Uvi’s Comments (group member since Apr 09, 2012)

Uvi’s comments from the The Creative Spark with Uvi Poznansky group.

Thank you Angela! How do you like your Kindle? Is it a different reading experience? I think it is really nice when you are away from home, traveling or flying. Also, It is great if you don't have a lot of physical shelf space...

Be the first to know: the Kindle version of Apart From Love is now free via Amazon Prime.
http://www.amazon.com/Apart-From-Love...

;) Thank you Angela. This was a birthday present for my husband, who is a chess player. The idea behind the set is that those who hold power send the poor, young soldiers to the battlefield, while they themselves stays in their castles and crown themselves in glory.

I created one piece a day, wrapped it in a damp tissue (so it won't dry too fast and crack) and hid it from view, so as not to spoil the surprise... Also, as the set is made of clay, the pieces shrink as the clay dries, so it is a challenge to imagine the final size, and to make sure that each pawn, for example, is about the same size as the one I made two weeks earlier.

Then I found an artist who had a kiln in her back yard, and she let me fire the set for free. Next I glazed half the pieces in black, half in white, and fired them again. Added a felt bottom to each one and walla! The present was ready!

Yesterday I posted And Now for Something Completely Different, which showed the ice cream cake I made with Marzipan chess pieces on top. Today, to continue the same theme, I present a chess set I made out of clay some years back. Don't expect any 'regularity' in these pieces: one pawn is not exactly the same as another, as each was sculpted (rather than molded) individually. This, I believe, is the charm of the set.

Every chess set has a worldview behind it. Here...
To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/07/ba...

A few days ago I posted an excerpt from my book, describing The First Time She Laid Eyes on Him which, as luck would have it, happened in an ice cream parlor. You might have guessed already that I have a true passion--no, not for the hero of the story, but for ice cream. So this week, in the spirit of 4th of July holiday, I thought I would post fun images about what I crave most, right at this minute...
To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/07/an...

This morning, Goodreads announced three winners for the book giveaway of Apart From Love. First, I would like to congratulate each and every one of you, four hundred and forty two readers who entered the content during the three weeks leading up to this announcement. You took the chance to win! In the process, you learned about the story and about my work, and explored my thoughts about the creative process. I hope you will continue to engage with me, by joining the conversation in my Q&A Group on Goodreads, and following the posts here...
To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/06/an...

My author interview on Katheryn Lane's blog has just been posted. Katheryn is the author of Her Latin Lover and The Royal Sheikh. She works full-time as a teacher, mother and wife, but somehow also finds time to be a part-time writer as well! She loves to write contemporary romances set in exotic locations.

No wonder, then, that she titled the interview Art, Love and Writing.
To read more, click the link
http://katheryn-lane.blogspot.com/201...

One day left in the giveaway of Apart From Love! Enter to win here: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...

Once Goodreads announces the three lucky winners, I will post my congratulations to them right here.

I have just found an excellent article that gives an insight into the questionable results Indie authors are getting after taking part in Amazon's KSP Select program. Many of them are noticing that even when they had a stellar free run, garnering thousands and thousands of downloads, it is no longer catapulting them up the charts…

To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/06/am...

I invite all of you--yes, you who is reading this message right now--to take advantage of this discussion board and post excerpts of your own writing. I have read many of your profiles, some of you have published books. So this is a very creative group and we can all inspire one another and elevate our art.

Apart From Love is now at 7th place in Best Illustrated Book Covers!

If you like the cover art, this is where to vote: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/33...

Thank you Dave, glad you listened to my interview last night!

I know you have read Apart From Love; thank you for watching out for me, so I don't give its essence away... Very thoughtful of you. To someone who hasn't read the book, I would only say this:

If you can strings my quotes together, in an order that makes up a story--do not buy the book!

I have just come off the air from my interview with the host Cowboy Wisdom NLP Radio, Rob Wilson. Rob is a certified professional coach and motivational speaker, generating, facilitating, and illuminating life's possibilities in all people. He is a regular on the Stu Taylor Radio Show, 'Equity Strategies and Business Talk' and a published author of several books: The Wisdom of a Cowboy: Crossing the River and Climbing the Mountain, Wired for Change by a Journeyman and American Worker: Prison Wagesin the Private Sector.

We talked not only about my book, Apart From Love, but also about creativity, which I described as a landscape, a zone surrounded by a wall. You can listen to my conversation with Rob here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cwbywsdm...

lol...

Seems like you're on you way, Angela... Happy writing

My best advise, in a word: listen.
I figure this may be a bit cryptic, so how about this: record; rewind; play; transcribe?

You are very lucky, Angela, that the model for you dialog is right there and you can 'take her in.' Every language has its own set of grammatical rules, so a Russian character would have not only an accent, but a particular set of grammatical structures that she 'translates' in her mind from her mother's tongue, which to us are 'mistakes.' You may even engage her in conversation, asking her what grammatical structures she finds 'strange' in English. For example, some words/concpts are plural in certain languages, singular in others; some words are perceived as a female/male gender in certain languages, but are devoid of gender in other languages. So it would help you to understand the way she expresses things, so that you can use these 'mistakes' in dialog.

Above all, don't expect to 'get' her speech immediately. Let the dialog 'rest' on paper, go back and listen to her some more, and come back to make adjustments.

Hope this will get you going, Angela!

Exactly! For me (and for Anita) simple and direct is the best.

Being sensual, Anita never thinks abstractly. For example, where Ben would use the sentence 'I imagine' or 'in my mind,' she would say 'I paint in my head.'

Another difference between them is confidence. Despite her painful past, she is a strong character. Where Ben would offer, 'I suppose,' she would say, 'I bet!'

I understand awkward... Some writing is intensely personal.

My, do I envy you for having a Tennessee Williams festival! His dialog is absolutely amazing. A must study for any writer worth his salt!

In Apart From Love By design, Anita had to become a sharp contrast to both Lenny and his son, Ben, an antidote if you will to their refined, complex hesitations. I couldn't just drop in a double negative here and there, because it would be more jarring that way, so I dropped it in quite liberally, i'm afraid... And had loads of fun with it, and with the word 'like' which I threw in for good measure in every one of her paragraphs!

In fact, I think about her as a 'distant sister' to Eliza Doolittle, somewhere in the middle of the play, a place where she has already acquired a lot of new vocabulary, but has not managed yet to shake off her atrocious grammar. Anita, at this point, is a work-in-progress. Despite having learned so many complex words from Lenny, the would-be-writer, she tends to use the simplest, shortest words she can find, because they are the most direct. I totally share this with her!

Other writers search for the most literary words, thinking it would make them sound highly intelligent, but in fact it distances them from the heart and guts of the reader. The only case where I use 'big' words is when the character is a little 'bloated' (case in point: Mr. Bliss, the attorney who writes the Editorial Notes, using the 'language of the law'...)

There is nothing trite, cliche, or dull in your poetry, Angela. It put your reader right there, breathing the words out with you, experiencing the difficulty with you. Love it!

Happy writing, dear!

My pleasure, Angela.