Grab bag

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Friday Recommends – Sorry I’m Late!

February 3, 2012 in Friday Recommends, Grab bag, Writing | No comments

Slept in until after 7, then got all internetted up and lost track of the time.

Found SO many good places this week!

First, the April A-to-Z challenge is open for signing up. I participated in this last year and met the fabulous Damyanti, who wrote a flash fiction Every. Single. Day. No, I won’t be doing that.

2 Little Hooligans is what I guess you would call a “mommy blog”, filled with crafting and cooking and fun stuff, like this post on making ice cream in baggies.

I can’t categorize Treehugger. It’s about alternative stuff like … Well, go have a look. It’s all kindsa stuff that makes your dear old MomGoth go into a happy fugue state. Like crab art. Like these transforming tables. Like keeping food fresh without refrigeration. Like this bookshelf/workstation. I mean … .. ! Is it any wonder, I’m late posting today? This is great stuff for my tiny houses stories!

Then there’s the awesomely awesome Medieval Castle website. Not just everything you wanted to know about castles, everything I wanted to know.

Finally, spend the rest of the day being amazed at Julian Beever’s fantastic pavement art. Wow.

Hope you enjoy my finds for the week.

Oh! I almost forgot– I have a new BFF website this week. It’s called Polyvore, and I can put together my very own Pretty Lady Outfits. I find it oddly invigorating in the way of writing. Maybe it gets the creative juices stirred up, or maybe putting together stuff I want to go together gets the left-brain organizational circuits whirring, but fifteen minutes on Polyvore gets me hitting on all cylinders. Whatever works, right?

WRITING PROMPT: A character is walking down the street in a town he or she has never been to, and a pavement artist is drawing a scene from the character’s life; something that happened just before he or she left home, that no one witnessed.

MA

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Foggy Thinking

February 2, 2012 in Grab bag | 4 comments

Natural Fog

It’s all foggy here this morning, which brings lots of thoughts to mind.

The first thought, of course, is of getting up to a foggy day here in the country when our youngest was little, and her saying, “It’s a misty, moisty morning.” :)

Click to enlarge, click back arrow to return to post.

The second is of Charlie and my honeymoon (yes, that is grammatically correct) and our 25th anniversary, both of which were spent at Natural Bridge State Resort Park in Kentucky. Every morning, the fog completely enfolded the lodge, but burned off as soon as things warmed up. I’m talking about the sun, people; get your minds out of the gutter.

Then, if I’m going to have to drive through it, I get creeped out thinking of Ardis Moonlight’s “Buffalo Trace” in GHOSTS ON THE SQUARE.

That makes me think how handy an inland lighthouse could be, which brings to mind the Best. Lighthouse. Story. Ever! Ray Bradbury’s “The Fog Horn”. That story breaks my heart, every time.

But then, me being me, I can’t think of the words “fog” and “horn” together without thinking of … You’re way ahead of me. Yes, Foghorn Leghorn, the chicken’s chicken.

And now, if you–I say, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go have breakfast. Cereal, that is. Pay attention, son! You’re not–I say, you’re not listening.

WRITING PROMPT: What does fog make you think of?

MA

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Only in Corydon

January 31, 2012 in Grab bag | 3 comments

Cold got you down? GIVE IT HELL!

So there’s this drug store here, Butt Drugs — yes, the one in the commercial — and one of their features is all these old remedies nobody else carries around here, like headache powders (which my late mother-in-law used to flush her stoma), henna rinse, oil of cloves, and this cold preparation.

You never know what’s going to turn up around here. Sometimes I just stand on the sidewalk and go, “Huh.”

I’ve shared the commercial before, but I can’t resist sharing it again.

I love this town.

I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies on the subject of veggie seeds.

WRITING PROMPT: What’s the weirdest product on your local shelves? Write three different reactions to it. Or feel free to use 666 Cold Preparation.

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Interview and Outer View

January 28, 2012 in Grab bag | No comments

I just love it when I’m asked to talk. It happens so seldom. But Mike Murphy of Emerging Novelists did just that, and posted the interview.

It’s starting to think about being Spring in these parts. We had a couple of mild days, just to tease us, and I got out and snapped a couple of pictures.

The snowdrops are in full bloom since I got this picture. Mother Nature does this to break our hearts when she subsequently buries these little beauties under umpty-ump inches of ice and snow and freezing rain.

And here is a stump my husband is killing slowly, in conjunction with jolly old Mother N. He heaps what folks around here call fossil rocks on top of them, and Ma Nature sends rain and moss and bugs and what-have-you to nibble away at their flesh. The Melbourne Method. ~shudders~ Not the Melbourne Method!

Oh, you precious Internet! If I were still single, I would marry you, I love you so much! While I was searching for the name of that slow method of dealing with enemies, I came across The Peter Lorre Collection of Sound. OMG!! What a treasure!!!

Well, that made my day.

WRITING PROMPT: Whose voice, other than people you actually know in person, do you love to hear? Why do you love to hear it?

MA

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Do and To-Do Due, Too

January 26, 2012 in Grab bag, Writing | 11 comments

Okay, Mom and I went to the hairdresser’s yesterday and got perms. I haven’t had one for a long time, so I was a little … Yeah, that’s boring. Anyway, here’s my new ‘do. I didn’t tell her to slap all that gray in it, so don’t ask me what that’s about.

Here is Hope Schneider, who gave me the ‘do. Love ya, Hope! She looks a bit iffy here, but she was just in a hurry to move on to her next customer, for she is much in demand.

While you’re at it, check out the color on that wall. I think part of why I love going to Hope’s is that warm, friendly color.

Anyway.

Karen Syed of Echelon Press, my publisher, has tasked me with (Do you hate that? I hate that. Forget I said that.) Karen Syed of Echelon Press, my publisher, has given me the task of promoting my books regularly rather than desultorily on Facebook and Twitter. I said, “Ebberyday?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “EBBERY day?” She said, “EBBERY day!!” So I’m trying out some tools which, if they continue to serve my purpose, I’ll recommend tomorrow. So far, so good.

WRITING PROMPT: A character who wears his or her hair the same way for years gets a new do. On purpose, by mistake, under compulsion or why? What’s the effect?

MA

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On Having Had A Cold

January 24, 2012 in Grab bag | 5 comments

It’s almost worth having a cold, for how wonderful you feel when it’s over. No, not when it’s over, when it’s almost over. You know that day? You have the day when you think it’s hit it’s worst, then the next day is even worse than that? And you have to cough and blow your nose, even though doing either one kills your head? And then the next day, you’re stuffy, but your eyes aren’t watering much and your head doesn’t hurt? Well, the next day. You’re almost totally better, but still just stuffy and snuffy and wheezy enough to appreciate how much better you feel today and how completely over it you’re going to be tomorrow or the next day.

Funny, isn’t it, how often you have to be in that balance between suffering and not-suffering in order to appreciate not suffering? Kind of gives you some insight on people who do controlled damage to themselves, doesn’t it? It does, me, anyway.

I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies, on the subject of Wild Rice, which I ate last night and did not like.

WRITING PROMPT: What’s the first smell a character notices when his or her cold is over enough for him or her to smell things?

MA

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Artsy and Sneezy

January 21, 2012 in Grab bag | 2 comments

No, that’s not a new couple who just moved into Storybrooke. That’s me.

Although it took me while to find it out, since I have a cold and I was moving … well … like a turtle with a cold, my internet service provider was down yesterday. I missed it very much. I missed it a lot more yesterday than I did Wednesday, when I had planned to be offline.

Spoiled? Why, yes. Yes, I am.

Today, the Southern Indiana Writers Group is scheduled to do a signing at the Arts Council of Indiana‘s current exhibit, “The Animals In Us”. If my cold is sufficiently advanced to be non-contagious, I plan to be there. We’ll be selling our anthology of stories to do with animals, BEASTLY TALES. If you follow the link I just dropped to the anthology page on the SIW website, you can read excerpts from most of the stories.

Mine, “Fish and Visitors”, is from the point of view of a very small girl whose best friends are her stuffed armadillo and her inflatable tyrannosaurus.

Pop in and see us, if you’re in New Albany this evening. I promise I won’t be there if I’m spreadable.

WRITING PROMPT: Were you fascinated by one particular kind of animal when you were little? How about your main character? Your villain?

MA

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Striking Challenge

January 17, 2012 in Grab bag, Race to the Hugo | 2 comments

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

Today, I’m posting on Fatal Foodies, as I always do on Tuesdays.

I’m also throwing my hat into the ring in pursuit of a Hugo award for best science fiction or fantasy story written in 2012. Mind you, I haven’t written any yet. But I’m working on one. This one is science fiction, and takes place in the future. I have the topic sentence and I’ve started it, which means it’s time to stop and bash out a general outline. I hate that part.

I’m going internet-dark tomorrow in protest against the SOPA and PIPA proposed in Congress. Here are information and arguments on both sides, provided on Wikipedia.

WRITING PROMPT: Open a book at random and pick a sentence. Beginning with that, outline a story.

MA

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The Sadness of the Shells

January 12, 2012 in Grab bag | 8 comments

I recently went to Tybee Island, Georgia (USA) for a writing retreat. There, I collected sea shells, which I brought home. The following sadness ensued.

THE SADNESS OF THE SHELLS
by Marian Allen

I walked on the beach in December
And picked up some shells from the beach.
I made it a point to remember
What posters endeavor to teach:
Do not collect living crustaceans
But only the ones that are dead.
Inspect each with infinite patience.
Yes, that’s what the posters had said.

I thought I had followed the order
In gathering gifts from the foam
And socked away shells like a hoarder
And packed them and carried them home.
I showed them to this one and that one
Who “ooh”ed o’er each lovely shell
Including one wonderful flat one.
And then the shells started to smell.

I washed them in hot soapy water
And put them to drain on a rack.
“They stink the place up!” said my daughter,
So I packed them back in a sack.
I soaked them in bleach and the flat one
Came open. My sorrowing eyes
Beheld the sad truth, which was that one
Was not a legitimate prize.

It had, in fact, contained two living creatures
With gooshiness and stinkiness their features.
So I’m repaid for taking what was living.
The smell is everlasting, unforgiving.
Oh, Mortal! take a lesson from this telling!
Be very, very careful in your shelling.

Okay, so I rinsed all the shells off, threw away the stinky one, washed the remaining ones in hot soapy water again … And they STILL smell. Is it residue from having been packed with Neptune’s Vengeance, or do I have another Hideous Surprise lurking? Time will tell. Time. Will. Tell.

WRITING PROMPT: An innocent mistake rebounds disastrously.

MA

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Whaddya Wanna Know?

January 10, 2012 in Grab bag | No comments

Yesterday, semi-regular guest poster F. A. Hyatt talked about Point of View. In the course of comments and responding to comments, two topics came up:

  • grammar
  • tense

What other Basics would my fond readers like clear information about on Writerly Monday? Or, come to that, Foodie Wednesday or Friday Recommends?

I’m posting today — This is Tuesday, right? — at Fatal Foodies, giving my recipe for Honey Glazed Carrots.

WRITING PROMPT: A character is tense about something. What is it? Why does it make him or her tense? Add another character who is not tense. Is the second character courageous, clueless or in control of the situation?

MA

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