For real. Not in my head. Although, I'll probably do some walking in my head while I'm out there getting exercise. I've got Jo and her friends up against a wall, and I'm not quite sure where they need to go from here. Hell, I haven't even really figured out what the new climax to this new version of DLN is going to be.
Here's hoping the walk shaves some calories off my ever-widening ass (yes, there is a song that goes along with the term - to the tune of Poor Wandering One from Pirates of Penzance - and no, my song's not that good) and sparks something in my head.
What do you do when you need to think through some aspect of your writing?
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Who Do You Think You Are?
Sounds like the first question heard before a fight breaks out, but that's not what I mean. I'm talking about the premise behind the NBC show Who Do You Think You Are? - where celebrities trace their ancestral roots and find out 'who they really are'.
First off, let me go on the record as saying that I don't believe anyone's family history represents who they are as individuals. I just find the research into familial past interesting. (If you get a chance to watch the Matthew Broderick episode, for instance, he's related to a soldier who died in the Civil War. Pretty eerie considering Broderick's movie Glory.)
Recently I was chatting with my middle sister and she mentioned that Mom has been trying to find out more information about her great grandmother - my great great? - but she's coming up empty. I flexed my fingers, cracked my knuckles and dove in. Nada. I even went to the Ellis Island Record Search. We know Grandma Anna came over around 1901 and entered the US at Ellis Island, but... Well, we're not 100% sure about the spelling of her name and she might not have come through Ellis. I'm not giving up, but finding info on women is always harder because our last names change.
In the past, I've researched the infamous cousin Otto - a background figure in Hitler's cabinet. All my life, I've heard stories about the man - kind of a cautionary tale, if you will - but I didn't know how much of what Dad told me was true. Otto worked for Hitler, Otto was acquitted at Nuremberg. I did the same search a couple months ago, and cousin Otto has his own Wikipedia page now. (We've always called him 'cousin' but we don't really know how he's related. Still, look at his nose. That's the good old Meissner nose. My Dad's nose, his brother's nose, my brother's nose...) Turns out in this case, Dad was right. Other than working for Hitler - grandfathered in because of his work for Kaiser Wilhelm - Otto wasn't proven to be a really bad man.
Using Google, I found more information about my paternal grandfather - the first chief of police for Melvindale, MI. Their website has his name wrong - it was Wilhelm and Meissner has two Ss - but he's right there for the world to see. (Grandpa supposedly arrested several members of The Purple Gang.) I can even find a mention of my father - when he worked for the Nixon campaign in 1969.
Supposedly we're also related to President Zachary Taylor and General Sherman - on my mother's side - but I don't have any proof of that. I do know that Mom's paternal side of the family hailed mostly from Tennessee. (There's even a possibility we're related to The Judds. "Say hey, cousin Ashley, could you invite me to your next premier?") About a decade ago one of Mom's cousins - we have lots of cousins - did a genealogy search because he was joining the LDS Church and discovered a whole lot of stuff, which he passed along to other family members. The paperwork Mom got included copies of the bills of sale for slaves.
All of the above is interesting. None of it makes me who I am. I'm not responsible for the faults or the accomplishments of my ancestors. I'm not a racist or a Nazi. I'm not politically active or musically talented. I've never been in the military and I'm not Mormon. I'm also not German, Irish, Native American, Polish, Welsh, and English... Regardless of what my ancestral genes say. I'm an American - whoever and whatever the rest of them were.
As far as I can tell, there isn't a single writer in the bunch - and when I boil all the background away, that's what really matters about who I am. I'm a writer, a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend.
Who do you think you are? Any golden apples or rotten fruit hanging in your family tree?
First off, let me go on the record as saying that I don't believe anyone's family history represents who they are as individuals. I just find the research into familial past interesting. (If you get a chance to watch the Matthew Broderick episode, for instance, he's related to a soldier who died in the Civil War. Pretty eerie considering Broderick's movie Glory.)
Recently I was chatting with my middle sister and she mentioned that Mom has been trying to find out more information about her great grandmother - my great great? - but she's coming up empty. I flexed my fingers, cracked my knuckles and dove in. Nada. I even went to the Ellis Island Record Search. We know Grandma Anna came over around 1901 and entered the US at Ellis Island, but... Well, we're not 100% sure about the spelling of her name and she might not have come through Ellis. I'm not giving up, but finding info on women is always harder because our last names change.
In the past, I've researched the infamous cousin Otto - a background figure in Hitler's cabinet. All my life, I've heard stories about the man - kind of a cautionary tale, if you will - but I didn't know how much of what Dad told me was true. Otto worked for Hitler, Otto was acquitted at Nuremberg. I did the same search a couple months ago, and cousin Otto has his own Wikipedia page now. (We've always called him 'cousin' but we don't really know how he's related. Still, look at his nose. That's the good old Meissner nose. My Dad's nose, his brother's nose, my brother's nose...) Turns out in this case, Dad was right. Other than working for Hitler - grandfathered in because of his work for Kaiser Wilhelm - Otto wasn't proven to be a really bad man.
Using Google, I found more information about my paternal grandfather - the first chief of police for Melvindale, MI. Their website has his name wrong - it was Wilhelm and Meissner has two Ss - but he's right there for the world to see. (Grandpa supposedly arrested several members of The Purple Gang.) I can even find a mention of my father - when he worked for the Nixon campaign in 1969.
Supposedly we're also related to President Zachary Taylor and General Sherman - on my mother's side - but I don't have any proof of that. I do know that Mom's paternal side of the family hailed mostly from Tennessee. (There's even a possibility we're related to The Judds. "Say hey, cousin Ashley, could you invite me to your next premier?") About a decade ago one of Mom's cousins - we have lots of cousins - did a genealogy search because he was joining the LDS Church and discovered a whole lot of stuff, which he passed along to other family members. The paperwork Mom got included copies of the bills of sale for slaves.
All of the above is interesting. None of it makes me who I am. I'm not responsible for the faults or the accomplishments of my ancestors. I'm not a racist or a Nazi. I'm not politically active or musically talented. I've never been in the military and I'm not Mormon. I'm also not German, Irish, Native American, Polish, Welsh, and English... Regardless of what my ancestral genes say. I'm an American - whoever and whatever the rest of them were.
As far as I can tell, there isn't a single writer in the bunch - and when I boil all the background away, that's what really matters about who I am. I'm a writer, a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend.
Who do you think you are? Any golden apples or rotten fruit hanging in your family tree?
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Tired
Of course it doesn't help that I was up this morning at 5:15am. Bleh.
I always sleep better in the winter.
So, how have you been sleeping lately? What keeps you up at night or wakes you early?
*All images deleted to avoid any chance of copyright infringement*
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Random Things
Yesterday three teenage boys were slouching their way down the sidewalk when one of them says: "I can say anything I want. It's a free country." I wonder if he understands what living in a free country means, or if he just thinks it gives him the right to be an slug. Of course, this came the day after we we watched the National Spelling Bee - ten bright kids with brighter futures. By comparison those teenage boys were just sad.
It finally rained here. I think the last time we saw moisture from the sky was at the beginning of May. No wonder my grass seed won't grow. (And yes, I've been watering, but I can only do so much without nature doing its job.) I haven't checked the rain gauge yet, but I'm going to guess 2/10ths of an inch*.
In keeping with the old superstition about famous people dying in threes... Gary Coleman, Dennis Hopper and Rue McClanahan all died recently. With the passing of Art Linkletter and coach John Wooden, the next group of three has already started. As maudlin as it sounds, anyone want to take a guess at who the third from this next group is going to be? (Yes, I'm awful, but it's not like I'm hoping someone dies. I'm just taking guesses about it. Think of this as a mini-Dead Pool - without the psycho serial killer.)
Anyway, I still watch reruns of The Golden Girls - almost every morning. If you didn't recognize the name, Rue McClanahan played Blanche on that show. She wasn't my favorite character, but I still enjoyed her work. My favorite character was actually Sophia. If you watched the show, which one was your favorite?
Yesterday I was awakened at 4:52am by the sound of a cat fight. Sure enough I slipped outside to find Jay - my long-haired black stray - and Tom - the orange tiger stray who looks like Morris - fighting over the pretty little calico that lives one block over. She took off, but the two boys stood in the alley looking put out that I interrupted their testosterone games. (For what it's worth, I think Jay won. Most of the fur tufts were orange.) Jay came back later, inhaled some kibble and flopped in the shade. Tom slunk by in the early evening. So both are okay. In fact, I was just outside and Jay came up for his breakfast. (He never gets too close. He's feral.)
As a result of said early and rude awakening, I didn't get a damn thing done yesterday. Well, other than finishing Academ's Fury.
When a penny is left in a pocket and it doesn't come out in the washer, it makes a hideous screeching noise when it gets stuck in the dryer. Lucky me, Husband pulled it out before I went insane.
Any random things you'd like to add?
(Public Service Message... If you haven't already heard this a million times, get your pets spayed or neutered so their unwanted babies don't end up as strays - starving, getting hit by cars, or dying in some other horrible way.)
*Yep. 2/10ths of an inch. Am I psychic? No, it's just the amount we usually get.
It finally rained here. I think the last time we saw moisture from the sky was at the beginning of May. No wonder my grass seed won't grow. (And yes, I've been watering, but I can only do so much without nature doing its job.) I haven't checked the rain gauge yet, but I'm going to guess 2/10ths of an inch*.
In keeping with the old superstition about famous people dying in threes... Gary Coleman, Dennis Hopper and Rue McClanahan all died recently. With the passing of Art Linkletter and coach John Wooden, the next group of three has already started. As maudlin as it sounds, anyone want to take a guess at who the third from this next group is going to be? (Yes, I'm awful, but it's not like I'm hoping someone dies. I'm just taking guesses about it. Think of this as a mini-Dead Pool - without the psycho serial killer.)
Anyway, I still watch reruns of The Golden Girls - almost every morning. If you didn't recognize the name, Rue McClanahan played Blanche on that show. She wasn't my favorite character, but I still enjoyed her work. My favorite character was actually Sophia. If you watched the show, which one was your favorite?
Yesterday I was awakened at 4:52am by the sound of a cat fight. Sure enough I slipped outside to find Jay - my long-haired black stray - and Tom - the orange tiger stray who looks like Morris - fighting over the pretty little calico that lives one block over. She took off, but the two boys stood in the alley looking put out that I interrupted their testosterone games. (For what it's worth, I think Jay won. Most of the fur tufts were orange.) Jay came back later, inhaled some kibble and flopped in the shade. Tom slunk by in the early evening. So both are okay. In fact, I was just outside and Jay came up for his breakfast. (He never gets too close. He's feral.)
As a result of said early and rude awakening, I didn't get a damn thing done yesterday. Well, other than finishing Academ's Fury.
When a penny is left in a pocket and it doesn't come out in the washer, it makes a hideous screeching noise when it gets stuck in the dryer. Lucky me, Husband pulled it out before I went insane.
Any random things you'd like to add?
(Public Service Message... If you haven't already heard this a million times, get your pets spayed or neutered so their unwanted babies don't end up as strays - starving, getting hit by cars, or dying in some other horrible way.)
*Yep. 2/10ths of an inch. Am I psychic? No, it's just the amount we usually get.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Weekly Update & Upping the Stakes
Since last we updated (May 22), I've written 17425 words - most of which were pretty good if I do say so myself. My heroine is in a deep mess, a killer is running around offing innocents, and her former lover is driving her nuts. The dog holds the key, but he ain't talking*. Or maybe the old lady's the one with the answers. In either case, Jo is up to her ass in alligators and the water's rising. Which is always good.
And a good segue into the post I planned last night for this morning...
Recently I read Changes by Jim Butcher. Right now I'm reading Academ's Fury by the same guy. Two different series in two different genres with one major commonality - throughout the story, Mr. Butcher keeps upping the stakes. You all know how I hate spoilers, but in order to talk about this, I'm going to have to release a few... so if you're planning on reading either of those books, stop reading this post now. In Changes, Mr. Butcher has put Harry in a precarious position and it seems like every chapter, the heat gets turned up on poor Harry. Just when you think there's nothing else that could go wrong, another thing goes wrong. In one chapter, someone tries to kill Harry then his house catches fire, his cat runs away and he breaks his back... And you think that's enough, but then... BAM, in order to fix his crushed spine, he agrees to give up his...
Sorry, I just can't give that spoiler away. The point here is that the story just keeps getting more and more intense. (Sometimes too much so, IMO, but I can't deny the idea is brilliant.)
I know Butcher will make everything right - maybe not for everybody, but by the end, most everything will work out for all the major characters. And maybe that's what pissed me off about Changes. He didn't make everything right again before the end of the book. But that's neither here nor there. I was on the edge of my seat, rapidly flipping pages, throughout the whole book and I'm about at that point in AF (which started out a little slow, but is quickly catching up).
In the words of Mickey Spillane "The first chapter sells the book. The last chapter sells the next book." I'd go one further and say that upping the stakes gets the reader through the middle chapters to the last chapter and all of that tension sells the next book - especially if you're writing a series. This is what I'm trying to achieve with my own WIP. I want this to be written in such a way that the reader can't help but buy the next book and the next... ad infinitum, or until my hands drop off.
Now it's your turn. How do you feel about books that up the stakes? Do you have any other examples I can hunt down and devour in my quest? Any books that upped the stakes so high you wanted to throw the damn thing against a wall?
*sorry. that was kinda spoilerish, but no more so than a back cover blurb.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Knowing Your Target Market, or Not as the Case May Be
I just got spam for windscreen repair in Kuala Lampur. Ummm, those guys really don't know their target market, do they. Which really has nothing to do with today's post. I mean, I suppose I could write a post about knowing who you're writing for and how to market toward those readers, but... well... I suck at that. Not the marketing part, but the knowing part.
:shrug: I write for myself. I'd like to think I'm not so bizarre that others won't want to read the same stuff I read - and therefore the stuff I write - but identifying them? That's like trying to identify which people are eventually going to becoming your BFFs by running them through a reality game show. (Oh, wait, that's what Paris Hilton does. D'oh!) Or in an example closer to home, that's like me trying to figure out who in a crowd of people I can have an intelligent conversation with by just looking at them.
Needless to say, I'm not good at that either.
This was easier when I was selling electronic components. I knew who wanted capacitors, or cordsets, or EMI filters. Except, now that I think about it, when I was cold-calling. That's basically driving through an industrial park and stopping by companies you think might be interested in your product - asking for the purchaser and more often than not leaving literature at the front desk never to be heard from again. I sucked at that, too. Sure, when I could see into their warehouse and saw electronics-looking stuff poking out of boxes, it was a safe bet they wanted what I had. But that was so rare. I wasted a lot of time at the reception desks of food processing companies and paper goods distributors and toy manufacturers (the non-electronic kind).
And then I'd find the one - like the guy who ran an engineering business out of a big Victorian house in the suburbs. That wasn't a cold-call, it was a lead, but when I stopped to check out the lead, I thought it would be a waste of my time. Turns out the guy was designing something totally amazing for the local headquarters of a national pizza chain. His designs turned into something you might've heard of - The Heatwave Bag for Dominoes. That was a major sale for me, big money for my company, and we all worked well together until he changed the design and our cordsets got swapped out for a less expensive kind that had a better lead time. And he wasn't even a lead for cordsets. He started out looking for a little plastic box to put the guts of a controlling device into. (Sold him those, too, if I remember correctly.)
But that's neither here nor there, is it?
I guess it's stuff like the above example that makes people mass market to anybody. It's what leads a windscreen repair business in Malaysia to land their spam in my box. It's not an efficient way to market, but sometimes one unexpected contact can make the whole thing worth your time and money.
How does this translate to writing? I dunno. I'm just rambling. I'm in no way suggesting that you mass query anyone who looks like they might be related to publishing. It all goes better when we target where we attempt a sales call. Lord knows, I've got the targeting part down when it comes to queries. It's just the end users I don't know about. Seriously.
Think about it. Does Brandon Mull even think about a middle-age housewife/writer when he writes things like Fablehaven?? I'm guessing not. I know I'm not the target market for Rick Riordan either, but I inhale his books. And when Dean Lorey wrote his Nightmare Academy series, he was thinking about the MG market - not me - but I'm the one inhaling his books when they come out. (And then donating them to the library so kids can enjoy them, too.)
I guess all we can do to target our readers is the best we can do and hope for sales after that. I also expect this thought process is what leads some writers to say things like 'my book will appeal to everyone' in their query letters. Because, really, who knows. Maybe someday I'll get a fan letter from a 70-yr old grandma and a 16-yr old honor student in the same day.
It could happen.
Now it's your turn. You tell me. Who do you think your target market is? If you're already published, what's the most unexpected fan you ever encountered?
:shrug: I write for myself. I'd like to think I'm not so bizarre that others won't want to read the same stuff I read - and therefore the stuff I write - but identifying them? That's like trying to identify which people are eventually going to becoming your BFFs by running them through a reality game show. (Oh, wait, that's what Paris Hilton does. D'oh!) Or in an example closer to home, that's like me trying to figure out who in a crowd of people I can have an intelligent conversation with by just looking at them.
Needless to say, I'm not good at that either.
This was easier when I was selling electronic components. I knew who wanted capacitors, or cordsets, or EMI filters. Except, now that I think about it, when I was cold-calling. That's basically driving through an industrial park and stopping by companies you think might be interested in your product - asking for the purchaser and more often than not leaving literature at the front desk never to be heard from again. I sucked at that, too. Sure, when I could see into their warehouse and saw electronics-looking stuff poking out of boxes, it was a safe bet they wanted what I had. But that was so rare. I wasted a lot of time at the reception desks of food processing companies and paper goods distributors and toy manufacturers (the non-electronic kind).
And then I'd find the one - like the guy who ran an engineering business out of a big Victorian house in the suburbs. That wasn't a cold-call, it was a lead, but when I stopped to check out the lead, I thought it would be a waste of my time. Turns out the guy was designing something totally amazing for the local headquarters of a national pizza chain. His designs turned into something you might've heard of - The Heatwave Bag for Dominoes. That was a major sale for me, big money for my company, and we all worked well together until he changed the design and our cordsets got swapped out for a less expensive kind that had a better lead time. And he wasn't even a lead for cordsets. He started out looking for a little plastic box to put the guts of a controlling device into. (Sold him those, too, if I remember correctly.)
But that's neither here nor there, is it?
I guess it's stuff like the above example that makes people mass market to anybody. It's what leads a windscreen repair business in Malaysia to land their spam in my box. It's not an efficient way to market, but sometimes one unexpected contact can make the whole thing worth your time and money.
How does this translate to writing? I dunno. I'm just rambling. I'm in no way suggesting that you mass query anyone who looks like they might be related to publishing. It all goes better when we target where we attempt a sales call. Lord knows, I've got the targeting part down when it comes to queries. It's just the end users I don't know about. Seriously.
Think about it. Does Brandon Mull even think about a middle-age housewife/writer when he writes things like Fablehaven?? I'm guessing not. I know I'm not the target market for Rick Riordan either, but I inhale his books. And when Dean Lorey wrote his Nightmare Academy series, he was thinking about the MG market - not me - but I'm the one inhaling his books when they come out. (And then donating them to the library so kids can enjoy them, too.)
I guess all we can do to target our readers is the best we can do and hope for sales after that. I also expect this thought process is what leads some writers to say things like 'my book will appeal to everyone' in their query letters. Because, really, who knows. Maybe someday I'll get a fan letter from a 70-yr old grandma and a 16-yr old honor student in the same day.
It could happen.
Now it's your turn. You tell me. Who do you think your target market is? If you're already published, what's the most unexpected fan you ever encountered?
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
See Saturn, Mars and Venus
Right now, I can see Venus. It looks like the first star in the sky off to the west, but it doesn't twinkle. (And if it doesn't twinkle, don't wish on it.) I'll head out in a little while to try and catch Mars - up and to the left of Venus - and Saturn - up and to the left of Mars.
Enjoy your stargazing and I'll see you tomorrow.
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