I say … and you think … ?
1. Compulsion ::
2. Spiritual ::
3. Spray ::
4. Compatibility ::
5. Pursuit ::
6. Fake ::
7. Mobile ::
8. Ceremony ::
9. Ribbons ::
10. Mozart ::
Courtesy of Luna Nina
Another random words paragraph is your challenge this weekend. Enjoy!
Broccoli
Rainbow
Paycheck
Assassin
Red
Woman
Diamond
I recently had the honour of interviewing award winning Australian author Wendy J. Dunn. In this interview, she tells us a bit about her life, her love for historical fiction, and her advice for writers.
Enjoy.
Hello and welcome to Fiction Scribe. Tell us a little about yourself.
Thank you so much for this opportunity, Jaime! I really enjoy your site. I’m delighted you asked me for an interview! BTW – big congrats on your recent wedding!
Thank you very much. How did you get into writing? Did you always want to be a writer?
I wanted to write since I was eight. Over the many years since then, I’ve gathered that eight to ten seems the age a lot of people feel the tug of their life’s calling. I won a poetry prize at ten, but it was a long, long time before anything like that happened again. When I was sixteen, I had a go at a fantasy novel. According to my family, I went into my bedroom at the beginning of the school holiday and didn’t emerge until school started again. While the novel was terrible, it pushed my love affair with writing into a lifelong obsession.
(more…)
Ah, more tags. There certainly seem to be a lot of them floating around lately. Today I get to talk about five reasons I love blogging. So here goes.
1. I like getting to know people I wouldn’t otherwise get to know if not for the common thread of my blog subject.
2. I like the sense of community you get after exchanging a few links, making a few comments, etc.
3. Writing is what I love to do, so blogging is a natural part of that. Whether I’m writing in my personal blog, weight loss blog, or here, I’m doing what I like to do and also giving people information at the same time.
4. The sex. Kidding. As far as personal blogging goes, I like it because I often get anti-social. People in my life tend to feel a little bit better when they know what’s going on with it, so personal blogging allows me to do that without having to open my mouth or pick up the bane of my existence - the telephone.
5. Blogging, in more than just a personal blog, is actually doing something meaningful online instead of getting the next high score on Bejeweled.
And now I get to tag five people.
karaokekitty at 101 Reasons I Hate Being Fat
Mallory of Mallory in the Middle
Chrispian at Nothing to Say
Aeryn at Aeryn.org
Kage at I have spread my dreams…
It’s amazing how much you can get done not writing when you are supposed to be writing. Doing laundry becomes a pleasure when avoiding that deadline that’s only seven hours away. What you can see of your neighbors through the window suddenly becomes the most riveting display of drama and action you have ever seen when there is a scene in your novel you’re not looking forward to writing.
Working on one project and one project only can be an admirable thing - be it only working on your one professional blog or working on your one novel. However, not coming up for air, so to say, can leave you drowning in boredom and lack of inspiration. Spreading yourself too thin is the other side of the spectrum, but a little variety in your writing projects could be just the thing to help you get more done and keep you on track.
Like seeing the same person day in and day out, no matter how much you like him or her, you tend to get sick of him or her. The person need not do anything other than always be there.
The same goes for your writing. Going back to the same world, same characters, for so many days in a row might be a joy for you, but if you’re like me and a lot of other writers, you’ll get bored. Maybe even annoyed.
Working through those moments is part of being a writer, but they don’t have to occur so often if you have multiple projects.
If you’re getting annoyed, bored, or even angry with your novel, how about writing a few articles on other subjects you like? If you have a personal blog, do that for a while before getting back to what was frustrating you. If your writing means blogging, try signing up for or starting more blogs on different subjects. If you already have multiple blogs, look around at other blogs and volunteer to guest post for other blogs.
By keeping an alternatives open - alternatives that will only further your name and not waste your time, mind you - you’ll be able to combat boredom by always having something useful on hand to do.
Could someone please pass me a napkin because I do believe I’m drooling.
Let me introduce you to Conflux, the writer’s conference I’m hoping very much to attend this September.
I’ve never been to a mjor writing conference before, so I am a bit nervous, but I’m more excited about getting to meet other writers as well as have a certain lady throw chocolate at me.
There are a lot of fantastic workshops I’m looking forward to going to if this opportunity comes through including “Magic for Our Changing Time” and “eMarketing for Authors”. There’s also a Regency banquet I’m hoping to get to, but I have to actually get in the conference before I start thinking about that.
Kaaron Warren, who has guest blogged here will be there. Also, Gillian Polack will be there and teaching a workshop on writing magic.
If those names don’t excite you about the event like me, then try Garth Nix, author of Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen, The Seventh Tower books, and more.
So be crossing your fingers (and more) for me because I can promise you I’ll write all kinds of posts about it if I get to go.
Compliment vs complement. This is one of the more subtle mistakes writers make in that it’s a difference of one letter. It’s not something I see entirely too much, though, so it doesn’t grind my teeth like other peeves.
Complement can be used as a verb as well as a noun.
Compliment is also a verb and a noun.
Lovely, isn’t it? You have to love the English language. So with this one, you have to concentrate on the definitions because the usual ‘tips and tricks’ don’t apply.
Complement means to satisfy a need or complete a whole.
Compliment means praise. If you remember that this means praise and only praise, then you should be okay with it.
To apply this one:
Her work complemented the rest of the team’s work. (satisfied a need, completed a whole)
The team complimented her for her work. (praised)
A response to Exercise #33 by DaveP.
The old man sat with his withered hands on his lap, watching his grandchildren playing with their toys. Occasionally his eyes would glance down to his fingers, and he’d notice the sunlight glinting off one of his rings. The sight of it immediately took him back to a happier time when his wife was alive. On a day like this, she’d have been in the middle of the action, playing with the kids, letting them use her as a horse to ride around the room. She’d been taken from him a few years back and he’d missed her every day since. They’d been inseparable, the cracks which usually appear in a marriage never materialising for them.
And now as he sat watching Tyler and Tre making pyramids with yellow building blocks, all he longed for was to be with her. He loved his 2 children, and his 5 grandchildren, but that love was nothing compared to the love that he shared with his wife of 58 years. He reached down and picked up a teddy bear that the youngest child had dropped, and as he looked in to its eyes, all he could see were his wife’s beautiful blue eyes staring back at him. He looked up to the ceiling, and mouthed the 3 words he’d continued to whisper to his wife to her dying day and beyond. A tear rolled down his cheek, and then in his mind came back the same trio of words.
” I love you”.
He smiled to himself, and sat there watching the kids play without a care in the world, hoping they too would one day experience the joy of loving someone and it lasting forever.
Before anyone wants to say he spelled materializing wrong, it’s the British spelling.
First pick – Chuck the ‘old man’ part. That’s made obvious with his withered hands and his having grandchildren. Giving me labels on characters that I don’t need gives me a list of things that make ‘old man’ in my mind and make it that more difficult for you to paint a picture of this man.
“Occasionally his eyes would glance down� I do this every now and then as well, but I try to avoid it. Instead of saying, “Occasionally he would glance down at his fingers� you have “his eyes would glance down� making it, if you take it literally, like his eyes move independently of his mind. Also, “would glance� is passive. Be aggressive! If you can take out ‘would’ or ‘was,’ then definitely do it. (Same goes with the ‘and he’d’ [‘he would’] in the next part.) In the end “Occasionally he glanced down� is tighter and not passive.
About using numbers instead of words – 3 instead of three – I mention it because it tends to jar me a bit as a reader. I don’t expect numbers in their number forms to be in writing, and I don’t think other people do. At least not in their books.
“He looked up to the ceiling, and� – You don’t need a comma there. When a comma comes before an ‘and’ it’s because what comes after the ‘and’ is a complete sentence.
“ I love you�. – Always proofread. The space between “ and ‘I’ and the period outside the quotation will make an agent/publisher toss your submission.
“He smiled to himself,� – Comma not needed.
The last pick is a personal preference. “and it lasting forever� doesn’t seem the best way to end a heartfelt piece like this. It sounds like a bit of a mediocre thing to say to end this. I won’t make any suggestions, but I would suggest revision.
Well, it’s Saturday June 16th which means the Spread the Love comment contest has ended. While it didn’t go at all as planned, I’m happy to hand out a $15(US) Amazon.com gift certificate as a Loyal Reader and Commenter winner’s prize.
Congratulations to Wonder of W for Wonder! Over this past month she has made the most comments and even sent in a picture of her writing space.
So, Wonder, congratulations to you and thank you to all my readers, new and old. I always love hearing from you.
This should be an interesting one.
In as few words as possible, define happiness.
After you’ve done that, freewrite on happiness for as long as you like.
How does your shorthand version match up with your longer version?
I say … and you think … ?
1. Riding ::
2. Actress ::
3. Flowers ::
4. Making ::
5. Robot ::
6. Enjoy ::
7. Identify ::
8. 22 ::
9. Busy ::
10. Forward ::
Courtesy of Luna Nina
Sally over at Living Without Meat has tagged me. If you’re not familiar with tags or memes, Sally couldn’t have put it better:
In blog world you pass your friends a note by leaving a comment, visit them by hitting their site, show them love with a link to their entry, and hand off the silly childhood chain letter by tagging them to do a meme.
Sally, who was tagged by TaxGirl, tagged me to write seven random facts/habits about me…
1. I was originally signed up to be the Scrapbooking blogger.
2. I love sushi. Love, love, love, love, love it.
3. I have five piercings and two tattoos.
4. I heart Foamy, whom I only found out about by overhearing one of the episodes being played, remembering the quotes from the episode, and googling like crazy.
5. I collect snow globes.
6. I’m a sucker for true romance - not that bubbly “oops we bumped into each other and are now in love!” stuff.
7. My goal always has been to write things that make people feel, make people care about something beyond the day-to-day bubble of their lives.
I tag:
Gillian from Food History
Elisa from The Book Stacks
Paul at Toy Bender
Farley at Wine Outlook
Allison at Find Religion
Neelima at Healthy B.P.M.
and Leslie at Apple Reporter
The rules:
Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to then report this on their own blog with their 7 things as well as these rules. They then need to tag 7 others and list their names on their blog. They are also asked to leave a comment for each of the tagged, letting them know they have been tagged and to read the blog.
As I mentioned yesterday, this past Sunday I had the honor of having brunch with Dr. Gillian Polack of Food History who was in Melbourne for a writer’s convention.
Yesterday I talked about meeting with Gillian with regards to networking and getting your name out there as a way to become known in the writing community. Today I’ll talk about the non-networking benefits of meeting other writers.
Mr. Scribe calls it cross-fertilization, I’ve heard it called everything from idea exchange to filling up the inspiration tank…
As could only be expected, our conversation came to the subject of Gillian’s books. I sat there, fascinated as she talked about the hidden messages she put in her work that you would know if you knew well enough. She talked about fun and creative ways to kills characters, drawing on an old folk story about the cheating wife of a man who killed her lover.
The husband punishes both the lover and the wife, ironically giving her what she most desired in a form which destroys her and her lover. Forced by her husband to eat her lover’s heart unknowingly, the wife becomes the victim of a secret, transgressive and violent act.
I was thrilled as she recounted the tale to me because I hadn’t heard it for ages. She went on to talk about how she had used the story to her own end, and I responded with tales of killing my own characters.
A gruesome conversation to passersby, but thrilling for me. There’s nothing quite like talking to another writer face-to-face, especially a writer who is passionate about his/her writing.
Her talking about how she killed her characters got me thinking about different alternatives to how to kill my characters - which I’ll be doing a bit of in the novel I’m working on. The conversation also encouraged me to start looking into something I hadn’t looked into in a long time - folk tales.
This exchange of ideas, cross-fertilization, is probably one of the best, fastest ways to get inspired that you could possibly think of. I’m not saying you should copy your fellow writers, but feed off their passion, take their tips and tricks to heart, and make all of it your own.
Personally, I haven’t been quite so enthused about killing a character in a long time. 
Use it or lose it, right?
This past Sunday I had the honor of having a fabulous brunch with Dr. Gillian Polack of Food History (whom I have interviewed in the past). She was in Melbourne for a writer’s convention and had just enough time to squeeze in a casual meeting with Mr. Scribe and me.
The food and conversation were both fabulous. Sometimes I become entirely too focused on the isolation aspect of being a writer I forget how fun and exciting it can be to talk to other writers. In talking with Gillian, the pleasure was two-fold in that not only was she a fellow writer, but she is one quite familiar with the inner workings of the industry.
When it comes to being a writer, there isn’t a straight line of submit, publish, become famous. As Gillian pointed out during out conversation, a lot of authors use short stories as a method of keeping their names out there between books.
Like many things in life, writing is about networking. You want to get your name out there, show you’re versatile (and you thought I did weeklies, interviews, and pillar articles on whims) by demonstrating all your skills, and make connections.
While I would have loved to meet Gillian if I were a journalist with a sports column, meeting her was a natural progression of events.
Have you ever played the game six degrees? If you haven’t, it’s also a bit of a theory, too. You take two seemingly unrelated people or things, and connect them. The concept of a friend who has a friend who is the cousin to the best friend of someone famous.
I know Chrispian who hired me to work at 451press, where I met Gillian, who introduced me to Australian authors like Wendy J. Dunn, Kaaron Warren, and Tansy Roberts. Wendy, Kaaron, and Tansy also know other people in the business…
Do you see what I’m getting at?
As much hard work or as mysterious as the concept of networking may be, it will make your life a lot easier if you can talk to an agent face-to-face because you’re a friend of his/her cousin than to go in on anything ‘cold turkey.’
I don’t by any means mean to say meeting other writers should be used for networking purposes only. As I’ve mentioned, writing can be a bit isolating at times. Getting out and networking a bit can also help in that you get to talk to people who are at least somewhat familiar with what you do and what it’s like.
So get your name out there! Make some contacts, interview some people, ask to review books, blogs, and websites, and make yourself known. Network to help get you to where you want to be.
More non-networking benefits of talking to other writers and more about meeting Gillian to come tomorrow.
If you do, be sure to stop by the Fiction Scribe’s Squidoo page and see what little tidbits I have there.
It’s a baby lens, still, so if you have any suggestions, be sure to let me know.
Is your spelling less than stupendous? Has getting published gone from possibility to problem? Are you alienating your readers with alliteration? Here at Fiction Scribe you can find what you need for prompts, publishing opportunities and advice, fun wordplay, and more. Use Fiction Scribe for the encouragement you love, the information you want, and pointing out the mistakes writers make that you need. Fiction Scribe: Your source for everything writing.
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