Flex Your Muse's Muscles

This is a fun exercise to do, if your muse has been slobing around and not giving you the inspiration or drive you need. It makes you keep your mind focused as you write, and still allows you to deviate as much as you desire.

Your task is;
Write 200 words, and
Avoid the letter E
Share!

The letter E is the most used letter in the English alphabet, but there are plenty of words that don't use it. Don't cheat by using abbreviations, like Mr or Mrs, but you can use a thesaurus to see if you can get the word with an e-less spelling. I suggest you use the 'search' tool on your word processor before you share - you might be surprised at how many of the buggers slip in!

This is my example of a lipogram;

A dog wags its tail and you know that it’s happy. It’s not difficult to twig, a fact most of us know from birth. It is much thorny-a-thing to distinguish joy, or lack of it, in a human. What gain might follow, if our coccyx could again flag our glad moods or lash our irritations? A swift look down would grant us a hint of our companion’s thoughts: a lazy flick for dismissal; a swish of satisfaction; a low immobility of gloom –all told in a winding standard at our backs. With a tail, confusion and falling-outs would diminish though not vanish wholly. How could it, as our traits as a group is so pugnacious? A trick of a god or an additional trial for us to fail, its crisis too ambiguous and abnormal for our logic to fathom. Though without tails, humans still boast windows to our inmost thoughts – our brows may drop in angst or lift in shock; our lips may twitch and grin with laughing; our hands may play and twist with worry, and additional aids also. I am thankful for that, don’t think I’m not, but still I fancy a lissom proclamation to flourish out at my back.

Now, if you think that was hard, Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a whole novel (over 50,000 words!) without touching the E key in February, 1939. It is approaching its 70th birthday, so I thought it should be honoured with our toasting it. If you fancy taking a look at the novel in question, it can be found here.

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Wiley Wednesday for January 21, 2009

I want to share a Zen koan with you, but I think first it needs a little introduction.

A koan is a teaching fable. They don’t always make immediate sense to Western ears, (and may not to Japanese ones either, I don’t know), but that’s the point. They’re meant to make the student (and in this sense, we are all students) ponder them. Deceptively simple, like Haiku, they are powerful reminders of a way to live that is in tune with ourselves and the Tao.

I was given this koan by the Universe in what can only be described as an episode where the Universe was showing off its sense of humor. (And those of you who think the Universe HAS no sense of humor have never really studied a platypus.) (Of course, some say the platypus is proof that God smokes pot, but I digress.) Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was an idiot. A cute idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. Like many cute idiots, I found a ‘man.’ This man was charming, smart, and just-so-slightly dangerous. You know, the kind of man that if I had a big brother, my big brother would have kicked his ass and buried the body before my next date. But I didn’t have a big brother, so I went out with this jerk. I mean, he even had a special made-up name, which at the time I thought was edgy and cool.

Yes, I know. Didn’t I say I was an idiot? Pay attention!

So I go out with this guy, and of course he treats me like an idiot. (Fitting, wouldn’t you say?) It took me mumbleSIXmumble months to figure out this jerk was no good, and I dumped him. However, he had my favorite radio at his house. So instead of buy a new radio, which on my income at the time really was not doable, I went over to his house to get it, with my new boyfriend in tow.

I rang the well. “Ding dong!” (Remember that alliteration.) I was met at the front door by a fat guy and a skinny guy. (Don’t some jokes begin this way?) Both guys were completely.stark.raving.naked.

You read right.

Naked.

My current boyfriend turned beet read, and did I mention he’s a martial arts teacher? The storm clouds were brewing, my friend, and the forecast did not look promising. All this for a radio?

Ever onward, I went into the house and asked after my ex. He was in the bedroom, I was told, with his current girlfriend. She had a Playboy bunny name, and you could feel the heat from my current boyfriend’s fury. I asked to use the bathroom. As I walked by, the door to my ex’s bedroom as open, and they were engaged in, well, things that are better done with the door closed.

Particularly with a fat naked guy and a skinny naked guy in the next room, call me crazy.

So I retreated into the bathroom and sat there, trying to figure out whether I should just stand in the living room and shout for my radio, leave, or wait it out. And then I saw it.

There, on the window sill, an innocuous little book, entitled, Zen Koans.

Take it from me. When in this situation, beware of Trojans bearing gifts. Or something.

I picked up the book and flipped to a page at random. And here, in all its glory and magnificence, is what the Universe said to me:



“Chau-Chu fell down in the snow, and yelled, “Help me up! Help me up!” A Zen monk came and laid down beside him.

“Chau-Chu got up and went away.”



Enjoy!

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My Secret LIfe as an Author

My Secret Life as an Author

Hello, my name is Stacey Harlowe. That’s me, in the white SUV idling behind you in the long line of cars waiting to drop off kids at Emerson Elementary this morning. I’m just another soccer mom stationed in suburbia U.S.A. I’m a touch overweight (who isn’t?) and wear the standard uniform issued to all women with children; Capri pants and a polo shirt. I blend in nicely with the rest of you if I do say so myself.

But that is where the similarity ends. I have a secret identity, a disguise that I put on once the children have left for the day. I am a writer of erotic fiction. That’s right, the bodice ripping historical romances that you see on the shelf at the supermarket. I write for ‘Betsy’s Boudoir’, a successful publishing company that specializes in erotica for women. And I make a pretty good living at it.

The world at large believes that I spend my days at my home computer, processing insurance claims. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I am busy putting my innocent heroines into dangerous situations that will ultimately lead them to love and plenty of hot sex with the man of their dreams. Oh, yes, and a happily ever after ending, can’t forget that part.

The sexual tension is always thick, the word choices explicit and the plot points often laughable, but when my books hit the shelves at Barnes and Noble that doesn’t seem to matter. They sell like hotcakes.

My disguise is necessary to keep my ‘normal’ life secure. I am positive that my services as Sunday School teacher for the three year olds would no longer be needed if my real employment were known. And do you think I’d be up for election to the PTA presidency for the fourth time in a row if the word got out where my paycheck comes from? I think not.

I can just imagine the look of surprise and horror that would come over your face if your neighbor, the minister, broke the news that Stacey Harlowe from down the block writes ‘pornography’.

“But my children play with her kids,” you stammer. “They’ve been to her house for birthday parties and Girl Scout meetings! She just seems so…normal.”

Well, here’s the deal---I AM normal. I’m just like you in every way except for my job description. So before you make any moral judgments about me, answer this question truthfully. Have you ever read a romance novel? Odds are good that you have and it might even have been one of mine. Someone buys them…and it’s probably you.

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Wiley Wednesday: To Outline or Not To Outline

A lot of people, generally nonwriters or new writers, tell me that to write a novel, one needs an outline. To which I say, Hogwash.

That’s right. Hogwash!

One needs an outline as much as one needs a pencil – which is to say, there’s more than one way to write something down.

Take a look at my story, The Night is a Harsh Mistress. I started this without any kind of cohesive plan, just an idea of a flavor. I wanted to write something noir, which is to say like a 1940’s detective novel, but with a female lead. Most such novels have a main character who is a loner and who smokes, and I felt that in today’s climate, smoking without compunction would be a little unrealistic, so it would be someone trying to quit.

Voila.

That was really it.

So, when I started, I wrote about her in the pursuit of one of her cases. Classical storytelling tells us that we need to show our protagonist succeeding at their objective, then put in a position where they cannot possibly win, then they surmount the odds and win. So the first chapter is her succeeding at her work. Then it gets weird.

I added Viktor not, as many of my readers have assumed, as a love interest, but as a foil. He’s someone who would usually be a villain, but in this context I wanted him to be more of someone who helped Rachel to find herself in the midst of all the activity of her life.

How do I keep the strands straight? A couple ways. For one, I reread periodically, so I can keep the flavor of the story in my head. This is more critical when I’m writing a serial like Rachel, since I’m only writing a chapter every two weeks. Additionally, I keep a notes section at the end, called “Endnotes,” where I track ideas for action I want to see happen or things I don’t want to forget. I also put questions here, like “Who is the man in the first chapter?” That way, as I’m writing, I can incorporate those things into the story.

I find that if I write an outline, in order, from start to finish, it sucks the fun out of the story for me. That’s not to say that outlining is bad or doesn’t work for others, just that it doesn’t work for me. If you find you’re that way too, it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong – it just means you’re not left-brain sequential in your approach to your storytelling. Or, it may mean that you use an outline for some projects and not for others.

Steven King, in his book On Writing, talks about his method of working (and he doesn’t use an outline either). He starts a story and doesn’t stop until he’s finished. He suggests that you find a room, hide away in it, (the fact that the room has a door, even if it’s the bathroom or a laundry room, is of the utmost importance), and write on a regular basis. He suggests not starting a new project until your current one is finished, because he finds that it dilutes his focus. While I don’t work that way – I usually have multiple projects going at any one time – I like his idea of having a regular writing time where you shut yourself away from distractions and work until you’re finished. That’s advice more of us could use.

So instead of worrying about your outline next time you sit down to write something, just try telling a story and see where it leads you. Like me, you might find this method is a lot more fun. And, in this business, what’s fun is what works.

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Fleeting Moments

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope
the New Year is full of wonderful
adventures, health and happiness.



Your Spirit engorges me
until there is nothing but

You

Only...
the sense of the
Divine

All earthly things fade
away

Your light almost
blinding

Painful to look upon

The fine line I walk
between sinner and
saint obscured

Heavenly awareness
pervading my
soul.

~

Love,

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