Monday, April 26, 2010

Enthusiasm for Catching Fire



Synopsis:  Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.  (Source)




I loved this book as much as its predecessor, The Hunger Games.  Suzanne Collins is a masterful writer who understands the art of breakneck pacing in fiction.  I literally couldn't put Catching Fire down until I'd finished the last word.


All I can say is regardless of your preferred genre, to write or read, you will enjoy this book.  In fact, I you haven't yet, pick up copies of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire and read them.  Then you'll be ready, like the rest of us, for the August 2010 release of Mockingjay, the highly anticipated third and last installment in the Hunger Games trilogy.


Have you read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire?  On a scale of one to five (with five being "On My List of Top Five All-time Favorite Books" and one being "Hated It!"), how would you rate them? 

Friday, April 23, 2010

Daredevil Living

I spent the day recently with my cousin and her family. A couple years back, she found out her husband was cheating. Their marriage teetered on the brink of the abyss for over six months, then slowly they worked their way back to each other. Now, they're solid. Granite solid. But when things were coming apart, my cousin declared to herself that life was too short to waste the good days. When you're knee deep in bad, you have new perspective. She decided she was going to go skydiving, something she had always wanted to do but never dared try.

A couple months ago, with her now faithful life partner next in the jump line, she did it. The two of them went skydiving. When I watched their videos, I was filled with awe that she would dare to jump out of a plane at 14,000 feet. She fell at a speed of 120 miles per hour! The picture of her, taken by the company's photographer that documents each jumper's experience, is now her computer desktop wallpaper. Firey sunset colors outline the profile of her body, and her face is the picture of pure, living-in-the-moment joy.

I'm not an adrenalin junkie, but I crave experiences that force me right in the middle of the present. I want my immediate senses hightened, my emotions raw and all about the moment, not the moment before or the one after. So, I've been thinking: What would that experience be, for me?

I've never scuba dived on a coral reef. That comes right to mind. I'm sure there are other ideas if I gave myself more time to think. But, scuba diving would be awesome! Oh, and I want to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. And I want to climb over the top of the bridge at Sydney's harbor.....



What about you? If money were no object...what would you dare do?

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Happy Earth Day!


Original Artwork by Alexandra Fomicheva

Honor our Planet and Your Craft Today!

~ REDUCE ~

In Your Home:  Here are small changes you can begin TODAY

1. Turn off lights when you leave the room.
2. Close drapes, blinds or shutters on the side of the house where the sun is shining.
3. Buy an aluminum water bottle and refill it from your water filtering system (on the fridge front, Britta system, etc.)  Don't buy bottled water anymore!
4. Pack your child's lunch in plastic containers.  They come in all sizes now, for sandwiches, the size and shape of juice boxes, small enough for one serving of crackers or cookies, etc.  Include a fabric napkin, too!
5. If your child drinks from a straw, buy her a stainless steel straw!  (Available HERE)
6. Use fabric napkins at mealtime.
7. Use fabric rags when wiping down counter tops or cleaning windows.

Your Writing:

1. Print out your drafts less often.  When you do, reduce the font size, fitting more text on each page.
2. Change the color of your font each time you print, using up colored ink cartridges at the same rate as the black.
3. Shut down your computer at night.

~ REUSE ~

In Your Home:

1. Wipe off barely used aluminum foil, fold it when good and dry, and use it again.
2. Buy the reusable grocery bags and keep them in your car.  Use them EVERY time you shop.
3. Save yogurt and sour cream containers to store your child's small toys and game pieces.
4. Buy molds to make your own Popsicles using organic fruit juices.  You save money, there's less sugar, there's no supermarket packaging to throw away, and the kids will LOVE them!
5. Buy giant gallon sized boxes of hand soap and refill the pump-style containers.
6. Store food in the fridge and freezer in plastic or glass containers, not disposable bags. 

In Your Writing:

1. Save your rough drafts and print newer drafts on the backs.  (Draw a cross with a highlighter on the old side!)
2. Save the colored paper announcements from your child's school and print rough drafts on the blank sides.
3. Don't throw away deleted excerpts from your MS, or examples of practice writing, etc.  You may be inspired to use it in another project!
4. Use a secondary character from one story as the protagonist in another.
5. Expand a short story into a novel.
6. Use a scene from a less successful novel and write a short story or poem.

~ RECYCLE ~

In Your Home:

1. Put everything with the recycle triangle on it in your recycle bin.  Things you can recycle are: plastic, glass, and aluminum, of course, but also empty cereal boxes, aluminum foil, take-out cartons, plastic SOLO cups and plates, disposable silverware, magazines and newspapers, plastic trays that store bought cookies sit in, cardboard pasta boxes, pizza delivery boxes, plastic bottles for shampoo, hand soap, dishwasher and clothes detergents, etc.
2. Save gift bags from birthdays and Christmas for the next event.
3. Donate outgrown clothes to charity organizations in your community.
4. Donate books to your local library or school.

In Your Writing:

1. Refill used printer ink cartridges or recycle them at office supply stores.
2. Shred rough drafts when both sides of the paper have been printed on, and use them when stuffing packages for fragile objects to be shipped by mail.
3. Donate old laptops and other computer hardware to recycle centers.


Mother Earth and your Muse thank you!
Celebrate Earth Day by implementing these small changes!

What other ideas can you share for reducing, reusing and recycling?


[Arg! Blogger won't let me post comments on anyone's blogs today!  I'm frustrated!!!!]

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Awards and Announcements

First off, thank you to everyone who provided feedback on my WiP excerpt.  I will leave it up through today with the hopes of drawing more reactions, so vital to my writing process.  After today, I'll take it down, as it is the first draft of a current project.  Click here to read it :)


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carbon neutral coupon with kaufDA.de


Help celebrate Earth Day tomorrow, April 21 by neutralizing your blog's carbon emissions. How? By participating in a joint effort by "Make It Green" and "Arbor Day Foundation." It couldn't be simpler:

1. Click the Leaf Logo above, taking you to a website that explains the program.

2. Copy the HTML code for one of the buttons (like the one above)and paste it on your blog's sidebar. Blog about the program to increase awareness and boost participation.

3. Email your blog URL to CO2-neutral@kaufda.de

4. For your blog, one tree will be planted in Plumas National Forest in Northern California by “Arbor Day Foundation” our partner in US for the “My blog is carbon neutral” initiative!

How will planting a tree in California help reduce a blog's emissions in, say, Georgia? Here's what initiative organizers say: "We plant trees, both in Germany (in the upper Harz region) and in Northern California. Why are we doing this? Because the reduction of carbon emissions by planting trees has the same effect, regardless of where in the world the trees are planted. It involves all of us to give something back to our environment." (Read more HERE)



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Thank you to Courtney at Southern Princess and Lola at Sharp Pen/Dull Sword for the Sweet Blog Award! I love both these blogs, so check them out if you haven't already!!

I'm passing it along to:

Jade @ Chasing Pavements -- She has a published short story, check it the link from her post yesterday!
Michelle Teacress
Mary @ Play off the Page
Angie @ Answering the What If
Ellen @ Pink Tea and Paper



Sweet Dominique at En Violet passed me the Beautiful Blogger award.  Please be sure to visit her today!

This one asks me to share 7 things about myself.  In the spirit of keeping things lively (and I think I've shared all the fun facts about me already!), I'm going to share seven things I did yesterday to make my day a success:

1. Ate a mixture of Shredded Wheat and organic granola for breakfast.
2. Ran three miles on the treadmill.
3. Lifted weights: super set of Smith machine squats and Sumo squats; super set targeting biceps and triceps
4. Wrote 3,000+ words of chapter four.
5. Emailed an old friend from college.
6. Cheered my daughter and her team to softball victory, pulling ahead 16-14 in the bottom of the last inning.
7. Renewed Catching Fire at the library and promised myself I'd finish it by this weekend.

I'm passing this award on to:

Shannon McMahon
Alexandra @ The Publication Follies of Alexandra Shostak
Wendy @ On 'n' On 'n' On
Tiana Smith
Laura @ Wavy Lines



Thank you to the most awesome author/blogger Wendy Ramer at On 'n' On 'n' On -- Because a Writer Always has Something to Say for the Butterfly Award.  Wendy's blog always puts a smile on my face.  Check out her site today!

This award goes to:

Jessica @ The Alliterative Allomorph
Harley @ Labotomy of a Writer
Lilah Pierce
Jenn Johansson
Tory @ Head in the Clouds



I'd like to thank Cherie at Surrounded by Books for the Blogger BFF award.  Cherie's multi-talented and her blog is wonderful.  Drop by today!

This award goes to:

Anne at Piedmont Writer
Shelley at Stories of the Ordinary
Summer at ...And This Time, Concentrate
DL at Cruising Altitude
Simon at Constant Revision



And, thank you to the warm and hilarious Roxy at A Woman's Write.  If you don't read Roxy every day, I encourage you to start!

I'm passing the Awesomesauce award on to:

Sarah at Falen Formulates Fiction
Crimey at Crimogenic
Terry at Gardner West, Private Eye
Amber at Musings of Amber Murphy
Roland at Writing in the Crosshairs





Noelle Nolan's 150 Followers Contest!












Update!!  Here is the response I received after emailing the "My Blog is Carbon Neutral" Initiative this morning (email address is above in this post):

Hi Nicole,

thank you so much for participating in our initiative and making your blog carbon neutral! Your tree will be planted this month by the Arbor Day Foundation. The scheduled start plant date was Monday, April 19 and the trees will be planted by a contracted crew. The roads are being plowed, all contracts solidified, and twelve shipments of 150,000 seedling each are being assembled. We thank you for the support!

There are still some trees looking for a sponsor. So if you know some people who have a blog or website, pass it on and we'll make their blogs carbon neutral too!

Best,
Christin 

Very cool!  Come on, go green today!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tuesday Teaser

Work on my WiP is progressing. It's time to be brave and share an excerpt.

I'm interested in hearing how the pacing feels to a first-time reader. As a short story writer, I've worked hard in perfecting the craft of concise exposition, of only giving readers background information essential to the story's one significant moment in time. The voice of a novel, however, is entwined in the POV's internal perceptions, often stemming from his/her background and experiences. I don't have the experience yet in novel writing to know how much background information and internal perception is important and relevant in any given moment, without slowing down the pace. I pay a great deal of attention to this as I read other author's work. But when I sit down to write, ugh! Doubt seeps in. Your feedback on this point is greatly appreciated!

This is one page from Chapter One. As this is an excerpt from my WiP, it will only be posted two days :)


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[Excerpt deleted.  Thanks everyone for your feedback!!]

Monday, April 19, 2010

Pattycake, Pattycake

Saturday as I was making this cake for my daughter's tenth birthday party, I was reminded of a blog comment conversation I had with Jessica of The Alliterative Allomorph. It was the day I posted about not being able to shut off my inner editor and embrace the imperfection of the first draft. That day, Jessica said this in her comment:

"You need to stop thinking and just write the basics...right NOW, think about what's necessary. You can come back LATER and turn it into beautifully crafted prose. Think of it like sketching a cartoon. You start of with the rough pencil outline, then you add the thick black outline which defines its shape and structure, then you colour it in, giving it life, personality, atmosphere."

Put that way, what Jessica was saying sunk in. And it was this analogy that I thought about as I made Sidney's cake.

Approaching a cake project is very like beginning a novel. I got out all my ingredients and organized them neatly on the counter. [characters, plot ideas, turning points, climax, ending]

I mixed up the batter and baked the cakes. When the were out of the pans and cooled, I leveled off each layer so the tops were flat. [rough outline: when you can start to "see" what the finished story will look like]

Next, I torted each layer, which means I sliced each in half so that the three tiered cake would have six layers. By this time I'd cleaned up my work space several times, but my nice, organized ingredients were all over the place -- just like my final outline: "Organized Chaos!"

I mixed up a batch of plain, white buttercream frosting for the crumb coat. This step I most liken to the first draft of my novel. The crumb coat is when you prepare each of the three torted cake tiers. One by one, you frost each bottom layer then carefully place on its top. Next, you apply a very thin, smooth coating of frosting along the sides and top of each layer. When you're finished, you have three individual layered cakes, of different sizes.

The crumb coat is important because it adheres to it all the loose crumbs, so that when you frost the cake with colored icing no crumbs show through, preventing color and texture blemishes. When you assemble the three tiers with their crumb coats, the cake looks like a cake, but it's plain, white, uninspired. However, it's well constructed and ready for embellishment -- when the real magic begins.

Isn't that like the first draft? A rough draft is the place where you get the bones of the story down, get all the characters and plot points in place, build a sound structure. Like the crumb coat, the first draft is part of the artistry, though you may not embrace it for the beautiful work of art it will become during the last stages of the project: the embellishments, the icing on the cake, the writer's flourish.

One last thing I observed with this cake: Each new cake I bake is superior to the last. I put the same effort into each one, the same dedication to perfection. But with practice, the moisture of the cake is better each time, the texture of the buttercream frosting is firmer and creamier. I reach more instinctively for the right piping tips I need to make this flower or that border. This is so like writing, too. The more I write, the more the words flow with an elevated ease, the less I rewrite, and the quicker the metaphors come to my descriptions. Practice hones a craft, in deep-seated ways of which the conscious mind is unaware.

Thank you, Jessica, for sharing your insight that day, giving me something to ponder over another of my creative passions. If anyone has not visited The Alliterative Allomorph, scoot over there now and enjoy Jessica's wonderful insights and incredible talent for writing.


Have a wonderful day!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Steampunk Dreams

I'm all for stretching my style and stepping outside my writer's comfort zone, but there's one genre I've never attempted (and want to): Steampunk.

Steampunk, for those unfamiliar with the category, is a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction, and is characterized by elements of fantasy. The style gained popularity in the 1980s, when sci fi writers played the 'What-if' game with these types of questions: What if we'd figured out how to explore space one hundred years earlier than we did, when steam power was prominent? What would Victorian Age spaceships look like? How would giant leaps in technology, if they occurred in the 19th century, have changed history?

The imagination needed to write successful Steampunk blows my mind.

My son enjoyed Larklight, by Philip Reeve so much that I told him I'd read it when he was finished, so we could discuss it 'book club-style.' At the time, I'd never heard of Steampunk. I was immediately captivated by the seemingly regular characters in such an unusual setting. It's about an English brother and sister duo, who live in a Victorian house that's actually a spaceship orbiting far beyond the moon. The story opens when a gentleman arrives for a visit, sparking a terrifying yet marvelous adventure that includes space pirates, giant spiders and a universe in peril. My son and I highly recommend it!

One of these days, I'm going to try writing a Steampunk tale. It'll take some mind expanding I'm not sure I'm capable of, but who knows? Maybe the right inspiration will set off a muse-rattling explosion in my head.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy the imaginations of others already brave enough to imagine a Steampunk'd world (and maybe feel inspired!):


Artist Bob Fett has done some amazing series of Steampunk images. His historical artwork is equally impressive. For some Steampunk/Cyberpunk/Historical Fiction inspiration, view more of his work HERE.

And, maybe images like these (these are not the work of Fett, btw) will spark my imagination:









How about you? Have you tried Steampunk? Is there a genre way outside your comfort zone you'd like to attempt?