Nov 18, 2008 | Blogging, General, Life |
To the people who keep typing some variation of “how to kill my spouse” into their search engines and clicking over here, there is NO WAY to kill your spouse and get away with it. It's wrong, it's immoral and illegal. Get a divorce. Go to counseling. But do NOT think you're going to kill your spouse and get away with it.
This is the post that's popping up in the search engines. It was a tongue in cheek statement that a writer can put anyone she is mad at in a book (as a character, duh) and then do what she wants to them. It's not a treatise on how to get away with murder.
What's on your mind today? If you blog, what's the top search phrase (or the weirdest) that brings people visiting?
Nov 17, 2008 | Diet, General, Life |
Some people think I'm a food snob. I don't know why that is. I just like food without mystery ingredients. What's so wrong with that? The fresher, the better.
But then, on Friday, I was shopping and realized something. Something that indicated to me that I might just be a teensy bit of a food snob after all. I had NO clue where to find Velveeta cheese. I wanted to make that cheese dip that's so popular at parties, you see, because I was hosting a chapter board meeting at my house on Sunday. And I like that dip, but I've never made it, so there I was searching.
Not. A. Clue.
And I was too stubborn to stop and ask. (Or maybe I didn't want anyone to know what I was looking for. I had visions of Tony Bourdain going all Invasion of the Body Snatchers on me if he saw the stuff in my cart.) I figured out pretty quick that it wasn't refrigerated. And that's just wrong! What's in that stuff anyway?
So I wandered down to the chips. Nope, not there. I wandered back to the canned tomatoes (you know, because you pair it with Rotel). Nope, not there either.
I wandered past the macaroni and cheese. I never look at this stuff because I don't eat it. But before you think I'm an unrepetant snoot, the first meal I ever learned to cook, when I was about eight yrs old, was boxed macaroni and cheese. Loved the stuff! And I've made plenty of Hamburger Helper back in the day. Oh yes, used to go to Sam's Club and buy the stuff in bulk.
But somewhere along the way, I changed my stripes.
While I was searching for Velveeta, I remembered Government Cheese. Remember that? I think it was the gov't version of Velveeta, and they used to give it away. My parents used to get it, and we put it on crackers and who knows what else. Probably made grilled cheese sandwiches with it.
Finally, I arrived at the Velveeta. It sort of has it's own place in the store! It was down the aisle from the mac & cheese, and it comes in varieties now. Pepper Jack? That looked kind of good.
But then I saw the price. Seriously, cheese* that the gov't used to give away for free costs as much as gourmet cheese from France?! Mon Dieu! Somewhere, Julia Child is rolling in her grave. After deliberating, I chose the smaller package, 2% milk version. And forked over enough money for it to buy a hunk of brie.
What food do you consider funky? Do you use Velveeta? Remember free gov't cheese? And yes, I made the dip — and it was good! But now that I've gone searching for how the stuff is made, I don't think I'll be buying it very often…
*Actually, it's a “cheese product.” Kraft was sued for calling it cheese because real cheese has 51% cheese or more. Velveeta does not. They cook it with a lot of whey, and then it congeals into the stuff we know as Velveeta. And it did look like a shiny congealed mass of something yellow to me.
Nov 15, 2008 | Blogging, Interviews, Writing |
Join me over at Romance Writers on the Journey! Keli Gwyn asks me about The Call, how my life has changed since, and what my advice to writers is for how to prepare for being published. Come on over and ask me a question or make a comment! You'll be entered for a chance to win a seriously cool bookmark!
Come keep me company. 🙂
Nov 14, 2008 | Fun, Video
Hey, all I can say is I'm glad I've got a Mac. 🙂 What would happen if The Matrix ran on Windows….? Here's the answer.
Tomorrow, guest blog over at Romance Writers on the Journey — it's a special Saturday edition! Come see what Keli asked me, and what I said!
Nov 13, 2008 | Writing |
I have more trouble with beginnings than anything else. I can rewrite the beginning of a book ten times. I'm on the third rewrite of the beginning of the current WIP. I'm actually happy with it (unless my editor tells me otherwise). But I realized that chapter 2 was having a problem. I knew this because I was finding excuses to do other things — anything but look at this chapter!
Finally, as I forced myself to reread in order to get to where I'd left off, the solution hit me. Bear in mind I'd reread this stuff every day before slogging forward and getting stuck again. The solution doesn't always hit you the first time. Or the fiftieth. 🙂 Sometimes, you just have to wait for that aha moment to hit. You can't force it.
What was the problem? The heroine was too passive. Yes, Presents heroes are alpha males and they like to do a lot of commanding. But my heroine was accepting the commands just a little too easily. She was fighting inside, but she wasn't challenging the hero on the outside. Not cool. Once I realized how she needed to respond, the chapter started to fall together.
It could change again, but now I know my heroine needs to step up to the plate. That was the major problem.
How do you approach writing challenges? Do you have trouble with beginnings? Middles? Ends? Or something different? Let's discuss writing!
