What’s White, White, and White All Over?

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled blog post with a recap of the Blizzard of 2010 (aka the Snowpocalypse, aka the Super Storm, aka Snowmeggedon, aka SnowFail, aka snOMG (thanks Carla Coupe!), aka Too Damn Much Snow, aka @#*&#^@!).

Official front yard accumulation: 27 inches

Tree damage: One small holly tree, trunk snapped

Power outage: Minimal, 2 hours during the middle of the night

Personal injury: Can’t raise arms above shoulders (I’ll get over it.)

Family members’ throats strangled: Zero (so far)

Here are some pics:

 

I Love the Feel of Papyrus

You might be an “old-school” reader if...

 

• The only “e”-book you've read is the fifth volume of the encyclopedia.
  
  
• You think Kindle is something you burn in the fireplace.
  
  
• Being a prolific writer means writing TWO books a year (see Patterson, James).
  
  
• You believe non-fiction books and memoirs actually have to be true.
  
  
• You remember a time when dogs didn’t narrate best-sellers.
  
  

Please Remember to Tip Your Blogger

Back in October, I wrote a blog post about public speaking. About how I was going to try Toastmasters or practice in front of a mirror or videotape myself.

Well, I've done nothing so far.

Big surprise, huh?

A small digression: I have some bad memories of public speaking. When I was in fifth grade, I had to get up on a stepstool and introduce some kind of drama thing my class was performing. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember some raucous laughter from the audience. Unfortunately, what I was saying wasn't supposed to be funny.

The next year, my class performed a play that I helped write, a day in the life of Socrates. I only had one line, but that didn't stop me from mangling it!

Needless to say, I never volunteered to be in any more dramatic productions.

Digression over. (Now where was I?)

Back in October, when I wrote the original post about public speaking, I didn't yet know I'd be writing a series about a stand-up comic. Now that I do, another fantasy has emerged from the depths of my addled mind.

What if I work up a short act and perform at comedy club open mic nights? That's public speaking right? With even more pressure.

When I floated this idea by my agent, she laughed.

When I floated this idea by my wife, she laughed harder.

Hmm. Is that a challenge? I suppose if my Midnight Ink pal Sue Ann Jaffarian can train to run a marathon, I can do a couple measly open mic nights.

Right?

Right?

Hello? Is this thing on?

Monday, Monday

Here are a few interesting blogs to read on this first Monday of February:

Nancy J. Cohen has some great tips for authors about printed promotional items. What do you really need?

Tess Gerritsen blogs with her views on e-book piracy at Murderati. Is it the end of the world as we know it?

And JD Rhoades has some views at Murderati, too, and he feels fine.

At Mystery Writing Is Murder, Elizabeth Spann Craig makes an intriguing comparison. Was J.D. Salinger the Anti-Patterson?

Watch For Wingtips

Get in late, get out early.

No, that's not my plan for attending my neighbor kid's piano recital.

It is a simple, yet awesome, piece of advice I got once for making your scenes (and your novel) hum right along:

Get in late
Start each scene at the latest possible moment you can to avoid unnecessary throat clearing and preamble. How many times have you read a scene that opens with a character waking up or eating a meal or doing some mundane task? If you're like me, too many times. Get right to the action or right to the dialogue. Have your characters advance the plot, not tread water. Do we really need to read about a character driving to a meeting? Not unless he's involved in a fiery seven-car pileup and lives to tell the harrowing story. Instead, start the scene at the meeting. Or better yet, start the scene five minutes after the meeting has already begun, right as one member of the Board of Directors is hurling a shoe at another.

Personally, I always try to start in medias res (loosely translated: in the middle of the action) whenever possible, especially if a shoe fight is involved.

Get out early
It's just "get in late" in reverse! End a scene as soon as all the vital action is complete, before you end up killing the suspense with needless recap or filler. You know, the part where some minor supporting character says, "Goodbye, Ralph. Drive safely. Give me a call when you get home. Oh, I forgot, can you give me the twelve bucks you owe me? I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I always like to eat lunch in the little cafe on the plaza outside. You remember, the one with the striped umbrellas and the waiters with the French accents. We had lunch there ourselves three months ago...or was it four months ago...No wait, I think it might have been two months ago. Definitely sometime in the past year. It was drizzling."

Remember, useless information is an anchor on your book's pacing! Also remember to watch out for flying shoes!

A Little More to the Left

I'm a cut-and-paste kind of guy.

Nothing to be ashamed of, I guess. I like control-x'ing and control-v'ing my way around documents when I revise. A word looks out of place? No problem, let's try it over there. Still no good? How about there, or there, or right over there?

It's not just words I like to rearrange. Sentences, paragraphs, whole scenes. I've been known to cut entire chapters and move them to another place in the story, just to see how they fit.

No good? That's what the Undo button is for.

(How did people write before word processors?)

Wouldn't it be great if you could cut-and-paste other stuff? Your lawn's looking a little spotty? Head over to the golf course and cut a swath of some nice fairway and paste it on your lawn. Need to paint the house? Hello cut-and-paste, goodbye Sherwin-Williams.

Microsoft is probably already working on it.

On The Rubber Chicken Circuit

If you've lived in Chicago, you may have developed a taste for deep-dish pizza.

If you've lived in North Dakota, you may have developed an appreciation for well-insulated parkas.

If you've lived in the corporate world, you may have developed an addiction to PowerPoint.

Guilty, your honor.*

To wit:

Over the course of the next year (few years, decade, whatever), I anticipate giving a variety of presentations. Some will be promotional, some will be educational, some will be humorous (I hope!). I may talk about the writing business or where my ideas come from or why all my time has been sucked away by the insidious Internet. Regardless of the topic, I want to be prepared.

So this is my strategy:

I'm going to create PowerPoint slides covering every possible topic I can think of. Then, for any particular presentation, I can mix and match the appropriate slides to put together something riveting. Need a presentation on snaring an agent? Pull out the "How to Write A Query" slides, complete with the photo of a rhinoceros (you need a thick skin to query, get it?). Going to give a presentation to my 6th grader's class? Pull out the "Hey, Look What Funny Things I Can Do with Photoshop!" slides.

So far, I've got about 50 slides done, on my way to several hundred (or more). Here are some broad topics I plan to cover (the list isn't all inclusive, but it's a start):

Craft
Publishing Business
Promotion
Industry News
My Background
My Writing Routine
Author Influences
Cool Research
Humor

Got any topics to add?
Know where I can get a projector, cheap?

 

Footnote
*Of the PowerPoint addiction--I don't much like pizza (that cheese thing again) and I don't much like cold weather either.