General

Those things that don’t quite fit anywhere else.

Aside

Writers’ Games

Sometimes, when words are hard to find, my writing group plays a little game. We spin for prompts, which are just words or phrases that have been plucked from various sources and added to a numbered list, and then see what we can write that includes one or all of the prompts.

Occasionally, the resulting scene is actually relevant to the work-in-progress; other times it just serves to open the floodgates and remind you that you can still write.

Regardless of outcome, the games are always fun. And writing is supposed to be that, isn’t it!

Continue reading →
Image

And then what happened?

Some writers are blessed with the innate knowledge of where their story is going. Others just write and let the story take them where it will.

In the writing world, there are two main camps of fiction writers. Plotters and Pantsters1. The former has the story mainly plotted out, either on paper or some lucky few have all that incredible knowledge in their heads. Pantsters, however, don’t bow to the conventions of linear time. They just write whatever story bit is in their head at the moment and sometime later, by invoking some weird kind of magic, move the scenes around to create a story, i.e. they write “by the seat of their pants.”

Continue reading →

House Parties… and promises

Harold and Rose have been time-traveling.

They just returned from a trip aboard the Titanic, the latest of House Party settings at the writers’ forum I frequent. 1

House Parties are an interesting phenomenon. Multiple writers throw characters from their many WIPs 2 into a particular setting and while characters of different backgrounds, time periods, and genres interact, the writers not only have fun but often witness epiphanies.

Continue reading →

Hot & Sticky

It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to sleep without air conditioning. Why is it that the A/C has to wait until mid-July to conk out? Couldn’t it have done this in April???

But, as I notice the little runnels of sweat forming on the back of my neck, I can commiserate with Rose. Summer is a hot and sticky time of year. Sometimes, we of the A/C generation forget that.

Not that I’ve always had air conditioning. No, you young whippersnappers;

Continue reading →

A Quiz

You probably didn’t realize it was Pop Quiz day.

Or thought that you had outgrown that particular form of hell when you graduated from high school.

Mwhahahaha!

Turns out, life is a daily Pop Quiz, of one sort or another. (But this particular quiz won’t be painful, I promise.) Continue reading →

Status

Groundhog Day

groundhog-article

I’ve started perusing the 1929/1930 newspaper of the day each morning and just had to share this rather facetious take on Groundhog’s Day.

In case you’re interested in learning more about the day, here’s the Wikipedia article detailing just how this little rodent came to dictate our seasons.

Of course, Mr. Groundhog is about as accurate as our Weather Guessers are today, so there is that.

Medicinal Magic

I’ve been fighting a sore throat, usually the first sign that I’m coming down with a cold. Which got me wondering about Rose and what she would do in my circumstances.

Enter Vicks.

My grandfather—the original Harold—thought Vicks VaporRub could cure anything.

And why not? When it was first marketed just after the turn of the century, when Grandpa Harold was a young boy, it was sold as “Vicks Magic Croup Salve.”

Now, who can argue with magic??? Continue reading →

First Meetings (part 3)

If you’ve just joined us, Rose and I have been talking about how she and Harold first met, an exercise suggested by the editor to whom I pitched my story idea at the recent writers’ conference I attended. It’s turned out to be a rather long, drawn-out story. You can catch up with Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

ROSE: I’m afraid this is taking much longer than you had expected. Shall I go on?

TM: {nods} Please. You had just fainted when you saw the mess on your hands. Continue reading →