Nine Happy Accidents

I'm blogging about happy accidents. Again.

Margie Lawson's online Deep Edits course has taught me so much these past three weeks that I'm startled at my writing ignorance prior to this class. It took me an absurd amount of lectures to gain enough courage to re-read my only publishing credit, The Lost Highway. In light of these new editing techniques, would my prose suck as much wind as a Hoover Deluxe? Would I have missed countless opportunities to backload sentences? Did I even attempt rhetorical devices such as Anaphora and Litotes? Were there any SAPS or power lines?

Before your eyes glaze over (mine did about day three), you probably know some of these techniques intuitively. Every craft book ever written about fiction advises writers to be voracious readers for a reason. In reading, we internalize techniques of the greats who have come before us. We may not know that redundant phrases such as "stand up" or "burning hot" are called Tautologies, but we know Elmore Leonard wouldn't allow these buggers in his tight, sparse prose.

Last night, I finally opened the bound, unchangeable, forever-kind of snapshot on my primitive publishing journey. I found sentences I would change knowing what I know now, but I also found an astonishing number of tools Margie has added to my figurative toolbox Stephen King talks about in On Writing. With no way of knowing where these gems originated or how they shaped the story's lines into living, breathing moments, I can only consider them an anonymous gift born of time and experience and the rich texture of classic novels archived in my subconscious.

So now, we play a game. Match the rhetorical devices from lines in The Lost Highway to the name your high school English Teacher would have given them:

1) Perfect. Fifty miles from civilization, and he was about to be rescued by Doris Day.
2) Three winged shadows eclipsed the sun, circling him in a halo as tight as chalk marks around a cadaver.
3)The classic, rocket-shaped convertible crawled along the fractured road.
4) He didn't want to stop. Couldn't stop.
5) Her old fashioned mannerisms, her reserved innocence, her optimism blended into the picture of a woman who'd set off in search of love and become lost along the way.
6) Two roads converged on a lost highway.
7) What if he were a psychopath with a preoccupation for gutting women?
8) Doo-wap music blared from the car's speakers
9) He fished an old bus ticket from his front pocket-every number, every detail-as faded and smooth as a wish stone.

a) rhetorical question
b) amplification
c) personification
d) similie
e) onomatopoeia
f) eponym
g) anaphora
h) backloading a sentence
i) epistrophe

To entice your brain to rise to the challenge, I'll send out a signed copy of Love, Texas Style to the first blog reader who correctly matches them all. If you're interested in taking your writing to the next level, NYT bestseller level, check out Margie's phenomenal courses.

Have fun!

Urban Sprawl

I've been thinking a lot about community this week. In the six years since we settled at our present address, our neighborhood, our street, has seen many changes. Over half are not original residents anymore. Easter egg hunts and block parties have blurred into indifferent co-habitations where the only cohesiveness is the old lady down the street we affectionately refer to as "the poop bag lady" because she's the only dog owner in a ten mile radius who doesn't believe it's her dog's God-given right to crap on our lawn. The rest are like snapshots. A back tattoo here. A swelling pregnancy there. Faces bleed into each other--brothers, another lover, a new cleaning lady.

During one of those late nights when I could no longer rub two brain cells together, I watched the PBS documentary entitled "Subdivided." It explored the reasons Americans are more divided than ever and how poor community planning and this inherent desire many feel to chase the sprawling "American Dream" has left us feeling isolated and disconnected. While people latch onto cell phones at the expense of talking to a neighbor at the mailbox and we move further away from our place of employment to escape the city, increasing our energy consumption, much of the time we would have sat on our porches or walked the dog and stopped to say hello to an old friend is spent in a daily commute.

One of our inaugural street residents died this week. Although I'm guilty of the same distractions and preoccupation with self and family, and I only spoke with her on a few occasions over the past six years, this disconnected undertone stayed with me. For all that I should have walked over and shared good news or just a simple hello, I wanted to make up for in the present. At the funeral, I signed the guest book. Would the family even know my last name? I gave her husband a hug. Would it ring empty because he remembered all the times I fetched the morning paper and was in too much of a hurry to wave?

The preacher listed the litany of roles she'd taken on in this lifetime. One was a kind neighbor. Did I know this about her? Is this something that's said about us when we've gone or is there truth in it? Could the same be said for me if I were next to go?

In truth, I thought I'd be the only representative at the service. All the veteran residents held day jobs far away in the city. I wanted to make sure someone stood in for the memory of our first July Fourth we all made those tentative bonds. As it turned out, four other neighbors came. Maybe they longed for connectedness, too.

The documentary offers hope. Community planners are embracing traditional town-square designs, where anyone wanting a gallon of milk can walk four blocks to a mom and pop store and pass half a dozen neighbors with ample front porch space to drop by and stay awhile. Downtown revitalization projects cater to those who long to be a part of something more than just a lonely one-driver commute. More than a wave or a steaming poop bag. A real sense of belonging and responsibility to those who share our little half-acre of earth.

Would Fred Rogers be proud of you this week? I know, Mr. McFeeley didn't have a barbed-wire tat, but start with a wave, just one. Maybe next week you can work up to a plate of cookies.

A Good Cause and A Ghostly Pause

Today, I'm entering a bid in Brenda Novak's Fourth Annual Online Auction to Benefit Diabetes Research. And no, it's not the autographed photo of Fabio. I'm waiting to indulge my of-late preoccupation with him until I'm at a future Romantic Times convention, when he's tired and saucy to see where his grasp hits, geographically speaking. Be sure to visit Liz Maverick and Marianne Mancusi's Rebels of Romance blog (RT convention, Day 4 Part 1) if that joke jettisoned your pre-java brain.

Items in the auction range from once in a lifetime getaways to your favorite author's mountain cabin or beach cabana to handcrafted jewelry and gift baskets; autographed author and celebrity merchandise to critiques and lunches with heavy hitters in the publishing industry. People who can make a difference in a writer's career, much as you can in the fight against diabetes. Pop over there if you haven't already and help Brenda reach her goal of $300,000 this year.

I've been tagged by Marilyn, similar to my 1-2-3 post; and at the risk of venturing into non-fiction like Maureen, my autographed copy of Ghosts of East Texas and the Pineywoods by Mitchel Whitington called to me. First the meme; then, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story."

page 123:

"Right before she died, she looked up at a nurse and asked, "Are my babies all right?" The nurse immediately notified the County Sheriff that there might have been infants involved in the wreck, and the officers scoured the creek bed for the rest of the night. They pulled the car out, of course, and even got volunteers with hunting dogs to assist in the search. The bodies of the three infants were never found."

This comes from the Sad Tale of Cry Baby Bridge near Dekalb, Texas. Legend has it that a woman who lived in the countryside was driving back from town a quarter century ago with triplets in the backseat along with her groceries. She'd seen a friend at the store and gossiped as the afternoon stretched long. Worried her husband would be upset because his dinner wouldn't be ready on time, she rushed home, rounded a sharp corner just before a one lane bridge and slid off into the creek below.

To this day, when two cars meet on opposing sides of the country bridge and a driver honks three times to pass or wave the other on through, and the night is warm enough to roll down the windows, it is rumored that passersby can hear the sounds of babies crying in the night.

And the rest of the story? After further investigation, author Mitchel Whitington discovered Crybaby Bridge is an urban legend that dates back to the 1970s with tales from similar country bridges from Oklahoma to South Carolina. Had you, didn't I?

If you love paranormal non-fiction magnified with a lens of local flavor, it's a fun read.

What I'm reading now: Dixie Cash's Since You're Leaving Anyway, Take Out the Trash.

On Purpose? Really?

A fellow Wild Rose Press author, Katie Reus, has bestowed the Blogging With A Purpose award on this Vortex in cyberspace. I'm glad she sees purpose and not OCD about all things writing and time travel. In honor of Mother's Day, because she would want me to follow the rules, I offer up five blogs with a purpose deserving of your mouse's trigger finger:

La Vibora :: I could look up the translation, but I won't. It's more fun imagining one Spanish word to sum up Jim's obsession with all things venomous and reptilian. I'll never look at my refrigerated polska-kielbasa in Gladware the same way again. Deserving because of his commitment to captive breeding of rare species and because he adores these creatures the way I adore Godiva, Josh Holloway and injecting a hidden simile into a sentence.

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary Quotation Marks" :: We all have our usage hang-ups. Mine? Frolicking in a field of descriptive phrases with a handful of commas as an excuse. This blog's author? Ambiguous meanings those double grammar prints can leave in our minds. Deserving because once you've visited this site, you'll find these public offenders everywhere.

Blue Sue :: An expert on Blue Star Arabian horses and the fictional romance heroes who straddle them. Once my characters time jump to a setting where equestrian travel becomes a necessity, she's my go-to resource. Deserving because she can barrel race around an arena with a loaded weapon and pick off a target like a modern-day Belle Starr.

Photoshop Disasters :: True commercial advertisement fouls committed with Photoshop. Deserving because it reaffirms that even professionals wrestle with pixels and layering and viewing Gwyneth Paltrow's distorted head makes me feel better about my own.

The Graveyard Shift :: Written by Lee Lofland, a veteran police investigator and contributor to the online writing community crimescenewriter, this blog offers healthy portions of all things nourishing to writers starved for crime and literary resources. Deserving because he never allows fallen officers to be forgotten.

Thank you, Katie.

Sand in the Seat-Of-The-Pants-Draft-One

Ten things I learned about writing while vacationing on the beach:

1) Hearing The Police sing "Everything She Does is Magic" while editing helps to get into the vibe. Hearing it repeated on a ten-song soundtrack piped out through the pool's Bose speakers beats that vibe to a pulp.

2) During wind advisory beach conditions, the best page of your manuscript, along with your red canvas umbrella will take flight. Fellow beach-goers will either find themselves inspired by your words or get a paper cut Mary Poppins-style.

3) Drinking a Blue Moon on draft with an orange wedge while re-reading your manuscript will only make Margie Lawson's Deep Edit notes seem like that senior college course, second semester, you abandoned for Spring Break in Mexico.

4) Through the veil of sunglasses, lacquered with SPF-30, the crystal clear resort pool looks infinitely more appealing than the dialogue you've highlighted in blue.

5) Too much sun and the forty year old in the Speedo near the wet bar transforms Faulkner-esque prose into snippy, staccato sentences where people die.

6) The most under-utilized sensation you've yet to use in your writing is the sand slipping away beneath your feet as the waves recede into the ocean.

7) Sandpipers run faster than you'll ever type.

8) The fog rolling onto the beach at 4 am feels just like the masochistic day 29 of NaNoWrite.

9) The stranger next to you on the plane will always read what you've written. Always. And nothing kills a creative flow faster than a meaty fist clinging to a Filet 'O Fish on a turbulent ascent.

10) The Rastafarian at the Head Shop, no matter how authentic he smells, would always be considered by your critics to be a cliched character.

All That Jazz

I met some wonderful people during today's booksigning at Weatherford's Books 'n Authors 'n All That Jazz. The forty authors represented everything from non-fiction to westerns, self-published and major NY publishing houses. Best part? A huge portion of the authors and browsers were men, so watching their reaction to being snagged into a conversation and possible sale by a table full of romance authors revealed a lot about the male gender. A few backed away like we'd coiled a rattler on the table, but most were gracious and intrigued.

Hope for us romantics after all.

(l-r): me, Nancy Connally, Christine Crocker

Booksigning Tomorrow

Hey gang...I'll be signing Love, Texas Style, along with co-authors Nancy Connally and Christine Crocker, tomorrow at the Books 'n Authors 'n All That Jazz festival tomorrow in Weatherford, Texas. The event runs from 9am-3pm and includes over forty local authors and free writing workshops. Find inspiration and say hello all in one event. See you there!