Sunday, July 23, 2006
I Found My Muse at a Party - Thanks Outlaws
This has been an amazing weekend. I got to spend the day yesterday at home and alone for about 8 whole wonderful hours and did nothing but write. Yes I forgot to eat lunch and didn't even notice.
I got 26 chapters plotted out on a book I love and that is including things I have never written about before. The world is a big place and I'm just now venturing out into it with my writing.
WOW! How great is that?
I also got the book we brainstormed at the OKRWA Plotting Party started on screen instead of in my mind. I got the Heroine mapped out and named and started on the hero.
I wrote a piece on the "what come into your mind" pic on Rinda Elliott's blog The Write Snark. What fun it was to let my mind go to places it wanted with no boundaries. Then I went back to find how many words I misspelled and found a comment from the lady herself. She liked it, I think, and if not I do not want to know it. I'm still floating on the thought that someone I call "My Hero" like what I wrote.
I am going to print off 10 copies of a synopsis, first three chapters, query letter and a bio this afternoon and mail them off to publishers tomorrow. Thanks Betty, you might not have thought I got your comment or took it to heart but it seeded in the back of my mind and now is a full blown nagging thought that I am responding to today. So I'm a little slow, ok.
The Plotting Party was the match that set this fire burning. I was really tired when I got home and it did not burn bright for several days as I caught up on home and work stuff that was piled to the ceiling. When I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel of work I realized it was the desire gnaw in me to put BCHK and now I'm having a problem breaking away to do anything else. What a great feeling. And yes I do consider writing on my blog as creative writing.
My wish today is for all writers to catch this burning desire and without fail make the time to write . And if you need the motivation to get started, have a plotting party and see how the fire starts.
Everyone, are you not glad I found the way to use spellcheck on this program. YEE HAW!
I got 26 chapters plotted out on a book I love and that is including things I have never written about before. The world is a big place and I'm just now venturing out into it with my writing.
WOW! How great is that?
I also got the book we brainstormed at the OKRWA Plotting Party started on screen instead of in my mind. I got the Heroine mapped out and named and started on the hero.
I wrote a piece on the "what come into your mind" pic on Rinda Elliott's blog The Write Snark. What fun it was to let my mind go to places it wanted with no boundaries. Then I went back to find how many words I misspelled and found a comment from the lady herself. She liked it, I think, and if not I do not want to know it. I'm still floating on the thought that someone I call "My Hero" like what I wrote.
I am going to print off 10 copies of a synopsis, first three chapters, query letter and a bio this afternoon and mail them off to publishers tomorrow. Thanks Betty, you might not have thought I got your comment or took it to heart but it seeded in the back of my mind and now is a full blown nagging thought that I am responding to today. So I'm a little slow, ok.
The Plotting Party was the match that set this fire burning. I was really tired when I got home and it did not burn bright for several days as I caught up on home and work stuff that was piled to the ceiling. When I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel of work I realized it was the desire gnaw in me to put BCHK and now I'm having a problem breaking away to do anything else. What a great feeling. And yes I do consider writing on my blog as creative writing.
My wish today is for all writers to catch this burning desire and without fail make the time to write . And if you need the motivation to get started, have a plotting party and see how the fire starts.
Everyone, are you not glad I found the way to use spellcheck on this program. YEE HAW!
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Mom, Can We Go Play?
by Jo Smith
The heat is the main topic in most conversations here in the heart of Oklahoma. When I left work today at about 5pm the big electronic sign between the street and the runway tells me it is 109 degrees and the sun is still beaming strong with no sign of lowering in the sky.
I've lived here all my life (don't ask) and when I was a little girl (yes Virginia I was young and little once) we had many days like this and no refrigrated air conditioning. So it was not a horrible thing to go outside, it was cooler if you had a shade tree to play under. We sat on the grass and played with the lady bugs and watched the crickets trying to see them rub their legs together to make their strange noise.
I had a big shaded painted concret porch to play on that covered the entire front of the house. We played jacks for hours at a time and loved every minute of it. We could lay in the sun and no one seemed to complain of skin cancer. We didn't have to smear sun screen all over us, maybe we were protected by the layer of dirt we had aquired playing outside since early morning to dinner time. We wore shorts and sleeveless tops and either strap sandles or barefoot.
We went to the pyrimids in Egypt on calmels, we swung through the trees with Tarzan and Boy, we played cowboys and indians and the cowboys always won, we flew airplanes with our arms streached as far as we could get them, we drove cars using anything round for a stiring wheel, we were the teacher with our friends as the students, we were the Mother of the house with friends for daddy and children, their was no end to what we came up with because ??????? we did it in our minds and created all the things we needed to become anything we wanted in our imagination.
My wish today is tomorrow kids find this magic they possess and unleash it as we did when I was little.
Wish I had a Starbucks Iced Mocha but guess I'll settle for a glass of water.
Have a good tomorrow and stay cool, at least under the colar.
(Please excuse any misspelled words, maybe someday I'll learn to use this spellcheck)
The heat is the main topic in most conversations here in the heart of Oklahoma. When I left work today at about 5pm the big electronic sign between the street and the runway tells me it is 109 degrees and the sun is still beaming strong with no sign of lowering in the sky.
I've lived here all my life (don't ask) and when I was a little girl (yes Virginia I was young and little once) we had many days like this and no refrigrated air conditioning. So it was not a horrible thing to go outside, it was cooler if you had a shade tree to play under. We sat on the grass and played with the lady bugs and watched the crickets trying to see them rub their legs together to make their strange noise.
I had a big shaded painted concret porch to play on that covered the entire front of the house. We played jacks for hours at a time and loved every minute of it. We could lay in the sun and no one seemed to complain of skin cancer. We didn't have to smear sun screen all over us, maybe we were protected by the layer of dirt we had aquired playing outside since early morning to dinner time. We wore shorts and sleeveless tops and either strap sandles or barefoot.
We went to the pyrimids in Egypt on calmels, we swung through the trees with Tarzan and Boy, we played cowboys and indians and the cowboys always won, we flew airplanes with our arms streached as far as we could get them, we drove cars using anything round for a stiring wheel, we were the teacher with our friends as the students, we were the Mother of the house with friends for daddy and children, their was no end to what we came up with because ??????? we did it in our minds and created all the things we needed to become anything we wanted in our imagination.
My wish today is tomorrow kids find this magic they possess and unleash it as we did when I was little.
Wish I had a Starbucks Iced Mocha but guess I'll settle for a glass of water.
Have a good tomorrow and stay cool, at least under the colar.
(Please excuse any misspelled words, maybe someday I'll learn to use this spellcheck)
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Hello Out There
I often wonder if anyone (except my hero Betty) comes by here to visit. I stop by 2 or 3 times a day and look to see if there are any more comments on anything but seldom do I see the count increase.
Count, I would love to have a counter but I went in on several counters on other blogs and do fine until the final step and there is no instruction, button or bar to click on. Nothing says finish or join or save or anything so I am stopped in my tracks.
I still don't know how to make a list or build a link list. I read Rinda's easy way to do it and didn't get to first base.
Do they make a Blogging tricks for Idiots? Although I have Dummies, Idiots and How to manual I still don't have a web site up.
Maybe I should stick to the landline phone and just call people if I want to make contact with them.
I visit everyones blogs and love them but feel like a kid looking in the candy shop window.
I'm not bitching just letting everyone know how totally neglected I feel and can't spell worth a damn to boot. The dicitionary is in the bedroom and I'm not and I'm not in the mood to go get it. Besides you need the brain exercise of trying to figure out what word I'm after.
Ok are you feeling guilty yet, no?? Well I,m board being pitiful so enough of this.
Later
Jo
Count, I would love to have a counter but I went in on several counters on other blogs and do fine until the final step and there is no instruction, button or bar to click on. Nothing says finish or join or save or anything so I am stopped in my tracks.
I still don't know how to make a list or build a link list. I read Rinda's easy way to do it and didn't get to first base.
Do they make a Blogging tricks for Idiots? Although I have Dummies, Idiots and How to manual I still don't have a web site up.
Maybe I should stick to the landline phone and just call people if I want to make contact with them.
I visit everyones blogs and love them but feel like a kid looking in the candy shop window.
I'm not bitching just letting everyone know how totally neglected I feel and can't spell worth a damn to boot. The dicitionary is in the bedroom and I'm not and I'm not in the mood to go get it. Besides you need the brain exercise of trying to figure out what word I'm after.
Ok are you feeling guilty yet, no?? Well I,m board being pitiful so enough of this.
Later
Jo
Sunday, July 02, 2006
An Enjoyable Time Remembering
Hello All
Today is Sunday and I have taken my own advice and been good to myself and done nothing but rest. I did cook dinner but please don't tell anyone, they all think I can't and don't cook at all. That way no one expects me to "bring a dish".
I don't do this "nothing thing" too often, life gets in the way of doing it very often.
My husband and I don't share too many interest but the Dallas Cowboys Football Team is one we do share. We found a channel that has played all the games of the glory days ( which we longfore the return of) and we have watched it all evening.
We loved Tom Landry and I loved Jimmy Johnson. Not all fans shared the love for JJ but how can you bitch about his hair when he won Super Bowls and had the flare to design new football uniforms in the coolest colors I've seen on a team in years.
We watched the game reruns and reminised about the Sundays in days gone by when our living room was full of neighbors. All the chairs would be full and the floor too. The older teens often joined us for the games.
Not all were Dallas fans so all plays were cheered by someone. We drank coffee and iced tea and enjoyed it. We all drank beer and mixed drinks but we were in our thirties and were high on life so coffee and tea was all we even considered having for a game.
We are both glad football season will be starting soon. If the game is good how fun it is and if not what better background noise than the roar of the crowd to nap by.
We'll talk again soon
Jo
Today is Sunday and I have taken my own advice and been good to myself and done nothing but rest. I did cook dinner but please don't tell anyone, they all think I can't and don't cook at all. That way no one expects me to "bring a dish".
I don't do this "nothing thing" too often, life gets in the way of doing it very often.
My husband and I don't share too many interest but the Dallas Cowboys Football Team is one we do share. We found a channel that has played all the games of the glory days ( which we longfore the return of) and we have watched it all evening.
We loved Tom Landry and I loved Jimmy Johnson. Not all fans shared the love for JJ but how can you bitch about his hair when he won Super Bowls and had the flare to design new football uniforms in the coolest colors I've seen on a team in years.
We watched the game reruns and reminised about the Sundays in days gone by when our living room was full of neighbors. All the chairs would be full and the floor too. The older teens often joined us for the games.
Not all were Dallas fans so all plays were cheered by someone. We drank coffee and iced tea and enjoyed it. We all drank beer and mixed drinks but we were in our thirties and were high on life so coffee and tea was all we even considered having for a game.
We are both glad football season will be starting soon. If the game is good how fun it is and if not what better background noise than the roar of the crowd to nap by.
We'll talk again soon
Jo
