Lorca Damon's Blog, page 13

Yes, Virginia, There IS An App For That

Our local radio station has a December feature during the morning show called “Grinch of the Day.” They report on horrible stories of Christmas-cheer-gone-wrong and name the culprit to be the Grinch. Of the day. Duh. That’s why they call it that.

I am mildly proud of myself for never having been named the Grinch. I am neither confirming nor denying whether or not I deserve the title, I’m just saying that I’m happy that I’ve never been honored as the Grinch because it would mean that I had been caught doing something very un-Christmasy. Like popping my neighbor’s stupid, stupid inflatable Santa Claus. Or swapping out the Baby Jesus doll at this one church’s nativity scene with a Teletubby doll.

I have to admit that the most un-Christmasy thing I’ve done so far this year is to not decorate the house for the holidays. At all. I did go so far as to get the Christmas decorations out of storage and block the front door with them, but that’s just because that’s where I stacked everything. I plan to just leave all the boxes there and scatter our gifts around them. My kids aren’t dumb, they know what a tree looks like. I don’t have to SHOW them.

But my daughter nearly threw me over the Grinchy edge with her Christmas wish list. First of all, my kids have never made wish lists. We’ve had fleeting random conversations about their interests, and those would result in me picking out the most awesome gifts ever. This year, though, my daughter felt the need to spell it all out for me so I wouldn’t mess it up.

With a Power Point.

My offspring made me a Power Point presentation of what she wants for Christmas. Funny, I didn’t see “coal” anywhere on the slides.

Miss Me Jeans-1 PDF

Giving Your Characters a New Dimension

I just reviewed a fantastic book (I’m putting the book review down below, in case you’re interested in the book) that pulled the rug out from under me. It was called Fever, and it was about one of the most notoriously vilified women in US history: Typhoid Mary. This lady was accused of infecting people with typhoid while she worked as a cook. Even after going to jail for three years and being told that the only way she could get out of jail is if she agreed to never be a cook again, she went back to being a cook and infected more people, several of whom died.

It’s easy to judge that character. But in the book I just reviewed, the author makes Typhoid Mary into a completely human person who simply made a mistake. She showed the readers that Mary Mallon was just trying to make a living, that she never intended to hurt anyone, and that she actually went willingly back to prison the second time. The author basically painted a whole other picture of the person history thinks it knew.

One of the exercises that can stretch you as a writer is to reimagine some of these notoriously horrible characters or people and write their stories in a more sympathetic light. While it might be very hard to identify with a horrible villain, at the very least a writer can try to envision the things that led to who that person became.

 

REVIEW:

Verdict: 5 Stars

One of the genres that is gaining popularity and attention is the fictionalized biography, a novel retelling of the information that history does actually remember about notable people and events. In Fever (Simon & Schuster), Mary Beth Keane has done a heart-wrenching job of completely humanizing one of the names that history doesn’t always remember fondly: Typhoid Mary.

Mary Mallon, an Irish immigrant who worked her way up through domestic service to the coveted position of cook to some of the wealthier families in New York at that time, would otherwise only be remembered for her unique contribution to medical history in that doctors decided she was an “asymptomatic carrier” of typhoid and used that assumption as grounds to keep her imprisoned on North Brother Island for three years. After lengthy court battles and daily medical tests, she earned her freedom under the condition that she never work as a cook again. History remembers her thwarting that ruling and returning to kitchen work, thereby causing the sickness and death of several more victims.

Keane, however, paints a far more sympathetic picture of a woman who never set out to harm anyone, but rather lived in denial and worked to improve her circumstances and to help those around her. The Mary presented in Fever is at first indignant over the accusations and invasions of her physical privacy, but when she returns to North Brother to live out the rest of her life after violating the court’s order, she goes as a changed woman, almost remorseful and almost haunted by the senseless death that followed in her wake.

One of the difficult parts of writing fictionalized historical works is that savvy readers will already know how the story ends (spoiler alert: Titanic hits an iceberg, for example.), so the author’s real work is in creating a dynamic world that lets the reader forget the ending long enough to want to know how it turns out. Keane drew upon volumes of actual research on Typhoid Mary and the time period she lived in to create a setting in the new bustling New York that draws in readers who think they already know the characters too well.

I Need Chin Hair And A Sweat Rag To Complete The Look

I’m pretty sure I’ve hit early menopause. I have absolutely no medical basis for that opinion AT ALL, but it’s fun to tell myself. However, all of the people around me who have endured actual menopause are a) laughing at me, b) assuring me that it is NOT menopause because I’m still speaking coherently, or c) telling me to be careful what I wish for. Here are my symptoms:

1) I’ve become a total bitch. Wait, that one’s not new, I just felt like I should point it out before I go any further. That symptom actually began sometime around 1987.

2) I can’t stay awake past 7:00pm without a case of Red Bull and an attendant who electrocutes me periodically.

3) Global warming be damned, there is no freakin’ way the rest of society is as hot as I am. I don’t mean good lookin’, I mean engulfed in flames under their skin. If this was all global warming-related, scientists would have fixed it by now.

4) I’m going bald in some places and sprouting odd hairs in others. Use your imagination.

5) I’ve developed weird cravings for hot tea and jalapenos and pickled broccoli. Have you ever tried pickling broccoli? It doesn’t work. There’s a weird threshold for how long broccoli can endure vinegar and heat, and if you miss the cutoff point, you have a bowl of pre-v0mited soup on your hands.

That’s it, those are my symptoms. Now, I have a degree in biology and I also have two kids so I know right away that half of you jumped to thinking, “Lorca’s pregnant!” I am not pregnant. Shut up, I already said I’m not pregnant! It’s menopause! Or a drinking problem! I don’t know which! (sorry, I warned you I wasn’t being very nice about this)

On the plus side, there are benefits to entering menopause and coming out the other side. First, it would justify the gray hair I’ve had for the past fifteen years. It would also explain the pools of sweat that mysteriously appear around me at odd times. I could finally stop buying feminine supplies in bulk, like I’m expecting Noah and the ark to pull around any minute and my hoarded stash of Always is the only thing that will hold back the flood waters.

Time for a poll!

Take Our Poll

Think carefully about your answers. Anyone who thinks I’m pregnant gets to appear on the Jerry Springer show with me when I accuse him or her of being the father. Lookin’ at you, Zorgron.

Writing Contests to Increase Exposure

One great way to increase your exposure as a writer and to stretch yourself in terms of taking risks with your writing is to enter your work in writing contests. I will say it up front: I’m not a huge fan of writing contests. Really funny, since I hosted one on this site!

As with all things internet-related these days, there are far too many scams out there. You send in your work, you attach a hefty entry fee, somebody pockets your money, and you never hear from them again. Don’t let my cynicism prevent you from jumping in the pool!

You just have to seek out reputable agencies who are hosting the contest, and finding some other writers who’ve participated with happy results can’t hurt either. Do your homework and check them out before you send them anything. You might think that the worst that can happen is you lose your entry fee, but actually, the worst that can happen is you just signed away your rights to your own work! Read the terms of agreement!

Having said all of that, there are some names you can usually trust, and one of my favorites is Writer’s Digest. As a nationally known writing magazine, they really can’t afford the negative publicity that would come from legions of scorned authors taking to social media to announce that they were swindled. NOTE: do remember that you are entering a contest, and only one person in each category will win. Your entry fee is gone once you enter, because it’s used for things like the publicity, paying the judges to read thousands of entries, etc.

WD actually has several contests coming up, and I’m linking to them here. Take the risk, jump into the pool , and write!

What’s A Beta Reader For?

Remember when your teacher would give you a writing assignment to be done in class, then after enough time had passed she would tell you to turn to someone near you and have them “peer edit” your paper? Yeah, that’s a bunch of BS. And I say that as a teacher.

First of all, why is someone who currently has a D in English PEER EDITING YOUR PAPER?

Second, you know full-well that you immediately made eye contact with your best friend and you two swapped papers, even if it meant climbing over the heads of unsuspecting freshmen to get to each other.

Finally, what was this person supposed to do to your paper? Was she grading it with a red pen that she keeps in her backpack for moments just like this one?

Without clear guidelines and a good bit of talent/dedication/interest, having someone do a first-read of your writing isn’t going to be all that helpful. Take a look at the first problem up above. A person with a barely passing grade in English might not be academically equipped to help you notice and correct grammatical errors. In the second situation, is your best friend SERIOUSLY going to tell you that it took too long to get into the story or that your plot premise is completely unbelievably? NO, she’s going to tell you how awesome you are as a human being for even thinking of this story. And last, what high school student is going to attack a first draft with the vehemence it requires? As a general rule, first drafts of EVERYTHING are pretty bad. Heck, the first draft of my GROCERY LIST is a bunch of crap.

When you pick someone to seriously read your first draft and give you feedback, it has to be someone who will be honest but helpful, but more importantly, it has to be someone who has some kind of working knowledge of both writing and your genre. It would be like me asking Stephen King to read the manuscript of a Victorian romance novel. Make sure that when you seek out honest feedback on your writing, you will actually get some.

Get to the Point, Already!

There is a fine line between giving your readers enough information to know what’s going on, but not telling so much that they don’t need to keep reading, or as its known, the dreaded info-dump. On the one hand, your story has to make sense and not leave your readers floundering to understand, but you also have to engage your readers by drawing out the details in an organized but tempting way.

One way to drop enough hints about your story is through engaging dialogue. No one wants to read page after page of lecture notes, so why would they read as much content of one character telling you everything you ever needed to know about her life?

Beyond that, ask yourself how much the readers really need to know. Do they need to know the type of brick used to make up the house? Do they really need to know the color of your main character’s car? It might be relevant to the story…maybe your MC is a muscle-bound thug who drives a pink Volkswagon. That’s pretty significant. But if he drives a regular car, is the color all that important?

It can be hard to watch your word count fall apart as you whittle away at the unnecessary parts of your story, but your readers will thank you for it, probably by wanting to read the next piece you write!

I Wrote A Book…Now What?

Even though there are currently a lot of writers burning the midnight oil to finish their NaNo novels, another NaNo is behind me. I fully disclose that as a teacher, I have a good bit of time off in November which helps me get finished faster, and this particular November brought a few sick days where I had to stay home with vomity children, so I had more writing time than most people.

But every year after I upload my novel for verification and I order my winner’s T-shirt, there comes a thought: Now what?

Whatever you’ve written and poured so much effort and energy into, whether it’s a novel, a short story, a screenplay, even a profound haiku, what do you do next? Some people just like the process of writing a story and getting it out on paper, without ever considering letting others read it. At the same time, there are just as many authors who are churning out book after book after book with the express purpose of publication. Do what works for you with your own writing.

I do recommend a break after completing a project. Before you try to polish it or edit it, take some time away from it. I’m currently editing a novel I wrote last year, and seeing it with fresh eyes has made me very critical and more willing to make important changes, but has also made me fall in love with these characters in a whole new way. At the same time, stepping away from your completed project and focusing on something else for a while is going to make you appreciate the process all that much more. Instead of being a chore that has to be accomplished, your writing becomes an outlet again. Go for a walk, spend a month or two reading others’ work, offer to edit or beta read a friend’s story. Do something other than write, even if it’s just for a little while, so when you feel like it’s time to be a writer again, it will be new to you.

Book Review: Easy by Tammara Webber

Easy by Tammara Webber

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This title introduced me to a new subcategory in the romance genre: New Adult. All I can say is, it’s about time.

For far too long, we’ve had polar opposites in the addressing of sexuality in romance. There were the steamy bodice rippers at one end of the spectrum and on the other end there were the very chaste books aimed at an audience that preferred love story over lust story. Caught in the middle were the young adult readers, people who may be exploring the romance genre but were too mature for books that didn’t address sex in any way, yet were not quite prepared for the shirts coming off in every chapter.

Tammara Webber’s newly released Easy (Penguin/Berkley), formerly published in May as an ebook-only title, does take into consideration the age-appropriateness of the topic in the book, but there is so much more to the actual story. At first glance, this could be shelved as a romance title under the New Adult category, but romance and sexuality aside, this is a far more important title about the choices people make with their bodies and the things that happen to them when those choices are ripped away.

One of the major elements of the story line is how rape is addressed, specifically of young women on college campuses. In the very first chapter, the main character is rescued in the nick of time by a classmate as a drunken partygoer attempts to violently force himself on her. That same attacker will factor throughout the story in threatening ways, later to succeed in raping another student from the same dorm.

Aside from the questions of trust and lies the characters must confront, Easy is a very powerful book about the shame that victims feel and the lies that bystanders tell themselves when they don’t want to see the truth.

View all my reviews

Beginnings and Ends and Everything in Between

I slacked off a little bit on my blogging this month to participate once again in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I love the challenge of it, and usually end up with at least the skeleton of a book that I can work with, since NaNo novels as a whole are really about the writing and the accomplishing, and not actually about creating fine literature. But the book is finished and my winner’s certificate is ready to hang in my office with the others, so it was a success.

But here’s something I learned about my writing this month. I had plotted and prepared for weeks leading up to this year’s challenge and I thought I knew my characters inside and out. They still managed to surprise me in places, they even managed to make me cry a couple of times. But here’s the most important lesson I learned: sometimes the story is just over.

I finished my novel, beginning, middle, and end. And it was too short for NaNo. I was about six thousand words shy of the goal of 50,000 words the first time I struggled with how I was going to finish the challenge. I added plot twists here and there and made sure all of my key stories were complete and easily understood. With three thousand words to go, I introduced a whole new character, a semi-love interest, making sure not to go too far in that direction since I already knew he wasn’t going to play a larger role in the story later. But with exactly one thousand words to go, I struggled to figure out how I could meet the word count without throwing random, disinteresting points around in my book.

The real lesson I learned is that sometimes the story is just finished. I kicked myself while trying to squeeze in those extra words just for the sake of writing them because I knew this was not the path to good writing. An arbitrary goal, whether it’s a fun noveling challenge or a not-so-fun instance when a teacher demands a five paragraph essay and mandates that each paragraph have five to seven sentences, does not equate to good writing. The author and the characters have to lead the way and ultimately, the plot will decide when it’s done.

YA Book Review: Secrets and Lies

Reprinted from Goodereader.com:

As a decidedly un-YA novel that is trying to pass itself off as hip young adult, Monroe’s recent follow-up to her Capital Girls book falls very short. The books, which follow the lives of four girls in an exclusive Washington, D.C. prep school, aims to keep up with the antics of privileged teens whose high-powered parents afford them the opportunity to do as they please.

All I can say is, if this is how the children of our government officials—the President included—behave, god help us all.

The high school students depicted in this book have no ambition further than whom they plan to sleep with by the end of the day, peppered with enough profanity to make the Navy blush. Throw in entire scenes spent indulging in smoking marijuana on campus, and you have all the makings of a book that is not appropriate for most YA audiences, as this book is a barely veiled attempt at Babysitters Club Gone Wild.

There were also some unfortunate timeline discrepancies. If this book is set far enough in the future that the US has a female President—and this installment does not indicate that she is the first female to hold that office—why are we still battling with ugly conservative Senators over important immigration reform? Why is the First Gentleman, as he would presumably be called, a stereotypical drunk? Why is the Chief of Staff, conveniently also a woman for no discernible reason other than what might be implied as a lesbian relationship with the President—because who would EVER assume that a female President would be heterosexual, right?—pointing out the negative effects of having to be married to a man?

All in all, the book was fairly campy and clichéd while also reaching way too far to come across as cool to its intended audience. Unfortunately, the book also fell very short in terms of readability, as it referenced the first book in very obscure ways that left the reader wondering what had happened in book one. It’s very sad that what could have been an interesting insight into the lives of some of the most power-associated teenagers in the world depicted them as airheads with the morals of gutter rats.