Linda's New Blog

Linda's new blog is at: http://garridon.wordpress.com/

Her web site is at: http://linda-adams.com

Sponsoring Groups

In addition to hosting the writer's group, and charing the McLean Estate Planning Council, I've been up to something else. My church supports a public library, and while zipping through the library one day to get from one end of the building to the other without distrubing the Sanctuary, I saw a book. A very well thumbed book. You know, the soft covers and pages tend to curl a little, and the edges of the pages have a well used look. That kind of very well used book.
It was one of the well known books on Alcoholic Anonymous 12 step methods.
A few days later it stuck in my mental images and I began to wonder just how many AA, ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) and ACDF (Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families) members might be struggling to look normal in the congregation.
After asking around quietly and privately, we're pulling together to see about starting an AA or ACOA group to be hosted at the church.
There has been an interesting quiet level of support for this project.

MEGO

The MEGO phrase is new to me - it means My Eyes Glaze Over.
It's what a wife told her writer husband when looking at his stuff.
Best way I've ever heard for members of a writer's group to get at the issue when a story isn't saleable. It's a story, yes, and its t'is, t'at, and t'other, and lots of things work, but ...
So try it. Whether its rambling, blah, too much stuff, whatever, just write MEGO in the margin and keep going.

Well Done

Well done, Linda

The American Independent Writers annual conference was this past weekend where Linda and I ran the Agent's Pitch room. We didn't know just how well we are regarded until an agent asked us out for lunch. I have to write a thank you note for that. Then the conference coordinator sent the following unsoliciated message:
"Dear Emory and Linda,
Thanks so much for all of your amazing hard work! You both were absolutely fabulous in the agent pitch room and we could not have had such a great day without you. Thank you for keeping the agents watered, fed, and entertained all day! Wishing you both a wonderful summer! best, best wishes, Taryn"
Compliments like that are hard to come by. Thank you, Taryn.

The Driven Character

A good friend put me onto a book most people would never think of picking up, which is Raising Your Spirited Child, by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. The cover says it is "a guide for parents whose child is more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent, and energetic." Stubborn, too.
Does this sound like your leading heroine or hero? Just a little, especially for self-justifying going after the bad guys?
Or you?
Early on, this book picks up on the negative labels given to children who just wont calm down, and flips those around. It's the list that drives me to think this has value for how the other characters may describe your hero or heroine. Some examples:
"demanding" can be restated as "holds high standards"
"stubborn" can be restated as "assertive; a willingness to persist in the face of obstacles"
"wild" can be restated as "energetic"
"manipulative" can be restated as "charismatic"
"impatient" can be restated as "compelling"
This is just a sample. In fairness, buy the book to see the list three times longer.

And just maybe you'll find out why you have to be a writer.
When you know that, then you can be unstoppable.

A Website Of My Own

Whew.
Finally, have a website of my own launched for my law practice
with lots of help from a good friend and marketing coach, Cindy Engquist.

Jurors Go To The Internet

Two weeks or so ago the foreman of an Oregon jury sent a note out to the judge saying that two members of the jury had violated instructions when they went home and did extensive research on the facts and the law on the internet from their home computer. The note asked what the foreman should do about it.

If you didn't know, judges are supposed to be the conduit on what facts and law that the jury is supposed to see. Who knows whether anything those jurors saw on the Internet was true or applied to Oregon.

While the judge pondered this development, counsel for both sides quickly decided they would rather have the judge decide the whole case and dismiss the jury before any misinformation or bad law got into the case behind counsels' backs.

Lawyers Weekly USA newspaper says this is much more common the lawyers realize.

To help your next thriller or murder story, see how this scene could affect your story with a bizarre plot twist.

Sunday Five - Writing References

I thought I'd devote today's to some writing resources that I've found useful.

Merriam Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus. They have a Word of the Day feature that's easy to subscribe to, and one of the best features is that you can hear the word pronounced.

A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices. This is worth printing to save for a rainy day. Most of the devices you'll recognize, but there's a few in here that are worth a consideration on any writing project. I would have been interested in the book the author published on the subject, but at $50 a copy, it was a tad on the expensive side.

Grammar Quizzes. This is a great interactive site for brushing on any weak grammar areas.

Quotations Page. Browse quotations like Shakespeare, Einstein, and Winston Churchill.

RhymeZone. Type in a word, and it'll give you back words that rhyme with it. A handy refererence for poets or when trying to do dialogue for a character who rhymes.

(Sorry if there are extra spaces in this. Blogger keeps adding them on its own).

Progress Log

A progress log is an idea I got from an article in Writer's Digest a couple of months ago. But it was also one of those ideas where I had to change it a little to make it work better for me.

The basic purpose of log is to track writing progress. The author of the article said she used it jot down notes for the next day's work and word count. She also said it must be handwritten in some kind of notebook. That's where she and I went in a different direction. I hate absolutes like that; a lot of people don't realize what works for them doesn't necessarily work for everyone else. If I tried writing any kind of log down in a notebook, I would likely only do it for only one or two weeks and probably lose the notebook at some point.

So ...

Mine's in an Excel spreadsheet. Each month has its own worksheet. There are two columns, one for the date, and one for what was accomplished. Basically, because of it, I write one page a day six days a week (one day is a planned break) so I can put it on the progress log. If I get more, great, but one page is very doable, especially during the uphill climb of starting the book.

A sample is on my Web site. I don't track word counts, but it can probably be customized to calculate that.

Starting the New Year with What Else?

Books!

From the library, I never even got out of the New Books section:

Bad Luck and Trouble, by Lee Child. This is a good book that goes in an unexpected direction. According to a newspaper article, women were supposed to be attracted to the tough Reicher character. I'm not seeing that myself; the stories are simply good, and this one is definitely in the patriotic zone.

White Night by Jim Butcher. One of the earlier urban fantasy series that I still read. This is the ninth book in the series, and the series hasn't suffered the problems other series have. One of the biggest differences between this and other series is that there is logical character development and real risk taking (things happen to the characters that have repercussions in later books)--but without characters getting constant increases in power/abilities (the character here does have an increase in skill, which does fit).

The Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose. I've read some of her other books, and this one didn't seem like it would be as violent--but she is a very good writer. Edited to add: I just couldn't get past the first couple of pages. Didn't hook me.

The Navigator by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos. I think I'm probably not going to like it. Clive Cussler has one of those series that really ran out of steam long ago. This book is an attempt to go in a different direction, but the problem is that they're the same stories in the same setting with different characters--but nothing significant is different about the characters. They're really kind of the same but with new names.

From the bookstore:

Dead Beat by Jim Butcher, an earlier book in the Dresden series that I somehow missed. Does this inspire me to look at his other series? Actually no. That looks more like a traditional fantasy.

Blood Drive by Jeanne C. Stein. I got this one because I liked a book by her I found at the library last week. I was actually surprised because I almost stopped reading it for two reasons: 1) It was in present tense, which I almost never read and 2) the main character is raped in the opening chapter. I put it down, but ended up picking it up again after I put down Wolf's Trap for good. Once I got past the first few chapters, then it got really pretty good. Enough for me to buy this book.