Genres Are For Wimps

“Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.”
— Alan Moore

Yes, I do know she’s a hooker.

Your Love Life is Like Pretty Woman

“I want the fairy tale” You believe that love is truly blind, unpredictable, and surprising. Two very different people can easily find true love. At least, that is how it will happen when you marry a gorgeous billionaire someday ;-) Your love style: Sensual and flirty Your Hollywood Ending Will Be: Surprisingly happy

Demotivation and Despair

Bitterness

Never be afraid to share your dreams with the world, because there’s nothing the world loves more than the taste of really sweet dreams.

If you go over to Despair, Inc.’s site, you’ll find dozens more of these hilarious demotivators. I want them all.

My GMC

You know I have a GMC spreadsheet.  Fine, here it is.  (Usual rules apply.  Use it all you want, but don’t share it.  Just link back here.  Thanks!)

Okay, so I talked a couple of weeks ago about walking away from the keyboard, listening to music and driving along, and my story becoming.  No other way to describe it.  My characters started talking to me, and everything became clear.  The ending.  The GMC of EVERYONE.  Who the real antagonists were.  Who these people were.  Idiosyncracies, jobs, inside jokes.  All there.

Still, I’d fallen into a rut.  I couldn’t write.  So, I made my writing area less comfy / creative and more workable.  I can still have the pretty, still do.  But the keyboard is lower, perfect for typing–not so much for lounging in the chair and stumbling through websites. I guess I used to think a writing office should be a temple to creativity and reading.  Now, I understand that it needs to be those things… but it also needs discipline.  To remember why I’m here.

And here I am.  I just completely deleted my entire GMC charts.  All of them.  I moved previously written scenes to the discarded folder.  And I am thrilled.  Because I’ve got this story.  I’ve got the people.  And I’m writing.

Body Language: Letting Your Character Speak Without Dialogue

I received this book from a wonderfully sweet friend, so I’m just getting started.  I’ve had it on my wishlist for a long time, because I think that it’s important to be masters of body language.  I guess this comes easily to some. I am not one of those people.

For one thing, it’ll keep your character from nodding 180 times in 400 pages, just to have some sort of action.  If you can call nodding action, that’s debatable, I think.

I’ll be glad to add a review when I finish, but for now:

At My Worst

“I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
— Marilyn Monroe

You Can Tell A Lot About a Person From Their… Castle

Cliché Alert

Okay, if you’re a writer, clichés are bad. Like… playing with fire bad, bad hair day bad, like a fish out of water bad. Get the picture? Sure they’re descriptive, and we don’t have to reach for them–they just pop into our heads, fully formed because we all know what they mean. But it’s lazy writing.

But, hey, I’m not here to lecture you. This is link licker day. So, just for kicks, have some fun with the Cliché Finder. You type in a word, and it’ll come up with all the bad clichés associated with it.

Bitch, Ok! Just Say No.

In my last writing post, I listed five ideas to write without sitting down and staring at that damned blinking cursor that smirks quietly at you from the top of the page.  However, those suggestions assumed you had extra time and / or money.  So the last five will focus on what you can do with a crazy life and making an average writer’s wage.

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If Bitch, Ok! Is Your Thing…

I made reference recently to the acronym B.I.C.H.O.K. (Butt In Chair, Hands on Keyboard). As I mentioned, it’s not always my thing, although I do get that self-discipline is crucial.

From Ninth Moon, a site that’s a virtual goody bag for writers, they have a B.I.C.H.O.K. charm, and that’s my offering today: