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By Julie Daines
This year, I'm sharing some awesome Haiku. Most of these were written by my friends for a competition, and I'm posting them without permission, so oops.
Anyway, here are some great Haiku poems about books:
Swan Song (Haiku by T.J. Reed)
Young girl, heart of gold
Devil roaming happily
Will the world end?
Keturah and Lord Death (Haiku by Michelle Ratto)
death permeates all
life and love in the village
and forces a choice
The Hunger Games (Haiku by Christine Tyler)
Thanks for the burnt bread
If you kiss me you get soup
I'd like to frost you
To Kill A Mockingbird (Haiku by Scott Rhoades)
Fearing boogieman
two finches learn tolerance
among injustice
Pride and Prejudice (Haiku by Taffy Lovell)
Rich men want a wife
It's a universal law
Mother's want the match
The Hobbit (Haiku by Scott Rhoades)
He's number thirteen
with some dwarves and a wizard
What's in his pocket?
Where the Wild Things Are (Haiku by Rachel Taylor)
They held Max up high
"And now let the wild rumpus begin"
They all roared out loud.
The Body Finder (Haiku by Taffy Lovell)
I hear the echoes
From the missing and the dead
And the one who killed
Have you got a book Haiku you'd like to share? Leave it in the comments.
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Ma, where will we be for Christmas this year?
In the Salt Lake Valley.
Will we get there before Christmas?
I hope so, little one.
But isn’t it Christmas right now?
No, dear, not yet.
But there is so much snow.
I know. Come along.
My feet hurt.
Let me see. I have a little flour sack. Let me wrap them.
I’m hungry too.
We all are. I have a little leather left. Chew it as we walk.
Will Pa be home for Christmas?
No, love, he can’t be with us anymore.
Where is he?
We had to leave him with the others.
Will the wolves hurt him?
We covered him good with sage brush.
Will we see him again, Ma?
Yes.
Will he miss us?
I think he will be sad to not be with us. Do you know who was born on Christmas?
Jesus?
Yes. And His Mother and Father loved Him very much.
Did He grow big like me?
Yes, He did. And one day Jesus had to leave His family even when He didn’t want to leave.
Just like Pa.
Yes, and Pa is with Jesus in Heaven.
Pa gets to spend Christmas with Jesus?
He does.
He gets to have the best Christmas.
I think you’re right.
I still wish Pa was with us, pulling me in the handcart.
Do you want to get in the handcart now?
May I? The rocks are hurting my feet.
Let me put you in with sister.
Sister is so cold, Ma.
Wrap your arms around her and hold her close.
Will she spend Christmas with Jesus, too?
I would miss her terribly if she did, dear.
Can you hear the singing?
It must be the other Saints singing.
I can’t see no other handcarts. Didn’t angels sing when Jesus was born?
Yes.
I think the angels are singing for us tonight so we are not alone.
I believe you are right, little one.
You have to check out this site!
Fake Name Generator
I know you've seen many sites to help generate names. I personally have used baby name sites. This one is much more than just names.
Fake Name Generator give EVERYTHING you'll need for your new character. Here's a random character I tried:
Donna R. Hegwood
1545 Pallet Street
White Plains, NY 10601
Phone:
914-394-5878Website:
RaspberryNectar.comEmail Address:
[email protected]Username: Hadet1993
Password: Neingah2ooc
Mother's Maiden name: Moor
Birthday: May 6, 1993 (19 years old)
Visa: 4539 2374 1084 0342
Expires:12/2013
CVV: 506
SSN: 084-32-2754
Occupation: Rancher
Company: Budget Tapes & Records
Vehicle: 2004 Suzuki Swift
UPS Tracking Number: 1Z 94A 854 46 7847 142 5
Blood type: O+
Weight: 166.3 pounds (75.6 kilograms)
Height: 5' 6" (167 centimeters)
Can you believe it? With one or two clicks you get everything from a name to a website to blood type. Crazy! It's fun to play with :) You can put in different countries and nationalities too.
One of the hardest things to write is good characters, all of them. How many times have you read a book and only one or two or three characters have any life to them? The rest are just...there?
Do you have trouble filling out your characters?
Have you tried the Power of Three for your characters?
Try these ideas on ALL your characters:
Three wishes
Three fears
Three flaws
Three heroic qualities
Here are ones I did for my MC, Angelica:
Three wishes:
To be a normal girl
For her dad to not have to work so much
Get her sister out of an abusive relationship
Three fears:
She really is a serial killer
She will lose her family
She is a monster
Three flaws:
Set herself up to be unlovable so no one else dies
Distrustful
Chooses to be a wallflower
Three heroic qualities:
Loyal
Brave
Smart
Now your turn. Choose one category and share with us in comments! Or if that is too hard, tell us your favorite character.
I went to Lisa Mangum's presentation at the UVU Book Academy. She talked about FOUR things you need to shine as a newbie author:
VisionPassionFlexibilityEndurance Not what you expected, right? I'll expand.
Vision-Publishing is a business. Research your genre and the marketplace. Where do you see your book going and how is it going to get there? Do you have ideas for marketing your book? What is your platform?
Passion- Write every day. It makes you a better writer. Read. It makes you a better writer. Learn to self-edit and make every page better. You are a storyteller. Tell your story.
Flexibility- Publishing is a team effort. Trust your editor. Maintain balance in your life. Can you work creatively and market your book? Are you willing to publish digitally as well as traditionally? Can you live with a title or cover you don't love?
Endurance- Is your writing a hobby or career? Both are good choices. What are your goals? Can you write more than one book a yer? Can you meet your deadlines? Editors LOVE when writers meet their deadlines!
Patience + Persistence=Publication
“Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.” James Rogers
The above quote reminds me of Neil Gaiman's graduation speech at the University of Arts.
"Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be – an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself through my words – was a mountain.
A distant mountain. My goal.And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain.
I said no to editorial jobs on magazines, proper jobs that would have paid proper money because I knew that, attractive though they were, for me they would have been walking away from the mountain. And if those job offers had come along earlier I might have taken them, because they still would have been closer to the mountain than I was at the time."
I love that analogy! Keep your mountain in sight and keep walking towards it. Don't let anything distract you off the path, even if you can't see that path from the valley, keep walking toward your goal. You. Will. Make. It.
Did you know J.K. Rowling wrote a short prequel story to HP? Me either! I just found it and am passing along the link for anyone interested:
Can you create your own luck?
Thomas Jefferson said it best: "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more luck I have."
An open writer goes to a writer’s conference and sees the potential to make new friends and contacts with the possibility of getting in touch with an agent or editor. A closed writer sees competition and shuts down.
Luck is what happens when you open yourself up to chance. Chance meets optimism.
You’ve worked on your manuscript, loved it, and now you feel the time has come to introduce it to the world. You hold you story out the window and wait for the Agent Fairy to fly by and pick it up. If only that’s how getting published worked!
Luck is what happens when you sign up to pitch your story to an agent, find the perfect outfit, wear an extra layer of deodorant, prepare and deliver your one-minute speech. The next minute you’re being asked to send the full manuscript to the agent. Preparation meets opportunity.
I’m sure you’ve heard many authors say they were in the right place at the right time for their book to be sold. Does that mean they stood around at writer’s conferences, waiting for an agent to spot them and ask for their story? Do they mean once they typed the words “The End” the journey was over? Did they land a book deal on the first query? Most likely not.
Luck is what happens when you write and write and edit and on query number 189 you land a book deal. Discipline meets perseverance
One hundred eighty nine rejections. That is a lot of “no thank yous” or “your story is a right fit for us.” A lot of soul crunching pain, wondering if your dreams are worth the trouble. Each time the backbone gains a little more strength, scar tissue interweaves
The other day I was reading a PDF of a book an agent asked me to review. While I enjoyed the storyline and intriguing characters, I constantly and, might I add, consistently was taken out of the story by one simple problem: character names.
No, the names themselves weren't unusual or hard to pronounce. No, the names didn't remind me of someone I knew/hated/loved.
The names were ALWAYS in the dialogue!
Trying reading the example below out loud (my own made up dialogue):
"Hey Mary. Did you hear the news?" Henry asked.
"What news, Henry?" Mary asked back.
"About school. We get three days off! Isn't that great, Mary?" Henry said as he did a little jig.
"Henry! You just made my day." Mary threw her arms around him in a happy hug.
This example was seriously how the dialogue went throughout most of the book. Annoying!
Do you talk like that? I don't. Having a one-on-one conversation with someone I sure hope they know their own name and I don't need to remind them every time I talk to them.
Let's redo the dialogue:
"Did you hear the news, Mary?" Henry said.
"What news?" she asked.
"About school. We get three days off!"
"You just made my day!" Mary said as she threw her arms around him.
Notice the difference? Other than my brilliant (said in Grinch voice) writing, did the dialogue read better?
What takes you out of a story?
“When it rains, most birds head for shelter; the Eagle is the only bird that, in order to avoid the rain, starts flying above the cloud.” Unknown
Isn't that an interesting fact? The eagle flies above the storm!
How does this quote apply to writing? Bear with me.
There is a lot of confusion in the writing world right now:
E-publishing is the best way.
Traditional publishing still the best way.
Don't break any writing rules.
Break the writing rules.
Write for now, not the current trends.
Research the trends.
This agent is accepting new authors.
Wait. No, she's not.
Put your best work out there.
Don't edit your work to death.
Anyway, do you get the point? All of the good and bad advice/help/ideas out in the world can hurt our creativity.
A storm of confusion, raining down on us! (Ah!)
As writers we must rise above the dark clouds and naysayers.
Write. Your. Book.
It's there, inside you, waiting for an outlet. Waiting for you to be brave, to soar.
Now go forth and write, my brilliant eagles!
"If you're going to be a writer, the first essential
is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start
writing something and the ideas will come. You have
to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow."
~ Louis L'Amour
How cool is that? I have not found a name I can live with for the MC in my newest project. I went to the site and now have several possiibles. Thanks.