THINGS THAT BEGIN WITH 'T'...TRUCK...TRAVEL...TSUNAMI...

How do you get a truck out of a harbor?
You attach air bags...



And then you tow it to the boat ramp.


Just thought you'd all want to know.
So September was research month whether I wanted to or not. A brilliant trip to Victoria to see an old friend and pass by Port Townsend and Port Angeles where my WIP will take place...
And then?
I come home to a tsunami alert.

We watched the water rise past the high tide mark...

And then it receded. It went back and forth high tide and low tide right in front of our eyes for several hours. Like someone was filling a tub and then letting the water out a drain...it was flat...no real waves. But the surging caused the water to go instantly from clear to muddy...
This month I actually had to start a new journal titled:
"THINGS I MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT PUT INTO A NOVEL"
You never know.
TOOLOOSE has started his next book.
WORKING TITLE:
ALIEN SPACE MONKEYS VERSUS THE DREAD TSUNAMI VAMPIRE
He's already got 153 words.

"It was a dark and stormy sea..."

STRANGER THAN FICTION...

What are the chances...



That a car in the parking lot gets its throttle stuck and it richochets off a MERCEDES...takes out a dock box, electrical conduit, a eight foot tall metal gate, rides down the dock between two sailboats and plunges into the water with the driver swimming to safety and the boats undamaged?
What are the chances that it happens two boats down from a novelist?
This is SO going in my next book...
oh and the car is sitting in 16 feet of water and will need to be removed with a crane...What are the chances?

DEEP END OF THE OCEAN...THE REST OF THE STORY...

When Deep End of the Ocean was released and became the first Oprah book it changed everything. It was a compelling story that still engages readers. When we reluctantly closed the book, we all wondered what happened to the family.
Everyone has been anxiously awaiting the sequel.
Well wait no more.
It's here!!!!!
NO TIME TO WAVE GOODBYE

Those of us attending the Hawaii Writers Conference and Retreat were able to score early copies of Jacquelyn Mitchard's sequel to her best selling first novel.
Was it worth the wait?
YOU BETCHA.
Grab your copy now and dive right in...

After reading it - I was compelled to re read Deep End of the Ocean and marvel once more at the characters, the premise and what a terrific story it is and think back...
1996...I had been living in Hawaii for over five years, I was on the beach and immersed from the very first page...

Where were YOU when you first read Deep End of the Ocean?

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD...OR DIDN'T WE JUST PASS THIS PLACE???

I remember taking this photo in Norway. After a while all the cliffs that I felt the car would plunge over started looking the same...


The idea for this blog post is courtesy of THIS

Title:

YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ MY F***ING SCRIPT IF I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR F***ING RANT

I read the comments about this essay and they were evenly divided between agreeing with the ranter and disagreeing saying that everybody needs a hand early in their career.
Let me give my take on the situation.
In my case help was encouragement in workshops not reading a manuscript and getting me an agent. I help other writers because I know what it was like.
Do I read their work? Only in facilitated workshops. Do I get them an agent? No because I don't know what kind of agent they want. Do I send them to my editor? No that's not my job. Will I answer questions about writing or publishing? YES YES YES.
Anyone who asks about my path or has a question gets an answer.
Do I have to insult someone who genuinely thinks I might want to read or edit their unagented work?
No.
Never.
Why?
Because they don't know any better. I tell them about writers groups and organizations and conferences and wish them luck.
Yes I know it's impossible to discourage true writers. But yanno. I don't want to discourage them. I want other writers to succeed. If something I say helps then yeah!
If they get annoyed with me for not easing their path then I can't help that. I'm too busy revising my next manuscript to worry about that.
The thing is...
Why be mean?

BETA BOB BOUNCES BACK...

WANDERING STAR has joined ORION at the Ala Wai...

That teeny tiny speck of a sailboat is Wandering Star entering the harbor. So it's back to normal or kinda normal...Tooloose is writing his alien space monkey opus, I'm working on a new project, and simultaneously trying to come down from 10+ days working with other writers.
It's been fun...and everyone says the same thing:
Write.
Write.
Write.
Get off the internet and write.
Get off your butt and write.
Have faith (that's from Mitch Albom).
Have determination (that's from Kristin Hannah).
Let adversity motivate you (that's from Jackie Mitchard).
Break all the rules (that's from Joseph Finder).
String 60 scenes together (that's from William Bernstein).
I'm going to sell my house and buy a boat (that's from William Martin- he went on a great catamaran ride and now he's jealous of me...on a sailboat...in Hawaii...).
And for the writers who heard my talk?
Look for that pony in the manure pile and stay well grounded by stepping in an occassional hair ball...

DEBRIEFING: OR WHY DO SOME PEOPLE WALK OUT ON WORKSHOPS...

In the midst of dragons there be gold...

It happens every year. With every instructor. At some point in the writers workshop a person feels their needs are not being met...
The first day everyone has bright shiny happy faces. As the week progresses two things happen. A writer takes on a dogged determined appearance and their writing becomes lighter...more fluid...a distinctive voice develops.
OR.
The second, third, or fourth day?
They do not come back. At first we think they've slept in or are ill. Then the truth comes out.
We have NOT recognized their brilliance.
Darn.
And I thought everyone was supposed to recognize mine...
There are as many reasons as there are plot points. The thing is? So you don't learn about gripping dialogue. You learn something about characterization. Or maybe you learn more about the structure of a novel. Or just maybe you find a way out of your story and into another story...I never learn what I think I'm going to and the funny thing I often learn from my classmates...
And at the VERY least? You have more best selling authors to list on your query or resume and have an in to get a blurb from...What else it teaches? How to take criticism well - that helps when working with a publisher when they tell you to change something. So my hat's off to Jackie Mitchard and Karin Slaughter. They came. They saw.
They taught...

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER...

During dinner we were serenaded by the rustling of the palms...

Yesterday's exercise was to create two separate paragraphs either first or third person that addressed gender. How to reveal the sex of the speaker so a reader knows exactly whether the protagonist is a man or woman without being obvious...like having them look in a mirror...DUH!!!!We also had to make one sympathetic and the other unsympathetic-
Then we took our gender paragraphs and turned them into a dialogue (monologue) and made them unsympathetic if they originally were sympathetic and vice versa...
I learned a lot plus it was fun. We made each other laugh so hard we nearly peed our pants (speaking for myself only of course).
Tonight's homework was a one page two person dialogue that was suspenseful.
It's now after 11 pm and I am wishing I started my homework earlier...
If I don't finish I'll say TOOLOOSE ate my homework...or at least his alien space monkeys did...
So what are your excuses?