Three a Day

That's my goal, now. Write three pages every day. Robert Parker did it - or maybe it was five pages a day - and he was an incredibly prolific writer. I'm no Parker, but it is a laudable aspiration.

So, where am I? In last week's post, I said I was stuck. I'm now unstuck and am moving ahead at my 3 a day pace. What I'm writing is dialogue. I like to write dialogue. It comes easily for me and t also takes up a lot of space. That's nice.

Description is something I have to think about before I can write it. So I'm making notes, highlighting them in yellow, and inserting them in the text as I dialogue away. Stuff like "describe bedroom" or "describe her face" - things like that.

I have to put on a different hat for writing description and I'm not there right now. The conversation is moving along nicely, however, and I'm going to keep at it until I talk myself to the end of the novel.

Hope everyone is writing well this week. Share your own tricks of the trade, if you'd like. I'd love to see them.

Timelines

The New Year is a good time to think about organization. For writers, organization is essential and it's easy to get sidetracked, waylaid, distracted, and otherwise off task, when a plot is plodding instead of prancing along.

That's where I am right now. STUCK. Oh sure, I've been thinking about the wip a lot:

Before I fall asleep
While I'm doing laundry
Making dinner
Driving anywhere
As I'm ripping out inches from my pullover as I find another goof as I knit.

Essentially, my plot is dragging and it's dragging me along with it.

Solution

Going to shorten the timeline. I printed out a calendar and blocked off ten days. That's going to be the extent of the timeline for the plot. Before, it was this amorphous (?) thing with no borders. No sides. No trim edges. Now, at least, I've got some basic outline for the action.

Some authors have all their action take place in one day - Dan Brown's Lost Symbol occurs over the course of one night, for example. Right now, though, I'm feeling better about the shortened timeline.

Next job is to think like the Mafia.

What's going to happen to Frankie? That's today's job.

A True American Heroine

No, this isn't going to be a political soapbox oratory or a resurrection of early American history. Oh no. This is about a woman who is a true heroine of this great land of opportunity. There are many, but I've got a few names that I'd like to throw into the mix and will begin with my favorite of all time:

MARCH FONG EU
(1975 candidate photo)

Yep. Dr. Eu has indeed been a politician - she served as California Secretary of State and if she hadn't been, she wouldn't have been able to accomplish one of the greatest services to womanhood that has happened in the Great State of California.

So, you are wondering by now, just what exactly did this woman do?

She took a sledge hammer to a toilet on the steps of the State Department. Yep. Why? Well, why not? Back then, a woman had to pay to use a toilet out in public. Men didn't. Pay toilets were commonplace and if you had to use the jane (slight modification here to match the gender) and didn't have a dime or a quarter, you were out of luck. Meanwhile, those of the opposite gender who needed to use the john, didn't have to pay this discriminatory poll tax.


March had had enough. This symbolic gesture led to the end of pay toilets for women. In 1973 she made her point and endeared herself to women throughout the land. To this day, I bless her.

Who are your heroes?

On Vacation

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone!


I'll be back with the blog after the holidays. Have safe travels.

New Characters

Had a local book signing yesterday and in the vast stretches between selling three books over a two hour period, I took advantage of the time to people watch. This is undoubtedly a writer's favorite occupation when out in public. So, here are the details.

Dazed and Confused

1. Two young women brought their dogs into the drugstore. Now, there's no sign against it, but common sense - what am I thinking here. Common sense isn't all that common. Anyhow, puppy shihtzu (I may not be spelling that correctly) got nervous when Gerard, the poodle, started snarling and growling at him. A puddle ensued. Much chatter from the witless wonders about how this was just what "little what's his name" needed - meeting all kinds of interesting friends. I think the FRIEND would have cheerfully eaten "little what's his name" for appetizers, if he'd been permitted. Meanwhile "little what's his name" is racing all about the drugstore, leaving little shihtzu puddles everywhere. His owner ran for paper towels and dabbed here and there, chattering loudly all the time about the great socialization aspects.

GOOD GRIEF

Finally they left, without having made a purchase. I bet the proprietor was furiously creating a NO PETS except for Guide Dogs sign in the back room. I would have offered to tack it to the witless wonders' backs for free.

Out of the West

2. A cowboy. A real cowboy. This dude was straight out of Lonesome Dove. Ma'am, Honey, and Good Lord Almighty. He bought a book. He was a talker and asked about my politics. I responded "God Bless John Wayne" which went over splendidly. I might add that it wasn't a stretch on my part. Lord I miss The Duke.

Hiccupping through Lit

3. The Serious Non Fiction Browser

This woman took every volume from the Current Best Sellers in Non Fiction shelves and read the covers, the back covers, the first pages, and then leafed through to the last page, which she read before replacing the book. Spent about an hour completing this task before leaving without making a purchase.


What I Learned

To be an Indie Book Store Owner you must have:

1. The patience of Job's wife
2. Excedrin Super Strength
3. Much stock in Pet Deodorizer companies
4. A really, really, really long fuse
5. A relative who has connections with organized crime that will allow you to create a hit list anonymously and give you an alibi when revenge for all you have endured finally comes to pass.

My hat is off - literally, actually, since I wore the 1940s black cloche I got in a heckofa deal on eBay - to these guardians of literature.

Blessings on them all.

Gladys

Photo Credit:US Fish and Wildlife Service

This is probably one of Gladys’s relatives, although she’s estranged from her flock. Couple of weeks ago, I noticed a hen turkey pecking around the foundation of first the house and then the garage. Peck. Peck. Peck. Head down and fully engaged in her pursuit of food, Gladys had decided to venture into civilization. It appeared she had made this a permanent move, as day after day, she continued settling in. The reason for her decision was most likely a game leg. She was limping badly, and I suspected she hadn’t been able to keep up with the rest of the flock, when they moved on.

It’s December, and it’s been snowing hard off and on these past two weeks. Before that there was a spate of bitter cold temps, and that’s when Gladys, as we’ve come to call her, discovered that the foundation of the garage gave off enough heat for survival. The garage has radiant heat in the floor, and this makes the temperature of the foundation just warm enough to serve as a concrete turkey lure.

After a couple of days of serious pecking, it became obvious that the frozen ground wasn’t going to do it. So, up to the barn with a pan to fetch some of the goat feed for the newest stray that decided to call Breeswood Meadows Valley Ranch, home. Now John does an excellent turkey call, and his gobble gobble is famous. He can communicate whatever turkeys need to know, and I’ve taken notes, over the years, trying to develop some modest measure of prowess for myself.

Pan of feed in hand, I decided on the proper spot to establish the turkey feeding station. Morning seemed best, so at 7:30, I opened the door and began the first turkey training lesson. Since Gladys seemed partial to the front porch area and my flower beds by the house, I tossed out a handful of grain, and warbled my best gobble, adding “Gladys” to the mix, hoping to create a Pavlov-like association in her turkey brain.

First couple of days she waited to make an appearance until after I’d gone back inside, but two days ago, there she was, waiting on the snow by the fence, staring at the house. When she heard the grain rattle in the pan, accompanied by my soulful gobble call and the sound of her name, she came limping to breakfast – wings flapping. I’m making good progress. She flies in on time, keeping to a better schedule than most airlines, and I think she’s getting used to me. I opened the door and she didn’t panic. So we shall see.

Maybe an Easter turkey dinner, slow cooked with chestnut stuffing. After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

The Exploding Turkey

A fairly new bride, I was planning my first Thanksgiving Dinner. The in-laws would be there, and so would our close friends. I was looking forward to the gathering with a mixture of anticipation and deep anxiety. Everything needed to be perfect. But as with most aspects of life, perfection is a goal, not a reality.

A good rule to follow is not to try anything new when you’re having company. I knew this, but turkey certainly wasn’t new, nor were the potatoes, corn, cranberries, and stuffing. What was new, however, was the method of preparation.

Space-age technology had found its way into the kitchen labs and the result was a marvelous cooking bag. You placed the stuffed turkey into the bag, placed the bag into the roasting pan, and then popped the whole affair into the oven. What could be simpler? No mess! No clean-up!

“When all else fails, read the directions.” Heard that piece of advice before? It’s easy enough to ignore when you don’t think it applies to you. This kind of arrogance can get you into quite a pickle, to use a food metaphor. I was no exception.

The procedure seemed so simple I didn’t think that reading the directions could possibly enlighten me any further. And so I didn’t. “Pride goeth before a fall.” Or in this case, an explosion.

Somewhere between the appetizer course and the ritual of setting the table, a sonic boom roared through the tiny apartment. This was accompanied by smoke. Everyone ran to the kitchen (not a long run) and watched with anxious faces as I nailed the source of the explosion. The turkey was plastered to the oven door, roof, and sides. Pieces hung from the broiling element like Cajun Christmas ornaments.

I had neglected to punch the appropriate holes in the bag. We silently turned back to the table, took up our plates, scraped the main course onto them and proceeded with dinner. Needless to say it became cemented into family lore and I still hear about it, every Thanksgiving. “Remember when Karen blew up her first turkey?” It’s been the stuff of legend for the past 40 years.

I had nowhere to go but up. And from then on, I read the directions, whether I thought I needed to or not.