Wednesday, June 15, 2011

A Day Late...

...and a braincell short.

Summertime with the kids around all the time makes me one busy Momma. And the fun isn't going to stop any time soon. So busy, not enough time in the day to get it all done, and finally, summer seems to have arrived.

Currently, the boys are being tortured with going through all their clothes, toys, books and miscellaneous junk. Told them if they do that, we'll have a garage sale, and they can split the profit. Naturally, they can't do it on their own---so it'll take us a while, since I can't/won't/don't have the attention span to deal with it for more than about 1.5-2 hours.

Writing is still happening. Shockingly and amazingly enough. One WIP, the historical, is on the back burner percolating. Has issues I need to work on. The other WIP, a contemporary, seems to be what has the majority of the Muse's attention. And I must say, my Muse has writer's ADHD. However, it's the writing that I love, so I'm happy something is moving along, even if I have to take breaks in between to deal with laundry, cleaning, providing taxi service...It's great. Exhilarating when it all comes together.

Other musings...I have Nora Roberts' The Search but I haven't read it yet. I don't like reading new books when I'm in the middle of writing, so I'm re-reading some of the In Death books. I'm saving the new book to savor later. :D

Well then. I hear a tremendous silence emanating from the laundry room. The machines have stopped. More laundry training must happen. Kids need to be urged on to their next task of the day, and there's some writing that needs to go on before I go tackle the Big Ugly, also known as "The Linen Closet."

For now, I"ll leave you with a few quotes about writing and a suggestion for a writing prompt.

Writing Prompt Suggestion: Look through your WIP for a scene that has Talking Heads (dialogue, no description, narrative, etc) or a scene that's only narrative (think "INFO DUMP") and revise. For a Talking Heads scene, think about what your main POV character is thinking, feeling, what of the physical senses you can bring into the scene, how can you make the scene do double or triple duty by incorporating conflict, revealing some motivation, addressing your goals---how can you use this scene to move the story along? For your Info Dump scene---what is really necessary for the reader to know? Can any of it be turned into action---either dialogue or the characters getting active? How can you improve it to move the story along?

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. ~ Scott Adams

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. ~Ernest Hemingway

You sit down and you do it, and you do it, and you do it, until you have learned to do it. ~Ursula K. LeGuin

The only way to learn to write is to write. ~Peggy Teeters

Everything that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. And later on you can use it in some story. ~Tapani Bagge

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