Hi, folks, this month I'm focusing the blog on the writing journey of PLUMB CRAZY. I'm calling this series: PLUMB CRAZY Journey -- The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Transcendent. I'm going to dig deep into the generation of my novel and dynamics of that creative journey. Be aware that I write as Cece Barlow for this work. It will be released at the end of this month.
I chatted last week about the BAD of writing PLUMB CRAZY, this week I'm going touch on the UGLY. No one want unpleasantness. No one. First I want to admit, writing PLUMB CRAZY was no chore. I loved it. I laughed so hard while writing it, I fell off the couch a few times. It was a joyous journey for me, but there were a few ugly moments.
First up, I love to prose on about the joys of plumbing. You may thank my critique group partners that my book is not weighed downed with LENGTHY descriptions of how to bust out concrete with a jack hammer and the minute details of measuring lengths of pipe. Cutting my darlings was UNPLEASANT! Like any pruning experience in writing it hurts at first but then it is all good.
Next, never start a story with a sunrise, unless that sun is about to go supernova. You must be a seasoned writer with many awards to start with a sunrise (cough, Noman by William Nicholson) or a dark and stormy night (cough, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle). Believe me these writers got away with it; they didn't improve their stories with their choices. So, yes, PLUMB CRAZY began with a sunrise until I so got over it. Too many readers snoozing for the first five minutes. Start as close to something happen as you can. Avoid the so-so, mundane, average start.
Last of all, did you know readers like to know what your character is thinking? I am so close to my character Elva Presley Hicks that I feel like she may be one of my kids. So, this turned out to be some ugly stuff in early drafts of my book. Readers wanted to know what she was thinking. Um, did you know readers are NOT mind readers? It turned out that I wanted to protect Elva. This is a human reaction but it is ugly in fiction. Making Elva vulnerable was an UNCOMFORTABLE experience. I could NOT keep her safe. Remember that when you write: Don't do the safe thing.
Next week I will dip into the transcendent of writing PLUMB CRAZY. I hope that you will come back.
Here is a doodle:
Here is a quote for your pocket:
Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
― Dorothy Parker
Men think about sex, and they think about sex a lot, so you might be amazed that something would be too sexy for a guy, but there are at least ten things that I think you may agree are too sexy, here they are.
Guys find it sexy when a girl is into the same things as him, such as a sports team, or horror flicks. What could be better than sharing a favorite past time together? Guys find it too sexy when the girl starts looking like his favorite teams best player or the killer in a horror flick. If she looks like a quarter back or an axe murderer, its not hot.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anna_Maria_Babberger-Tobler.JPG
Men love models. Men fantasize about being with a woman who is a model. Models are always hot, am I not right?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quentin_Massys_008.jpg
Guys find it attractive when a woman isn’t afraid to get dirty. It shows that she isn’t going to be a demanding little princess type. Guys find it scary when the woman doesn’t look like she has taken a bath for months. And before you say anything about the picture not being great, you just try to look up “dirty girl picture” and see how easy it is.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barefoot_in_Berlin.JPG
Guys find it sexy when a girl works and spends some of her own money. It makes him happy to see her get the things she loves and wants. Guys find it too sexy when she spends all of her own money, his money, and money they don’t even have. Also, and please note: Just because you can buy anything you want, does not mean you should.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhenry/3363028843/
Men find a damsel in distress a bit of a turn on. It gives him a chance to be a hero for a change. Men find it concerning when the same damsel is in distress all of the time. Well okay we might rescue her a few times before we clued in but I am sure eventually we would clue in. Eventually. Maybe.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/garydenness/2845530233/
Men find it kinda sexy watching a girl shave her legs. S l o w l y… with toes pointed, in the shower, water dripping off her. Not so sexy when she has to shave her face though.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jennifer_Miller_Bearded_Lady_by_David_Shankbone.jpg
Guys get turned on by a little girl on girl action or cat fight. You know what I mean. Guys do not really get too many thrills by watching actual cats fight, well hopefully not anyhow.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ecaille07.jpg
Guys find it sexy when a chick asks their opinion on something like which car to buy or what computer to get. Since women always think they know best, it is hot when they throw us a crumb or two. Guys really don’t like it when a chick tells them how to do something, like change a tire, or fix a computer. And if the chick is a chicken telling a guy how to fix the computer, well that’s just wrong.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alishav/3619318320/
Guys find it sexy when a girl cooks, or does house work in the nude. Can’t think of anything too sexy here. Doing dishes naked, vacuuming naked, mowing the lawn naked, whatever, guys are pretty cool with it.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_vacuum_cleaner.svg
Guys love seeing some skin. A little tease is wonderful. Careful that you don’t show too much as in the photo below, the one one the left is showing a bit too much skin and has dangerously entered the world of being too sexy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leekelleher/200975138/
One tip to any girl wanting to appear sexy, it helps to stand next to somebody larger than yourself.
Other Reading for Your Enjoyment
What do Men Find Sexy
What do Women Find Sexy
Songs for Lovemaking
It may be called the International Polar Year, but it actually runs for two years. This time it is March 2007 to March 2009, so we’ll shortly be right in the middle of it. The IPY involves over 200 projects in the Arctic and Antarctic, with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics. I was reading about this recently, and saw that the BBC website is running its own Antarctic Diary to coincide with the IPY. This put me in mind of OUP’s edition of Robert Falcon Scott’s Journals, edited by Max Jones, so I thought today I would bring you an excerpt from the last chapter: The Last March.
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Last Friday Val and I loaded up to attend one of his industry conferences. This one was Arctic Science Summit Week 2007. Held at Dartmouth in Hanover, NH, the conference attracted scientists and researchers from all over the world who work on the arctic--both North and South poles. Needless to say, very interesting stuff from the snippets I heard over dinner--but they definitely speak their own language. It gave me new insight into what WE must sound like when we all get together at conferences!!
The buzz at the conference was the start of IPY, which stands for International Polar Year, which comes around every 50 years or so. With all the discussion about global warming, it's a timely topic and you probably already have displays set up in your library about it! Flickr brims with cool photos about it.
The main speaker at the Saturday night banquet mentioned the need for worldwide cooperation on data standardization and formats--and the need to communicate wider, in common human language, about the research and findings this group comes up with.
It made me want to stand up in front of everyone and shout out, Have you Thought about Talking to a Librarian?
We (you) excel at this stuff! Worldwide cooperation--I have known no other group who so willingly and diligently works together for the benefit of the whole. And marketing and clear communication is something that more and more librarians are talking about today.
So if you know an arctic scientist--or even if you don't--you might mention your expertise around the faculty club once again.
More Flickr photos of Baker Library. Oh, and I visited the King Arthur Flour Company while the scientists were slaving away. Here I am, on the Flour King's throne! (On St. Patrick's Day, no less...)
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Where are you, Alice? I don't see you....
If you were going to buy a golf club, you wouldn't walk into a store and buy the first one you see, would you? Of course not; especially if you want to improve your golf game! You'll want to hold the club, take some practice swings, hit some balls if the store has a practice spot, and look at the price, of course. If you are considering buying running shoes, you need to go through a similar process and take the time to find the perfect shoe.
A car amplifier will give you a loud and clear sound on a consistent basis. It will boost the power flowing from the
receiver to the speakers. In doing so, it will reduce the stress put on all the other components of your car stereo
system, including the receiver.
Choosing the right car amplifier is important. Your decision should be based on five important features. Make sure you
address them all !
The first item on the agenda is the number of channels. This will depend on the number of speakers in your system.
Two-channel amplifiers will feed well two speakers or a single subwoofer. You will want to consider a four-channel
amplifier if you have any of the following combinations :
Actual comment related to blog (and not about shoe stretchers or car amplifiers) .... You did email or otherwise contact the speaker to offer the service of librarians throughout the non-polar universe in dealing with their information, didn't you?
---Kurt
Hello! I work for a content aggregation company called Newstex.com. We syndicate blog content to companies like LexisNexis, EBSCO, and a few others. We're interested in adding "It's All Good" to our "Blogs on Demand" service, and this was the only way I could find to contact you. If you're at all interested, could you please send me an email so I can send you more information? I can be reached at LGEROW -at- NEWSTEX -dot- COM. So sorry for hijacking your comments!
WRT "... Have you Thought about Talking to a Librarian?" - ummm, yes, but... this is a really important and complex issue. A lot of important developments in data curation are emerging from within specific disciplines, and in some cases, they should - metadata standards, or parts of them anyway, for example. Librarians CAN bring something to this discussion in general, and should, ASAP, but this train is already rolling. Getting on it will mean bringing some new tools and forging some very new kinds of relationships. If this sounds too vague, I spoke today with a faculty member who had serious doubts about how tending to data could mesh with a library's mission - they are NOT used to thinking of us in that capacity, and in general, we are NOT used to acting in that capacity - but we must (we are where I work). So it's a lot more complicated than just exhorting scientists to talk to us - we need to give them good, specific reasons to.
Totally agree with you, anonymous. And no, Kurt, did not actually e-mail the speaker (yet) but you've given me good reason to consider doing so.
My main idea is that librarians as a whole are very good at standardization of data at an international level. What the whole does with those skills and where they/we apply them is another matter!