Gremlins (#atozchallenge)

Welcome to today's post on the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. My challenge, as I have chosen to accept it, is thus: I have asked on my Facebook and Twitter accounts for people to contribute random words beginning with today's letter. From Random.org, I have selected one of these words, and will below challenge myself to connect said word to writing.

For the letter G, I received 50 suggestions. Random.org selected number 11: gremlins.


Gremlins

Cute creatures by day. Feed them after midnight, and you have destructive monsters on your hands. No, I'm not talking about my future children. Today we're talking about that fabulous 80s phenomenon: gremlins.

Brain child of Chris Columbus, working with Steven Spielberg, this film stole my heart as a kid. It was the perfect combination of cute/lovable and scary. It made want my very own plush Gizmo doll (though I never got one). In terms of marketing, it held its own in a time of ET action figures and the dwindling of Star Wars sales.

Okay, so enough waxing on with capitalist nostalgia. What's my point?

What's one reason why Gremlins became so successful? It's in the details of the character. In a sweeping generalization, I'm going to assume that we all remember Gizmo and the Dr. Hyde monsters they turn into when you feed them too late or expose them to bright light. But we don't remember the humans. Or at least I don't. (Granted I was pretty young.) Why? The humans were a means of bringing out fuzzy friends and their evil scaly twins to life, but the movie (and subsequent sequels) wasn't about the humans.

Let's examine Gizmo for a moment. Furry and adorable, it's hard not to instantly love this tiny creature. So, we've got empathy. Add in the danger of the already scaly midnight snackers, plus the fear that Gizmo might accidentally munch on something himself, get wet (again), or see too much light, and you've got continual rising tension and a character that everyone can identify with.

Thus, insta-blockbuster.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it helps to have the financial backing of Spielberg and Warner Bros, too....

Anyway, I'm not saying we should all run out and write about tiny, fluffy mammals, but there are a few things to learned regarding characters here.

First, details. Give your character quirks and fears, like Superman with his Kryptonite. Somehow let us know that (random character) Bill used to go by Will, but changed his name after finally moving out of his grandmother's abusive house, since she always called him Willy.

But most importantly, make the reader LIKE the character first. If the reader doesn't care, it's an instant FAIL.

Next, generate conflict. (Bill's grandmother gets sick and can no longer take care of herself, and Bill can't afford to put her in a nursing home). Put them in danger (spill some water and feed the little buggers after midnight).

Finally, give them the opportunity to fail. Nothing spells tension like the thought of your character losing everything. (Bill takes too many days off work to care for Granny, and ends up losing his job. His wife moves in with her mother because she can't stand Granny, either. The house gets repossessed. Does he take care of himself first or Granny?)

How do you make your characters likable? And how do you torture them afterward? :)


PS--Today I'm taking suggestions for K. Have some? Leave them below. 

Frak (#atozchallenge)

Welcome to today's post on the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. My challenge, as I have chosen to accept it, is thus: I have asked on my Facebook and Twitter accounts for people to contribute random words beginning with today's letter. From Random.org, I have selected one of these words, and will below challenge myself to connect said word to writing.

For the letter F, I received 63 suggestions. Random.org selected number 10: frak.


Frak

What the frak am I talking about? Frak's not a real word. How could this end up as the topic of my blog post today?

Frak, as you may or may not know, is the swear word of choice for the characters from Battlestar Gallactica. According to Wikipedia, I can mean any of our three main 4-letter words (you know, starting with F, S, and D, respectively) for the poor victims of the Cylon Wars. And the best part about the word "frak"?

It doesn't get bleeped.

Creating terms for our fiction can be useful, especially with profanity, as it's not as necessary to define it. The meaning of expletives can be gleaned by the reader by context alone, without lengthy exposition. For example, in my own fiction, my characters have two main swear words: "sprick" as in "that sprickin' jerk" or just plain "Sprick!" and "frut", which is more of a noun and less a verb.

Other words may require greater explanation. In my own personal writing journey, I recently discovered this during the Nature of Magic Blogfest, hosted by Tessa Conte and Laura Diamond In this excerpt, my character "veiled" herself. In my mind, that was perfectly clear—she used magic to create a false image around her (in this case, the image of nothing at all), kind of like putting a jacket on a book. What I hadn't anticipated was that other people would read this as meaning "invisibility cloak". What does that mean? I didn't define my term well enough.

Back to the drawing board for me :)

Do you coin new terms in your fiction? What kinds of terms? Profanity, or basic penny words?

PS--Today I'm taking suggestions for J. Have some? Leave them below. 

Eclectic (#atozchallenge)

First, on a slightly unrelated to the A-to-Z Challenge, Carol Riggs is hosting and critiquing the first 250 words of one of my WsIP, UNDERGROUND, a YA Dystopian novel. Head over to her blog to check it out, and feel free to critique it further. That's what it's there for. Trust me--I can take it :)

____________________

Welcome to today's post on the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. My challenge, as I have chosen to accept it, is thus: I have asked on my Facebook and Twitter accounts for people to contribute random words beginning with today's letter. From Random.org, I have selected one of these words, and will below challenge myself to connect said word to writing.

For the letter E, I received 42 suggestions. Random.org selected number 32: eclectic.

PS--My Mondays and Wednesdays have me running around without good internet access all day until 9pm EST (US). I'll get back to you, but it might be late tonight. 


Eclectic

[i'klektik] -- adjective: deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.

Is it okay to be eclectic as a writer? What I mean by this is: Are we limited to the genre in which we market our first work? Or can we branch out? Can a romance author pen a cozy mystery? Can an MG author for boys write YA for girls? Can a picture book author write an adventure series for adults?

And does that author HAVE to use a pen name to do it?

Don't get me wrong, I understand the need to focus on what we're good at. And, well, I'm not ready to walk away from my 16-23 year old girls and women quite yet (yup, that's my select audience). But, if I wanted to, how would the publishing world (assuming I could break into it) accept my wanting to try something different?

I'm not saying I'm going that route now. I'm just saying, shouldn't it be possible?

What do you think? Is an eclectic writer bad? Would you read a romance author's attempt at a thriller?

PS--Today I'm taking suggestions for I. Have some? Leave them below.

Doofus (#atozchallenge)

Welcome to today's post on the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. My challenge, as I have chosen to accept it, is thus: I have asked on my Facebook and Twitter accounts for people to contribute random words beginning with today's letter. From Random.org, I have selected one of these words, and will below challenge myself to connect said word to writing.



For the letter D, I received 61 suggestions. Random.org selected number 44: doofus.


Doofus

Okay, yeah. This is what happens when I let my friends pick my words for me. There were several words that would have been difficult but interesting (e.g., dogfish, Djibouti, damask, diplodocus, duodenum, etc.), but I get the word that means "stupid person".

Ah, Random.org, how you taunt me!

Then again, when I think about it more, perhaps this is a good word. In fact, perhaps it's even a great word. How many of us have characters that are too clever, while the dim-witted one is around for comic relief alone? Are our main characters the ones who always figure out the secret, put the pieces of the puzzle together?

Well, one reason, I suppose, would be that we could end up with our characters sitting around, popping Bubble Yum**, and staring at the wall. That wouldn't be much fun to read, would it?

**Bubble Yum was an unselected suggestion for B.

But then there are a few great novels and short stories in which the main character isn't known or loved for his/her cleverness. The Sound and the Fury comes to mind. Why aren't there more, though? Is it because it's easier to write about what we know, and being clever writers ourselves, we don't think through that lens? Or because we need to progress our stories, and so our characters take the clues we hand them and link them together?

I don't exactly have any answers for you. It's really just something to think about.

As for my writing, I can't say I have a character I would consider a doofus, per se. I've got some pretty dense characters, but they're not stupid. Of course, now that I'm writing this, I feel the need to challenge myself and see what I can do with a doofus character in an MC role.

Do you have characters that fall into the "doofus" category? What's their purpose in your narrative?


Also, today I'm taking suggestions for the letter H. Have any? Leave some below. Thanks!

________________

On an COMPLETELY UNRELATED note, check out this trailer for India Drummond's new book Ordinary Angels, released yesterday. CONGRATULATIONS, India!!

Also, check out her blog here. India's also a part of the A-to-Z Challenge.

Clean (#atozchallenge)

Welcome to my 3rd post on the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. My challenge, as I have chosen to accept it, is thus: I have asked on my Facebook and Twitter accounts for people to contribute random words beginning with today's letter. From Random.org, I have selected one of these words, and will below challenge myself to connect said word to writing.



For the letter C, I received 68 suggestions. Random.org selected number 8: clean.

PS--My Mondays and Wednesdays have me running around without good internet access all day until 9pm EST (US). I'll get back to you, but it might be late tonight.


Clean

So, I thought about taking the easy route with this, talking about cleaning up and polishing your work, making sure you've got a good editor, etc., etc., but we've heard that all before, haven't we? And, well, we need something to help us get over the Monday blues, right? Who wants to talk about cleaning up after yourself when you've spent a weekend Spring cleaning (or Fall cleaning, maybe, for our dear friends south of the Equator), or cleaning up after kids, or after dinner, or cleaning up the yard...

You get the idea.

Instead, I want to talk about you. Now, before I do, please don't take what I'm about to say the wrong way. I am in NO WAY implying that any of my readers (or myself) are unclean. But if you have one of those skin conditions that comes from not bathing, I'm not judging. I just don't need to know about it :)

Thus, exhibit A:

Image courtesy of Wiki Commons

Poor Pig-Pen. All he wants is to have fun with his friends, but he always ends up dirty and smelly. Why is that?

Enthusiasm!

Pig-Pen loves everything he does. He gets deep down in the dirty while he's playing, and loves every minute of it. The boy's not afraid to get a little messy.

When it comes to writing, we need to get messy before we can dust off our hands and call the creation "done". That's one reason, in my opinion, events like NaNoWriMo are so successful. It's like an entire month of rolling around in the mud and never taking a shower. By the end, you stink, and BOY OH BOY do you want a good, long, hot shower or bath, but look at the prize that's waiting for you. The diamond of your enthusiasm awaits. Yeah, maybe you got muckier than you wanted, and you can't stand to look at that gem again for a while. I haven't looked at my 2010 NaNo yet, that's for sure, and I have no intention of doing so before June. BUT, I know it's decent... deep, deep, Deep, DEEP down. I just need to clean it up.

My bottom line is: Clean isn't always good, nor is it always what's best for us. Let the words flow, get the ides down. Later you can find your diamond in the rough. It's there, no matter what. Sometimes the mud just makes it a little easier to see.

How do you write? Do you polish as you go? Or do you spew words and tidy up after yourself later? 

Have you tried challenges like NaNo? What others have you participated in?

Want to play along with my A-to-Z Challenge? Today I'm taking suggestions for the letter G. I'll take as many or as few as you'd like to contribute. :)

Emotions Recap

Thanks to everyone for participating in my forum earlier this week, and my apologies for not getting results up sooner.  The week slipped away from me again.  Pesky days!

The question was: as writers, where do we mine our emotions?  From ourselves? From others?  If from others, why don't we work with our own?

You gave me lots of good responses, a number of which said that emotions came from inside and outside of themselves.  This makes sense, of course.  I think it would be impossible for someone to write completely outside of their own emotional experiences.  Of course, some of the physical experiences are beyond us (as Hart said, she's never randomly found a dead body even though she's writing her cozy), but that doesn't prevent the emotions from being real.  They just come from somewhere else.

One of the things I tend to worry about in my writing is that people will automatically assume it's autobiographical in some form.  (Random connection:  Has anyone read "The Young Painters" by Nicole Krauss in the 20 under 40 issue of The New Yorker?)  So I tend to try pulling from other experiences so that I can be more assured when fighting against those comments. 

Beyond outside criticism, using our own experiences does mean dealing with those feelings and emotions.  As j.leigh pointed out, that can be extremely difficult for us, throwing our real pain into our writing.  If I did more of that myself, I don't think I would ever finish a piece because I would be too angry or crying too much to get the words onto the page!  It doesn't make the emotions we use any less real, but it gives us more of an external position from which to approach them.  And as Amanda said, with time, using our own emotions and experiences can become less frightening.

Finding emotion everywhere is vital, since we've only lived in our small worlds.  But we shouldn't be afraid of using our own.

Any other thoughts?  Did I miss anything?

When In Doubt, Throw Everything Out and Start Over

Whew!

WriteOnCon was an intense ride.  I learned so much in such a short period (3 days!).  Top that off with the final for my intensive summer class (as of Thursday I am officially class-free for two weeks!), and my already slushy mind simply melted into sticky sugar water.  I'm still trying to piece everything together and make sense of it.

One post (series) that impacted me from the conference was from agent Weronika Janczuk (and if I didn't love her from her posts, I would because her name is Polish!) on pacing and plotting—click here for part 1, part 2, and part 3.  I focused on her descriptions of plot arcs, what should happen in the first 1/4, the middle 1/2, and the last 1/4 of the novel, how to build tension, etc., etc., and applied it to my current painful revisions of WiP #1.

I'm not willing to admit that my first round for WiP #1 didn't somewhat conform to the formula set forth in these posts.  It did.  But I believe it can be better.  Scratch that.  While it does conform to the increasing tension and tight climax in the last 10%, it's a mediocre story at best, and a complete overhaul will help it shine.

Add to Weronika's posts this vlog by author Kimberly Derting.  I don't write YA thriller/suspense, but that doesn't mean there aren't ample lessons in this vlog on how to build suspense that can be applied to any genre.  As I contemplated Kimberly's words with Weronika's echoing in my sugary mind, ideas of suspense-building mingled with my pondering of story arcs, and I realized, huh, this could be more suspenseful.

My story is told in 1st person (for now).  In the "original" story, my MC finds out some key information less than halfway through the story.  I realized I could increase the suspense by delaying her discovery.  I've been outlining for a couple of days now a complete overhaul of the story, trying to put the events in a proper order to delay discovery, continually increase the tension, and raise the stakes in the climax.

Finally, I'd like to throw into the mix this post from Helen Ginger's post on the Blood Red Pencil—Writers are Hookers.  Beyond the inevitable giggle this invokes in me (yeah, even a few days later), she makes a beautiful point about where the story (and each scene) needs to begin.  After reviewing my first 4-6 chapters for over a month now, I'm almost willing to throw out the first two chapters.  They are mostly background information, and I know that.  I hesitate because I feel like it's important, but we all know that this information can be incorporated later.  And some of it has been moved through recent, pre-overhaul revisions, meaning that leaving it upfront is redundant.

To risk getting a little weepy, part of my hesitation in the complete overhaul is strongly personal.  This story began as a part of my recovery process after my father passed away.  While a strong part of me yearns to be professional and know what needs to get slashed and burnt to make this puppy publishable, deep down I want to leave it, considering it a sacred tribute to my dad.  It's a little silly—my father's nowhere to be seen in the entire story—but that doesn't stop the emotional connection and the need to protect my baby from the red-line.

What I've decided, based on this final post by Jennifer Hubbard, is that I don't have to throw anything away.  (Okay, I knew that, but it's nice to have the reinforcement.)  I can keep the sacred version of my story, the one that makes me think of my struggle and my progress in recovery, and I don't have to share it with anyone but myself.  I can love it and baby it and wrap it in a huge security blanket and save it from the big, bad publishing world forever.  But I can also take the bones, the deep structure (Snicker, GB linguistics out there! Snicker!), the character histories, etc., and weave them together with this new and improved baby, one that I'm willing to raise and help mature into an undeniable force to be reckoned with in the brutal publishing industry.  I'll teach it not to take criticism personally—my baby could never learn that.  I'll mold it into a giant who will box its way onto the desk of an agent, causing said agent to swoon.  After rebandaging its fearsome hands, stopping the bloody nose and tending to its swollen lip, it will be ready to move from the agent's desk to that of the publishers, who will also love and adore it...

Man, am I getting ahead of myself!  I haven't done anything more than work on the outline.  I need to stop daydreaming and get to work.


How do you feel when you have to start over?  The more seasoned writers out there must not do this as often, but I know we have all done it at one point or another.  Have you ever coddled something despite its disrepair?  How long did it take you to admit that some work had to move permanently onto the shelf?

Character Rap Sheet

My dear blogosphery friends,

I need your help.  Through much reflection, a newly received critique, and lessons learned through last week's WriteOnCon, I've come to realize that I need to do great things to improve my characters.  This is hardly a surprising discovery.  I've been slowly moving toward this for some time, and have blogged about it before.

But now I want a complete overhaul of almost every single character.

Yeah, there's one who's interesting and developed (in my not so humble opinion).  Unfortunately, she's second-string, and her deeper involvement in the stories doesn't occur until book 2 :(  Not much help when I'm gutting book 1, is it?

The plan:  I want to create an in-depth questionnaire for myself that I must answer in excruciating detail for every individual who crosses my pages.  I don't care if the character makes a 2-page appearance—well, actually I do, because it means s/he should get cut.  But each character needs to be examined under the bright interrogation lights until they sweat so much I can't read their words on the pages.

I have the following already:

Physical Appearance (eye color, hair color, other defining facial information, height, weight, scars, piercings, tattoos, is their second toe longer or shorter than their big toe? clothing style, hair style, makeup...)
General Historical Information (DoB, DoD (if applicable), education, extra-curricular activities, suspensions, broken bones, hospitalizations, first kiss, first extensive sexual experiences, mother's maiden name, heritage, children, parents...)
Personal Information (left/right handed, allergies, contacts/glasses/20-20, exercise routine or not, favorite color, food preferences, handwriting style...)
Personal Quirks (nervous gestures/ticks, sweaty hands, what do they do when they lie? phobias...)

Other Randomness:

• What did s/he want to be after growing up?
• Did s/he have any pets as a child?  Names?
• Hobbies?  How serious are they?  Past hobbies since abandoned?
• Favorite iconic figures? (actors, writers, musicians, artists, world politicians, historical figures...)
• Video game obsessions?
• City or country or suburbia?
• Boxers or briefs?
• Favorite type of music?  Favorite type of fiction or non-fiction? Drama, sitcom, or documentary?
• Do they drink?  What do they drink?
• If s/he had a million dollars (or applicable currency)...?
• Left brained or right brained?
• Favorite/Worst childhood vacation?
• Favorite/Worst childhood memory?
• If s/he could visit anywhere, where would s/he go first?

The problem with the list:  My list so far is a better description of who I am than anything else.  It demonstrates how I think, and not necessarily how my characters think.  The problem, therefore, is that my characters can only grow as much as I allow them to if I stick to this list.  I don't like that.  Not one bit.

(Personal information: type-A control freak...) 

My request to you, dear beloved cyber-friends:  Can you contribute anything to my laundry lists above?  What other questions should I ask my characters?  The randomer the better, folks.  Hit me with your best shot! :)

And thank you!!!

The Liar Unveiled

A couple of days ago I offered 7 possible lies/truths for you.  It was up to you to decide which were which.  You've been waiting in anxious anticipation for the big reveal.  Wait no more, my friends!

Even the false statements have elements of truth to them, which I explain below.  Enjoy!

1.  When I was fifteen, I was fortunate enough to go on a vacation... ehem, "student ambassador" program to Europe.  While in London, we took a cruise down the Thames with the British prime minister.  And I fell asleep.  Oops!

False.  The guy on the boat wasn't the prime minister, but someone else from parliament.  I did fall asleep, though.

2.  While studying abroad in Russia in 1999, I twice went on camping trips in the Caucasian mountains with a non-violent Chechan guide.  My parents were none to happy, since this was less than a month after the Chechan war had started (again...).

False.  One of the students on our program who went camping and hiking with us decided to grow out his beard while in Russia, and was frequently mistaken for a Chechan, but was just a fun-loving guy from the Midwest.

3.  Also during my semester in Russia, I had to sort out some banking troubles I was having.  Unfortunately my Russian was *cough* downright atrocious, but I hadn't asked anyone to accompany me.  I spent much too much time trying to convey to the woman at the bank what the problem was, and she treated me like an idiot with the mental capacity of a four-year-old due to my poooooooor Russian.  A woman behind me in line became so incensed by how long it was taking, she began hitting me with her oversized purse, screaming something to the effect of "If this were still the Soviet Union, I wouldn't have to wait behind a..."  You can fill in the rest.  I ran away and returned a few days later with an interpreter.

False.  It was in a post office when the lady started beating me up (yeah, that part's true).  The postal clerk had decided, due to my knotted Slavic tongue, I must be a complete moron, and insisted on putting the stamps on each of my 20 postcards instead of giving the stamps to me.  When the woman started hitting me with her purse, I threw my money at the clerk and blotted.  Two of the postcards made it to their destinations.

4.  Pacifist that I am, I've been kangaroo hunting in New South Wales.  After someone shot a kangaroo that would become our dinner the next night, the kangaroo was tossed into the back of the pick-up with my friend and me, only to discover it wasn't actually dead yet...  It more or less had a seizure while my friend and I screamed.  The man driving got out of the truck and bashed the kangaroo's poor little head until it stopped again.

True.  My twelve-year-old homestay sister shot it.  She had wanted to show off for me and the other US teenage girl staying with them (aka, the other woman in the bed of the truck... who got kicked by the seizing kangaroo).  She had never used a shotgun by herself, and her father thought she had done a pretty decent job until we started screaming a couple of minutes later. 

I was 14 and a staunch vegetarian to boot.

5.  I am a seasoned world traveler (or so I like to tell myself), and at least half of my travel abroad occurred before I turned 18, but the only country I was taken to by my parents was Canada.

False.  My parents have never taken me abroad, even to Canada when it was so close to our Detroit relatives.  By the time I was 18, I had visited New Zealand, Australia, England, Denmark, Germany, France, and, yes, Canada, but with my best friend's family.

6.  When I was a kid, I love wearing my roller skates.  I wore them everywhere (though my mom drew the line at church, but I tried).  While I was outside one day hanging out with the boys down the block, they dared me to climb the tree in one boy's front yard.  Of course I accepted the challenge since I didn't want to look like a wussy girl.  With my roller skates still strapped on tight, I got most of the way up before I fell and broke my arm.  I didn't get to keep my roller skates after that :(

False.  My best friend from high school did this when she was a kid... though I changed a couple of details to account for my own clumsiness.  She never broke anything, and climbed trees in roller skates with her brothers all the time.

7.  My family frequently drove to Lake Catherine in Arkansas when we lived in northern Louisiana.  When I was four, I had a life jacket that said "Little Fishy" on the back.  Strapped into my Little Fishy life jacket, my dad's friend convinced my parents to let me go water skiing on the tyke-sized skis he had for his own kids.  After much enthusiasm on my part, they couldn't possibly say no.  And, might I add, it was AWESOME!  I love water skiing.

False.  I've never been water skiing, even though we had the boat when I was a kid, frequenting both Lake Catherine and later the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay.  I believe that if I had ever learned to water ski, I might not have found snow skiing so terrifying.


Do you have any wild, unbelievable stories?  I would LOVE to hear them!

Awards Abound!

First, I would like to thank Medeia again for passing an award along to me.  I passed it on earlier in my EPL post.

I also received another award recently from Cruella Collett, and boy did it make me giggle!  Thank you, Cruella.

The Rules:

The Bold Face Liar Creative Writer Award requires you to:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link to them.

2. Add the award to your blog.

3. Tell six outrageous lies about yourself and one truth. (Another variant: Tell six truths and one outrageous lie. YOU get to guess which variant I chose – and which statements are true, as well as which are lies.)

4. Nominate six creative liars –I mean writers– and post links to them.

5. Let your nominees know that they have been nominated.
 

Six + One
You decide if the six are true or false, and which one doesn't fit.  I'm not telling! :)

1.  When I was fifteen, I was fortunate enough to go on a vacation... ehem, "student ambassador" program to Europe.  While in London, we took a cruise down the Thames with the British prime minister.  And I fell asleep.  Oops!

2.  While studying abroad in Russia in 1999, I twice went on camping trips in the Caucasian mountains with a non-violent Chechan guide.  My parents were none to happy, since this was less than a month after the Chechan war had started (again...).

3.  Also during my semester in Russia, I had to sort out some banking troubles I was having.  Unfortunately my Russian was *cough* downright atrocious, but I hadn't asked anyone to accompany me.  I spent much too much time trying to convey to the woman at the bank what the problem was, and she treated me like an idiot with the mental capacity of a four-year-old due to my poooooooor Russian.  A woman behind me in line became so incensed by how long it was taking, she began hitting me with her oversized purse, screaming something to the effect of "If this were still the Soviet Union, I wouldn't have to wait behind..."  You can fill in the rest.  I ran away and returned a few days later with an interpreter.

4.  Pacifist that I am, I've been kangaroo hunting in New South Wales.  After someone shot a kangaroo that would become our dinner the next night, the kangaroo was tossed into the back of the pick-up with my friend and me, only to discover it wasn't actually dead yet...  It more or less had a seizure while my friend and I screamed.  The man driving got out of the truck and bashed the kangaroo's poor little head until it stopped again.

5.  I am a seasoned world traveler (or so I like to tell myself), and at least half of my travel abroad occurred before I turned 18, but the only country I was taken to by my parents was Canada.

6.  When I was a kid, I love wearing my roller skates.  I wore them everywhere (though my mom drew the line at church, but I tried).  While I was outside one day hanging out with the boys down the block, they dared me to climb the tree in one boy's front yard.  Of course I accepted the challenge since I didn't want to look like a wussy girl.  With my roller skates still strapped on tight, I got most of the way up before I fell and broke my arm.  I didn't get to keep my roller skates after that :(

7.  My family frequently drove to Lake Catherine in Arkansas when we lived in northern Louisiana.  When I was four, I had a life jacket that said "Little Fishy" on the back.  Strapped into my Little Fishy life jacket, my dad's friend convinced my parents to let me go water skiing on the tyke-sized skis he had for his own kids.  After much enthusiasm on my part, they couldn't possibly say no.  And, might I add, it was AWESOME!  I love water skiing.


Stop back on Friday for the big reveal as to what's true and what's not.

So, now I have to pass this on, huh?  Hmm...  I'm going to pass this on to a couple of new and awesome blogs I've founds recently that you should definitely check out.

Mel O. Dramatic at Whimsical Melgasms
Rafi at Escape from Apathy
Vatche at The Student Writer's Mind
Heidi at Drops of Ink
Tara at Tara Maya's Tales
Roland at Writing in the Crosshairs

Insomnia and the Art of Half-Dreaming

Yeah, it's 5:30 as I start this.  I've been up for at least an hour.  Technically, it's not really insomnia.  I slept for maybe six hours.  Please understand, I LOOOOOOOOVE sleep.  While six hours is more than sufficient for some, I will need a nap by noon (and my class doesn't end until 12:30... whoops).

Please forgive any typos or horrible uses of grammar.  I'm tired.  I would forgive you under the same circumstances.

The only reason I'm not more bitter about being awake is that what woke me was a half-dream—you know, the dream when you know you're dreaming but you're still completely a part of the dream as well—that seemed wild enough to come with its own entire plot.  I love that.  In fact, I think everything sitting in my "extra ideas" folder came from a half-dream.  My entire three part series started from a half-dream.  I have well over 150,000 of my epic (War-and-Peace style, five-book über-novel) story of vampires and demons and slayers (oh my!) that started from a pretty nasty recurring dream.  I think the only story I've recently created from a completely awake state was this one.

Point being?  I'm excited.  I'm always excited when I wake up and there's some wild story playing out in my head and I'm completely aware of it.  I do everything in my power to stay in that semi-conscious state for as long as possible and try not to let my conscious self tamper with that dream world.  And then I get up and write as furiously as possible.  Even if it's 4:30am.

Where do your plot ideas come from?  Dreams?  Memories?  Places?  Daydreams?  Silly things your friend said?  Inquiring minds... and all that jazz.