Sabotaged

The last two weeks of my writing life’s been difficult. If it’s not my relentless work schedule getting in the way, it’s my brain stumbling over words. Or, how do I describe this and that. Or, it’s sweetman sitting at the kitchen table clipping his nails or munching on chips loudly. Or, it’s No-No going off on one her hypochondriac rants. Or, it’s Honey Bear bringing his cat ball (loud bell inside), slamming it into my lap to play. Or, it’s sweetman stepping into another warm welcome from Sir-Poops-A-Lot---listening to his tantrums.

The following describes the other night at my house. Number five has a lot to do with the chaos I go through, I swear.

Shelly sat at her kitchen table around seven o’ clock. She’d cleaned the kitchen, walked her dogs, and made herself a cup of tea. It had been a long one at work and she’d anticipated this moment at her keyboards all day. A story for her next chapter chattered at her all day. She had to write.

Tinkletinkletinkle…Something small and noisy plopped in her lap. She moved her hand to grab it. A golf-sized ball. A cold, wet nose nudged at her hand. Honey Bear. He wanted to play ball.

Shelly rolled the ball into the living room where her hubby watched television.

The little cotton ball on four legs ran back to the kitchen table with his ball wanting his mommy to throw more.

She sighed, and said: “Honey, can you play with Honey Bear?”

Her hubby walked into her writing area. “Sure,” he said, picking up the fluff mound, turning around, he went up the stairs.

Shelly’s finger tips tapped the keyboards at first, warming up, and finally danced across them. Her mind raced back to her story file. “So much for a cup of tea,” Mel said into the air.

Someone stomped down the stairs.“Mom,” No-No said. “I think the doctor messed up my hip.”

Shelly looked up from her keyboards and watched her daughter plop into a chair across from her. She bugged her eyes at her daughter. “I’m working, right now".

“But I’m in pain. I think I’m going to be crippled for life,” her daughter said. Tears filled her eyes.

Shelly sucked in a gob of air and looked down at her computer screen. She can banter while I write, she thought. I can do two things at once. Her fingers pecked away again.A flicker of light floated behind her. Don walked toward her, a silhouette.

A crash sounded from upstairs. “He did it again!” her husband shouted from the stair top. “Where’s that dog? Where’s that dog?”

Shelly looked up from her keyboard and rolled her eyes.

“You don’t believe me!” No-No cried. “You don’t love me. You never did.” Snot dribbled down her daughter’s lips onto her chin.

Shelly didn’t respond and looked back at her keyboards. Her fingers raced across them. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see.” His free hand rested on her shoulder and he put the small votive on the counter in front of her.

An army of feet plodded down the stairs, human and animal. Sir Poops-A-Lot raced to his box. Shelly’s husband ran behind. “Bad dog!”

She breathed in and kept punching at the keyboards. She leaned back into his chest, warm and safe. The baby inside her stretched out for the evening’s slumber and she moved Don’s hand to her belly. “Do you feel that?”

“You’re a bad boy!” her husband shouted before he took a seat at the table. He went on and on about dog poop.

No-no went on and on about being crippled.

Shelly tried to get her story out while her family fussed over stuff. The inner and outer chatter didn’t mix. She exploded inside and both her hands slapped the table. “My writing is another job! Seriously!” she shouted.

Yup. Another day in the life of a writer.

Happy blogging, reading and writing!!

Shelly

My Thoughts on the Book, "You Can Write a Novel"

I know, I’m late posting my Monday blog. Oh, the joys of working in the corporate world where they mess around with your schedule meeting their needs, not yours. Ho hum, grumble, grumble.

Anyway, Tuesday is as good as Monday to post a blog, and I have the day off to ponder thoughts. To balance my check book. To clean the downstairs. To clean the inside windows and blinds. Oh, and can’t forget, clean out the lower kitchen cupboards. But, I’m sure you all didn’t come to read about my ‘To-Do’ list for the day, don’t want to wear anyone out doing that.

Instead, I’d like to share about a book I’ve been reading on writing, “You Can Write a Novel”, by James V. Smith, Jr. Okay, it’s a really good book for you organized freaks, something I’m not. My taste is more to the organized chaos thing, making something totally from nothing, go with the flow, let your characters do all the work while you sit on your hiney (your bum, booty, buttocks…), listen, type, stop, listen and type some more. That is totally me.

However, I have to say I did find some things helpful like keeping profiles on your characters. Of course, this lover of organized chaos found some of it too full of systematized dread, like going through magazines and cutting out pictures of people that may resemble your characters.Really? Oh my God(I don't think so), that’s too much like couponing for me. That would take up too many hours. But, I do have notes and bios on some of my new characters. That’s a good thing because sometimes when I ‘Fart Write’ I do forget what they look like. Sometimes(my hubby still says I'm a perfect candidate for Alzhiemers).

When it came to Scene Development…well, I tried and whatever creativity that lingered in my head went on a temporary vacation. It’s not my thing. If anything, it confused me more leaving me with empty-head-syndrome, a bad case of Writer’s Block. Talk about zoning out in pain. It hurt my brain. It really did. Some of us do better without conformity.

Another useful thing Mr. Smith says to use is a Chapter Log. This I can do, but not before I’ve actually written that chapter. It does help to keep me on track so I don’t forget what I wrote about in previous chapters. When I wrote my first novel, I did get lost the further I delved into it and found myself reading the darned thing over and over, the epitome of organized chaos.

He also advices writing your ending chapter first. Tried too, but it wouldn’t come. Like I said, it’s my characters that run with it, I’m just there to type whatever they want me, too. Now there have been times when my characters call an emergency conference because they’re stuck in the Droopy Middle of their story telling, they do get bored sometimes, you know.

In my last novel, the main character really wanted to have a live make out session with her sweetie, which by the way was a good portion of the end. If I were her, I would be sick of running from bad guys, too, and would need something like a dark chocolate bar (the closest thing to an orgasm for me). Okay, so I let her have a little cheat by going to the end, and after, we were able to finish the middle all the way toward the end. Everybody was happy.

All in all, I found a lot of what Mr. Smith said to be helpful. My best advice for any writer that attends workshops or reads books on the ‘How to of the Craft”, is to keep what works for you, be it an Organized Freaky system or an Organized Chaotic Freaky one.

Happy Writing All!
Shelly

Today's Bad Writing

The other night at my critique group, I brought up the fact that a lot of the newly published authors’ books are full of mistakes. What I’m seeing makes my mouth drop, my brain twist, and leaves me saying to myself “they didn’t”. Oh but, they did. Oh. My. God. They really found someone to publish them or they were brave enough to publish themselves, talk about balls and guts.

Pages and pages of ‘then’s’ and ‘just’s.’. Lots of ‘as’ man. Lots of them. Newer writers are beginning their sentences with “finally” and “suddenly”. Instead of describing what their characters see, hear and feel, they are telling us they saw, heard, and felt.

Maybe the current and next generation won’t care how to spell (I mean the kids text today and teachers don’t correct spelling mistakes…not all, but too many don’t follow the old protocol) or what action verbs are. This new generation lacks love for English and the written word(not all, but too many). It amazes me how few love to read (too busy texting) and when a young person expresses their love for reading, it’s euphoric.

For the kids that love to read, how are they ever going to know any better with the smattering of stuff that’s out there. What are we teaching them? That it’s okay to be mediocre? Total ugh.

Publishing companies and self-publishers are putting first drafts of dribble-babble out on the market. I’d be embarrassed to have my babbles published as serious work, and I do a lot of babbling before I get it write. This is probably some hideous babble because no one is editing this piece, but me.

In my critique group, I get a good “YAK!” from my group queen, but newer writers are getting away with sloppy writing. Wow man! Wow! I mean, I know, I’m a novice at writing stuff, but at least I admit it, and I don’t shove it out there in the market for the world to see. Free is good, but you get what you pay for.