Doing it Left Handed for the First Time

Have you ever done it left handed? It’s like a whole new thing. I mean, it’s a totally new sensation.

I can’t believe after 44 years I had never done it left handed.

When I first tried, it felt weird. My fingers were all in the wrong places. I tried applying pressure and pushing all the right buttons–like I had done right handed for years–but it felt awkward. It was like my left hand was a 16 year old virgin, feeling for the right grip, the right feel.

My palm didn’t rest right. I found my wrist and forearm twisting, trying to find just the right position. I finally got there, pushed all the right buttons, twisted all the right nobs and it did work–again, it was awkward, but it worked.

Heck, I’m doing it left handed while I write this. It’s still a little unusual feeling, but in a good way. I’m going to keep doing it left handed until it stops feeling different than right handed.

Now that I have mastered using my computer mouse with my left hand, I wonder what else I can do left handed?

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Terrible Analogies

Found here.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
– Joseph Romm, Washington

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
– Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
– Russell Beland, Springfield

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
– Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and “Jeopardy” comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.
– Roy Ashley, Washington

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
– Chuck Smith, Woodbridge

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
– Russell Beland, Springfield

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake
– Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
– Unknown

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
– Jack Bross, Chevy Chase

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
– Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like”Second Tall Man.”
– Russell Beland, Springfield

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
– Jennifer Hart, Arlington

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
– Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
– Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
– Russell Beland, Springfield

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
– Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
– Chuck Smith, Woodbridge

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

How to Write Gooder

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/fifty-50-tools-which-can-help-you-in-writing.html

Good.

How to write gooder.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/chadvce.htm

I Am Generally Sucking Today

I need to write some things to get the juices flowing. I’m going to wander over to NANOWRIMO and see if anybody has anything inspirational to say.

A New Noir

It was a Tuesday, 11:06 pm. The night was as dark as something really dark and not well lit. I stared at a computer screen as empty as something empty with nothing in it.

Evelyn had just called to tell me I was a bastard. She had legs like something long and sexy, but after two highballs she was as crazy as something really crazy. She drove me nuts. Both ways.

She wasn’t the first to call me that and she wouldn’t be the last. I got that all too familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach like a bad feeling you get in the pit of your stomach at times like this.

But I needed to put Evelyn behind me. I took another shot of my bourbon and went to work.

I had just scored a new gig. A writing gig. The kind of gig you dream about when you’re new to the writing game but always seems just beyond your grasp. But I wasn’t new any more. I wasn’t young. I felt like something old trying to do something young people should do.

I had just four weeks to do character sketches, plot outlines and put together an outline. Then the real race would begin. Fifty Big Ones. And I had to pull it together in just 30 days. Fifty thou in 30 days is like something hard. Something really, really hard.

So I stared at the blank screen the way some animal stares into something.

I had heard on the street some rouge writers were having a secret meeting tonight over at Nanowrimo—a seedy website on the outskirts of the internet. Only the locals knew about it and they weren’t talking—not to me, not to the cops and not to publishers.

I reached for the mouse. It felt like a mouse-like thing in my hand. My nimble index finger clicked the left button, placing the cursor into the address bar like a cursor-like thing blinking in an address-bar like thing.

I was in faster than a fast thing.

I went over to the genre I was going to pile 50K of words into. Mystery. Suspense. It’s a tough genre, gritty like gritty stuff, but it has the edge I need. Sub-genre: Noir.

I saw a couple tomatoes at the bar along with a couple toughs. The toughs looked like tough people—people who know how to be tough. I took my place at the bar to the right of a juicy fruit, placing her between me and the tougher looking tough guy.

The Lolita stopped writing in her notebook and turned her face toward me and gave me the look of someone who knew how to write. She had been around a pen and paper before.

“Buy you a pen beautiful?”

“Sure” the word slipped out of her mouth slowly, like a slow thing coming out of a mouth-like thing.

[ To Be Continued… ]

---

Art found here.

Common Writing Errors

Check this out:

Anyway, here’s a list of errors I (and some editors I know) see over, and over, and over again, ad desperandum. Plus a few that maybe just bug me. Feel free to add your own in comments…

1. Head-hopping: I’m a fundamentalist bible-thumper when it comes to picking a point of view for a scene or a chapter and sticking to it. So many people send me stuff that seems to be in one character’s point-of-view, then another character will have a brief thought about the first character, then we go right back to the first.

[Sidebar: Dragon Strike will mark the first time since the Lara Croft media novel that I've written from more than one POV in a novel (I don't count my little VE scene setters or the opening paragraphs of Thunderbolt)]

That, or it’s written in a nebulous 3rd person omniscient that flirts with locking down into a POV but never quite gets there. Boy is that frustrating. Let me feel, hear, smell, and taste what your characters are experiencing, please! Sensory detail is one of the best ways to draw a reader into the world.

2. Logorrhea: Having something between two and a dozen words pull the weight of one. I can’t tell you how often I read stuff like “Thinking back on her past, she remembered her childhood of twenty years ago, when as a six-year-old…”

3. The Joker: Smiling, and its evil cousin, the grin. I’ve read entire chapters where characters do nothing but smile and grin at each other, as though they’re living in the Treehouse of Horror Simpson’s vignette where Bart has mental powers like the kid in the Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life” and everyone has to keep on a happy face.

4. Marcia! Marcia! Marcia! - characters who always have their emotions dialed up to “11.” They laugh “uproariously” at stuff that’s worth a mild snigger, fight to keep from screaming when they’re third in line at the ATM, agonize over whether to have the vinegarette or ranch. Can we save the “I’ll never be hungry again!” fist-shaking for something more important that a checkout line, please?

5. Non-comedy of manners: Commonplaces substituted for dialog. Polite interchanges, greetings, exchanges of compliments, goodbyes (unless it’s the villain saying goodbye to James Bond as he’s strapped under the laser) — usually these can be discarded. Now sometimes you can get some characterization out of it, as with Leeland Gaunt’s charm and elaborate pleasantries to his customers in King’s Needful Things, but if you’ve already got King’s chops you’re probably only reading this blog to snicker at me.

Then there’s #5’s corollary, meaningless action. Mystery Science Theater is fond of making fun of directors who always show their actors pulling into a driveway, parking their car, getting out of the car, going to the door…same thing appears in flabby writing. Unless there’s something interesting going on in the character’s head, or there’s a zombie apocalypse raging on in the street and the character is too hung-over to notice (stole that from Shaun of the Dead), or we know there’s a crazed killer waiting inside the now lightbulb-free house, don’t weigh me down with this.

6. Waking-up scenes: Please limit them to one per novel. And books that begin with someone waking up, well, I no longer just put them down–I hurl them and try for distance.

7. Go to sleep, sheeple! Long, rambling political digressions are almost guaranteed to anesthetize your audience unless they agree with you jot and tittle. College students and guys who’ve put their twenty or thirty in in the service seem to love writing these. Your thoughts on Big Oil or the pinkos running the network news are spoiling your tight little thriller, bud. Save it for Daily Kos and talk radio. By the time your novel is published, we might be arguing over President Chelsea.

8. Pain don’t hurt: Flat descriptions about someone’s emotional state bring tears from editors, not readers. Now, don’t look to me for fixes on this, I’m not the best with emotion, but I do know you can’t just say “His accusation made her feel bad.” Describe the feeling bad through images or actions. Did her face heat up with shame, or did it cause ice to form in her gut, or did she flee to the bathroom and sob into her scarf?

9. Weasel words: Adverbs and quantifiers need to to be kept on a three-inch leash. I was always doing this; if I couldn’t think of anything else I called an object “large.” Freudian much? Watch for “almost” especially. I hate reading about what almost happened. It’s better to write positively — i.e. talk about what did happen. “He almost screamed” doesn’t tell me what he did do. Did he choke back a scream, bite it off, or did the scream come out as manic laughter?

10. Beaming in: I get confused when characters, gear, and important features suddenly appear mid-scene. It’s one thing for Sam Spade to reach into his bottom desk drawer and pull out a cached bottle of whiskey, you’re showing where the object came from. It’s quite another for you to suddenly mention that there was a German bayonet war trophy in plain view atop the filing cabinet in the middle of a fist fight.

11. So that’s why you wrote this: I’ve read stories where the most precise language and evocative imagery is saved for the all-important pudenda-shaving scene as the heroine gets ready to go to the library. I’m not knocking your kink, I’m just wondering why so much word-weight is put into a personal hygiene choice in a story about tracking down Shoggoths.

12. Don’t open the airlock! Another thing that bugs me is a scene that seems to take place in a vacuum. No sense of time, place, no indication that anyone has a history or is concerned with anything other than what’s on the protagonist’s mind that very second. Please, establish a time and place, even if it’s just “midnight at the oasis,” before or as you start the action! And remember, everyone in the story has problems of their own.

13. Mary Sues: I rarely come across these, but I thought I should add them to the list just in case. I think word has gotten out. We probably have fanfiction sites and editorial blogs to thank for that. But if you don’t know what a “Mary Sue” is, you can educate yourself here.

I’m not against wish-fulfillment in writing, a lot of story magic is fueled by “wouldn’t it be cool if…” You just don’t want to make it easy for your characters.

14. Strange days. Stranger names: I get sf/fantasy stories about orc-tribes where there’s Bolk, Gurg, and Fred. Which would be funny, I suppose, if it wasn’t a straight-faced quest fantasy. A name from our time can carry lots of associations with it, so don’t go calling your dark elf capital city San Diego or putting your ranger hero in lederhosen.

Also, chances are they don’t celebrate Christmas on Planet Mongo.

15. In taberna quando sumus: - it’s often because we’re too hidebound to think of anywhere else for the action to take place but a bar or inn. Tavern scenes aren’t one of my bugbears, but my friend Howard who edits Black Gate says that he sees entirely too many from amateur fantasists. Liven things up by having people meet and talk business at sporting events, religious rites or festivals, public baths, market days, weddings, theatricals, readings of edicts, auctions. . .

16. Plot on rails: Too often amateur writing sets up what the protagonist has to accomplish at the beginning of the story and sticks to that right to the end. That may work for some shorts, but in a novel you want events to move the goalposts. It allows the character to discover what she or the world really needs, rather than what was thought at the beginning. Remember, Frodo didn’t set out from Bag End thinking he’d have to go to Mount Doom, he was just trying to get the ring out of the Shire and meet Gandalf. A story is not a baseball game, objectives and rewards can change with the character and situation. Go watch Run Lola Run if you don’t believe me.

17. It’s not an essay: There’s no need to elaborate on what an action or a scene means. This is a story, not English homework, and if you’re doing something experimental and meta, send it to someone smarter than me. Having the author’s analysis intrude like the Voice of God takes all the fun out of me figuring things out for myself.

18. More is Less: Quality, not quantity. A single arresting image can be more horrifying than a page full of splatter. This also goes for heroics, landscaping, and descriptions of boobs.

19. Catalog Copy: Don’t weigh me down with laundry lists of clothing and so much description I feel like a police sketch artist. Use language that allows me to summon an image from my own experiences. For more on this, consult King’s On Writing, book two chapter 6.

20. The Bare Minimum: Double space in twelve point font. Learn how to use paragraphs on your word processor, don’t just tab over until you start a new paragraph (you hear me, Rhona?). Put your name and contact info on the friggin’ thing. And stop obsessing over copyright. If you were good enough that people wanted to steal your prose, you’d have sold it by now.

(Found here.)

Non-Fiction Book Ideas on Marriage/Sex

I am in the process of starting a new commercial site on marriage and I have found in the past the best way to write a book is to outline a book with a killer premise then outline each chapter and sub-chapter, then make each sub-chapter an article (or blog post.)

So I am again asking you, my blog friends, to help me choose the most compelling book themes from the ones below. In your comments list the numbers of the top 2 title choices you like as well as any ideas to improve them.

Thanks in advance:

1. Charisma - How to be the person everyone wants to know (By the way, I know this doesn’t have lots to do with marriage, but it’s a book I’ve been pondering for some time…)
2. Mutual Fulfillment: How to Have the Marriage of Your Dreams for Life
3. Full Tilt Marriage: How to Have the Marriage of Your Dreams for Life
4. Your Next Honeymoon: How to Have the Most Romantic, Sexually Fulfilling Vacation of Your Life on Any Budget
5. Sexual Intimacy: How to Have Mutually Fulfilling Sex for the Rest of Your Lives
6. Hot Marriage: How to Have Mutually Fulfilling, Explosive Sex for the Rest of Your Lives
7. Peaceful Intimacy: How to Stop Arguing and Start Enjoying Your Marriage
8. Partners: How to Stop Arguing and Start Enjoying Your Marriage Partnership
9. Finding Peace: Understanding and Living with the Angry Spouse

Again, thanks in advance for your input.

Online Mind Mapping Tool (…and it’s free)

I use mind maps all the time. In fact in my den I have a wall with no pictures, no decorations, just a plain wall I use to put up giant poster sized Post-Its and draw out my life. Sometimes one mind map will be up there for months.

Right now there are three: One helping me figure out how the narrator in Resurrection dies, one charting out ideas for the next stage of my career and one with ideas on a marriage site. Thinking creatively is my most important task, and mind mapping helps me to think creatively.

I had heard there were mind mapping programs you could use on your PC, but I always assumed they would be too limiting–the size of the screen is small and you can’t “draw” on it.

Because I have made a commitment to the “paperless office” I decided yesterday to see if I could find an online program that would allow me to create workable mind maps.

Mindomo is what I found. After one day I can tell you it is much better than using paper and markers.

Why Mindomo Beat My Paper Method

The interface is pretty intuitive. I didn’t have to read any instructions to get started. Your mileage may vary, but I think an average computer user should be able to figure out the basics pretty much as easily as the basics of a word processor.

One advantage of Mindomo over paper was the ease at which I could make sweeping or individual changes. For example: I realized in the mind map I made yesterday that the grouping of the different branches didn’t make logical sense. On a hand drawn mind map I couldn’t move the branches. With Mindomo I just clicked and dragged the branches around until I got them where I wanted them.

Another advantage is the ability to re-align the arrangements of branches. In my case there were a couple sub-branches (with a dozen or so individual elements each) that were better related to a “new” branch rather than the one they were originally associated with.

By clicking and dragging on the lead topic for a branch, I could move the entire topic.

I could also access and share my mind maps online. When I travel I used to actually take my current (and key past) mind maps with me to put up in my hotel room. With Mindomo I could simply log in and view any of my previously created maps.

One key feature I liked was the ability to easily change the overall appearance of the map. After a while I got sick of the format I had originally chosen. No problem, I just clicked a button and the entire look changed. The same goes for colors–select the area you want to color and click a button.

Pictures are easy to add as well. When I do manual mind maps, my doodles take a good deal of time and don’t always come out as planned. With Mindomo you can insert pictures from the web or from their stock clip-art. That’s pretty cool and can make your map really stir the creative juices.

I wondered about what options I had for downloading the map or printing. The map can be downloaded in a variety of formats. I downloaded mine as a jpg so I could easily view it using a simple program like Paint Shop Pro or even Paint. I could also print the map from my computer. The one I created yesterday would print out as 12 pages, and could be taped together to make up a paper mind map. (Think about it like a Rasterbator print out.)

Overall the experience using Mindomo was much better than using paper and much better than I had expected. I have this feeling I won’t be buying too many super sized Post-It pads in the future.

Here is a simple, sample mind-map I made to give you a simple idea:

Creativity with Effort

Having no creativity has taught me something important. I first heard this idea as an illustration at a talk by some speaker I no longer remember.

“How much money do you think David Brenner gets paid to feel funny in Vegas?” asked the speaker.

The audience shouted out several figures.

“Zero,” replied the speaker, “Brenner doesn’t get paid anything to feel funny–he gets paid to be funny.”

Yesterday I wrote about 8 or so posts for Whore Church. Some of them are pretty good. Funny. Sarcastic.

But I didn’t feel it, I just did it. I pretended to be a funny, sarcastic, motivated, creative writer.

And it worked.

Nation Novel Writing Month: Wanna Join In?

Each November since 100 BCE there has been a collective effort for us procrastinating fiction writers to create a book–a complete 50,000 word manuscript–in just one month.

This year I think I want to give it a try.

If you want to join me or if you just want to find out more, visit their website by clicking here.

(If you want to make a comment below saying you’re interested in giving it a try, that’s cool too. I’ll post much closer to the start as I prepare in Sept and Oct.)