Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Where do you get your ideas from? A partial answer...

After sharing my work with more people lately, I keep getting the question of, "Where do you get your ideas from?"

What a silly question! Doesn't everyone know? I get them from a leprechaun I kidnapped from Offaly. I keep him locked in a dog kennel in my garage and every time I need a new idea, I hold a gun to his head and threaten to blow his little green brains out unless he tells me a good story. Oh don't worry, I toss him a beer now and then to say thanks and keep him happy.

Seriously though, I'm not quite sure where they come from, and I don't think other writers really know either. Your brain just starts pondering about something silly, and then it leads to another thought, and another, and like magic you realize you just created a new story.

But it is a question that really got me thinking about why my brain works the way it does, and why I think about the strange things I do. So I'd like to give you a bit of a glimpse at some of the experiences that have shaped my life as a writer.

One such thing is that I come from a family of wrenches and motorheads. Every time we get together the conversation always includes engines, classic cars, and our next riding trip. I've been riding dirt bikes and driving sand rails since I was in grade school, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate a warm weather holiday than to go to the woods or the Imperial Sand Dunes with my family. I love the thrill and adventure of the ride, and falling asleep at the end of the day listening to the lullaby of passing engines. Whenever I catch the scent of gasoline in the air I'm instantly transported to a memory of a ride, and smile even on the worst of days.

Another place my stories come from is fear. Everyone has a biggest fear in their life. For some people its fear of failure. For others its fear of public speaking. For me, its aliens.

Yes, I am deathly afraid of aliens.

Most people laugh and assume I'm kidding when I say that. I'm not. Aliens are scary things. They could be hiding anywhere and could zap you into their spaceship at any moment. That is terrifying.

I think the fear started when I was a little kid and my mom let me watch that movie Fire in the Sky. Its based on a true story about Travis Walton, a man who lived in Snowflake, Arizona, who was abducted by aliens. I couldn't sleep for weeks when I was a kid because I was so afraid of the power and control aliens could exert over us pip squeak humans.

A few years later, my dad and I were riding out quads on one of our trips up to the woods. Ever since I was little, on every family riding trip we take, my dad and I always go on a ride at night with just the two of us. Some of my best memories are of following my dad through the darkness, trusting that he'll light the way for me, just like he used to follow his dad when he was a kid.

On this ride, we stopped in a clearing to admire the stars. We sat in silence for a while, then started talking about just how damn big the universe is and all the possibilities it holds. And then my dad, not knowing that my fear of aliens had actually caused me to rearrange my room so that my dresser blocked the window in case the aliens tried to suck me out while I was sleeping, says, "I'm not sure if they exist, but how could you not entertain the idea of other intelligent life forms when the universe is so big? Especially because Earth is part of a young solar system, and look how far we've come. There's got to be something more advanced out there, don't you think?"

My ten year old face drained of all color. "You mean like aliens, Dad?"

"Yeah, I mean aliens. And especially with that guy who said he got sucked up by Heber."

"How far away are we from where they snatched him?"

"If you cut across the mountains, which aliens could if they were real, less than a hundred miles away."

Oh. Dear. God.

This is the moment that my fear of aliens went from being a silly childhood fear to an adult phobia. On that ride home I wanted to cry I was so scared, especially since when you're driving a quad through the woods at night all you can see is a wall of darkness behind you and nothing else. Those aliens could have grabbed me at any moment and I never would have seen them coming. It was a traumatizing experience, but I went on to write a good short story about it the following weekend.

Fast forward a few years.

Again my dad and I are on one of our night rides together, this time at the sand dunes. We drove out to the third set of dunes (this was before they put up that stupid wall to separate Mexico from the U.S. of course) and again stopped to admire the stars.

Now the third set of sand dunes is the equivalent of being in the middle of Sahara desert. There's nothing there, and hardly anyone ventures out that far. I've never seen anyone out there at night, and have only spotted a couple of people during the day over the years.

So again, my dad and I are in the BFE part of the dunes looking at the stars on our traditional night ride when we start to hear a noise. At first we ignore it, but it started getting so loud and close that we both had to comment on it. It sounded like a weird shuffling, scuttling noise, followed by clicking. Eventually it bugged my no nonsense, extremely logical, fearless father enough for him to yell, "What the hell is that?"

The sound came closer.

I asked my dad, "Do you think its an alien?"

"Probably. They're all over this area."

Crap!!

 "Why would they be walking around? That's kind of weird, don't you think?"

My dad shakes his head. "Not really. It's easier to sneak up on us if they're on foot."

Shit!!!

"Let's get out of here," Dad says. "They may not be friendly and we don't want them to catch us. They can be real bad news."

OH MY GOD!!!!

So we go to start our bikes. Mine kicks up right away, but the starter button on the Polaris my dad borrowed from a friend was broken. As a back up, there's a pull start cord he'd been using all weekend. He yanks the cord, and it snaps in half. Without that cord, we can't start the bike at all. It's an automatic, which means you can't even roll it down a hill to make it go. My bike weighs half as much as the Polaris, and we have steep, 200 ft tall hills to climb.

Double shit, we're screwed.

Three hours later, shaking with exhaustion, we did make it back to camp with both bikes. Everyone said to me, "man kid, you must have been really worried, you're so pale even your freckles are white!"

I was worried. The ride home was a scary one because it was rough, and several times my dad and I almost flipped trying to tow that big honking bike back, so I was afraid one of us would get hurt. But I was more worried about being in the middle of nowhere surrounded by aliens who were trying to sneak up on us, because everyone knows they snatch you from secluded areas.

Looking back I can see how silly the conversation was, but it terrified me for years until I figured out what my dad meant, and further spurred my phobia. I understand now that my dad wasn't talking about visitors from the sky type aliens that night. He was talking about illegal aliens, the ones who sneak across the border into America, the ones who prompted the building of that big ugly wall I mentioned earlier. Do you see how confusing that conversation of aliens was? It did a lot of unintentional emotional damage.

Now my poor better half gets to deal with my irrational fear of aliens. At first he didn't believe me and thought I was trying to be unique or something when I admitted my fear. A few months after we started dating, I asked him to take me to a movie since he's not a big fan of going to movies and I am.

That night, I wanted to see Paranormal Activity. My better half couldn't remember the name of the movie I wanted to see, so I told the ticket guy, "two for The Fourth Kind."

My better half looks at me and says, "are you sure you want to see that?"

"Of course I'm sure. Why would I not know what movie I want to watch?"

"Okay, whatever you want."

See what happens when you get a little snappy, ladies? Your dude doesn't save you from what is sure to be a terrible experience. I knew I wanted to see Paranormal, but I had mixed up the titles with Fourth Kind without even knowing it. And of course after acting like a bit of a jerk, my better half didn't warn me that I asked to see an alien movie, not a ghost movie. Thanks, darling.

So we go into the movie and a few minutes into it I say, "wow, this is a really long preview."

"What?"

"This preview for that awful alien movie I'll never watch. It's really long."

My better half lets out a chuckle and says, "yep, they're making them longer these days because the economy is bad and they really want to make sure people like the movie before they spend the money to see it."

"That's silly. Don't mock me. I'm just saying its long."

I know. Total bonehead ditz thing for me to say. You'll have to forgive me, though. At the time I thought I was going to see the ghost movie, not the alien movie.

A few minutes later it clicks in my head and I shout, "Oh my, God! We're watching the alien movie!!" (Thank goodness this airhead episode happened after my better half found out my IQ was higher than 90 or I'm sure we never would have spoken again).

Now my better half starts cracking up laughing. "No it's not, it's just a really long preview."

"I can't believe you let me get tickets to this! We have to leave."

"No way, I just spent five hundred dollars to watch this preview and we're watching it."

"You suck."

"I love you."

Oh yeah, he thought he was sooo funny by letting me get tickets to that movie and making me watch it. Guess what two people didn't get any sleep for three weeks after that stunt? He has never made me watch an alien movie since (except the Alien movies because those are different) and always saves me whenever a friend says, "I got this alien movie we could watch," by karate chopping the movie out of the person's hands. Good man.

So there you have it, a partial answer to the question of "where do you get your ideas from?" I think most of them started in childhood with something that scared me, and then through a series of misunderstandings the fear heightens and continues to grow. This makes for a lot of sleepless nights with nothing to do but think about what could have happened if...

And that's really all a story is, an idea that begins with, "what if?"

Mine just happen to be a little on the strange side from my mother letting me watch too many scary movies as a kid, and my conversations as a child in the adult world that resulted in misunderstandings when one party thinks only of the real and rational, and the other thinks of the impossibilities of the universe that could be true in another realm.









Monday, May 21, 2012

Book Review: The Witch of Starmont by Linda Ash

My rating: 4 1/2 stars

Just finished reading THE WITCH OF STARMONT by Linda Ash, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. At first was a bit skeptical when reading the description of this book. It basically stated that it was about a gardener named Mara who had a secret her ex-husband was holding over her head that would stifle any chance of happiness she may have. To me it sounded trite, that there was nothing new this book could offer, and that I already knew what the witch's secret was. Boy was I wrong! I read the first page and instantly loved the story!

The tale begins with Mara hiring Johnathan and his crew to build a new bridge over her stream. The author's voice was delightful and uplifting even through Mara's sadness. I instantly felt right at home with Mara, and this is one of the few books where I felt like I was in the story rather than just reading it.

The spark between Mara and Johnathan was believable instead of one of those gushy tales where the main characters instantly fall head over heels for each other and say stupid gushy things. Their romance was genuine and really reflected the reality of these two peoples lives.

I instantly despised the vile ex-husband. He was an all out jerk, one of those characters you love to hate.

And the secret itself? I was truly surprised when the author finally revealed what it was because it was something I never would have guessed. I think it was the secret more than anything that made me really love this story since I've never read a book about it before. I actually had no idea what the secret was when the main character finally confessed it, and I'm so glad the author gave me a little clarification without going into too much detail.

There were only a couple things I wasn't a fan of, and that was that some of the lesser characters seemed a little flat. I also felt like the ending had too much resolution too quickly. I would have liked to see more of what had happened after the story took an unexpected twist, and would have preferred a little more detail about the ending.

That being said, overall I thought that THE WITCH OF STARMONT was a wonderful read. It was cozy, refreashing, kept me guessing, and was full of surprises. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants a good book about myth mixed with reality they can happily get lost in in one afternoon. Kudos to the author Linda Ash! I'm looking forward to reading another one of her books and hope the next story will delight me just as much as this one did.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Short Stories

Years ago I used to dabble with sending out a short story here and there for publication. I didn't really submit too much because I hated waiting for six months or more to hear back from a magazine to find out if the editor liked my story or not. It was especially irritating when after eight months of checking the mail I'd get a ripped and stained Return to Sender envelope because the magazine had either moved or gone out of business. I'm not a patient person, and so due to incredibly long wait times I think I only submitted two stories, and between the two maybe sent them out a half a dozen times if that.

One such story I only sent out twice before it actually got published. After that I just stopped doing it because I was on to serious novel writing, and of course between working full time, going to school full time, and writing a book, that left little time for much else, and so short story writing came to a halt.

For a few years after I wrote my first full length novel DECEPTIONS, I pretty much stopped writing. Here and there I'd write a short story or two, but not on a regular basis. At the beginning of this year I did pick up writing again, and now that school is over (at least until summer school starts in two weeks) I have a little more free time and thought I'd start submitting some shorties again.

I did find my old short story I had published, called "Dangerous Curves" (no, its not a story about a sexy lady) and put it under my new short stories tab. This was originally accepted for publication when I was in my late teens, so it's been years since I've actually looked at it. I did pull it out a few days ago when dusting off my pile of shorties and was really impressed by how much I liked it. When this was accepted for publication, I had cut out so much of the story before it got picked up that I thought no one would want it since at the time I thought it wasn't very good. But after reading it last week I discovered it was really good, that it was a cool story with very good writing. This one is published under my full name, so don't let that throw you off when you go to read it. And I highly recommend yo uread it because it is quite good.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story, and I look forward to filling in my short story section in the near future, although most magazines move at the rate of molasses in winter time so I expect it will be a while before I have more to share.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Sneak Peek at G-157

My first novel G-157 is in its final stages of editing, and will be published on Amazon in June. While I'm still waiting for a few readers to send the book back to me with their reports of the good, the bad, and the ugly, I thought I'd share the first chapter. I've added a sneak peek heading for anyone who would like to take a gander.

This book is what I'd call a literary novel mixed with a touch of science fiction. It's basically about a girl that can't stand living in her "perfect" community, only we know a perfect community can't really exist, now can it? Here's the book description I think I'm going to go with when I actually publish it, but am still working on it because I, like most authors, have a hard time condensing a novel into two paragraphs. Hope everyone enjoys it!



John's Town, created when the Utopian society of the United Community of Johnson was formed, knows no greed, violence, or poverty. Yet Aire has always been suspicious of the smiling faces. Photographs of extinct civilizations in her school history books make her uneasy. So does the military, who strangely “recruits” young children and old women in the night after they have emotional outbursts. Electronic billboards surround the city and send anyone who passes them into seizures.

When people begin to disappear in the masses, Aire knows there is definitely something wrong with her world and decides to flee. There’s just one problem--no one gets to leave John’s Town alive.

This was cute

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The bar that will never burn

Thought I'd share some interesting facts what with one of my favorite places in the world burning to the ground.

Crown King, AZ is home to the oldest working bar in the state of Arizona. It's been in operation for over a hundred years and has survived dozens of fires. I find it truly amazing that every other building in crown king has burned down except for the saloon, and some of the burning history is very comical in a way because it's fire history goes something like this (not all years are historically accurate):

1904 Crown King burns, saloon saved!

1923 school burns, saloon saved!

1950 church burns, saloon saved!

1961 fire station burns, saloon saved!

1988 tie house burns, saloon saved!

2003 bar and cafe burns, saloon saved!

As of this writing Crown King is once again in danger of burning. The Gladiator fire that started on Sunday has burned around 2,000 acres of the Bradshaw Mountains. The fire is only 5% contained, and AZ is expected to have high winds all week. I sincerely hope no one else will lose their home (three cabins have very unfortunately burned), but at least we know one thing; the saloon will be saved.



"Rules" on Writing Part Two-Prologues

One of the rules on writing states to never use prologues. This is something I mostly agree with, although I don't think anyone should ever listen to writing rules. Usually when I pick up a new book, I want to skip right over the prologue because I think if you really have a story to tell, then start it at chapter one. If it doesn't start there then it's obviously not important, and the prologue is a bunch of boring back story no one cares about. Of course there are always exceptions to this.


Sometimes a story truly needs a prologue because there isn't an artful way to incorporate that particular nugget into the story itself. In the five novels I've written, only one has a prologue, and it's only a page long at best. In my novel G-157, the back story of how this world came to be needed to be told upfront. Otherwise the reader would be very confused as to what the heck was going on in the story and why certain events and people were the way they were. In these scenarios prologues are extremely helpful, and over the years I've learned to always read prologues even though I have a personal bias that makes me not want to do so.


Prologues are a baneful irritation when they tell you something that you very well could have figured out on your own. The worst one I ever read was almost thirty pages. That's right, thirty pages. Bah!! But I did read it, and really wished I hadn't.


First off, the book jacket already told me the main character's parents were killed in an Asian country. What was the prologue about? The main characters parents being killed in said Asian country. Dumb. And it wasn't like the author needed to add more pages because the darn thing was already over five hundred. Why waste your time and the reader's time telling us a story about something not important that we learned in two seconds from the back of the book?


Second, in this prologue it described how someone the parents thought was their friend was actually a backstabber and caused their demise. The friend comes into the main character's adventure five pages into the book only to screw them over at the end. Wouldn't it be much more dramatic and cause a better twist at the end if we had found out at page 475 that the friend was a jerk instead of learning this knowledge at page four? Because the whole time I was thinking, I know he's going to screw the main character over so I don't care much about reading this anymore.


Third, the bad guys were also introduced in the prologue and were trying to kill the main character within the first chapter. Again, it would have been so much better if we found out the connection between the bad guys, the main character, and the main character's parents at the end. This would have not only made the book more suspenseful, but I wouldn't have been reading about the main character the whole time thinking, okay when is this ditz going to get knocked off?


However, prologues are a great and necessary vehicle for a story when they are kept short and only include minimal background information. The screenplays for the Star Wars movies are excellent examples of prologues used well. They're only a few paragraphs, they give us some background information so we understand the conflict, they let you know key characters' standpoints, and they bridge in time gap information. Perfect!


So though the rules of writing say don't use a prologue, I say use them whenever needed and don't regret your decision about it, because really there are no rules for writing. If you read enough, you will understand the difference between a good, necessary prologue, and one that has no business being there. Follow your own rules for prologues, not those of someone else.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Useless Knowledge: Blue Foods

My better half and I went out with a friend last night and during the course of our random conversations our friend said, "Don't eat blue foods." Apparently he had a math teacher that advised his class to never eat naturally blue foods, but didn't explain why. It got me to thinking, what foods are blue? And why shouldn't you eat them? The only blue food I could think of was blueberries, which our friend argued aren't blue, they're purple. I went on a mission to discover blue foods and why you shouldn't eat them. Here's what I found:

Blue Foods

Blueberries (though they have a purple tinge)
Blue Corn
Blue Lobster (thought the meat turns red when you cook it)
Blue Crayfish (though they're normally kept as pets)
Blue grapes
Blue rosemary flowers
Blabar (kind of like a blueberry in that some have a purple tint)
Starflowers
Prunus Spinosa
Blue potato (again a little purple but mostly blue)
Blue Cup Fungi (not sure if this should be on the list because all I found was that it was probably edible)
Butterfly blue peas


And the reason the math teacher said not to eat blue food? Because it's an evolutionary instinct to avoid blue things in nature since they're usually poisonous...

But so are red things, and yellow things, and orange things, and we eat a bunch of those...hmm. Another unsolved mystery.

"Rules" on Writing Part One

I recently came across an article that was all about everything you shouldn't do while writing that went something like this:

Don't use prologues
Don't talk about the weather
Don't use adverbs
Don't use description about the setting
Don't use exclamation marks
Don't use anything other than said to carry dialogue
Don't use regional dialogue
Don't describe characters  
Don't use big paragraphs


Wow. That is a lot of don'ts. And you know what they all boil down to? No writing at all. If you can't do anything listed above, then you can't tell a story at all now can you? If these rules were followed, your story would be a paragraph at best with your characters talking about nothing, and they would simply "say" everything.

So you know what I have to say about writing rules? Screw them. Don't even think about them at all when you're writing. If you follow the rules then you completely lose what fiction is supposed to be. Fiction is all about telling the truth as you see it and breaking all the rules to tell the story how it wants to be told. I mean, if everyone followed the "rules" of writing, everyone would write the same, which would mean reading would be boring and no one would have a favorite author.

My advice is to ignore all of these rules and write a story how it wants to come out. Maybe it wants to be written in a flowing artsy fashion. Maybe it wants to be terse and to the point. Maybe it wants to move at breakneck speed. Maybe it wants you to linger for a while within its pages. Whatever the case may be, always write the story how it wants to come out.

With that being said, every author does have their own no-no's they try to avoid when writing. Personally I think of none of mine when writing a first draft because it's the story that matters at that point, not the technique. For the majority of writers, their first draft is usually a piece of crap anyway, but that's why revisions were invented. 

When getting into the revision process, I do have things I begin to add or weed out. Mostly I add because I'm a skeleton writer and want to get the scenes out as quickly as possible so I can discover what happens next, so there usually isn't very much in the first draft that makes the characters and their world come alive for the reader. While doing revisions I tend to break almost every rule above in order to make my story come alive and do my best to make the reader feel like they're in the same world as the characters.

In subsequent posts I'll touch on each of the "Don'ts" listed above and why I agree and disagree with every single one. By no means do I claim to be an expert at fiction writing, and this is not a how-to on writing (Stephen King pretty much dominated that in his book ON WRITING). These are simply my humble thoughts and opinions on what I think constitutes good fiction, and readers are more than welcome to share their own and open up discussions.

Monday, May 14, 2012

To flick or not to flick

I heard on the radio not too long ago about a guy who flicked his three year old niece in the face because she was being mean to his new baby. Everyone who called into the radio station was outraged over this incident and said they would go over and beat the crap out of this guy. I don't see the huge deal.

Now, I don't think you should flick kids in the face, but in the big scheme of things it could have been worse. I mean, he could have punched her in the face. Or kicked her in the head. For that I would go beat the crap out of the guy. But flicking? No. I'd say, hey dude, can you not do that again? And that would be the end of it.

I don't have children, so maybe that's why I don't understand the significance of the event. Kids get annoying. Flicking hardly seems the worst thing you can do when they're being annoying and aren't listening. But like I said, since I don't have children I probably can't fathom the situation in its entirety.

So I started thinking, who would have to be flicked to provoke rage in me? If you flick my dogs, I won't mind, as long as you don't flick them in the eyes and you're not doing it to annoy them and you're doing it because they're doing something annoying, like incessantly licking you. If you flick one of the kids in my family, I'd say hey that's not cool, but I wouldn't freak out. If you flicked my better half or my parents, I wouldn't mind because they would handle the situation themselves. If you flicked my grandpa I wouldn't mind because he would rip your face off.

And then I got to my grandma. If you flicked my grandma I would go from mellow to enraged in half a second and be on the attack. Not because you hurt my grandma, but because my grandma is one of the sweetest, most kind and wise ladies I've ever known. If you flicked her, she'd say something like, "Go ahead, I can take the daggers you throw at me," and not do anything to retaliate. Which is exactly why I would freak out. You don't kick nice, wise old ladies.

So who would you freak out about if they were flicked?

I'm never taking the elevator again

I had to go downtown today for an interview for a really great job I'm hoping I'll get, but after my interview opener I'm thinking I'm not going to get a call back from them. Now I did everything I was supposed to do and made sure I looked my most professional, had several copies of my resume and references, and left way earlier than necessary to ensure I would arrive fifteen minutes early to my interview. I found parking right away, and quickly figured out where the suite was.


Now, I've developed a bit of a claustrophobia problem over the years. I'm not sure what caused it or how I could possibly be afraid of being in small spaces, but I am and I notice myself beginning to panic whenever I'm in smaller or overly crowded areas. Elevators are one place that causes this anxiety. I'm not one of those people who starts climbing the walls and screaming, "let me out," while running around like a mad person, but I do feel a bit of anxiety whenever I step into those death traps and try to take the stairs whenever I can.


 There were no stairs in the building I was in today (other than the fire escape stairs), so I got into the elevator and pushed the second floor button. The doors closed behind me, and I waited to be taken up to the second floor. And waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing. I figure the elevator must be broken, and press the button to open the door so I could find another elevator to take. Nothing happened. I pushed the door open button again. Nothing. After the 15th time I push the button I completely lose control. Instant panic sets in and I start sweating, my fingers are numb as I push every single button praying one of them will work. I can feel my face go numb from breathing too hard when all of my attempts to make this death trap do something fail. So I did the only other thing I could think to do. I start pounding on the door as hard as I can and yelling for someone to help. I try prying the doors apart. Nothing. No movement. No heroic rescue. No super act of strength to escape the damn thing. I'm about ready to climb on the handrails and shimmy out through a light fixture into the elevator shaft like they do on spy movies when my minuscule amount of logic sets in and I push the assistance button.


I stand and wait, hoping someone will answer. No one does, and I become convinced the devil is in the elevator waiting to get me just like in that one movie where five people are killed off one by one by Satan in a jammed elevator. I push it again. And again. And again. Silence. As soon as I say screw it and lift my foot to step on the handrail, the most beautiful, crackling static voice I've ever heard comes on.


"Can I help you?"


My voice comes out so fast and frantic the guy doesn't understand what the hell I said so I repeat myself. "Oh God yes! Please help me I'm trapped in this elevator and I'm going to climb out like a karate ninja cat in two seconds if I can't escape!"


"I'm sorry, did you say there's a cat trapped in the elevator?"


"No, I'm a cat trapped in the elevator." (This is what happens when you panic. You say idiot things like you're a cat in an elevator.)


"I'm sorry, your cat is trapped in the elevator?"


"No! There is no cat! I'm trapped in the elevator! Please have someone let me out."


"So there is no cat?"


"No! I'm trapped. Please come help me."


"Did you press the button for the floor you needed?"


"Yes. Nothing happened."


"Did you press the open door button?"


"Yes. It didn't work. The elevator isn't going anywhere and the door won't open."


"Are you sure?"


"Yes I'm sure. I know how to push buttons."


"Are you in the X lobby elevator?"


"Yes."


"That elevator is broken."


(Thank you, genius.)  "Yes I know, that's why I'm trapped in here now."


"Why did you go in there in the first place?"


"There was no sign to say it was broken and the door opened."


"You shouldn't have gone in there. That elevator is broken."


(The beautiful, crackling static voice is no longer the sweetest voice I've ever heard. It's now the dumbest. But at least my irritation is superseding my panic, so I guess it was a good thing Forest Gump was on duty today) "I know its broken. I know that! There was no sign and now I'm stuck in here. Can you send someone to open the door?"


"Maintenance isn't scheduled to come until Thursday."  (It's Monday today.)


"Okay, so how does that help me now?"


"Come back on Thursday when the elevator is in service."


"Are you kidding me? Did you not hear me say-"


And then the door opens. There's an older man in a business suite staring back at me from the lobby as crackling static voice asks me to repeat what I said. Older guy in a business suite gives me an odd look as I pick up my folder full of resumes and block him from coming into the elevator.


"The elevator is broken. You'll get trapped in there."


"Oh really," older suite guy says. "Why don't they have a sign on the door then?"


"I don't know. Can you point me to the stairs please?"


He does. After 17 minutes of being trapped in the elevator, I make it to my interview with five minutes to spare. My face is pale, I'm sweaty, and I'm sure my eyes look like a bush baby's because when the interviewer saw me she kind of frowned and gave me a weird look. I told her the elevator door malfunctioned and I was stuck in there for a few minutes with no air conditioner. She just goes, "hmm," and we begin the actual interview, which went really great except for the fact that I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm the biggest idiot in the world.



Thursday, May 10, 2012

Quotes on Writing

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. -Cyril Connolly-

For me, writing is exploration; and most of the time, I'm surprised where the journey takes me. -Jack Dann-

 Writing is a cop-out. An excuse to live perpetually in fantasy land, where you can create, direct and watch the products of your own head. Very selfish. -Monica Dickens-

For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word. -Catherine Drinker Bowen-

Neither man nor God is going to tell me what to write.
-James T. Farrell-


 Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing.-Melinda Haynes-

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it.-Leo Rosten-

Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it.
-Jesse Stuart-


  If you're a freelance writer and aren't used to being ignored, neglected, and generally given short shrift, you must not have been in the business very long.-Poppy Z. Brite-

 I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within. -Gustave Flaubert-

 A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public eye with his pants down. -Edna St. Vincent Millay-

All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.-George Orwell-

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.
-John Steinbeck-


Introducing Elinor Stone

My friend Elinor does stand up comedy as a hobby. Here's a newer video of one of her skits. I particularly love The Fuck It List.






You want how much?

While browsing through self published books on amazon yesterday, I noticed that some prices for eBooks were absolutely through the roof. I saw one kindle book listed at $25! Seriously, this pricing is just outrageous. You can't hold an Ebook in your hands, and there's no costs for paper and ink, so how can you possibly make it so expensive? For that price, I would expect that that book would be able to write my term papers, delete my junk email, and design a website for me.

Since eBooks are really kind of like imaginary creatures that only exist in that strange intangible world of computers, it seems ridiculous to make one so expensive, and it turns potential readers off. I mean, if no one has heard of you before and they see your $25 kindle book next to another unknown author with a $3 book, which one would you rather buy? Personally I don't think any electronic book should be over $5, unless your a wildly successful author like Stephen King. Even then these types of books shouldn't be anymore than $10. So please all of you authors who set your electronic books at insane prices, stop doing this. You're not helping yourself or anyone else.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

On a lighter note, I bought a couple of self published books today

I hopped onto Amazon and checked out the self published books this morning, and found two that looked pretty good.

The first one is  PEAR SHAPED by Mark Stubbs. It's about a guy in Australia looking for his wife's stripper friend that went missing. I read the first few pages and so far my impression is that the prose could be a bit better, but overall its pretty good and the story itself is compelling. Of course this is still too early in the game to really get a sense of the book, so we'll see what happens.

The second is WAYPOINT by K. Jared Mayer. I'm actually not quite sure what this one is about. From the description its about four different characters: an orphan boy, a con man, con man's friend, and a retired soldier. These four characters end up intertwining together as all four are on a mission to find whatever it is they're looking for in their lives. From the description its an action packed book with murder, conspiracy, corrupt government, car chases, and explosions. It sounds bad that I bought a book and don't have a good idea of what it's about, but I think this is going to be one of the best books I've read in a while. I liked the title and cover (it reminded me of the way station in Stephen King's THE GUNSLINGER) but of course these aren't things that really indicate if a book is any good or not. What got me was the writing itself. I read the sample pages and was totally hooked! There was absolutely no hesitation when I hit the purchase button, and I'm eager to read more of it even though I have a ton of work to do. I really wish it was available in paperback because I don't have a computer at the moment so I have to drive 45 minutes to use a family member's nor do I have any other electronic book reading device, and this is one of those novels I have a feeling I would end up reading until 2 in the morning even though I have to get up at six every day. Really looking forward to this one!

I think I'm out of my slob phase

So I realized a couple weeks ago that over the last six months I've become a total body slob. Oh there were certainly indicators along the way that let me know I was heading in the slob direction, but of course I ignored these because I didn't think it was that big of a deal because no one cares about my appearance as much as I do, and my lazy habits were justified because I'd been very busy and working a lot. But they were a big deal in the grand scheme of things because they lead me to one of those terrible epiphanies were you completely breakdown before actually doing anything about the problem.

It started with my hair. I've always been very much a tomboy and for the majority of my life my hair has been strangled in a ponytail. When I turned 20, that all changed and I began to actually style it on a regular basis. A few months ago I realized it was back in a ponytail every single day, and some days I didn't even bother to dry it before leaving the house. Then came the makeup. I've always been a minimalist when it comes to cosmetics since I'm a ginger and don't think I have one of those faces that actually looks good with a lot of makeup. And lets face it, one of the curses of being a redhead is that most eyeshadow colors look silly and we're pretty much stuck with bronze, brown, and gold anyway. But then I realized that I was only spending five seconds to messily swipe on mascara and that was it. Next came the nail polish. I had the same blue nail polish on my toes for two months (I know, gross!) when I used to do my nails at home every week during my hour long pamper time on Sundays.

The scale was the turning point (or the tipping point hahaha!!). Now I knew that I had been drinking too much, smoking too much, eating way too much junk food, drinking too much monster, and water consumption was pretty much non existent in my life, except of course for the morning after drinking too much. I had also pretty much stopped working out and was averaging maybe two days a month on the treadmill, which is very bad because I always liked working out and used to run an average of 20 miles a week, lifted weights, did yoga and pilates, swam, road my bike, went hiking a few times a month. All of this of course lead to my pants no longer fitting, and so more often than not I left the top button undone (since I couldn't button most of them) and wore my better half's t-shirts to hide my growing mass. All of these were bad signs, but like any addict I was in denial about my lazy slob lifestyle. Until I stepped on the scale.

My better half has been working his butt off for the last four months trying to work out and eat well, and has lost almost thirty pounds. Of course none of this rubbed off on me because "I was fine." But a couple weeks ago he stepped on our scale and gave himself a high five for having almost reached his goal weight. I thought, "hmm, I haven't weighed myself since my birthday last fall, I should see where I'm at because I think I've gained five pounds since then." (See how delusional I was? I couldn't even button my pants and thought it was due to a measly five pounds.) I had not gained five pounds since then. I had gained 20 pounds since then, which put me at the 135 mark. This is towards the top of the healthy weight range for my height, but still five pounds over what I said I would ever weigh unless I was growing a kid. My first reaction when I saw this figure was that our scale was broken. There was no way I could be that heavy. I mean, I've always weighed under 120 for Pete's sake!

So I went out and stepped on a half a dozen different scales at the Kohl's down the street. They all said the same thing, which meant that there was a conspiracy going on and someone was jacking up all the scales, or that I really had gained 20 pounds. I knew it was the latter, so I went home and did what any girl would do. I pigged out on half the Jack in the Box menu while watching Bridget Jones's Diary (my depression movie that always makes me feel empowered) and got rip roaringly drunk with Sailor Jerry. The next day I decided to do something about it.

Here I am almost two weeks later, and I think I'm out of my laziness spell. I still eat a lot of garbage, but make a conscious effort to eat at least one healthy meal a day, which I'm really glad I'm doing not only for my health but because I also re-discovered how much I truly enjoy salads. And no, I'm not just saying that, spinach salads really are one of my favorite dishes. I make myself drink a gallon of water every day (sounds like a lot but its really not considering the temperature outside is in the triple digits and its not even our hot season yet) which has automatically reduced my Monster consumption to half a can a day if that. And I make sure I work out at least three days a week. In that two weeks I've lost 12 pounds and feel so much better. It's awesome that I lost that much so quickly considering I always eat when I'm hungry and still have a nasty jalapeno popper and pizza roll habit, but it's also kind of sad in a way. Losing that much weight so quickly without going on a starvation diet or working out for more than 45 minutes a day means that I was consuming way, way, WAY too many calories everyday that my body didn't need.

This morning I tried on all of my jeans. A couple pairs fit great, most I can now button but still have a bit of a muffin top, and I can even squeeze my super skinny jeans over my butt though it would still take an act of God to actually zip them up let alone button them. I've also gone back to making sure I do my hair and makeup every day, and that I spend my one hour a week doing my whole at home spa treatment. I'm not back to my old fighting shape yet, but I'm almost there with only 8 pounds to go, which I'm hoping I'll be able to shed by our San Diego trip in July.

Anyway, I was very proud of myself for getting out of this rut, and was curious to hear about similar stories from others. Has anyone else had a phase like this in their life? If so, what was your turning point and how did you get out of it?

Thanks everyone, hope this post inspires some healthier habits today.

Monday, May 7, 2012

What is my goal?

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about self publishing, and so many of the rock stars of the solo publishing world have suggested to make a clear, defined goal of what you want out of your writing endeavours. Hmm... That's a really good question, because I've never thought about what I truly wanted out of my writing. Really for me its always been about creating a good story, making it the best it can be, and looking forward to hearing the readers who have read my work say "I really loved it when..." or "Can you write a sequel? Because that was awesome!" But now that I am looking to become a published author, I really should have some goals in place for both my books and my website. So after several weeks of really thinking about the question of, "what are your goals?" I think I finally know what I want.


First and foremost, I want to tell a good story and write it well, because writing itself is what all this is about. Its something I'll continue to do whether I become financially successful from it or not, because its part of who I am, and its something that has always brought me happiness even in the darkest of times. So above all, I want to create good works of fiction.


Second comes the other side of writing: reading. After the countless hours I've done on researching self publishing vs traditional publishing, self publishing is the route I want to go, and now that I'm getting knee deep into actually having a finished product out there, I have so much more respect for those that do self publish. And, I've read a few self published books that no agent or traditional publisher wanted to touch, and it made me so sad to think that I never would have found these talented writers with wonderful stories to tell if they hadn't gotten it out there themselves because the traditional gate keepers thought their work "wasn't right for them" or "this won't sell." Showed you wrong because I bought it, and one of those books I had no idea was self published before I bought it. So the second goal of this is to find other indie authors and spread the word about their great books. After all, who doesn't like sharing thoughts and opinions on great books with friends?


Third comes the business side. Realistically, I would consider myself a roaring success if I could earn a steady couple hundred bucks a month from my books and this website. I have no delusions about becoming one of those top earning authors who never has to have a day job again because I make so much from writing, but of course sales are a sort of indicator of success, and everyone wants to be successful while having fun. And really, I think $200 a month from a website and book sales is a realistic goal I could achieve.


So there you have it, my writing goals. I think most authors have the same goals whether they're aware of them or not, because really its all about telling a story the best you know how, sharing stories you love that were written by others, and hopefully making a little extra money on the side for your hard work. What do you think?

To Do List

Since I have a major ADD problem when it comes to writing, I decided it might be best if I make a goals/to-do list to keep on target over the next month. Otherwise I'm going to flip from project to project, surf the internet, read a book I shouldn't, watch Ted Tv, whatever. So here is my lofty list I hope to accomplish by June, but this is going to be difficult because I'm going back to work full time, starting summer school, and May is filled with Mother's Day, a million birthdays, and graduations. So hopefully by making this list I'll stick to my top priorities and finish at least those before June comes along.


The List

1. Publish G-157

2. Make 30 blog posts

3. Finish writing THE SLEDGEHAMMER CLUB

4. Finish 1st revisions on THE SLEDGEHAMMER CLUB

5. Review 5 self published books by other authors

6. Submit 3 more short stories for publication

7. Finish second revisions on THE SLEDGEHAMMER CLUB

8. Start first revisions (actually more like 7th revisions since this is a novel I worked on 6 years ago and then just trunked it) on DECEPTIONS

9. Start writing THROWING BONES

10. Organize my blog

This is an insane amount of work to finish by the end of the month, but I'm going to bust my booty to try to get it done!

Sunday, May 6, 2012

It's Finally Finished!!

I've finally finished my final revisions on my novel. It's been prettied up, edited, typed and printed for what feels like the 100th time. Sending it to a couple more readers to be sure that the kinks are all worked out and typos are caught. Then comes the final read through and the really scary part, actually sending it out into the world. So far I've gotten good reviews back from it, and hope once I publish it that anyone who reads it will enjoy it and look forward to my future novels.


This novel is about a girl who lives in a "perfect society," meaning its perfect except for the fact that no one can leave and people are "recruited" by the military any time they get a little out of hand or break the rules. I'm working on the final touches for the description with some very esteemed colleagues, and will be posting the final version next week.


I think the hardest part of writing this story was the title, which is strange because that should be the easy part. I've gone through a half a dozen different titles, none of which seemed to really fit what the story was, and ultimately I decided on G-157. It's what I'd call a literary novel with a dash of science fiction, since I kind of stink at classifying the genre of my own work. Just to give you an idea of G-157, the idea of its alternate reality falls along the lines of BRAVE NEW WORLD and 1984, although of course no one can touch the brilliance and art of Huxley and Orwell.


Anyway, I'm really looking forward to sharing my new work with everyone, and while I know some people won't like it, because you can't please everyone, I hope the majority of you enjoy it. I'm also glad in a way that its finished so I can get back to work on finishing up writing my other novel THE SLEDGEHAMMER CLUB, and going through more revisions for my other novel DECEPTIONS. But of course it completing a project there's always a lingering sense of sadness, because it signals the ending of my journy into another world, which is why it always takes me freaking forever to finish a stage of something because I don't want to really end my story.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

What happened to us, Calculus?

At the beginning our relationship was perfect. We talked and laughed and spent quality time together really building our foundations into what was sure to be a beautiful boost to our academic career. We had so much fun, and I could tell the love between us was real because you and I were discovering how the world worked together. Everyone said we made the perfect couple and gave us an A plus.


But then something happened. I don't know what I did, but you became distant, refusing to speak to me no matter how hard I tried to please you. I could feel our beautiful relationship slipping from above average to just average. I tried to give you some space. I tried to make more time for you. I even tried to get us to open up the lines of communication again by taking us to counseling, yet you still refuse to speak to me. No matter how many counselors try to get you to open up to me at the tutoring center, you still refuse to work with me. For weeks I would lay in bed at night thinking, was it something I said? Did I do something wrong? Am I not good enough for you?


Now I realize something. It's not me, it's you. It's all you. I've tried so hard to make our relationship work, and what have you done? Huh? You know what you've done to get our relationship back on track? Nothing! That's right, absolutely nothing! All you do is sit there and stare back at me from the open pages of your 8th edition house with your condescending definitions and multitudes of letters and imaginary numbers that don't mean anything because you have an inferiority complex and insist on making everyone around you feel stupid to cover up your own insecurities. Find the arc angle of x? Screw you! Find your own damn arc angle of x! Why the hell did you lose the arc angle of x in the first place? Oh, that's right, because you're completely irresponsible and immature, that's why you want me to do everything for you and you don't give anything back. You're selfish! You're a selfish lazy jerk who sits around all day doing nothing while I do absolutely everything around here. Well you know what? I have had enough of solving your problems for you. I'm done. You need to man up and figure these things out for yourself.


I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Look, I know we've had some fights, and sometimes when our relationship was put to the test we failed miserably. But I'm not giving up on you. I can't. We're too involved now, and I'm determined to give this one last shot before our last day together next week. So please, please try to at least meet me in the middle on this one. I know we can have something great together that others will be jealous of, but I need you to work with me here. Just know that no matter what happens, we will be together again in the fall. Sure we may have to go right back to where we started at the beginning of the year, but I'm hoping that when August comes around we can take our relationship to the next level. Don't you want that? Don't you want us to soar into high level engineering together? I do, and I'm hoping you'll take these words to heart and open up a little. Please, do it for me. After all the time we spent together it's the least you could do.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

I've decided

So I went back over my literary/sci-fi novel and I think it's darn near perfect to how I want it written. I'm putting the finishing touches on it this week, and have decided that my deadline is Friday of next week to launch it. I've been working on this project trying to get the tone right and speed along the story since those darn characters just love talking. But at this point in the game I think it's where it needs to be and has been written how it wants to be told. I'm so excited to finally be putting my work out there, but at the same time am absolutely terrified. This is where that Nike mentality comes in and I have to just do it.


I'm also working on another dark story, and have almost finished writing it, and then of course comes those oh so lovely revisions and edits. Hoping to have that one out by the 4th of July, but we'll see what happens with all the craziness going on around here lately. Anyway, I'm glad to finally get my butt moving on my lit/sci-fi novel, and can't wait to actually hold the book in my hands.