Where will your Christmas tree come from?

 

Trees make leaves for pages of books, and needles to sew them together. Book fairs make places to sell those books. And returning from the Oregon Historical Society Holiday Cheer event makes a great excuse to see a Christmas tree. 

◊

See
Tree rings cry
for history and mystery inside;
The tree lays flat to die.
Trailer’s rings all jangling metal, dangling chains reply
So low, once high.
Road is ringed with winter’s cold, its shoulder iced with snow.
This tree can’t fly.
But now the crane is lifting, tree is gifted with new life—
A hopeful sight with silver rings, now lighted bright
against the star
struck night.
The tree stands proud and high.
Then tree of Christmas rings its bell
For history and mystery inside.

Oddly, there’s always a beer tent at the base of Portland’s Christmas tree on the evening of Holiday Cheer. So, cheers!

And for writing exercise, just dream the ringing of the trees.

My Best-Selling Titles

Divide by Zero was a best-seller once. So were Genesis People and Bethlehem’s Baby. Tails of Mystery won an award from my publisher recently as another best-seller. Does that make me a best-selling author?

But my best-selling book at the moment is Heroes Best Friend, a very cool anthology in which I have one (best-selling?) short story, and from which I earn the occasional cent – it’s my best-paying book. Coming close second is the fourth volume of the Writers’ Mill Journal, from which I earn nothing – all online proceeds go directly to the library, since the journal is designed, written and produced by our local writers’ group. Then there’s my latest novel, Infinite Sum. I hope it sold some copies when it came out, but they don’t register on my Amazon author dashboard. And so I wonder, does this make me a worst-selling author instead?

Or perhaps I’m in-between. Thirty-nine books to my name. Sales that garner occasional payments in cents. And dreams that reach the sky. Plus coffee.

Meanwhile our writers’ group has just released volume five – find it soon in a bookstore online! We’re working on a Tails of Mystery fan-fiction collection as well (with permission from my publisher). We’ll probably call it Zeus and Bo and Fred and Joe and Co, since Fred and Joe were based on two beautiful dogs called  Zeus and Bo, and since the stories run the gamut of many animals.

If you’re looking for a writing prompt – and aren’t we always –

here is the menagerie now living with Fred and Joe. Look for a way to use all of these creatures, plus at least one more, in one story or poem:

• Fred – a large dog
• Joe – a small dog
• Cat – a large cat
• Kitkit – a small cat, kitten to Cat
• Zombie – a canary
• Squeak – a mouse
• the child, still very small
• the man, and
• the woman

Now Write!

Then watch for A Nose For Adventure, coming soon. (But Zombie and Squeak won’t enter the series until later – I’m writing faster than I can best-sell!)

What Did You Read On Vacation?

I started reading The Girl on the Train, on a train. I read Signal Failure while riding the Underground. I visited numerous London bookshops then settled down to enjoy Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore. The Eyre Affair accompanied peacefully timeless views of punts on the Cam. And I enjoyed happy days with my brother’s two dogs while reading The Dog Who Dared To Dream.In the days leading up to our wedding anniversary, I devoured The Daylight Marriage. Then we celebrated with a trip to the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime at the Guilgud Theatre. A great time was had by all, my read-and-review book-list languished, the internet faded into 2G wilderness, and my mum enjoyed being one of the first readers of my second novel, Infinite Sum, hot off the press from Indigo Sea.

But now I’m back. England is a happy memory and my American life is calling – overdue reviews, washing, cleaning and shopping, our writers’ group’s release of its fifth anthology, Bible studies to prepare … and did I mention washing, cleaning and shopping? And pulling weeds. The dandelions defeated me before we left, so now I’m just going to mow them down instead of trying to extract them.

Meanwhile, that writers’ group continues to host monthly contests, and I need to come up with a prompt (my penalty for winning). Perhaps something about trains, bookstores, Venetian gondolas, dogs or marriages would work? August’s contest was inspired by someone else’s photograph. September’s asks what happens next after a disturbing opening sentence, and October’s is to write fan fiction based on Tails of Mystery. Perhaps November’s prompt could combine all three …

Writing Prompt

1. Here’s a picture, taken on my vacation
2. What happens next?
3. Please write it from the point of view of an animal (mammal, insect, fish or bird).

What would you write?

My Most Singular Venture

If I’ve been absent from the internet, or only minimally present, this last few weeks, I’ve had good reason. I embarked on a brand new venture, you see – in fact, “A Most Singular Venture,” which just happens to be the title of a wonderful new novel in the Elizabeth and Richard Literary Mysteries Series by Donna Fletcher Crow.

As you’ll see from the cover, Elizabeth and Richard (a couple now pleasingly approaching my own age) are in London as this story begins. Elizabeth is researching locations visited by that well-known classical author, Jane Austen, while Richard is about to start teaching a summer class on Golden Age mystery authors. It’s a great combination, with tasks, characters and mysteries all dove-tailing into a plot that pulls the reader along: Explore London, learn literature, and look for a murderer, all within the covers of a single, enticing book.

But where do I fit in? And how did this singular venture keep me from the internet? Well… that’s where my own most singular and delightful venture starts, with author Donna Fletcher Crow inviting me to reawaken my editing dreams after reading my review an earlier novel in the series:

How could I resist? I didn’t even try. The chance to read Elizabeth and Richard’s latest adventure before anyone else? The chance to get to know one of my favorite authors better? And, yes, the chance to call myself an editor again… I spread those wings with eager delight and had a most wonderful time.

Watch out for A Most Singular Venture, coming later this year to a bookstore near you. And get ready for the adventure with a thoroughly enjoyable Jane Austen Encounter. Then spread your writing wings and feather your quill for a writing exercise:

Get Ready

1. Think of a famous person and a place that person is connected with.
2. Think of reasons why a group of people might visit that place?

Get Set

Make a list of ways you can connect their visit with the person

1. Do they go to sites your famous person frequented?
2. Do they get involved in the same sort of business?
3. Or perhaps they see a ghost?
4. travel in time?
5. read a book?
6. endure the same problems?
7. etc.

Now Write

A story, a paragraph, an essay, or even a novel… whatever you have time for. Enjoy!

 

I made a book

I made a story,

I made a book,

I made a cover,

and my publisher made a better one.

So now I know why I should stick to making stories. Thank you Indigo Sea, and I can’t wait to hold my beloved Infinite Sum in my hot little hands!

(The image on the left was what I gave them, but the one on the right is so much more better! I’d certainly pick that one up if I saw it on the shelf.)

Here’s the blurb for my book:

A slash of red; a slash of black; then Sylvia’s paintbrush turns beauty turns into terror and darkness again. Her youngest child is almost ten, but Sylvia’s world seems destined to fall apart. Her therapist believes the answers lie in her art, but will they be found among boxes and frames in the attic, or in the angry colors she pours onto canvases in class? As memories new and old pile ever higher, Sylvia learns life is more about the infinite promise of joys to come than the sum of things done. Even so, will her nightmares let her go?

And, since our writing group’s going to use an image for it’s writing prompt in… June? July?… here’s a writing prompt:

1. Look at the picture on the left and list the things you see, in the order you notice them.
2. Write a sentence that uses the first two things you saw.
3. Continue writing, including the items you spotted in the picture, in the order in which you spotted them.
4. When you’ve used all the items, find a way to finish your essay/story/poem.
5. Read what you’ve written. Which bit is most important.
6. Rewrite what you’ve written, so it revolves around that most important part.

Top 1%!

Just look what Goodreads sent me!

 

How cool is that? I wish they could offer me the gift of time as well as a pretty badge. Then I might catch up on all those books still unread and unreviewed, but I’m working on it. Meanwhile, I’ll add some thyme, rosemary and sage while I cook dinner. And I’ll dream that one day Goodreads might give me a slightly different badge – one that says TOP 1% of WRITERS instead of reviewers. How cool would that be?

Of course, if I wrote more, or wrote faster, I’d have a better chance of being well-known, which brings me back to that precious gift, not yet downloadable, of time. So… what would you do if you had more time? Use a writing prompt perhaps? Why not try this?

1. Write a sentence beginning, “If only she/he had the time…”
2. Write a sentence ending with the phrase, “but he/she wished she/he had the time.”
3. Write a sentence with the phrase, “if there were only enough time” somewhere in the middle of it.
4. Which sentence do you like best?
5. Which timelessness inspires you?
6. Now write a short story, character study, scene, snippet or poem, where every sentence includes some similar reference to the absence of time. (No cheating though. It’s got to be time, not thyme.)

NOW WRITE!

Can You Write A Selfie?

I’m getting better at taking selfies–really I am–though I doubt they’d help me sell any books if I stuck my image on the back. Aging, graying, not quite sure which direction to look in–would you buy a book photographed by me? More importantly–from my point of view anyway–would you buy a book written by me? And can you write a selfie?

Photographic selfies come–or at least they came–in many forms. Here’s my first one, taken through a mirror.

Hmmm, a little blurred isn’t it, like one of those out-of-focus stories that never quite gets to the point, or has so many points the reader can’t find them? Next came the camera-on-the-computer selfie, with me so proud, holding the first (of many) proofs.

Are you looking at the books or the writer here? If you read my stories, will you see my characters or me? Then I ponder: Even if my opinions don’t totally obscure the scene, they can still distract (and detract from the best-told tale). But At last I got a phone with a backward-facing lens–my chance to take a real, modern-day selfie. What do you think?

Look up, look down, look straight, left, right, or somewhere: Choose an angle, I guess, but surely don’t choose this one, in writing or photography, from which I conclude, points of view are really quite important.

I tried again. Does this one work…

…or should I have chosen a background that made sense? Set a scene that’s understandable for the reader or the viewer–that’s one to remember.

And then there was this. What do you think?

(No glasses – the wonders of cataract surgery earlier this year!)

Someone suggested that everyone we write about lives in our heads (unless we’re writing biographies I suppose). So all those characters entering and leaving rooms, victims and perpetrators of crimes, male, female, adult, child… are they all me? Is every character study in my novel a selfie from some hidden part of my mind?

I don’t know the answer, but the question did inspire a writing exercise:

Now Write

1. Imagine yourself entering a room–to win a writing prize perhaps, or to stop your child from crying, or…
2. Describe your entry from your own point of view–are you confident, scared, excited… how do you walk? Is your breathing slow or fast? Where are your eyes focused? What are you doing with your hands? And what are you wearing; how does the fabric move with you, or the wind blow your hair?
3. Describe your entry from the point of view of someone who’s glad to see you–parent, child, spouse, best friend, eager recipient of your benevolence… Who or what do they see, hear, or smell, and what thoughts fill their minds?
4. Now describe your entry from the point of view of someone who’s not pleased to see you–the person who hoped to win the prize, the cat who hoped to stay with the child, the monster returned to its closet…
5. And finally, turn one of those descriptions into a story.

If I Write A Blogpost, Will You Read It?

Our writers’ group met last weekend, and I need to copy up the minutes and send them out. We talked about internet-connections and the need to have a blog, write blogposts, and find people to read them. Among the questions we addressed were:

• What is a blog? It’s kind of like a diary, but don’t make it your diary. Nobody wants to read your day-to-day life.
• What’s the difference between a blog and a website? Mostly they’re attached to each other. The website is the bit that doesn’t change. The blog is the bit that’s supposed to keep offering something new.
• And between a blog, a website, and your Facebook page? We had a picture for this one: I wonder if I can reproduce it in a blog… So…
• Websites are really well thought-out, like a query letter sent to a publisher.
• Blogs are moderately well thought-out, like a report to your writers’ group about the writing of query letters.
• Facebook status is where you tell the world “I just send that query in.”

We finished our meeting with a writing exercise because, of course, we’re a writers’ group. So here it is

Just Write

This is your chance to blog, and mine to see if I can read what I wrote:

1. Think of a title and turn it into a question: Why would anyone read this?
2. Think of who might read your blogpost and tell them why you think it should interest them: Has anyone ever asked you to write a blogpost?
3. Make sure your first sentence and title repeat the same words. If they don’t, rewrite one or the other: If I write a blogpost, will you read it? could be a better title.
4. Write something that flows from that first sentence: Has anyone ever asked you to write a blogpost? That’s what happened to us at the end of our Writers’ Mill meeting this month. But many of our members don’t have blogs. So the real question, perhaps, should be “If I had a blog, would you read it?” closely followed by, “If I had a blog, what would I blog about?”
5. Now you know where you’re going, make sure you get there quickly. The blogging world suffers from the internet’s inescapably short attention span, so simply say what you want to say, then stop: I’m going to blog about writing here, specifically about writing answers to prompts. I’ll post things like, say:
   1. How to write a mystery in 7 steps
   2. How to create a believable character
   3. How to use point of view effectively
   4. How to use all five senses, plus whatever extras you can think of, or even
   5. How to blog
6. Add a final sentence, include a picture if you can, then click on “Publish.” You’re done: So… will you read it?

 

 

 

 

A New Year Drabble

They told her it couldn’t be done; there’d be no going back; she shouldn’t waste her time. No rhyme or reason now, they said; just live for today. But Verda couldn’t watch unmoved as TV screens grew dark. She couldn’t sleep through radio’s silence, nor take those happy pills and hide herself in the dying cave. Instead she closed her office door; sealed the frame; set plants to cleaning air and water; and cranked her computer.

At the stroke of midnight, that final day, Verdandi, goddess of destiny, reset the human clock. So we began the Fall all over again.

 

Our writing group’s prompt this month is to imagine our main character receives some news which will change the year ahead. I’ve invited members of the group to imagine what they’ve heard is their own commitment to enter something in every month’s writing contest. How will that change their lives? How would it change yours?

Now write!

Dribs and drabs and writing

I went to Wordstock last weekend. It’s a writers’ conference held almost annually in Portland Oregon and it had just moved to a new venue. The move, not surprisingly, had a few pluses and minuses, just like the rewrite of an old novel. (Did I mention, I’m rewriting an old novel – Imaginary Numbers – soon to be released by Indigo Sea Press?)

Plusses:

1. Those of us lucky enough to get into a lecture hall could actually hear the speakers
2. Those of us not standing out in the rain were in a very pleasant, inspiring venue (the Art Museum)
3. The guy keeping the floor dry so nobody would slip in the crowds trying to cram through tiny doorways did a wonderful job.

Minusses: see above.

What stayed the same was the quality of the speakers – they were great.

And what I learned:

1. You are who you are. You can’t pretend to be someone else – to look like someone else, or to write like someone else – because your critics will tell you who you are.
2. You’re never too old, too young, too weak, or too anything else (except perhaps too scared). You can swim the impossible (Cuba to Florida), write the impossible, paint the impossible, and most importantly dream the impossible. Those dreams should never be discarded (well, unless they involve hurting somebody, I guess).
3. Culture determines what people see and believe – in a world without artificial light, it’s really not so hard to believe in witchcraft.
4. Friendship determines what people do and achieve – trust your friends to help you, accept their help, and praise them for their help.
5. You can find inspiration anywhere. (Where else would I have found myself comparing swimmers to angels?)

Since this is the week of the Festival of Drabbles celebration, I’ll try to turn the above into a drabble writing exercise.

Imagine

1. A place where you would never be found, dead or alive. A shark cage perhaps?
2. A person or creature who is not in that location but would like to be. The shark maybe?
3. What makes them want to be there?
4. How will they try to get there?
5. Why will they fail?
6. What will they do when they fail?

Write

1. A one-sentence introduction to your character, and a one-sentence introduction to your location – one paragraph
2. A one-sentence answer to each of 3, 4, and 5 – second paragraph
3. A one-sentence answer to 6 – third paragraph.

Edit

You now have a three-paragraph micro-story that’s almost a drabble.

1. Count the words. If less than a hundred, you need to add more description. If less, you need to remove some.
2. Once your story gets longer than 100 words, start shrinking and polishing it. Look for
   1. What is most important in the story? Don’t delete it.
   2. What is least important in the story? Can you take it out?
   3. Any repeated words or phrases – what can you replace them with?
   4. Any adjectives and adverbs – can you replace the noun or verb with a stronger one?
   5. Sentence connectors – do you need all those ands, buts, afters, thens, etc?
   6. long sentences or sets of sentences – can you say the same thing more simply, with fewer words? Do you even need to say it? (see above)

Now you have something close to 100 words. Add or delete judiciously and you’re there. It’s a drabble.

Once you’ve written it, don’t forget to join the fun and look for more at http://thecultofme.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/festival-of-drabbles-2015-calendar-of.html