Monday, May 24, 2010

Open discussion with God



I’m having an issue with God today.


My irises are beautiful, my columbine are flowering like gangbusters, the creeping phlox has never looked better, and my double-flowering crab is so covered with blossoms one can scarcely see any leaves. I planted most of the vegetable garden last week, squash and all, AND. IT'S. SNOWING. TO-DAY!


Are you freaking kidding me??? It’s the 24th of May, God. Who sent this work order in?

Have Your angels been dipping in the sauce behind Your back?
Did the head of Your weather department develop Alzheimer’s when You weren’t looking?
I’ll bet it’s those cherubs, playing tricks again. The little scoundrels!

Respectfully speaking, Sir, you need to give someone a talking to.

We had weather like this in Jackson Hole where I grew up. Two inches of snow on June 18 in—when was it—the mid seventies? Snow on the fourth of July when I was a kid. Snow in August, occasionally, and almost always snow on the high peaks each Labor Day.

Ok, so crap happens in Jackson Hole. Accept that and if you don’t like it, move on.

I didn’t like it and I went south. I did my part, God. So why am I seeing this unmentionable white stuff all over my lawn?

And don’t even tell me snow is ‘soft white crystalline flakes’. I don’t care. It’s COLD, for Pete’s sakes, and that takes any loveliness it might have ever thought of having and flings it right out the window!

Don’t give me a scientific explanation about how the ‘upper atmospheric conditions’ got out of control and the rain we were scheduled for was ‘run through a  deepfreeze on the way down’, either. There’s a simple solution to all that.
Turn on the heat!
Then blow that upper-atmospheric deepfreeze back to the top of the Grand Teton where it came from, originally, and tie it down so it won’t escape again.

Or, if you don’t like my suggestions, think up some other brilliant solution to the problem we’re having down here. I don’t care. Just do what You have to do and clear this mess up, please. My sense of humor does not include admiring beautifully-shaped ice crystals in May – or June, July, August, September or October, either, for that matter. These are the months for gentle warmth—please note the stress on gentle, there—, and for green growing things, backyard barbecues and tanning on the trampoline. That’s a little hard to pull off when there’s a freakin’ blizzard going on outside.

So, quick!, tie up those cherubs, replace that Alzheimer’s angel with a seraph who can think straight, and lock up the sauce. Snow in summer belongs in Jackson Hole. Let’s keep it there! 

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Read the fine print carefully - or - hook lines for my current wip

I wanted to join Bryan's Logline/Hook Line Blogfest but it's been a very hectic week and I didn't read his rules closely enough. I got the part that I was supposed to have my hook lines posted today. What I didn't catch was that I was supposed to let him know my blog url before May 22, not on May 22. So I'm going to post the hook lines I've worked on this week and I'm going to let him know but I don't know that it will do me any good. Too bad, so sad. One needs to always read the fine print carefully.

Before I post my hook lines, let me say that this has been another huge learning experience. I've read several excellent blogs about hook lines this week, blogs that helped me craft my own. Chris Richman of Upstart Crow Literary says they should be 25 words or less. I read another blog from an editor who said it shouldn't be over 20 words. Have you ever tried to distill a complete novel into so few words? !!! It's doable but it's difficult.
Anyway, here are the hook lines that I've devised for FIND EXCALIBUR'S SHEATH!.

#1. Elfhame wants its treasures back and expects abandoned adolescent, Alex Anderson, to face off with Morgan le Fay in Avalon to get them. (23 words)

#2.  An adolescent must guard his virtue and his life from Morgan le Fay while searching for Excalibur and its sheath.  (20 words)

#3.  Both virtue and  life are at stake when an abandoned adolescent must retrieve Excalibur and its sheath from deadly sorceress, Morgan le Fay of Avalon.  (25 words)

#4.  Elfhame requires an abandoned adolescent to face off with a deadly sorceress and retrieve Excalibur and its sheath. (18 words)

#5. A rune reading sends an orphaned adolescent and his companions on a deadly mission to retrieve Excalibur and its sheath.   (20 words)


Which do you think is best? Are any of them worth keeping?

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Do you love to write?

I love to write. I love to hate to write. I hate to write. Sound confusing? That's probably because my feelings for my craft depend on the day, the hour, and sometimes the minute. When it's flowing well, I love it. When it's not, I have to glue my seat to the chair, grit my teeth and plow through. When the block is large enough, I think some not-so-nice words and go find a good book. Sometimes I get a lot of reading done.
But that's all good, too, isn't it? The more we read the more aware we, as writers, become of how words can and should flow, of the common mistakes that even copy editors miss, of how to structure successful stories. So I read a lot.
I've also fallen into the blog-hopping business lately. I'm seeing a lot of blog contests on the blogosphere. They're interesting. Simon Larter's recent contest on his blog www.constantrevisions.blogspot.com/ taught me a new form of writing. It was fun. It was also fun to be one of his five winners. And Simon's blog can be very entertaining so check it out when you have a spare minute (or the writer's block gets too big).
This week Bryan at http://timeguardiansaga.com/blog has a blogfest going called logline/hook line blogfest. I checked that out, along with a few related blogs, and ended up over at the Upstart Crow Literary Agency, reading Chris Richman's blog about hook lines.http://upstartcrowliterary.com/blog/
They should be 25 words or less? Are you freakin' kidding me? If you say so.
I sat down last night and came up with two hook lines under 25 words, each, for my wip that's almost ready to send out and I'm entering them in Bryan's blogfest, just for the fun of it. I do like a good challenge.
So what are your favorite blogs? I'm always open for a few more to read when the muse is sleeping.