A-Z Challenge Day 13 - M

 

M is for

Motivation and ... Muddleheadedness!

Debra Dixon's book GMC came to my notice long after I'd started writing.  In it the author creates--no, I'll share the blurb, it says it better than I can..
"Goal, Motivation & Conflict will show you how to use these three key elements to give dimension to your characters and direction to your plot. It will help you plan a road map to keep your story on track, discover why your scenes aren't working and how to fix them, create characters that editors and readers will care about, be confident your idea will work before you write 200 pages, end sagging middles and much more. Clear and concise with many helpful examples."

I doesn't matter how long or short your story, nor does genre make any difference, every piece of writing offered for public reading must have these ingrediant.  (Even, to some degree, the most dusty piece of technical or informational writing offered.)

Goals are where you want to go, the direction your plot and characters will take to achieve their dreams.
Motivation is the incentive that drives both forward.
Conflict, as the word implies, is what the author keeps dropping into the story to bring the characters alive.

And the author must have all three clearly set out in their head when they start writing!

You would think os, wouldn't you, but what about authors, such as myself?  those who call themselves 'pansters'.  Do they have neat lists of how what when and where pasted to their timesheet on the wall in front of them.  certainly, I don't, which comes to my 2nd 'M'!

Muddleheadedness!

How can a pantser possibly use Goal, Motivation and Conflict if they have no forward planning?  Like most things, 'practice makes perfect.'  Well perhaps not, but you know what I mean.

They become three more tools that eventually become such an integral part of writing the pantser instinctively knows when their story is running off the rails.
That doesn' mean they won't persever on their original course, but it does mean that eventually they will probably have to backtrack and restart from where they deviated from the 'right' path.

While every plotter reading this will sigh in exasperation and pity the 'poor deluded pantser,'who if only they could organise themselves better they wouldn't keep derailing themselves;'  the pantser considers it the breath of life (admittedly ,annoying at times,) that often reveals the mssing spark in their GMC up to that point.

There are many routes to the same destination, and it is the result that matters.

So bring on Motivation -and- Muddleheadedness!

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 12 'L'

L is for... emotion!!!

as in Love, Lust, Loneliness, & Laughter








LOVE
Take away love, and our earth is a tomb."  Robert Browning

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
Louis de Bernieres

"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly."   Sam Keen

"You know you are in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."  Dr. Seuss

If we can't love ourselves, why should anyone else? Anonymous

LUST“sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love”   Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Love is about giving and lust is only focused on taking.  Anonymous 

Lust is wanting to sleep with someone. Love is wanting to wake up next to them in the morning.  Anonymous"Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust."
Marquis De Sade

LONELINESS
"Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One's relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain." Elizabeth Bowen



"A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, heaving copious sighs like the autumn wind." John Cheever

"In our extreme youth, in our most humiliating sorrow, we think we are alone. When we are older we find that others have suffered too." Suzanne Moarny

"To most people loneliness is a doom. Yet loneliness is the very thing which God has chosen to be one of the schools of training for His very own. It is the fire that sheds the dross and reveals the gold." Bernard M. Martin

LAUGHTER
"The sound of laughter has always seemed to me the most civilized music in the universe." Peter Ustinov

"Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable." Ambrose Gwinett Bierce


"Close friends contribute to our personal growth. They also contribute to our personal pleasure, making the music sound sweeter, the wine taste richer, the laughter ring louder because they are there." Judith Viorst

"People who laugh actually live longer than those who don't laugh. Few persons realize that health actually varies according to the amount of laughter." Dr. James Walsh.

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 11 - K

K is for Know, Knot, and Kernal

or are they all the same thing?






I often use the expression 'A sort of Knowing' when I 'know' something I've never known before, never heard of, never read, never researched.  I mean how could I if I never knew about it?  And yet, suddenly, that 'knowing' is there, fully formed and in an unexplicable way, totally logical and practical.
It may be I meet someone, and I get that kind of 'I know you, from somewhere,' and yet at the same time I know I've never physically met them in my life before.

Story plots can be a little bit like that.  At least for me, they are.  They often turn up out of the blue, fully formed, but that doesn't mean I'm a plotter!  Oh no! If I try to go down that route the idea evaporates into a mist of disallusions and confusion.

And what about my characters? They, too, usually turn up full of their own importance and determined to have their own way.  I can almost see them approaching, huddled together in a knot of goals, plots and subterfuge.  Oh, and don't forget about love.  After all I am an author of romance!

With the third choice, I cheat, oh yes, I'm becoming more like my characters every day.  They turn up and say one thing and turn out to mean something else entirely!
So for 'Kernal' read 'seed'.  The 'seed' of an idea, given to me by my characters who then delight in turning everything upside down when I start following the seed they've planted in my mind!

Are you a 'plotter' or a 'panster' kind of author?
Who controls the sory, you or your characters?
Do you deviate from the original 'design' of your story and if so, what are the consequences?

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 10 - J

 I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date.... Sorry folks, but better late than never, so here is my offering for today.

J is for Jackass

And what is the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear that?




So - what is a 'jackass?'

When refering to animals, it is donkey, an ass, and a burro, as all are the same name for the same beast. Jackass, is merely the name for a male ass, while jennett, not jillass, is the name for a female ass.

Of course when not refering to the animal variety you may fist think of! 

And before I offend every male visitor, please be assured I am not being 'general' today when I mention of Jackasses!

J is also for JOY

For the last wo years I have been working on an experimental Regency story.  Why 'experimental?'  Well, I truly did not know whether I had what it took to get the atmosphere of the time right, or whether the characters would come across convincingly.

Today I learned it has been accepted by Secret Cravings Publishing. So--- I am happy dancing all over the house.

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

A-Z Challenge Day 9 - I

Day 9 of the A-Z Challenge is for Insprational

So today I have gathered a collectional of inspirational quotes to share with you.
I hope you enjoy them.


Put all excuses aside and remember this: YOU are capable.
Zig Ziglar

If you would create something, you must be something.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.
Albert Einstein

Don’t ever wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.
Cale Yarborough

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

Tuesday Tales word prompt Airport

Welcome to another Tuesday Tales.  This week's word prompt is Airport.

The low-slung morning sun cast its faded glow over the frosted boughs of the surrounding trees. Rosie couldn’t believe it. The previous day’s temperature had soared into the high teens, and now, the following morning, she’d woken to winter in the middle of summer. Well not really summer, but almost. The May buds no longer burst with promise but hung limply at the end of brown fingered branches.

Shattered expectations.

She knew all about them, Rosie thought. First a marriage with the love of her life, a marriage that lasted six months, thanks to a rogue deer, and then when she knew better than to trust a playboy prince he’d gone swanning off without a word and left her waiting alone.

Alone again, since Cal was staying with his surrogate aunt and uncle up at the farm.

The sound of an overhead aircraft re-directed her thoughts. How many people were flying off to an adventure of a lifetime? Where had they come from and where were they going? Unlike the Gasquet princes, they’d start from a regular airport. Heathrow, Glasgow, somewhere in the English Midlands. Or was it arriving home from some exotic destination?

With a shake of her head, Rosie swallowed the last of her early-morning coffee and headed for a shower. Perhaps the hot water would wash some sense into her. Or perhaps it would wash away this fit of dismals she’d woken to.

If only he’d roused her before he’d left—but what good did it do to dream? If dreams came true Sacha would walk through the steam in her bathroom, strip and join her in the shower. She sighed, reached for her towel and shrieked when it was handed to her.

Holding it in front of her, Rosie peaked through the gap in the plastic shower curtains she’d never remembered to replace.

Her pounding heart almost deafened her. “I thought you’d gone.”

His grin slid off his face when Sacha saw the fear in Rosie’s eyes, and before he could engage his brain in rational thought, he pulled her out of the shower and hard up against his chest. “I did, but without saying ‘goodbye’ my heart refused to come with me.”

His lips crushed down on hers while his arms banded round her waist. Then he froze before shifting back and away from her.

“Get dressed woman, or I will not be responsible for the consequences.”

His muttered, ‘What was I thinking, coming back like this?’ accompanied him out of the bathroom, and the slam of her bedroom door indicated he’d retreated downstairs, probably to the kitchen.

She reached for her panties and pulled them up her slim legs and over her hips before reaching for her bra.

Would the fool man leave again still without saying ‘goodbye’, she wondered, and hauled her midnight t-shirt over her head. A muffled thump followed by a curse lifted the corners of her lips. Not yet, at least, she almost laughed aloud. He’d come back to say ‘goodbye.’

Suddenly the warmth of the room disappeared. Did Sacha mean ‘goodbye’ as in forever—she hauled a pair of dun-coloured slacks on and snapped the stud closed. Or did his goodbye resemble the French equivalent of au revoir?

Grabbing her toothbrush she scrubbed her teeth with unnecessary vigor. Goodbye was goodbye in any language. What right did she have to hope that offering him her spare bedroom last night meant he wanted more from her unless it was for a short sharp fling. And, she shoved the toothbrush back in its holder, she didn’t do ‘flings.’

Perhaps, she thought as she ran downstairs, she could offer to drive him to the airport, that way she’d know where he left and arrived from without being too obvious about it. With her hand on the kitchen doorknob, Rosemary huffed.

Why was she even given his arrivals and departure destinations a moment’s thought? He’d stayed overnight, and when he left he’d be back on the King’s Jubilee jamboree, flitting all over the world to promote his father’s successful 25 year reign. Mixing with all the beauties in his own world, why would he give her a second thought, after all, what was that saying? ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’

Giving herself a mental shake at her stupidity in even allowing her dreams and fantasies headroom, she opened the door and skidded to an abrupt halt.

CLICK HERE for more Tuesday Tales Reads

A-Z Challenge Day 8 - H

H - is for Hunk

so sit back and enjoy, and perhaps tell me chich is your favourite and why. :-)

So there you have it for today :-)

There are nearly 1900 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

Six Sunday Sentence

Six Sentence Sunday

After having my head stuck in finishing this Regency romance, I'm back and offering you six more sentences while it is now away househunting.
Thank you to everyone who's visited in the past, I hope I'll see you again.

When his new wife had left him the night before, he’d returned downstairs to find Freddie waiting for him in the library with a glass of brandy in his hand. “She is willing to accept the tale we concocted?”



“Yes, she is.” They’d talked of many things well into the night and separated with the shared satisfaction that they’d achieved a job well done.


Now he watched the woman beside him meld with her horse as the wind caught her hair and tugged it out of the knot she’d created at her neck. “This is what being alive is all about,” she cried, her eyes brighter than he’d ever seen them and he could not doubt her as the ground beneath them slipped away.
 

For many more fantastic offering click HERE

A-Z Challenge - Day 7 'G'

Is the brainchild of Arlee Bird, at Tossing it Out. The A to Z Challenges to post the letter of the alphabet every day during the month of April, with Sundays off for good behavior. Since April 1 falls on a Sunday, that will be the day we start with A. Whether you go with a theme or freestyle, your post must match the letter of the alphabet for that day. And this year nearly 1900 signed up for the challenge.

Today's letter is 'G'

so I decided - probably like hundreds of others to start with Google.

Did you know Google was chosen because  the word Google is a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros?

Did you know that Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are reported to have disagree about almost everything during this first meeting in 1995?

Did you know that one year later these two began collaborating on a search engine called BackRub?

Did you know it took them another year to come up with the Google name that is a part of everyday life in most internet users' lives today?

Did you know that in August 1998 Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a check for $100,000 to an entity that did not exist... a company called Google Inc. and that a month later this company began its life in Susan Wojcicki’s garage? 

The rest, as they say 'is history'.

If you look up the word 'google' at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/google?s=t you will find it has become not only a household word, but a way of life.

This is what is said at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/google?s=t

Word Story

Founded in 1998, the Web site Google.com has become such an institution that in its short existence, it has changed not only the way we process the endless data found on the information superhighway, but also the way we think and talk about the Internet.


The term google itself is a creative spelling of googol, a number equal to 10 to the 100th power, or more colloquially, an unfathomable number. Googol was coined in the 1930s and is attributed to the nine-year-old nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner.


Soon after Google was created, the trademarked company name became a popular verb. People were “googling” all sorts of information, including their own names. When users google themselves, unless their names are absurdly rare, they may find their “googlegangers” (a portmanteau word combining “google” and “doppelgänger”), or their namesakes, listed in the Google search results.


A whole new industry has sprung up around Google, including the new field of search-engine optimization, or SEO, which works to boost the ranking of a name or term in Google and other search-engine results. In 2005, the newly-minted term Google bomb became popular, to describe the intentional skewing of Google search results by creating links to misleading Web pages. Whether we like it or not, we now live in a Google-centric world.

Citations

“Google has come to represent all our hopes, dreams, and fears about the disruptive promise and dangers of the Internet.”

  —Rob Hof, “Is Google Too Powerful?,” Bloomberg Businessweek  (April 9, 2007) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_15/b4029001.htm

“Google's uncorporate slogan—‘Don't be evil’—appeals to Americans who embrace underdogs.”
  —Ken Auletta, Googled: The End of the World As We Know It  (2009) http://books.google.com/books?id=-oZY9GJW7YgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

“Show us a man or woman who’s never Googled an ex, and we’ll show you someone without an Internet connection.”
  —Em & Lo, “You, Again: Reconnecting with the ex is a dicey proposition,” New York  (September 24, 2006) http://nymag.com/relationships/mating/21634/

“I know nothing about this man, except for what I Googled.”


  —Irene Zutell, Pieces of Happily Ever After  (2009) http://books.google.com/books?id=FqhWm4GYHxMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false 
 

There are nearly 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE



A-Z Challenge - Day 6 F

 

F is for Funny

So I went looking for some of the funnier quotes out there online.

Do you have a favourite quote you'd like to share?

 

The only reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.

(http://www.coolfunnyquotes.com/)

"Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the world together."
(http://www.coolfunnyquotes.com/)



The road to success is always under construction.
((http://www.coolfunnyquotes.com/)




A selection from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_funny.html

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

Groucho Marx

Be obscure clearly.
E. B. White

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry A. Kissinger

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Anton Chekhov

Every man dies. Not every man really lives.
William Wallace

Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.

~~~

You'll find more information about the following books at http://www.sherrygloag.com/

    




There are nearly 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE