I'm developing a new pet peeve ...

Currently Reading:

Reality TV Bites by Shane Bolks

I've decided to branch out and read some stuff I normally wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, such as the above listed book. Chick-lit/Romance has never really been my thing, and I avoid reality TV like the plague (most of the time). I'll say this right now: this book isn't badly written. Light, yes. Shallow, yes. But sometimes we need something that's "just entertaining", and for that, it does its job. However, one thing I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around is the abundance of brand names (especially the uber designer ones).
For example: (a spur of the moment composition by me, not a quote)

She picked up the phone and chipped her OPI Passionly-Passion
nail polish. "Oh dammit!" she said into the phone.
"Sorry?"
"I mean, hello?" she covered her eyes, careful not to touch the
Maybeline as she tapped her Prada heels on the linoleum.

Is it just me, or does it seem a LOT like a bunch of product placement? An elaborate commercial? I understand saving time by saying "the Volkswagon Beetle" rather than describing the car in painful detail -- but it's a shortcut, am I right? It seems as though if I'm not familier with the product itself (like So and So's Dashing line at Boss), I almost need to look it up in order to get the picture the author is trying to paint - a hinderance instead of a help. And what about the people 50 years from now who might read the book? A certain super-cool very specific cell phone 1) isn't going to be cool anymore and 2) there's the possibility that NO ONE will know what it is.

Also, isn't it supposed to be up to the reader to imagine the scene? That's why a lot of writers don't over-describe their characters because if I think "Josh" should look like Adrien Brody, but you think "Josh" should look like your friend Tom ... if it doesn't have a real place in the story, describing "Josh"'s stringy black hair and lean features over and over is going to mess with your baby-faced, blonde version you've picked out. Sometimes specific descriptions are important to the situation or the character, but it ought to be obvious. A character's nickname is "Red" because she has red hair. Someone has a lot of scars because he was in a house fire 5 years ago. Another person is of Eskimo decent and looks Asian, so when he orders lunch at the Yummy Panda Buffet restaurant down the street, the waiter speaks to him in Chinese, and that annoys him. Stuff like that.

While we're at it: cuss words (not a problem in Reality TV Bites, but a pet peeve nonetheless). When anyone says (or writes) ANY word way too much, it's irritating. Another example? I'm glad you asked:

"I waited for the bus for over an hour. The bus was supposed to run on the
bus' schedule of 15 minutes. Busses are usually punctual, but this bus
kept me waiting. When I turned my head, the bus came and I missed the bus
and I had to wait for another bus. That bus was also a little late because
the bus didn't stick to the bus schedule."

Ok? It's like that with gratuitous use of the F word. ANY word. So please, all you Hollywood screenplay writers, that guy who shouts on the street corner outside my bedroom window, and Chatty Chatterson on the cell phone across the aisle from me: USE SOME OTHER WORDS!

Rant over.

Word count for January: 50,231!!!

When I first heard about nanowrimo.org's project for getting writers to compose a 50,000 word novel in a single month, I thought it would be impossible. My longest work had barely reached 40,000, and that was after working on it for a year (and consequently scrapping the whole thing).

But after reading the website and seeing how many people actually accomplished their goals, I worked it out that reaching 50,000 words in a month meant writing 1667 words a day. Piece of cake. So instead of waiting until November when the website holds their competition, I decided to start right away with the month of January (call it a new year's resolution). Some days I wrote far more than my goal, some days I couldn't get to it at all - but on January 31st, my last day, I had only 600 words to go.

I liken a first draft to a globule of clay: you want to create a beautiful sculpture, so you first build the armature (the outline/notes), then you cover the whole thing in clay in the generic shape you eventually want it to be in (the first draft). By then, it doesn't look like what you want it to be - definitely not something you want to show to anyone else! But then you edit out the clumps that don't do anything for the story, and you gently and painstakingly sculpt everything that remains into your final product.

My stories go through a "test audience" before I start sending it for publication (usually on my 3rd draft - then I polish it once more after they read it and incorporate any good ideas they give me). Anyone interested in being a test subject for this latest one, let me know.

Happy New Year to Me!!

My first publishing experience has come back to grant me yet another: The editor of Tiny Lights emailed me this morning and offered me a place in her latest print edition of the magazine! Of course, I'm way too excited about it - it'll be my first to be published on actual paper. So go ahead and subscribe to it to be sure you don't miss my lovely entry ;) Also, if you missed it the first time, here's my story on the website: A Similar Fate.

Brainstorming

Stephen King's On Writing compares writing a story to unearthing a skeleton (like a dinosaur). The first step would be knowing where the skeleton is, then carefully taking away enough of the dirt to know what kind of skeleton you've got. As you work, more detail emerges until at last, you're flicking away the last pieces of dirt with a toothbrush. (I paraphrase)

Of course, not everyone writes the same way, but the method described by Stephen King really fit the way I like to write. I don't have to have the entire outline or the entire idea to get started. If I have one thing - an idea, an image, a character - I can build around it, picking up more detail as I go.

With the current story I'm working on, I have a lot of holes to fill (we'll say I still don't know where some of the dinosaur bones are). So I've written down everything I know about the story (characters, situations, basic plot points), and a list of questions of things I want to know about the story (why a character did such and such, what the consequences of blank are, etc.). It's a lot of fun when I'm doing something boring (like dishes or laundry) to think about my story and ask a lot of "why" and "what if" questions, because those questions lead to new pieces.

A sort of update on my previous project, The Morning After: I've written a query letter for it and submitted it to one (1) literary agent. So far, I haven't heard anything back, but in all likelihood I won't hear anything on my very first try. We'll see.

Again!

At last, my second publication is out! Read A Similar Fate here.

I've been working on my next big project, sketching out characters and plots. I've had to recycle a previous novel I worked on a few years ago. I was so excited about it then, working on it every single day (to the dismay of my family members who wanted to use the computer as much as I did). But when I re-read it, I found myself cringing way too much. Even when I tried to edit it I realized it would take a complete overhaul to make it readable (and then I remembered all the people I subjected it to ... ugh).

So, an overhaul is what it needs, that's what it got. I changed the angle of the narrative, started it basically at the end instead of the beginning, and scrapped all the characters.

After a while ...

So I should probably put a direct link to my cautionarytale.com story, as after a few days it will be off the front page. Here it is: A Body in a Seat.

My next story should be coming out soon in Tiny Lights - they said October, but no luck as of today.

It's been a little dry for me lately, writing-wise. I haven't come up with any good short stories. In fact, I got a rejection note the other day that said my story was unacceptable for X number of reasons (which was actually really cool - they don't usually make the rejections personal). I have a few ideas for longer works, all of which I'll have to discuss later since I'm currently employed and at my workplace (but it's lunch time, so it's ok).

It's Official!

It's up! It's on the website like it knew what it was doing! My revenge has come to fruition! Ha! HAhahahah .... BWAhahahahahHAHAhahahahaaaaaaa....

::ahem::

sorry.

check out www.cautionarytale.com to read my published story! It's called "A Body in a Seat", on the front page.