Well, I’m happy to learn that I’m not the only one reading my blog. I’d like thank Elizabeth Gibson at http://www.speculativesalon.blogspot.com/  for nominating me for The Versatile Blogger Award.

Elizabeth’s blog is a friendly, informative read for the day. I like her topics. I like the soft, easy-on-the-eyes design. I like the tone, because when I wake up in the morning I am a beast looking to sink my teeth into somebody’s forehead.  The congenial atmosphere of Elizabeth’s blog shames my beast and sends it back into hiding under the bed. If you have the chance, stop by and take a read. She’s a wonderful person and a very thoughtful blogger.

The rule for accepting  The Versatile Blogger Award stipulates that I have to tell you seven things about myself. (son-of-a-gun!) I promise to keep it short and sweet. I’m even going give the list a title:

Seven Things About Myself That Haven’t Made National News

1.  I have never hung my underwear outside on the clothes line.

2.  I am a human hamster who pads her nest with many, many books.

3.  I lie to telephone salespeople and say I am the maid.

4.  I play Lady GaGa songs when I’m in the car.

5.  I buy salad and then I never eat it.

6.  I sweat like a pig when I’m on the treadmill.

7.  I use my finger to draw smiley faces in newly-opened jars of peanut butter.

There it is. The cold reality. You are reading the blog of a nut. Not to worry, I am one of the safe nuts. I just do my thing and since the world didn’t come to an apocalyptic end on May, 21st, I intend to keep doing my thing. Which is writing. (And lying to salespeople, buying salad that ends up in the woods, sweating away on my treadmill, and leaving messages in the peanut butter.)

I’m also going to follow the second rule for accepting The Versatile Blogger Award.  I’m going to pass it on to some other blogger who has made an impact on my writing.  I hereby nominate:      Joni Zipp and her blog:  One Voice~Write Right at

http://jonismuse.blogspot.com/

I’ve been following Joni’s daily poetry for a number of years.  Her dedication to the craft of writing and her  years of mentoring writers at Writer’s Village University ( http://www.writersvillage.com/wvu2/  ) have earned my respect and admiration. She is a tremendous person and a terrific writer.

Joni, this one’s going out to you for all the times you’ve tossed a lifesaver to a drowning writer.

I love you sweetie. Keep up the good work!

Recently, I’ve discovered something about myself that I really don’t like. I am swamped with fear. Fear of unexpected bills. Fear of missing payment on a credit card. Fear of cracking a tooth. Fear of my dog getting hit by a car. Fear of losing my debit card. Fear of car repairs, library fines, and the scale at the doctor’s office. Fear of making friends and losing friends, of college loans due, the gas pump, a phone call with tragic news or a demand that I jump into the car and race to the rescue of some other poor soul stuck on a raft like me.

I am choking on fear.

What I want to know is when the crap hit the fan and where was my lifeboat? Why didn’t I see the massive hump of that monstrous tsunami as it swelled on the horizon? Was I in the bathroom when “storm warning!” flashed across my life? Because nobody texted me and told me to pack my stuff and get up on the roof.

The only visitor that came calling was my old buddy, fear. He was wearing galoshes and carrying a briefcase stuffed with shiny steel instruments stolen from that doctor in the movie, “Day of The Jackal.” The weirdest thing about that moment was that I ended up whispering the doctor’s line over and over again.

“Is it safe yet? Is it safe yet?”

There is no worse torture for me than to be stuck with that kind of dialogue without the option for revision.

I am sick to death of fear. I am sick to death of his cronies, too. You know them. They’re the people who turn up to watch you crawl back onto the raft and then pile more luggage onto it under the guise of being helpful.

“If you do that, this terrible thing will happen to you, your family or your dog.”

Got a rash?

Could be cancer.

Got a headache?

You could need brain surgery.

No overtime?

Job’s probably going to China.

Thanks buddy. Could you hand me a straw to breathe through when my head goes under the water?

War. Gas prices. Failing economy. Drop in homes sales. Rise in unemployment. Dying honeybees. New viruses. Old plagues. It is a never ending flood of bad news and with the latest technology we can all spread the cheer from country to country. Yup. Fear has sprouted cyber wings and it’s aloft and looking to land on any head visible above the water line.

While I’ve been floating along on my partially submerged raft, I’ve reached three conclusions about my condition:

#1 There is no cure for fear.

#2 Hysteria is not a paddle that will get me back to shore.

#3 I am really, really pissed.

These three insights have led me to a deeper realization.

#1 Fear can motivate.

#2 Hysteria eventually burns itself out.

#3 PISSED IS GOOD.

Pissed means I recognize the futility of thrashing around in the water while other people use my ass as their personal raft. Pissed lifts me above self pity, cuts through my whining, and hits me with the big revelation: I have to save myself, before I presume that I can save anyone else.

Pissed is my call to action. A stinging slap to my face that says, “Stop moaning and start building a bigger and better raft.” (Preferably one with a motor and a built-in compass.)

Hysteria is just a means to vent the extra crap that has nowhere to go. It is the button pushed to head off the ultimate explosion that could take me down. Once it’s over. It’s back to dealing with the situation.

Fear is the means by which I am pushed into the act of doing something to change my circumstances. It is my constant companion who will never fail to look me in the eye and challenge me to fight back. I take courage from the following quote:

“…if you’re paralyzed with fear, it’s a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.”
{Steven Pressfield : “The War of Art”}

I know what I have do. I’m jumping off this shoddy raft and swim for shore.

What about you?

Are YOU ready to get pissed?

Merith’s Sweets

Social outcast Sami Dawson won’t let his physical handicap keep him down. He’s going to ask a beautiful girl on a date and prove he’s as normal as any other guy. But as secret curator of the gate to Fairy Land, Merith Sweets isn’t normal. In fact, she isn’t even human. The town’s “dwarf” is about to learn the flaws that make him a dud in one world can make him the perfect date in another.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/35425

So, 2011 rolls in…

and I’m sitting at my computer looking at my first attempt at self-publishing and thinking.  Is that me?  Is that my story?  Heck, when did I ever work up the courage to tackle this project, let along tackle all the other stuff that went with publishing a story at Smashwords.com?  And when I mean “stuff” I mean the pros and cons I waded through in making this decision to publish on my own.  I’m not Dean Koontz or J. A. Konrath.  I haven’t got a large audience camped out in front of their computer screens waiting to toss money in my direction.  I’m just a small time author, working my way into the business one story at a time.

So why choose this road?

I did not choose it because I had no other options.  ”Merith’s Sweets” won 3rd place in the fantasy category in the 2010 Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Contest.  That’s not shabby.  I could have sent it out to various markets.  Instead, I chose to allow this story to be my trial and error child.  In doing so, I lost the option to submit to a publisher as well as potential check in the mail.

BUT, I gained so much in return.

Eight things I learned  from publishing at Smashwords.com

1.     Sitting on the Smashwords Style Guide will not led to instantaneous absorption of the rules for proper formatting.  Nor will pressing the guide against my forehead while assuming a variety of different positions in the chair.  I  have to open the damn thing and read it.

2.     I can read directions if properly motivated.  I’m the customer who rips the gadget out of the plastic, plugs it in and then starts pushing buttons. (I almost screwed up my Christmas eBook doing this.  You’d think I’d know better by now.)

3.     The “Show and Hide” button is an amazing little button that I will use from now on BEFORE submitting my work.  I never realized how the process of editing a work can screw up spaces and paragraphs.  When I converted my short story into this format, my manuscript was riddled with a proliferation of extra spaces and returns that put me to shame.  I immediately went through the story and fixed them.

4.     The length for the synopsis which appears beneath the cover of  the book/short story on the display page is not 400 words, it is 400 CHARACTERS.  Duh, on my part.  It only took me about twenty minutes of swearing, hitting the submit button,  stomping my feet, and accusing Smashwords of being in league with Satan to figure it out.

5.     While Smashwords makes it easy to download a book cover, it’s up to me to make sure the quality of the cover is up to standard.  If the cover sucks, it’s my fault, not theirs.  (By the way, you can fix that cover right away if you discover that it isn’t as good as you thought.)

6.     Just like in any home project, it saves time, money, and hair if I do the prep work before I act.  Loading the manuscript was easy.  I checked my dashboard constantly to see whether the Auto-Vetter would kick my story back with  a dunce message telling me to start over.  Didn’t happen.  The story is in “still pending” mode right now, but according to the chart, it has successfully converted to the formats I selected.  Very cool.

7.     Self-publishing requires that the author be the editor, proof reader, cover design artist, and marketer at the same time.

8.     Publishing is only one step in the process of self publishing.  The next is getting the word out that my story is available to readers.

And on that note, I invite you to watch my teaser on the novel that my short story “Merith’s Sweets” is based upon : “Spells and Tells.”

http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=editor+unleashed+smashwords+flash+fiction+40

Last Updated (Wednesday, 05 January 2011 19:02)

At two a.m. this morning, I hit the 50,000 word count for the National Novel Writing Month.  It was a quiet moment, marked by the cacophony of snores from my two dogs  and from my husband who was out cold with a laptop propped on his chest.  Such is the fate of the writer. We are lone souls drifting along the invisible Ley lines that map our inner worlds.

What did I do to celebrate?

I clicked off the computer, put my husband’s laptop away, scratched my dogs’ bellies  and went to bed.

Such is the fate of the writer. We are the last shift down and so we get to put the dishes away, make sure all the lights are out, and lock up.

Every year over a million of us migrate from the four corners of the globe to The National Novel Writing Site where Chris Baty and his staff put out a feast of forums to tickle the appetite of any writer regardless of  age, writing experience, or genre preference.  We choose our writing groups. We hook up with old friends and new friends.  We tweak our profiles, title our novels, and write a brief synopsis on what our novel is about. We  choose our rhino and mount up.

And then we all wait for Chris Baty to ring the bell.

Make no mistake, the Nano Rhino is a huge beast.  50,000 words in thirty days. When a writer bursts out of that chute it’s anybody’s guess whether she’s going to last twenty-four hours, let alone thirty days.  Outlines, character lists, plot twists, crisis points?  I’ve seen a lot of litter in the Nano ring. Occasionally, I’ve come across a skeleton with a pad it its lap and a pen still grasped in its boney fingers.   Seems to me that there is no guarantee that any single technique will get you to the finish line.

It’s rhino country.  The terrain is unpredictable; the beast temperamental.

This is my fourth Rhino. The first two rides ended rather badly. In a nutshell, I crossed the finish line with my heel caught in the stirrup, my ego skinned from my ass  and a whole lot of dirt up my nose and in other places.  The third rhino marked a change in my performance.  I made the word count early, clocked out, and made ten home-made pies for Thanksgiving Dinner.  That was fantastic.

This year, I rode the rhino across the finish line in eighteen days. I did it without self-flagellation, without giving up my favorite television series, and without locking everyone in the basement. I did it quietly with a nod to anyone who walked in to stare at me and ask me if I’d glued my butt to the chair. I did it with great pleasure and with an edge of madness that stemmed from the discovery of how to ride my rhino.  I pass it on to you in the hope that you will find something worthwhile in my journey across the wild country that is National Novel Writing Month.

The secret to my success comes down to one thing:

Be kind to your rhino.

Touch it. Learn  the vast array of valleys and mountains carved into its skin. Stick your fingers in its ears and dig out the dust of where it’s been.  Peer into the universe birthed in its gaze and smell the dangerous lust that drives it.  Breath all of it in. Absorb that awesome potential and claim it for your own.

When you climb onto its back, you’ll find the view is breathtaking and the possibilities, endless.

Ravenne

Twelve years ago, I enrolled in my first online writing class.  I was terribly nervous about exposing myself to a faceless audience.  Like all newbies, I was petrified of anyone reading my work. The idea of someone not liking one of my stories sent me into a panic mode. Somehow, I thought that if I wrote under a pen name it would be easier to share my writing.  My alter ego would bear the brunt of criticism. I could separate myself from the writer and take an objective approach to working with a critique group.

Over a decade later, I know better.  Criticism hurts no matter what name happens to be on the story.

You would think that it would be easy to adopt a pen name and never look back. It took years for me to get to the point where I am comfortable in my feathered guise. This is mostly because of the reception I’ve gotten from other writers in various forums. Not everybody is a free spirit. Not all writers or readers are as playful as I like to be. The Raven is an image, forged from a combination of darkness and light that exists in my soul. It is a reflection of how I perceive the world.  It is the subtext floating through my stories.

Over the years, I’ve been accused of being unprofessional, of not being a serious writer and of clinging to a childish habit.  “Grow up!” Anonymous shouts from a comment box. “What are you hiding?” posts a fellow writer who signs a name I can’t begin to pronounce, let alone spell.

At which point I’ve asked myself, am I trying to mislead someone? Is it a crime to wrap my ego in a flight suit and take off for that white, hot center that gives birth to such wonderful imaginings?

A few years ago, under pressure from “professional” advisors, I tried to drop the pen name.  I signed my true name to the posts in my writing forums.  I wrote my critiques, posted my work and published stories with “Laurel Wilczek” in the byline.  I even used my real name in email to my fellow writers.

And the strangest thing happened.

Nobody wanted Laurel Wilczek.  I received replies to my emails addressed to “Raven.”  In my writings forums, answers to my posts were written to “Raven” even though I posted under “Laurel.”   Every time I held a class in the library, the kids would introduce me to their parents as “Raven” and consequently whenever I crossed paths with students and their parents outside, I was always greeted as “Raven” and  not “Laurel Wilczek.”

Somewhere along the way, my pseudonym took on a life of its own.

Kicker number one came when I realized that my own nieces and nephew liked my alter ego a hell of a lot better than their aunt.  Apparently, Aunt Laurel is a stick in the mud who thinks of consequences first, and fun, second.  Raven, on the other hand, is cool and “darky” and dripping with mystique.  She’s the ego the teen writers in my writing group want sitting at the table once a month at our local Borders.

Kicker number two came when I was messaged by writers from my writing sites. They complained that they hadn’t realized it was me on the forum when I posted an opinion under “Laurel.” I went back to the post, changed the name to “Raven,” Three days later I had twenty replies to the post.  Poor Laurel. She got the complaints. Raven got a cartload of “Howdy dos?” and many invitations to link up on FB and Twitter.

So, why Raven?

No brainer there.  I like Raven too. I like her dark musings. I like the way she thinks and the way she sees the world. I like that students and parents remember her name and that friends she hasn’t heard from for years hop back into her life with the cry, “What’s up, Raven?”

Laurel works fine for the serious stuff. She handles the master plan, takes the brunt of the tedious stuff, like revision and editing. Basically, boring Laurel does all the worrying. She’s a great gal when it comes to deadlines, bills, and schedules.

But Raven?

I’m a firm believer that people respond to images. A mystical bird tempered with darkness has its own allure.  Each time I sit down to write, I am inspired and entranced by the flight into my creative self. There’s something about a great alter ego that makes for great writing.

We are Raven.

We rock the world with our dreams.

I thought I’d break my 2010  lazy streak this week and post again. Yeah, you got me.  A couple of writing buddies asked me for a little more detail on the story board and these guys know where I live.  So, let’s talk about how to create a story board.

1.  This is a white foam board.  It runs about 3.00 at Target. You can get them at any craft store. It’s 20x 30 x 1/16. In this case, thickness makes the board nice and firm. You can use both side of this board.

You want to divide the board into sections.  You can see I’ve got three across and three down. Each one is 6″x8″.  I’ve got a nice thick title box at the top of each box that is marked “Scene.” There’s also a vertical box that is 2″x8″  which I designated “Main Plot.”

As you can see in the picture, I have nine boxes or nine scenes. I can use these boxes several ways.  I can use each box as a chapter rather than a scene. I chose not to because I thought it would be too crowded. I can also use each box as a scene and designate “Chapter” in the small box above the words “Main Plot.” Each Chapter would then have three boxes or three scenes. (That’s a comfortable number of scenes per chapter for me.)

2.  These are post-its.  I suggest you buy these on sale at Staples before you map out the size of your scene boxes.  It’ll save you the extra effort of trying to find the right size to fix a box you’ve already made.  Each color has a purpose.

Light blue = Characters in scene

Light yellow = location/setting

Terracotta = scene twist

Brilliant blue (lined) = scene outline + scene purpose + devices used.

*devices = dialogue,summary,narration,action

Pink (lined) = scenes imparting info through dialogue rather than action. (I like including these because it reminds me I need to go back and kick that sucker around a bit more.)

The three remaining colors : blue,lime yellow and terracotta. (repeated) and  are used on my subplot board. (see below)

How you select you colors  and design your board is up to you.  The main purpose of the story board is to present a visual outline of your story.  Check out the pink post-its in the photo below.  They indicate those scenes need work to make them more active.  If I can’t blow up the building, I’m going to have to use conflict in some other way.  Maybe I’ll arrange an argument that throws all the bad feelings out in the open.  I’m thinking it over.  When I decide, I’ll take the little yellow post-its and stick them in the proper boxes as reminders of what I want to do.

The story board may seem work intensive, but I’m already seeing a huge difference in the time spent flipping back and forth through the pages of my binders. I also feel more in control of what’s going on in the story.

So, there it is.  My version of the story board. It’s easy and fun. You can reuse the boards again and again if you don’t get miserly and try to use the side of a toaster box as I did with the subplot board.  I’ve already bought a foam board to use instead of that.

Yeah, I’m a cheapo at heart.  So sue me.

Better yet, why don’t you drop me a note and let me know what you think of storyboarding?  Tips are always welcome.

Raven

Earlier in my writing journey, I shunned the use of the story board.  I felt it was too time consuming, especially when I figured in the time spent gathering all the materials and then the actual time it took to prepare the board. A decade later, I returned to this tool, but this time, I was  ready to learn.

The story board is an interesting tool for a writer. Basically, it’s a visual support of what is going on inside the writer’s head.  The idea is to breakdown the main plot  & subplots into well-defined segments to reveal the weaknesses and strengths of these elements. Along the way, it also serves to remind the writer about devices to be used, like dialogue or action, while conveying information to the reader.

I spotted the weakness of one of my subplots which was nearly invisible at the front of the novel and then dropped like a Looney Tune boulder on the reader in the last few chapters.

Yuck. That’s a no-no.

I also spotted where I failed to take advantage of an opportunity to interweave  one of my  subplots into a scene. The old “every choice is made for a reason” took on new meaning as I realized I could slip a few details into a scene which would keep two of my subplots present without distracting from the scene purpose.

That was an Eureka moment.

The story board design depends on each writer. I’ve seen so many variations my eyeballs spin just thinking of them.  I chose my design which continues to evolve as I work.  Do all the  cute little post-its work?

For me, yes.  I can see at a glance that I need to shift a scene’s emphasis to action or to revelation through dialogue.  I can also see which characters might be popping up a little too often or too seldom.  Best of all, I can see nine chapters clearly delineated in terms of character appearance, scene purpose, devices used and setting location.

I’m enjoying the control.  I also enjoying the freedom from trying to use countless folders to keep track of the various elements at work in the novel.   It’s rather exciting to see the novel as a visual art piece, rather than text on white. Whether or not this will turn out to be my method remains to be seen.

All I know is that I’m ready to be rescued from the chaos of handling so many story elements over a 90,000 word distance.

Raven

It’s all in the eye of the beholder–how you look at life, that is. Whether you see the glass as half empty or half full.  Whether you see purpose in your life or believed that you are simply here by accident.

It’s all about perspective.

It’s all about you.

or me.

or  “I.”

As writers we have to keep positive in the face of change. We must have faith that we are still needed and that our dreams are worth something to other people.  Regardless of how we communicate those dreams, we will be needed. The new technology available in today’s publishing arena is simply a new language that we need to learn so that we can continue to connect to readers. It’s going to take time and patience, but it can be done.

It’s all in how you look at change.

Is it a challenge or a death sentence?

I like them. There. I said it.  I like the excitement of competing for a prize.  I like checking my email for the possibility of good news. I like the feeling of satisfaction of finishing a story and doing something with it. Contests motivate me. They give me prompts which can lead to a whole new story.

I don’t always win a prize in the contests I enter. I don’t always lose either.  I do find that I always learn something.  And that leads to:

Five Things To Keep In Mind When Submitting To Contests:

1. Always let a story cool off before sending it out.

Yeah. I DO read Writer’s Digest and countless blogs which say that, but who listens  when impulse demands action?  Don’t say anything, just hand me a tissue.

2. Never take a rejection personally.

A piece of advice I think is rather stupid.  Of course, I take rejection personally, but then I get off the floor, sit at the desk and find out why.

3. Take what you’ve learned and apply it.

If the story failed and there’s a reason for it, I WILL find it and fix it.

4. Give yourself credit for improving the story.

Maybe it’s still not perfect, but I know what it looked like before I sent it into the contest.

5. Send out another story to keep your hope afloat.

One failure can be followed by a success. Hope floats better (and so will I) if   I’ve got more than one story strapped around  my body.

Bonus Fact: These five lessons can be applied to all submissions, not just contests.

Simple.

Basic.

Lessons.

From a writer learning how to paddle up the creek, one story at a time.

Raven

by Zaxophone at deviantart.com

Yesterday, I walked into my living room, found a Christmas ornament on the carpet and hung it back on the Christmas tree.

Yup.  You heard right.  My tree is still up and lit.

Oops.

My Bad.  I keep forgetting to pack it away.

We all make mistakes, right? And we all have our methods for handling it.  Some of us are great at taking responsibility for our errors; others have to run through self-defense tactics that include pointing the finger of blame.

1. There are four people living in my house and I’m the only one who noticed the tree?
2. I’ve been busy trying to find my damn tax information.
3. I’ve been sick.
4. I’m suffering from tunnel vision.
5. I thought it was the wine.
6. I like it there?

Of course, when it comes to hiding from the fallout of writing mistakes the bushes are pretty thin.  All an editor has to do is look at the byline under the title of your story and you are busted.  Worse, you are busted in public.

Last week, after failing to get any results on a contest entry I submitted before Christmas, I pulled the story I’d entered out of my files to take another look.   The word “Oops!” shot out of my mouth, followed by a bout of foot stomping, several head-smacks and a final “Holy Crap! Did I actually send this out?”

I’d like to point the finger at the many blogs that have declared perfectionism to be the Achilles heel of  a writer, but that would be like blaming the wine.  The truth is, I’m the one who hit the submit button.  None of the blogs said, “Go forth and submit crap.”  What they said was:

There comes a time when a writer has to let go of a story.  Perfectionism, unchecked, is the enemy of action.

The end result?

The premature expulsion of my story into cyberspace.

There are two ways to look at this mistake.

Negative side:

1. One shoddy contest entry jettisoned into cyberspace.
2. 24 hours of anxiety over the possibility one of the judges might have the memory of an elephant. (Jeopardizing my chances in the next contest.)
3. 48 hours of “If only I’d noticed…”

Positive side:

1. I got to test drive my story.
2. I got feedback.
3. I learned to let the manuscript cool before taking action on it.
4. I didn’t ruin the story’s chances with an editor at a magazine.
5. I did get the momentary satisfaction of taking action.

I’d say the positive outweighs the negative in this experience.  I’ll take the blame and accept the consequences.  Next time I send in a contest entry to that site, I’ll include a bag of peanuts.

As for the tree in the living room?   I think a little revision is in order.

What do you think about an Easter tree?

Be well.

Raven