Have you ever had one of those days? The alarm didn't go off and you wake up five minutes before you have to leave the house so you jump in the shower, brush your teeth and head out the door only to discover you forgot your breakfast but no worries because there is a coffee cart in the lobby that sells coffee AND pastries. You arrive at work late anyways thanks to horrendous traffic and discover the coffee cart guy is home sick. No coffee, no breakfast. You sit at your desk obsessing over lunch but then you remember you have a meeting that is going to run right through it - so no lunch yet. You try to ignore your rumbling stomach during the meeting, watching the clock and counting down the minutes until it is over and you can dash to the cafe next door for a takeout sandwich. Not having the energy to take the stairs, you opt for the elevator. The doors close, the elevator starts down and...STOPS. You're stuck. And there is no phone. You push the ringer for an hour before someone realizes what that annoying noise is. When you get to the cafe, you discover they've gone out of business after 15 years...
"A protagonist should not gain anything easily." - Les Edgerton, "Hooked"
Your protagonist should have days like this. Weeks even. As a writer, I have so much fun getting in my main character's way. Just when she thinks she is home free, I throw up a road block. I take the wind out of her sails, then make it clear skies with no wind in sight for weeks. She's forced to paddle, which works until she can see the shore, then I break that oar. You might think she could just jump out and swim, but she never had lessons. Or maybe she had lessons, but when she jumps in, the current takes her far down stream from where she needs to be. You get the idea. For me, the best part of writing is giving my protagonist "Oh, I don't believe THIS is happening" moments. I enjoy doing the same for my antagonist! Throw her a rope to help her climb out of that hole, then have it rub against the sharp rocks until it breaks, plunging her farther down.
If you haven't read "Hooked," I highly recommend it. Les Edgerton covers everything you need to know to write a beginning that will hook your readers (and agents and editors!). I just finished it and will be employing what I read in my next round of rewrites. I'm very excited about it! And anything that can get us excited about our rewrites has to be a good thing, right?
"Down the stairs two at a time, down to the kitchen to terrorize the stove, which heard her coming and was desperately trying to light itself before she came through the door." - Septimus Heap: Magyk by Annie Sage
I read this last night in bed and thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice if the kitchen heard ME coming in the morning? The coffee in the regular coffee maker already appears thanks to technology, but if I want to leave the house with a vanilla latte in hand, that requires ME doing the work. So what if the kitchen heard me get up? My husband says everyone and everything is terrified of me so I would think every appliance in that room would be as well. The oven turns on and makes my pumpkin muffins so they are fresh out of the oven while the espresso maker begins my vanilla latte - how wonderful that would be! Unfortunately, it doesn't happen that way so I pack my muffins the night before and make the extra time in the morning for that nonfat vanilla latte that gets me animated enough to capture the kid's attention (and keep it!) while I teach them about City Wildlife, Dog Bite Prevention and Responsible Pet Ownership.
If I could truly have one magical item in the house, I think it would be the vacuum cleaner! I could come home to clean floors EVERY DAY! Without having to plug it in and push it around myself. Rather than dusting, the vacuum cleaner would turn itself on and use one of the attachements to go over the furniture (coffee table, end tables, entertainment center, couch, chairs, etc.). Just having that one magical item in the house would save me so much time!
Jennifer Hillier had a funny post this week listing ten things she didn't care about so I got the idea from her. (If you haven't checked out her blog, you are missing out! Her debut novel, CREEP, comes out July 2011. You can read about it here.) She AND her site (AND her book) are all kinds of awesome!
Ten Things I Don't Care About (as opposed to the lollipop in that picture, which I obviously cared very much about):
1) Jennifer Aniston (who she's dating this week, who she's getting over this week, who she's getting under this week, none of it).
2) Police Pursuits. I live in Los Angeles so every channel will cover the same chase. EVERY channel. Even ones you didn't know had news. Just shoot the guy already and get me back to my regularly scheduled program.
3) Sarah Palin.
4) Whether or not Barack Obama is Muslim.
5) Reality TV. If you don't care that you look like a tool in front of millions of people, why should I?
6) True Blood. Just kidding. I care way more than I want to admit.
7) Your honors student.
8) Farmville. Please stop asking me to be your neighbor.
9) Rules. Made to be broken. Or bent. (Please note that I said rules and not LAWS).
10) Which celebrity is headed to rehab for what addiction this week.
What are some of the things you could care less about?
It's WEDNESDAY! I've rubbed the cat tree and our magical has appeared, ready to grant your three wishes! Use them wisely!
Here are my wishes for the week:
1) Balance - I have a big presentation for a troubled teen home that I am preparing for next week. Yes, in the middle of my rewrite goal, I booked a presentation with Lily. While the presentation already exists, I'm actually transferring it all to PowerPoint. With loads of pictures. Did I mention it has to be ready by next Wednesday night? Sigh. I did this to myself. I really could use the flip board and the teens are much more excited to spend time with Lily than to listen to me, but this is important to me because I will be able to use this new PowerPoint to educate adult groups and typical high school students as well. If only I wasn't such a perfectionist. Sometimes I think I create stress because I'm most comfortable when I'm crazy busy. Go figure. Oh, and I don't have the weekend because we'll be out of town. Good times!
2) Organized Office - I want to come home and have it completely organized. It's the one room in the house that has me completely flummoxed. Aside from the file cabinet that I have so anally organized so that I can reach any bill, medical form, etc. in a snap, the rest of the office feels like it is slowly starting to spill over into the rest of the space. I'm trying to find room for all my Paws and Learn stuff (student handouts, teacher handouts, props, ideas for future articles/blog posts, articles to include in future presentations), my scrapbooking (though I haven't done a thing in almost three years now) and my writing (four different journals, manuscripts, etc.). I'm not digging the system that I have at the moment. It's organized, but it isn't working the way I thought that it would. I'm running out of room for my writing as well. I want a Magic Office Genie to spin around my office, papers flying in her wake, then have everything magically where it would work best for me when she stops with a flourish of her arms.
3) Cooler weather! I'm such a baby when it comes to the heat. I much prefer the winter. I love overcast days where you can feel the chill through the windows. I love to snuggle up with Lily on the couch, rock my laptop and write while my Balsam Fir candle fills the room with the smell of the forest. I love hot chocolate and cold noses and rain drops and big sweaters and fires roaring in the fireplace. I love the sound of a good storm - thunder booming and shaking, rain tapping on the window panes. I'm over summer already and this is only the second warm day we've had in L.A.! While my husband longs for more of this weather (the man comes home and RUNS in 90+ degree weather!), I long for late October when the cool weather drifts back through SoCal. However, I will settle for 70 degree weather instead. Heck, I'll even be okay if it hits 80 degrees! Just not more than that, please.
What about you? What are your three wishes for Wednesday this week?
When I was a little girl, I looked forward to trips to the library. I would spend hours at our small local one, wandering among the stacks of books. Sometimes mom would set a time limit and I would have to dash around, grabbing as many books as I could before we had to go. My brothers would have one book each while I would show up at the counter looking much like the little girl above. Oh, how I loved to read. I still do.
I have a stack of books next on my bedside table just waiting to be devoured. I have two on writing:On Writing by Stephen Kingand Hooked by Les Edgerton.
I am currently devouring The Necromancer by Michael Scott. Still on the pile waiting to be read:
City of Glass by Cassandra Clare Magyk by Angie Sage The Sky Always Hears Me: And the Hills Don't Mind by Kristin Cronn-Mills
I can hear them whispering to me. Each one wants to be next! But...but...but...
I think this one jumps to the TOP of the pile!
I am loaded up with books and happy as that little ten year old was running through my small town library! I do have a writing goal for the week, though. I can't allow all this delicious reading to get in the way of that. What's a girl to do? I'm using reading as a REWARD! Get that rewriting done and you get to spend your time READING!
My best friend Mel bought this for me. She's always bringing me anti-bacterial hand sanitizer. Kids are germy and I cringe as I'm teaching Dog Bite Prevention at the number of kids picking their nose that will soon be "petting" my dog puppet. I even had a girl vomit, wipe it off her chin and then pet the puppet as she passed me on the way out of the classroom. Lysol is also my friend. I carry a pocket Lysol that cleans the puppet after certain extensive nose picking and vomiting classes. I use my PocketBac as soon as I'm done at the grocery store (or any public place for that matter). Laugh if you must, but I haven't been sick in over a year. Granted, the last thing I had was H1N1, but that was only because some rude person who had it coughed on me throughout a midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. If he had been seated elsewhere in the theater, I wouldn't have gotten it thanks to my trusty PocketBac. But I'm completely off topic here...The point of this blog was...
THE JOYS OF CLEAN!
Nothing thrills my little heart more than clean - clean house, clean car, clean hands and now, a clean manuscript! This week I am buckling down, pulling out the pen and using it like that Vampire Blood PocketBac. I'm going to get all those little germies out. I plan to chunk it and finish the cleansing of the first third by the end of the week. That gives me until next Sunday to sanitize the first 100 pages.
Anyone care to join me in setting a writing goal this week? You don't have to be cleaning like I am! You can be starting a shiny new idea!
If you're interested in the PocketBacs - Bath and Body Works has their Halloween line out, which is where Mel got this one.
I am an Humane Education teacher & writer living in Burbank, California. I left television production almost a decade ago to pursue my passion - animals. Along the way, I snagged myself a super handsome, extremely patient and very supportive husband. We rescued three cats - Ol' One Eye Pip, Eowyn the Snow Leopard and Wednesday the Butt. We also ended up with an American Staffordshire Terrier pup, Lily. I co-founded my own non-profit (Paws and Learn Humane Education Center) and spend three days a week in the schools educating kids about kindess to animals, dog bite prevention, city wildlife, pet overpopulation and responsible pet ownership. I love my job, but I also love to write. I spend my spare time writing and daydreaming. I love the outdoors and enjoy hikes with my hubby, friends and our dogs! Life is what we make of it and I am making the most of mine.
