Isn't it fun when life decides to remind us that we're not the indestructible creatures that we like to think we are?
On June 2, I put my foot down wrong stepping out of my parents' house and twisted my ankle, in the process also breaking my fibula and tearing a bunch of ligaments in my right ankle. The orthopedist decided I needed a plate and screws to fix the break, and I underwent the operation on the 9th. Today was my first post-op checkup with the doctor. According to the x-ray, I have six screws in my ankle, five of which are attached to the plate and the bone, and the sixth appears to be directly linking the two bone ends. Got another four weeks to go before I'm supposed to begin walking again. No putting weight on it until then. The stitches came out today as well. I can say that I'm glad I didn't look at the incision site until after it had had a chance to do some healing.
The interview and article at Mysterious People, which I mentioned in my last post, are up, and have been since June 1 and 2. Of course, I haven't felt up to doing much computerwise during the last few weeks, so here are the links I promised before the broken ankle:
A Conversation with Pepper Smith
Writing Suspense
Hope your summer is injury-free. At least with all this down time, I don't have many excuses for not writing, lol!
'til next time~~~
6/25/2009
5/27/2009
Upcoming interview
The lovely Jean Henry Mead, who runs the Mysterious People blog, has been posting a series of author interviews and articles, some by well known authors and some by less well known ones. I'm honored that she's chosen to include me in the series. When the interview and article post, I'll post the links here.
As a reminder, if you're looking for previous posts on writing and don't want to search through the archives, there's a link in the sidebar that will bring up only those posts with the writing tag.
If you're looking to keep up to date with posts here...the only thing I can suggest is to add yourself as a follower on the widget in the sidebar. I post when something comes up I want to yak about, which isn't as often as I should.
Another reminder about the Muse Online Writers Conference. This is a free event held for one week during October. To find out what workshops are on offer this year, please visit the website and look through the list. JD Webb and I will, of course, be doing our suspense workshop again this year. Registration is open, but will close toward the end of August, so don't wait if you want to check it out.
Still have future writing posts rolling around in my head. Will get them out here once they stop rolling...
Till later~~~
As a reminder, if you're looking for previous posts on writing and don't want to search through the archives, there's a link in the sidebar that will bring up only those posts with the writing tag.
If you're looking to keep up to date with posts here...the only thing I can suggest is to add yourself as a follower on the widget in the sidebar. I post when something comes up I want to yak about, which isn't as often as I should.
Another reminder about the Muse Online Writers Conference. This is a free event held for one week during October. To find out what workshops are on offer this year, please visit the website and look through the list. JD Webb and I will, of course, be doing our suspense workshop again this year. Registration is open, but will close toward the end of August, so don't wait if you want to check it out.
Still have future writing posts rolling around in my head. Will get them out here once they stop rolling...
Till later~~~
5/13/2009
Delayed gratification
Hmm. Well, if you’ve checked over at Mysterical-E, you’ve no doubt noticed that my story didn’t make this issue. Perhaps the next one, coming out in July? I’ll have to check back with them to see exactly when it’s supposed to show up if it’s not out in July.
Work is progressing on the current WIP. It remains to be seen if writing during allergy season is a good or bad thing, though. I feel like I’m in a fog so much of the time. Got to give some thought to another writing post. With everything blossoming right now, though, all I really seem to want to do is hibernate.
Once upon a time, I figured I’d put together a newsletter when enough interesting things happen to let people know about. I guess my life is just not that interesting. Check back here for any updates that I thought might be of interest, because I’m probably going to ditch the newsletter idea.
Work is progressing on the current WIP. It remains to be seen if writing during allergy season is a good or bad thing, though. I feel like I’m in a fog so much of the time. Got to give some thought to another writing post. With everything blossoming right now, though, all I really seem to want to do is hibernate.
Once upon a time, I figured I’d put together a newsletter when enough interesting things happen to let people know about. I guess my life is just not that interesting. Check back here for any updates that I thought might be of interest, because I’m probably going to ditch the newsletter idea.
What makes suspense?
I have to warn you that it's a big part of allergy season for me, so if you detect a slight incoherence, you know why.
In October for the past three years, the Muse Online Writers Conference has offered a number of workshops and live chats with authors, editors, publishers, and even a few agents, with the goal of helping authors to improve their craft and their chances at publication. We will be offering our course on adding suspense to fiction again this year, following the same lines as last year–
JD Webb and I posted a number of writing prompts, sentences that students were to take and begin a suspense story with. The results were interesting–and by the end, I believe the participants understood more clearly what suspense is and how to incorporate it.
So what is suspense? It is the feeling that something bad might happen. It is not violence, it’s the fear that the violence might happen. It is not shock effect, although suspense and shock effect work hand in hand in some genres. It can be compared in a minor way to the fear you might feel going to the doctor when you know you’re going to get a shot. You feel apprehension about getting stabbed in the arm with a needle, but once it’s actually happened, you no longer feel the fear and apprehension. In the same way, suspense loses its punch if you let the bad thing happen. The goal is to keep the reader on edge by keeping your protagonist just this side of the bad results threatened by your villain.
As instructors, we, too, each took one of the prompts and began a suspense story with it. Mine is posted below:
_______________________
The small hairs on the back of Roger’s neck rose as he slid the nozzle of the gas hose into the Miata’s tank.
He stiffened, looking up. The driver of the black Chevy at the next island over had his back to him. Close to the station’s front door, an elderly man held the lid of an old-fashioned chest freezer open, while two young boys picked out ice cream treats. No one from inside the station’s office seemed to be looking his way.
Someone, somewhere, was staring at him. And hard, by the feel of it.
He squeezed the pump handle and locked it on before turning slowly on his heel, looking around with a feigned casual air. Heat rose from the faded asphalt of Hwy 236. Directly across from him, a farmer wheeled his tractor in a tight arc and started back along the length of his field, cutting the long grass for hay. Down the road to his left, houses clustered on both sides for a distance of about a quarter of a mile. To the right, on his side of the road, was a feed store. The farmer’s field took up the rest of the other side, green grass stretching away for as far as he could see.
The small community was little more than a spot along the road, too small to be incorporated as a town. Quaint, Marissa had called it when they’d passed through on their honeymoon. There was also no one in sight, aside from the farmer, who was headed away from him.
Still…
He shook himself and turned back to the car. Marissa had fallen asleep not long before they’d gotten here. He leaned his forearms on the driver’s door, smiling as he studied her. She wasn’t one to let things get in the way of her plans. They’d made the reservations for this trip last year, before their honeymoon had ended, and not even the surprise discovery seven months ago that she was pregnant had been enough to deter her from it. He reached in and gently brushed a few strands of her long black hair from her face.
“Hey, hon, better wake up.”
One corner of her mouth quirked. “I wasn’t asleep.”
He grinned. “Sure. This is the last chance for a bathroom stop before we reach our hotel.”
She grimaced, opening her eyes. “You do know that this child of yours plays kickball with my bladder, don’t you?”
“You’ve mentioned it before.”
She sat up, unfastened her seatbelt, and opened her door.
“Need any help?” Roger asked.
“I’m not as big as a house, yet.” She carefully levered herself out of the low-slung car. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The weight of the pregnancy had given her walk a cute little sway. Roger pushed himself upright, watching her over the roof of the Miata as she walked away.
The sense that he was being watch returned, so strong that he gave up any pretense of casual interest in his surroundings. He scanned the area, looking first past Marissa to be sure she wasn’t heading into trouble, then turning to look intently toward the small cluster of houses. A couple of children had come out onto a front lawn to play catch. An ancient Ford Fairlane rattled past along the highway, pulling off at the feed store. There were a few places where someone could have hidden behind bushes to stare at him unobserved. There was no way of knowing if anyone was using them without going to check.
The pump handle clicked off. He turned back to pull the nozzle from the tank and return it to the pump. As soon as Marissa came back from the bathroom, they’d be leaving, and his hidden observer would just have to find someone else to stare at.
A red pickup truck approached from the direction of the houses, slowing as if to turn in at the service station. Marissa swung around.
“Roger, do you have a couple of dollars for…” Her voice trailed away. He looked at her quickly. She stared past him, her eyes wide, and her face pale and blank with shock. “Billy–”
Roger half-turned, looking behind him. The red pickup had slowed to a crawl. Its driver, a lean, muscular man with short dark hair and a bushy mustache, stared back at him, cold, arrogant, a slight smile curving his mouth. Marissa’s psychotic ex-husband, who’d beaten her so badly that she’d lost their nearly full-term baby, and gotten himself convicted of manslaughter in the death of their child. She’d divorced him while he was in prison. He wasn’t supposed to be out yet.
Billy’s smile widened. He raised an arm and mimed pointing a gun at Roger’s head. His index finger crooked as if pulling the trigger. Roger’s skin crawled. Billy looked past him at Marissa, then stepped on the gas and accelerated away.
____________________________
Does this give you the feeling that something bad is going to happen? Billy has announced his intentions. If I were to continue the story, of course, it would become a contest between Roger and Billy, with the lives of Roger, Marissa, and the unborn child at stake. Keeping the suspense high requires that the readers care about what happens to this young family, which is another vital aspect of suspense. If your readers don’t have a strong desire to see them escape, they might just root for Billy to track them down and kill them.
In October for the past three years, the Muse Online Writers Conference has offered a number of workshops and live chats with authors, editors, publishers, and even a few agents, with the goal of helping authors to improve their craft and their chances at publication. We will be offering our course on adding suspense to fiction again this year, following the same lines as last year–
JD Webb and I posted a number of writing prompts, sentences that students were to take and begin a suspense story with. The results were interesting–and by the end, I believe the participants understood more clearly what suspense is and how to incorporate it.
So what is suspense? It is the feeling that something bad might happen. It is not violence, it’s the fear that the violence might happen. It is not shock effect, although suspense and shock effect work hand in hand in some genres. It can be compared in a minor way to the fear you might feel going to the doctor when you know you’re going to get a shot. You feel apprehension about getting stabbed in the arm with a needle, but once it’s actually happened, you no longer feel the fear and apprehension. In the same way, suspense loses its punch if you let the bad thing happen. The goal is to keep the reader on edge by keeping your protagonist just this side of the bad results threatened by your villain.
As instructors, we, too, each took one of the prompts and began a suspense story with it. Mine is posted below:
_______________________
The small hairs on the back of Roger’s neck rose as he slid the nozzle of the gas hose into the Miata’s tank.
He stiffened, looking up. The driver of the black Chevy at the next island over had his back to him. Close to the station’s front door, an elderly man held the lid of an old-fashioned chest freezer open, while two young boys picked out ice cream treats. No one from inside the station’s office seemed to be looking his way.
Someone, somewhere, was staring at him. And hard, by the feel of it.
He squeezed the pump handle and locked it on before turning slowly on his heel, looking around with a feigned casual air. Heat rose from the faded asphalt of Hwy 236. Directly across from him, a farmer wheeled his tractor in a tight arc and started back along the length of his field, cutting the long grass for hay. Down the road to his left, houses clustered on both sides for a distance of about a quarter of a mile. To the right, on his side of the road, was a feed store. The farmer’s field took up the rest of the other side, green grass stretching away for as far as he could see.
The small community was little more than a spot along the road, too small to be incorporated as a town. Quaint, Marissa had called it when they’d passed through on their honeymoon. There was also no one in sight, aside from the farmer, who was headed away from him.
Still…
He shook himself and turned back to the car. Marissa had fallen asleep not long before they’d gotten here. He leaned his forearms on the driver’s door, smiling as he studied her. She wasn’t one to let things get in the way of her plans. They’d made the reservations for this trip last year, before their honeymoon had ended, and not even the surprise discovery seven months ago that she was pregnant had been enough to deter her from it. He reached in and gently brushed a few strands of her long black hair from her face.
“Hey, hon, better wake up.”
One corner of her mouth quirked. “I wasn’t asleep.”
He grinned. “Sure. This is the last chance for a bathroom stop before we reach our hotel.”
She grimaced, opening her eyes. “You do know that this child of yours plays kickball with my bladder, don’t you?”
“You’ve mentioned it before.”
She sat up, unfastened her seatbelt, and opened her door.
“Need any help?” Roger asked.
“I’m not as big as a house, yet.” She carefully levered herself out of the low-slung car. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The weight of the pregnancy had given her walk a cute little sway. Roger pushed himself upright, watching her over the roof of the Miata as she walked away.
The sense that he was being watch returned, so strong that he gave up any pretense of casual interest in his surroundings. He scanned the area, looking first past Marissa to be sure she wasn’t heading into trouble, then turning to look intently toward the small cluster of houses. A couple of children had come out onto a front lawn to play catch. An ancient Ford Fairlane rattled past along the highway, pulling off at the feed store. There were a few places where someone could have hidden behind bushes to stare at him unobserved. There was no way of knowing if anyone was using them without going to check.
The pump handle clicked off. He turned back to pull the nozzle from the tank and return it to the pump. As soon as Marissa came back from the bathroom, they’d be leaving, and his hidden observer would just have to find someone else to stare at.
A red pickup truck approached from the direction of the houses, slowing as if to turn in at the service station. Marissa swung around.
“Roger, do you have a couple of dollars for…” Her voice trailed away. He looked at her quickly. She stared past him, her eyes wide, and her face pale and blank with shock. “Billy–”
Roger half-turned, looking behind him. The red pickup had slowed to a crawl. Its driver, a lean, muscular man with short dark hair and a bushy mustache, stared back at him, cold, arrogant, a slight smile curving his mouth. Marissa’s psychotic ex-husband, who’d beaten her so badly that she’d lost their nearly full-term baby, and gotten himself convicted of manslaughter in the death of their child. She’d divorced him while he was in prison. He wasn’t supposed to be out yet.
Billy’s smile widened. He raised an arm and mimed pointing a gun at Roger’s head. His index finger crooked as if pulling the trigger. Roger’s skin crawled. Billy looked past him at Marissa, then stepped on the gas and accelerated away.
____________________________
Does this give you the feeling that something bad is going to happen? Billy has announced his intentions. If I were to continue the story, of course, it would become a contest between Roger and Billy, with the lives of Roger, Marissa, and the unborn child at stake. Keeping the suspense high requires that the readers care about what happens to this young family, which is another vital aspect of suspense. If your readers don’t have a strong desire to see them escape, they might just root for Billy to track them down and kill them.
Back on Blogger
Erm...never mind. I didn't care as much as I ought to have for the new blog software on my website, so I'm back to posting here. I'll just transfer a couple of posts from the other blog to here, then shut the other one down.
3/17/2009
New blog
Well, I'm in the process of setting up a blog on my website. Don't know yet if I like it more than this one, but I've got a post on it about writing suspense. The new site is here. This one will stay up, in any case, because google already sends people here for a few of the writing posts.
3/09/2009
Update on publishing schedule
My books have been assigned dates for publication. They are as follows--
Blood Money--April 2010
Rio Star--October 2010
Reef Runner--April 2011
Haven't been assigned an editor yet, but that's coming.
If you haven't read anything of my series yet, don't forget the short story "The Uncle Hunt" is available in pdf on my website. Just click on the link on the front page, which will take you to the page where the download link resides (look for the download link toward the bottom of that page).
In looking through the stack of links I've been collecting, I found a couple that I think I'll add this time around. First is called The Cardinal Sins from over at Mysterious Matters, regarding what not to do in writing mysteries. Useful if you have aspirations in that direction.
The second: You know those emails going around every now and then about the woman who paid $250 for the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe and generously decided to share it with the world via email? Guess what? It's an urban legend. To get the history of that particular story, visit Snopes, the urban legend site, and enter Neiman-Marcus cookie in the search box. If you want the REAL Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe, visit their website. It's free to whoever wants it.
Blood Money--April 2010
Rio Star--October 2010
Reef Runner--April 2011
Haven't been assigned an editor yet, but that's coming.
If you haven't read anything of my series yet, don't forget the short story "The Uncle Hunt" is available in pdf on my website. Just click on the link on the front page, which will take you to the page where the download link resides (look for the download link toward the bottom of that page).
In looking through the stack of links I've been collecting, I found a couple that I think I'll add this time around. First is called The Cardinal Sins from over at Mysterious Matters, regarding what not to do in writing mysteries. Useful if you have aspirations in that direction.
The second: You know those emails going around every now and then about the woman who paid $250 for the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe and generously decided to share it with the world via email? Guess what? It's an urban legend. To get the history of that particular story, visit Snopes, the urban legend site, and enter Neiman-Marcus cookie in the search box. If you want the REAL Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe, visit their website. It's free to whoever wants it.
2/02/2009
Publishing news
Well, publishing news as it applies to me, that is.
Mundania Press has acquired my Patty O'Donnell series, as of the end of January. Blood Money is tentatively scheduled to come out next year, though there's no firm date yet. The other two are expected at six month intervals after that. Will post updates as I get them.
Whoohooo!!!
Mundania Press has acquired my Patty O'Donnell series, as of the end of January. Blood Money is tentatively scheduled to come out next year, though there's no firm date yet. The other two are expected at six month intervals after that. Will post updates as I get them.
Whoohooo!!!
1/16/2009
First post of 2009...
Well, if you've been checking in from time to time, you've noticed that I don't tend to post much. I've added (I think) the followers function to the sidebar--if you add yourself to it, and I happen to post something, you'll know about it rather than hoping to catch a new post through randomly clicking on my blog. Not that I'm expecting there are many people actually reading this...
In any case, we're still stuck in the old house. Once the weather got cold, the mold problem got to be much less of a problem because the mold doesn't like the cold much. Still looking for financing to build the new house. The first company we applied with kept us hanging for a while before informing us that our part of the country is a declining market and declined to make the loan. The fact that pretty much the whole country is a declining market doesn't seem to figure into it.
So far as I know, my story "Picture Imperfect" should be coming out in the Spring issue of Mysterical-E. I'm thinking somewhere around the first of March, but we'll see how it goes. I'll post more on it once I get word for certain.
I have a ton of links I've been saving up, but since I'm not posting from home, they'll have to wait until the next post.
'til next time~~~
In any case, we're still stuck in the old house. Once the weather got cold, the mold problem got to be much less of a problem because the mold doesn't like the cold much. Still looking for financing to build the new house. The first company we applied with kept us hanging for a while before informing us that our part of the country is a declining market and declined to make the loan. The fact that pretty much the whole country is a declining market doesn't seem to figure into it.
So far as I know, my story "Picture Imperfect" should be coming out in the Spring issue of Mysterical-E. I'm thinking somewhere around the first of March, but we'll see how it goes. I'll post more on it once I get word for certain.
I have a ton of links I've been saving up, but since I'm not posting from home, they'll have to wait until the next post.
'til next time~~~
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