Sparks o’ Joy

You are currently browsing the archive for the Sparks o’ Joy category.

A Very Happy Thing

March 24, 2011 in FORCE OF HABIT, Sparks o' Joy, Writing | No comments

PinterestEmailShare

I got an email from my ePal Holly Jahangiri, saying she downloaded EEL’S REVERENCE (not about eels) to her Nook and really liked it! This was at least two happies rolled into one: somebody bought a book and somebody liked it. :)

Although some writers are in it only for the creative passion or in it only for the artistic expression, I don’t know many who don’t appreciate a little cash for their efforts. And I, personally, don’t know any who don’t appreciate hearing something like, “I read an excerpt and I couldn’t sleep until I found out what happened next. Then I couldn’t sleep because I was reading.” Not Holly’s words; I’m just sayin’.

Holly, by the way, has already won a role in “By The Book”, the short story I’m writing to promote the upcoming re-release of FORCE OF HABIT. She’s just been promoted to hero! :)

WRITING PROMPT: What words make your main character happy? I love you? Quittin’ time? Two-for-one sale?

MA

PinterestEmailShare

Tags:

The Awesomest Prize EVAR!!1!

March 14, 2011 in Sparks o' Joy, Writing | 2 comments

PinterestEmailShare

Mom and I went to a charity event to benefit HEART Humane Society. They had a silent auction of gift baskets and a live auction of “celebrity” cakes, meaning cakes baked by, around, in spite of or at the behest of local business people (mostly men, for maximum amusement, as it still amuses many people to think that men might cook well). Mom and our friend Peggy discovered, after Mom won a spirited round of bidding, that they had bidding against one another. One of the drawbacks of doing an auction with little paddles with numbers on them rather than voice calls, as Mom and Peggy had been sitting NEXT TO EACH OTHER during their unconscious duel.

I won the only silent auction item on which I bid. I still can’t believe it. It is totally the best basket ever. Even Katya thinks so, and she isn’t impressed with anything. It was called a Writer’s Block basket and contains:

  • all occasion cards
  • envelopes
  • book owner stickers
  • 3 20-pack invitations
  • bookmarks
  • photocards
  • Christmas stationary (I think they mean stationery)
  • Magic tape (looking forward to seeing it pull a rabbit out of its hat)
  • index cards
  • glue
  • eraser
  • highlighter
  • finepoint marker
  • Zebra ballpoint pen (zebra not included)
  • notepads

Isn’t that the best basket ever??? Index cards? marker? pen? notepads? highlighter? bookmarks? ~danse danse, danse danse~

I use index cards a lot in my writing. They’re great for writing out plot points and arranging them for best effect. They’re great for abstracting chapters so I can lay them out and see how the story arc is doing. I use them to organize my submissions: each story gets an index card with title and word count on the top. Date sent out and market on a line. Date bought or rejected on the same line, then I move on to the next line, if necessary. Easy to alphabetize, easy to arrange by word count or title or date submitted.

So I have a brand new pack! And a pen! and a highlighter! and more!

WRITING PROMPT: What makes you do a happy dance, as a writer?

MA

PinterestEmailShare

Tags: ,

Four Happy Things

March 5, 2011 in FORCE OF HABIT, Grab bag, Sparks o' Joy, Writing | 8 comments

PinterestEmailShare

MomGoth is singing happy little songs today because of four happy things that happened yesterday.

  • I got my first royalty check from Amazon for the short story collections I self-published for Kindle (and at Smashwords, but Smashwords hasn’t sent me a check so NO DANCE FOR YOU, SMASHWORDS! It wasn’t a big check, unless you think $10.41 is big, but I’m being all Four Yorkshiremen about it and saying, “Boot it were a check to oos.” And here’s the original sketch o’ that, for all you yoong people:

  • The fabulous, fabulous Amanda Borenstadt, steampunk queen supreme, reminded me of word clouds at Wordle, and I did one for EEL’S REVERENCE:

Wordle: Eel's Reverence

  • I got a call inviting me to present awards at a local middle school’s Young Authors Celebration. Not only is it an honor, it’s a pleasure to get to encourage young people toward rewarding and enriching careers as authors, so that they, too, can go to the mailbox some day and find they have received checks for $10.41 for six months’ sales.
  • My editor at Echelon Press tells me she’s within hours of getting my edits on FORCE OF HABIT to me, and that she thinks they’ll be easy ones. :) On the same subject (FORCE OF HABIT), I’m having tons of fun writing “By the Book”, the short story accompanying it. I told my 10-year-old grandson the premise and he was most amused.

Busy day today, working the concession stand for my church at an auction (that’s conCession, not conFession–I’m Disciples of Christ, not Catholic), then going to the Presbyterian Church for a Mardi Gras feast. They give away beads, but you don’t have to show anything but money for charity.

WRITING PROMPT: List four happenings that made your main character happy.

MA

PinterestEmailShare

Tags:

Friday Recommends

February 25, 2011 in Friday Recommends, Sparks o' Joy | 3 comments

PinterestEmailShare

I’ve told you about the super photographs on Leslie R. Lee’s blog. Now go look at the ones on Mindy’s blog. She does some kind of crazy filtering or something on a lot of them. I can’t tell what it is about them that’s so hinky, but they’re the only photographs that look EXACTLY  the way things look when I’m steering close to suicidal ideation and I counter it by concentrating on the deep beauty of ordinary things. They’re amazing, her photos.

If you have a Kindle or other ereader, or are thinking about getting one, or have Kindle for PC/whatever, or have books available as eBooks, I recommend cruising over to Kindleboards. I think you can read all you want without registering. Information overload at first, but it isn’t as if poking around is going to disturb a rattlesnake or release a vindictive genie from a bottle. –Okay, I’ve been involved online long enough to know there are rattlesnakes and vindictive genies everywhere, but what I’m saying is that it probably won’t hurt you very much to go take a look, okay?

While I’m on the subject of eBooks, Dark Valentine Magazine just posted the good news that TEA WITH THE BLACK DRAGON, one of my favorite books, is available for Kindle. It’s a unique fantasy and a “mature love story”, meaning that the heroine is a lady of a certain age and the hero is … older than that.

Barbara J. King has a lovely and moving story about a rescued feral cat on her Friday Animal blog. It made me think of Miss Tiffany, my first cat. Here’s the poem I wrote for her, which appeared in the Southern Indiana Writers Group’s anthology, BEASTLY TALES.

The Styrofoam Kitty
by Marian Allen

After sixteen human years of life
Miss Tiffany
– cat of the silent meow –
had no heft, no weight, no mass
except on stairs.
There, by force of will,
she mimicked elephants.
Or, when I napped on the couch,
she stepped
down
from her higher perch,
passing a cosmic pressure
through one small foot
into the space between two ribs.

WRITING PROMPT: If your main character has a pet, have him/her write a poem about it. If he/she doesn’t have a pet, have him/her imagine one. If you don’t have a main character, imagine one imagining a pet.

MA

PinterestEmailShare

Tags: , ,

It’s Raining Men at Dark Valentine

February 23, 2011 in Sparks o' Joy | 5 comments

PinterestEmailShare

Okay, people on the writers’ lists I frequent often ask if freebies pay off. Well, they very well might for Joseph Robert Lewis and Tobias Buckell, if I have anything to do with it.

The freebies hurt me, and here’s why:

Joseph Robert Lewis gave me a free Kindle copy of his science fiction novel HEIRS OF MARS and I couldn’t stop reading and I couldn’t blink and my eyes bled and my head and heart expanded from the sheer wonder of it all and I reviewed it here and now I want to read EVERYTHING HE EVER WRITES I AM GOING TO FIND WHERE HE LIVES AND DIG HIS GROCERY LISTS OUT OF HIS TRASH….

The doctor just called and told me to up my dosage.

Just in time, because now I’m telling you that I went to Context and was given a free copy of Tobias Buckell’s Steampunk/Starpunk CRYSTAL RAIN and I just read it and I AM IN LOVE WITH A CHARACTER. The book was (ha-ha, a-ha-ha-ha) stellar. I reviewed it for Dark Valentine Magazine today, if you want to read about it. AND YOU DO.

Okay, doc, take another pill, I got it.

Seriously, two books, highly recommended.

WRITING PROMPT: I’m sure you have a book that you love–not for its associations (Mom read it to me, Belinda gave me a copy). Analyze why the book compels you. Write it down as an essay or a book review. Think about why you love that book as you write your own.

MA

PinterestEmailShare

Tags:

Meanwhile, Back at the Blog….

February 16, 2011 in Food, Sparks o' Joy | 4 comments

PinterestEmailShare

I’m apposta have a post up today at Karen Syed’s LIFE AS A PUBLISHER, but I’m not certain when it goes up so, in the meantime, here is a restaurant review.

[NOTE: Is not today. Is 2/28/11. Duh, me.]

Mom and I went to New Albany and, as always when we go to New Albany, we had lunch at Lancaster’s. Not Tommy Lancaster’s, but Lancaster’s Cafeteria. Fans of food in New Albany (Indiana, in case you don’t know) remember The South Side with mouth-watering fondness. Well, go to Lancaster’s and you’ll think you’re back there. Good home-cooking and reasonable prices. Some of the same staff. Sometimes we invent reasons to go to New Albany, just so we can eat at Lancaster’s, that’s how good it is. Even Charlie likes it, that’s how good it is. You could get a vegetable plate and be happy.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are our favorite days. Tuesdays they have brats and sauerkraut and spareribs, and you can get the kraut with the spareribs rather than the brats, if you prefer. We prefer. Thursdays are chicken-fried steak with plenty of milk gravy. Oh, man, I’m drooling, just thinking about it!

So that’s my Wednesday stop-gap post. When my post at LAAP goes up, I’ll link to it. Meanwhile, what’s your favorite restaurant? Do you have a favorite cuisine in general, but your FAVORITE restaurant is totally different? Because my favorite cuisine is Indian, but my favorite restaurant is Lancaster’s a mid-west home-cooking joint.

WRITING PROMPT: What is your main character’s idea of “home cooking”?

MA

PinterestEmailShare

Tags:

Great Dreams. I mean REALLY.

January 13, 2011 in Grab bag, Sparks o' Joy | 2 comments

PinterestEmailShare

Sometimes I don’t remember my dreams, but I remember some from last night, and they were GREAT!

First, I dreamed a brutal bad guy had me cornered on the top floor of an empty warehouse. No, that’s not the good part. The good part is, I opened a window and flew away. I used to have flying dreams a lot, then I didn’t for a long time, and now I do occasionally. They’re so great! I don’t have wings; I just haul off and fly. It’s so much fun! I’m like Wheeeeeeeee! Sucks to be you, bad guy!

So I Googled “dream interpretation” +flying, and found a site called Dream Moods that tells me the kind of flying I do signifies feeling on top of a situation, equal to anything.

Then I dreamed I was buying stuff, including a lot of sewing notions (I don’t sew) from a flea market but the total was racking up and I had already used some of the stuff. Fortunately–possibly from a combination of flying, fleas and theft–I realized I was The Handsome Monkey King, The Great Sage Equal to Heaven and that I was going to “die” and be reborn as a seamstress. Dream Moods couldn’t interpret that. I checked.

WRITING PROMPT: Pick an object or activity at random, go to a dream interpretation book or site, and see what the interpretation is. Then give a character a dream that ties that interpretation/object/activity to his/her life.

MA

PinterestEmailShare

Tags:

Eye Candy Blogfest

January 1, 2011 in Sparks o' Joy | 14 comments

PinterestEmailShare

Clarissa Draper at Listen To The Voices says that Vicki Rocho at Rambles & Randomness is hosting a blog fest. I’ve never participated in one, and I decided January 1 was a good time to start, especially since this one is easy-peasy. I just have to post a picture that makes me smile every time I look at it.

This is mine:

This is a picture of my husband and me and our #4 daughter many long years ago. I was tickling her. This is my absolute most favorite picture ever in the whole wide world. This was when her middle name was Margaret and we called her Meggie. When she grew up and got married, she changed her middle name to Marian. That’s how much we like each other.

WRITING PROMPT: If your character could name him/herself after anyone, who would it be?

MA

PinterestEmailShare

Tags:

Meteor Hits Corydon!

December 29, 2010 in Food, Sparks o' Joy | 8 comments

PinterestEmailShare

A huge meteor of pure Kryptonite struck the Corydon electrical grid yesterday evening, leaving millions of Corydonians without power. Okay, yeah, I’m lying. I don’t know what happened, but the power went off to a bunch of us for half an hour or so. Happily (or do I mean sadly?) we’ve had enough power outages over the past few years, we just whipped out our battery lights and lit our hurricane lamp and sat down and talked about books and philosophy.

Wednesday is food day here at the blog, so here’s some food we had. I posted at Fatal Foodies yesterday about this butternut squash I bought that was so big you could hollow it out, install a motor, and have a new car. In that post, I said I might use some of the innards to make squash pancakes, and I did that.

I just took about a cup of the butternut spread I made for Christmas (squash cooked till it’s soft, a little butter, a little nutmeg, a little honey, some toasted chopped pecans), stirred in a slightly beaten egg and about two tablespoons of flour and cooked it by 1/4 cupfuls in a buttered pan.

This was breakfast, so I treated mine like pancake pancakes and I ate mine with a drizzle of real maple syrup, but Charlie said they didn’t need any topping, and I think he’s probably right. Quite tasty. I have enough for another round. If you eat ham, I bet this would go really well with some ham.

Now I have to figure out what to have for New Year’s Day. Around here, we usually eat pork, black-eyed peas and cabbage for good luck and prosperity. Now that we’re practically vegetarian, the pork is out. I’m thinking of putting sliced water chestnuts in with the cabbage so the cabbage is like good luck for folding money and the sliced water chestnuts are like good luck for coins? I don’t know what the black-eyed peas represent — good luck in fist fights?

Mom and I were out and about the other day, and I spotted this thoughtful motorcycle, or at least he’s very expressive. I love his little face, and his antennae. He’s like, “Phone home, yeah, but what’s the number again?”

WRITING PROMPT: Invent a good luck dish and explain why it’s supposed to be good luck.

MA

PinterestEmailShare

Tags:

Crafting Under The Influence

December 11, 2010 in Sparks o' Joy | 7 comments

PinterestEmailShare

I have a cold and, possibly feverish, I decided it was the saddest thing ever that I didn’t have a tiny little pickle ornament for my tiny little tree. So I decided to make one. Now, bear in mind that, when my beloved daughter asked for a King Kong costume for Halloween, I bought a length of fake fur and cut a head hole in it and made her a mask out of a paper plate and a rubber band.

1) I tore up a bit of newspaper with green ink on it, even though I was going to paint it, apparently under the impression that this would impart the spirit of greenness to the whole project. I also found a metal poky think with a ring on it, perfect for hanging things on things. I soaked the paper in water, then added some flour to make it pasty, some salt (to make it taste good?) and some peppermint oil (because somebody somewhere told me it would keep the papier mache — you know, paper mashay — from going sour). I think. Anyway, I did it.

2) I wrapped the pasty pepperminty paper around the poky thing and let it dry for 24 hours or so. The pickle bit wanted to slide off the poky bit, so I hit it on the head with some craft glue. This picture is blurry, which is what you can expect when taking pictures under the influence.

3) I painted the pickle with green food coloring and rolled it in glitter. It didn’t have quite the effect I had envisioned, but it was green and sparkly, and that will always do.

4) So now I have a pickle ornament, suitably difficult to find. And I’m bound to win the prize for finding it, because nobody else would have the slightest idea what it’s supposed to be.

WRITING PROMPT: Have a character do something reasonably complicated while under the influence of illness, medication, head trauma, alcohol or other mental disruptor. A child underfoot, possibly.

MA

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
PinterestEmailShare

Tags:

« Older entries § Newer entries »