hunkered down to watch this.”

Plus, there are the blog things I have to share with my husband. Because I go to bed so late, I usually wake him on the sofa, and by the time we get settled into bed, we’re usually awake, talking, and laughing about something. At 2:00 a.m. one night, we were giggling like little school girls when I told him something Ruth said about her husband that was so sweet, and we could relate, but it struck our funny bones.

Embellishment includes lighted appendage. Cartoon: http://holleygerth.com

Christopher is known to my mother, our friends, and my sister because of his fireflies story, and the embellishments my husband has added after we tell the original version. We should probably pay Christopher some royalties.

So, when I walk into the bathroom the other day, and I see an empty roll of toilet paper sitting on the counter, and I remember a blog post about empty rolls of toilet paper, I think I might need to step away for a bit and give my mind a breather.

The Weekly Photo Challenge this week is: Foreign. The very first thing that popped into my head was CLEANING SUPPLIES (see photo submission above). No kidding! These objects are completely foreign to me these days. This blogging gig has left our home woefully unkempt. To clear my mind from the blogs and bloggers who are continually running around in it, flicking at my synapses, I’m going to take the weekend off and step away from the blog.

NaNoWriMo starts next Thursday, and I’m going to take some time this weekend to put some thought into how I want to approach my writing. Hubby and I still have to clean up the tree mess from the storm, and someone really needs to buy some proper groceries. But mostly, I want to use some of those foreign products and do some cleaning. I don’t even know where the vacuum cleaner is.

Now, don’t leave me hanging out here like a freak. Bloggers get into your brain, too, don’t they?

Pass the Tissues, She’s Crying Again

Pinocchio saved Geppetto from the whale, Monstro. When they washed up on shore, and it appeared Pinocchio had died, I cried. I was an adult.

When my husband told me of seeing an old man crying as he took his dog into the vet to be euthanized, I cried.

When our son broke up with a girlfriend, I saw her face as she left our home. It was the right decision, but I felt her pain, and I cried.

I remember feeling things deeply as a child. I laughed hard; I cried hard. When I would read books, I felt what the characters were feeling, and it was not unusual to find me crying over a book. I still cry when I read books. Even my own, silly as that may seem.

Buddy

I cry watching movies and television shows. I cry at weddings. I cry in church, especially from the music. I can’t watch those heart-wrenching commercials on television about dogs that need help, because they’ll turn me into a blubbering mess.

When I see someone who is hurting, I know how they feel. It’s painful at times.

This isn’t something I can control. I’ve tried. I fight tears. I try to think of something else, but the feelings are too strong.

Most people can sympathize with others and situations, but empathy is a feeling of another’s true emotions. An empath will deeply feel the emotions of others. It is suspected to be genetic and in our DNA – something passed from generation to generation.

There have been times when I wished this would go away, but I think I’m much more forgiving and understanding of people because of empathy.

I hope no one would ever say I am uncaring.
What’s the one thing you hope other people never say about you?
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/daily-prompt/

Q: Why Was the Photographer Arrested?

This is a picture I took of my mother in the A Christmas Story house in Cleveland, Ohio. She is standing next to the famous leg lamp. You can see I have a talent for photography. /sarcasm

I’ve always had a fascination with cameras. My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic, and I went through flash cubes like some people I know go through chocolate (you know who you are). There was great anticipation as I waited for the prints to come back from wherever they were sent. I think I was always a little disappointed in the final results, but there were usually enough pictures to delight me to make it worthwhile.

In my early twenties, I finally bought a 35 mm camera. I forgot to change a setting once, and my one and only trip to Disneyworld was forever overexposed. The camera certainly wasn’t as easy to use as an Instamatic, and my picture taking dropped dramatically.

I finally took a continuing education class in basic photography. I learned how to use my camera, and we even did some developing in a darkroom.

The McKinley Monument has 108 steps. You run to the top and act like Rocky.

We were eventually sent out to shoot pictures, and we had to bring ten slides with us the following week to share with the class. I picked out my favorites. As more and more slides were shown that evening, I slid down in my chair hoping to go unnoticed. Most of the pictures were of the well-known landmarks  around the area (they all seemed to have the McKinley Monument) or beautiful pictures of flower gardens and streams.

I almost got away with it, but the teacher spotted me just before he went to turn on the lights. There were some chuckles and snickers as they viewed my picture of cows on a steep incline, slivers of the last rays of sunshine slipping between black trunks of skinny trees onto an even blacker swamp, and a sunset behind a dilapidated barn which was set to the left of my frame rather than the right. I don’t remember my other pictures, but they were equally odd and different from all of the others.

I’m sure my face and neck were red when the lights came back on.

Imagine my surprise when the teacher used my slides to show/tell everyone why their pictures were boring and uncreative while mine were not. After class, he suggested I sign up for the next, more advanced class. He thought I had an “eye” for photography and could do something with it someday. I didn’t pursue it. I just wanted to learn how to use my camera. It was stolen within the year when my apartment was broken into. I never replaced it.

I find myself following quite a few photographers here at WordPress. My love for photography has definitely surfaced again, but I don’t have a camera. Well, I do have a digital Sony Mavica, but it’s not what I want.

Yesterday was a pretty, sunny day. I charged the Mavica and asked hubby to take me for a drive, so I could take some pictures. I told him I’d make a great blog post with my photographic skills. We both laughed.

We weren’t very far from home when he saw two horses, a white fence, and a barn. Not what I was looking for, but he whipped off the road and pulled out his camera phone. He was shooting pictures so fast you would have thought there was an underwear model out there. I looked around. We were next to a dried up corn field. I spotted one yellow ear peeking out. I snapped a picture – just to get started as this wasn’t what I had in mind. The sky above the field was a beautiful blue, and although not special, I snapped the picture anyway.

Then my camera died. Two freakin’ crappy pictures and my camera died. My enthusiasm was gone just like that. But not hubby. Oh, no. He drove on down the road to the winery and took a million pictures there with his phone. I whined and dragged my feet as I watched him be the photographer. Sigh.

Here are a few photographers I have more recently followed and have really been enjoying:

http://pamtanzey.wordpress.com/ – Pam is an artist, and I love her artwork. She frequently posts photos, and her close-ups of her horses are wonderful. Her recent dog photos made me want more dogs.

http://arnoldthearmadillo.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/leafy-drive/ – Glenno has a new blog, and this link will take you directly to one of his photographs that I just love.

http://disperser.wordpress.com/ – Emilio’s shots of bird, bugs, flowers, and much more are wonderful. His recent post of tree swallows feeding was great.

http://barrycreative.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/a-shore-thing/  – I first found Barry with the post at this link. I was hooked by his visuals and his stories.

And here are some of hubby’s camera phone pictures so he doesn’t feel left out:

Answer to the title of this post: Because he shot people.

Do you have an interest in photography? Do you share your photos on your blog?

♫ Tan Shoes with Pink Shoelaces ♫

We’re singing again. Dodie Stevens this time, because the song crossed my mind while writing this post.

Steve Harvey of Family Feud

One day each week, I head thirty miles north to visit with my mother. I take her to the grocery store, shopping, for occasional doctor visits, and four times a year, we gripe and complain on the way to our accountant for our quarterly taxes. We generally have dinner before heading back to her house to gossip visit some more and watch the Game Show Network. I run up and down the stairs during commercials to do her laundry.

Yesterday, I was treated to a gorgeous drive on the way up. The fall colors are nearly at their peak now, and with the sun shining, it was miles upon miles of aurulent, melichrous, coccineous, vitellary, badious, and rubious leaves.

The color show reminded me that the Weekly Writing Challenge this week was to incorporate a splash of color into your post. I thought of my favorite color, yellow. It’s a cheerful color. We live in a yellow house, but I don’t want to write about my house. I’m mad at it right now because it allowed a power surge to wipe out my microwave and a television this week. (Public Service Announcement: Buy good power strips. Most of our electronics were plugged into heavy-duty power strips, and although four of them were fried and off to a dumpster today, the items plugged into them survived.)

I do have this love affair with pink. I have a fabulous, double breasted, pink jacket with a high collar. It’s quite retro. Pink shoelaces show up in my books.

Aha! That’s it! Color in writing.

Do you give a lot of thought to color when you write? Beyond the fact that a room was blue, the tablecloth was white, or the villain was wearing all black? Do you use color stereotypically?

This is something that probably comes up in Writing 101, but we all know I didn’t take that class. I searched one of my books and found references to colors that work just fine in their context, but had I given more thought to color specifically, I may have tried some other words and descriptions.

As my mother was TWO HOURS in the eye doctor’s office yesterday, I spent the time searching and reading on my Nook about using color in your writing. That explains the obscure color words I used above to describe the leaves. I was surprised to find that these words are also considered obscure:
Chartreuse – Humph! I put a guy in a chartreuse thong in one of my books.
Beige – What? Surely you’ve owned a pair of beige pants.
Hoary – I’ve heard my husband use this word. Oh, wait. Maybe not in reference to a color.
Indigo – Everyone knows this color, don’t they?
Khaki – More pants, usually with too many pockets.
Maroon – Come on. Obscure? Bugs Bunny uses this color word often.
Violet – Didn’t your grandmother have a little pot of violets in her house? You know this color.

Colors can show mood in your writing. Every color suggests a feeling. Red denotes passion and action; blue is trust and peace; yellow for wisdom and happiness; green for balance, growth, and nature. There are many sites that will give you a wide range of colors and their meaning/perception.

Colors can help to set the tone of your scene, and by adding strong adjectives, you can set a powerful stage with wonderful imagery.

There are thousands of colors across the spectrum for you to choose from when describing objects. Once you’ve decided upon your base color, change it to a color from the same family that will give your writing more vigor. Instead of a red sweater, choose a scarlet sweater, or even a ruby red sweater.

Many writers use similes and metaphors with color. The walls were a putrid green like a zombie skateboarding toward me to devour my flesh.  They can be a great way to convey color images.

I’ve finally thrown my hat into the ring for NaNoWriMo. I think it will be a good kick in the pants to get me going strong. I only have two paragraphs written so far for my new book, and I don’t have to use them at all toward my novel/word count in November. As my setting will be Chicago at Christmas, I’m going to pay more attention to color in my writing this time.

Do you use color in your writing? Do you rely on it to set mood, tone, and feel?

P.S. – If you missed it, that crazy Stairway to Heaven post last week was Freshly Pressed. A lot of people stopped by to leave creative poetry and/or fun comments if you’d like to take a look.

A Male Perspective

More than ever, I’m convinced I have a genre problem. My books aren’t sophisticated with enough romance to satisfy chick-lit lovers, and the mystery element isn’t a murder to be solved from chapter one throughout, so hardcore mystery lovers may also not be satisfied, but those are the two genres available for my type of book.

Truly, I have to start a campaign for a fluffy, pink-with-a-hint-of-silliness genre. I market under Breezy Books. I promote my books as fun, easy, breezy reading with nothing to make you blush. I think there are still women who appreciate a book that is pretty squeaky clean. Tell your mothers and grandmothers about my books. They are suitable for young adults, but there is no fantasy or vampires, and I haven’t tested the YA market.

But … it was especially fun when fellow WordPress blogger, Mike Akin of sumthissumthat, decided to read my first book. Mike is working on his first novel, and I’ve recently had the pleasure of reading some of the beginning of his work, and it’s shaping up into a great story.

He is my first male reader (that I’m aware of) other than my husband. I have been tickled pink about this, and I want to share some of his email messages with you. The messages are sent to me from his phone, so there is no expectation of perfect punctuation or grammar.  We just go with it and laugh.

These are all separate emails – some days with more than one. Many of the smiley faces have been removed. We smile at each other a lot. His words are in bold, and we start with this note:

9/26 – I just saw your books on my iBooks app!! That is so freaking cool!! I’m corresponding with a famous person. I’ll be buying the first one later today!! This is so exciting lol

After I assured him my books were no great works of art, but they were fun, he replied:
I’m just tickled to death  lol  have a great day my friend … I love that he gets “tickled,” too.

I’ll kick your butt in racquetball   … Oops, not a comment about the book. We were one-upping each other in sports.

10/01 – Bought your first book 🙂 how can I get it autographed? Lol

I’m reading it and like it!!

10/02 – I love the description of play on the racquetball court in the scene where she first met mick

I replied to him:  Squee!!  Thank you.

He immediately wrote back: What was that sound? 

I replied: That was me being excited and happy.  Kind of like a pig squeal.

In reference to one of the scenes in the book: Two aces to finish a match! I did that once or twice 🙂

Love it! That meeting in the pub, the harmless flirting lol I hope I’m reading the first one, sunshine hunter is the first right? Or does it matter? I’m sure it does. Again, I guess I’m hooked 🙂

10/3 –(paraphrase from a line in the book) “He held my arms it’s a good thing cause I might have fallen down” … That’s good lol

wow I’m breezing right thru it. I think Susan needs to hook up with Darby

A side note about Susan and Darby after I showed him my two opening paragraphs for my fifth book I just started writing:
Wow Bonnie and Clyde lol GREAT

wow Darby is still around in next book I’m so looking forward to reading more

10/4 –(paraphrase) “Susan you know I love you, and would love to date you, but (removed spoiler text).”  Great great

After I told him that the guy across the hall from Susan’s apartment opened his door, and the character was created just like that with no planning:
That’s cool about Darby. So he just appeared as a character and you went with it? I think I did that with Nancy’s sister Grace. Lol She will be in the story line thru out, but I don’t know how much 🙂

10/5 – Food channel is referenced a lot in your book
I promptly responded: I like to cook. And eat.

Loved reading about the matches Susan had at that club in Florida. It brings back memories

Lol that is funny! Loudermilk for a last name 🙂

10/09 – I loved the way (chapter) 9 ended! Shocker

10/11 – I really like how your story took that twist with Susan and the (spoiler text removed) character 🙂 kudos to you

He’s so deep into the book, there would be too many spoilers now, so that’s all I’m sharing, but this has been a real hoot for me that a grown manly man is reading my book and enjoying it. It’s a real morale booster, and the rest of you men out there should take note and give my book a try. Sunshine Hunter – only 99 cents at fine ebook sellers online.

And below the fold is this bit of news I promised I’d share. My 50-book sale to ONE person at Smashwords has finally been reversed. The announcement was posted on their site that there were fraudulent credit card sales and all have been reversed this month. The secret admirer angle was a little too good to be true. I have no questions to draw you in today, so we lapse into an awkward pause.

Ooh – or you can tell me what question(s) I should have asked. Or you can go over to Mike’s blog and have a look around. He has some of his wife’s art there, and he even has some manly recipes.

Blogging Freaks Me Out (Part Three)

Blogging etiquette was the intended topic for today.

I’ve been blogging for three months now, and some things still confuse me. After scanning 40+ articles about blogging etiquette, I had a considerable amount of information to share, but, truthfully, it was kind of boring, and I found myself disagreeing with some points … and … I realized that blogging still freaks me out at times.

What should you do when you leave a comment and realize you’ve stuck your foot in your mouth? Please give me a delete button for my own comments! Commenter’s remorse is a real thing and will cause you to break out in a cold sweat.

As I compiled blogging etiquette information, I went back to some of my older posts and made some minor changes. When I checked my email later, there were notifications of new comments to those posts. OH MY GOSH! It never dawned on me that some people get alerts whenever I send up a post, and updating these older posts spammed the people who get the alerts. I’M SO SORRY! I spent 20 minutes under my desk until the red drained from face.

An unfamiliar author with an unfamiliar book left a comment and asked me to interview her on my blog. She wanted to connect with my followers. I was kind of freaked at her cheekiness and deleted. Should I have done that? Maybe her etiquette was good and mine was bad?

The fishermen bloggers confuse me. They will hit my like button daily for many days, so I finally go to their blogs, and if I like what I see, I follow. They hooked me, and I never see them at my blog again. Not that they need to come back, and it’s not really a thing to freak out about, but it adds to the confusion of blogging etiquette.

So that all of my research doesn’t go to waste, let me share some of the blogging etiquette items that I couldn’t wholly agree with:

Blogging Etiquette Expert “You must credit everyone.”

 

– Give Credit.  I have a wee problem with the credit thing. You are asked to credit everyone about EVERYTHING. I counted as many as 30 links peppered throughout one article, with very few of them being relevant. These people would want me to link/credit all 40+ articles I encountered to cobble an etiquette post together.

When Morgan Le Fables posted the link to Anne Rice’s video talk to aspiring writers, and he gave his opinion about the video, you bet I credited him when I used his blog post as a stepping stone to make my own post about the video.

But according to the experts, that’s a no-no. You should come up with your own original ideas and not use the ideas of others. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be posting.

I don’t agree. Plagiarism is one thing, but reading a post about keeping track of the little things in your writing gave me an idea to show how I’ve done this in my own writing. If I publish, I’ll credit the author’s blog for the idea. I get a lot of inspiration from reading other blogs.

– Use correct grammar, punctuation, capitalization when commenting. I can see trying to have your actual blog post cleaned up as much as possible, but I’m not one to do a lot of proofreading and editing for a comment. Plus, I spilled a Starbucks Frappuccino on my keyboard, and some of my keys still stick. You won’t always get a capital *i* from me. I think we should be a little more forgiving in the comments section.

This is when I gave up working so hard on the etiquette post:
– Respond to all comments.
– Don’t respond to all comments.
– Leave a comment if only to say you liked the post.
– Don’t leave a comment if you aren’t contributing to the conversation.

Oh my gosh! Who doesn’t want a comment? I would assume if someone didn’t want comments, they would turn them off – or at least say, “serious comments only.” If someone simply slapped a smiley face in my comments section, I would be happy they took an extra moment of their time to let me know they read my post and found it enjoyable.

For me, everyday good manners and common sense go a long way in blogging. Be nice, have fun, be yourself. Hide under your desk for twenty minutes if you commit a faux pas.

By the way, Part One is kind of funny, because I was still pretty shy and really freaked out when more than 20 people showed up to my blog one day. Part Two was when I unfollowed blogs because I was afraid they would think I was trolling for Likes/Follows.

What are your thoughts on blogging etiquette? Does blogging ever freak you out?

Call me Susan.

First lines. How important are they? According to a huge number of online articles, your first line is everything.

I have four self-published books. Take a look at these first lines:

My perfectly restored ‘67 Chevy Chevelle careened around the corner at Walsh and Park, the tires squealing in an effort to get my attention. ~Sunshine Hunter

“Susan, Mrs. Colter peed on the floor again.” ~Big Apple Hunter

“Hey, beautiful, do you have any blue underwear?” ~Sin City Hunter

“Stop it!” I whispered.” ~Big Easy Hunter

Detective Bentley’s blood pressure was on the rise as he paced the hallway of the unfamiliar police station. ~Windy City Hunter (not yet published, still messing around with the first line)

I think I swerved into a fairly decent first line for the first book, and now that I’m learning more about writing, I think the last one is pretty good, too. First lines good or bad, I think all of my books are entertaining.

While reading about first lines, I came across this site which lists 100 Best First Lines from Novels. I enjoyed reading it, and I was surprised so many were quite lengthy.

It was a dark and stormy night continues for another 51 words.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times continues for another 48 words.

It was love at first sight.  Joseph Heller started Catch-22 with a cliché.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.  Dodie Smith wrote this first line to I Capture the Castle. I thought it was funny. I wonder if she sat in the bathtub when she wrote The Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Only three of the 100 started with a sentence of dialogue. A few weeks back, I learned this is something taught in classes – do not start your book with dialogue. I did it anyway.

I did shrink the information I gleaned down to a few tips for the first line of a story:
– You want to grab your reader’s attention.
– Your first line should be interesting by asking a spoken or unspoken question, promising something, or offering an unproven idea.
– Show your main character in your first line.
– Show your setting or give a sense of your setting.
– Your style of writing should shine through. Your voice should be identified.

Well, no wonder writing is so hard. That’s a lot to lay on one sentence.

I also read that first sentences are rarely memorable. You are more likely to remember a last line or a last scene. Yet, it is, of course, the first that is used to hook a reader.

As I read the articles, I also read the comments. There were some interesting comments about so much weight being applied to one sentence. Many people responded:

– The first few lines are important, not the first sentence.
– The first few paragraphs will set the tone and writing style.
– The first chapter is the beginning, but it’s not necessarily the beginning of the entire story.

You take over. What do aspiring writers really need to know about first lines? Does the first line truly do the heavy lifting ascribed to it?

Stairway to Heaven

I’m a fiction writer. Poetry is not my thing. I tried to write a poem for this post, and my husband said, “You didn’t rhyme the last two lines.” Of course I did. I’m not an idiot. I went back and read them. Hmmm … I guess “come” doesn’t rhyme with “done.” Crap!

But, in an effort to post outside of my comfort zone, I am forging ahead with poetry. I even have a picture to use for inspiration. Also outside of my comfort zone is to ask for participation. I can barely squeak out a question at the end of my posts, so this is definitely outside of my comfort zone. (I just used the words “comfort zone” three times in one paragraph. Now four.) So, here we go …

Sing with me. Led Zepplin. Stairway to Heaven. Do you have it in your head? Good.

Thanks to my husband, whenever I go out into our backyard, the song rolls around in my head. There isn’t a stairway to heaven out there, there’s a stairway to nowhere. Now sing the song using the words “buying a stairway to nowhere.”

Click for a closer view.

This summer, the house next door to ours was gutted and completely renovated. The stairway in question used to go to the door to the kitchen. As you can see, they made a new entrance with new stairs. They didn’t remove the old stairs; they simply painted them brown. What were they thinking? For me personally, the stairs to nowhere would be a deal breaker.

Rather than try to understand the logic, let us pay homage to the stairs to nowhere today. Leave a poem, limerick, haiku, or simply your comment about the stairs to nowhere – or anything else for that matter. I’ll walk over, sit on the stairs, and read your work or comment aloud. Maybe. I might pay a neighbor kid to do it.

We’ll start. Here’s hubby’s limerick because he is a fountain when it comes to limericks:

There once were some steps, a total of four,
That led from the ground up to the door.
The door went away,
An improvement some say.
Now they lead to a door that’s no more.

Good, but BORING. His bacon/schmeckel limerick was so much better. If he hadn’t mowed the grass this past weekend and used up all of his energy, I’m sure he would have given us better.

Here’s my poem:

Oh stairs once gray,
I feel your dismay.
Slathered in brown,
The bane of the town.

You went to the kitchen,
You used to be bitchin’.
Now useless to all,
There is only a wall.

That is why I don’t do poetry.

Let me try a haiku:

Gray happy stairway
Leaves fall on distressing brown
Renovation sucks

I’m supposed to take a moment to reflect on the experience of this new type of blog post for me. It only took a nanosecond to have my thought: Poetry is hard. I’m stickin’ with fiction.

Your turn.
Just go with it.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/weekly-writing-challenge-and-now-for-something-completely-different/

Six Sentence Sunday

After taking a break for several weeks, I’m ready to start writing again. If I’m diligent, I might be able to have my fifth book published just after Thanksgiving. It has a Christmas theme, and I would love to have it out for Christmas.

I’ve rewritten the first two paragraphs five or six times already, but this is what I have now. My books are first person POV, but I’m going to start my new book a bit differently. Here are the first six sentences of Windy City Hunter:

————

Detective Bentley’s blood pressure was on the rise as he sat down hard on the cold steel bench in the police station. Chicago was the last place he wanted to be two weeks before Christmas. He had no clout here, and his demands for answers had only served to further aggravate the officers on duty. Six hours had passed, and he still didn’t know where Susan and Darby were being held. Worse, he didn’t know which one of them was being charged with murder.

He rubbed his temples in an effort to alleviate the throbbing.

————

Pick any six sentences from your writing, whether a work-in-progress or a published work, and post them to your blog on Sunday.

Anyone can join in. To participate and/or check out some other great sets of six, check out the site: http://www.sixsunday.com/

Twitter – #sixsunday

Are You An Audiophile?

There is often music in our home. My husband might be blaring something from the den, while I have music competing for airspace from my computer.

When we married and merged our belongings, he brought a stereo system with a set of speakers that were taller than me. They could rock the house – literally. He had a fidelity demo cd with a multitude of sounds ranging from a soft breeze rustling prairie grasses to the deep thud and whirring of helicopter blades. It also had a 747 flyby. Our son used to beg Dad to make the airplane fly in the house – with the volume turned up. It’s a wonder we didn’t break the windows.

Last weekend, I went over to the den, flopped into a chair, and asked hubby, “What is it with guys and music?”

He gave me the usual blank stare.

Unthwarted, I pressed on. “Well, I like music. But I don’t listen to it like you do. There are plenty of girls on WordPress who post music, but guys seem to *really* get into music. Is it a guy thing?”

“It’s not a guy thing. They’re probably audiophiles.”

“Huh?”

The next twenty minutes presented a husband before me who was animated and passionate about music. Not that I didn’t know this, but we haven’t talked about it for years.

He explained that a good sound system will not allow you to hear violins moving from one speaker to the next, it will allow you to hear the violins in their proper section in the orchestra. He went on to say that when he bought expensive sound equipment, he could finally hear *all* of the music in a song.

I told him that my mp3 player surprised me by how good it sounded as the sounds separated and ran around the back of my head.

“They’re supposed to fill your head.”

“They run around the back of my head,” I told him.

“Some people might hear the sounds in the front.”

“My frontal lobe is probably damaged,” I said.

“Well, your mp3 player should sound better because the music has nowhere else to go. It can’t bounce off of walls or be diffused by the carpet or furniture.”

“Cool,” I said with a smile. My ADD was kicking in, and I was done listening. “Thanks. I have to go. I have blogs to read. See you at supper.”

Audiophile: A person having an ardent interest in stereo or high-fidelity sound reproduction.

Music soothes my soul. Music is emotional for me. I am not an audiophile.

Are you an audiophile? How do you view and/or listen to music?

Slowly I Turned

July 2, 1984. We cross the Peace Bridge into Canada, and I start rubbernecking like a kid in F.A.O. Schwarz.

The view along the Niagara Parkway as we make our way to the falls is lovely. The Niagara River is to my right, well-maintained homes and parks are to my left, while trees line the parkway on both sides. I attempt to take in every detail and make a mental memory for all time.

My heart quickens in anticipation of my upcoming encounter once again with the thunderous monster at the end of the river. Every few seconds I peer down the ribbon of water, hoping for a glimpse of white spray signaling our arrival.

A gorgeous home comes into view. I want to live here on the parkway. An audible sigh escapes my lips; envy surrounds the soft sound.

The drive is taking longer than I remember. We come to a small, quaint town and run into a bank to convert our American dollars to Canadian. Our math skills are as good as those of a beaver who chiseled a pencil or three (see Mark Armstrong), and we know it will be easier to use the more colorful bills than worry about conversion rates for our greenbacks.

We encounter a kerfuffle alongside the parkway. People are moving quickly. We slow our pace, and my rubbernecking increases as we drive by. A man is shooting video of others as they shove a barrel into the water. They race to their vehicles, quickly overtake us, and speed toward the falls.

I am soon squealing like a teacup pig enjoying her new red rain boots (see La La). The spray above the falls is now in my line of sight. It only takes a few minutes before we are turning into a parking lot.

There are police cars, ambuli (the plural of ambulance), ok, ambulances, and security personnel rushing around. Tourists are excited and curious about the disruption to their day. I know what has happened. My rubberneck saw the barrel go into the river – a lapping, growing monster as it carried its victim away to certain death. I’m strangely unconcerned as I rush to my spot.I lean over the rail at the edge of the falls and breathe deeply as I absorb every bit of the experience with all of my senses. I am mesmerized and enchanted by the thunderous monster that is Niagara Falls. There are no words to describe this particular spot at the edge of the Horseshoe Falls. You have to hear it, see it, feel it, to truly understand.

I am unaware of how long I stand in this one spot. Others may have wanted to stand here, but I am greedy this day. Slowly I turned … in time to see policemen and rescue workers whisk away a man with a blanket around his shoulders. Onlookers applaud. Good for him. He lived. I turn back to my spot and allow the monster to envelop me once more.

WordPress Weekly Writing Challenge: Easy As Pie

♫ Wouldn’t You Like to Be A Genius, Too ♫

Sometimes I have ideas, and I think I’m a genius. Within a week, I see my genius advertised on television for $19.95. Someone beat me to it.

I have two genius ideas right now:

Genius Idea #1- I think every automobile should have a light bar running from left to right across the back of the car. It will show you the degree to which the driver has applied the brakes. Is Grandpa riding the brake and thereby applying only a little pressure? Just a few lights of the bar will light. Is the driver braking rationally in preparation for a stop? Possibly half of the lights will light. Or has the driver slammed on the brakes because a squirrel darted into the middle of the road and held up a stop sign? All of the lights across the rear end will blind you with their redness. Rear end collisions would be eliminated with my light bar, which is a way better idea than that goofy additional red light in the back window. … The Big Three have ignored my emails.

Genius Idea #2 – We don’t heat our upstairs in the winter. It’s great for sleeping, and with plenty of blankets, it’s always warm and toasty in the bed. Getting out is manageable, but taking off warm pajamas to put on frozen clothing is brutal! This year, I’m putting my clothes for the next day into a box with an electric heating pad hooked up to a timer set to turn on an hour before I get up. I’ll let you know how that invention works out and if the guys at the Shark Tank go for it.

When I came up with an idea for my next book, I thought I’d hit upon genius again!

I’m a Janet Evanovich fan. In 2008, I picked up the first book in her Stephanie Plum series, and I read it in one sitting. I laughed out loud – something I rarely do when I’m by myself. I read the next thirteen books in the series, plus the in-betweens, in just two weeks.

In Explosive Eighteen, there is quite a bit of action at Stephanie’s apartment in New Jersey. I thought it would be awesome to have Susan and Darby go to New Jersey, stay with his uncle in Stephanie’s apartment building, and their story would run parallel to hers for one weekend. Darby would comment on the passed-out redhead in the hallway, or they would be awakened by multiple gunshots in the middle of the night, and the uncle would bark, “Go back to bed. It’s just the bounty hunter across the hall.”

Genius I tell you! There would be no mention of any names whatsoever. Only an Evanovich fan would catch the references.

But I do my homework. Research and a quick online consultation with a copyright attorney quickly exposed my folly. Even though no names would be referenced, characters and locations are by design copyrighted. If fictitious characters and locations can be recognized, you cannot use them.

It would have been fun to write, and I was disappointed. This idea came to me out of nowhere. I was working on something else at the time. Why was it dumped into my head by the universe?

Ha! I don’t give up that easily. It’s still a good idea. In my next book, Windy City Hunter, coming to an eReader near you in 2013, I have Susan and Darby staying in a condo in Chicago. I know I want a subplot in the condo, and I still want to use my idea of these two looking in on events from another book.

Not the book I have in mind.

I’ve been speed-reading Public Domain Books! I’ve already found two possibilities. I’m pretty sure this isn’t an original idea, and when someone reads my book they will likely have no idea what I’ve done, but I’m pleased that an idea fell into my head, and I figured out a way to make it work.

Have you ever used a public domain book when writing? Tell me about your inventions!

C is for Cookie

These crazy special days tickle my funny bone. Who came up with Talk Like a Pirate Day? National Lumpy Rug Day? Do A Grouch a Favor Day?

Well, John Baur and Mark Summers came up with Talk Like a Pirate Day while playing racquetball. Men after my own heart!

Ever since I discovered Hallmark’s The Ultimate Holiday Site, I check it every day. Some days I smile and shake my head.

Today is Homemade Cookie Day. Here is how the Hallmark site describes it: “This is the one day of the year when you can legally stuff your face with the chewy, gooey goodness that is the cookie. The catch? You have to make them yourself! You don’t want to be caught walking out of the market with cookies wrapped in packaging, do you? The cookie police will not take kindly to that on this sacred day. But you might be able to bribe them with snicker-doodles.”

Snickerdoodles! We are pros at making snickerdoodles here. Our son was taught to bake them at an early age. He would pack them in empty ice-cream buckets and take them around to the neighbors.

My grandmother made the most amazing sugar cookies. The cookie jar at her house was always full for the grandchildren. We could only have one per visit, and what a special cookie it was! They were big, round, super soft, and always iced with PINK icing.

Grandma eventually gave her recipe to me. I’m a good baker, but I could never get my cookies to come out exactly like hers. She used to laugh when I would question her about leaving out an ingredient. I think the missing ingredient was nothing more than Grandma’s loving hands.

When our son was thrown out of daycare at the tender age of three (he led the charge, opened the door to the outside, and all of the children followed him), I quit my job to stay home and take care of the boy myself. As Christmas neared that first year, I decided to bake Grandma’s sugar cookies for some extra money. Of course the cookies were in Christmas shapes, iced, and decorated.

All of the girls from the weight loss company were my first customers. I baked for days on end to fill their orders. Word of mouth brought more orders. My sister and I went to craft shows, and I took cookies. They always sold out.

It was an astounding amount of work, and it was exhausting. Our neighbor hadn’t seen me come or go for many days, so he came over and knocked on the door. I was covered from head to toe with flour as I opened the door, and all I said to him was, “Welcome to hell.” He laughed and went home with a dozen cookies.

We burned wood in the fireplace at that time, and the main floor of the house was too warm to store the cookie orders, so I kept them in an unheated room upstairs. I was rushing one day to bring orders down, and I had boxes in both hands. I lost my footing and took a ride down the steps on my rump. I didn’t dare drop the cookies. The cookies survived; I ended up at the chiropractor.

I baked and sold cookies for three Christmases before I hung up my apron. I was sick of Christmas sugar cookies by then, and I don’t eat them anymore. Give me a good homemade snickerdoodle any day!What’s your favorite homemade cookie? Do you have a cookie story? Or better yet, a falling down the stairs story?