Alas, Failure is a Form of Cute 

Hmm . . .

—tip-tap-tippity-tap-tip-tip-tap—

How Not to be Distracted . . .

—tip-tap-tappity-tip-tip-tap-tippity-tap—

by Cute Puppies . . .

—tappity-tap-tip-tap-tap-tip-tip—

(While Writing a Novel)

—tappity-tap-tap.

by Devon Winterson.

Tap.

Um . . . hmm . . . right . . . let's see . . .

Puppies?

Or novel?

Puppies . . . ?

Or novel . . . ?

Roly-poly, fuzzy playthings with cute faces . . .

Or tough strings of words I’ll need a sledgehammer to pound into place . . . ?

Hmm . . .

—tap-tap-tippity-tap-tap—

 

A while back, a good friend suggested I write a post about how not to get distracted by . . . um . . . distracted by . . . cute . . . um . . . puppies while writing a, um . . . novel . . . but, er, ah—

—tip-tip-tap—

* Devon abandons blog post, tosses computer aside, races after puppies *

Indie Author Shout Out: No random blog post would be complete without a shout out about yet another wonderful indie author short story! "Her Older Man," by Lorraine Sears is now available at Amazon and Amazon UK. Usually 99 cents (US), free on occasion. A story very well worth reading!

Word of the week: agglomeration \ə-ˌglä-mə-ˈrā-shən\ - noun – (hear it!) - 1: the action or process of collecting in a mass; 2 : a heap or cluster of usually disparate elements – Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Excuse Me, What?

Once upon a time, an innocent reader asked me: “Where do you get your story ideas from?”

Well, to be honest, I get them from my fingers.

No, really. Words pop out of my fingers and onto the screen like buttered popcorn pops fresh and delicious in a sizzling-hot pan of corn oil. And we all know what that's like — yummy!

So no, no structure, no thinking, no planning. (No planning for the popcorn, either.) It all just . . . happens. Kind of like when a unicorn appears on your porch, or a writhing bag of rodents spontaneously bursts into a spread of phosphorescent mushrooms along a forest floor.

Oh, I'm sure it has something to do with the huge agglomeration of things I've collected in my mind throughout the oh-so many years I've been alive, all . . . um, forty-two of them. You know, the neat-o stuff I've learned and salad-tossed in my old and fragile brains, melted and forgotten (stuff, not the brains), then suddenly remembered at the most inopportune times, like when I have neither a pencil nor a piece of paper, or when I do have a pencil but still no paper, or I have paper but no pencil and only a pen that has no ink. Or when I'm driving. Or working. Or sneezing.

Ha! Yeah, that's right. Go ahead, try writing something down when you're sneezing. I dare you.

So because ideas come popping out of my fingers to splatter a fun virtual linguistic mess onto my screen, I cringe at the mere thought of outlining.

No, no, no. Hear me out: Writing everything down in a planned, structured, stilted manner — detailing this and that, and that and this, designing plots and sub-plots and character sketches and scene-setting particulars beforehand — all takes away from the neon-bright spark of creativity, the wild and wacky impulse of discovery, the infuriating “Oh, what in the *&^%$ is this stupid character doing that for?!” moments that I, as a writer, thrive upon and live to experience. And I've seen more than a handful of these moments in my time as both a budding author and an “semi-old hand” at writing.

My favorite? First draft of “The Coalition Letters,” third book in my dark fantasy collection. A total “What the heck?!” moment.

Picture it: Mystical secondary character holds aloft certain mystical object to taunt non-mystical antagonist across expanse of severely dangerous liquid (to him and his piddly minions, that is) and yes, here I am, writing and writing and writing, words popping out of my fingers like popcorn, when . . . KERSPLASH!

Mystical secondary character nosedives into severely dangerous (to the antagonist) liquid. No explanation, no warning, and I never saw it coming; she just . . . plunged, apparently to see how insanely desperate her adversary was to steal the object she held in her possession.

Holy smokes!

So, for an insanely long period of time, I just sat there and stared at the screen, not knowing what to think, or why this particular character had done what she'd done, or where to take the story next.

I was stunned.

Oh, but I can hear you scoff: “Pfft. Yeah, yeah. You must have seen it coming, somehow, right? Characters don't just do things on their own; they aren't alive.”

No? Say that to any writer, and they'll look at you like you have two heads. Or like you've spontaneously burst into a bunch of phosphorescent mushrooms. Unicorn, anyone?

You see, our characters are alive — in our heads, of course — and when we give them free rein . . . KA-SPLOOSH! They burst forth, all glorious and beautiful, from that severely dangerous (to the writer) restrictive method called outlining, to declare in the most wonderfully grandiose voice: I WILL NOT BE OVERCOME! Mwahahahahahahaha!

* ahem *

. . . yeah, yeah, all right, a little overboard there. But you see my point, right?

Right??

O_o

* tosses writhing bag of rodents and dashes off *

*  *  *
Oh yeah, and I almost forgot: My newest collection, "The Deeper the Lust, the Sweeter the Flesh: a small motley collection," is now available at Smashwords (mobi and epub) and Goodreads (pdf file).

Hey, it's FREE.

Author Shout Out: The very talented Miss Holly Current has had her short story, The Poe Toaster, published online in Lost City Review. Come, read . . . you know you want to, and you certainly will not be disappointed, I assure you! You can also follow Holly’s blog, “A Little Literary, a Lotta Coffee.” Again, you won’t be disappointed. Honest!

Word of the week: amenable \ə-ˈmē-nə-bəl\ adj. - 1: liable to be brought to account; 2 a : capable of submission (as to judgment or test), b : readily brought to yield, submit, or cooperate, c : willing

Liebster Blog Award

Holy smokes, and other random exclamations!

I tell you, the number 11 in duplicate has followed me around like a lost little puppy for nearly a year now. Um . . . well, no . . . more the like the itty-bitty leggies of a lost little (invisible) stick-figure puppy. Or maybe like two sets of dancing chopsticks . . . or two yummy double popcicles . . . or one half of a tarantula . . .

Anyway, now the number 11 has come in triplicate—nay, quadruplicate! (Hurray! A whole tarantula!)—as I discovered I was nominated by SLS Oborowsky of Authors Thought to receive the Liebster Blog Award.

To her I say: “Thank you, thank you! Thank you very much!” and I would say this eleven times, but honestly . . . that would get really annoying. I could just hand her a tarantula, though she might not be completely amenable to this.

What is the Liebster Blog Award, and how does it work? Eleven random personal facts, eleven questions answered, eleven questions asked of eleven nominees.

Here, I’ll show you:

First, eleven random personal facts:

1) I’m highly allergic to peppermint oil.

2) I love the smell of honeysuckle and lilac (separately).

3) I’m the mother of four (two human, two canine) children.

4) I abhor money; I think it causes too many problems between people.

5) One of my favorite things to do is to help out fellow authors.

6) I love golden retrievers.

7) I helped build the house I currently live in – yes, with a hammer and nails and hard labor and all that.

8) I absolutely cannot walk in stiletto heels, and I prefer jeans and sweats over fancy skirts and dresses.

9) I used to traipse through the woods in the middle of the night – alone.

10) I think “whimsical” and “wholesome” are the two most fake sounding words – ever.

11) Not much ever “creeps me out”; thus, I wish to eat a scorpion-pop.

Now, eleven questions answered from the one who nominated me: SLS Oborowsky:

1) What is your favorite animal and why? Ooohhh . . . that would have to be the golden retriever, only because they’re so cuddly and lovable and soft and squishy and cute and, and, and . . . need I say more really?

2) If you had a choice to live anywhere in the world, what place would you choose? Someplace warm. No snow. I can’t stand snow. Abhorrent white stuff . . .

3) What is your favorite food? Wow. Um . . . I don’t have one favorite food. I love all foods, really.

4) What is your most memorable moment? Wait, I have a memory? *puzzles*. . . Oh! Hang on . . . yes. My most memorable moment (say that ten times fast!) would have to be my wedding day, when I married the most wonderful man in the world.

5) Do you have a hobby? Gardening, if I ignore the fact I’m terrible with most plants.

6) Do you have a favorite childhood nursery rhyme? Not in particular, although it was an interesting moment in my adult life when I discovered what the rhyme “Ring Around the Rosy” really referred to!

7) What type of music do you enjoy most? Not sure how to categorize it, but stuff by Linkin Park, Evanescence, Muse, and, well, generally music with lyrics that actually make one think or tell a story.

8) Are you a country bumpkin or a city slicker? Oh, country bumpkin, most definitely! I’d rather pull weeds and walk through the woods, haul hay and ride horses than bumble around, lost and alone, in a scary city setting.

9) If you could rewrite a chapter in your life would you? Yes. All of middle school. No, in fact, I’d delete that entire chapter out of my life.

10) Do you have a fear of anything? Clowns, spider webs in the face, and someone driving heavy machinery through the woods. Combine the three, and I’m likely to have a heart attack.

11) Do you have a favorite place you go for a latte, coffee or tea? My favorite place to go for coffee is . . . my writing desk.

Eleven nominees (well, really twelve now, due to a previous mix up on my part!) . . . :

Holly Current – A Little Literary; a Lotta Coffee

Stephen Dodgson – The Beach in Tenerife

Court Ellyn – Wordweaver

Robert Evert – Neurotic Novelists of the World Unite!

Heather Frizzell – Heather’s Revision Diary

Eve Gaal – The Desert Rocks 
David Gilmore – David Gilmore’s Blog

William Kendall – Speak of the Devil

Logan Keys – Logan Keys Fiction

Lorraine Sears – Red Lorry’s Journey

Ben Wallace – Dumb White Husband (blog)

Lena Winfrey Seder - Pearldrops on the Page

. . . and eleven questions asked of them:

1) What is your favorite mythical creature?

2) What are your five least favorite words, and why?

3) What inspires you to write what you write in your blog posts or other writing projects?

4) If you could have any super power, what would it be, and why?

5) If you knew the end of the world was coming, how would you spend your final day on earth?

6) What’s your biggest accomplishment?

7) If someone handed you a tarantula, what would you do?

8) How do you write? In total silence, or with background noise?

9) Who is your biggest writing influence?

10) Who’s your favorite author?

11) What do you believe is the most important thing in the world?

And finally, here are the eleven official rules of the Liebster Award. (Well, all right, there are really only eight, but I had to keep to the “eleven” theme!)

Copied from the blog “Lorraine Reguly’s Life.” :

If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award AND YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, write a blog post about the Liebster award in which you:

1. thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.

2. display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)

3. answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

4. provide 11 random facts about yourself.

5. nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)

6. create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

7. list these rules in your post. (You can copy and paste them from here.)

Once you have written your post, and published it, you then have to:

8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

. . . See? Super easy!

Word of the week: oddment \ˈäd-mənt\ (hear it!) - noun - 1a : something left over : remnant; b plural : odds and ends; 2 : something odd : oddity – (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Indie Author of the Month: Come Meet . . . Benjamin Wallace

A couple of Christmases ago, the name of this month's indie author was plopped into my lap.

Well, all right, not in the literal sense, but done so nonetheless by a very trusted source. Curious and always looking to read good indie stories, I Kindle-downloaded this particular author's then only-available short story. Little did I realize I was in for such a wonderful treat!. . . .

Dumb White Husband vs. The Grocery Store by Benjamin Wallace was hands down filled with absolutely terrific humor; relatable scenarios turned on their sides and told through the amusing viewpoint of . . . a “dumb white husband.” (Who was certainly not dumb at all!)

Yes, yes, normally I'm partial to humor a bit on the darker side. But sometimes straight-out humor for humor's sake is just plain fun to read, so I was thrilled to learn Mr. Wallace had released The Big Book of Dumb White Husband packed with short stories along much the same humorous lines, all interconnected in some way or another, and all told through the various tales of three husbands (all basically at odds with one another) who live on the same block.

Really, once you've visited them, you just don't want to leave. And guess what? We don't have to!

 
Pretty soon, Dumb White Husbands vs. Zombies will be served up in five segments. Sign up for his newsletter, and you'll get the first episode when it's released. And if you're not yet familiar with Mr. Wallace's line of books, this will be the perfect way to get your feet wet.

But now, without further ado, here is Mr. Benjamin Wallace to introduce, well . . . not necessarily himself, but to discuss an interesting review he'd gotten on a book of his that's been out for quite a while: Post Apocalyptic Nomad Warriors.

* * *

Who says the apocalypse isn’t funny? One reviewer did. She bought a book billed as a Post-Apocalyptic Comedy and, once deducing there had been a war at some point, said there was nothing funny about that. I’m not sure how she was expecting to read a post-apocalyptic book that didn’t have an apocalypse in its backstory. But she helps prove a point.

What she obviously doesn’t get is that a post-apocalyptic world will be full of funny because it will be full of people. And people don’t know what they’re doing—everyday people that now find themselves in charge of what’s left or, what’s funnier, what to do with themselves since no one is around to tell them what to do.

Where would you go? What would you do? What to name your new town? Do you adopt the cage match system of justice? There’s no end to how people will try to start over. What will they keep? What will they abandon? After an apocalypse, the world is more open than ever. And, since people usually make bad choices, there is no shortage of humor in a world with no rules.

When the apocalypse does come, I think we all envision ourselves being one of the oddments. We like to picture ourselves in a world without rules. We like to see ourselves as the heroes. But, in reality we’d probably just be standing around staring at the mud wondering why food isn’t growing.

So, why not have a little fun with it? The genre is rich with stereotypes of the gritty survivors facing impossible odds, mutants, gangs, action and adventure, the lone hero. But drop any real person in a world like that and you’re going to get a ton of laughs.

* * *

Learn more about Benjamin Wallace and his books at his really cool blog: Dumb White Husband

Please support this indie author! You'll be glad you did. 

Ooo, ooo! And guess what? He's also a talented artist. I'm not sure what these bears are all about, but they look really awesome, and I'm told we'll discover more about them pretty darned soon.