Are we there yet?

Why Do You Write?

2012-02-25T15:55:00.010-05:00

I get this question a lot and I know you do as well. People want to know why I write and when I started. Why does a Computer Programmer spend as much of her time as she can, away from work, writing fiction and updating a themed blog about making progress?

There is this one thing in life that I experienced that I never thought I would be able to share with anyone much less the world. But it’s at the root of the answer to this question.

Many years ago, I was hospitalized for a week, diagnosed with Paranoid Psychosis. This was triggered by stress brought on by my repressive personality, which led to an extreme case of insomnia. Sounds like a lot, but it was a simple turn of events.

Let me tell you this; there are many things to observe in a mental ward of a hospital. One of which was the fact I didn't belong there. It's funny to me now because people say the craziest in the world think everyone else is crazy. Seriously, everyone belonged in there with the exception of me.

Forget that only three hours prior to being admitted I was having a delusional conversation with my pet rabbit about a conspiracy to end my life, the main conspirators being my husband and two children, ages nine and four.

As the medication and sleep brought my thoughts back into balance, I realized (still) how many fruitcakes there were in that hospital. Knowing I was involuntarily admitted to spend my time in the company of these emotional lunatics was embarrassing. Though not a fruitcake then and still today, very mentally stable, I do have a minor case of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).

It’s not an affliction that keeps me from functioning properly. Though, it keeps my mind constantly cluttered with images and thoughts that I don't want to think about but can't avoid, like what it would sound like cracking a skull with a brick or popping someone’s eyeball. Is it liquid inside? Would there be a noise? I’m too lazy to do the research, so I just think about it.

I think the reason I have thoughts about things like that is because I might want to write a story and those things might happen in my story. In fiction writing, we’re taught to use sensory description; show the reader the horror of your scene, don’t just tell them about it. You want them to experience it, so therefore, it must be convincing.

What does it feel like to choke someone? Do your eyes burn if blood splatters into them? By the way, the answer to that one is NO. I got that from my sister who was in a car accident. Blood dripped down her forehead and into her eyes. She did say I was accurate in that it makes everything look red. Sorry for the digression.

So when I write, it's almost like I can express these things that are in my mind and when it's out there I'm no longer responsible for thinking them because I've shared it now, through whatever outlet. I think that for me fiction writing or creative writing is like a validation of some sort. It’s a way for me to say that it's okay that I thought those things. It's like casting out demons at an exorcism.

After reading about individuality and voice in my last class, I thought about the things in myself that might contribute to my writings in a unique way (afflictions). I’ve sort of gotten used to sharing even the not so flowery parts of my life and who I am and those things I think about no matter how sordid. I feel like I can write about anything, with a great deal of honesty and without inhibition.

So tell me why you write and where it all started for you. Leave a brief comment if you like. But, if you decide to write a longer piece on your own blog/site, I’m providing this form so you can link your post here and we can make it a blog hop! Thanks for sharing.

Here's the code to insert participants on your blog (I couldn't figure out how to place it in here as text).

February Blog Chain - Second Chances

2012-02-20T21:25:00.005-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

The February prompt for the AbsoluteWrite.com blog chain is about second chances. My story is a true one and I thank God every day that I’m here to tell it because in the beginning, before I was even born, I was given a second chance. I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, and the fact that I write this with a light heart is proof enough that I hold no ill feelings toward anyone, including my mom. I love you, mom!

What's a girl to do when told she was almost aborted? I think it was mom’s way of telling me that
she was proud of my accomplishments. Maybe it's the only way she knew how to say it. My accomplishments never really meant anything to anyone because everything I’d accomplished, from bottle weaning to potty training to graduation from high school (wait, I dropped out in the 12th grade), had already been done by my sister who happens to be eleven months older.

So, when it was my turn for accolades after having graduated college? I got the "I'm so happy I didn't go through with that abortion" story. Mom had said she was stunned when the doctor told her she was pregnant two months after she’d had my sister. My future parents were poor at the time and couldn't afford an abortion. So, while they saved up the money, I continued to grow inside her womb.

When they finally had enough to pay for the abortion, mom had felt me kick and decided she couldn't go through with it. Good thing I kicked her when I did. The hell was she thinking anyway?

"Something just told me I shouldn't be doing this," she had said. Yeah, that something was me, telepathically slapping the shit out of you. I didn't actually say that; it's what I felt like saying.

Don't get me wrong. I loved my mother and bless her she is not with us today, but there are just some things you keep to yourself. The fact that she wanted to abort me was her own business, you know? I know her intention was to praise me. Though, I wish it had come out something like, "I'm so proud of you for putting yourself through college. I always knew you were smart." I don’t know, to me it just sounds better.

I wanted to tell her she didn't do me any favors. I was the one who fought to be here. It was my spirit that got me here, despite all the evil contemplations to abort me. I'm not even going to use that word to sugar coat it. She wanted to kill me! She wanted to get rid of that thing she’d created because it would have complicated her life by essentially blessing her with two babies in diapers. I’m glad she discovered it wasn’t that much more work having me tag along.

This was something I really would rather have not known. What was my response supposed to be anyway? Was I supposed to thank her for not killing me so that I would have the opportunity to put myself through college and make something of this life that she’d given me? Had she not divulged this information, everything would be fine, because I'd be thanking her for giving me life rather than thanking God that I kicked her ass when I did.

My mother is not turning over in her grave with this post. She is rather laughing her ass off, knowing I can find humor in such a painful memory. I'm taking advantage of this second chance. I won't let you down, mom!

If you have a second chance story you'd like to share, link it:

Sign up with Simply Linked:

More links, more participants!

Turndog-Millionaire
Tomspy77
LilGreenBookworm
SuzanneSeese
Bogna
kiwiviktor81
randi.lee
areteus
Domoviye
pyrosama YOU ARE HERE
julzperri
Nissie
in_one
sambgood

My First Guest Blog Experience - The Epistolary Form

2012-02-17T23:41:00.002-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

I have to say, I'd never been asked to guest post on another site in the entire three years I've authored my own blog. The one time I'm approached, I get a topic that completely throws me off. Not only am I presented with a writing topic I had to really think about, but one I'd never entertained in my own pursuits, the epistolary form.

I was happy to provide an opinion on where it works and where I find it less appealing for my own tastes. Read the post here.

I hope you visit Fish and Frivolity and leave your comments on what I wrote about this topic. Also, give Julz a big holler for being a great host!

I Met My 30 Year Old Self

2012-02-15T20:25:00.006-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

I accepted a challenge at Florida Writer's Association Conference Blog, a blog I visit on a regular basis. I'm always shocked at how much the authors there inspire me to write things that bring out my personality, that thing they call "voice" in the writer world.

"What if the you of 30 years ago could suddenly spring forward in time and meet the current you? Or, what if the 30-years-younger version of a character could spring forward and meet the current version? Once the technology shock wore off, what would they talk about? How would they feel? Would the younger version be inspired by what he or she saw or depressed? Would the current version long for that youth, or be glad it was gone?"

Take the challenge and I think you will find your voice. Here's mine:

"This is trash, look at this."

The girl places the garment to her chest and spans the sleeve across the length of her arm.

"It's not you," her friend takes the fringed, waist-length blouse.

"I know!"

"Here, try this one on with the black chic jeans. It's cute." Her friend hands her a suede vest with laced sleeves.

"Excuse me," I say.

The girl looks at me and her friend fades into the background.

"Do I know you?" The girl looks at me and immediately gasps.

"I know, I know," I laugh at her because I know what she's thinking.

"Wow, how old are you?"

"I'm forty five," I say.

"Well, you don't have any gray hairs."

"That’s because I get it colored every six to eight weeks."

"Oh, well I guess you're allowed to do that since you're all grown up." She makes air quotes at that. "I’m not even allowed to get highlights."

"Well, when you can afford to cover up the roots every six weeks so you don't get that skunk streak down the middle, do it then."

"Whatever. It's like ten bucks."

"Try a hundred and seventy-five with tip and all."

Her jaw drops.

"You must be rich," she says.

"No, just vain." We laugh together.

Her hair is almost jet black and feathered back away from her face and plastered down with hairspray. I can't remember when I stopped using hairspray and just let my long strands drip dry out of pure laziness.

We stand for a moment and she notices my smile. "What happened to my teeth?"

I touch my mouth, "Oh, the canine?" I knew which tooth she meant. I always hated that tooth, but mom and dad insisted it was cute, way too cute to fix. I look at her smile and decide they were right.

"It's not as cute when you get older, so I had it fixed."

"Cool, I bet that was expensive, huh?"

"Thirty years ago, maybe."

"So what do you do as in a job and all?"

"I'm a Systems Analyst. I make software that runs on computers." I blush and realize the closest thing she has experienced with software so far is Pong, the game where two vertical bars are maneuvered up and down on opposite sides of the screen and a small digital ball is passed back and forth between them.

She's not impressed. Well, she has this blank look on her face, so I assume she's not impressed.

"So, you're a nerd?"

I blink back my surprise. "What? No, I'm not a nerd."

She laughs, "Yes you are!"

I look at her friend, now several feet away, browsing the racks. "Okay," I say. "Miss Honor Society. Miss J.E.T.S. Club. Miss Student Council."

She looks back at her friend. They are both similarly dressed in the latest fashion trends. A bit cartoonish for today's standards.

She studies me for a moment, then says, "Yea, well, I thought I would out-grow it."

Story Settings From My Childhood

2012-02-13T17:00:00.005-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

Here is a fun writing assignment. Think about some of the more interesting places you’ve experienced during your childhood. How would you describe those places today?

Here are three of mine:

Bamboo Hill was a small wooded lot about two blocks away from where we lived. We only climbed about one third of the hill, and nobody ever went past a certain, well-known log. It was 6 feet long and hollowed out from years of decay and rot.

Every tree throughout this lot was a bamboo tree, so we never really knew from where the log came, it was just there, and sort of as a reminder we didn't belong and probably shouldn't climb any further up the hill.

I remember climbing the hill once and I thought I'd used the same path we always used, but on this one day, I didn't stumble upon the old decaying log. Someone had moved it. I started to question myself and wondered had I already passed it? I panicked as soon as I questioned myself because if I did pass that log, then I was further than I should have been.

When seven years old, afraid, and in an unfamiliar place, what typically happens? You hear noises. Small twigs breaking, leaves crunching all around you. Someone calling your name, "Diane...." or was it a whisper? To tell it now, it was my mom calling me in for dinner.

The Stone Statue Museum was a place we used to visit after school. We loved playing there because it was the perfect place for playing hide and seek. The stone statues were all different sizes of fat people with bald heads who sat cross-legged with big smiles on their faces. Other statues were of cats with long necks. Really long necks!

I remember large vases and stones with saucers next to them, at times filled with water, days after a good rain. During hot summer days, the plates always stank of rot and decay. There were also flowers, new and old.

My favorite spot to hide when my sister and I played was within this one slab of concrete. I'd climb in and when I'd scoot back far enough, the darkness would hide me, but I could see anyone who wandered by. Once they passed, I'd count to twenty, then climb out and run to the base!

A year later we found out it was an old cemetery. Someone told my mother we'd been disturbing the peace over there and so she lectured us about disrespecting dead people. That's when I discovered I'd been hiding in a tomb every time I crouched inside my favorite hiding spot. There's no telling what had been inside that large square stone with me, and I try not to think about it so much. Except here, to tell you about it.

The Fish Market is where I used to watch the Asian guy behind the plastic wall prepare fish like you'd watch an Italian dude toss pizza crust in the air and spin it around. Scaling the fish, skinning it and then removing the bone, it was all so artistic and I'd literally be in a trance.

I recall they had this huge barrel with white stuff in it. I didn't know what the white stuff was, but it had the texture of flour. I'd always bury my hands in it because it was so fluffy and soft. Mom would fuss at me while wiping my hands off. One day I stuck my hand in there and fluffed up a giant cockroach. That sort of broke me from sticking my hands in soft fluffy stuff.

Anyway, do you have some childhood places that you remember? Anything you'd like to use as settings for your works in progress?

My 100 Word Response

2012-02-09T22:12:00.002-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

I've enjoyed responding to the fun challenges from Florida Writer's Conference Blog! Here's their latest challenge and my response.

To all the guys (and some of the women) reading this, let’s pretend this picture isn’t about the first thing you thought when you saw it. After all, not everything revolves around that.

Pretending then, that the woman in this picture isn’t in the throes of connubial bliss, in 100 words or fewer, what’s happening in this picture. One thing that might make it more interesting is what could be a foot and a pantleg in the background. So what’s happening here?

Figure it out. One hundred words or less in 20 minutes.

My response:

The holy water strikes her and slits an open wound across her thighs.

“He commands you exit.” The priest hovers the crucifix above her belly.

“It burns!” she screams, but her voice is muffled with a low growl, then laughter.

“He commands you exit the body, He commands it!”

The holy water boils and spills over the top of the bottle and onto the woman’s stomach.

Father Crest is thrust into the desk and his crucifix plunges deep into his right eye.

He falls to the floor, dead.

The woman is fully consumed. The demon gets up and walks away.

5 Annoying Features On Your Blog

2012-02-06T20:45:00.003-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

I’m begging you! Please, please do these things to make your blog more user friendly with the more interactive crowd. I follow many blogs and my commenting and responsiveness relies upon very easy access and quick feedback.

1. Please turn off the captchas. I understand there's spam out there, but if you haven't monetized your blog or posted it up in some of the sites that broadcast to mass marketers, then you really shouldn't need captchas. Only use them when you've discovered spam abuse in your comments. Chances are you will never run across abuse in comments on your personal blogs. You may even discover an increase in the number of responses to your articles. It would be nice if blogging software would allow you to pose a test question to be answered rather than use of the captchas. At least that would make your blog ADA compliant.

2. Please don't change your blog theme as often as the weather changes in Florida. Think about Microsoft and Google and how long they've been around. They still look the same, right? On occasion, Google will change their Logo to accommodate our holidays, whether it's Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, or Valentine's Day. However, they always revert back to what looks familiar to us. Come up with your theme and stick to it. It’s the concept behind branding.

3. Please be sensitive to your audience when selecting font size and color. I've seen font colors that are so difficult to read it may as well be white text on a white background. Also, since I'm getting older and my eyes are getting weaker, I don't want to struggle to read what may otherwise be a very clever and entertaining article. I hate it that I have to by-pass an article because the font isn't big enough for me to read. I'm not going to change the zoom on my screen for one article with small font when I can simply go to the next blog.

4. Please turn off comment moderation. If you want, there's an option that will keep anonymous visitors from posting comments to your blog. Seriously, I'm an instant gratification type person. That means I like to experience things in real time. I want to see my comment published as soon as I click the "post comment" button. It gives me a warm fuzzy to see my posted words on your site, in your theme and all it's beautiful colors and fonts!

5. Please use the spelling and grammar checking tools bundled with your word processing software. There have been a ton of blogs that I've visited and re-visited where I'd find the occasional typo and/or misplaced word (I've done it myself). The fewer there are, the more likely I will visit your site again just to give you kudos and leave comments because I like what I'm seeing.

If I’m coming back and commenting on your blog and you have these dreaded features enabled, then you have an awesome blog because I feel compelled to visit despite them!

So, tell me. What features out there in the blog-o-sphere have you flustered? Share them here. I do make subtle changes on mine, all coming as suggestions by readers who visit. The one thing I refuse to change is my white text on a dark background. I was raised on the internet playing MUDs and it is an absolute must for me.

My Guy Mitt

2012-02-02T10:29:00.003-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

My fellow blogger, Under Cover Waitress, posted about paying taxes on tips and because I am thoroughly entertained by her posts, I pay particular attention to every word. So, you can imagine my angst when she calls out my guy, Mitt Romney, for only paying 15% in taxes as revealed by the release of his tax return. You know I have to defend my guy. After all, I voted for him! Go Florida! By the way, I'm so happy to have been a part of the republican primaries, and the volunteers had an awesome display of goodies to feed us voters.

Back to my rival blogger. She is correct; Romney only paid 15% of his income. He is not currently employed though, so his only income comes in as capital gains, and 15% is the going rate. He invests his money. Why...that BASTARD!

Listen, if all these rich guys didn't invest their money and instead put it all in a safe in their houses, where do you think we'd be in this economy now? Sure, they wouldn't make any money on it, but they wouldn't be risking the "loss" of it either, especially with the economy as volatile as it is these days.

When rich people invest money, they earn money. Isn't earning money a good thing? Or has America become a country that doesn't believe that people should earn money? Besides, he was already taxed on the money he earned, which he now invests. The more you invest, the more you earn, and therefore, the more you pay taxes. Who's getting screwed here? And the guy still paid millions of dollars to charities and 10% of his income to his church.

Earning money is something we all strive to do. Some of us do it smarter and some of us don't. The person who sits at home collecting unemployment because the pay is more than he'd get busting his ass making minimum wage is smart. Sure, he's pissing me off, because my tax dollar provided the program which allows this to happen. Now, my guy Mitt, he's making money off the money he already earned. Nobody's tax dollar is contributing to his ability to do that.

I'm no Mitt Romney, but I think he understands the consequences if he chooses not to work his assets as best for him and his family as he can. That means no wasted opportunities for growth. Don't you want someone like that looking out for America as a whole? Or would you rather the government take risks and gamble with our tax dollars and leave the mess behind for our kids to cleanup?

We need to stop electing people who want to spend our tax dollars "unwisely" and we need to stop worrying about "fair" distribution. Nothing is ever fair. It's not fair that someone in my family got back more taxes than they paid in. It's not fair that we have people going hungry every day, who have to go to soup kitchens that operate off charitable contributions made by people who earn money and pay taxes.

Middle class
$150,000.00 x 35% = $52,500.00 (thousands in taxes)

Wealthy class
$21,000,000.00 x 15% = $3,150,000.00 (millions in taxes)

How is that fair? But, he paid it, right? At least he didn't "forget to pay" his taxes like some politicians.

Let's discuss. Do you believe that top wage earners should be taxed a higher percentage rate? If so, why?

A Hero Because

2012-01-31T21:34:00.001-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

My daughter wrote this poem about her dad. I see all the truth in it and I'm so touched by it that I wanted to share it with you. This is my family, and I know I'm blessed.

A hero because...

He has everything he could ever want,
Though growing up with absolutely nothing.
He tried his best to reach success,
In return is looked up to by many.
He is twice the father as most,
Because he knows the feeling of losing one.
He is there for me,
When no one else is.
He is the man who has my heart,
In doing so he has my love.
He tries his hardest to stay healthy,
In hopes of walking me down the aisle.
He is my Daddy,
The only man I can depend on.

I picked this photo out for a representation of the poem.

The Social Media Scrutiny

2012-01-29T21:31:00.002-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

My husband and I had a discussion tonight about how social media has affected so many people, not just as a positive collaboration tool for the professional, but as a negative conduit into our personal lives. I thought this might be a perfect opportunity to reflect on how social media “should” be used and how you might want to consider your “brand” or self-product when presenting yourself to the world.

I’m not sure if you’ve had an opportunity to read about the police officer who posted a photograph of himself, posing with gun-toting, teenagers and an anti-Obama T-shirt. At first, I thought it ridiculous the scrutiny given by the Secret Service. But after further reflection, I realized that the police officer brought the scrutiny upon himself, didn’t he? I wanted to say to the police officer, “Where’s your judgment?” His lack of judgment is on display here, not any threat to the life of our President.

Another thing I’ve witnessed lately is the number of disgruntled workers who post about their “shitty” days at work. Um, do you know how many people are out of work who would love to have your job right now? Think about that for a moment.

Commenting about your dissatisfaction at work isn’t very appropriate, and Facebook and other social media are not the places to voice your dissatisfaction. Is it your right to speak your mind? Don’t you have the freedom to express yourself? Sure you do, but those whom you express your feelings toward have that same right, and their freedom of expression, accomplished through professional means, might not be helpful to you or your future.

If you have a problem with your employer, or even some personal issues that are making your life miserable, there’s nothing that screams you are a hazard to your work environment than a posted rant on Facebook.

If you’re feeling slighted at work for any reason, talk it over with a trusted co-worker or go home and sit down to a nice dinner and discuss these issues with someone who has your best interest at heart.

The fact that you have 500 friends on Facebook doesn’t mean that you have an Army ready to support your cause, whatever that might be. They won’t be standing by, ready to offer you a job when you are fired for calling your boss an asshole in your status. Do you remember that friend you added three years ago? She’s a friend of a friend’s mother whose daughter hangs out with your boss’s daughter.

I’m not saying to hide your true self. I encourage people to put their best selves in the public eye. If you feel that you have a great sense of humor and want to post pictures of yourself displaying your funniest faces, go for it! Just remember that your future, potential employers may be looking to hire someone a bit more serious.

Yes, you do have certain privacy rights. Social media is as private as you want it to be, such that the ultimate privacy is to not have an account at all.

Mine is just one, but I'd like to hear your opinions on social media's impact over what we believe to be our Constitutional Rights to freedom of speech.

10 Lousy Story Starts

2012-01-25T17:19:00.004-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

When I’m browsing a book shelf for something to read, I typically just reach for anything and read the first page and if it doesn’t hook me right away, I might go to the second page or even to the third page. However, there are a few things that if encountered on the first page, I’m most likely going to close the book with a sideways glance and my nose up in the air. Bad, huh? I know. Here are those things that make me drop a book faster than Obama spending our tax dollars.

1. Please don’t start your novel with a weather report. You know what I mean. “It was a cold, dark night and the rain blasted the windshield like a windstorm in a desert.” This is the modern day version of “Once upon a time…”

2. I don’t like to read a first paragraph that starts with a character driving in a car, traveling somewhere. Why? Because it’s boring. You’re just writing what ten thousand people before you wrote only trying it with an arrangement of different words. It’s painful to read. Readers skip this stuff anyway, so why waste your time writing it? Instead of reading the words, your reader hears a song playing in their head, “I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places…”

3. How many books must I read which start off with a character waking to an alarm clock or coming home to listen to an answering machine? And that phone call in the middle of the night? That’s not what Christopher Vogler refers to as the “Call to Adventure”. This is just another way for a writer to “start” putting words onto the page. When you get into the groove of writing your novel, please go back and delete this first scene. It’s been done. Over. And over. And over, again.

4. If you’re writing a mystery novel, please don’t introduce a nanny or butler. I will automatically assume they did it and not read the rest of the book. As a matter of fact, if I read the back cover of a mystery novel and it mentions castle, mansion or lost key, I won’t read it.

5. If you’re writing a romance novel, please don’t mention children unless they were killed off along with the ex-wife in a horrible accident years ago, leaving this gorgeous, wealthy, pain-stricken man, with a void in which only the virginal heroine can fill. Is that mean? Probably, but in reality, children and exs are huge in the baggage department.

6. If I read one more horror novel depicting a painting on the wall in which the eyes in the painting follow you and suddenly look away when you peer back, I will scream. And not from the horror of it either. Even the phone call which quietly yet urgently reveals the killer is in the house hasn’t been played out this much.

7. Breakfast in the morning with kids getting ready for school and a husband stuffing toast in his mouth while attempting to dress himself… is not a good story beginning. Why? Who am I to say it’s not a good story beginning? I’m a reader. Trust me, it sucks.

8. If I read more than one ‘ ly ’ adverb in the first paragraph of a novel, it gets put down automatically. This is a no-no. “The Baroness slipped gingerly from the satin covers and stretched effortlessly before promptly placing her feet into her slippers and daintily waltzing out onto the veranda.” Okay, that sucks, even without the adverbs. But, I think the point is made.

9. Don’t start your story with your main character taking a stroll through their house and garden. This is where the writer describes everything down to the detail, from the embroidered tapestry and cherry wood stained crown molding, to the French doors leading toward the rock garden and a ten by ten gazebo framed by white azalea bushes. Not necessary! This is where your character lives, day in and day out, right? Trust me, they’ve seen it before. Writers who do this are doing it for the pleasure of the reader. I get that. But it doesn’t add to the plot and it’s not really character development. Okay, so maybe the writer wants to show the character’s background, maybe give hints to the character’s class? She drives a Lexus; let’s move on. See what I mean?

10. If you’re writing in first person point of view, please don’t start with a physical description while your character is gazing at her reflection in the mirror. This is so jarring. In reality, do you think I’d actually walk up to someone and introduce myself like so, “Hi, my name is Diane Carlisle. I have brown hair, brown eyes and a slim figure. My hair is straight and I have a great smile.” I’d get some strange looks, wouldn’t I? Maybe after a short pause, “Why…of course you are! And, of course you do!” They’d walk away knowing I’m just a special person who rode the short bus.

So, your turn! What makes you put down a book before you even finish the first page?

Modern Day Truism - Hare vs. Tortoise

2012-01-18T22:18:00.002-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

My first homework assignment for Reading Fiction was to pick a truism and write a scene. This was harder than I expected, but what I came up with was something I'd never consider writing. Weird, but I wanted to share it because I never considered touching upon techno holistic or semi mythological ideas. If this scene reflects that, it wasn't meant to. This is out of left field with some of my geekiness to go along with it.

Truth Behind The Dinosaur

"Father assigned me control of the Southern District of Baahl."

"Congratulations." Sabran eyed his brother and gave a slight smile. "What miracle did you perform for that honor?"

Grish placed a finger on the global grid of the universe and enlarged the holistic map. "I closed the black hole on G6." He crossed his arms about his chest and studied the map with pride.

Sabran shook his head in disgust, "You risked the lives of 2 million mortals and the destruction of several eco-systems in the western hemisphere of Cantura."

"You would have me consider the alternative of spending several years analyzing the risks before making a decision." Grish scoffed at his brother.

Sabran shrugged, "In University, we were taught to think before we act. In that way, we make worlds that are sustainable."

Grish laughed and put an arm around his younger brother. "I didn't have the luxury of an education at the notorious Demigod University. But here's a lesson from me to you. If you mess up, just start over and make a new world, a better one."

"I don't make worlds. I make systems."

"Grish, Sabran! In my chambers, now."

The brothers knelt in unison before their father.

"The earth has gone off course and has become unbalanced. I want you both to work together to resolve this. Sabran, I understand earth is within your domain, but I want Grish to take the lead on this project as we must move swiftly."

Standing before the holistic map, Grish enlarged the earth and displayed it's resources. "What do you think about the bodies of water encroaching on the eastern banks of Asia?"

"I would create a fault on the ocean bed of the Caribbean Seas. Over time, the land masses will shift and the waters will level out."

"That will take 3.5 million years. In those years, how many earthquakes and tsunamis do you think will effect change?"

"It is the most practical way. Natural disasters bring mankind together. That is what keeps earth from total destruction."

"No. I say we extract five million tons of water from the Pacific shores off the coast of Bangkok. That will place the sea level in the right place."

Sabran sighed, "We can agree to disagree, but you will be affecting a major source of food for the Asians. King mackerel is in season at the moment."

Grish nodded, "Mankind is resilient. They will overcome."

"That's what you said of the dinosaurs when father put you in charge of that project."

Does the title of this post reflect what's in my story? Leave me a comment! :)

5 Stupid New Year Resolutions

2012-01-11T22:05:00.024-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

Winter Nightmare

Another broad blog chain at Absolute Write: go wherever the prompt takes you. It can be fiction or non-fiction, the nightmare can be Cthulhu or just a struggle with a troublesome New Year's resolution (or anything in between).

I’m going with something in between, like telling you about some really stupid ideas for New Year’s resolutions. Here they are and the reasons I think they are stupid.

1. I’m going to quit smoking – Really? You can imagine this going down like so. You’re partying all night. It chimes midnight. The ball drops in Times Square. Everyone sings Auld Lang Sine as you down what’s left in your plastic champagne glass. You stumble out onto the balcony to light up a cigarette in the cold, night air. You’ve just broken your New Year resolution. Congratulations.

2. I’m going to start a new diet – This one is really stupid. I don’t know about you, but every New Year’s Day my family traditionally cooks an amazing spread with glazed ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, mac and cheese (with extra cheese), corn bread, black eyed peas and green beans, cooked slow with bacon or a smoked ham hock. If you start your diet on this day, you’ll only resent your New Year’s resolution. Defeated and miserable, you’ll shovel your face with food and instantly wish you hadn’t. Ashamedly, you will discover that you gained another 3 pounds before you even started that diet.

3. I’m going to quit drinking – Right, because when you wake up with your hangover in the morning, you’ll wish you had a bite of the dog that bit you the previous evening. You pour a shot the next morning to take the edge off. We’ve all done it. Oh well, maybe next year, because your buddy has a party tonight and the hot twins from Waverly are invited. Seriously, there’s no need to quit drinking unless you have a drinking problem, in which case, the resolution should be “Start AA”.

4. I’m going to join the gym – First of all, if you weren’t already exercising before, joining a gym isn’t going to motivate you to do so in the New Year. You’ll just commit yourself to a yearlong hassle of trying to get your money back and threatening law suits because the gym won’t stop charging your credit card for monthly fees or they refuse to refund your prepaid membership.

5. I’m going to quit swearing like a sailor – This is moronic. As soon as you wake up in the morning from a night of ringing in the New Year, your head is pounding, your heart is racing and you can’t find the bottle of aspirin. With one eye closed, shutting out the light, and the other half-open to find your way, you stub your pinky toe on the corner of the dresser, “Fuck!” Oops, you just broke your New Year resolution, “Damnit!”

Anyway, that’s my January blog chain entry. Please visit these other participating blogs:

orion_mk3 (link to this month's post)
MamaStrong (link to this month's post)
pyrosama YOU ARE HERE
Turndog-Millionaire (link to this month's post)
Alpha Echo (link to this month's post)
LilGreenBookworm (link to this month's post)
Domoviye (link to this month's post)
writingismypassion (link to this month's post)
kimberlycreates (link to this month's post)
Suzanne Seese (link to this month's post)
Diana Rajchel (link to this month's post)
Ralph Pines (link to this month's post)
Alynza (link to this month's post)
Literateparakeet (link to this month's post)
in_one (link to this month's post)
Tomspy77 (link to this month's post)
Inkstrokes (link to this month's post)
kiwiviktor81 (link to this month's post)
These Mean Streets (link to this month's post)
areteus (link to this month's post)
AbielleRose (link to this month's post)

Found My Plotting Tool

2012-01-09T16:15:00.000-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

Last month I purchased Contour, a software tool to help me with plotting. I've been struggling with plot for the past year or two. Now that I have this tool, I'm using it to sort of structure a lot of the content I've been developing in my head for so long. Forget the scenes I've created, I can copy and paste them in later!

After combing through the manual, I discovered very quickly that my character will go through 4 phases of the hero’s journey, a character arc, and here are those phases. I will share more of my learning experiences as I grow in knowledge with this particular software package.

The Orphan

Basically, my character has to have flaws if my audience is going to root for them, so this has to be identified in the very beginning. I must use my protagonist to hook the reader.

Maybe she is fighting alcoholism, a broken heart, or a social stigma on top of discrimination. Are there deep rooted issues that will make my character struggle more in their upcoming journey? If there isn't, I must create some! Sounds good to me.

The Wanderer

This is the period of time where my character is discovering within themselves their purpose and objectives. The meat of my story is within this stage and the following stage. My character must be setup to discover things that are important to them and their mission. Within this stage I can also have sub plots.

Who's to say I can't go off in the weeds and sneak in some romance in my suspense/thriller? Okay! Exciting stuff for me.

The Warrior

My character will realize they must do things for themselves. Nobody can do what needs to be done except for my protagonist. This is where my audience will begin to root for her even more because they are now emotionally connected to her.

She displays courage in following through her objective and her climb is steep toward her arc. Soon, she will cycle over. At the end of this stage, she will struggle and her greatest stakes will present themselves and she may be doomed to failure.

The Martyr

My protagonist will come to a complete arc. She must perform a selfless act that will endanger her life in some way. This is usually an act that exposes her flaws and when she follows through with it she will be fully changed from within.

***

This is the character arc that I've needed to understand a bit more in my stories. I hope it will prove to be the answer to all my problems with finishing a novel.

I will definitely be posting more about the things I learn in this quest to understand plot. Stay tuned, and wish me luck!! :D

Do you have any advice on plot? What are your favorite elements of plot?

5 Developmental Stages of Sagehood

2012-01-04T16:11:00.002-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

If you are over the age of forty, you have more than likely experienced most of these stages in different aspects of your life, whether at work, in your social groups or even in your political circles. So where is the wisdom we lost in knowledge? Here is another post about making progress in life and technology. I hope you get more out of it than the humor with which I intended to serve it.

Stage One - Communication: that thing that happens when everyone realizes they are expendable and someone's looking for a scapegoat.

Stage Two - Teamwork: that thing that happens when you join forces with others to ensure you do not become said scapegoat.

Stage Three - Competence: that thing that happens when you realize you don't know how to do something and so you hire someone who does.

Stage Four - Backbone: that thing that grows along your spine when you realize that you are the only one who has progressed beyond stage three.

Stage Five - Transparency: that thing that happens when you finally cleanup all the stuff created due to improper execution during stages one and two.

So, are you a Sage? What stages do you recognize and which stages have you mastered?

Signing Out From 2011

2011-12-31T21:08:00.000-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

Closing out the year with these few thoughts that make me thankful I have another year coming.

My son came home after three and a half years in the Army, having endured a year in Iraq. He served in the Infantry of all fields! He is now enrolled in college, studying Information Technology and working full time. I'm so very proud and thankful of his service, but am truly happy that he is home safe.

My daughter and I have become closer than we'd ever been. Her broken heart gave me an opportunity to step up to the plate and show what I really had in me as a mother. We experienced some major bonding this year and I even heard her tell another person that I was her best friend. I'm not one of those moms who try to be the daughter's best friend either. See...I wasn't even trying at something and it just happened. :)

My husband of 25 years had all his CT scans come back clean this entire year! That's cancer free 1/5th of the way! Four more years and it'll be like he never had cancer. How awesome is that?

I've even made major accomplishments for myself that needed to be made. I've given up on striving in my field of study and leaned more toward nurturing my desire to write and opening the pathways to discover what is the right path for me. Sure, my job pays my bills, but it doesn't keep me healthy and lively, not like what I produce when I am writing.

I've joined the Tallahassee Writer's Association, the Florida Writer's Association and I've been accepted into a local writing group comprised of editors, published writers and fellow professionals in the Tallahassee community. My next pursuit is to join the Toast Masters Club here in Tallahassee so that I can brush up on my speaking skills.

Life is good, people! All you have to do is figure out what you like to do and do away with the people in your life who are keeping you down. Follow your dreams. It's not about getting a bigger paycheck, it's about making progress. Sometimes you have to take a step back to make that happen.

Bring on the New Year!

Why Guys Really Are From Mars

2011-12-28T20:58:00.006-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

Going on 25 years of marriage, I was thinking back to the times before we were married and it made me wonder why I considered marriage at such a young age. Not only was my husband the same handsome man he is today, but he was a miracle after having endured a few years dealing with men who really were from Mars. How did he approach me and ask me out?

"What time do you get off work?"

"Two o'clock."

"Can I buy you breakfast?"

"I'd like that."

I found out later that he needed to be up at 6:00 in the morning to make it into work on time. I didn’t learn about that during the date; it was much later into our relationship, when he was comfortable enough that I would realize it didn’t matter.

See how simple that was? There's nothing fake, no non-sense, and none of this hidden agenda and side stepping. There were just a few simple questions and a little bit of confidence and genuine feeling. That's all it took.

However, before my lovely husband came along and swept me up with his no non-sense swag, there were 5 truly remarkable approaches made toward me that deserved a rejection. I wasn't really equipped at the time to respond to these really bizarre approaches, but I can respond to them today. Here they are. Each approach now has a title and my official answer!

The Jail Bait

"My ex-girlfriend works at the Foxy Lady. Will you go there with me tonight so I can make her jealous?"

Um, sure. I always wanted to go to a strip club and get beat up by an angry, naked girl and end up in jail for sexual assault because I accidentally touched her boob while defending myself.

The Little Black Book

"Can I get your phone number in case I want to ask you out sometime?"

The priorities are all wrong here. Ask me out on a date first, then get the phone number. Okay?

The Fan Club

Rolling a joint, "Some friends and I are hanging out at the Mullet Festival this weekend. Want to tag along?"

The Mullet Festival is not a stage, you are not a rock star and I am not your groupie.

The Look At Me Now

He gloriously fans out 10 twenty dollar bills and says, "Would you sleep with me now?"

You had a better chance before.

The Self Fullfilling Prophecy

"I was going to ask you out, but you're not really my type."

I was going to say no, but you never really asked me out.

There was a Dilbert cartoon that came out this week featuring “The Topper”. In the name of my favorite cartoon, can any of you top these? Please tell me your story and give me your answers you weren’t able to provide in the heat of the moment!

All About My 5th Grade Bully

2011-12-23T17:48:00.006-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

I commented about school lunches on April Plummer's blog this past week and it got me thinking about childhood traumas, or what I call childhood dramas today. This led me to thinking about an issue which has become a huge problem today, and not only amongst children either. Bullying is becoming so widespread, or is it just getting more visibility because of social media and technological advances?

I remember the girl who bullied me when we were in 5th grade. I can envision her face as I'm writing this. When I see her, this child who must have been lashing out, but at what I couldn't begin to tell you, she is just that, a small child.

Her name was Ellen Mathews (name changed to protect her in case she’s a changed person today). She always wore a dress. She didn't wear new dresses. They were old and two sizes too big. Her hair wasn't glistening and shiny like the other black girls whose moms had obviously taken care to comb, braid and polish their hair before sending them off to school.

Ellen's hair was scary. I can only imagine that she had to do her own hair. Her braids were loosely twisted together like the hairy legs of a tarantula spider and they looked like they had a fine layer of volcanic ash dusted over them. Her skin wasn't golden, chocolaty or brown, it was an ashy black and her eyes the same. She knew I was afraid of her and I think that made things worse.

Why do I remember her so vividly? Because up until that point, I'd never been bullied in my life. Sure I'd been in arguments and fights with other kids, but being bullied is a whole different issue. I'd never felt so alone as I did when I was bullied, and that face and her demeanor, mannerisms and all, will never go away.

Such little things a person can do to terrify another person and she probably didn't realize it. Maybe someone was doing it to her, I don't know. But, how else does a child learn that kind of behavior? I mean to ball up your fist, bug out your eyes with an angry grimace and silently mouth to someone you barely know, “I’m a get you.” That doesn’t just come from a 5th grade little girl.

I remember once we were on our way to the library and she walked up next to me and started teasing me and so I sped up. Then she sped up so that we were neck and neck again. I slowed down and so did she. I was afraid and she knew it. Then she said, "I'm a beat you up when we get out the library."

I didn't say anything back, I just kept walking. My entire session at the library was spent worrying about being beat up. Ten minutes before the bell rang, she looked over and stared at me. I glanced away, but each time I looked up again, she was still staring at me and her face looked angrier and angrier. It was like the first time I'd watched The Wizard of Oz and Miss Gulch rode by on her bike during the tornado and then turned into the wicked witch of the west. I remember all I wanted to do was go home.

I felt claustrophobic. All the other children at my table seemed to be caught up in their own groups, laughing and whispering with each other, and the librarian was busy cataloguing books. It was the loneliest feeling I'd ever experienced. I should have told a teacher, but I didn't want to bother anyone with my little issue. I didn't want anyone to know I was afraid, that this little girl who was smaller than me was making me afraid.

Anyway, she beat me up like she said she would. I was shoved and pushed against another child, who got mad at me for stumbling into them and thus pushed me back into the bully. Of course, they couldn't get mad at the person responsible for pushing me into them, right? The whole time I wanted to apologize to each person I stumbled into in hopes that they'd forgive me and not join the harassment.

Of course, I didn't tell my parents because I didn't get punched in the eye or mouth, no black eye or fat lip. She didn't hit me, just lots of shoving and pushing which sort of injured my pride a bit. Then a teacher got word that there was a "fight" and Ellen and I both had to write "I will not fight in school" five hundred times each. Sad, isn't it?

The next morning I remember going into my parent's bedroom and whispering to my mother, "I don't feel good. Can I stay home from school?" The dreaded hand to my forehead to check my temperature was an indication that I'd be going to school to face my bully yet again.

This sort of thing didn't happen every day. But you just never knew when it was going to happen. How do you prepare yourself to face such a person? There was always that day when I'd show up at school and Ellen didn't. CHA-CHING!! Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, free at last! Well, at least for that one day.

Celebrate This Giveaway - Win Writer's Software

2011-12-21T19:59:00.002-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

Come celebrate with me! You have an opportunity to win a license for one copy of Contour, a software package that will help generate your plot for that novel you've been mulling over. It's a $50.00 value!

All you have to do is sign up for my free newsletter which will ensure that you receive an electronic version of my future blog entries. When you do this, you will receive an email asking to verify your listed email address. If you're not sure how to sign up, just post a comment with your email address. Be sure to use "at" in place of "@" in your address to ensure spammers cannot extract it. I will personally sign you up to receive your subscription without the additional hassle.

On the day of my 10,000th hit (next couple weeks), I will randomly draw an email address and the winner of that drawing will receive an email from me with a link and license code for access to the site and download of the software.

If you have any questions, please contact me via the contact form at the bottom of this page.

I can't wait to see who wins! I want to exchange our first plot creations with Contour (I bought a copy for myself as well. You didn't think you'd get something I didn't already have...did you?).

:)

Merry Christmas everyone!!

***UPDATE: 10,000 hits exceeded on 12/29/2011 and winner has been granted one license of this software!

My Top 10 Pet Peeves of the Romance Novel

2011-12-16T14:00:00.002-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

I am not picking on romance writers. I’m picking out some elements of romance novels that bother me, especially when they are over done or poorly written. So, here are my top 10 pet peeves on the romance novels that I’ve read throughout the years. Don’t worry, mystery/suspense novels, you’re next!

1. His eyes danced across her bosom

Really? Aside from the fact that eyeballs do not have arms and legs and therefore cannot possibly dance anywhere, let alone atop her voluminous breasts, this just grates on my nerves. I want to pluck those pesky eyeballs from her chest and hoist them back into their sockets.

2. Kissing and flirting for increased sexual tension

When a story is already classified as a romance, there’s no question that there will exist a sexual tension of sorts between the hero and heroine. But don’t ruin it with the occasional stolen kiss or less than climactic romp in the hay throughout the storyline. It’s not necessary and it makes the consummation less meaningful and intense. When he finally “takes her” it should be all the way or nothing. Wait, that’s too much like real life chemistry.

3. The sardonic smile

Seriously, what does this look like? Does one side of his lip go up in a quirk and the other in a half-ass smile? Awkward, isn't it? Why doesn't he just smile after making a satirical remark? Is that too difficult to put down on paper?

4. His smile reached his eyes.

Don't you picture a set of stretched lips popping out from behind the eyes, gasping for breath after having climbed some mysterious set of stairs in order to get there?

5. The seduction by the virginal heroine, while the hero watches with obvious amusement

This is painful to read. This doesn't happen in reality. No matter how clumsy a beautiful, young woman's attempt at seduction, no male object of her affection is going to be watching with amusement. He will be involved from the beginning when she asks, "Would you like to come in for a drink?" This is not amusing to any man; this is serious business. Anything a woman does from this point on deserves his full attention, seriously.

6. Aftermath of the lust-filled evening

Why does the guy always get up first, leaving the woman to awaken, alone, cheeks burning as she reflects upon her behavior from the previous evening? Instead, I want to see her walk in when he wakes up. I want her to be fully clothed and in control. She drops a few photos on the bed and says, "My real name is Isabelle Gonzales and I'm a spy. I've been following your involvement with Cicero, Inc. We'll need to clear a few things up before breakfast." Exit heroine, wearing 4 inch stilettos and an Armani suit. But hey, that's just me.

7. Enter femme fatale

Why are they always a mirror image of the bitchiest girl in high school? A woman doesn't have to be a complete bitch to make another woman feel insecure. I'd like to read some fresh material on this element of romance. The femme fatale is over played and certainly under appreciated by me.

8. Good looking millionaires thinking that a woman is after his money

Right, because he certainly doesn’t have anything else going for him. Perfect teeth, brilliant smile, confidence, strength and a great command over the people around him -- no, that's not attractive at all. It's definitely his money she's after. Nothing like ruining a perfectly wonderful hero by making him a dumbass on top of all his greatness.

9. The big misunderstanding

Every romance has one. The perceived socialite is discovered to be a virgin. The hermit lumber jack turns out to be the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. Ta da! Surprise! Really?

10. Wrapping it all up

The ending of a romance is always the boring part to me. All the mysterious things going on have to be wrapped up by the author in such a way that you will understand why something happened that probably shouldn't have happened without explanation. This is also the part where the man gets mushy and drops the facade of being the strong, wealthy, confident man with whom she fell in love. He's become a wallowing wimp and she cries tears of joy over his professed love for her.

The End

From My Digital Studio

2011-12-13T20:17:00.000-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

Many of my blog entries are geared more toward writing, blog chains and tips. Sometimes I've gone off in the weeds and wrote a piece or two about technology or maybe I've ranted about something that annoyed me.

Well, here's another digression for you. I want to share some of my other artistic endeavors. Surprise! Aside from dabbling in writing, I enjoy photography. Actually, I was asked to photograph a friend's wedding in April and I'm a bit nervous about doing it, so I was hoping for some feedback.

If you enjoy the slides, please let me know by commenting. It would give me that extra confidence I'm going to need in order to pull off a wedding!

A Picture's Worth 50 Words

2011-12-08T15:56:00.003-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

I came across this photo because I was looking for some inspiration to write a steamy, romantic scene for my suspense/mystery project. After I stumbled upon this, I got to thinking. What's going on here? And who the hell is that dude in the background?

So now, of course, my OCD is kind of looping along here. I can't get anything done because I can't think of anything other than the purpose of the guy in the background. If you look closely, he isn't even looking at the couple in the hay. He's looking over to the right. If I were him, I'd at least have a seat on one of those bales of hay and enjoy the entertainment.

Seriously, could anyone possibly come up with any sort of fictional situation that could explain this photo? Can you write your version of what's going on here?

I started thinking along the lines:

While waiting for his turn with the lady Jessica, Patrick noticed a movement at the side entrance to the barn and decided to have a look. He wasn't about to let anyone get in the way of his chances to score, even though he was getting Mack's sloppy seconds.

In 50 words or less, please share your story in the comments.

T'was The Night Before Upgrades

2011-12-03T16:01:00.026-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

This month's prompt:
Home for the Holidays (not associated with the real Holiday).

This one is broad: write about a holiday memory. It can be fiction or non-fiction, and the choice of holiday is yours (fictional holidays are okay too). Perhaps you can invent an annoying relative.

******************************************************

I'm going with a poem this time. Before I became a Developer, I was a Systems Administrator to the home of several AS400 systems. An upgrade can make you feel so alone in the world because they had to be performed when nobody was using the systems, mainly at the early hours after midnight. Since it's supposed to be a holiday blog, I'll try and keep it to the beat of Twas the Night Before Christmas.

T'was the night before upgrades
No developer in sight
The server backed up
Tapes locked away tight

With the coffee pot on
And I fraught with jitters
Had stayed for the evening
Left behind by the quitters

At the strike of midnight
I looked at my plan
To remind myself
How important I am

The lights were all dim
The cubicles bare
My own sense of doom
Cried out in despair

Let one thing go wrong
Just one little glitch
Your career will be over
Before the first pitch

I took a deep breath
And opened the door
The room lit up
No motion ignored

I loaded the drive
And it whirred with a noise
I stood back and waited
Patience and poise

When it was over
And my pride was restored
I knew right then
Why I never get bored

Life is not easy
While at the helm of the ship
It's better than jumping
At the crack of a whip

A holiday message
From me to you
Always have pride
In the things that you do

Creating Character Emotions - Apathy

2011-11-30T14:19:00.002-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

From Dictionary.com - apathy [ap-uh-thee] noun, plural -thies.

1. Absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.
2. Lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.

Squeegee

The floating scaffold moved side to side, sloshing about the soapy water in his bucket. He whipped the squeegee downward in a quick motion, the excess fluid sprayed off into the wind like a mist. The muffled voices inside just another part of the scenery, a hundred feet in the air in front of his 15th window of the day.

The screaming on the other side seemed like a movie playing in the background. He pressed the spongy strip to the glass and made square patterns on the surface, the liquid dripping toward the bottom pane and carrying a summer’s worth of dust and pigeon shit in its stream. A green and white speck hitched a ride inside a soapy bubble the size of a nickel.

The woman threw a vase across the room, "I hate you!"

The man ducked and the fixture shattered against a closed door.

He'd witnessed this scene before in his own living room, back when Margie used to watch the Soap Operas. He would leave her alone, engrossed in her favorite episodes. Something else could occupy his time. Make a sandwich. Swat at flies. Anything.

He flipped the squeegee over to its rubber side and pulled downward, pressing hard against the glass. The water flowed quickly, gravity forcing the drips to race each other to the bottom.

In two large strides, the man closed the gap between himself and the woman, placing his hands around her neck. He looked angry.

The wind shifted the scaffold back and forth and the clean surface he just uncovered gleamed in contrast to the rest of the window. He again placed the squeegee back to the top and pulled down. A pigeon stopped in for a visit and perched itself on a side panel.

“Hello there little fellow.”

The pigeon cooed back at him.

The woman tried kicking and punching, but she looked as if she was losing in her struggle for air. Her punches and kicks slowed down and then she was still.

"People will be people, eh?" he said to the pigeon and then raised the squeegee to remove the rest of the soapy liquid before moving on to his next window.

I Turned 45 Today!

2011-11-22T11:34:00.001-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

I didn't think I'd ever have the opportunity to speak those words. Or, in this case, should I say write them? It's one of those things you never think about when you're 18 or so. You don't just wake up on a given morning and go, "Wow, one day I'm going to be old." It just sort of happens to you. But funny thing is, when you turn 45, you actually do look ahead 10 and 20 years, because now you're looking at retirement, and a few more of those pesky wrinkles.

Did you know God created us in a way such that our eyes go bad right around the same time we start noticing the fine lines? Yes, you actually look a lot worse than what you're seeing in the mirror. God has compassion. My eye doctor called the other day to remind me that it's time for my annual eye exam. I said, "No it's not, I'm fine!"

But I'm not going to think about that today. Today is my birthday and so I'm going to celebrate by listing a few things in my life for which I've been truly grateful.

1. My husband. Because no matter how old I get, he'll always be 8 years older. I just need to keep him young and healthy so that I die before he does.

2. My children. Thank goodness I endured having them AND raising them. When you get to be my age, you appreciate that you have adult children around who can take care of you when you can't take care of yourself anymore.

3. My college degree. I was going to save the world from that Y2K bug. Remember that? I graduated with my Computer Science degree in 1998. I was ready for them to unleash the beast unto the world so that I may slay it and be truly worthy. Nothing glorious there, just a lot of painfully monotonous coding and testing.

4. My sister. Because she is 11 months older than I am so we're always the same age on my birthday and remain so for about three weeks. I won't ask her what it feels like turning 46. I'll just wait it out until next year. It just makes me feel better when I can see that she isn't totally freaking out over it.

5. My adversities in life. I wouldn't have made it this far if I didn't have challenges pushing me forward and people getting in the way of my success. I've had to change and adapt to all sorts of life's nuances and having done so, I realize that my ideals of yesterday were never meant to be because they would not have served me well today. My success is what I have now. Everything else positive that comes my way is just icing on the cake.

Have a great day!

Flash Back 1984 - What Happened?

2011-11-19T15:30:00.005-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

In the summer of 1984 I worked in an ice cream parlor. Times were as bad, if not a little worse than today, but as teenagers back then, we didn't worry about our futures. It wasn't beneath us to work in fast food or customer service. I served chili dogs and soft serve ice cream. I even made milkshakes in those mixers that always spun the glob of ice cream to the top, splattering milk all over the place. But I was happy to collect my $52.00 paycheck at the end of the week.

I applied for student loans and attended Coastal Carolina Community College to try and better myself so I wouldn’t have to work in the fast food business for the rest of my life. I worked late at night at my mother’s restaurant and lounge. After “last call” I had one hour of cleanup and two hours all to myself to get my homework done.

The closest thing we had to console games was a downhill skiing game produced by Activision. A stick figure would move down a snow capped mountain in a pair of skis that resembled a perpendicular equal sign which, when manipulated by the controller, would turn slightly to the left and then the right in order to simulate the side to side motion you might imagine happening when someone is actually skiing down the side of a hill.

The most entertaining part of the game was when the skier would crash into a tree or a flagpole and the equal sign turned into what looked like a 'V', made to resemble a mangled set of skis. Game developers had to be creative with what they had back then.

Still, we'd get bored and head out to the local gaming arcade. Tempest, Asteroids and Galaga were much more entertaining, had better graphics and they only cost one token. By the way, a token back then wasn't $.25. You could stay in the arcade all night if you had a couple bucks. That was our entertainment and social outlet.

So what's the difference today? The unemployment numbers come out and we gasp. Our children are coming home from college with no jobs. Yet, in America, the obesity rate is skyrocketing and our economy is crashing to an all-time low.

Credit and technology is what happened.

Want that new console game that's coming out next month? It only costs $59.95 and you'll probably beat it in less time than I spent on a Friday night with friends at the arcade. I know arcades sound lame to kids today and who needs to be part of a social group when we have Facebook and Twitter? Work at Burger King? Fuck that. Our kids eat fast food, they don’t serve it. They'll just wait around until someone offers them a desk job where they can sit around all day and surf the internet.

Reflect a little. So tell me, what were you doing in 1984?

Classroom Introductions Are Stupid

2011-11-12T14:31:00.000-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

I've always heard that fear of public speaking is the number one fear for 90% of people, a higher percentage than that of those who fear death. Wow, that's something. But that in itself makes me the more curious about this phenomenon. Let's dissect the very simplest form of public speaking, the classroom introduction.

I hate it when the instructor tells the class about himself, or herself, and then asks each student, when it's their turn, to stand up and tell a little about themselves, starting with their name. UGH!! Again? I just did that in the last class! Why do professors require this sort of thing? Is this a teaching tool that they learn at University to get the classroom under control by elevating themselves and blathering on about their own background and why it is they came to be here before us today?

I'm thinking, "Good, I'm not in the front row this time, so I won't be going first. I'll get to hear what everyone else has to say and then I won't feel so bad after they all reveal how absolutely boring they are in their everyday lives." Of course, it never turns out that way. There's always the Director over some huge operation in the Gulf or a Naval Officer working on his Master's degree while taking a break from his annual hiking expedition.

So what can I say now? My nerves are in a bunch already, but now I have to reveal that I'm a software developer who loves to play online, roleplaying games as well as 1st person shooters, and I like to write about fictional characters who commit heinous crimes, including the dismemberment of a college professor who asked his students to introduce themselves.

I stand, take a deep breath, and clear my throat, "My name is Diane Carlisle and I'm a software developer." I sit down.

< crickets chirping >

You would think I just blurted out that I was an alcoholic. I take out my iPhone and make like I'm busy.

"That's interesting, Ms. Carlisle. Do you have any hobbies?" Ah, the ole you won't get away with that in my classroom tactic.

I look up. "No, I don't." Back to my iPhone.

"So, what do you expect to gain from this class?"

I want to say an "A" but decide that would be rude. See what public speaking does to people? That's not me at all. Why does this happen? Normally, I'm fine with talking in front of a group of people and being the center of attention when I have something which I care to share, like a software product I created. So why is an introduction of myself so off putting? Why do I feel so at odds when asked to tell a little about myself?

I don't like to blather on about who I am (at least not in a public forum such as a classroom) because I'm a rather humble person. Once I'm done with the class, it's time to move on. Nobody is going to care about what I do or who I am 8 weeks from now when this class is over, so why are we wasting time and energy going through it? I hate being redundant. Can't we just exchange business cards? Here, take one...my blog address is printed on there and I wrote a "little" about myself on a page labeled "About Me". Stop by and comment sometime.

So, are you ever anxious about public speaking? If so, why?

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month

2011-11-09T15:36:00.003-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month (not affiliated with the real NaBloPoMo).

Write up a back cover blurb for a book you have written or would like to write. It should be short, sweet, yet give a sense of people and events without totally spoiling the ending. NaNoWriMo participation is not required, and the blurb may be for fiction or nonfiction as you see fit.

My Blurb Cover

After two disciplinary actions against her, Sergeant Kelly Cooper is transferred to Precinct 9, where her new boss, Captain Grant Elliot, assigns her three cases that will either make her career or send her packing. A chain of murders with no leads or suspects has spanned two years, leaving investigators frustrated and without answers for the growing menace of angry protesters who are demanding answers.

All three cases have one thing in common. The victims were case workers for the Department of Children and Families. Sergeant Cooper must piece together a gruesome puzzle and find answers that will lead to the killer. No other investigator will assist her and though he set her up for failure from the start, Captain Elliot finds himself secretly attracted to this rigidly stubborn detective.

Participants and posts:

orion_mk3 (link to this month's post)
Ralph Pines (link to this month's post)
MysteryRiter (link to this month's post)
AuburnAssassin (link to this month's post)
Jarrah Dale (link to this month's post)
SinisterCola (link to this month's post)
dolores haze (link to this month's post)
pyrosama (YOU ARE HERE)
Alynza (link to this month's post)
writingismypassion (link to this month's post)
Cath (link to this month's post)
Inkstrokes (link to this month's post)
egoodlett (link to this month's post)
LadyDae (link to this month's post)
SuzanneSeese (link to this month's post)
anarchicq (link to this month's post)
Stu Ayris (link to this month's post)

Cleanup On Aisle Four!

2011-11-09T14:22:00.001-05:00

by Diane Carlisle

Why do grocery stores display feminine hygiene products in the same aisle as medications, healing aids and incontinence products? This leaves a really unfair connotation of dysfunction, don't you think? I mean, why not pair off the incontinence products with toilet paper? Don't they both absorb urine to some extent?

Better yet, place both feminine hygiene and incontinence products with ALL paper products used for the absorption of any liquids. I think that would be fair. Hell, why not welcome Pampers and Huggies into the same aisle! Get them away from the baby food. Would you want to buy your food in the same aisle as toilet paper? When things make sense in general, no one appears to be the lesser human being based on age or gender.

I’d like to see the grocery stores embrace my God given cycle and place my respectable sister products where they belong. There’s no reason for them to remain on the same shelves as Band-Aids and Neosporin, all at the disposal to those in need of products which assist in the healing of wounds. Please, my period is not a wound!

That would leave medications all to themselves though, wouldn't it? Why not pair these medications with wine and beer? That way, when we're out buying cases of Miller Lite or bottles of Merlot, the packets of Alka Seltzer and BC Powders will greet us and remind us to prepare for the screaming hangover from which we'll suffer in the morning.

One more thing. Why keep the flowers so close to the selection of fine wines? They don't go together anymore. The days of magnanimity are over. Alcohol is a daily consumption; flowers are purchased on special occasions. Put them near the bakery where people order cakes inscribed with "Happy Birthday!" and "We'll Miss You!"

Who's with me? We'll straighten this out eventually. We'll just have to take a back seat to the Occupy Wall Street folks who seem to have the spotlight right now.

It's What's For Thanksgiving Blog Hop

2011-11-06T16:52:00.001-05:00

Welcome to our 2011 It's What's For Thanksgiving Blog Hop!

Just a few rules:

1) Follow your blog host (Me) -- and our co-host Nicole Pyles

2) Leave a comment here and tell us what's for Thanksgiving dinner at your home, or wherever it is that you'll be spending your holiday. If it's not been planned yet, tell us what was prepared last year. Let's get hungry together!

3) Follow at least three other blogs and say hello, maybe even invite them to join the blog hop and share their menus with us.

4) Tweet and Facebook about the blog hop using the social icons at the end of this post.

5) Don't forget to leave a link back to your site in the form provided.

Happy Holidays, and thanks for stopping by and sharing your meal plans!

Author Interview - Conflict of Interest

2011-11-02T10:38:00.001-04:00

I recently had the honor of interviewing published author, Terry Lewis, on his debut novel Conflict of Interest. I read this book two months ago, but just now had the courage to ask for an interview. I'm not sure why I was hesitant to ask; he was happy to answer my questions!

Have a peak and then go buy his book. It's one that will have you talking to the book like you do a movie where you want to yell at the protagonist because he's getting himself in a pickle!

Q: Your protagonist has obvious flaws. Why did you choose the ones you did?

Lewis: What do you mean obvious flaws? I thought he was just about perfect. Okay, seriously, I knew I wanted a narrator who might be the murderer. I wanted the reader to wonder about him, yet hope he or she was wrong. So, he needed to be likeable at the core, but prone to bad decisions so that you want to slap him. Alcohol abuse is both a symptom and a contributing factor for such people. Mix in a willingness to push the envelope a little, a tendency to engage in risky behavior yet avoid its consequences, and voila!

Q: How did your being a judge influence Conflict of Interest and how you wrote it?

Lewis: I don't know that being a judge necessarily influenced it but certainly my legal experience as a lawyer and judge was the key factor in what I chose to write and the sorts of scenes, language, etc in the novel. The law is what I know and I have always liked this genre, so it was a natural route for me.

Q: What was your journey to publication like? Were there any obstacles with your debut novel Conflict of Interest?

Lewis: I was very lucky. When I started thinking seriously about trying to get it published, I read books and articles about it. I sent out query letters to about twenty agents, and to one small publisher in Florida. I ended up getting interest from an agent at the same time the publisher expressed interest. I put the two together and ended up with a contract.

Q: What advice would you give someone who is just starting out, what pitfalls to avoid?

Lewis: The best advice I ever received was, write what you like to read -- a variation on write what you know. The point is if you are writing a novel, it is going to take you a long time. Best to spend that time with something that is interesting to you. Otherwise, you will lack the passion, the discipline, to see it through.

Q: I realize research is essential when writing fiction. If the police checked your browsing history would you be in trouble?

Lewis: I sure hope not, but if so, it probably wouldn't be because of research for my novels. One of the reasons I chose to write legal thrillers/mysteries was because the legal world was one I already knew pretty well. I do some research on things, and the Internet has proved useful in this respect. I also have inquired of medical examiners or other experts about some of the forensics.

Q: What other novels of yours would you recommend to fans of Conflict of Interest?

Lewis: That's easy. I only have one other published novel -- Privileged Information.

Q: Are you currently working on another novel and if so, can you tell a little about it?

Lewis: Yes, I have a third novel that has been finished for some time and in search of a home. It is about a paranoid schizophrenic patient in Florida State Hospital who is accused of killing his psychologist. The story is told primarily by the lawyer, but also by the patient. I am also working on a 4th, in which a lawyer who represents a judge accused of murder learns that her father may in fact be guilty of the crime.

***

And that concludes my first ever author interview. Thanks, Terry! We will be looking forward to the publication of your third and fourth novels.

Halloween Fun 2011

2011-10-31T19:52:00.022-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

Happy Halloween to all of you out there in the Blog-o-sphere!

I'm excited to share my Halloween blog with you. It's been exciting the last couple days. We went shopping for house decorations and I think we went overboard this year because my daughter is going through a break up with her boyfriend. We wanted to spice it up for her. After the purchase of the house decorations, it was on toward the next activity. Pumpkin carving!

Chelsey carved a ghost, I the Grim Reaper and my son a wicked looking pumpkin with jacked up teeth. I always forget how tedious the carving is, but this doesn't seem to deter me each year. My husband set up the platform in the yard hours before we even finished. Yes, he was just as excited as the rest of the family. Wait for the pictures at the end of this post, you'll see!

Just as the finishing touches were made to the pumpkins (lit candles and all), the end of "Black Swan" was upon us. Wow. Great movie, but not something to watch with your adult children, I promise you. I found out the hard way. We did purchase a DVD collection we thought might be good viewing. I plugged it in next. Sadly, I realized I should never purchase a compilation of 10 horror movies on one DVD that cost less than $5.00. The movies are painfully raunchy, for real.

Anyway, that's been my Halloween experience for this year! I rather enjoyed it, being that I spent time with both my children and got a really creative display this year. Enjoy the photos and the one video!

5 Dos When Naming Your Characters

2011-10-26T15:53:00.000-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

Let's talk about character names a bit. And I'm coming at this from a reader standpoint. Why? Because I'm a reader! I love to read. As a matter of fact I do more reading than writing these days. Here are 5 things to think about when choosing character names.

1. Please give your characters names that are not similar to one another. For example, don't put Kaleb and Kalee in the same story or in the same proximity to one another. The reader will become exhausted trying to follow who is doing or saying what. Reading should be enjoyable, not feel like we're tracking and sorting oranges and tangerines.

2. Be creative with names, but simple is better. Ofishella doesn't quite do it for me. And try to make sure that names belong in the culture in which the story takes place. If they don't, please give information to the reader which tells them why this foreign name is where it is. In other words, if Asish and Mahua live in India and hire a nanny whose name is Linda, please explain why Linda is there and how she came to be. Diversity is wonderful, just give some backstory, and I say this in the voice of Tony Montana, "you gonna has to esplanit to me."

3. Think about a character's traits before settling with a name. If I read the name Dustin or Brittany, I'm expecting a teenager. Don't ask me why, I just am. If I read Ruth or Martha, I'm expecting an old lady.

Martha stood up and stomped off toward the kitchen. Her wobbly legs gave out and she fell and landed on her tush, the padding of her diaper lessening the impact.

See? I just don't see Martha as a baby learning how to walk. In reality, there probably are a few baby Ruths (no pun intended) or baby Marthas out there somewhere. The problem is for the majority of readers these names are going to connote old ladies.

4. Make sure the social position of your character works well with the name you choose. You don’t want to have Billy Joe Baker running a software company and you certainly don’t want Edward Bentley Groesman, III selling hot dogs from a cart at Lake Ella.

5. Stick with one name. Richard shouldn’t be called Dick interchangeably, even if his wife is mad at him. A friend named Kimberly shouldn’t be referred to as Kim for short if you are introducing her as Kimberly. If anything else, you should make that distinction in the beginning and then stick with the shorter name throughout, “Hi, I’m Kimberly Johnson, but please call me Kim.” From that point forward, she is to be referred to as simply Kim. If you think about it, why wouldn’t someone just say their name was Kim if that’s what they want to be called? Why are you, the author, going against her wishes anyway?

In the voice of Obama, “Let me be clear…this is not a bitch session on character names…far from it. This is simply character name statements. I don’t think I can be any more clearer on this matter. Thank you.”

So, what tricks do you use when creating your character names? Do you have rules for naming your characters? Any peeves on character naming conventions?

My Winning Entry at F2K-Zine

2011-10-22T17:37:00.006-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

My creative writing class has ended and I feel a bit sad because of it. It's the first online course where I felt I was able to connect with my fellow classmates and come together and understand the process of improving each other through writing and critiquing.

It was so much fun and it motivated me to write the things I wanted to write and because of this, my winning entry for lesson 6 is published on the F2K-Zine website. If my story receives the most votes, I'll get a free writing class and an Amazon gift certificate!

Her Brother's Keeper

Please read my entry. If you like it, I would be so happy if you register there and vote for my entry Story #6. I'll have a link posted here as soon as the voting page goes up, so please visit this post often and share with friends and family. Every vote helps!

Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to post feedback if you have a chance to read it.

A Lesson in the 8 Senses

2011-10-15T10:36:00.001-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

This was a fun exercise in my creative writing class. It was so much fun that I wanted to share these on my blog this week. Can you guess the senses I'm using in the following sentences?

The eight senses to look for are: sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, sense of space, sense of time, and sense of the unknown. Some of the sentences might have more than one of the eight senses, so don't be shy, post your answers in the comments section below.

1. She scooped a gob of melted cheese from the edge of her grilled sandwich and sucked it off her finger.

2. The storm hurled bands across the courtyard and the winds howled, blasting leaves through the parking lot and rattling the chain link fencing.

3. Class was almost over, but Jessie pressed on with two questions left.

4. The little girl stood anxiously behind the monkey bars and plucked off each petal one by one, “He loves me. He loves me not.”

5. She pulled her semi-damp hair into a bunch to secure it with a clip, the sun having dried much of it, leaving behind a thick film of pasty salt.

6. The air was thick with cotton candy and funnel cake as they moved through the grounds, “Step right up, win the lady a prize!”

7. He had a picture of a human skull on the front of his shirt and it had a medieval sword stuck through its right eye socket, exiting an open jaw full of decaying teeth.

8. When she woke, his arm was draped across her shoulder and his leg across her hip and she wondered to herself why she never got a good night’s sleep.

Part II - we had to use all eight senses in one paragraph. What a challenge!

I grab a beer and step from the boat onto the dock. The loose planks creak and wobble beneath me, cold water from the river lapping between the boards and splashing my feet. Two ducks square off in the marsh and their wings seem to fan a mixture of dead fish and algae into the breeze. Seagulls cry out as they head home and the sun is setting, spraying its reflection across the glass surface of the still water. In all this, I stand alone with the sky and the earth knowing in less than a day the hurricane will reach this sanctuary and possibly destroy it. I pull the tab on my beer and it bursts open. I take two large swallows and welcome the cold and bitter liquid. I can’t tell if it’s the carbonation from the beer or the sadness in my heart that forces the tears to spring forward.

Can you find all 8 senses in that paragraph?

Some Things Dark and Dangerous

2011-10-08T11:21:00.044-04:00

Choose a word from this list of Lovecraftian words or this list of obscure words (or one from both if you're feeling ambitious). Use your chosen word(s) to craft your post. It doesn't have to be Lovecraftian or even horror, but it should be dark, or unsettling, or scary, or Halloweenish in general. This is part of the October 2011 Blog Chain at Absolute Write.

My two words are “manuscript” and “prosaic”

The Manuscript
by Diane Carlisle

And there she was, in her house. He'd found her on Twitter. He loved her profile picture, long auburn hair, eyes hidden behind a pair of large black Oakley’s. Classy girl, he’d thought.

It was Halloween and the kids had all finished up with their greedy pleas for candy; the rambunctious teens had all gone home after they littered the streets with busted pumpkins, slimy seeds sprayed across concrete driveways. Not his concern. His concern sat in a chair at her computer, probably fucking around on Facebook where she posts all her lovely pictures. He was her friend. She accepted didn't she?

His breath sprayed a warm mist onto the interior of his plastic mask, the moisture sent droplets down the walls like sweat running off a cold beer can on a hot, sunny day. He lifted the plastic face to scratch his sideburns and wipe his mouth, then pulled it back down. He loved the clown look. He'd purchased the bright orange Afro wig on the same day.

He laughed and performed a little jig on the side of her lawn. The flood lights at the corner of the house cast a shadow in the grass, making his bouncing Afro appear unusually tall. He felt like a kid again. Just like Pennywise from that Stephen King movie. What was it called? Perfect, he thought.

He lifted his Remington fishing knife. His reflection in the steel blade smiled back and his coffee stained teeth peered through the opening. His eyes looked a bit wild for his liking. Then he poked his tongue through the hole and wiggled it, “How about a little kiss?”

He jumped and clicked his heels together, then shuffled his shoulders back and forth, running in place like a football player at practice. He let the jitters escape him, hyping himself up with the excitement of finally meeting her. Then he moved to the back of the house.

He turned the knob, no resistance. Home alone with the door unlocked? Stupid bitch. He let himself in and fought the urge to call out, “Lucy, I’m home!” He made his way to the aquarium. The bright blue moon lights made this all feel like a dream. He watched the creatures swim about in the tank. Maybe he would just wait for her to come out of her office, her den...

I stopped typing and pushed the keyboard away. Not bad. It only took me an hour to draft it up, but it felt like I’d been sitting in place for half the day. I minimized Notepad and logged into Facebook. I changed my status to “Another short story, done!”

I needed coffee, or maybe some hot chocolate. This would be the manuscript I submit for publication in the Annual Review of Oktoberfest. My mind was definitely not a prosaic one. I left my office and ran into something so hard it knocked the breath out of me. Surely I know my own house.

“Hello, Diane. Remember me?” I saw a steel blade go up in the air, a permanent smile on the clown’s face. Then the knife came down and I felt a pop on my neck. Warm liquid gushed from my throat, the smell of copper. I grabbed his wrists and screamed but my vocal chords only forced out spatters of thick, red blood.

His voice was muffled as if he were talking with a sock in his mouth. I must be dying. I wonder who will find my body laying here in a pool of blood. Will they read my story? Will they submit it on my behalf? Will I be published posthumously? Dammit! I wasn’t ready for this.

The End

Please visit the other participating bloggers for this month's challenge. Also, social icons are provided at the end of this post so that you can share with others and spread the Halloween spirit!

Participants and posts:

orion_mk3 (link to this month's post)
Ralph Pines (link to this month's post)
Cath (link to this month's post)
Diana Rajchel (link to this month's post)
Alynza (link to this month's post)
pyrosama (YOU ARE HERE)
dolores haze (link to this month's post)
leahzero (link to this month's post)
AbielleRose (link to this month's post)
pezie (link to this month's post)
MysteryRiter (link to this month's post)
Inkstrokes (link to this month's post)
AuburnAssassin (link to this month's post)
Alpha Echo (link to this month's post)
robieae (link to this month's post)
JSSchley (link to this month's post)
spacejock2 (link to this month's post)
Madelein.Eirwen (link to this month's post)
AlishaS (link to this month's post)
lufftocraft (link to this month's post)
Proach (link to this month's post)

Interview With Phil Bacon

2011-10-07T18:11:00.004-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

“Hello Mr. Bacon, please have a seat and tell me what interests you about the role of the serial killer?”

Phil Bacon pulls a cigarette from a pack of Pall Malls and lights it, then sits.

“I’m sorry, but this is a non-smoking facility.”

“I know. I read the sign.” He continues to smoke, unaffected, “You ever see a newborn baby cry to the point he’s purple, his small fists balled up tight and shaking back and forth like some battery operated vibrator, barely audible because his lungs aren’t strong enough to pelt out anything loud enough that might indicate his level of discomfort?”

“Uh, well I know what you’re trying to say. And yes, I’ve had the opportunity to witness such a display. I’m not sure I would characterize it in quite the same way.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

“Well, sir. You seem a bit callous in the way you describe things, but to each person their podium. What does this have to do with your wish to play this part?”

“What do you do when you see that? The crying baby.”

“I feed it, maybe check to see if it needs a change. You know, take care of him. Why? What about you?”

“I laugh because it’s fucking hilarious.”

“What’s funny about a baby crying in distress?”

“It’s not the baby’s discomfort that’s funny. It’s the way you people react to it that’s funny. They’re weak and predictable and they should all die. ”

“Your suggestion then is to kill the weak? Kill the baby?”

“The baby is not weak. He cries and people jump. That’s not weak. That’s power.”

“What does this have to do with killing? I think we’re getting off track here, Mr. Bacon.”

“You’re the interviewer.” He pulls a deep drag from the cigarette and blows out a stream of smoke from the side of his mouth, then smiles wide.

“Please, tell me what you have to offer this film.”

“I should be directing this film!” His voice explodes and he looks as if he’s ready to come out of his chair.

I close my planner and place it on my desk. “I think we’re done here. Have a nice day.”

Bacon stubs out his cigarette on the rubber sole of his shoe and tosses the butt onto my desk. “We both know this isn’t the last of me.”

Rejection Letter From My Future Selves

2011-10-02T15:26:00.000-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

I read a few intriguing examples of letters by authors wanting to publish their works. Strangely enough, the letters were written by their future self/selves giving valuable advice to their past self. The idea was to expose the reasons we are consistently rejected. These turn out to be lessons learned for many writers, good writers even.

We all know the things we've done in our journey as writers. But damn it! We knew we could write, so why did we get rejected? Why was my masterpiece not accepted for publication? It was masterfully crafted and beautifully written.

I loved this idea and so I wanted to share my letter to myself, the Diane back in 2000. I hope you enjoy. How am I supposed to grow if I can't poke a little fun at myself, right?

Dear Role-playing Gamer Chick,

I am sorry to inform you that we are not able to accept your fantasy novel as a sub-genre romance depicting the woes of your fairy character and her struggles to win over the dark elf of Norcastanomapostia.

Though your passion for writing is apparent to us all here at Carlisle-Publishing, we feel that you will do well to live life to its fullest, outside of the gaming world, in order to establish that much needed connection that will make your story more palpable to those lovers of fiction in our current market.

We wish you well,

Your future self, 2011

The No-Resolution Resolution

2011-09-23T16:41:00.005-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

We read a story for my creative writing class and it was one of those stories that end where the hero and villain come together, the final battle, they both reach for the last sword. Both are bruised and bloodied and basically on their last breath. When they reach for the sword at the same time, the story ends. What? It’s called a no-resolution resolution.

I was thinking about the no-resolution resolution and this whole thing about nobody in the end winning. That ending feels so not right to me. There's no period on the end there that tells me I just read a great story. The two just reach for the sword and that's it?

How about the ending of some horror movies where it's obviously over, the protagonist/hero/heroine has overcome these horrible events. They are safe and away from this dangerous lunatic. Then BLAM! A decaying hand springs up from a freshly dug grave...screams everywhere, OH MY GOD!

Yea, I hate that too.

I don't like open conflicts with no resolution, especially in a story. I'd still be taping soap operas if that were the case. Characters in those even come back to life to make sure the conflict stays fully engaged! Come on, really?

I prefer a more classic story that resonates forever, that nothing could ever take away even when it ends, something that has a real impact and a resolution. Once I experience the journey of a character, please don't destroy it (years later) with, "...and THEN." I'm like, "Nooooooo, don't!" Well, with the exception of Grease 2, loved it. But it was a complete new cast and a different story.

I'm getting away from writing now and moving into the movies, so sorry about that.

Another example is The Matrix. It was a hit. Then they came out with Matrix Reloaded and Revolution (back to back literally). In the first movie, Neo learns to use his powers to battle the wonderful Agent Smith. Then in Reloaded, he's stronger and more powerful, so he can essentially battle several of these replicated Agent Smiths. Finally, in Revolution he fights an insane number of Agent Smiths. With power growing exponentially, thus does the number of Agent Smiths. Really? REALLY?? I feel about this no-resolution resolution this same way. What's the point?

It's not natural. It goes against our basic human instinct, survival and resolution. If there is no resolution, then there is eternal conflict and the need for another chapter. This is good for capitalistic minds, but for the sake of art, I don't like it. It doesn't work for me because it's a cop out to the final product. Some write to market, others for the art.

A no-resolution resolution isn't something that I imagine a good read, especially not in a short story, maybe not even in a novel. An epic series, maybe, like Harry Potter. Eventually, each character must come to the end of his or her journey and there must be a reason, that reason is a resolution.

Until Harry Potter gives up his wand, his journey will continue, one right after the other. Dorothy went home; she gave up her ruby slippers. Something needs to be resolved for the protagonist when I read those final two words, The End. That's when a story is truly a story, not when the final two words are, stay tuned....

Are you okay with the no-resolution resolution?

A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words

2011-09-17T17:26:00.004-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

This is my post for the September 2011 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month's challenge is to respond to a picture.

"We can't keep meeting like this," he said.

She pulled out another cigarette. He struck a match and cupped the tip as it flickered. She leaned in and let the flame dust the tip, drawing the smoke into her mouth and letting it fill her lungs.

She lifted her head slightly up and away from him and blew the fumes out, "What's the matter? The Mrs. keeping you tied up on a leash now?"

"It's not like that," he drank the last of his scotch and placed the glass on the bar, the clinking of the ice an indication it was time for another.

"One more, Frank?"

He nodded.

She crushed out her cigarette, picked up her purse and stood. "So, I guess this is it then?"

He looked at her for the last time. Her beautiful red lips turned slightly down, eyes ablaze with anger. He wasn't shocked by the slap she cracked against his face. He watched her leave. She had a hell of a figure, that one.

The lone man at the bar lifted his bourbon and coke in a salute to him.

He picked up his scotch and raised it back at the man and they drank in silence.

Here are the other participants and their responses if they've been posted:

orion_mk3 (link to post)
BigWords (link to post)
robeiae (link to post)
pezie (link to post)
Ralph Pines (link to post)
AbielleRose (link to post)
Darkshore (link to post)
dolores haze (link to post)
Alynza (link to post)
pyrosama (YOU ARE HERE)
lufftocraft (link to post)
Cath (link to post)

This post was also submitted to Art Themed Thursdays Blog Carnival. Please visit and join the fun!

I Tried to Cut Off My Cousin's Penis

2011-09-11T21:50:00.001-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

I consider them milestones in my growth as a person and as a writer. I hope you stick around to read them.

I tried to cut off my cousin's penis.

When my sister and I were four and five, our cousin was only three. I'm not sure why mom and Aunt Sachi decided the children needed to bathe together. They were probably hoping to conserve time and maybe save a little on the hot water. After we were all undressed, the adults left us alone while the water filled in the tub. I imagine they left to find some towels. When my aunt came back in and screamed, we all jumped out of our respective skins.

My aunt grabbed the scissors from my sister's hand and I quickly let go of my cousin's penis. It just wasn't normal hanging there like that. Obviously there was something wrong with him; he was so unlike me and my sister.

By the look on my aunt's face, I could tell she was horrified. Did she not know that the thing was there? For God's sake, she was his mother. You’d think she’d seen it before!

I almost died at the age of five.

My sister and I, along with another friend who was four, took a long hike to a common dam in Iwakuni, Japan. When I think back, I wonder where my parents were because the dam seemed a good mile away from home.

We hopped into one of many Nishiki fishing boats docked along a concrete landing, surrounded by sand and small rocks. One of the other kids at the dam placed the anchor into the boat while we played ship captain and crew. We were so enchanted and immersed in our role-play that we didn't realize we were floating until the boat started rocking back and forth. By then, we were in the middle of the dam and none of us knew how to swim.

I remember standing up in the boat and crying while my sister yelled for me to sit down. My carrying on was making the boat rock more and to the point we almost tipped over.

As only five and six year olds might do in a situation like this, we sat as still as we could, because by golly the boat stopped rocking. Then an old Japanese man jogging along the dam saw us, swam out and rescued us. I say old, but he was the same age as I am now, but to a five year old, that's pretty old.

My parents found out about this little adventure of ours two weeks later when our rescuer ran into us in a Japanese super market. My mother was full-blooded Japanese and understood every word the man said. My sister and I just looked at each other and then at our mom and the old man. I remember I was fascinated by how fast they spoke in the Japanese language. We watched this foreign exchange back and forth until my mother had a look on her face that told me I wouldn't see the light of day for a very long time, and I didn't.

I dabbled in mirror writing in first grade.

It frightened my mother. She thought I had some sort of learning disability. I wrote a whole page using words that I created backwards and upside down. My first grade teacher finally called a conference with my parents but I had no idea why they made such a big fuss over it.

When we got home I held my paper up in the mirror and showed my mom that it was perfectly fine if you looked at it in the mirror. She made me stop doing that because the teacher couldn’t be bothered with having to use a mirror to read my writing and so I suffered many years having to suppress my inner muse.

I used to write in numbers.

Weird, I know, but it sort of looked like this on paper:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...

When I reached 100, I wrote it down in bold with an exclamation point, like so:

...97, 98, 99, 100!

I wrote numbers in this manner when I was bored and every time I reached another milestone like 200 and 300, I would also bold them and top it off with an exclamation point. Can you say OCD? I won't tell you what happened at numbers 1,000 and 10,000. I'll just say they all got their own special decorations.

I gave birth to my first child in a Japanese baby clinic.

My husband was stationed in Iwakuni, Japan in 1988, the year I gave birth to my son. I had to be driven to a local baby clinic when my water broke and put me in labor almost three weeks early. I didn't speak Japanese and the Japanese mid-wives didn't speak English. I also wasn't in a position to afford a translator. To say the least, my experience was an eye-opener, because I'd never had an enema either. I quickly discovered that no words are needed in a humble situation.

After I delivered my son, I realized I was in culture shock. I was starving by the time they brought my first meal to me. I lifted the silver dome cover of the large serving tray. Interesting as it was, the display didn't look very appetizing to me. There before me was a tightly packed bed of rice and lying across the top was a large broiled fish, a whole fish, teeth and all. I sent my husband to the military base to buy me a pizza. I came to understand why different genres are written the way they are written. To each their own!

So, anything from your past you’d like to share? I’m having a rather reflective day today and it’s a shame I have to go back to work in the morning.

Top Gun - A Character's Arc

2011-09-07T19:18:00.001-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

A typical character arc that I enjoy is the lone hero who is flawed yet larger than life. He or she is called to action, a journey. On this journey, they come face to face with their flaws and their fears. Redemption is found when the character falls into compliance with the larger goal.

I enjoyed in Top Gun, near the end when the instructor, Viper, says to Maverick that if he can't find someone who'll fly with him to give him a call, he'd fly with him. This happened after Maverick had lost his best friend during an aerial assault.

The entire movie was about this rebellious pilot, Maverick, who was egotistical but a very good pilot, good enough to make it into a top notch school for pilots, the call to journey forth. His only problem was that he was reckless. He would perform fly-bys at the control towers and his egotistical gimmicks and competitive nature didn't win him many friends at the academy. His best friend was about all he had.

During the aerial assault, he and his friend had to eject from their jet and there was a malfunction in the cockpit. His friend died. Maverick was found not responsible and therefore deemed fit to return to flight school.

However, the assault and subsequent death of his friend took the edge off his game and his not fitting in with the graduating class now elicits sympathy for this character. His arc is at its highest point. This is his beginning path to redemption.

Maverick must prove himself worthy as a team player. He must serve his role. It's not all about him and his win; it's about winning as a team. Now, he was humble and we want him to succeed. We want him to play by the rules, though he was larger than life in the beginning of the movie, the beginning of the arc for this character.

After completion of their course, a critical top secret mission summons the graduating class into a battle. In this climactic, confrontational combat scene, Maverick takes action where needed but never leaves his wingman. As a team, the group demonstrates a successful military mission. This, in turn, rewards his compliance and welcomes him into a realm which once rejected him.

What is your favorite character arc, and do you have a movie example to share?

Critical Learning 101

2011-08-29T11:02:00.000-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

A fellow writer from my writing group sent me an email about her thoughts on the valuable feedback we garner from the members of our critique group. We both believe that feedback is important in our development as writers and we have that thick skin needed in order to drink in the feedback and apply what we can to our stories and our different writing styles.

My friend's email reminded me of a quick story about when I had the first critique during my professional career as a computer programmer. As you may know, many people do not like to be forced out of their comfort zone to learn something new; they would rather stay with what they know and be the expert. Not me. I have to find new things to learn or I become restless and depressed. Complacency isn't something that sits well with me.

So, one day, I receive a new assignment which calls for having to learn how to write a program using this new software product. Of course, with several other programmers in the department who had many more years experience than I, yet none of them had the time to learn it, guess what? They decide that not only do I get to write the program, it will be time to incorporate critical reviews for all new products that we design. Ta da! I get to be first. But, that's okay, I'll be the guinea pig.

Midway through my creation, I discovered we'd had this product for nearly 2 years already, and some of the more experienced programmers had ample opportunity to "play" with it and fool around with writing programs at their leisure. So, they had all used this product before to write programs that would never be put under the microscope!

Anyway, did I complain? Nope, because I don't beat myself up for sticking myself out there. Not a lot of people can do that. It's like they accept defeat before they are ever really challenged.

Either way, I got my program finished and during the design review I received a lot of great feedback and questions about what I had intended with my design. I answered the questions professionally and I think I gained a little more respect from the bigger players and managers.

Then, out of the blue, another experienced programmer asked rather accusingly, "Why didn't you just use ______ to _____ and do a _____________?" (blanks are used here to remove techie programming terms, but you get the idea, right?). This person sounded really smart and pretty important at that given moment. They even made it sound really easy to use this product with which I'd struggled to master while designing my program.

In all honesty, I wasn't even taken back by this and simply answered, "I didn't have two years to study the product before I had to use it for this program here, thus I had to be creative and do it my way." Either way, it was a successful product that I built and people are still using it today.

The original question by my fellow writer was how do we continue after the critiques and feedback? Do you move forward and finish your story and then revise, or do you incorporate changes as you receive them? I say move forward but some people feel obligated to make changes right away in case they forget about them.

As for moving forward and not looking back, I think of it like the Titanic. Tell the story even though you know the ship is sinking. In the end, you will have a story. But like the Titanic, it isn't going anywhere once it reaches the bottom of the ocean, you can still work on your story and polish it when you have the time. You will just need to dive into the ocean to do it. What an adventure!

Are you a "quick to the finish" writer or a "polish as you go" type?

Another Year Cancer Free

2011-08-20T17:40:00.005-04:00

by Diane Carlisle

In keeping with the theme of this blog, which is about making progress, whether it has to do with my writing, my career or my personal growth, I have another entry to add. Today I am focusing on someone else’s progress, that of my husband of 24 years.

Last year my husband discovered a lump below his right calf which turned out to be a stage two soft tissue sarcoma. When we sat down during lunch at our favorite restaurant, I thought he was going to tell me he was let go at work. I had a comforting speech all worked out in my head after tossing things back and forth, trying to figure out what he wanted to talk about. The worst case scenario that sprung to mind in all the economic chaos going on in our country then, and still today, was that he had lost his job.

We had both watched my mother die of cancer back in 2006. From the time the lump was discovered in her neck until she died, three short weeks had passed. Her small, indiscernible lump grew into a softball sized monstrosity within one week.

All the poking and prodding with needles and ink by general practitioners helped her cancer fester and grow exponentially over a span of several days. After having undergone a tracheostomy to allow air passage into her lungs because the tumor was forcing a blockage, she finally passed away at a hospice center in Wilmington, NC.

Even when you’ve been through it once, or no matter how many times, it’s not something you get used to because it’s happened to you before. It’s something that makes your adrenaline pump really fast because you know what can happen if you don’t seek the absolute best care as soon as possible.

Things moved quickly from our lunch date to the first visit at Shand’s Cancer Center in Gainesville, Florida. Dr. C. Parker Gibbs performed a biopsy, confirmed the diagnosis and made recommendations for radiation, surgery and subsequent CT scans. We were informed that Tim could possibly lose his leg and the decision to amputate would happen while he was under. Fortunately, that didn’t happen and the tumor was removed successfully.

We were extremely happy with the results of Tim’s surgery and you can hardly see the scar, even with all the hair loss from the radiation. With each follow-up visit, the kind surgeon brings in his entourage of assistants to show off his magnificent product before announcing the current CT scan is clean.

It’s been one year now and my husband is still cancer free. He has another year of quarterly scans and after that we will only need to drive to Gainesville twice per year for another three years. From the beginning, I told my husband that he’s not dying of cancer, he’s living with it. We continue with our optimism, even though any of our follow-up visits have the potential to deliver bad news. I guess we’ll deal with it if it happens.

My husband is living proof that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Here’s Tim in the hospital after surgery. I brought him Miller Lite, our favorite beer, our only beer. I think if Miller Brewing Company knew how much we love their beer, I might gain employment with them. I can’t believe I actually snuck a six-pack past the nurse’s station.

Cheers!

The Continuing Story of a Song

2011-08-15T22:50:00.006-04:00

This month's prompt: The Continuing Story of a Song

Greg opened the planked, wooden door and the music's volume assaulted him, smoke slapping his face, leaving behind a film which burned, causing his eyes to spring tears. He pushed away another onslaught of toxic fumes and came upon a clearing, as if the smoke consciously crept away from center stage to reveal the scene before him. The place was packed, women in cheap, tight clothing and four inch heels, men on either side of the voluptuous blobs, grinding against them and grabbing at various body parts.

The brochure had been left on the coffee table, Greg's mind flashed an image of the hotel. He had picked it up on their way out the room. In scribbled ink on the backside of the pamphlet, "Club Ecstasy, come tonight. You ain't seen nothing yet -- Spanky."

Greg leaned in toward the man at the bar, "Bourban and coke."

Minutes later, the bartender returned, wiped the area down with a wet rag and placed the drink in front of Greg.

"Spanky here?" Greg sounded casual, much like an old friend, despite the fact he was the only white dude in the place, aside from the thin and pastey looking bartender with a beak for a nose. The toucan immediately veered his head toward a side table and lifted his chin, giving a direction to follow.

The table was packed. With every step forward, people moved aside, making room. Bodies shifted back and forth, revealing the large man sitting at a round table, shoulders spanned across a broad chest, black curly hairs peeking out from a red silk shirt held in place by a crisp, white suit. The man smiled wide, his teeth gleaming in contrast to his ebony skin. His eyes looked to be large brown circles, half hidden by the brim of a white, fedora hat. He removed his hand from the woman's breast and she gave an indifferent look toward Greg.

Greg stopped at the edge of the table, downed the bourban and coke and placed the empty glass next to an ashtray, home to a lit Gurkha Black Dragon cigar.

"Are you Spanky?"

Story contributors:

orion_mk3 (link to post)
BigWords (link to post)
AbielleRose (link to post)
Ralph Pines (link to post)
hillaryjacques (link to post)
Darkshore (link to post)
pyrosama (YOU ARE HERE)
Diana_Rajchel (link to post)
Inkstrokes (link to post)
soullesshuman (link to post)
Alyzna (link to post)
Cath (link to post)
dolores haze (link to post)
Alpha Echo (link to post)
pezie (link to post)
jkellerford (link to post)

Create a Plot Now

2011-08-11T15:01:00.000-04:00

Fill in the blanks and post your plot in the comments below. Can't wait to read all your creative next works in progress. :)

Dennis Johnson is a ___________________ from _____________________ living a quiet life in _____________________, until one day his ____________________ is ____________________________.

From there, he is led on a ____________________ to discover _____________________. How he ________________________ will depend upon _______________________ and the ____________________________ of _____________________________.

Here's mine:

Dances in the Jungle, by Diane Carlisle

Dennis Johnson is a millionaire from Cairo, Egypt, living a quiet life in Northern Maine, until one day his past in dealing with the drug cartels in Mexico catches up with him and he is forced to make one last delivery.

From there, he is led on a dangerous journey into the jungles of Peru to discover a life as rich and beautiful as the Princess Nala. How he wins her hand in marriage will depend upon the success of his delivery and the takedown of the major dealers affecting the Amazon Province of Western Peru.

Show Don't Tell

2011-08-06T08:53:00.002-04:00

Actions speak louder than words, right? But in creative writing, how do you follow that philosophy? It's called showing rather than telling. It was an assignment in one of my writing classes that really opened my eyes. Here's what I discovered.

Telling:

Biscuit was excited when I came home from work. She had been there by herself all day. Her excitement was apparent to me and when I let her out she wasn't able to hold back long enough for me to put a leash on her and take her outside. Unfortunately, she made a healthy deposit on my carpet.

Showing:

I slipped my key into the front door to unlock it. Biscuit barked and yiped, her nails grating across the plastic tray of her kennel. I felt a twinge of guilt for not having them clipped.

When she saw me, she pranced around in circles, trampling the blanket I had left for her comfort. Impatient as she was, I half expected her to come right out and say, "Let me out already, let me out!" She peered at me with her small, black eyes, her tawny tipped black ears perked up and slightly back. She was a picture of animation, all four pounds of her, with her silky blackish blue hair almost touching the bottom of the 2x3 feet black iron crate.

I tried matching her excitement in a high pitched voice, "Okay, Poopie. Are you ready to go potty?"

She twirled about in her circles, never stopping but for a nanosecond to make eye contact between each revolution. Every step I took toward the kennel increased her momentum and her twirls were performed exponentially faster. It was as if each of those twirls wound her up tighter so that she could spring forward at any moment. I leaned over and opened the door.

BOING!

She shot out of her kennel in a burst and then bounced around, seemingly yipping, "I'm free, I'm free...let's PLAY--" Just before squatting and depositing a nice yellow stain on my carpet.

****

So which one do you think was more fun writing? :)

Here's a picture for you!

Change Your POV

2011-08-01T14:46:00.001-04:00

Someone once asked me why changing the point of view of a story is so important when you get stuck. This is harder to explain than if I just show it. But, I'll explain first and then show an example.

When I start out a story in one POV, like 3rd person POV, I have more freedom to develop my main character. It's easier to describe their actions externally and I can paint them how I want, but it's more difficult to convey their thoughts and develop the character from an internal aspect.

Some differences that I see when changing POV is that I'm careful not to pay too much attention to myself as the main character while in 1st person POV. It's a different feel to it because the way I show my character is limited but it also has to feel real. In the examples below, there's such a big difference in the way the story is told and that's why changing the POV could show you a different path that might be better for your story.

This is the opening paragraphs of a short story I wrote about a disturbed teenager involved in an online text-based role-playing game. Written in 3rd person POV, it feels like a story being told.

"How about that ownage ya fucking putz." Todd unleashed the last missile from his character's repertoire of spells. His latest victim fell to the floor in a heap. Todd hit the F6 function key on his keyboard to bury the corpse and to reveal the entire inventory dropped by the now dead elf, Tolkien Vernette. He pressed F2 and picked up the loot. Two Swords of Taiken, three golden gauntlets and a pile of coins.

"Easiest level 42 punk I ever took out," he said. He flipped up his middle finger to the computer monitor, his knuckle making contact with the glass surface. Thunk. He pushed the keyboard aside and made his journey to the bedroom, his bulkiness filling the hallway. It was 2 a.m. and a school night.

The same opening paragraphs written in 1st person POV is drastically changed to connote a disturbed kid without the character having to tell the reader anything at all. Everything is conveyed through the actions of the main character and it feels like a story unfolding.

I typed in the last missile command to kill the elf. Stupid mortal. I laughed and finished him off. Pretty weak of him to run, but it was fun watching him drop to the floor. One dead elf named Tolkien Vernette. Bury. Get all. Sweet! Two Swords of Taiken, three golden gauntlets and a shit load of coins.

It was too easy. I flipped the bird at the computer. "Rest in peace, dipshit." Then I went to bed because it was a school night.

I think every writer should play around with POV because not all stories are best told in one POV over the other. My rule is if I want to tell a story, I use 3rd person limited. When I want to experience a story as a particular character, I use 1st person.

5 Dos & Don'ts in a Long Term Marriage

2011-07-28T14:45:00.003-04:00

I've been thinking about my husband a lot these days. I'm really proud of the fact that we've been married over 24 years now. Which led me to feeling like I need to share the secret of my success. So, here are my 5 dos and don'ts in a long term marriage for you to consider. They may lead to your own successful, long-term marriage.

1. Don't get offended if the only words you ever hear from him are "So, you wanna DO it tonight?" He's been married to you for 25 years already; he shouldn't have to work on his charm anymore.

2. Do drop everything that you are doing, no matter how important, when he suddenly asks for your help in fixing something he broke or finding something he lost.

3. Don't nag him about your time when he stops to compare prices in the grocery store. I don't care that you make six figures per year. You should thank him for the penny savings that he made because he carefully read the labels and performed the math.

4. Do promptly make the decision as to which restaurant you choose for your dining pleasure when asked. He will override this decision later on, so make sure your heart isn't set on what you originally decide.

5. Don't forget to praise him for helping out around the house. It's not enough that you fix the bed every morning, clean the dishes noon and night, vacuum, dust, work a full-time job, breed and raise confident, well-adjusted children and with a heavy heart, turn them loose to be productive members of society. After all, what's it gonna hurt for you to take a few seconds of your time to show some appreciation?

Character Descriptions and Race

2011-07-26T10:36:00.001-04:00

In my last creative writing class, I submitted a short story for review. The story I submitted never provides physical descriptions of my characters. Leaving the descriptions out was intentional. It was not important to me what they looked like or their color. What was important was the story. Why is my main character standing here in a funeral parlor in front of his father's casket? What brought him here? The story is what is important.

If a main character is going to turn out to be a white supremacist with major conflict in a story, then I can understand the need to describe him in the stereotypical fashion, shaved head with a swastika tattooed on the back. In this case, the physical description moves the plot along. That’s helpful.

However, that is not the case with the story I submitted. I was a bit surprised when a fellow student asked, "I'm curious why you never described the main character. Was he black or white?"

Wait…what?

It is a short story about the relationship between a father and son. The physical descriptions of the characters are irrelevant. This is not a screening for a movie where I have to choose Samuel L. Jackson or Tom Cruise as my hero. I can care less what color they are.

One response I read from another woman was she assumed every character in Harry Potter was black and she further states it is natural for a reader to assume that so long as no descriptions are given, all characters in a fictional story belong to the reader’s own race.

This concept is foreign to me because I never write with a pre-determined idea that all my characters are Asian. Are you kidding me? All my stories would have to take place at Disney World or some other touristy place and my main characters would all be wielding cameras and donning ebony cloaks.

So what do you think? Is it that important to you as a reader to know the race of the characters you read about, even though clearly there is no logical reasoning behind mentioning it at all?

Racist Characters in Fiction

2011-07-22T14:38:00.002-04:00

Everywhere I visit on the internet, looking for interested readers of fiction, I find more and more would be writers asking this odd question, "Is my main character a racist?"

What?!

Or, "Is my secondary main character being sexist in this scene?"

Again, what?!

In fiction, you're not going to write a believable story if you (the author) tip-toe around social problems, trying to keep your characters politically correct. Besides, no character should be without flaws. The world…bad, hero…good. That's just boring.

My heroes are more anti-heroic. Give me someone flawed and give me that opportunity to make their character arc believable. Let me redeem that character in some way, show the reader that this flaw can give more depth to the story and develop my character more than any 6 foot 2 Adonis with the moral code of a Saint.

I don't want to read about perfect characters who love people regardless of color or creed. I want that atheist, gun toting, racist bastard of a character of mine to go on a journey and discover things about him that end up changing his life for the better.

I don't want the God loving, Kumbaya singing, save the world from its own demise characters making me draft a story around them and their perfect little selves. Does this make sense? Why am I finding so many writers mulling over this? Are these things paralyzing today's young writers? I hope to hell it isn't.

We build characters that kill and maim. We build characters that cheat on their spouses, rape their neighbors, commit blasphemy, but oh wait...my character is a racist. Really? Oh my goodness, she made that white soldier character call that Vietnamese girl character a gook. May as well put down that pen now and end your writing career before it even got started.

Do you think this is a normal reaction from readers of fiction? If so, you shouldn't be writing fiction, because your work is probably not going to feed the family, you know? I'm not saying all your characters must be flawed, racist, bigoted assholes. But entertainment is entertainment and you should stop worrying about possibly offending someone.

Truth hurts, yes, but it has to be present in fiction or you'll never make your stories believable.

And, everyone lived happily ever after, right? We all know that's not true.

What are your thoughts? Do you hold back on your character flaws when it comes to racism or sexism? Why or why not?

Contest Winner - Hint Fiction

2011-07-19T17:41:00.000-04:00

Not-So Newly-Weds, by Noémi Csiki

Silence, disturbed only by mouse clicks and keyboard taps.
“Did you say something?”
“I … (she doesn’t look up) I don’t remember.”

My daughter picked this as the winner of my Hint Fiction Contest. She said to me, "Mom, this is the story of you and dad."

Oh my goodness! I know I am at the keyboard a lot, but I've not gone senile just yet.

On Vacation

2011-07-16T07:53:00.000-04:00

Well, I may be without my internet for the next few days, so I thought I'd post a personal note and hope you leave me some love in a comment! No, really! It would be like coming home to a bunch of cheers yelling, "Hey, we missed you, welcome home, Diane!" :)

We'll be rafting at the Ocoee River this weekend and then Zip-lining 1500 feet down a mountain. Lord, what have I gotten myself into? I'll never know. Maybe it was my 16 year old daughter and her boyfriend, both giving me that look like "Come on...chance of a lifetime, you're not getting any younger." Really?

I'm just hoping I get back to my online life soon, praying that I don't fall to my death and leave my posthumous first novel, unfinished, and in electronic format buried deep within the confines of my PC. Ironic, I feel like I'm writing my last will and testament, bidding farewell!

Be safe all, and have a wonderful weekend. We will announce the winner of the Hint Fiction Contest when I return from vacation!

Book Cover - Lethal Injection

2011-07-11T20:28:00.001-04:00

Newest Book Cover - updated July 29, 2011

I never created a book cover before, but I needed to have one for my favorite short story, Lethal Injection. It's not published yet, but I plan for it to be soon. I may give away some electronic copies in the near future, but I can't do that just yet since results are not in from a short story contest for which I submitted.

Please let me know if you would download a copy of my short story just from viewing this book cover. My heart is not set on it, and I haven't done a synopsis just yet. I want to know if the cover is appealing first before I commit further. Is it too plain, too unbalanced? There is actually a maroon border around it that cannot be seen because of the background color from my blog.

Thanks for any feedback I get! And if you really don't like it, tell me because I don't do book covers...just wanted one really badly! :)

Write This Book Now!

2011-07-07T10:34:00.003-04:00

As promised, for those who participated, I'm linking an electronic copy of Snow Leopard. I figure it would be easier than asking for email addresses! :)

Thanks again for participating.

Get your pens ready. Or should I say keyboards? There have been six entries so far for the hint fiction contest. However, I get impatient waiting for the deadline, so I thought I would give us something to do while we wait for other entries to be submitted.

Do you see this interesting book cover with no title?

It has no title right now because it is not a real book cover. I just found a picture on the internet that I really liked and now I am going to pretend it is the book cover for a novel I might like to write someday (or something you might like to write).

Please give it a title and in 100 words or less, write the first few paragraphs of this novel. This is not a contest, but if you participate, I will send you a free electronic copy of Snow Leopard. Please, please...no oohs and ahhs.

Okay, let's begin. Comments on entries are welcome since this is not a contest, just something fun to do. Yes, I have no life. I will be working on my own entry, too. Can't wait to read the first paragraphs of your future novels!

Fighting For Freedom

2011-07-05T14:02:00.001-04:00

I thought a lot about our military and the meaning of freedom this Fourth of July weekend. My son is now 22 years old and home to enjoy the festivities. I do appreciate his service in the US Army and his one-year tour in Iraq, but he is out now and I can breathe more easily.

My father and my husband both served over 22 years each in the US Marine Corps and both retired to enjoy second careers. Therefore, I know I am bias and my appreciation does not necessarily reflect the same as all Americans, but I wanted to mention my family and their patriotism, because yesterday, during a pool party at my house, there was a discussion about military service. Of course there was, it was Independence Day!

I told everyone about an incident which happened when my son came home for a brief visit after a tour in Iraq. He went out with a group of friends to a local bar and someone accused him of being a baby killer because he was a US soldier. I was shocked. When he got off the plane and entered the terminal in his military uniform, most people clapped and thanked him for his service. Even another woman's eyes filled with tears when I gave my son a hug.

Why would anyone call my son a baby killer? Is our country so divided by politics that we cannot even thank those who fight for our freedom, or is freedom something so obscure anymore that we all believe it to be a right with which we were born? We do not have a right to this freedom automatically. There are soldiers who have died in order that we are able to enjoy the freedoms that we do have, and there are soldiers that must still fight and die for our country if we are to remain free.

Our freedom is not ours simply because we pay our taxes and a portion of that money goes to pay for this military. We have our freedom from serving in the military ourselves because the men and women of our military served so that we did not have to.

If you ever hear someone refer to one of our military soldiers as a baby killer, please remind them of those brave men and women who fought and even died so we could have these freedoms today. Should one day our military become weak from the unpatriotic voices of those who do not appreciate these freedoms, I hope you pray to your God when our enemies pierce the boundaries of America and destroy our families.

You might never appreciate something until you no longer have it. What a world that would be...

Why Paper Beats Rock

2011-06-25T18:27:00.009-04:00

I had a discussion with a colleague at work several years ago. We were discussing the logic of Rock, Paper, Scissors. He later wrote an email describing his thoughts behind the Paper/Rock dynamic.

I understand that Scissors can beat Paper, and I get how Rock can beat Scissors, but there's no way Paper can beat Rock. Paper is supposed to magically wrap around Rock leaving it immobile? Why the heck cant paper do this to scissors? Screw scissors, why can't paper do this to people? Why aren't sheets of college ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they attempt to take notes in class?

I'll tell you why, because paper can't beat anybody, a rock would tear that up in 2 seconds. When I play rock/ paper/ scissors, I always choose rock. Then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, oh, I'm sorry, I thought paper would protect you. --Joel

Being the creative person that I am, I felt that I should respond in the only way I knew how and that was to write him a poem explaining why it is so, that the Paper is superior to the Rock.

A rock finds a balled up piece of paper and unravels it. It finds eloquently written prose that it cannot read:

On this median I do write
A tale of sorrow, not of spite
For in it lies a morbid gift
Of truth to those who find a rift

You cannot win this game of wit
You are a rock you will admit
A poor, existing chunk of fissured land
I grant to you a helping hand

Far superior am I to thee
There is no comparison you see
I concede to you, my jaw you may sock
But the fact remains, you're a fucking rock

Hint Fiction Contest

2011-06-18T15:42:00.005-04:00

I have writer's block right now, so I want you all to write something for me! Please join me in this adventure, my first ever Hint Fiction Contest! The deadline for entries will be July 15th and the winning entry will be posted on my blog.

The winner of this contest will receive $25.00 and an electronic copy of my short story titled Snow Leopard.

Rules:

1. You must follow this blog, and then post your entry as a comment.

2. Each follower can post one entry and any entry after that first entry will not count.

3. All anonymous entries will be deleted.

4. No story entry can be more than 25 words.

5. On July 15th, all entries will be deleted and the winner will be contacted before the winning entry is posted.

6. The winner will be required to provide contact information in order to receive prizes.

7. My relatives are not eligible to enter this contest.

Three judges will score the entries based on:

1. Completeness - Does the story feel complete?
2. Creativity - Is it different?
3. Appeal - In essence, did you like it?

Have fun! Hope to see your entries soon.

Winner announced on July 19th and all published Hint Fiction stories have been removed from this post. The stories were all fun and fabulous, so thank you for participating.

I may be hosting another contest, maybe Flash Fiction, in the future, so please stop by regularly to find out what's going on!

Gamer to Fiction Writer - 10 Milestones

2011-06-08T14:39:00.000-04:00

I’m publishing these because I started out my fiction-writing journey on a game called Threshold. Here is a list of these milestones in chronological order. Your order may be different, but most of these should be familiar to you if you started out on text-based games.

10. You joined a multi-player online role-playing game and instead of combating gelatinous cubes and giant scorpions, you spent your time reading room descriptions and crafting your own written prose to share with other players who were all combating gelatinous cubes and giant scorpions.

9. You wrote dramatic speeches for your cleric character and role-played him to the point of becoming chosen by the Gods and then created conflict that pissed off the Gods and got your character thrown out of the Church of Azeroth.

8. You had mud sex on text-based role-playing games to establish a fan base of your writing.

7. You applied for a virtual job on a text-based role-playing game as a writer for the virtual local paper, which paid you a virtual salary for the real life articles and stories you submitted.

6. You saved all the stories you ever wrote for your text-base role-playing game, even the shitty ones.

5. You saved all your logs from a text-based role-playing game because you thought that one day you might want to write a novel about your character and the dialogue would come in handy when you cut and paste it into your word processor, thereby saving you the re-typing.

4. You learned how to create websites so that you would have a home for all the characters that you developed on a text-based role-playing game.

3. You offered to design websites for free to build a portfolio of designs with "designed by Your Name" and "All rights reserved - Copyright 2011" displayed at the bottom of each page, just like you envision will be in the first few pages of your published novel.

2. You built a blog to self-publish your articles and used Twitter, Facebook and other social media to broadcast links to your blog (shameless plugs) which will one day host an entry for your upcoming novel...or other works in progress that will be coming out once you have finished mass marketing and making a name for yourself.

And the most important milestone in your journey from gamer to fiction writer (the last one that needs to happen for me)....

1. You finished writing that novel you had been working on!

God Is Testing My Patience

2011-06-04T11:15:00.001-04:00

God tested my patience when we drove half way to North Carolina and stayed at the Embassy Suites in Savannah. The "Manager's Reception" had just started and that means free beer. We ordered ourselves a couple of tall drafts, but they didn’t have Miller Lite, so that was a little disappointing in itself. It was a Thursday evening and we didn’t find many people bellied up to the bar.

We drank our beers and engaged in small talk with the bartender until this one guy, two stools down from us, acknowledged my husband with a slight nod of his head.

"You a Marine?"

"Retired," Tim offered, though clearly scripted in bright red letters on the front of his shirt read the words "Retired USMC".

"My dad’s a retired Marine," the man said. "He joined back in the day when everyone hated the Japs."

I choked up some beer, but recovered quickly.

Really? Really?!

Okay, so I wasn't in the mood for a fight. I drank my beer in silence with this silly smirk on my face thinking, “You know what … if my husband wasn’t the respectable man that he is, I would climb over him right now and beat your ass.” Instead, I remained cordial and listened while they talked about military history and the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

I had been thinking a lot lately about projecting a positive image of myself as this demure, older lady but I sensed my tolerance of the man wearing thin. I let it go because I knew later that Tim and I would laugh about the ignorance of the man. However, that same evening, we found a nice little watering hole outside the good city of Savannah and I had this great conversation with another gentleman.

“Where ya from?” he asked.

“Tallahassee,” I said.

“No, like where ya come from?”

My usual answer of “from my mother’s womb” came to mind, but the snarky answer remained inside my head. “You mean, what’s my nationality?” The calmness in my voice surprised me because I was highly irritated knowing exactly what he was asking.

“I’m half Japanese.” I took another sip of beer.

“Yea, I thought Asian, but not sure which kind since ya’all look alike," he said.

"Really? How so?" I motioned to the bartender for another draft so that I’d have something to do with my hand other than balling it up into a fist and shoving it down this man's throat.

"Ya’ll have slanted eyes," he said. Then he laughed and snorted and I think he even slapped his knee once.

I don’t know if it was the beer doing funny things to me or what, but when I turned to look at him, I saw these huge buck teeth and long ass donkey ears. I was speechless. Somehow, I didn’t have the heart to respond.

Wow…

Can we just fast-forward to the year 2030 so I can see which group is getting all the hate? I can promise you I won’t be telling anyone that my son joined the Army back in the day when everyone hated those rag-heads who all look alike.

Maybe I should have given up my image of demure, older lady and beat the man's ass. Then he could go home and tell his friends, if he had any, just how violent those Japs are.

I Was Playing Galaga

2011-05-21T17:20:00.000-04:00

I was playing Galaga last night and I was in my zone. I had just enough focus on my ship that I could see both the bullets and the bugs coming at me while moving my ship back and forth out of harm's way and blasting away at the buzzing insects. Yea, that zone. I had just gotten to stage two, so things weren't really that intense, but I was settling in nicely despite a band playing “Walk This Way” and two drunken dudes cursing over a foosball game.

“You make that look so easy,” a young voice pierced my Shield of Don't Bother Me. The waitress behind me smiled. I knew this because I saw her reflection on my screen a nanosecond before my ship was blasted by two torpedoes and a giant blue bug. I watched in despair while the metal pieces of my ship burst into flames and a mushroom of black smoke and orange embers blossomed from it.

I was pissed, but I forgave her. It's not like she did it on purpose. So, I got back into the game with one of my three remaining ships and made it into the tunnel ray of the green spider. My ship twirled to an alien beat before the spider took it to the top of the screen as a captured vessel. I was moments away from the challenge stage where I get to blast all the bugs with my newly acquired double ship, but first I had to kill the spider and take back my captured vessel.

The challenge stage is an awesome experience with double ships, even more awesome with triple ships, increasing your odds of hitting your targets. But I wasn't there yet. I had to get my double first. I shot one bullet at a time, careful not to blow away the payload. Aim. Fire. Got it! The rewarding tune played by the arcade game sang into my ears and my captured ship spun about before it finally rested itself beside my active vessel. I was ready for the challenge stage.

"Oh my gosh. Look, it's Galaga!" I looked back behind me and there stood this rather large drunk woman, beer bottle in hand. "Ain't played that in years."

I heard the familiar crash and burn, not only once, but twice. Both ships gone. I didn't have to look back at the game to know this, but if the look on my face told that woman anything, it was that I wasn't in any kind of mood to discuss my precious game with her.

Tone - No Drama Here

2011-05-16T10:49:00.001-04:00

When writing fiction, we can create all the drama we want. In fact, readers want that. However, in business, we deal in strictly "NO DRAMA". It can be tricky trying to take the drama out of your readers’ heads before they even read your message. Some readers feel instant drama over certain words or the arrangement of words.

Here is a letter to consider. Negative impact words in red, positive in blue:

All,

For the past three weeks, we have been getting emails concerning the rerouting of parking spaces at the front of the building. This project has been in the working for many months and we have all been forewarned of the limited parking spaces during this period.

Please do NOT send me emails regarding this parking issue as it is the responsibility of City of Madeupcityname, not our internal facilities maintenance department.

Thank you!

That has some serious tone in it, don't you think? When you compile a letter of any sort, you should keep in mind that the reader does not care what you are going through. They are not concerned with how bad your day has been. All they want from you is for you to respond with something helpful. If you are broadcasting a message, you have to be more diligent in removing the drama.

Broadcasting with tone is not a good idea. When you broadcast with tone, EVERYBODY gets it that you probably need a vacation.

Instead of being a victim (having tone), try being a hero (being helpful). It is easier to do. It sounds like the person who wrote this next message is more in control, doesn't it?

Good morning, everyone!

I would like briefly to remind you of the limited parking spaces we have available due to an ongoing construction project sponsored by the City of Madeupcityname in an effort to improve navigation flow to and from the inner city metropolis.

Please send all inquiries to:

City of Madeupcityname, Planning and Development Department
5785 Main Street
Madeupcityname, XX 89999
(888) 878-4444.

Thank you!

Time Management Crisis

2011-05-05T11:44:00.000-04:00

I feel terrible about an argument I had with my husband of 24 years. The other day we were discussing how we managed to stay together all these years and one thing led to another and we both became very defensive. What caused this defensiveness? Time Management.

You see, I am the type of person who likes to maintain a certain pace throughout the day. If I didn't accomplish one thing during the day, it meant it had a lower priority and I would do it the next day or the next. I don't see it as a failure on my part. I also don't carry a list in my head of things to do. Trust me, there's a lot of shit going on in there, I don't have room for lists!

My husband is the complete opposite. He has a list or two...or three. His lists have priority over what's in my head. If there is an item of lesser priority, and it didn't make it onto his list of things to do, don't fret! Because while you're in the car, attached to his hip, running the errands on his list, he will remember something he missed and it will go on the list, be assured! Remember that 2:00 pm walk-in at the hairdresser you wanted to make? Forget it. Because something made it on his list and that trumped what was floating around in your head for the past 30 minutes!

Why do I feel terrible? I could have handled myself a little better. I could have simply offered to help him fill out his list. Then instead of arguing with him about his managing and using up all my time, we could have had a list that looked like this:

1. Go to Lowe's and buy hardware for tool shed
2. Go to Pinch a Penny and buy chlorine for the pool
3. Get my hair did
4. Get a Pedicure
5. Stop by Wal-Mart for birthday cards
6. Get a large tattoo of a demon across my back

My Poetics - Why I Write Fiction

2011-04-25T10:49:00.004-04:00

My desire to write started when I failed, repeatedly, at this online text-based role-playing game. My first experience was horrible because I didn’t understand much about online gaming, let alone text-based gaming AND role-play. You create a character, log into the server and utilize a series of commands to perform functions. In simplistic terms and structure, it looks something like this:

You see a dagger
>get dagger
You get a dagger
>look dagger
You look at a dagger

Then on the screen, you might see something like this:

It is a small, steel dagger with a leather grip. The steel blade has a 12-inch, engraved surface: The Enforcer

>wield dagger
You wield a dagger. You are ready to adventure!

I hope I was able to demonstrate how a character would interact in a text-based online game. It gets more complicated as you advance within the game. However, to elucidate, I left it at simple interactive steps.

Anyway, I found myself in a world that became increasingly easy to maneuver and I loved the descriptions of the settings, the descriptions of other characters who obviously played the game for many years, as they were very adept in gaining levels and playing their roles. I was considered a “newbie” in this world, but when I reached a certain level in game play, I realized that I had not played a successful character. In order to play a successful character you have to be believable. I was a big joke.

In other words, I had not done the evil things expected of an evil character, to which I was. Evil characters do not smile and wave cheerily at people. Evil characters steal from people and they even kill people, neither of which I was prepared to do. I also had a hard time keeping white bunny rabbits from devouring me in battle when attempting to collect fuzzy, white, rabbit feet. I wasn’t very convincing in my role.

Therefore, after living in this game world with my first character, I decided that I would build another character and hope that I could play it more successfully, and I did. However, something was lacking. I had this brand new character and I mastered all the commands. Now what? There were the same weapons, the same monsters to kill and all the descriptions of the land were the same. In essence, I was another character in the same setting and I was bored!

Nevertheless, I could make it work. I could role-play my character and interact with the other characters and we could create our own story, right? Wrong. Try joining a religion, where all the characters that have to accept you must like you. However, you are an evil character! In addition, you are trying to join Set’s church, God of Darkness, Hatred and the Fiery Depths of Hell….but the other characters don’t like you because you once stole from their friend and you once killed their high school buddy who plays the character Sinbad!

My angst grew and grew. Those were my frustrations in trying not only to play a character but to create a story within which others must participate in order to make real and believable. Even though it is role-play and fictitious, it was hard to get past all the egos and get other characters involved. Try forming a clan and becoming a boss when everyone in the game wants to be a boss. Therefore, you have 20 players, 20 clans, and they all have exactly one member…the boss of the clan. Okay, that was an exaggeration.

Thus, I hung up my joystick and took to solitary writing so that I could create my own stories and nobody could stop me from writing it just how I wanted it to be written. In addition, if my character joins the Church of Set, all parishioners will bow when he enters and they will accept him or experience the wrath of Diane Carlisle, the writer of this damn story!

Smart Fiction

2011-04-19T14:21:00.001-04:00

I recently finished reading Stephen King's "Herman Wouk is Still Alive"

I loved it, but I've come to realize that some people cannot separate the role of fiction from that of political motivation. They have a problem with King's depiction of the characters in this story. If you read the story at that site, please read the comments as well to understand what I mean. Some readers get really offended by the characters we depict if they feel that the author isn't genuinely knowledgable of the "type" of people they characterize in their "fiction". My answer to them: IT'S FICTION!

I think we all differ in preference to style and language, but I don't care too much for stories filled with a lot of big words and intellectual knowledge that may distract from the story. I don't have the patience for it, not that I don't appreciate the work. I'm sure a lot of it is really fine work. However, when I read fiction, I want to be pulled in, immersed. I want it to flow through my mind just like I was swimming along the words, moving with the current and fighting the rapids at the end.

I read a story one time and my biggest problem with it was that the author used a metaphor by paraphrasing a passage from the bible. I've never read the bible, so I had no earthly idea what she was talking about and the metaphor made no sense to me. Her following two paragraphs were lost in translation as well.

I think it's healthy to assume that your reader is not going to appreciate your intellect as a fiction writer if you are not writing at the level of your narrator. If you can't dumb down your narratives, then you definitely will lose some readers. As my sister once said, "You don't have to prove to me that you are smart, prove that you can write a story that I might understand!"

It's smart fiction to dumb down your writing. You don't want your poor, fat, uneducated protagonist cogitating on how to dissipate the mass fortune she's acquired through winning the lottery. She can just think about how she's gonna spend all that cash!

Phone Upgrade Nightmare

2011-04-10T19:18:00.001-04:00

I had such a wonderful experience trying to upgrade my phone from the Blackberry Tour to the new 4G Samsung Epic. First, I would just like to say that I loved the phone features, the applications and the look and feel of the Samsung Epic. However, it's hardly worth having a phone packed with so much punch when you can't keep a battery life of more than a quarter of a day.

Smartphones, learn a lesson here. Stop cutting corners and selling the new features and the great looks through marketing gimmicks. You're going to have returns (a bunch of them too) because people are not going to keep these phones, at least not the people who value the dollars that they earn. I'm not going to pay for a phone and a plan when I have to see my battery life tick away right before my eyes. It's not normal to watch a battery drain a quarter of the way by 9:30 in the morning!

Either redesign your software and processors or provide a bigger battery to deal with the ill-designed, inefficient Operating Systems. I would suggest the involved companies hire more experienced developers and engineers, but that would just cost too much of THEIR time and money. And why did they charge me a re-stocking fee when I returned a phone that was obviously defective? Yes, I consider a poorly functioning phone to be defective, so sorry if every single one of them functions the same. It just means that every single one of them is defective.

Consider this:

For every 100 customers, say 25 make a return at $35.00 for a re-stocking fee. That's $850.00.

If you charge $10.00 per each new phone (call it a new phone service fee and deduct it out of the rebate scam already in place) you can do away with the $35.00 re-stocking fee (we'll get into why a re-stocking fee is bad business later on).

If you have 10,000 customers who bought new phones and 2,500 made a return in the old system,you made $87,500.

However...

If you have 10,000 customers who bought new phones and 2,500 made a return in the new improved Diane Carlisle system, you made $100,000.

$100,000 new system
-$87,500 old system

This way of doing business would yield $12,500 more per 10,000 customers. You do the math, I've been drinking beer.

You would make a profit of $1,250,000 per million customers over the old way of doing business, and you won't piss off your customers by charging them a re-stocking fee after they're already pissed off and disappointed.

Charging re-stocking fees is bad customer service. Why do you think someone would change their mind about wanting one of your phones? Maybe because it's a crappy phone? If you put out a product that some people don't like, isn't it pretty shitty to then charge them $35.00 for the inconvenience of YOUR selling them a crappy product? STOP SELLING CRAPPY PRODUCTS! Then you won't have to worry about a re-stocking fee.

Customers are almost always happy to pay a lesser fee up front as a "just in case I want to return it later" security blanket. It's much better business than the "you didn't read the fine print you dumbass" knife in the back.

JavaScript for Xpages (8.5)

2011-04-08T11:29:00.001-04:00

Well, I requested a new course at work, JavaScript for Xpages (8.5) and my request was approved! This is the reward I get for wrapping up a 6-month project. I think it is well worth it because I get to learn something new. I may or may not be able to utilize the acquired knowledge in a future project, we'll see.

This course is offered by The Learning Continuum Company, Ltd. (TLCC) at a cost of $499.00. The sale ends on May 5th. Get it here TLCC JavaScript for Xpages. So what do I think of JavaScript for Xpages (8.5)?

The layout of the course materials is a good one. It's easy to follow and the brief instruction on the Domino Designer Interface during the Introduction of the course made the steps flow so easily. I didn't feel lost at all. Maybe it's because I've been using Domino Designer for 4 years, just never got into the Xpage features. I'm more of a forms, views and frames person. I have to break away from that!

As is the case with all new programming courses you have to go through the traditional "Hello World" routine that only serves to remind you that you are a newbie, yet again --but only to the syntax of the new language. Yea, it's just script. So what?

I can't wait to get past the Intro and move on to the good stuff. I think I'm going to have 21 hours of a whole lot of fun today and next week. I'll probably author a post-mortem blog entry when I'm done with this course.

alert('Snoopy Dance!!')

I'm Boycotting Bill Maher

2011-03-23T13:47:00.000-04:00

I don't agree with many of Sarah Palin's views, some maybe, certainly not all. But I sure as hell admire the woman for putting herself out there knowing that scum like Bill Maher will try and demonize her the way he did by calling her a "dumb twat".

Bill, I won't refer to you as any body part, but how about this? The next time you run your mouth about another woman that you can't stand, do us all a huge favor and put a giant condom over your head so you don't spread that nasty disease that you're carrying. It's called pure ugliness. I hope someone finds a cure for you.

When Bill got wind of this post, he wasn't very happy. Here's what he sent me:

Wow, Bill. I thought you had more class than that. You've proven me wrong.

The Burger King Value Meal Scam

2011-03-12T22:36:00.000-05:00

So, when you order off the value menu at Burger King you must pay $.01 extra. Why? If you advertise something as being a “value” meal, isn’t that misleading when it costs more to purchase the “value” meal than if you just ordered everything individually?

Indicated on the menu for the individual items:

Double Stacker $2.00
Medium Fries $1.99
Medium Drink $1.89

Here’s my receipt. I think I can do the math here, taxes and all:

I put a red box around the phone number on the receipt just so you know, don’t bother calling that number because you have to be “invited” to make that call. You have to have an “invitation” code in order to take their “satisfaction survey”. They need to get a programmer to change this, take this phone number off the receipt and ONLY print it on the piece of paper that spits out the “invitation” code. You know?

I’ll get back to the word “value” now. Where is this added value? I think Burger King receives value in it, of course, because they get an extra $.01. With this extra $.01 they steal from their customers, they are that much closer to reaching their ROI for the user-friendly cash registers they purchase so they can cut back on the “training” time it takes to show the new guy how to operate something slightly more complex, their brain.

Next time I go to Burger King I’m NOT going to order the #11; I’m going to order a Double Stacker and when they ask me if I want the value meal I’m going to say, “No, but give me a medium order of fries and a medium diet coke.”

I can’t wait to hear, “Ma’am that would make it a value meal.” I’m just that ready to be a bitch about it.

Winning, duh

2011-03-10T14:28:00.000-05:00

I don't think seeing my work in print is a big deal to me. I would rather have one person really love what I wrote, that one person being me, rather than many who purchased it and thought it was just okay.

I used a publishing tool once to build a PDF of one of my stories: in Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced with one-inch margins. I was like, "Cool, looks like the same kind of writing in books I've purchased." Then I thought how awful it must be to have an editing job, hoping that your slush pile readers are sending you something really juicy...only to discover it's another one of THOSE stories! The horror of it all, not only does it read like all others, it LOOKS like a standard manuscript....ARRRRGH! Somebody shoot me, NOW.

All joking aside, it would be nice to become a published author some day, but I have a full-time job and a family that consume almost all of my time. The time and effort required to polish a piece of work for submission would be strenuous, which is the one thing I try to avoid. Even if I did all that work, a rejection would be like throwing salt into an open wound.

That's why I blog instead. I promise I won't create a Charlie Sheen "winning" entry for entertainment. I’ll post a video instead.

WINNING, duh.

Charlie Sheen's Winning Recipes from Charlie Sheen

Mercy Rules Are Stupid

2011-01-31T12:48:00.000-05:00

I was reading about that one Coach McGill whose team won by over a 100 points in some girl's basketball game. I was shocked by the spread in points, but even more shocked by the scorn that he'd received. What the hell was that all about? Because he didn't do all he could to make sure his team scored less points than they did now he's some kind of bad guy?

So, did his team do too well, or did the other team simply not try as hard as they could have? Where's the motivation in getting kids to step up and perform if they know that the other team may beat them, but not by that much? Okay, so you lost, but they only beat you by 20 points rather than 100. That's our mentality?

"Too many people in the world right now allow the youth to not be as good as they can be, allow them to be lazy," said McGill. "Here, I'm giving them an opportunity to live up to the best of their abilities and be proud of what they're able to accomplish. If that's what I'm being blamed for, then OK, I accept it."

It would be nice if more coaches approached sports with this philosophy. Why isn't it okay to be the best, play your best at all cost? Isn't that what the spirit of competition is all about? Imagine yourself in a singing competition and the first person up really sucked. Are you going to go onto that stage and downplay your talent just so that your points aren't too far above the untalented? Of course not! That's just asinine. I wouldn't do it, and I certainly wouldn't ask my daughter to either.

So Coach McGill had a small team, talented but small. Was he supposed to have his team toss the basketball back and forth, keep the ball away from the other team and let the time elapse rather than continue to score? That's worse. If you don't want to get humiliated, play your best and hope you don't get pummelled by a better team...or better yet, don't play sports! Not everyone is cut out for it, but if you want to play, I think you should strive to be better than you are, not worse so that you don't hurt other people's feelings.

According to Cameron Smith, "That commitment to excellence comes at a cost. In this case, it was the ego of teenage girls that was affected by the effective implementation of McGill's personal philosophy. Given that West Ridge is a school for at-risk youth, those egos in question may be even more fragile than most."

Really? So we care about egos of at-risk young girls, and so the answer is to not play hard to win...we should downplay our abilities so that they never realize how bad they really are or how good the other team really is? We are not supposed to be stroking the egos of our youth or coddling them, we are supposed to be building confidence and promoting teamwork. You do that by making them strive as a team and when they are defeated as a team, they will learn how much work they must accomplish to compete next time. You don't accomplish that by asking your children not to do their best in certain conditions, like when the other team is "really" losing.

Give them a chance to catch up? And if they are "at-risk" and their egos are more "fragile" cut them even more slack because we don't want them to be upset. Really? How about teach them the spirit of competition, which isn't about winning or losing as much as it is about learning to cope with the agony of defeat as well as learning to humbly accept the thrill of victory.

Coaches and teachers should do their best and make our youth better by teaching them the skills they need to play better. Don't rely on these stupid mercy rules to preserve the youth egos. Children are resilient, they will learn and bounce back. Seriously, I think these rules are more in place to help repair egos of the coaching staff.

I'm reminded of The Breakfast Club when Andrew mocks his father, "Andrew! You've got to be number one! I won't tolerate any losers in this family! Your intensity is for shit! Win! Win! Win!" I'm not saying that we should push our youth to be the best at all cost, but they shouldn't be asked to give up the fruits of their labor, which is the euphoria in winning from playing their best. Anything less than that is diminishing their self worth. Humility in winning is taught when the game is over, not during the game.

Top 10 Ideas That Are Teh Ghey

2011-01-21T12:49:00.000-05:00

10. Approving budgets that include a 50% boost in executive salaries and 0 dollars toward marketing strategies. BP is experiencing the reverse of this right now.

9. Logging into a server where everyone can crack a cheat and level up to the max to see who haz the better skillz. What's the point in experiencing the journey, right?

8. Making Snookie a super star. Why is it so hard to ignore stupid people? We want to make them famous instead. The quickest way to get money back into the economy is to make stupid people rich right? Well, they're the only ones spending money and there's less of them, so that theory isn't smart. Why are they the only ones spending money? BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS AT HOME, WATCHING THEIR STUPID SHOWS AND ADDING TO THE RATINGS THAT ARE MAKING STUPID PEOPLE FAMOUS!!!

7. Giving military discounts to ACTIVE DUTY ONLY personnel. Really? Are you going to turn down a double amputee in a wheel chair who fought in WWII just because his military I.D. reads "retired"? Please tell me you didn't just give that discount to a woman who is separated from her active duty husband (and refuses to get a divorce so that she can secure that active duty military I.D. card) and said husband has managed to avoid combat for the past 10 years despite America having been involved in two major wars!

6. Marriage is just a piece of paper. Really? It's funny what a piece of paper can do. My friend cheated on her husband, never worked a day in her life, took half of everything they owned AND took half of his military pension. Strong piece of paper I'd say.

5. Love is blind. No it's not. Life is just more tolerable when you have someone else with whom to share it. Only 5% of the population is attractive. The rest of us know our flaws. Love is accepting each other's flaws and being grateful that we're each willing to spend our lives together despite them. It's not like we look at each other and see Ken and Barbie! You don't love someone so much that you overlook his or her huge honker of a nose and see a pretty little button one instead, okay.

4. Composing a song that literally spells out something...think "Y.M.C.A." and "Living in the c-i-t-y". Seriously?

3. Donnie and Marie.

2. No need to learn spelling rules. We have spell-check in our word processing software. Okay, than tell me why their are mistakes in this hear sentence that will not be picked up by you're spellchecker.

1. The early bird gets the worm. So? We are not birds and I do not particularly like worms, raw or cooked. Now leave me alone and let me get back to sleep!

Signed,
Teh Ghey Analyst - Why? Because posting a Top 10 list is pretty teh ghey in and of itself. :)

Finalizing My Plot

2010-12-27T11:49:00.001-05:00

I've been working on a plot for my novel for the past 4 months and I'm now coming to a final summary and what I believe to be something very workable. Why has this taken me 4 months? Because, I’ve read 4 or 5 books now to try and help me in getting started with my first novel. I hope those authors enjoy the royalties from my purchase. Here’s more of a comprehensive idea of how I discovered what works for me.

How many times do we consider a story in our heads and think we'll just put it down on paper? I do it all the time with short stories. My biggest problem when I start putting my story on paper is that I realize that two dimensional characters are really difficult to work with when writing down a story where you are just explaining this happened, and then this, and then, well...this happened. Not really like that, but pretty close. It's rather painful. When self-help books for writers say to just sit down and start writing, this is what happens.

So then I stopped writing the story. Now I had to consider why someone would do this or that and why another character would react in the way I described in my story. Aren't I being a bit selfish as a storyteller at this point? I'm not giving any consideration to my characters at all, just making them do things that maybe they feel like they wouldn't EVER in a million years respond the way I described. How did I come to realize this though? Enter my 16 year old daughter.

I'm telling her about this story and the interaction between two of my characters and she goes, "The hell? If I were that chick, I wouldn't just sit there and not say anything about her boyfriend being out with another girl the night before, no way! I'd let him have it right then and there."

Okay, so now, two months into my story I have a dilemma, right? How do I fix this situation in my story so that the reader believes the situations? How do I make my scenes realistic to anyone reading my novel? Sure, my daughter wouldn’t react that way, but not everyone is my daughter. Her friend Jenna wouldn't react that way either, but Jenna would respond in a completely different way than my daughter as well as my fictional character. So now what? So now I have to make my characters believable. I have to give them more depth. Back to the drawing board.

Now I have Lenny and Emma. And being that they are fleshed out to be their own persons, I can have them communicate with each other in manners that are completely within their characters and the reader will not put themselves in the place of either character, but can move along the story beside them. Not a major hurdle, but I'm getting somewhere at least.

Now, onto plot. I have my story started, my believable characters, both whom I love dearly at this point. Dammit, writer's block! These are two complete different people here. How is it that they are friends to begin with? What happened to my story? It doesn’t work anymore.

Month 3 - depression, work slows to a standstill, fiction writing class is ending. Time for Christmas shopping, planning events and so on. It's a good thing I didn't have any time for writing. This whole time I'm thinking about the fact that I have no story to create for these two completely different people that are swimming around in my head. Back to the drawing board. :(

Month 4 - brilliance! Both characters will have parallel journeys! One, a journey toward a blossoming relationship with her mother, the other toward the discovery of turmoil in a relationship with her fiancé. The journeys will give me that chance to give them the depth and characterization that I need for my plot to work!

I guess 4 months of trying to figure this out has led me to a more confident and positive approach to story compilation. Call me a newbie, but I'd rather learn as I go than to create something that in the end leaves my reader going, "Huh? So what's the point?" or maybe even putting down the book before finishing the first chapter.

How do you discover your final plot? Do you discover it or do you start out knowing exactly what's going to happen?

Time is NOT Money

2010-12-21T09:47:00.003-05:00

This year during the Holidays, I put forth some of my time to help with one of the local Toys For Tots charity events. It was the first year that I attended all of the committee meetings for the annual pig-picking drive for toys. I cannot tell you how much my heart has grown this Holiday season and I believe it is because of this experience that I had.

Not only did we provide food, drinks and entertainment for over 900 guests participating in the drive for more toys, we also helped gather donations and toys for over 1300 families. The amazing part of this whole effort is that we worked side by side with work-release prisoners, categorizing toys and bagging in masses for families throughout the local community. I hoped that the other workers were also experiencing this feeling of euphoria.

It was tedious work, but after the third and fourth bag that I compiled for families with 2 to 3 children of varying ages, I felt like I was the one giving these toys to the families. I carefully chose each stuffed animal, each of the two stocking stuffers per child, each game, book and toy for the appropriate age groups.

As I was stuffing these bags, I became overwhelmed as I imagined the look of surprise on the children's faces Christmas morning. The gift I was giving was only of my time, but I was the one who received the biggest gift of all, this enormous gift of feeling worthy and good.

If you have the opportunity to join a group that works for the betterment of your community or for those less fortunate than you, I strongly urge you to participate. It has helped me understand the difference between obligation and just plain goodwill.

Happy Holidays!

P.S. I didn't get to keep Clyde, but here's a picture of us bonding after a very long day.

Reflection: What is Sanity?

2010-11-18T10:56:00.001-05:00

I hardly ever think about theme when I'm writing a story. When I start out with a character, I have no idea what that character is going to do. The story eventually comes to me but I'm about three or four paragraphs into it when that happens.

I'll then realize that I'm making something of a big deal about this character, whether it's a good deal or bad one. Then I become attached to the character and want to do more with him or her. I want them to do great things or I want to sacrifice them in some way. Then I start compiling ideas on how I can make the story mean something more than just being about this character I developed.

I look at theme as an overall mood that is reflected in the process of building your story. I can go hours with doing nothing but think to myself. My husband will ask what I'm thinking about and I have to tell him that I cannot possibly relay to him what I'm thinking because then I'd have to go through the painstaking process of explaining the thousand thoughts that led me to my current thought.

That's what I feel about themes. What you have is just a process of all things leading up to where you are in the end, or when someone stops you and asks you that question, "What are you thinking?" It's the same as asking, "So, what's the theme?"

I write so that I don't have to explain my thoughts, I can just say go back and read what I wrote because I can't tell you what I'm thinking now, let alone what I was thinking when I wrote what I did. It will just frustrate me!

Writing keeps me sane. That's always going to be my theme then, "What is Sanity?" It's in my writing, can't you see it?

Latest Compulsion to Purchase - 3D TV

2010-10-07T10:15:00.014-04:00

So I almost broke down and purchased myself a 3D television ensemble a few weekends ago. I will be the first to admit that the geek in me almost always makes the worst decisions while out shopping. I get blind-sided by some serious techno bling. There, I said it...techno bling. Yes, I too sometimes get drawn into that whole nonsense. But my very sensible husband always manages to step me aside and give me the sideline punting strategy lecture....just wait it out.

GRRRRRRR!!!

I know he's right. But it doesn't make it any easier to bypass that display in Best Buy and just let it go. I want to see it in my living room, NOW! I want to invite friends over and give them a pair of $150.00 glasses (each) and sit down and watch Avatar together. I know what some of my friends would say right now if they were reading this.

So what? How come it's not okay anymore to revel in the grandioseness of techno bling? Everybody feels it. Everybody wants to be in a position to buy something they want even though it may not be the smartest thing to purchase at the time. It's just the newest candy in the aisle, the newest trash magazine, only it has a price tag in upwards of $3K.

The thing is, I know the cost is going to go down because technology depreciates faster than a brand new trailer in an ancient trailer park. So I have to ask myself maybe after Christmas is over? Maybe after more competitors get into the 3D television market? Wait, how about when there are more channels that broadcast in 3D other than ESPN (I don't even watch sports)? Even better than that...how about when there are more 3D movies being released other than the two that are in circulation right now?

Technology is dangled before my eyes and I have to be smart about it. I would rather be rich and dumb, honestly! Look, when the geeks start getting sensible about the cost effectiveness of the products we wish to purchase, it's time to lower the price threshold when you're on the bleeding edge. You know what I'm saying? It's the geeks wanting these products, not the "rich" folk. They're too busy taking cruises and gallivanting around the world to sit down and watch 3D television.

So, Sony and Panasonic, please cut a sister geek a break!

Novel Writing Software

2010-09-13T15:57:00.000-04:00

I would definitely recommend this software package. There are a few things that are exceptional about the concept of this software that I can definitely share with you because of the fact that I've been writing for many years and have manually organized and categorized and made half ass attempts at integrating my work throughout the years. I can't tell you how pleased I was to fire up this software and find all the conveniences that just do not come with a PC running windows and an installed word processor.

You can download a demo here http://www.ravensheadservices.com/

What I like:

1. Built in character template to include a number of pre-defined personality traits, relationships, and free form character description to include character picture. Every character is easily accessible from a left navigation bar that loads in the main workspace via a click on the character.

While writing your story, chapter, scene or whatever, you are only a click away from reminding yourself of those character traits, personality nuances and relationships that you need to keep in mind for the sake of character integrity. So many times in the past I would start writing dialogue between two characters and I stop myself and want to go back and re-read every single scene to make sure I'm doing this correctly.

When I click on a character, I can quickly see that "Lenny" wouldn't answer that question in that manner and would be able to catch myself as I move along rather than continuing to go back through my character sheet that is saved under C:\My Documents\Novels\It Happened One Summer\Character Sheets\Lenny.txt. You would think that as you write you should know your characters, but in the beginning with your first three or four chapters it's really hard and discouraging.

2. The Events tab is particularly pleasant because you can make an event and put it on a timeline. You can organize your events in the left navigation by clicking and dragging the event of your choice either up or down depending on your story flow. I really like this because when I start writing I don't just jump in at the beginning. I start with an idea and I first write a "scene". If I like that scene, then I ask myself why that scene happened and thus come more scenes and thus is birthed a story ready to be written.

So, from my standpoint, the event "drag and drop" mobility is very satisfying because I don't have to worry about organizing or trying to figure out where something will fit. When I'm ready, I can look at my navigation of events and drag and drop where I want them to occur in my timeline. There's my flow. I love it. You can also select and store all characters associated with that event.

3. You don't need a separate word processor. This software has all the tools you need if you want to write a story for publishing. It incorporates all those tools in a single portal. Need a thesaurus, dictionary, spell checker? It's all there, plus when you're done you can "Export" your story as a manuscript for submission, an ebook for online publication or an html web page (I didn't like the html webpage; would rather do it myself with formatting).

4. Graphs! You can pick any character you want and display a graph of that character's relationships. It's an awesome way to organize how you want to progress in your story. If you see that one character only has a relationship with one other character, you might ask yourself - Why is that character in my story? It might be a great way to integrate another scene and add to the plot, or you might make a wiser decision to cut the character and scene altogether depending on how far along you are in your novel. Awesome feature!

5. Export setup for manuscript output. I like this because not all publishers accept manuscripts the same. Margins, fonts, cover page, word count, etc. can be different. If you find that a publisher's requirements are slightly different than the industry standard, you just tweak the export, create your manuscript and then reset the defaults. Easy!

What I don't like:

1. The import function doesn't seem to work. I could be doing something wrong, but I can't be sure. It's never a good thing to get java I/O errors and then immediately get a message box that asks you to save. I don't like that at all. I realize that I won't need to use this function anyways because it's just as easy to copy and paste text to and from the clipboard.

2. Large character portraits can slow performance of this software. Yikes! Okay, I didn't know this until I tried to use a picture for one of my characters. It will still let you use the picture, just gives a warning that you may hinder the performance. I think a much better approach would have been to establish a maximum size for this feature and disallow larger photos.

Anyway, that's been my experience so far and I've only really just begun.

All About Biscuit

2010-09-11T20:41:00.002-04:00

Biscuit is my prize dog. I'll tell you why.

A few weeks after I bought my Yorkie from a breeder in Blountstown, she was ready for her next series of shots. My vet had been taking care of Maggie and Taz for the longest time and I do trust him to do whatever necessary to care for them. So when I took Biscuit there and everything was fine, I got her booster shots and went on home.

The next morning, I noticed that she wasn't the hyper Yorkie that I remembered from the night before and so I picked her up and held her for a bit, you know...mommy love!

I didn't start to panic until I felt her go limp in my arms. My initial thought was that she had fallen asleep in my arms. But, when I picked her up to carry her to her kennel, she didn't move. That's when panic set in.

I drove her to the vet and they took her to the back room immediately. They explained to me that small dogs (she was less than 1 lb at the time) needed to be monitored for illness more closely than bigger dogs because they will dehydrate quickly when they become ill. All my dogs that I'd ever had were small, but not this small. At full grown she is just under 4 lbs.

I just said, "DO something, I don't care what, just do it!"

The vet injected her with some sort of glucose mixture and said that he was sorry and that she probably wouldn't make it through the night. I was heartbroken.

I covered her in a blanket and held her all night while watching television. I didn't remember falling asleep. When I woke to a wet feeling on my left thumb, I realized that it was Biscuit licking me. I hate waking up from a deep sleep, but this one was worth it. I carried her into the kitchen and gave her two small pieces of very thin sandwich meat, which she gulped down with much difficulty. At that point, I knew I'd be able to nurse her back to full health.

A week later, I took her back to visit our vet so that he could truly see the miracle for which he played a part. His eyes welled up with tears and he thanked me for bringing her back to see him. I think he actually felt that I'd never come back if Biscuit had died that evening. It made me feel good that he recognized a kindness in me that most people would never care to comprehend.

Today she is my most pampered dog. Fifty-dollar cuts with nail trimmings and teeth brushings is nothing out of the pocket when I see her wag her tail so vigorously when I pick her up at PetSmart. She even lets them put bows in her hair now.

Thank you, Mahan Animal Clinic!

Meet miss priss!

All About Maggie

2010-09-11T14:41:00.000-04:00

Maggie was our first English bulldog. Since I was a little girl, I always had small dogs like poodles, cocker spaniels and the occasional mixed puppy. So, when my husband retired from the Marine Corps and stated that he wanted an English bulldog I was so not hearing that. First thing I told him was that they were NOT cute dogs at all. I especially didn't want one after he told me that they snort and fart all the time. A real man's dog he called them. NO!

But he talked me into it and one day he went to a breeder two counties away and Maggie walked up to him and picked him as her new owner. I kid you not, that's how it went down. She has always had this look about her that says, "Look at me, I'm so smart." So when she walks up to you and you say, "Look at Maggie! You're so smart, Maggie!" she pulls her ears back and accepts your praise of a pat on the head. We named her after the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Maggie is one dog that doesn't like to be mocked though. If you just stare at her and don't praise her for being smart, she'll rush over to you and start humping your leg. Almost as if she's telling you you're being disrespectful by not praising her for simply being Maggie. Spoiled you think? It is a personality thing; we did not train her to be that way.

We put laundry on the sofa for our teen daughter to fold. But, if she doesn't get to it within 15 minutes, Maggie will take it upon herself to kick the pile of laundry onto the floor to make room for her mid-day nap. Many times, I'd find her on her back, with legs kicked up and tongue hanging out as if she hasn't a care in the world. I think my husband has fed her one too many steaks fresh from the grill!

I sometimes wish I could have such the life. Only I don't want to go into the kennel every time we have company!

Maggie

All About Taz

2010-09-10T15:34:00.000-04:00

I have a male English bulldog named Taz, short for Tasmanian Devil, the cartoon character. So on with another progress making story, but we aren't quite there with this one and I don't think we will ever be.

You see, Taz is special. We didn't discover this until he was about a year old. It was at a point in time where we realized that he had outgrown Maggie, our female (alpha) English bulldog. You see it coming, right?

After a sudden brawl between the two and a trip to the vet's office, we decided that it was best to keep them separated at all times, because re-attaching Maggie's ear to her head and a $700.00 vet bill was just over the top. That meant separate feeding times, separate walking times, and separate love and affection times. All to be shared with our prissy Yorkshire terrier, Biscuit.

Throughout the past 3 or 4 years, Taz has gotten progressively worse. Not in his aggression toward Maggie, because we don't have them anywhere near each other, but his behavior has become increasingly bazaar.

I first noticed these bazaar behavioral patterns in him when he first displayed an intense fear when a storm suddenly formulated one summer eve. He whined and whimpered and ran behind some boxes in the garage. If you ever seen a 70 pound English bulldog whimper and run, you know how odd that is. I had to stumble back to keep the boxes from falling on me.

I asked my vet about this and he prescribed some medication that was to be administered via a 2 inch syringe the next time a storm hit. It was kind of hard to predict when Taz would need this medication and so eventually it expired.

So we lived with the fact that he'd built himself a safe-haven within the garage, behind those boxes. He would seek shelter whenever he felt the need. It's not that I didn't feel horrible for him, but there just wasn't anything I could think of to do. It's not like you can console a dog with rationale like you can a scared child.

This isn't really the bazaar behavior; it's actually quite common for animals to wig out during thunderstorms. But, the progression of his fear is so bazaar because now he becomes intensely frightened when it's not even thundering. There could be a small cloud in the sky that produces a light sprinkle whose droplets quickly evaporate as soon as they hit the driveway. You can't clear a path quick enough to his bunker that he's built. That is what's not normal.

At some point you would think that fear would subside once it has been proven over and over again that no harm will come from the thunderstorm.

Aside from the increased intensity of fear over the weather, Taz has displayed some more unusual propensities. He lifts his leg and pees on people and defecates in his food bowl. I don't know what to make of this. I'm starting to wonder if he might be a little more "special" today than he was a year ago. And maybe he will just continue to become more and more "special" as time goes by.

Taz

My Fiction Themes

2010-07-04T20:17:00.000-04:00

The themes that I always seem to run into while writing are the diametrically opposing forces of any type. Sometimes I write about good and evil, sometimes black and white and then at times maybe the rich and the poor. It seems to come easier for me to play narrator when I can see and even describe both sides of a story without commitment to either side. It’s easier to write when you don’t feel the need to lie or hide whatever it is that you want to make visible, like an interesting story.

Take evil for instance. I like to acknowledge that it is there, but I also like to show it in other forms other than what most would find atrocious acts. Evil is a presence that can be felt and described without having to add guts and gore. Too many times, I enjoy embracing that evil presence, strengthening it in prose, and then in the end abandoning it or abolishing it altogether.

In reading back through some of my past writings, I seem to have two voices at times. One is the evil, crisp narrator who would promise world domination and adherence to a dark side. Then there would be the good, flittering and nurturing narrator who would tell of tears and joy. Though I seem to choose one or the other dependent upon mood, I really haven’t seen anything that stands out as a theme.

One thing that I do tend to move toward is empowerment. In much of my gaming life, social and political power in the eyes of the Deities is a big focus. So I think in much of my writing I tend to view my audience as being the powers that be, so in that respect I am basically writing for the empowerment of my characters rather than for the story itself, thereby missing theme altogether.

So in the end, what is the point? I loved the journey of that character. I loved that character. I loved the oppositional forces surrounding that character and I loved how he/she dealt with the obstacles encountered throughout their journey. I don’t know what all that means, but that’s the joy of writing for me.

I think what I can do to help myself develop a better feel for theme is to be more aware of what I’m bringing into each story. I should probably ask more questions about why I introduce things into my stories, like what is the purpose of bringing this new character into focus? What are my plans for that particular character (if any) and does it fit with my story? I think that if I question myself more when I’m writing, I may find that there is more of a point than just the journey itself.

Web Services and Outsourcing

2010-05-07T18:52:00.001-04:00

It looks like I'm going to be developing a solution for connecting to and utilizing a SOAP service. The learning hasn't been too painful and I'm finally getting through one of several tutorials. Research, read, learn and apply. I feel like my job is just a continuation of college. I just get a paycheck for doing it. Hey, nice concept.

Why am I developing a solution to connect to another business's service? Couldn't I just build a program to handle the exact same thing that that service provides? If I could I would. My direction isn't dictated by what I can build, but by what management is willing to spend on a project. Is the argument that the service already exists in another organization and for a small amount of money and a little bit of effort, we can use their services? Okay, but guess what? I already get paid to program, so why don't they use what's already here, me?

Why not let me spend my hours developing a software package in-house? Is it the cost? Is there some sort of liability? Is there a fear that the quality will be degraded because commercial software and/or services are thought to be superior than home grown ones that are customized to your individual need? How many commercial packages have you purchased in the past 10 years that you actually use because it's so easy to use and fits your needs?

Maybe the smart thing to do is invest some dollars into my own consulting firm and build services and develop software for all these places that are hell-bent on outsourcing? I don't know, I'm just saying. The future of computing is changing exponentially and I think my job description has changed a bit to include an extra bullet point: "prepare for the apocalypse".

SEO Unethical Techniques

2010-04-22T12:35:00.004-04:00

The way I learn best is for someone to pose a question. For example, "Diane, have you heard of SEO article writing?" To which my answer would be, "No, but now I'm curious.." Look out rabbit hole, here I come.

So, I did do some research, but not a whole lot. I sort of stopped myself when I ran into some information that was pretty disturbing to me about SEO article writing. First off, in case you didn't know, SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. What it means basically is preparing your website to be the most richly matched in content with search engine queries made by users surfing the world wide web.

How is this done? Well, for example, a site would use meta tags in their html documents, like so:

I chose that one because it is quite long for a reason (I took out some keywords because it was soooo long). The site itself is a website for an aquarium in New England and I found it quite easily by just using Google to search for "aquarium". It was the first one to come up in my list of results. Of course, I don't live in New England, nowhere close even. So maybe I should redo my search to include Florida? There, much better results!

But look at the long list of keywords in that meta tag! I did another search using Google and combined the words "webcam", "tickets" and "England", all keywords in the above meta tag. Not at all expecting to get an aquarium hit right? But, I did.

Maybe I heard that somewhere someone was selling webcam tickets to entertaining footage of the Royal Family Dinner Party with Barack Obama! New England Aquarium came up 5th on my list of results. Several results and pages away from the forefront was a link entitled "London web cams links". Jeez, do you think that might have more to do with what I was expecting to find as a result?

So we have moved away from keywords now, not so important... Now the people who want traffic have to work just a little harder for it. Thus, the need for SEO article writing. What they do here is instead of just slapping some keywords in a meta tag, they use the keywords in a written article that gets published in an article directory and with a link back to their site.

I've read so many how tos and to dos about this that made me cringe, simply because I love to write myself, but I love to write about things that are comprehensive and I don't write just for the sake of writing something. I have to be really focused on what it is I want to accommplish with my written words. That means quality content to somebody, I hope!

I did read on this one site that you "just string the words together to where they make sense". This really, really bothers me. It's like instructing a three year old to "just put the yellow square block into the yellow square hole, dear...see not so hard huh?"

Then what really kills me is that they will rewrite the same article, same keywords, but with slight changes to make it a different article...over and over again. Then they re-publish these articles. This is laziness - pure, evil laziness!!

Stop, people!! Stop treating the web like a checkout lane by filling it with these publications that are comparable to trash magazines and their headlines that have little to nothing to do with the real content. Integrity pays, not gimmicks. Well, aside from the "as seen on TV" products I keep buying for my husband each Christmas. I love those things, but I don't think he does.

Getting back to SEO article writing (there ARE ethical techniques in SEO article writing, but that's not what I'm writing about). What disturbed me the most is that these people that are involved in article writing and "rewriting" in order to gain traffic for their websites seem to forget about integrity and pride in their products or content of their sites. Nevermind that a large percentage of their customers probably won't go back because they were "tricked" into visiting to begin with and have found very poorly written, even painful to read content.

I hope that people who practice this type of unethical approach to marketing would find better ways to get word out to their potential customers, but quality costs. You can pay as little as $1.25 per hour for article writing/rewriting. Some ads seeking writers will even list that you "don't have to have real good English" or "noobs welcome". Scary, isn't it?

So, when their credibility becomes famously negative, they won't have to worry about getting traffic hits anymore, they will be blacklisted I think is the term. Thank goodness there are smarter people in place that anticipate these unethical techniques, so kudos for policing the trash!

Privacy on the Internet

2010-04-14T09:22:00.001-04:00

I received a phone call yesterday from register.com and I realized then that I had updated my contact information on my account. I did this because I had used my mother's name and listed her business address and an old phone number.

For a few years now, register.com would not have been able to reach me, mainly because my mother is deceased and her business was sold and the building leveled. But now that I updated my phone number, why not, right? After all, I did just add another domain and removed the private listing cost and email account cost that was so eloquently folded into the total cost in my shopping cart. tsk, tsk.

On to this privacy matter.

I've managed to keep the number of stalkers that are coming after me for any number of reasons to a bare minimum, let's say um, 0. So the register.com representative explains to me that this information about me is published for anyone to lookup in the whois database.

*gasp!!*

Well, duh...if you have a presence on the internet, isn't it likely that you WANT people to find you? Or if they find you on the internet and are excited about your product and want to give you money for it (Lord forbid)...do you then want to hide any means of contact they may obtain in order to reach you and make further inquiries about your product?

If this information is so readily available, why is it that every website on the internet has to have "contact us" and "about us" pages filled with information such as address, phone number and email? Oh look! Now they have maps showing people how to find you! Scary, isn't it?

And what about your picture? On the internet?! What?!

My feeling on all this is that whatever you're exposed to when you walk out of your house and into the public eye, it's no different on the internet. You don't go to the grocery store with a bag over your face, do you? So why would you be on the internet without a picture, doofus? Unless, of course, you have something to hide. In which case I wouldn't want to have anything to do with you anyway, since you're that shady. :)

Learning New Things

2010-04-09T09:06:00.001-04:00

So why do I write about all of these things that I'm currently undertaking as new learning experiences? Because I'm one of those people who gain a comprehensive understanding in areas of study when I write about them. It's not enough to just read the how tos on the internet and just start coding, messing up, fixing, and recoding, etc. The real lightbulb comes on when I decide to write about some new thing that I have to learn in order to do my job properly.

I think the reason this works for me is that I'm not afraid to also write about the shameful things I encounter through my screw ups. Nobody likes to mess things up, certainly not me. But I also find that I have more freedom to admit the things that I do mess up because I am very forgiving of myself. I have to be or I would never agree to be in this profession.

Although, I have found that once I write something down and make an announcement about it, I'm 100% committed and at that point I know that if I am not successful, then these written words will be a reflection of my failure. This is a motivating factor in getting my ass in gear to learn all this new stuff. It's taxing on the brain (at least it is on MY brain) and I imagine not something a lot of people want to get stuck doing. Maybe it's because they don't have that strategy in place that will glare back and challenge them. It's called committment. College was successful for me because of this very thing.

My husband calls me a professional student. :)

Writing Site

2010-04-08T13:52:00.000-04:00

Well, I put my writing site up yesterday. I'm going to eventually send it to my sister so that she can check it out. Mainly I want her to check out the design of the site since she took up web development before I did. I'm the newbie here! lol

I'm getting used to it now and used to deployment/publishing, but I think I'm going to invest in a domain at some point. I'm not sure which to go with but will do the research. It's so tedious trying to fill the content. I think I enjoyed the designing of the site a lot more. Hope I don't peter out with the content and leave things half developed like that.

I really do have a lot of content to put out there, but some of it I'm not so sure I want just anyone looking at. Time to create some form of login maybe to my private folder or something? Who knows...

We are definitely NOT there yet. :)

Hurry Up and Wait

2010-03-30T16:03:00.001-04:00

This up and down, back and forth type of nonsense really bugs me. If we weren't all running in different directions, each of us taking lead when it's our turn to round up the cattle, so much could get done. Why do we have so many leaders that don't know how to grab hold of the reins and hold on until something is finished?

Why am I ranting about this? Because it is painfully obvious to me that this sort of time management/accountability and finger pointing fiasco happens everywhere. At work, at home, during your favorite sports outings, you name it and it happens there as well.

My husband goes, "Okay, off the computer dear...we're all waiting on you!" Good! Because that's what I wanted you to do. Get ready, then let me know and we're out the door, just like that, right?

Wrong.

I go to the door with my purse, ready to walk out. Someone asks, "Where are the car keys?" Then another, "Where's that list you created this morning? I know you gave it to me, but do you remember where I put it? Did you see my reading glasses on the bar and put them away somewhere?"

My daughter then asks, "Dad, can we stop by the mall on the way home and get me a new pair of flip flops?"

My husband says, "Didn't we just get you a pair?"

You get the picture?

I sigh and go to my office, plop my purse down on the floor and log into the computer to play a quick game of solitaire while they continue on with their discussion. I am interrupted 2 minutes later via a head poked through the entryway, "I thought I said we were waiting on you?"

Website Development

2010-03-29T14:03:00.000-04:00

I'm currently building the content for my writing website. It's not really just a writing website, but more or less a portfolio of my works, whether written prose, photographs or even the websites that I design. I know I'm probably going to want to shoot myself later because I'll probably discover later on that I SHOULD have separated out all of these things categorically to have a more narrowed focus. However, that would leave me with very little content and a whole lot of design effort.

I wish there were an easier way to learn website design while promoting your own stuff. I just know that if I didn't have a site to work on, I probably wouldn't learn quite as fast. I think it's because I have that goal of wanting to see the finished product and it feels so much like artwork to me. :)

Call me a newbie, because in essence, that is exactly what I am when it comes to web design. Heck, I just discovered today how confusing the previous and next buttons can be using CSS. Screw it for now, I'll use simple text and link to the pages. There'll be room to fit that in later, same with the contact form. I think the ole mailto should work just fine for now.

Learning CSS

2010-03-25T08:34:00.001-04:00

I never really cared much about website design or html until I was involved in making some changes (cosmetic in nature) to this one site. It was sooo tedious for me (the newbie) going from page to page to page in an attempt to make this small change consistent and uniform across the entire site! I'll ask you this because I asked myself this very thing at that time...who in their right mind would want this job? Right!

So anyway, I started out getting involved in some website maintenance in between major "coding" projects, and it wasn't really exciting to me. I was like, "Oh wow, okay so I typed in these words in between some tags and when I open the file in my browser it is decorated and formatted." Okay, so now I'm just trying to be funny and failing completely. You have to understand the boredom here. I'm basically a coder and so not so amazed at how something looks as much as I am about my code functioning flawlessly and as expected.

Now I've been introduced to the uses of CSS and I have to say that while trying to figure out how this stuff works I was very troubled and frustrated that I just couldn't make sense out of it all. There were so many properties and so many intricate details in getting specific behaviors for your look and feel. I even went so far as to download several free CSS layouts and comb through them, making small changes, loading the pages and then reviewing the changes (sometimes very grand changes). Some changes were so subtle though that I wouldn't pick up on them right away.

So now I'm here. I've completed my first website, though very basic, and I really do have a greater appreciation for web design. So long as you have great content for your site, serious web design is a consideration you should pursue. Now my OCD has kicked in and I want to do another website, and another...and then maybe another. :)

We're not there yet, but it's moving along quite nicely!

Memorial for my grandmother

2009-10-29T14:14:00.000-04:00

I'm back at work this week. Though I hate flying, I had decided that I must fly up North with my husband to attend my grandmother's memorial this past weekend. I had not seen her in several years, basically because she was in a home due to having had Alzheimer's for the past 12 or so years. That coupled with my fear of flying kept me from visiting anyone north of North Carolina (where my sister lives).

I was really happy that I decided to go though because it had also been a long time since I'd seen my other relatives, namely my Aunt Sachi and cousins Debbie and John. I had a wonderful two days to spend with family and only a total of about 2.5 hours of flying hell. The other 2 hours of flying, I was actually mentally flying as well due to popping a pain pill.

Well, now that I'm back at work, I have another assignment with the ole blogging discoveries we're making at work. How do we use images in our blogs? I'll try to use one that pertains to my visit to Philadelphia for my grandmother's memorial. In memory of my grandmother, I took this picture on a macro setting and digitally enhanced it using the Picasa 3 editing software. Hope you like!

Changes on top of changes?

2009-09-02T09:58:00.000-04:00

It's so frustrating trying to troubleshoot problems and to provide solutions when we do not control changes, especially changes on top of changes. What typically happens when you allow changes on top of changes is that you do not give ample opportunity for discoveries that may need to be addressed. If more changes happen, then it adds a level of complexity to the troubleshooting process. Did the new change create the problem or did it simply provide a means of allowing the previous "flaws" to surface?

I think we all deal with change just fine, but I really hate being in reactive mode anymore. I prefer requirements, design review, code, test, beta rollout, feedback, fix package, test, document, train and implement. Is this realistic or impractical?

Why blogging?

2009-08-25T08:30:00.000-04:00

I'm learning about blogging as well as other social networking platforms that facilitate communication/collaboration efforts that are beneficial to streamlining projects and meeting goals. It's not a cumbersome challenge for me at all, being that I love to write and I love to communicate my thoughts to others. I even respond well to constructive criticism which I've started replacing with words like positive feedback!

So, how does blogging facilitate the communications process? Well, thus far I'm still experimenting and will hopefully discover if this platform is something that will be useful for my intended purpose.

We shall see!