Happy St. Patrick's Day

This is one of my most favorite Irish songs. The lyrics get me every time.


Nothing matters, Mary when you're free.
Against the famine and the crown I rebelled, they cut me down,
Now you must raise our child with dignity.



A few months ago my husband and I visited the Irish Hunger Memorial in lower Manhattan.
It's extraordinarily touching in its simplicity. So stark against the Manhattan backdrop.







A friend sent this to me so I pass it on.

The Lure of a New Story aka Confession time

I've never been a fishing person, but I understand about lures. They're shiny and colorful and they make you want something that may not be good for you.

The lure of food that is not healthy, the lure of staying up all night reading, the lure of the bookstore. The lure of a new story idea.

The reading lure is my hardest to avoid, but today I'm working on resisting the lure of a new story. A shiny, golden, promising new idea that doesn't have the plot problems or the pacing difficulties of the story I'm working on now.

This new idea is like an unexpected present. It sparkles and tempts. It has no sagging middle or inconclusive end. It has only the bright promise of something fun and exciting to explore. It's Eve's apple and it's Pandora's box.

According to Dictionary.com, ambush is a synonym for lure. Exactly! I feel like I've been ambushed by this lovely new story. She beckons, she tempts. It would be so easy...

Another synonym for lure is sitting duck.




According to UsingEnglish.com sitting duck means something or someone that is easy to criticise or target. Yup, that's my poor WIP. The target of all my frustration and angst. The old story looks tawdry compared to the bright shiny new thing. It's novelty has worn thin and it's trouble more often than fun. It's work. Not like the new idea that invites me to play.

How is a writer to resist?

It's really all about self-discipline. I'm not good with self-discipline when it's about self-imposed work ethics. If I had a professor awaiting a paper or an editor awaiting the book, I'd have someone else imposing a deadline. As it is, I'm accountable only to myself. A VERY bad thing. I have no willpower when it comes to doing something that's only for me. None, Nada, Zilch.


Well, maybe a smidgen. That's why I'm writing this blog rather than the new story. If I promise - in public to hold off writing the new story - at least until summer - maybe I can make myself stay the course for the current book.

I'll let you know how it goes.

But what about you? How do you stay on course? What allows you to resist the lure of a shiny new idea and work on polishing the tarnished, shabby WIP into something magnificent?

Or are you one of those people who's just not tempted?

Proctor and Gamble gets me again

I blogged the other day about the Olympic commercials, but then I saw a new one.




I guess it's no surprise that Proctor and Gamble, the company that gave soap operas their name, should be so good at tugging on the heartstrings.

You'll Never Walk Alone is one of my favorite songs. It always brings back memories of warm summer evenings at the beach - back when the Jones Beach Theater did summer musicals.

When I heard the song this time, I wasn't thinking of summer nights or even the Olympics.
I was feeling the wonderful comraderie of writer friends and realizing that we're never really alone in this journey to publication because there are so many wonderful people offering of themselves whether it be sharing a strategy or lending a shoulder.

Thank you to all my writer friends.


There are so many reasons to be thankful to friends - old and new - but I was recently reading something about the 2008 RWA Conference in SF and it reminded me of my very first National - also in SF - but way back in 1990. I was a newbie on the scene - knew literally no one - but I was welcomed with open arms by complete strangers. Those generous writers shared their knowledge their friendship - and their dinner table. I was grateful then and I still am today.

If you happen to drop by today - or a month from now - please share stories of how someone has helped you along the way.

What our characters hide

This morning I was watching a little girl in Church who obviously didn't feel well. She didn't appear very ill, but was out of sorts enough that she was snuggling into her mother's lap for comfort. Another boy was crying hysterically, oblivious to the people around him, because - well the best I could tell from the broken sobs was that he wanted something and mom wouldn't let him have it.

I was in Church and should have been focusing on the purpose for being there, but the writer in me had something else in mind. Watching those children got me to thinking how open young children are about their feelings. No pretenses, no fake smiles.

That got me to thinking about a conversation I'd had recently about how good people are at hiding what's really going on in their lives. We were discussing this in the context of suicide. Unfortunately I've attended two wakes in the past few years for people who took their own lives. In both instances, the people had been under a doctor's care for mental illness and both they appeared to be doing well. Given that they took their own lives, appearances were deceptive.
We were discussing that and how good people are at hiding their feelings when they don't want you to know what they're thinking. The other woman commented that we never know what's really going on when people go into their homes and close their doors behind them.

This morning that conversation came to mind when I was watching the little children. When do we go from being so open to hiding our deepest fears and cares? More to the point of this blog though, do we reflect that tendency in the characters we write?

I know I've read many books where physical beauty is obscured for one reason or another, but what about emotions? Of course there are many books where someone pretends something to further the plot, but I'm talking about something more. Something that would bring richer characterization.

I'm going to pay more attention to looking for this in the books I'm reading, but I'd love to hear thoughts. Is this something we do? Or should do more of? Or am I making too much of it. Maybe I should just have been paying better attention to the homily. ;)

A Perfect Day

For all the talk of Super Bowl commercials, I've always found the ones that air during the Olympics to be more memorable. A few of them this year stand out.

The P&G Moms ad wrenches my heart.






The GE Say Ahh healthymagination one has me humming along.



McDonalds is airing the Filet-O-Fish one again. That one gets stuck in my head until I want to scream. Out of the kindness of my heart, I won't link it and torture anyone else.

My favorite earworm of a commercial though has to be AT&T's Perfect Day. It's been playing on repeat in my brain for days. Today I especially love it because it captures my mood. I had a perfect writing day. I'm loving my new story and all the plot points are falling into line as I work through the story.




Ah perfect day indeed.

Beginning again

I doubt there's even anyone reading here anymore because my blogging has been so sporadic. While school's in session, I keep up my class blog daily but my writing mind is more focused on getting my daily words done than on blogging. It is probably something I should do to keep in a conscious writing state though.
As I write that, I'm thinking of all the craft books sitting on my shelves. I'd love to have a group of people work through some of them together - but that's probably a tad ambitious for a blogger who has no following. ;)


Anyway, since we're on break this week and I've had time to dedicate to writing (when the Olympics weren't distracting me), I've been thinking about a new story. I've got one I'm working on, but I'm the kind of writer who needs to let things marinate before I'm ready to write so I'm thinking ahead to the next project.

Right now my process reminds me a little bit of choosing off the old Chinese menus. I've got a bunch of scenes and ideas swirling in my head and I'm trying to cull out what belongs together and decide what is really a different story. So I'm taking a character from Column A and examining the choices in Column B. What works together? What feels right - or wrong? Looking to Column C for the conflict - so many choices but which one will complement the previous selections?

Enough of the Chinese menus. I'm only getting hungry. Maybe I need to pull out a different analogy and just go play with my characters.

So while we're off exploring, if anyone happens to stop by, please share your processes for beginning a new story.

Storytelling

We are so consumed with the details of getting the story just right - in print. Someone sent me this link to another kind of detailed storytelling. AMAZING - and I think it speaks for itself.

From Ukraine's Got Talent. WOW!