I REALLY feel sad for the people in Iowa who are having to deal with the horrible flooding. And I really feel sorry for me because it looks like my Summer Writing Workshop is about to be cancelled. They have already cancelled classes for next week, and the waters are not expected to crest until Friday.
How Selfish is that to be all pouty about missing out on my writing workshop when people are losing their homes and possessions they've workd so hard for?
And Tim Russert died.
And Mary BEAT me at Scrabulous.
And although I did go out briefly today, I'm still a little worried about this new Balcony Bra inspired look.
This One (Two) is for you Dixie Rose
Tell the truth, it's too much! That's not attractive.
45 year old boobies owe it to the world to keep their little eyes down and not attract attention. But no. Thanks to this balconey situation they are making eyes at the passers-by on the street below.
(And yes, the necklace I'm wearing is a birthday present. I was SUPPOSED to be having my birthday party/dinner in Iowa City, but it's looking like unless we want a snorkeling party ... it's pretty much cancelled)
Ladies and Gentleman, is there anything that cheers my heart more than a coupon which can be combined with a sale? When I hit the mall in search of a new bra the other day and discovered that not only did my favorite store have a sale going on but that I could also use the $10 off coupon I've been hoarding, my heart went pitter patter.
The bras in question were pretty with lively summer colors and they had several in my size. (I know that only about 25 of you have met me in real life, so I'll let everyone else in on the story now. I'm a DDD or G cup depending on how the bra is made. Sigh. Now you know.) I'll also be 45 years old next week and over the decades gravity has imposed it's undeniable stamp on my parts.
The bras in question were labled "Balconey" bras. Okay, they LOOKED normal. I bought two.
Uh, I now have cleavage to my CHIN. I didn't know it was possible to push my girls up that far. It's kind of interesting in a Dolly Parton sort of OMG sort of way, but I'm afraid to leave my house. What if I knock someone down with these things?
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Notes from Workshop:
Fictional Seeds:
Lisa Lenard-Cook defines fictional seeds as those ideas that get stuck in your head. It's an image, or a sentence, or a scene, or a situation and you can't let it go. Many of us get one of these inspirational flashes and sit down to write our masterpiece only to have it peter out after about 15 pages. What happened? It was a great seed!
Lisa suggests that it takes no fewer than three of these seeds to make a compelling story. In her novel Dissonance (which I highly recommend to all) she combines the seeds of a disturbing family secret, a concentration camp survivor, Los Alamos, New Mexico, memory and music theory. The result is a book that I was literally unable to put down until I finished it. On every page I found something that made me want to know what happened on the next page.
Time in Story:
Time happens according to two different principles. Chronos is the time according to the clock. Kairos is time outside of time, spiritual time. This is what happens when you are 8 years old, you've packed your books for the day and you're waiting for the bell. The last 6 minutes of the day are longer than the preceding six hours.
Pacing must account for both types of time. Your character wakes up goes through morning routine and an hour passes in that first paragraph which establishes the chronos of your story. But not every paragraph equals an hour. Scenes which involve great emotion are kairos and may require many paragraphs.
Managing time in your story is both a process of knowing whether your scene is in Chronos and Kairos and of staying true to the Chronos of your story.
I have a story that I have loosely called "The Year of Behaving Badly" but it's not 365 pages. It moves in and out of the story's "present" with scenes of emotion. So far it's only about 200 pages long, and my cousin has suggested that I change the title to "Tell Mama What?" because bad behavior isn't attractive to her.
Start All Over Agaain:
Just because you've typed "the end" doesn't mean that your book is ready to be sent off to agents and publishing houses. Set it aside for at LEAST two months, preferrably longer. Then start all over again with revising and rewriting. Revising is working with the material you have, rewriting is literally starting all over again.
Which does your story need? Sit down and read the book yourself, start to finish, in one sitting. SO if you have to clear your calendar for a whole day or two, do it. It's this process that reveals such oversights as a character who broke his arm this morning playing tag football this afternoon. Or the woman who moved to Israel last week appearing in the supermarket today. Fix those things.
Then what? Here's where you reach out to valued readers. Ask your carefully chosen panel to read your book and tell you what works and what doesn't. Listen to them. You're a writer. Don't be afraid to rewrite until the story you tell is the story that connects with your reader and communicates what you want to say.
Lisa's book is called "The Mind of Your Story" and the bits I've included here are but a few of the highlights of a 3 hour workshop.
I had intended to devote this blog to recapping the very interesting material that I gleaned from Saturday's workshop but something else has come up, so to speak.
So tonight I'm sitting in my chair, sipping a glass of water, reading a book that is irritating the crud out of me because the literary minded author decided not to puncutuate any of her character's conversation as conversation when my phone beeped to let me know I had a message.
A picture message
Which turned out to be a photo of something that I wasn't sure was anatomically possible before this evidence appeared on that tiny little screen.
Now I had to decide, should I text the sender back and inform her that she had sent an image of her lady parts to a total stranger?
... you read something that makes you wish you could take the English language in your arms and reassure it that the bad man with the 900-word sentences isn’t going to hurt it anymore.
I'm registered with the Workforce Center. All my paperwork is filled out. All my ducks are in a row (I think) sometimes those ducks are tricky. Now I start sending out resumes and see what will happen.
I had a full busy Friday and Saturday - Saturday was the monthly writer's workshop at SouthWest Writers and the workshop leader was fantastic. Lisa Lenard-Cook has published a number of "Idiot's" books, two novels that have each won numerous awards, and her book on writing, "The Mind of your Story" is the Writer's Digest book club pick of the month.
I learned things about pacing that lit up bulbs all over my brain. Which is good. I needed something lit because I have less than two full weeks before I leave for Iowa and my novel isn't anywhere near ready to be workshopped.
I'm listening to oldies, mostly Air Supply cause, well, you just can't have too much sappy romantic music in your summer. I hope you're enjoying your Morning of June 9, 2008 as much as I'm enjoying mine. (And for those of you who pay attention to such things, I'm coming up on a significant birthday next week so I'm also thinking ahead to the celebration of that event.)
Life is good. Upon the recommendation of my children, I may go see Kung Fu Panda tonight.
... there's a warm wind blowing the stars around, and I'd really love to see you tonight.
I'm doing several things this week to take care of myself.
First, I'm eating my food plan, no more no less. I have a tendency to be ... compulsive in my eating. Either compulsively eating everything in sight, or compulsively starving myself. Today I will eat the food on my nutritionally balanced food plan to take care of myself.
I'm getting enough sleep. I'm actually trying to sleep in, but I'm not very good at that.
I'm buying one and only one new pair of shoes. I broke the strap on my favorite sandals yesterday. They were really cute - gladiator type design. I miss them terribly. So today I will replace my sandals.
I'm applying for jobs. I've created an "unemployed" budget. I've filled out all the paperwork for unemployment benefits. In other words, I'm taking care of myself by refusing to procrastinate the things I need to do. This is reducing my stress level significantly.
I will probably not be online much today, but if you don't hear from me much for a day or two, it's not because I'm not thinking of you and wondering how it's going. It's because I'm taking care of business.
I've been cleaning house. I started in my room and my closet. I got things organized that haven't been organized since I moved in here last August.
My closet is like a rack in a department store with things hung according to size ... even sizes above and below what I currently wear! So I cleaned out everything that I'd have to either lose or gain at least 25 pounds to wear again. Some of the things I put in storage bags and some I donated to the church for a garage sale. That made my closet much more manageable.
I've spent two afternoons already cleaning my desk, and I'm almost to the point that I can imagine that one more afternoon might do it. I've been fretting that I need a paper shredder to get rid of old documents with private information, Spazzzzz suggested that I just tear them up and put them in with the used kitty litter. What a KILLER idea! Anyone who's willing to search through poop to retrieve my personal data is too whacked out for me to worry about what they will do with it.
I have my project management plan for the next month. It's all good.
I hope your weekend has been just spiffy and that you are taking time to draw in deep slow breaths and enjoy your life.
My last day was done at 4:30 yesterday afternoon and I am now officially unemployed again. Because I qualify for unemployment insurance benefits, I will have about 6 months during which time if I fail to find other employment, I will still have income. After that, I will have to start using savings to pay my rent, but I have enough there to carry me through another entire year before I'd be completely and utterly broke.
I'm certain that I will find something before these resources are utterly depleted. So for the first time I can remember, I am approaching a time of unemployment without panic. I have done the best job I could for this organization for two years, and now it's time to move on.
I still haven't told the boys. As far as they know I workd yesterday just like always and then the weekend started. I took them out to dinner to Mimi's for our regular Friday night treat.
Today I'm going to get their prescriptions filled. Because they have medications that require a new paper prescription to be walked into the pharmacy every month, I can't call anything in advance. So I have to wait. Since I'm getting them filled at a Super Walmart, I'm thinking I'll wait in the manicurist's shop and have my toes done.
I feel a little like the people at the end of Terminator 3 driving down a road that had suddenly opened with new possibility. I've survived the battle, gained new skills which may or may not be of benefit in the kinder gentler world I see, and life feels good.
at four o'clock on Friday I will be done with this job. This week looks pretty light as the main thing now is for them to figure out how to do it without me, so I'm just answering questions. I feel a little unproductive, but I know I have to let them do it so they will learn how.
The boys are out of school this week, and we are getting ready for them to go out of town. Took them to see the new Indiana Jones yesterday. Tucker had a couple issues, but he took earplugs and was pretty well, prepared for the most of what he saw so he made it through the whole movie.
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