May 4, 2006 | Uncategorized |
Pursuing a career as a writer is all about having confidence. Problem is, the confidence is often shaky or downright missing. Two+ weeks away from the computer has left me shaken, of course. To be expected. Receiving my comments from the Harlequin editor on my 2nd place entry in the Great Expectations contest only rattles the cage some more. Though she loves the idea, she finds problems in the execution. Specifically, she likes my hero better in the query letter than in the entry.
Believe it or not, I don't really have a problem with that. I just haven't figured out how to fix what she wants fixed yet. In the past, I'd have fallen apart over someone not liking an aspect of my story or one of my characters. Not now, which makes me pretty pleased with my growth as a writer. Still doesn't help me figure out how to fix the blasted thing though.
My entire point of this ramble is that sliding back into the blogosphere, surfing my favorites, reading what other writers are up to–and reading a couple of good old fashioned romances–is the best confidence booster I know. When I question my own writing, when I think it's not my best and I should have never let it get out into the world that way (both my serialized short story and my story that just came out in SC2), something comes along to make me read with a fresh eye. And I'm often surprised by what I find. I find that I do like what I wrote and it's not the hopeless dreck I'd come to believe. I'm still embarassed over what I might have changed or expanded, but I don't feel hopeless anymore.
This week, over at Murder She Writes, they're talking about writing through diversions. Some of those diversions are self-directed, like Allison Brennan talking about getting frustrated partway through her stories and starting new ones (before she finished and sold THE PREY, which I've now read and really enjoyed though it scared me too).
See, I think distractions are also about writing confidence, and I think we all suffer from wavering confidence in one form or another (not all at once and not all the time). I read a couple of other things in blogs today that I felt were variations on the theme, but now I can't remember where I read them. 🙁
But, my confidence is returning as I visit my favorite cyber haunts and hear others talking about their writing. Reading those romances, as I said above, helps too. Because if these ladies can write their stories, so can I. And I don't mean that in the usual nasty way of “I read such an awful book that I just knew I could do better!” I mean it as a compliment, as an homage to the hard work that I know goes into each and every book. I mean that I know I am just as capable of putting in the work, that I've done it in the past and will find the means and confidence to do it again.
So thanks for being there, ladies and gents. Thanks for writing your blog entries about your own struggles and triumphs, and for writing your stories that I enjoy so much. You help me without even knowing it. 🙂
May 3, 2006 | Uncategorized
Honolulu, (c) Michael W. Harris 2006 
Yeah, I live here, but I never viewed the financial district, harbor, and Chinatown from the deck of a ship before, so it gets included in the report.
Sunday morning, we went to Easter services at church. I made a breakfast casserole for the potluck afterward. Wouldn’t you know that another couple (retired) had recently cruised this route and the gentleman and my FIL spent the noshing time discussing the merits of buffets and dinner shows?
Then we came home and had to pack. Yep, Mike and I hadn’t packed a thing yet and we were due to board that afternoon. Well, technically, you had to be onboard by 7:30PM at the latest, but since you could start boarding at 1:00, my FIL naturally wanted to be there ASAP.
Indeed, my packing got interrupted when we decided to just haul them and their gear to the dock (5 miles away) and meet them later. This must be how I managed to not pack enough underwear for the journey, and how I somehow shorted myself by one whole outfit. *sigh*
Anyway, Mike and I managed to finish packing and get the cats straightened away with their Uncle Mark before arriving at the dock around 3. Boarding a cruise ship is somewhat like boarding a plane these days. There are metal detectors, security, and bag scanning. And of course there are overpriced photos to be taken, which tends to slow the line. Mike and I saw the photo stand we were being herded toward about the time we were given leis. We asked it we could skip the photo. They seemed shocked, but said sure, so we managed to cut our wait time by about twenty minutes.
We found our cabin, found his parents (sitting in their room next door to ours), and decided to wait for the mandatory emergency drill before setting off to explore. At 5, we were herded up to Deck 6 with our life preservers, sorted into groups, and told about the life boats and the alarms (a demonstration of the emergency alarm commenced at this point). They let us go about 15 minutes later. We dropped the life vests in the room and went up to Deck 11 to begin the Bacchanalia.
Okay, so the drink prices nearly floored me, but what the hell. How often do you go on a cruise? (I think we averaged $35 a day on booze, which is 4 to 6 drinks. Not lushes, but not teetotalers either. Though teetotalling would be cheaper.)
At 8:00, two Hula dancers swayed waaaaaay down below on the dock while the ship backed out of port. It was dark by then, so once the lights of Honolulu started to disappear, there wasn’t much to see. Mike’s parents went back to their room and we hit the Blue Hawaii Lounge where a hilarious session of karaoke was taking place. I don’t remember how long we stayed, but I’m pretty sure we were in bed by 11.
I had a little trouble with the motion. Not to the point of being sick, but I was sensitive to it. I don’t like taking drugs, so didn’t take anything until the second day (which only made me feel worse, actually). By the third day, my sea legs were steady and I started to enjoy the roll of the ship.
Things learned the first day: the staff works long hard hours, longer and harder than I’d ever want to work. They are also predominately NOT from Hawaii. On a ship with 900 crew, I’d guess about 5% were from this state. The Pride of Aloha is Hawaii-themed, but it’s a tourist’s Hawaii that has little to nothing to do with the real Hawaii. I was disappointed with that part. I expected steamed rice, poke, chopsticks, lau lau, chicken katsu, kalua pork, and a variety of Asian foods at the buffets because that’s local style. Nope. They add pineapples (canned, no doubt) to stuff and call it Hawaiian. The food was good, but not local.
Tomorrow — Day Two: Kauai
May 2, 2006 | Uncategorized
I'm recovering from a bout of Vacationitis. You know the malady: you take a couple of weeks off from the routine and suddenly you don't want to go back to the same old grind. The house seems foreign. The bills are evil ticking time bombs. The laundry sucks. Grocery shopping and food preparing are vile time consuming beasts!
Ahem.
You noticed, of course, that the hiatus was only supposed to be a week. It morphed into two because Mike took an extra week off (his parents were supposed to stay 2 weeks originally, but they never actually do; they arrive, traipse around for a couple of days, cruise, tap fingers for a couple of days, and hit the airport in order to get home before some imaginary timer dings. Hey, they're retired, it shouldn't be so difficult).
Anyway, with Mike's extra week, we decided to continue the party. We spent several days hanging out on Oahu's beaches and in the stores. I even bought a silly napkin holder that looks like Hawaii's state fish, the humuhumunukunukuapua'a. Try saying that one fast. Or, you can call it a trigger fish and be done. 🙂
But back to the cruise. Brief report: fun but harried. If cruising is supposed to be relaxing, it fails. Or it did for me. I suppose if you were on a ship going to a destination you'd been to before, you may not worry about shore excursions and could spend your time by the pool.
However, since Mike and I have lived on this island for two years and not traveled to the others yet, we were into the excursions. They involved getting up early, showering in a cubicle that I spent a lot of time wondering how in the hell some of the fat people I saw on the ship managed to fit into, racing up to the buffet, elbowing your way into the omelet line, limiting yourself to one cup of coffee (no bathrooms on the buses), and then getting all your gear and yourself either to the dock or to the appointed meeting spot within the ship by the appointed time.
Then you spent several hours with a talkative bus driver who liked to give you the history of the island and tell bad jokes. By the time we hit Maui on the 6th day, I was sick to death of hearing about sugar cane. You want to know how sugar cane grows? I can tell you. Want to know how they harvest it? I can tell you that too. Want to know about sugar cane byproducts? Yep, I got you covered.
The inlaws were into the shows on board. Every retired couple on the ship seemed to plan their day around a) the buffet and b) the shows. I'd hear them in line, at their tables, in the elevators:
“The show starts at 8, so we have to be done with dinner by 7 so we can go back down to the room and rest.”
“What's on tonight?”
“Hmm, says here that it's the cruise director and his staff singing show tunes.”
“Oh, that does sound like fun.”
“Tomorrow night is the Newlywed Oldie Game in the Blue Hawaii lounge or a magician in the Stardust Theater.”
“Oh no, how do we choose?”
“Oh, wait, wait, the magician has two shows tomorrow night.”
“I hope it's not too late though. You know I have to be in bed by ten.”
Etcetera.
Oh, and cruising isn't cheap either. Whoa, dude, the price gouging! Excursions are overpriced, alcohol is ridiculously expensive, and they actually want you to tip the bar staff (though the cruise is advertised as tips included because they charge you a fee every day for that purpose). I was a bit disappointed with the drink pricing. I can buy decent wine for $10 a bottle in a store. So why should I be charged 3 to 4 times that amount for the same bottle on the ship? (I feel the same about restaurants, btw.)
But, this is a writing blog, not a travel blog, so I'll close this post by pointing you to some of the things I've been busy catching up on the past couple of days:
Over at The Lipstick Chronicles, Sarah Strohmeyer has an excellent post on the Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarism brouhaha. While plagiarism is never justified, I agree with Sarah's take on this kid as having been pushed too hard too soon.
The problem is that Kaavya's a kid. She might even be a devious kid. Or not. The thing is, she's a freshman at Harvard and she hasn't written the book yet. And she doesn't know what the hell she's doing even though she's just been paid this obscene sum of money. So she turns to her inspiration, for lack of a better word, the chicklit books of Megan McCafferty, a Cosmopolitan editor with a heck of a lot of experience. According to McCafferty's people, Kaavya ripped off no fewer than forty scenes from McCafferty in writing her own book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. First print run – 100,000.
Food for thought. Go read the post. 🙂
Also, if you love Miss Snark and have been lamenting the absence of the Snarkometer, there's a new editor in town: Evil Editor dishes up query letter Rx with style and humor. I don't know how long he'll last when the Snarklings come to town and start pelting him with queries, but who knows, he may manage to stick around for a while.
For the rest of the week, I'll write a trip report for each island and I'll try to say something clever/interesting/entertaining about writing too. ::snort:: It's good to be back. I think. 🙂
Aloha!
May 1, 2006 | Uncategorized |
I'm working on a post, but in the mean time here's a pic of me sitting in the Kiluaea Caldera on the Big Island. There was steam coming from vents all around me and it smelled like sulfur. Too cool. 🙂
Apr 16, 2006 | Uncategorized |
Pride of Aloha (Photo from CruiseLines.us)
I'm off to cruise the islands, so probably won't be posting all week! I'll try, but who knows. 🙂 The inlaws are here, the suitcase is packed, and boarding commences later today. This is my first cruise, so I'm looking forward to it. I've got books and a bathing suit. What else do I need? 🙂
See you next week! Aloha nui loa!!
