Happy Monday everybody. Once again, I’m sorry I'm late. I hope you all had a great weekend. It’s time once again as we start a new week to celebrate ourselves. Tell us about something good that happened to you. Something that made you happy. Something that you did that made you feel good.
It doesn’t have to be big news or anything earth shattering. Small is good, too.
This weekend I participated in Tessa’s Blogfest of Death. Scroll down to Sunday’s post to read my entry and for the links to catch the other wonderful writers who participated. I also even managed to make some headway on my crit group reading.
What about you? What’s making you happy and/or going well in your life? Share it with us and celebrate yourselves.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Blogfest of Death
Today is the day that Tessa over at Tessa’s Blurb is hosting her Blogfest of Death. There are a whole bunch of fantastic writers signed up, so after you finish here click here and go check them out. My entry is the scene immediately following the one I did for Mary McDonald’s Terror Tuesday Blogfest about a month ago. You can click here if you want to read that scene. If not, just read below.
He staggers out of the barracks into the first cold, grey light of dawn, bumping off bodies skeletal and empty-eyed stumbling into strained lines in the center of the yard.
Eyes tearing with cold lock forward. Face still, he stands and stares, watches a dull sun arc along a thin, tight horizon.
Nothing moves across the raw, barren, black terrain beyond the watchtowers; scorched earth, all that’s left of a long ago burn.
Down the line, somewhere to his right, someone’s hacking up the latest plague. Spine straight, head unbowed, his fingers curl into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
The wind shifts; carries the smell of burning from the remains of a wild fire dancing along the serrated slopes just past the dead fields.
The sound of the shot explodes in his head. All-too-familiar rage and fear and shame churn in his gut; tighten his chest.
Wet, grey flakes of snow and ash fall through the raw, cold daylight; filter through the dead trees, the charred, lifeless trunks still standing sightless watch on the other side of the fence line.
Ash and ice, cold and wind stretch and move across the waste like a living thing, breathe harsh and jagged along the grey, serpentine river that snakes past the camp, cleaving the cauterized landscape.
He doesn’t think he’ll survive another winter.
The jolt from the stun stick slides down his spine; buckles his knees. Hard hands shove; send him staggering across the yard.
He doesn’t look at the body or the spreading spill of bright crimson against grey on his way to the pit.
He staggers out of the barracks into the first cold, grey light of dawn, bumping off bodies skeletal and empty-eyed stumbling into strained lines in the center of the yard.
Eyes tearing with cold lock forward. Face still, he stands and stares, watches a dull sun arc along a thin, tight horizon.
Nothing moves across the raw, barren, black terrain beyond the watchtowers; scorched earth, all that’s left of a long ago burn.
Down the line, somewhere to his right, someone’s hacking up the latest plague. Spine straight, head unbowed, his fingers curl into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
The wind shifts; carries the smell of burning from the remains of a wild fire dancing along the serrated slopes just past the dead fields.
The sound of the shot explodes in his head. All-too-familiar rage and fear and shame churn in his gut; tighten his chest.
Wet, grey flakes of snow and ash fall through the raw, cold daylight; filter through the dead trees, the charred, lifeless trunks still standing sightless watch on the other side of the fence line.
Ash and ice, cold and wind stretch and move across the waste like a living thing, breathe harsh and jagged along the grey, serpentine river that snakes past the camp, cleaving the cauterized landscape.
He doesn’t think he’ll survive another winter.
The jolt from the stun stick slides down his spine; buckles his knees. Hard hands shove; send him staggering across the yard.
He doesn’t look at the body or the spreading spill of bright crimson against grey on his way to the pit.
Friday, July 16, 2010
I Write Like
I’ve seen this site I Write Like several places around the blogosphere and thought I’d give it a try. Click on the link, copy and paste a section of your writing into the special box and some techno-magic analyzes your words and tells you who you write like. I copied and pasted three different samples of stuff I’ve written and came up with the following responses: I write like James Joyce in one of them, like Chuck Palahniuk in another one, and Margaret Atwood in the last one. I think that’s pretty interesting company.
Go ahead and give it a try. Who do you write like?
Go ahead and give it a try. Who do you write like?
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Road Map
James Scott Bell over at The Kill Zone has a great post here on what you need to do with your manuscript to make it the best it can be before you submit. They’re good, straightforward suggestions from somebody who knows what he’s talking about, and I was pretty pleased to see that most of the suggestions are ones I follow. You’d think I’d be a whole lot happier with my work.
Anyway, check it out and tell me: What do you think of the suggestions? Which ones do you regularly follow? Do you have any other suggestions?
Anyway, check it out and tell me: What do you think of the suggestions? Which ones do you regularly follow? Do you have any other suggestions?
Monday, July 12, 2010
Celebrate Monday
Happy Monday everybody, sorry I'm late. I hope you all had a great weekend. It’s time once again as we start a new week to celebrate ourselves. Tell us about something good that happened to you. Something that made you happy. Something that you did that made you feel good.
It doesn’t have to be big news or anything earth shattering. Small is good, too.
Lately just getting through a weekend is celebration enough for me on a Monday. I cleaned house like a mad woman, between watching World Cup games, so now I get to sit and enjoy the fruits of my labor as I continue to work on the WIP. It’s growing and who knows? It might make novel status. I’m even trying to make headway on my crit group reading.
What about you? What’s making you happy and/or going well in your life? Share it with us and celebrate yourselves.
It doesn’t have to be big news or anything earth shattering. Small is good, too.
Lately just getting through a weekend is celebration enough for me on a Monday. I cleaned house like a mad woman, between watching World Cup games, so now I get to sit and enjoy the fruits of my labor as I continue to work on the WIP. It’s growing and who knows? It might make novel status. I’m even trying to make headway on my crit group reading.
What about you? What’s making you happy and/or going well in your life? Share it with us and celebrate yourselves.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Do you recycle?
Writers write. A lot. And a lot of those words don’t end up getting used in final scenes. They’re locked up in stories and scenes and first drafts that never see the light of day. They’re cut or put away and forgotten. And a while ago Copyblogger had an interesting post on recycling creative content that made me think.
Over the period of about the last ten years, I’ve written a lot of stories set in the same universe about the same characters. Short things, middle length things, long things. And I never noticed that with some connective tissue put in between them and some minor changes in POV and such, a lot of those things could be reworked into a larger piece like maybe a novella/novel.
Have you ever done that? Reworked your own work into something else?
Over the period of about the last ten years, I’ve written a lot of stories set in the same universe about the same characters. Short things, middle length things, long things. And I never noticed that with some connective tissue put in between them and some minor changes in POV and such, a lot of those things could be reworked into a larger piece like maybe a novella/novel.
Have you ever done that? Reworked your own work into something else?
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Short v. Long
As I wrestle with the novella/maybe/wannabe novel, I’ve been thinking a lot about writing style. I’ve said before how long and how hard I’ve worked to cut down on my verbiage, to pare down my writing to the essential words and to make those words work in a very spare writing garden. But I also find that I like reading lush description when that’s done right and well and isn’t simply the result of spraying words for filler.
That carries over to first drafts as well. Write It Sideways has an interesting post on the pros and cons of writing short v. long first drafts here. Check it out and tell me: How do you write your first drafts? Short or long? And is that style reflected in your final draft? Or are you a universe away from where you started after rounds of revisions?
That carries over to first drafts as well. Write It Sideways has an interesting post on the pros and cons of writing short v. long first drafts here. Check it out and tell me: How do you write your first drafts? Short or long? And is that style reflected in your final draft? Or are you a universe away from where you started after rounds of revisions?
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