Speedbumps

It's been a busy week. Just the normal things, but somehow it ate up all my writing time. So now I feel worn out and guilty.

Luckily, I was able to get some writing in while I was waiting for an oil change yesterday.

Long hand.

I found myself dashing off sentences without worrying that they were perfect. Which is fine for a rough draft.  I think that is something I have forgotten. I need to just get it all on paper first. I can tweak and polish later.

The plan was to have a finished rough draft of book 1 by the end of June. Unless I can pound out the back of the the story today and tomorrow, that isn't going to happen.

But I can try.

Gleaning the free-loads

I have to admit that I love free ebooks. However, I've run across some real stinkers. I downloaded a whole pile of free ones recently and I'm just now getting around to reading them all.

When I'm looking through, I read the blurb and the reviews. The bad ones must either they get all their reviews from friends or I've just got weird taste. Sometimes, even if they aren't exactly to my taste, I download in an effort to read outside my comfort zone. However, lately the ones I've picked were more than a little out there.

I'm trying to comment constructively on the ones I don't like. That's what I'd like from reviewers that don't care for my book. There's a difference between a well written book that doesn't appeal to me and a badly written book. I try to make that differentiation.

I had to intersperse some library books - a palate cleanser, if you will - between all the self-pubs. A couple favorite authors to soothe my ruffled imagination. I spent a few days lost in another Juliet Marillier. Wow. That woman writes stuff that transports me. I fall into those novels and they stay with me for days. Sigh.

But I did find a gem in the dross. Natural Causes by James Oswald was very good. There were a few typos and a misplaced word or two, but the writing was good enough that those few problems were easy to ignore.

Happy to find a good one. I'll go mining again soon.

Fruit flies and garlic

It's fruit fly season. Ugh.

I don't know who told me, or maybe I read it somewhere, but this homemade trap works very well.

Take a small jar (mine is from a local mustard), put in some fruit  (I have peach skins in mine), add a little water and a couple squirts of dish soap. That will kill off the flies that get in. Make a lid with wax paper and a rubber band. Poke a few small holes in the top. I use the tip of a mechanical pencil. If the holes are too small the flies can't get in. If they're too large the flies can get back out.

When the ingredients get moldy or fermenty just dump and replace.

I harvested my garlic.

This isn't the tidiest braid, but it's my first. I finally found an explanation on the web about how to do it. It isn't really a braid. And knotting garlic stems isn't all that easy. But I'm very pleased with how sturdy it is. Last year I cut the greens much too short and had to tie them all together with string.

We're set for garlic for awhile now!

American Translation?

This photo came out of Clipart when I searched for "Scotland". Haven't a clue what body of water it is, but wow, isn't it gorgeous.

I am reading an ebook set in Scotland. It was a free download. Here and there I have come across mention of an editor Americanizing a book for distribution in the US and I wondered why. The book I am reading now hasn't been and I really don't think it needs to be. There is a word here and there that throws me off. But it enhances the feel of the story.

Some words are easy enough to figure out. "She gundled in her purse for her keys." Haven't a clue what gundled means, but it's pretty obvious she's rooting around in her purse.

The author called one character a "Ned". I guess it's a character from a well known story. The way it was presented gave a good sense of what was intended.

I'm enjoying it just as it is.

Beans, berries and flowers

The purple beans are starting to form. The flowers are lovely. You can see the tiny bean with the remains of the blossom on the end of it. I'm pretty sure this is a purple Italian bean. I need to keep an eye on them and harvest regularly. That type of bean gets very fibrous if you let it get too old. Green beans are a great vegetable. You can pick them at about any size. If they get too big and stringy, shell them and just eat the beans inside.

The blackberries are in the first stages of ripening. They change to red and fill out some before darkening to black. When they are totally black, shiny and soft - they're ready.

The gladiolas are in full bloom. I'm not sure where these came from, but they are gorgeous. The edging varies a bit, some darker, some lighter, but they all have a yellow throat. Really stunning in a vase.

As you know, Jim....

Dialog can kill a book for me. And it can also redeem it.

I was slogging through a story the other day and the dialog made me want to scream. Not only was it stilted and unrealistic, it was boring.

It boiled down to: "Hello my dear mother, I have missed you these 10 years that I have been wandering the world and having many adventures."

Wow.

First of all, no one speaks that way. Secondly, this is not the place to give the reader that information. Loading a conversation like that can be done, but it has to be handled delicately.

I read a fantasy in a very mannered society and they did speak very formally. But it suited every other aspect of the world. A line like: "Oh, my dear Mother I have missed you." Would have worked because of the way the society was constructed.

The other part that makes it unpalatable is that it is delivered coldly. You can almost hear it in a monotone cadence. You can't tell if the speaker is excited, annoyed, overwhelmed. People never speak in full sentences. They interrupt and go off on tangents.

"Mother!" he said pulling the old woman into his arms.
"Son, you've come back," she sobbed. "After all these years, I feared you were dead."
"Nearly, a time or two," he said with a grim smile, "but my luck has prevailed."

As opposed to:
"Mother," he said calmly, giving her a tight nod.
"You've come back," she replied with a cool tone. "After all these years, I thought you were dead."
"My luck prevailed," he said with a smug smile.


OK, still a little stiff, but you know he's been away a long time and that many things have happened. Almost the same conversation, but very different tones.

The author doesn't need to bludgeon the reader with information. We don't need to know right there that it's been exactly 10 years. All that info needs to be jotted down into your bible so it can come out in appropriate places. It's more enticing to leave a breadcrumb trail not a runway.

Princess Week 2012

My family has a new tradition. It started 3 years ago when my sister wanted something fun for her birthday. We dubbed it Princess Week and planned all sorts of fun things - tubing in the river, horseback riding, massages, dinners out. Our other sister and 2 nieces flew it for it. We had a blast.

Each year is a different person and that changes the activities a bit.

This year I am Princess. And this post was written ahead of time, because I am out, having a blast!