In search of a little funny

In my effort to be less this year, I'm seeking out ways to be less stressed. Laughing seemed like a good start.

The first book I read this year, Sara Barron's, People are Unappealing  made me laugh inappropriately in all sorts of places. When I spotted this book on the shelf, it was the title that grabbed me. Normally I'm a cover kind of girl. Titles aren't my thing. Usually. But this one was so damn true that I had to nod in agreement and skim a few pages. While I found it entertaining, it wasn't the sort of book I usually read so I put it back on the shelf and went about my search for books on writing--which was why I was at the bookstore in the first place.

A couple weeks later, still haunted by the amusing title, I made my way to the bookstore and sighed with relief when I found it was still there. I'm rather one tracked minded once I'm set on something and if the book hadn't been there, I would have had to drive to another bookstore until I'd found it. Ordering it, and then having to wait for it, just wasn't an option.

With my new purchase in hand,  I went home and cracked it open. And laughed. And laughed so hard that I had to leave the room with the book rather than attempt to explain to my husband what was so damned funny in front of my kids. FUPA anyone? Filled with all aspects of unappealing life from dealing with parents to sex. The vulgar observations were so up my alley that I brought this book with me everywhere. It fit right in my coat pocket. I even schemed my way out of the house for an extra half hour of quiet reading time by offering to drive to the pizza place, order, wait and then bring it home. I'm pretty sure the girl at the counter thought I was on something from the amount of snickering I was doing over a particularly amusing passage wherein real people are "renamed" to protect their identity.

I was sad when the book ended. I'd had so much fun laughing my way through that one that I had to get another. I went back to the bookstore and came home with four more books. One of which was Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Also known as the second book I read this year. Not quite as funny as the first book of the year, but still amusing and much safer to leave sitting around the house.

Filled with short essays that are the perfect lunch-break size, this book covers everything from speech therapy as a kid to drug binges, artistic expression, jazz bands, leading an unmotivated life, claiming the perfect boyfriend in order to have a house in France and attempts at learning French.

As a writer, the last section of the book where he divulges his daydream characters is by far my favorite. Anyone who desires to best describe their hair as cravy is all right in my book. Curvy, wavy, yep, totally makes sense to me. I've seen that hair. Some great character tidbits in that section, yes indeed.

Laughter. Yep, I feel less stressed already. I wonder what the third book of the year has in store? 

Feeling the love

After last week's rousing critique round of pointy sticks jabbed mercilessly into my uncooperative short story, I'm feeling the warm fuzzies of being back in crit land again. It's been almost a year and the masochistic part of me has missed it. I just need to put the warm fuzzies away and continue to jab the short story until it agrees to convey what it was meant to.

The Liebster Blog Award originated in Germany. Liebster means dearest or beloved, and Liebe is love.

While we're talking love--yes, I know I'm early but not a big fan of Valentine's Day anyway--I've been doubly the recipient of the Liebster blog award. Lots of love going around lately. So I must thank, Fred and Chrystalla, both of whom are wonderfully entertaining and talented writers.

If I'm playing by the rules of this award, I'm to pass along the love to five blogs that I love. However, A) Three of the five blogs I intended to pass the award to have already been loved and another didn't want to play along. B) I don't like rules. Therefore, as I sit here surrounded by bloody crit sticks, I'm going to announce that I love you all. There. I said it. Don't expect to hear it again for another year.

Now you'll have to excuse me, I have pointy sticks to sharpen and then I'm off to return them to their owners.

Six Sentence Sunday: A Broken Race 2

In this week's excerpt we meet One-fifty-two, one of the Simples. When I started this story, I never intended to have him become the foremost MC of the four, but with his emotional vulnerability and unique pov, he quickly became my favorite to write.

He’d had a name. A name of his own before he’d become One-fifty-two. He looked at the numbers stamped on his hand. They’d hurt when William had put them there with a needle and ink. But it was part of being a man, of growing up. He’d cried, but not too loud. No one had wiped away his tears.

Check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here.

Another new old project

What a difference years makes when it comes writing. After blasting through edits on A Broken Race, I was up for conquering another project that had been languishing on my hard drive. I picked Sahmara's Sunset because it had been giving me the puppy eyes the longest.

 Sahmara's Sunset as the distinction of being my very first NaNo novel from 2006. It was the first novel I wrote in thirty days. It proved that I could actually write something that didn't take years to finish. In fact, it was the first novel (and still is to this day) that I wrote knowing what the end would be before I started.

 If only I'd known the middle. This is also the novel I discovered that leaving vast tracts of 'connect the dots later', is a very bad idea. I've since learned that if I'm going to do this, to at least leave an outline and notes in that section.

 Other things I didn't know back before I joined a critique group and did some educational reading that are now driving me insane:

- Utter lack of proper formatting. I've since become a little OCD about this and won't even write a rough draft without it.

- Large blocks of telling. Blah, blah, blah. I'm even dozing off. - Repeating myself. Sadly, that one's never gone away.

- Chapter placement. Yes, chapter length varies, but an 11k chapter? Really? And no, it's not the only one.

- Unnecessary scene breaks. Why didn't I just change a couple lines up a little and continue on? No idea.

- This one suffers from the same thing as my early drafts of Trust and the reason why there are so many discarded characters running about: Anvilitus. Not just repeating myself, but making similar events happen repeatedly to drive a point home.

 But I think it has promise. So I'll continue wringing out my mop and keep my pruning shears sharpened as I tackle this project. One thing is for sure though, it's going to take a lot longer than the last one.

Six Sentence Sunday: A Broken Race

Today's excerpt is from the opening of a project from a few years ago that I'm finally getting cleaned up and ready for the big world. This is a conversation between Jack, one of the MCs and a man he's just captured during an attempted raid on his fortress. It neatly sums up what what the story is about.

Gunfire again filled the air.

The Wildman shook his head, tears running down his face. “Please, we just want a woman or two. You have so many.”

There weren’t many, barely enough to produce a steady population in fact, and far too many of them Simples. “Your women are not my concern. Your kind is full of the disease and fifth that got us into this mess to begin with.”

Check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here