Envy Describes Your Friendships

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Char of inkydancestudios

Last June, Psychology Today published an article about two types of envy. This link from their blog describes a not so pretty picture of two best friends dealing with envy.

I rarely read magazines because I’m not interested in the entertainment fluff inside the covers of most of them.  But what else could I do?  I’d forgotten to bring my book , some *&##** stole my kindle, and I had five minutes to wait before I could get my hair cut.

I turned to the article on envy because over the last few months the idea of envy seemed to niggled in my mind.  I’ve been working so darn hard on my manuscript revising, tweaking, and more revision and now it’s feels almost ready.

I’m never one to leave well enough alone. The what-ifs started hopping around in my head.  What if I get published before my friends.  They’ve all worked harder and longer than I have.  How will they feel? Or worse, what if they publish and I never do?

This article discussed two forms of envy.

One is destructive where we buy a collection of pins and obtain a voodoo doll. How dare our friend achieve fortune or fame before we do.

The other form makes us think, “Aha! If she can do this, then there’s hope. It’s within my abilities too. This task isn’t impossible after all.” With these thoughts, this type of envy lets us feel joyful in our friend’s accomplishments.

BFF mandates celebrations of each others successes. Patricia Smith Wood and I’ve been friends since all those silly Junior High School parties and sleep-overs.

Dorky Jr. H.S. kids at Pat’s Party

Her dad was an F.B.I. agent. Things just couldn’t get any cooler than that. Naturally, we both loved mysteries.  She preferred Nancy Drew while I consumed all the Hardy Boys books (I’m talking about the pre-1960 versions before some unthinking person watered down all the rich vocabulary).

Here’s to you, Pat! May you sell thousands of your book, The Easter Egg Murder, become rich, and take all of your writing friends out to the St. James Tea Room.

My manuscript is still in the (I hope final) revision stage,  so please stay tune for my next post: Part II Revision, Revision, Revision, where we tackle the problem of not abusing dialogue.

What side of the envy dilemma have you been on? How did you handle it?

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Part 1: Revision, Revision, Revision

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Char of inkydancestudios

“(Working Title) has serious problems with structure and storytelling, it isn’t yet an effective novel.” Peter Gelfan sent this to me in an email back in 2007.  With that he essentially told me thanks and have a nice day.

Revision, revision, revision~

He had mentioned something positive about voice, ideas, and dialogue, but then he wrote, “There’s no plot.”

Plot? Wait–I had things happen, fun things, awful things, surprising things, and humorous things.  Wasn’t that good enough?

Peter first got into my head when I used Google to find Renni Browne’s  editorial company.  Because I’d practically kept her book under my pillow, I wanted to know if she had anything more to add to my education.  Wow! Did she ever. She’s the president of The Editorial Department and Peter is one of her many talented editors.  Actually, Peter is a genius disguised as an editor.

He said I could phone him, so I did. “But Peter,” I said, “Rennie’s book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers doesn’t tell how to develop a plot.”  Of course I have many books on how to write, one even touched on plot development, but with all the exciting things going on in my story, did I really need a structure for plot?

I’m a wee bit stubborn. I told him I didn’t want to give up on this manuscript.

I wondered if he sighed, if he rolled his eyes, if he slapped his forehead, and maybe his finger was on the “hang-up” button.  But he stayed with me for five years until he turned my work over to Renni last year.  He first told me to cut out two of the stories within the main one, and learn how to structure my plot. This process would take a total rewrite, not just tweaking.  He said we were talking months and months (it’s been years and years).

What I learned at this point:

1. A published first novel doesn’t equal a first book. It’s one book revised many times.

2.Writing a book has to be a labor of love (Peter’s words) because any other reason is crazy (my words).

3.A writer doesn’t know what they don’t know, so a good editor is imperative.

Comparing is fun, don’t you think? What are your revision experiences?

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Emotional Relations For Your Writing

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Char of inkydancestudios

Check out today’s blog by Jane Friedman.  Her post today gives advice to memoirs writers about what turns their readers off.  I’m not into writing memoirs (yet) but I seem to have a procrastinating habit of reading everything in front of me. Naturally, her posts have links.Emotional Relationship Symbols in a Genogram And I can’t stand not knowing what treasures lurk behind unclicked links.  Don’t know what I’ll do with this one, but it’s quite a lovely chart tying up emotions in such a neat package.

There has to be a way to use this. What do you think? Will this inspire anything in your writing?

Would love to have your thoughts. Comment below. You can follow my posts by clicking sign-up in the right sidebar. I’m sure I’ll find some more good links for you.

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Wet Feathers, Fowl Weather and Three Lessons

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Char of inkydancestudios

Guess I’m over that (dark) moon phase and now hung up on birds and weather.  Stick with me on this because I learned some truths about the world from a torrential downpour.  A few nights ago the sky darkened and the wind blew. Then the rain and hail started.  All the birds left the feeders and disappeared, except for one.

Soaked Juvenile Spotted Towhee

I spied this young Spotted Towhee plastered to the wet flagstone under our patio table.

Little Towhee shook and ducked her head while the rain and hail pelted down. The patio table didn’t offer much protection from the wind-driven horizontal weather. When the rain finally stopped, she couldn’t fly. Her feathers were soaked.

I trotted out with a terrycloth towel to dry her.  Afterwards, I’d send her on her way because it was late evening. Dusk turns quickly into night on this side of the mountain.

Three Lessons I Learned:

Lesson #1 You may be having a great time at the bird-feeding fest, but if the crowd disappears maybe there’s a good reason for you to leave too. Or from my perspective was I interfering with a Darwin-survival-of-the-fittest moment for this little juvenile?  But, come on, a little towel drying–what could it hurt?

Lesson #2 Big things that come after you may not be monsters. They may be your salvation in disguise. That tiny bird looked at me as if I was Sulley in Monsters Inc. It skittered up and down the patio next to the wall of the house faster than I could do my shuffle-lunge-shuffle-catch-the-dang-thing dance.  Because we both had different ideas about what was happening, nothing productive came from this wasted energy exercise.

I gave up and went in the house.  Little feathered one sat outside the window and peeped for mom.  Mom didn’t come.  Dark of night came. When dark-of-night-comes, so do things with teeth that eat little things that aren’t safely tucked in somewhere. Remember, most birds don’t see well at night. Well, I remembered that too. I slipped out into the dark and just plucked that little one up and placed her in a small box where she could dry out and be safe until morning.

Dry Juvenile Spotted Towhee enjoying the morning sun

Lesson #3 You may feel trapped in some dark unreasonable place, but you’ll feel better when the sun comes up.

So there you have it.  It’s all a matter of perspective.  I think this is true about much of what we deal with in day to day living.  Way too often we let our fears dominate our actions. Fear can be a Darwinian survival tool, but fear often keeps us from living our lives with vigor.

For my writer friends, no matter what point of view you use for your protagonist, isn’t it rather fun to have your other characters’ perspectives cause their behaviors to be unpredictable?   I often use this when I’m in a slump and need to spark something creative in a scene.

Have you tried this too? Would love to hear how twisting perspectives works for you. 

Not yet a fledgling but a precocious Say’s Phoebe

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What I Learned from the Song Bird in a Wooden Cage

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Char of inkydancestudios
Doorway in Old Medina, Morocco

The endearing song of some small bird pulled me, I had to see the source.  I trotted down a narrow, stone street, these streets were all made for traffic of the two wheeled or two legged kind. I was fortunate because only a sparse gathering of morning shoppers ambled near the shops and didn’t slow me down.

Now the singing rang pure and true. I turned the corner and there he was–food, water, and a wooden cage–up high on the outside wall of a coffee shop.  I stood, he sang, I  listened.

  I heard some murmurs behind me and looked.  Three elderly men dressed in traditional clothing sipped their glasses of coffee.  One rose and came over to me.

“This is my bird, you like him?”

Bird in wooden cage–Medina, Morocco

“His song is wonderful. You’re fortunate to have him”

“I own this coffee shop,” the man said, “and he sings for us every morning.”

“May I take his picture?”

My trusty guide book said if a Moroccan does a kindness for you, you should offer him/her a small Euro in thanks. I also knew not to take photos without permission.

He beamed and held his hand out toward the cage.

I took only one photo, reached in my pocket and closed my fingers around a Euro.  I pulled my hand out and held it toward him with my fingers still closed.  He was smiling at me and took the token.

When he opened his hand and saw what I had given him, he scowled and thrust it back to me.

“We like U.S. Americans.  We are good people, we like the U.S.A.  They are the only ones who come and help if people need help.  We do not take your money.”

Morocco wall

I put my hand to my heart and nodded my head to him in gratitude and murmured an apology.  My face burned red.

In Motril, Spain, we stopped in a little tavern off the plaza after watching the festivities of children who threw water balloons, danced, sang and sold food to raise funds for a charity. The afternoon was a scorcher.  We sipped icy drinks and loved not being out in the sun.

Plaza, Motril, Spain

The man who waited on us asked us where we were from.  We told him we were from New Mexico in the southwestern part of the United States.  He smiled and said he’d be right back.  A few minutes later he returned with little dishes of something hot.  Can you imagine two inch squares of scalloped potatoes that were fried?  Unbelievable.

He said his mother owned the shop and made these for special people. They loved Americans and were so pleased we would stop in their tavern.

We were told this over and over in many different countries during our twenty-seven day trip.  My favorite encounter of all was in Kotor, Montenegro.  I went into a small shop and found the perfect Italian made summer dress for my sixteen year old Granddaughter’s birthday.

In my head I fussed about the size. The young sales clerk asked me if she could help and I told her my concern.  I told her my Granddaughter was about her size, but a little taller.

Street in Kotor, Montenegro

She slipped it on over her clothes and said, “What do you think?”

“I think you’ve made me quite happy.”

She smiled at me and said, “You know, we have many tourists come to our city from all over the world, and every day we have many people from many countries who come in our shop. We love  Americans the best because they are always the happiest people in the whole world.”

Wow!

What I’ve learned is you can’t trust the guide books to save you from embarrassments, and, obviously, our national media colors our perception of what the rest of the world thinks of us.

 What I cherish from my travels are these little things you don’t see or read in books: how not to offend a person of a different culture, fried scallop potatoes given to us free just because they like us, U.S. citizens being the most happy tourists of all, how they appreciate America always coming to aid other countries, and naturally, all the comments about the respect and caring they have for the citizens of the U.S. A.

Many other little tidbits come to mind, but I want to know what I’ve missed.  If you’ve had little unexpected moments that delighted you or made you stop and rethink during your travels, I bet we’d all love to hear.

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Dark Moon

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Char of inkydancestudios

Dark Moon IllustrationWow! I do believe I’m on an astronomy kick here.

For you mystery writers out there,  doesn’t Dark Moon sound more sinister than Blue Moon?

“Once in a blue moon–” happens only when there is a second full moon in the same calendar month.  Do you remember that charming song from decades ago, Blue Moon? 

But dark moon? Until I received this link from that comet/asteroid hunting brother of mine, Graham Bell, I had never heard of a dark moon.  He’s becoming a great resource for my writing, and he doesn’t even know it.

Since there actually is a lunar event called a Dark Moon, isn’t that good news for your mystery-writing muse? An astronomical description of the dark moon says dark moons occur mid-point after the full moon (when the moon isn’t visible because of the background of the sun) and when the first sliver of the moon reappears. Early maritime records claimed the dark moon as the new moon–before it becomes that little slice of silver crescent.  There are some arguments about the definition of Dark Moon, but this one is good enough for me. (If I messed this up, my brother will set me straight.)

I become excited–almost uncontrollable–when I learn something new like this. My mind lunges ahead, devoid of reason, obsessed with  possibilities that wait for me in my writing world.

Does something like this start your mind plotting and the scenes simmering?  Did you know about this? Aha! Is your creative, nefarious minds doing in your next victim during a Dark Moon.

Now let’s not saturate the market (wink-wink)with Dark Moon  mysteries, but if you comment below (you have to scroll down), I’d love to know what triggers some of your creative ideas.

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