Terry Odell's Blog, page 325

Criminal Thinking 4

Here's the next installment in my replay of "Criminal Thinking". It's original posting date was July 22, 2008.Some more statistics In a typical prison population:20% are "scared straight" by the experience and won't be back20% are "hard core" and will never change, no matter what30% are still doing crime while they're incarcerated30% want to change but don't know how.The last group has the best

Plotting and House Hunting.

What I'm reading: Montana Sky, by Nora RobertsBy the time this post appears, I'll be on my way to a week in Colorado. We'll see family and have a chance to celebrate a portion of our holiday with two of our kids, their spouses, and our grandson. His second birthday precipitated the trip, and while we're out there, we'll also start some preliminary scouting for our relocation. It's all tentative,

SWAT Roundup 2009

Thanks to Amber for yesterday's post. She'll be announcing her winner tomorrow (Thursday) in the comment section of her post, so, depending on when you're reading this, there might still be time for you to enter. Be sure to scroll down and read her post for the rules.Last Friday was the final event at SWAT Roundup. The obstacle course, which is the only point of action for the day. This meant our

Call Me Crazy…Or Not

Today at Terry's Place, I welcome author Amber Leigh Williams, who brings more possibilities to that nebulous system of creating a story. She's giving away a digital copy of her award-winning novella to one lucky commenter. Rules at the end of the post. Welcome, Amber.Authors all around me at conferences, chapter meetings, and online forums talk about their clear-cut plotting process. After

SWAT Roundup 2009

What I'm reading: Start Me Up, by Victoria DahlThursday was our second day working the SWAT Roundup. More competition, more hot cops. No matter where you looked, the view was simply fine.Of course, hubby's attention was focused somewhere other than mine a lot of the time. He loved the toys.I'm not 100% sure which held the most attraction for him in this next shot, however.Keep Reading...These

Criminal Thinking 3

While I'm working at the SWAT Roundup, I'm rerunning older posts. This post originally ran July 21, 2008. It's notes from David Malinowski's talk on Criminal Thinking given to Civilian Police Academy alumni. To clarify a comment made last week, it's not that people who have these thought/behavior patterns are criminals. It's the other way around. If you look at a criminal, you'll find (according

SWAT Roundup 2009

We're volunteering at the International SWAT Roundup for 3 days this week. First impression - lots of HOT SWAT guys. However, with hubby manning the camera, he was more inclined to pick out hot female spectators in the crowd. The Citizen's Police Academy Alumni cover the concession stand, feeding the hungry cops. The grills were busy all day. It's been a long time since I had to spend 8 hours on

Editing: From the Clouds to the Weeds

Thanks to Kimber Chin for sharing her writing techniques. A while back, I mentioned Wordle as a nifty "toy" for making word clouds. Thanks to a couple of Twitter posts, I decided to plug in my synopsis instead of just giving the tool my blog URL. The more often a word is used in the text you feed, the larger it will appear in the cloud.The largest words are character names, which is good. A

In Awe? No Worries.

Today my guest is romance author Kimber Chin. She, like so many other writers have discovered, knows there is only one rule for writing, and that's "There are no rules." Welcome, Kimber.When Terry mentioned guest blogging here, I was terrified. I mean, have you SEEN her storyboards?The woman has her act together.I'm, on the other hand, a disorganized mess. Before I start writing, I have a one

Conquering The Short Synopsis

What I'm reading: Make Her Pay, by Roxanne St. ClaireI finished the first draft of a two-page synopsis for my mystery. I used my storyboard tracking, and it was much easier than any other method I've tried. For longer synopses, some will summarize each chapter as they write, then combine them for a rough draft of a synopsis. However, to condense 32 chapters into 2 pages, I found it easy enough to