the pain of the cure

I've heard it said that drug addicts will not personally seek help until the pain of continuing their addiction is greater than the pain of the cure. So you can lead a horse to water but unless the horse is dying of dehydration, it won't drink.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I struggled with my lack of writing. I've been on Christmas break since the 17th [granted we were out of town until the 19th for our anniversary] and I had promised myself that I would write during the break. Last semester was insane and I seem to be attempting to kill myself with my schedule for next semester so this three week break is kind of the all or nothing for four months. But I wasn't writing.

To be honest, I haven't written anything in a few months really and while Sam has maintained his patient spot at the back of my mind, I was having a hard time making time in my do-nothing vacation days to even make an attempt. I had even been blessed recently with a completely new idea that latched onto my imagination in an infuriating way that suggested exciting possibilities while posing heaps and heaps of questions that I still don't know how to answer yet. I had purchased a new notebook on the last day of finals for the express purpose of devoting it to this new idea, a ritual I seem to have, but I hadn't dared put pen to paper yet. The idea of sitting down and going to the task has been weighing on my mind the past two days like a guilty and disappointed conscience. Yesterday, the mental torment finally reached a level that I could not stand any longer. I tried to avoid it with internet distractions and other things but I could settle on anything and finally I pulled out the notebook and began.

I just finished reading Little Women for the first time [I know, what's wrong with me?] and Amy's assertion that talent is not genius and one cannot make it so has been haunting my brain, further undermining my small attempts to write but I am now determined to set out on this new idea whether or not it proves to be genius because really, if I'm writing with the intent of being hailed a genius I'll never write anything worth reading!

If any of you are in a similar fix, whether it be motivation to write or some other such difficulty, take heart and remember that we can only take one step at a time and that step doesn't have to be perfect. We'll make mistakes, heaven knows my writing is littered with them, but life wouldn't be worth living if we got everything just right the first time.

Goodness, that's a sermon isn't it? Well, in an attempt to lighten the mood, and perhaps make myself more accountable for this new goal by sharing it with you, I'll give you a bit of what I wrote yesterday. It's not much but feel free to give feedback.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --

     The excitement that had flashed across my skin moments before was gone and I felt cold in its absence. I stared at the mark, my first, nestled next to the freckle on my left wrist that Gareth always said looked like a bean though I said it was a butterfly. I could feel the mark being etched into my eyes but I had stopped seeing it.
     Don't panic.
     Breath in.
     Don't panic.
     Breath out.
     Don't panic.

     "Mona. Mona are you done yet?" Lauren called from the hallway, banging on the door and making me jump. I choked back a scream and instinctively clasped my right hand over the mark on my wrist, glancing at the door handle. Locking it had always been habit, one that I was now more than grateful for as I saw it being turned back and forth.
     Don't panic.
     "Other people need to wash too, you know!"
     I could hear my sister's foot tapping on the other side of the door, impatient as ever. I dressed as fast as my clumsy hands would allow, tripping into my leggings and trying to fit my head down the wrong hole in my shirt and tunic.
     "I'm coming!" I cringed at the tremble in my voice and almost reached out as if to catch it back but my sister had sharp ears.
     "Are you okay?" The question was four parts concern, one part suspicion. I wished she had kept yelling.
     In my hurry to open the door and escape an inquisition I knocked it into her, standing as she was a nose away from it.
     "I'm fine," I said, pushing past her with eyes down, tugging my sleeves down to my fingertips and willing my voice to be clear and unwavering. "Sorry about the door. Bathroom's all yours."

skyfall

Today I want to talk about a movie. Hey, screenwriters are writers too and if they don't provide some of the most public examples of good and bad writing then you haven't been watching your films close enough!

Tim and I saw Skyfall last Friday. He's been dying to see it since the trailers started coming out but I was rather less excited. Confession: up until last month I had never seen a James Bond movie in my life [MI: Ghost Protocol was also my first experience with MI. I don't think it was supposed to be as funny as I found it but hey, I like a comedy.]. I know, light the torches, send the condolence cards and all that. I guess I had a sheltered childhood :P Anyway, a few weeks ago we watched Casino Royal [the new one] with the wise intention of educating me at least on the basics of the Bond saga before venturing into its newest installment.

That being said, I approached Skyfall with anticipation and came away almost entirely satisfied. It's an action movie that actually has a plot, the actors are brilliant [do you think Judi Dench would be my children's godmother?], the dialogue was witty and engaging.

The first, and least substantial bone for me was when they completely destroyed his house. Honestly, tears were shed. My main complaint is the women. Before you start throwing those lit torches through my living room window, le'mme e'splain [<-side note: exhibit A as to why you do NOT write exactly the way people speak].

There are several characteristics that make James Bond, well, James Bond. He's a legend of sorts and people expect to see those traditional characteristics. Can you imagine how confusing it would be if every actor had completely re-written the character? That's be like the current Spider-man train wreck and heaven knows we don't need more of those [though the newest movie was a vast improvement]. Basically, "womanizer" is probably one of the top 3 characteristics most people think of when they think James Bond. It's become more than an activity he commonly engages it, it's now a behavioral characteristic, like something he can't help or avoid doing because, dude, he's James Bond. Now, our characters need to have distinguishable traits to be identifiable and even relate-able so while you'll never hear me condoning Bond's promiscuous activities, I understand the part they play.

So what's the big deal in Skyfall? Well, today I want to discuss the unfortunate practice performed by writers the world over of including actions, dialogue, and scenes that have little to no relevance to the plot simply because the reader or viewer may have become accustomed to such interchanges in previous installments. Basically, I felt that the womanizing portions of Skyfall, especially those in the very beginning, are completely extraneous and unnecessary. We know Bond likes to have passionate sexual relations with women so I think it could have been safely assumed that he pursued such relationships while "dead." Considering he was obviously unhappy with his "dead" lifestyle, the initial scene was irrelevant [as he has obviously not entered into any exclusive/fulfilling relationship since falling off the map] and distracting.

I'm struggling to really articulate myself here but the basic idea I wanted to get across is that we shouldn't be including anything in our stories that doesn't tie directly in to a story. If you want to take a look at prolific and revered writers, the absence of extraneous information and scenes is something that should stick out to you as a common factor. In Casino Royale, Bond's relationship played an absolutely vital roll to the plot as well as to his future character development, providing an explanation for his future distrust of women and lack of a desire for a real relationship. That, I can appreciate. In Skyfall, though, [I can't vouch for the other films] Bond's sexual encounters seemed more like a crutch, a not-so-subtle nod to what many see as an essential part of the legend if not the actual character.

We shouldn't be using props. In my opinion, Bond would still have been Bond if they hadn't shown him sleeping with attractive women because his character is so much more than that, so much deeper, especially with the introduction of the back story that we find in Skyfall. Because of the exploitation of this sexual aspect of his character I actually lost some respect for the fill and its quality declined some for me. Strong stories are founded on and propelled by strong characters, of which Bond is one. But we have collectively [don't you deny that public opinion influences a franchise this old and extensive] allowed Bond, in some ways, to be reduced to his parts. His sexual behavior, specifically, seems to have become almost a separate entity that surfaces almost separately from the character and story.

I still think Skyfall is a fantastic movie, there is so much to praise in it and I would gladly see it again. I just think it's worth paying attention to the ways in which we let individual characteristics or perceived expectations of our audiences to become paramount over the story and character as a whole. The books and films that truly inspire us are those that have great parts but of which the whole is greater than the sum of them, not the other way around.

pace yourself, please

On Monday I realized that I have no homework due until after Thanksgiving break so what did I do? Read an entire book in one sitting of course! Guys, I haven't read a novel since the summer at which time I was downing those things like water. It's been a long drought.

I was originally looking for some picture books in my college library when I picked up The Runaway Princess and The Aviary. I have since finished both books but as I read The Runaway Princess first I'll start there.

                                                
If you're looking for a fun, silly book with loads of characters, most all lovable, moderately witty dialogue, and a heaping ton of potential this may be the book for you. Princess Meg is not your ordinary princess content to sit in a tower and swoon while princes dash off in search of adventure, victory, treasure, and her hand in marriage as a reward for winning the contest her father has set up. Meg makes her way out of her tower prison with the help of some friends and sets off to win the contest herself! I'm terrible at giving book summaries without ruining the plot so if you're curious about this story of a princess who decides to take her fate into her own hands, go ahead and check out the amazon link :P

*Disclaimer: The Runaway Princess is billed as a middle grade book. The critique that follows hereafter probably leans a little heavy for such a young age bracket but there are some things I am not willing to sacrifice simply due to age range and in this case, either you can keep the plot as is and cut characters or you can fully develop your characters for a book that kicks more butt. I am in favor of the latter.

Now, I did honestly enjoy reading this. While a portion of that comes from the fact that I probably would have enjoyed anything if it was the first book I'd read after almost three months without a novel, the book isn't a bad one. I was duly refreshed by Coombs' take on the damsel not-so-much in distress and Meg's character isn't hard to like but I feel like Coombs fell prey to a problem that many authors fall into [including myself]: she tried to do too much too fast. Sometimes, when writers are early in their career [I could be mistaken but I think this was her first novel], there is this curious pressure at the back of the mind telling you to get the story down on paper as fast fast fast as you can, get everything out before the reader loses interest! It is easy to feel like any time spent describing anything at all takes too much time and that if you don't move from action to action to climax like lightning, your audience will get bored. I've seen this with my own and others' writing rather often in classes I've taken and the conversations usually go the same way:
Reader: I get the idea of what's going on here but I have no idea why your character is doing this, why they said that, what this has to do with the bigger picture. The whole thing is a bit confusing to me and I feel like you rush through it.
Author: Well, he/she did/said that because of [something the author knows contextually and historically about the character but has never been said in the text] and they're doing that because [something the author knows contextually and historically about the character/plot but has never been said in the text].
Reader: Okay...that makes more sense now but you never said that and this scene doesn't tell me any of that. How am I supposed to know?

As writers, we get to know our characters very well and there is always going to be a certain amount of information you retain in your mind but never share with the reader in the text [have you seen any of those interviews with J.K.Rowling?] but there are many things the reader has to know. It can be so easy to fill in the blanks in your mind, to rush through and throw down just the bare bones of a story because your mind holds it all in its completeness but the reader's doesn't. And when you fail to give enough background, enough depth to characters, enough development to make your characters concrete, your reader has to start employing a lot of suspension of belief, let me tell you.

Coombs has amazing characters and a lot of fun wit to share but in rushing through the story she never really developed any of them, hardly pausing to even introduce a handful that then, confusingly, continue on with the rest throughout the book. When I finished I really wanted to know more about the independent princess, her gardener friend, the precocious little wizard, the twin princes, and the bandits. The first thought in my head was that this book would be an amazing starting point for someone to build on. Not, I think, exactly what an author would want their readers to be thinking when they finished their novel.
If you want a fun, silly read that has some really original twists and fantastic lines like: "there is always time for hot cocoa," I do recommend this book. Enjoy the characters and humor and maybe even take away some budding inspiration for your own fairy-tale adventure :)

On to The Aviary. This is a book I want for Christmas.
                                               
I'm not typically your supernatural kind of girl. I don't read a lot of ghost stories, though I am a fan of a good mystery which is probably why I picked this book up. Clara is the daughter of the Glendoveer's housekeeper. She's lived a secluded life in the old mansion that once housed a world-famous musician and his family. Now all that's left is the magician's widow and an aviary of assorted birds that frighten Clara with their unusual racket every time she comes near. Clara avoids the birds whenever she can but when, one day, one of the birds calls out "Elliot!" Clara is drawn into a decades-old mystery full of secrets, tragedy, intrigue, and ambitious plots to discover the truth. O'Dell's book is not your typical ghost story, or your typical mystery though it does combine these with a fantastical touch of magic. It takes place in a historical setting where the language and times are more formal. It is intriguing, then that in this dated setting we find a compelling coming of age story centered on a young girl who has known only women her entire memorable life. Clara has been kept indoors as long as she can remember, forbidden by her mother to exert herself, let alone do normal childhood things like attend school. When she is drawn into the mystery of the Glendoveer's kidnapped and drowned children she has to find the strength within herself and develop ties of trust in a new friendship in order to win the day.

Let's be honest, I couldn't put the book down. O'Dell's approach to the fancifulness and mystic is smooth enough that whether you believe in ghosts or not, you can imagine and step into Clara's world entirely. Clara's world, existing almost solely within the old house, is nonetheless rich with detail and its own mysteries. It is inspiring to think of the things and memories that exist in your own home that you may never have noticed. I particularly enjoyed the way O'Dell constructed the mystery in the plot. The reader learns things all along the way with Clara, it's not one of those constant suspense books in the sense that little answers are given and discovered throughout the book so that by the end you have almost a complete picture of what happened to the Glendoveer's children. There are no cliche'd M. Night Shyamalan twists here. What you do find is wonderful character development, convincing and, at times, gripping descriptions of the anxiety, fear, and sorrow that thread through the book. I stand with Daphne in her conclusion that Clara's life may well be more exciting than any I've yet lived. Perhaps I should shut myself up in an old mansion?

The dialogue in Aviary is wonderful, each character's voice delightfully distinct and consistent. While the pacing is quick, it fits better for this story than it did for Runaway Princess, I think because Aviary is a mystery/suspense story where timing and the feeling of time slipping through ones fingers in paramount. For my taste, there is also just the right balance between fancy and all-get-out creepy as Clara discovers dusty clues to lead her down the proverbial rabbit hole.

Overall, I enjoyed seeing Clara grow from a timid, unhappy girl with little in the way of confidence to a courageous, strong young woman who finds justice for those long since able to seek it themselves. Goodness that sounds dramatic, but I suppose it is, in a good way. So if you're looking for a historical mystery with a touch of  the supernatural and a healthy dose of strong female protagonist, I definitely recommend the Aviary as a future read.

how do you keep secrets?

Within the last two days I have become party to two rather exciting but personal secrets. Both people have requested that I keep their news on the "DL" which I am more than happy to do. Unfortunately, I had unwittingly shared one secret before I knew it was meant to be a secret. Now, I didn't go spreading it around like the town gossip and I doubt it actually made any lasting impression on those I shared it with but it brought the question to mind: how do you keep a secret? And how do you decide which ones to keep?

My mother would always reprimand us for a lack of tact and/or discretion when it came to certain topics. Some of the time I didn't understand what the big deal was about sharing some information with other people. I do have my lines when it comes to sharing secrets, I guess my lines may just be situation-coded.

So, debates about my trustworthiness aside, how do you keep a secret? How good are you at keeping secrets? Do you have different levels of secret keeping or would you keep any secret anyone ever told you, no matter what? What about your MC? Are they on the straight and narrow or do they bend, or break some of those rules of trust? Do they have lines? What are they? How willing would they be to break bonds of trust if they thought it might be in the best interest of the other party?

can you bake a pie? no? neither can I.

Okay, well, actually I can bake pies, but that's not the point. This past week my husband was ill and so, being at home as he was for long stretches of time for recuperation purposes, he happened upon some Netflix viewing, Cake Boss in particular. He became terribly interested in cake baking and decorating, having had limited prior experience with it. So this weekend he took it upon himself to bake a cake from scratch and try his hand at making and using fondant.

[warning, this post may contain excessive use of sarcastic humor]

I've never made fondant personally and I've never been a terribly great fan of the way it tastes but apparently it tastes nasty because bakers use almond extract in it which tastes like road-kill and is actually optional. Turns out you can use whatever extract you like instead as it's just for flavoring. So why on earth do bakers use eau de death when they could use something awesome like vanilla or even root beer extract? Who knows. Maybe it's that final "in your face" moment when you realize you just paid $1,700 for cake.

Anyway, it never got down to deciding between vanilla or root beer for us because to make legit fondant you need glycerin which is obviously only available at specialty bakery stores which for some reason don't exist in Provo. We're in Utah. Mormon-ville central. Perhaps the crafty capitol of the United States. How are there no specialty bakery stores here?! Someone should look into that. So, stuffing my husband's partially crushed dreams under a rug as delicately as possible, we took up Plan 2 which was making fondant the slightly less legit way, using marshmallows. Do you want to know the ingredients in marshmallow fondant? Marshmallow, a teeny tiny bit of water, and powdered sugar. Our recipe called for about 3 cups. Say hello to my lil' friend: we call him diabetes.

It should also be noted that, having decided to color the fondant red, we quickly discovered that our food coloring is not manly enough to actually make the color red [I call false advertising!]. So, despite using approximately 21 drops of food coloring, we ended up with an absolutely lovely shade of pink which reminds us fondly of Tim's niece Catherine who has a penchant for Disney princesses and all things pink. Don't worry though, there is so much sugar in this fondant that even with the addition of an excessive amount of food color which is second in taste only to almond extract, it still tastes exactly like marshmallows. Ah, silver linings.

The cake, stacked, frosted, and fondanted [it's a word, okay?] is now taking up room in our fridge, awaiting it's final decorating touches [yes, more sugar]. We're both pretty excited to see how it turns out and already ridiculously proud of ourselves for the accomplishment [which is almost entirely Tim's. I just sat around taking pictures of him and generally getting in the way]. I'll make sure to include a picture of the final project next time.

But hey! What on earth does this crazy story have to do with writing?


One of the most interesting things about this cake-baking experience for me was watching my generally easy-going, chill husband becoming an intimidating tower of frustration nigh on wrath. Tim can be a perfectionist at times and never have I seen that more evidenced than when he bakes [I love you, honey!]. I grew up baking with my mom so, while set backs can be annoying for me, I'm generally pretty un-phased by mistakes or imprecision - I've had so much experience with both. Tim has baked before but not extensively so when certain things surprised him in a bad way his mind started traveling the "to heck with this business! who needs it? let's just throw the whole thing away, why don't we?" path.

Thankfully, as things pan out, he is fundamentally more level-headed than to follow through on that idea but it was fascinating for me to watch and I got to thinking: how would my characters react if, figuratively [or literally, as the case may be], if asked, or if they set their mind to do something that they aren't totally familiar with? Would they persevere  Shut down? Throw a child-like temper-tantrum? Laugh it off? Become manic depressive?

As writers, I once heard it said that our job is to chase our characters up trees and then throw rocks at them.  Essentially, there is no story if there is no conflict, if our characters live forever within their comfort zone. No one likes reading books like that and I doubt writing them can be considered very enjoyable. So what does it look like when your character has to bake a cake?

In closing, here's an adorable video because I believe everyone needs more of these in their life and this here kitty is a darned good example of encountering an uncomfortable situation and coping with it [okay, maybe not the best example, but it is a funny one :)]

post-it notes

As busy as I find my life, I'm often in inconvenient situations when inspiration strikes me. Places like class, work, or my internship where it would be considered rude to suddenly whip out a notebook and start scribbling furiously, obviously no longer paying attention to the task at hand. That doesn't tend to go down well, especially at work. This brings about the complication of having inspiration, wanting to record it in some way, but being unable to give it your full developmental attention at the time.

Enter the post-it note.

We use these things all the time at work and they have become indispensable in my writing life. Post-it notes are fantastic, for one, because they don't demand as much from you as a blank notebook page or computer screen does. Post-its don't ask that you be a genius or create a ground-breaking, thought-provoking new idea. All they want from you is to fit what you're writing in a small square. This is also advantageous because you can write as small and as much or as large and as little as pleases you and no one will judge, after all, it's just a post-it! [well okay, if you write small enough to fit an entire novel on a post-it people might judge you a little] Also, how convenient is it to carry around a small square of papers? When I'm in the middle of something or just brainstorming along post-its have become my version of other authors' note cards where I can just jot down thoughts for further perusal at a later time. This does meant that I end up with quite a plethora of post-its but their size makes them wonderful to use in organizing plot points and ideas in a physical sense.

I should write the sales pitches for post-its.

While utilizing many of these sticky place-holders for brainstorming today I made another realization aside from the genius of post-its. As I've rambled on about before, I've been spending most of my writing time on developing my characters as I lack the time blocks to really address the writing of the story itself. I've made a lot of progress and discoveries thus far and I'm really enjoying the process of discovery but today I finally faced up to a huge character whole I've been ignoring. My MC starts the story out with a huge load of emotional and traumatic as well as literal baggage. His mother is recently deceased and everything he goes through in the story will, of course, be colored by the fact that he is now an orphan. The problem was that I hadn't yet addressed how his mother's death would make him, specifically, feel. I had been skirting the issue because I have minimal experience to draw on in order to make this feel real. I guess this is where writers really test themselves, exploring things they've never experienced/know nothing about. I realized today that Sam is somewhat flat to me still because I don't know exactly how he'd respond to the only person he's ever counted on in his life being ripped away from him and leaving him alone. I hadn't even considered what the funeral would have been like for him. Such a massive oversight, if uncorrected, would undermine the entire project!

My personal assignment, then, is to put out my feelers and experiment and explore this tragedy, to jump into it with Sam and see what I find. My brain's been on the fritz so I didn't dare push too far today but I did toy with Sam's perception of the funeral and though what I ended up with is post-it note rough, brief, and raw, I'm already feeling a bit more up to this sad task.

location, location, location

Greeting fellow writers! My posting schedule is definitely going to need some adjustment, Tuesdays just don't have the room anymore. I am currently accepting applications from other week days, Wednesday is kindly hosting us this week.

So what's been going on with you? Any great ideas for new stories? For the story you're writing? For new Olympic sports? We don't discriminate between great ideas here.

This week I've delved more into the details of my story's location, as you may have guessed. For this WIP I selected a town that I know of through my husband as the setting of the story and this has proved both a blessing and a curse. I've always considered it so much more effort to create a place from scratch, make it both real, and yet so unique as to be it's own location separate from others readers might think of. What I'm discovering, though, is that if you do use a real place in your story telling, you need to do your research because if someone from said tiny town happens to read your book, you don't want them to get hung up on inexcusable inaccuracies [we have google, guys, come on]. Research is not my forte, never has been, and so even in this context a part of me bristles at the necessity for it but it is necessary. I'm also getting a bit antsy because, optimally, I'd like to be able to visit this town, walk around, take pictures, get a feel for the place so I can better embody it in my writing [maybe a road trip, Tim?].

I've always been blown away by those authors that write their stories around almost generic towns that seem real but have no defining aspects that would help you pick them off a map. I think this is best accomplished when the location of the story isn't a huge part of the story and characters themselves. But the more your characters and plot are tied to a location, the more you have to put into developing the setting aspect of your WIP. I know, I know, more work, always more work. I don't have time for more work! Me either! I just keep reminding myself, baby steps. I decided yesterday where in town my main characters live, including street names, and that was a nice big baby step for me [why yes I'll take another hot-chocolate shot in celebration].

So how about you? What role does setting play in your story? Is it a main or supporting character? Is it a real place, generic hometown [insert country], or a place of your own wonderful imagination? What kinds of struggles or successes have you had with discovering and writing your setting?

it's all about the attitude

           Getting kicked when you’re down sucks, we all know it. But getting kicked when you’re trying to get up can be even worse. As I’ve mentioned, I struggle to be internally motivated in my writing. Thankfully, my WIP has been patient enough to lurk in the back of my mind for months despite my startling neglect of it. For some reason, the last few days have been unusually productive when it comes to at least my mental development of the story [especially considering the start of school and that fact that I don’t have thought room to spare on such “extra-curricular” stuff, I’m supposed to be graduating here!] and today I finally talked myself into pulling out the trusty ol’ notebook and carving out in crude language the scene that had been much more gracefully painted itself in my head.

            Sometimes, that’s all you can manage and I remind myself that all the questions and holes that I discovered in the writing of that scene are positive things because now I know more ways that I can make my characters better. Positive things, right? There are always more of them in our little writing blunders and mishaps than we think.

            So, considering my own relatively low standard for daily writing and the fact that I managed to acknowledge holes as questions I can build on, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I had started to pick myself off the sticky floor of lazy-bum-writer-dom. And then the kicking came. One of the hardest things to swallow when you feel like you aren’t succeeding? The success of other people, especially if it seems like they didn’t even have to try. A coworker shared the awesome [because it really is awesome] news that her husband is getting published. A book that he wrote over the summer and that she helped him edit has been picked up by the first [and I think only] publisher that he submitted it to. Awesome right? That’s the kind of sudden success that I think all aspiring writers dream of and I really am happy for him.

            But I’m going to come out and say it, a little part of me [okay, maybe a currently significant part of me] is not only jealous, but resentful of his success. I think we’ve all experienced something like this in our lives, whether it is related to writing or some other achievement or recognition that we really want. It happens, but it doesn’t help me at all to feel that way. So what do you do when it happens to you?

            I’m a psychology major so, in keeping with the critical self-analysis that we’ve been focusing on in my classes this semester, I immediately realized that I’m never really upset with the people I hear about who have these great experiences. Instead, what I’m doing is projecting my dissatisfaction with myself and my own failure to pursue and realize my talents and goals with the determination I know I should. It can be easy, when you’re picking yourself up and you get “kicked” by the fortune of others, to just lay back down again and tell yourself that you’ll never be that talented, driven, lucky, etc. But when we do that we are wasting a perfect opportunity for hope. I get so caught up sometimes in comparing my success with that of others as if it’s a competition and there are only so many winning slots. Instead of despair, though, these pieces of news should remind me that success as a writer can happen to me. If it can happen to some random kid who doesn’t even want to pursue writing as a career, then why not me? I know I have lots of things to work on, but that’s going to be true of every area of my life for my whole life, it’s not a bad thing. The only thing standing between me and writing a good book and then getting that book published is myself. GO TEAM!

            Now that we’ve gotten the pep-talk out of the way…

            There’s a step in between realizing that you can do it and actually doing it. Actually, it’s more like a pit of fast-acting quick-sand than a step. In order to make it through said pit alive, we need to actually make changes to the things that aren’t working [you know what those things are, and if you don’t, take some “me time” and think about it, you’ll thank yourself].

If any of you play Portal/Portal2 and don’t have a natural aptitude for video-games [me] then I have the perfect example. Portal is a visual-spatial puzzle game that makes you think outside of the box. The way Portal asks you to problem solve isn’t usually in line with your normal thought patterns and so the game can be frustrating and stop you in your tracks with levels where you can see where you need to be but have no clue how to solve the puzzle of getting there. As my husband is constantly reminding me, an important key in playing Portal is not being afraid to die. This seems counterintuitive but, as you aren’t given a limited number of lives or tries on a level, the purpose of the game is to make you explore visually and mentally. The point is to get you to think in new ways and sometimes you have to try a lot of weird ideas to break out of your old ways of thinking before you find the answer. This relates to writing in a significant way for me because, just as I am inexplicably cautious of dying in Portal, I am also afraid of writing badly. I’ll get inspiration for a new scene in my WIP but when I write it out it doesn’t look as shiny as it did in my mind and I stall out, unable to push past it. Sometimes the expectation of such a let-down keeps me from trying to write at all. But, just as in Portal, this paralysis is pointless. The best thing about writing is that nothing to write is permanent, you can, and probably will change the majority of your first draft and that’s okay. So much of the time, solutions and good books only come from our willingness to dive in, die [not literally] or write crappy scenes that you hope no one ever reads before you get a chance to edit them. The quest for instantaneous perfection is crippling and it’s something that I need to overcome if I’m ever going to give Sam a story, let alone an ending.

What do you need to conquer in your writing? Have suggestions, pep-talks, or success stories to share? Email me at emily.buhler.loveless@gmail.com and we’ll celebrate together!

coming up for air

I really do apologize for missing Tuesday [and almost Wednesday] this an entire week. Classes started last Monday and I've been having my traditional freak-out where I feel like I'm drowning in classes and new claims on my time. Last Tuesday I left my apartment at 7:48am and didn't get home until about 10:20pm. Suffice to say, it was a long day between classes, work, a meeting for my new internship, and major drama with the bank [some of which, thankfully, got resolved]. The difference between two weeks ago and today is like night and day, I feel like the floor's been pulled out from under me. So I hope you can forgive some inconsistencies. As it stands, I have class until 8pm on Tuesdays so I may need to change my weekly posting date to another day but I'll leave that for another week's to-do list to assess.

I don't really have anything specific to talk about this week but I wanted to do a book review that I meant to last time I posted but that post go so long that I actually forgot. That's how bad my memory is. I should link this post to my mom so she can have an example...

I recently read The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender which is about a young girl who, just before her 9th birthday, discovers that she can taste emotions in food, specifically those of the person who made it. This, of course, presents loads of different challenges and opportunities [mostly challenges] for Rose who lives in a rather dysfunctional family. I'd like to just mention a few of the things that caught my attention the most when reading this book.

For one, this novel is incredibly depressing. Don't get me wrong, you won't need to go see a therapist after reading it [probably?] but, while things do, in a way, improve for Rose at the end of the book, it is by little means the "happy ending" that you might expect/wish for. Disappointment is a heavy theme in the book, unfulfilled expectations, jarring glimpses from the childhood of a young girl into the ugly reality of adulthood. I'm doing a poor job of explaining this. Let's see. Rose discovers at a tender age a traumatizing truth about her mother that no one else knows and, through the course of the book, she becomes the only family member to know everything about her current family - all involuntarily. You watch Rose develop from middle-grade, to YA, to adult and all the steps of mental processing involved in taking in her "ability." She doesn't want it and she's never happy about it, the story, in a way, is about a handicap, the handicap of too much knowledge.

Another point that got my attention was Bender's use of, for lack of a better term, magic in the novel. It is immediately apparent that what Rose can do is abnormal, various doctor visits and experimentation proves this is an unusual thing. But you also discover that Rose is not the only one who is different. You see through the character of her brother, the reality that affects us all: that trails and challenges, even some things we consider blessings, come in many forms and that we each deal with them differently. Some people muddle through, struggling to understand why, others become completely incapacitated by them, unable to move forward and unwilling to take a leap that might make them great, and still others are consumed by their trials, finding the fight not worth fighting. The latter is one of the most depressing things about the book for me, if you read it, you'll know what part I mean and you may cry as well. Everything is from Rose's perspective and as she never has a close relationship with any of her family, especially her brother, you don't get to know them very well in the traditional sense, but your heart still breaks for them. The writing is just that good.

The feel of "magic" comes through learning that this predisposition to strangeness is a genetic trait, though not one you learn about in school. I was very satisfied with Bender's skill at intertwining the strange with the normal in such a way that it doesn't stand out like a dragon in an office meeting or something like that. You recognize that something is different but her world building is done so well that it folds right in. [For another example of a good use of magic in a non-fantasy story, I highly recommend Sugar Queen.] The whole story is so haunting and believable, despite the unbelievable, that when I saw a documentary-type show on two siblings whose family trauma remarkably resembled that of this book, I actually had to remind myself that they weren't the same people. Crazy  : )

Anyway, it's excessively late for a girl who hasn't gotten more than 6 hours of sleep a night in the last week and a half so I'm going to apologize for my badly constructed book review skills and say g'night! Hopefully I'll get my feet back under me soon and return to some semblance of normalcy. Sorry, did I say return? I meant begin to exhibit.

getting mad, then getting glad

Quick, before someone loses patience, Chelsea and I are working on revamping our writing project. Our prompt from two weeks ago got major away from both of us so we're going to ditch it and try over with a new prompt. Now, don't go flaying us alive for dropping this project saying something ignorant like "a real writer perseveres through difficult times in writing." That statement alone isn't ignorant, but applying it to this situation would be because writers do need to persevere [I cannot tell you how many times I've used that word in the last hour] through tricky parts of their writing but they also need to be able to recognize when a project needs to be put aside or just abandoned. Not all story ideas will pan out. In fact, I'd say that it's generally the opposite. So hold your horses, Sunday writing updates will be back  :)

Now, to get to the mad I was actually referring to in the title of this post. Whilst I was performing some excellent bakery with Chelsea on Thursday night [I'd like you to know that even though it took an extra 50 minutes to cook, we did eventually end up with a healthy baby lemon/blueberry loaf. it was delicious] I had the chance to talk out issues I was having with my WIP. This is one of the many reasons that talking to Chelsea is a fabulous experience: she listens and she gets it. I mean, I could gripe to a lot of people about how I've been stuck for months at the end of one particular scene with no idea where to go from there but I think Chelsea is one of the few people I know who has the insight to suggest that perhaps my lack of ideas, considering the fact that I write character driven and not plot driven stories, may be because I don't know my characters well enough. The egoist in me wanted to rant and rave. Of course I know my characters! Why would you suggest such a ridiculous thing! But this problem of being stuck has been weighing on my mind for as long as I've been stuck and nothing I'd tried was working so I was open to suggestions.

Last weekend saw Tim and I up to Logan for a friendly visit and a break from good ol' Provo. While I didn't take time to consider big important things like "should I take that internship opportunity with it being such a busy senior year coming up," I did take some time to try drawing out my main character's personalities. I found some motivational holes in my middle grade MC and then I hit gold. Or should I say a vast, pitch-black, unexplored cavern in my MC's uncle. It was an unpleasant shock to realize what my notes and introspective questions were telling me: I knew next to nothing about this character. This has been a huge breakthrough for me. My MC's uncle is a massive part of his life and the way he will develop, so finding out that I knew so little about him kind of floored me. But it's also been really freeing and exciting because I get to delve into this character, flesh him out, generally my favorite part of story construction and something I can spend hours doing.

I haven't written more past that last scene yet but I do feel like I'm getting a much better feel for his character, who he is, what he wants, what decisions he'd make. It's like making a new friend  :)

Do you write character or plot driven stories? What's holding you back from writing your story? Do you know your characters? Are you getting so wrapped up in detailing every piece of their life that you're forgetting to write the story?

maybe I could just turn all my rants into a book...?

Tim and I had a conversation about actors and screen writing yesterday which, like most conversations of these kinds, consisted of me talking and him nodding, doing his best to follow my crazy thought process, and occasionally trying to get a word in edgewise which-is-no-small-feet-let-me-tell-you.

The discussion was tipped off by remarks about the Bourne Legacy movie which neither of us have seen but have heard mixed reviews about. Somehow that branched into a discussion about Liam Neeson and all the crap he's been getting lately about being a lame actor [Nickolas Cage was also mentioned but I'm not even going to try and start that conversation]. Now, I've seen a few Liam Neeson movies, granted not all [including Taken, I know] and I've seen a good bit of what people complain about. Tim and I saw Unknown last year and we both thought it was horrific and summed up a lot of the complaints I've heard about how Liam Neeson is a joke now - he's corny and over the top, always playing these bad-a characters that are totally unbelievable and cheesy [I mean: "I remember how to kill you," really?]. I can see how these things are all true in movies he's been in recently, but I got to thinking that it's not so much Liam Neeson as the screenwriters for these films. Granted, Liam may need to do a better job choosing the projects he jumps on board with but those films never even should have gotten off the ground. Unknown, for example, was a terrible rip off of the first Bourne movie and whoever wrote the script really should have been forced to take some writing classes ["I remember how to kill you" really???].

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that there is a definite difference between bad acting and bad writing [for an example of both, look to the Twilight movies]. Sometimes you have excellent writing and the actors just butcher it but other times actors are just up against a major challenge from the get-go. There's really only so much you can do when you're given a crappy script to work with. And to top it off, I'd like to remember that type casting happens in Hollywood as well as high school [maybe these movies are the only ones he's being offered? he does have to make a living]

So yes, Liam Neeson has been in some corny, sub-par movies, but that doesn't mean he's a bad actor. He was awesome in the Batman movies and from what I know of Taken [where this business seems to have stemmed from] he was a force to be reckoned with as well. Unfortunately Hollywood, as with practically all things good, has pursued that Taken persona until it's begun to kick a dead horse that's been rotten for years.

What does this have to do with writing? Well, there are a lot of different areas where creative writing is used and I think sometimes we forget that someone wrote and approved those awful lines of dialogue in that movie you watched last weekend. I've been trying to recognize more and more lately how the writing of a movie influences its success as well as how I feel about it as a whole. It's impressed upon me the importance of writing well, being honest with yourself about your work and finding people you trust to be honest with you about it because I wouldn't want to be the screenwriter for Unknown, have written the script and thought it was alright, and then find out after movie production that everyone else had thought it was a stupid idea. Don't make others take the fall for mistakes and holes that you should have edited the crap out of.

Don't get paranoid or down on yourself, just be honest. Because the great thing about writing is that even if what you come up with at first is a far cry from literature, you can change it. As Captain Planet would say, "The power is yours!"


Now, I know some of you are probably wondering what happened this weekend, where were the stories? [where were the other drugs going? anyone?] Well, I'll suffice to say that, lately, life has been doing its very best to get in the way. Between work, applying for an internship [interview on Thursday, woot!] and wanting to physically remove my abdomen, writing for last weeks prompt ended up tipping the scales. I apologize for that and anyone who was disappointed by its absence. Some rethinking may need to happen on that front as our responses have been getting more and more lengthy, mine at least heading toward short story length which I was not prepared for. Hopefully my performance this week will be more up to scratch!

In the mean time, I hope none of you are following my atrocious example and have been writing like proper little authors. Yesterday I decided to make a playlist to see if well chosen music might help spurn me on in my pathetic efforts with my WIP which is mentally persistent but lacking in actual recorded text. Maybe I should try talking out loud and recording it? I could get Dragon? What do you do to keep yourself inspired and motivated?

the thing about writing is...

...sometimes it kicks your trash [or if you're me, a lot of times]
...sometimes you really don't want to
...sometimes you don't have anything to say

That last one still freaks me out a bit. If you're a writer aren't you supposed to always have something to say? But you know, I'm coming to the conclusion that having quiet mental time, when things stop racing around your brain and just settle, is a good thing now and then. It can help you organize, reevaluate new ideas, look at current WIPs from an objective viewpoint.

And sometimes...I tell myself those things so I feel better about being lazy...

Sometimes writing just sucks and it kicks your trash.
Sometimes your husband reminds you that you are a good writer so you'll stop freaking out.
And sometimes - the best times - that writing that kicked your trash is loved by the people who read it.

I know I'd love to have that all the time, but I'll happily settle for sometimes  :)

stood up on a date? write about it

Apologies again for the late posting. This is an unfortunate trend. Chelsea and I have decided to start posting our writings on Sunday to give us more time between critiques for edits and such. Perhaps that'll be a more achievable deadline for me  :P

So! This week's writing challenge was to write about a guy who gets stood up on a date. We originally set the word limit at 300 but expanded it because we both needed more room. Guys, frankly, this one kicked my trash. For one, I'm not a guy, and for another, I've never actually been stood up on a date so I had two fairly big strikes against me to begin with and they certainly had their way with me. So to anyone who decides to read my response, I'm apologize for the weak character development, etc.

Chelsea's, however, is fantastic! Enjoy:

Running a hand through his day old hair, Dan knew he should have showered. He stared out the coffee shop's window, cars whizzing by through puddles. He waited to see Fae’s black umbrella bob up and down in front of the cafe's window.

He waited some more and drank the last of his coffee.

Dan pressed a button on his cell phone. Six minutes past twelve thirty. Where could she be? Our office is just down the block. Our lunch breaks were at the same time. We planned this. Oh, no—hold it together, man.

"Hey, Rachel?"

Rachel, the lunch shift barista, walked by and stopped at his table.

"Could I get a refill?"

“Another? If I didn’t know any better, you look a little nervous.”

Dan blushed. “Is it that easy to see?”

“Maybe a little,” She laughed, a husky kind of laugh, and took his cup back behind the counter. He watched her refill it, add some cream, and she looked at him. They kept each other’s eye contact as she returned to his table.

"Thank you."

"No prob,” she said and smiled then cleaned the front window.

He pulled back his hair and tied it in a small ponytail. He tapped his fingers on top of the wooden table. Thirty nine minutes late.

His cell phone lit up and vibrated. He grabbed it.

He read the sparse text message. Fae said the lunch date slipped her mind but they could reschedule if he wanted. Dan re-read the message three times and then put the phone down on the table. He got up from his table, put on his coat, and looked out the café window. Everything was gray.

“Dan?” Rachel asked.

He didn’t hear her.

“What’s wrong?”

She took a step forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. He blinked a couple of times and then looked at her. “You wanna get out of here?”

“I work til three.”

“Oh.”

“I’d ditch if you’d ditch.”

Dan laughed in surprise. “You know what? Yeah. Let’s ditch.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“I’ll go get my coat. I’ll be just a second.”

She went to a back room and came out with her black coat buttoned up, the hem just hitting her knees. Her work uniform gone, he took in her purple tights and yellow high heels. He tightened his ponytail and licked his lips.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I don’t think that matters,” Dan said.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Rachel marched ahead of him, opened the café door, a small bell tingled, and Dan followed. She opened her yellow umbrella and turned back to him.

The rain smelled so good.

Feel like taking the plunge and writing your own scene? Email it to me at emily.buhler.loveless@gmail.com and I'll post it here!

books make me talkative

I picked up Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children this weekend and, despite my hesitancy and doubts, I am relieved to report that it is not a horror story. It took a while for the story to really get rolling but once Jacob leaves the States it becomes easier to grasp how much of what he'd been told by his grandfather and father is true. The biggest thing I've noticed with this book, being 2/3s the way through, is the descriptions that Riggs uses to illustrate characters and setting alike so I'll be talking a bit about that today.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is Riggs' break-out novel so a big part of me was already inclined to give him a chance as I think most of us aspiring writers hope others will do for us in future. The story is curiously constructed around a series of vintage photographs that Riggs found during his research. This set up provides an interesting foundation for his characters because, instead of being purely dictated by his own imagination, they were created within the construct of these images. Goodness that's a confusing sentence. What I mean to say is that Riggs, when introducing characters, pairs the written description with one of these vintage photographs in the text. In doing this, he had to build his characters in such a way that they would fit the picture. Each of these pictures are part of the book themselves as well as the narrator seems and handles them, further emphasizing the book's focus on the visual.

Aside from one thing about the way Riggs described the narrator's friend at the beginning of the book, I have been drawn in and captured by his endless depictions of people and places. I generally like to think of myself as a descriptive writer, sometimes to the detriment of a story, but I've struggled to find new ways to describe old things. In this writing challenge endeavor that Chelsea and I have embarked on, I have already received a few notes from her pointing out a act, like a foot tapping on the floor, and asking what that sounds like. In these instances I find myself staring stupidly at the screen saying "well, it...sounds like...a foot tapping the floor....WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, WOMAN?"

As writers, we are all faced with the sometimes depressing fact that every story has been told. Take a minute and breath into a paper bag if you need to, but it's true. Some may point to those few standout stories that "broke the mold" or "revolutionized" writing [I'm thinking LotR, HP, etc.] but the fact is that those are not new stories. And that's okay. It's a reality with which we live and with which some writers fair better than others. The challenge we face is not with writing something new, but in writing something old in a new way, an approach that no one's done before, with writing good enough that even when readers recognize old story lines, they don't care.

Riggs, for me, has found a way to accomplish the above. While extraordinary things happen in this book, it is actually the normal, every-day things that have caught my attention the most because he writes them in a new way, illustrating people, weather conditions, even posture in images and sounds I'd never have thought to attribute to falling rain or a fat man standing up from a stool. Riggs also applies this "new vision" to the character of his characters. As a psychology major, I take a keen interest in explaining people, especially those things that we cannot even explain about ourselves, impulses, cravings, needs, realizations. My favorite by far comes after the narrator has had a falling out of sorts with his father: "I slammed out of the Priest Hole and started walking, heading nowhere in particular. Sometimes you just need to go through a door." [Italics added] Did anyone else read that and then go "Yeah...yeah, you do! I know what that feels like!"? Because I definitely did. Something I'd never have thought to even try putting into words and I'm sure I would never have phrased that well - something common but striking in that he was able to write it down.

There are so many examples and I'm doing a poor job of explaining them so go ahead and read it yourself, I hope you enjoy it as much as I am.

Anyway, this post has turned out to be entirely too long so I'll try to wrap up. I guess a fundamental thing I want to get at here is that if you're writing anything, but especially if you're writing fantasy or sci-fi or futuristic, etc. you need to ground your writing in reality. This isn't to say that your settings have to be real places or your people real people. What I mean is that there needs to be something for the reader to relate to, something they can say "yeah, I know what that feels like/sounds like/looks like, etc" to. LotR is a phenomenal example of the power of the human imagination to create something that doesn't exist, whole countries, races, languages, cultures but the reason it is so successful is because each are grounded at least in part in something we can all relate to or have knowledge of. I think we've all come across books where world-making and character development has been hastily and shoddily done and while the words may look nice on paper, readers are able to distinguish between a fictitious language that nevertheless could function as a real language, and a fictitious language that was slapped together just to look foreign but has no legitimate claim to the title of language. Founding our writing in reality, giving characters believable and identifiable traits, behaviors, and feelings, takes effort and time. This research is something that I know I personally often drag my feet in doing but it is essential.

3 kids and a log

My apologies [again] on the late posting. I don't know what it is about Saturdays but they just seem to get away from me. The fact that I was up until 3am playing Settlers of Catan for the first time really probably didn't help though....

So! We have come to the end of another week's writing challenge and I've got to say that this one was a doozy for me. Initially I was really excited and while I still feel like this was an awesome prompt I'll admit that it did a really good job of beating me into the ground over and over. At first, I was skeptical that I would need the whole of the 500 word limit we had set but once I really got underway I started despairing my ability to keep it down to 500 words. I've always been awful with endings and this week was no exception, probably another reason I kept putting off finishing, I just couldn't face it. I'm still not super satisfied with how it turned out but feel free to weigh in here and tell me what you think!

Chelsea's response to this prompt had me laughing out loud through the whole editing process, and not because it was bad. I have a hard time grasping comedic writing but this girl has a knack I tell you, a knack. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

“Yup. It’s gonna rain, just like I thought,” Grace said, her face turned up to the night sky. Ricky hated it when she said stuff like that. Blah, blah, blah, I’m Grace and I’m a Know-It-All. He sighed and kicked a rock.

Thomas heard his older brother sigh and ignored him. Even though he and Grace were a year younger, Grace was still the smartest person ever. At school, she raised her hand the fastest whenever the teacher asked a question. Thomas liked that.

“You think so?” Thomas asked, looking up at the sky.

Grace stuck her finger in her mouth and then held it out in the wind. “I’m 98% positive.”

“Whatever,” Ricky muttered.

It was Friday the 13^th and the three best friends sat together on a rotting log next to Rodger’s Creek, waiting for the Swamp Man. He always came out on Friday the 13^th after a rainstorm, looking for children to eat. All day long, everyone at school gossiped who’d been eaten last year (some kid named Todd). Kids whispered, “Swamp Man tonight,” to each other as they passed in the halls, some even said they’d camp out tonight, but none of them dared try.

That is, except for Grace, Ricky, and Thomas.

The moon tried hiding behind the clouds, but pitiful streams of light spilled onto the dark ground. Thunder rumbled a far ways off, a warning.

Ricky and Thomas stole their parent’s camping lantern before trekking with Grace out to Rodger’s Creek. It was a long journey for their small bodies, but now the lantern sat at their feet, illuminating their scuffed sneakers and showcasing the black water rippling by.

 “It’s not gonna rain,” Ricky said.

“You’re a certified dumbie.  Didn’t you hear the thunder?” Grace asked.

 “Nope.”

“I guess you’re deaf, too.”

“Hey, guys—” Thomas got nervous when they fought.

“I’m not deaf! I heard the thunder, all right? I just think everyone needs to calm down.”

 “We’re fine, Ricky. You, though…well it just seems like you’re a little…”

“What?”

“Scared,” Thomas offered.

Ricky stood up from the log. “I am not!” He tried hard not to let his voice quaver, but it was no use. Thomas and Grace stared at Ricky.

“You are!” Grace exclaimed.

“This is dumb. I don’t have to stick around with you babies. I’m gonna find him myself.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Grace said.

“I think she’s right,” Thomas agreed.

“Of course you think so!” Ricky shouted at Thomas. “You like her.”

It got quiet fast. Crickets chirped and the tall grass surrounding them rippled in the midnight wind. Ricky sat down right next to the water, the black waves licking his rubber soles. Thomas and Grace scooted further away from each other on the log.

“You think he’s ever gonna show?”  Ricky asked, poking a dirt clod with a stick.

“I guess we’ll find out after it rains,” Grace whispered.

A flash of light and a thunderous boom embraced in a terrific collision above them. Rain fell from the sky’s arms and pinged off the creek’s surface. It was a refreshing break from the heavy heat. Soon their clothes were soaked through. They held their breath, waiting.

“Turn off the lantern!” Ricky yelled.

“We need to keep it on. Then we can see him when he comes out!” Grace said.

“Guys—” Thomas whispered.

“What?” Ricky and Grace answered in unison.

“Is that—”

Blue lightning lit the sky and all three wished it had stayed dark.

Want to try your hand at responding to this weeks prompt? It starts with "3 kids on a log by a stream, one looks up at the sky and says..." Let us know what you come up with! Email me at emily.buhler.loveless@gmail.com with your ideas. Do you take a more dramatic approach? Traumatic? Romantic? 

some things just keep getting better

So, before you start in with "Emily! This is a poor way to start if you're trying to be more organized and timely!" le'me esplain.

There is a holiday on the 24th of July known as Pioneer Day. Never heard of it? That's probably because it's something only really celebrated in Utah but who am I to argue with a day off of work? So Tim and I decided to head down to his parents' house Monday night and we spent a delightful day full of relaxing, chatting, computer "I spy" games, particularly rousing games of battle dome and hungry hungry hippos with his sister and her husband, and two toad rescue maneuvers completed by yours truly. We didn't get home until after midnight and by then could barely keep our eyes open to find the bed, hence my delayed post.

This past weekend I found myself at a new level of I'm-not-going-to-make-any-sense-dom [someone should come up with a word for that]. As I mentioned last week, I am currently in possession of my library's copy of Tesla: Man out of time. What I didn't mention was that I also have The Handmaid's Tale and now Mrs. Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children checked out to me. Now, with a weekend ahead of you and relatively few tasks to complete during that time, one might reasonably think that I would apply myself to the reading, if not the completion of at least one of those books. So what did I do? I started reading my personal copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire of course. [By the way, if any of you have to click that link because you don't know what that book is I will stare dolefully at you until you have repented and read the entire series. Shame on you.] While this demonstrates something less than exemplary about my personal character, I'm sure [that I would ignore 3 books I've borrowed in favor of one I own and have already read, not that I would stare dolefully at you, I stand by that], it does validity the theory that you can have book cravings.

For anyone who may unfortunately be suffering under the impression that, once read, a book has no more to offer a reader [are there people who think that?] I would like to clear up that misconception now. I have read each of the books in the Harry Potter series at least two times, verging on four or five for certain volumes and I can honestly say that these are some of the books that just keep on giving. Tim bought me the whole set for my last birthday [bless him] so I've been going through them once again, periodically picking up different volumes over the past months, and I keep running into the same impression that I had last fall when Tim and I went to see the last movie installment - no matter how much people may criticize her, J.K. Rowling can write. Like really write. Every time I come in contact with these books I am struck by the skill involved in creating a seven volume series with balanced, well-rounded, and incredibly deep characters as well as plot line. For a story to survive seven volumes the characters have to be rock solid and dynamic and I'm always filled with a mix of awe and hopelessness when I look at those characters.

I understand that Harry Potter will probably never be placed among the literary classics but I know that it's something that will always have a place in my personal library. I think it's important for everyone to have books that they can keep going back to for inspiration, examples of great writing, and even just for stories that make you laugh and cry over and over again. To me, a book is truly impressive when it still makes me laugh and/or tear up even when I already know exactly what's going to happen. That's emotion. That's pulling your reader into the story. That is good writing.

In other news, I'm super psyched for this week's writing challenge. The prompt we chose goes like this: 3 children are sitting on a log near a stream. One of them looks up at the sky and says....
So many possibilities! I'm generally not inclined to write young characters but I've already seen the playful potential in this prompt and I'm excited to explore it. As always, our responses will be posted on Saturday and if you care to join us, feel free! The word limit this week is 500 words so you should have lots of room to play around and we'd love to read what you come up with!