A comeback.

Phew!  After last week I worried that I had burned out on writing/author blogs, but several articles inspired me this Round-Up.


The Doctor is in the House — Novel Diagnostics by Kristen Lamb

The Balance of Action and Information by Mary Kole

Making Memorable Minor Characters by Jody Hedlund

Gettin' Physical:  The Dos and Don'ts of Character Description by Chris Abouzeid

Ways to Increase Story Tension by Cheryl Reif

What is a Story?  by Jane Friedman

7 Tips to Improve Your Novel's Pacing by Dana Marton

25 Things Authors Should Know About Theme by Chuck Wendig

Please Lose Sight of Your Plot by Vahini Naidoo

The Art of the Subplot by Amy Rose Davis

Author quotes.

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.  ~Anais Nin

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.  ~E. L. Doctorow

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worse enemy to creativity is self-doubt.  ~Sylvia Plath

I try to leave out the parts that people skip.  ~Elmore Leonard

If there's a book that you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.  ~Toni Morrison

What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.  ~Logan Pearsall

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.  ~Anton Chekhov

Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.  ~Orson Scott Card

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter; it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.  ~Mark Twain

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.  ~Karl Kraus

Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

A writer and nothing else:  a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right.  ~John K. Hutchens

Be obscure clearly.  ~E.B. White

Writing is a struggle against silence.  ~Carlos Fuentes

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.  ~Stephen King

Writing is both mask and unveiling.  ~E. B. White

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.  One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.  ~George Orwell

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.  ~Robert Benchley

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.  ~Goethe

A different chair love.

She's a fickle feline.

Had her way with one new chair and now on to the other.

However, it appears that she's expanding her potential for modeling opportunities.  Note the wide-eyed innocence conveyed in some shots.  As well as the come-hither stare in others. Equally effective, I feel.  Also, her angles here are distinctly more editorial than in the last chair shoot.

So that's something positive to report, even if she is a brazen chair-hopping little hussy.

Not quite fine art.

Lately, I've attempted to crank up the creativity dial.  Besides venturing into new territory—the fabric flowers and the clay tags, for example—I've also gone back to my roots.

It's been a long time since I've worked on any fine art.  I use the word 'fine' loosely.  Maybe a decade. The last several months I've felt inspired to start drawing and painting again. I've sketched a few doodles here and there, but nothing challenging.  Unless you count that giant photo backdrop of the Cajun cabin on a bayou that I had to paint a few Christmases ago for a church party, which was decidedly not fine art, but still challenging.

I kept shaking off that feeling, but the impression hasn't gone away these many months later.  I don't know what will come of starting back up again—it seems to me that I don't need yet another distraction to keep me from working on my writing projects—but maybe I need art simply for my own sanity.

Who knows.  I've decided to just go with it.

I got a digital tablet last year and I've played around on it a little, but until today I hadn't used it to complete a project.  I don't have the hang of the thing quite yet so my lines aren't very pretty, but I'm sure that'll come with time.

Even if I'd mastered the tablet, I'm pretty sure this still wouldn't classify as fine art since I blatantly copied a print I own, by an artist named Robert Barrett.  I didn't want to waste an original idea on poor tablet technique.  

I tried to find a photo of Barrett's piece, but as it's decades old I couldn't find one.  I did put my own spin on it so it's not exactly like the original.  His isn't nearly as scratchy.  I'll let you decide whether that's good or bad.  I like scratchy.  Just in case you were wondering.

Despite the sloppy lines and that it's unoriginal, I kinda like it.  Oh and yes, I sometimes do religious art.  But mostly I just like to draw people.

I think I'll copycat a few more times and when my tablet drawing is up to snuff I'll move on to something new.

A quiet Writer Round-Up.

It's a new record.  I have only one article to share this week.  That doesn't mean I couldn't find others that were well-written or useful;  It's just that nothing else spoke to me.


Setting—Adding Dimension to Your Fiction by Kristen Lamb

Chair love.

Someone found a new resting place.

It's the perfect place to birdwatch too!

I plan on losing my mind in 40 days.

It's that marvelous time of year again!  Well, almost.  A little more than a month to go before National Novel Writing Month—otherwise known as NaNoWriMo—begins.  

50,000 words in 30 days.  That's the gist.  You're allowed to plan all you want, outline, write out chapter summaries and character backgrounds, but no working on the manuscript until midnight, November 1st.  

Last year was my first time.  I wasn't blogging yet, but I did chronicle Script Frenzy in April, the script version of NaNoWriMo.  100 pages in 30 days instead of 50,000 words.  

Although I breezed through Script Frenzy, I found NaNoWriMo challenging.  To be fair, I decided to go for it on October 31st, so there was no time to prepare.  I had a loose idea of a protagonist, but zero plot.  For someone who is a hardcore plotter when it comes to novel writing, winging it was difficult.  

Still, despite not reaching 50,000 words, having several near meltdowns and one spectacular tear-streaked meltdown during which D gave me permission to quit, I don't regret doing it. It's amazing what fingers can do with a keyboard when given free reign.  I'm still in love with the story born out of that experience.  Even if it isn't a fully realized story.

This year I have time to plan a little.  Not too much because I don't want to lose the constant thrill of discovery.  For me, that level of discovery usually comes in the brainstorming phase and not while writing.  I think I like NaNoWriMo so much precisely because it is far removed from my usual process.

I would like to plan enough to ward off looming meltdowns, but I think NaNo will be intense regardless of preparation and that's probably a good thing.  

Maybe even a necessary thing.

Clay tags.

I mentioned in this post that I've got some crafts cooking.

Here's one of them.

Little clay tags.  They're really easy and fun to make.  You can emboss 'em, stamp 'em, or leave them blank to write on later.  

They're good for labeling or as gift tags.  (The one that says adg is a leftover reminder bracelet for my tween church girls—called Activity Day Girls—about an activity we have tonight.  I wrote the details on the back.)

A few ways to use the tags:

(sources here and here)

An omission, a trip, and my new pretties.

This post is photo intensive so wipe that smudge off your glasses.  Maybe grab a snack.

I realized a few days ago that I forgot this blog's six months birthday.  Or is it anniversary?  How does that work?  It was last Tuesday.  Oops.

At least I have a good excuse.  A ten hour drive home from visiting D's parents in Northern Arkansas.

Trip highlights include estate saling in a big red barn...

A scenic drive which landed us in Eureka Springs, AR...

Photos borrowed from Google.

and Carthage, Missouri.

More borrowed images.

Both beautiful places.  I was partial to Eureka Springs, D to Carthage.  We went looking for that last house (the one just above), because it was for sale at a craaaaaaaaazy low price, but never found it.

We stopped at several antique/junk shops and here are some of the goodies D and I wanted to take home.

Compasses from WW1.  (These were D's picks.)

A wrist compass from WW2.

A dress form.

A rusty old lantern from New York Central.

A couple of old fans.  (I really wanted these.)

While I didn't run off with any of the items above I didn't go home empty-handed.

I scored a couple of chairs at an antique shop in Eureka Springs.  (Seriously, I loved that place!)

Chair #1.

Love the shape, the upholstery, the caning, the paint color, but hate the gold speckled faux finish.

I'm going to live with it as is for a while and then I plan on painting it a similar color and antiquing it—which I think is what the previous owner was going for—in a more natural looking way.

Chair #2.

Love everything about this chair also, except for the stain color.

It's this dull 70s shade.  Ick.  I haven't decided whether I'll sand it down and stain it another color or if I'll paint it.  I'm going to live with it as is for a while too.

Isn't the fabric fun?  I've been drooling over that fabric for months (years?) at Ballard Designs.  I practically sprinted across the parking lot when I spied the chair. (They were both outside.)  And I almost passed out when I asked the price for both.  Just about what you'd expect to pay for a chair leg at Pottery Barn, if one could buy furniture in pieces.

The best part was packing the SUV for the ride home.  It took a lot of maneuvering to cram the chairs alongside the pillows, my camera bag, both of our laptops, my one suitcase, D's golf bag and his three suitcases.  Yes, you read that right.  He took three.

It was an enjoyable vacation, but I'm always happy to go home.

Writers love to count.

More numbered lists.


Deadly Sin of Writing #7—Treating the Reader Like a Moron by Kristen Lamb

A Writer's Main Objective by Mary Kole

7 Ways to Develop Dazzling Dialogue by Jody Hedlund

Pseudo Dialogue Tags by Talia Vance

Because I Said So by Ray Rhamey

9 Essentials For Writing Your Climactic Scene by C. Patrick Shulze

14 Dos and Don'ts for Introducing Your Protagonist by Anne R. Allen

My Love (Hate) Affair with Storyboards by Mary Carroll Moore

To Plot or Not to Plot:  Part 1 — Terminology and the Difference between Narrative and Story by Ingrid Sundberg

To Plot or Not to Plot:  Part 2 — Taking a Closer Look at Story by Ingrid Sundberg

Yes, I cheat at Writer Wednesday too.

It's been a while since I've cheated WW by quoting and running.  And since I'm still recovering from vacation (Why do vacations always require recuperation???), I thought I'd, well, cheat.