Things that make you go “Hmmm”

Author unknown

1. Why do we park in driveways and drive on parkways?
2. Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks?
3. Can I yell “movie” in a crowded firehouse?
4. Can you be a closet claustrophobic?
5. How do a fool and his money GET together?
6. Why does Hawaii have interstate highways?
7. How is it that a building burns up as it burns down?
8. If a train station is where the train stops, what is a workstation?
9. If nothing ever sticks to Teflon, how do they make Teflon stick to the pan?
10. If the pen is mightier than the sword, and a picture is worth a thousand words, how dangerous is a fax?
11. If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?
12. What hair color do they put on the driver’s licenses of bald men?
13. What was the best thing before sliced bread?
14. Why do banks charge you a “non-sufficient funds” fee on money they already know you don’t have?
15. Why do they put Braille on the drive through bank machines?
16. If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
17. If you get cheated by the Better Business Bureau, who do you complain to?
18. What are Preparation A through Preparation G?
19. In a country of free speech, why are there phone bills?
20. Did Washington flash a quarter when asked for ID?
21. How come there aren’t B batteries?
22. If the post office has machines that can sort snail mail at 1000′s of times per minute, then why do they give it to a little old man on a bike to deliver?
23. How do “Do not walk on the grass” signs get there?
24. Why do black olives come in cans and green olives come in jars?
25. Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?
26. How is it possible to have a civil war?
27. If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
28. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
29. If the #2 pencil is so popular, why is it still #2?
30. Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
31. If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?
32. Crime doesn’t pay…does that mean that my job is a crime?
33. How do they get the deer to cross at that yellow road sign?
34. How do you know that honesty is the best policy until you have tried some of the others?
35. How do you throw away a garbage can?
36. How does a thermos know if the drink should be hot or cold?
37. How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?
38. Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take the time to take the dirt out of them?
39. If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?
40. If you’re in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?
41. What happens to an 18 hour bra after 18 hours?
42. Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
43. Why do hot dogs come 10 to a package and hot dog buns only 8?
44. Why do tourists go to the tops of tall buildings and then put money into telescopes so they can see things on the ground close-up?
45. Why is it that bullets ricochet off of Superman’s chest, but he ducks when the gun is thrown at him?
46. Why is it that night falls but day breaks?
47. Why is it that you must wait until night to call it a day?
48. What if the Hokey Pokey IS what its all about?
49. When your pet bird sees you reading the newspaper, does he wonder why you’re just sitting there, staring at carpeting?
50. What happened to the first 6 “ups”?

Anyway … on to more exciting things.

It’s officially Feb. 1 and that means it’s Nano Writing time for more than 20 members of New Jersey Romance Writers. We’re calling our stint JeRoWriMo. We received our rules/guidelines (how cute are we?) and are ready to roll.

I’m starting during my lunch hour today, and I hope to put a small dent in the 30K due by the end of the month. I’ll try to blog my success (and yes, some slip ups) over the next 29 days. I’ve received so much great information from the last post. Big shout out to all the great people who offered support. You rock!

I’m so excited. My keyboard is clean, my monitor tidy and I have a week’s supply of Gummy Bears! (I’ll replenish on Saturday)

Woohoo …let the writing begin!

Faster than a speeding bullet? Maybe. More powerful than a locomotive? Definitely.  It’s not Superman, but Nano writing. And I’m hoping it will help me leap over writer’s block and life’s hurdles in 29 days.

I, and more than a dozen of my sister writers in New Jersey Romance Writers, have taken on the big one. Nano writing in February.  Thirty thousand words in 29 days. (It’s Leap Year, you know.)

This is a huge commitment since I’ve never participated in one before.  However, I know it’s what I need to get my “ass in chair” and get busy. I’m excited and eager to finish the book.

What’s your experience with Nano writing? Did it help? Not? 

Turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce …yes, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  It’s not only the food that makes me smile, but the chance to be with my family. My baby sister who lives about 1,000 miles away, has come home for the holidays.  My oldest nephew, who is in the middle of his freshman year at PACE University, is on a train headed back to Jersey. And I’m going to my daughter’s house, where I, as I mentioned before, will be a guest. <big grin> 

However, I am taking my netbook with me and a few of my favorite things: An empty journal, plenty of pens and Beverly Jenkins’ newest book, “Night Hawk.”  

In between, food and games and catching up with friends and family, I might just carve out a scene or two of my WIP, (oh, wow …really, no pun intended) or start Chapter 1 of what I KNOW will be another one of Ms. Bev’s blockbuster books.

To everyone, enjoy the day. Enjoy yourselves.

Okay, so back to my literary intentions. I decided to make good use of my free time away from Poe and focus on the synopsis for my next book. I have all my tools. Computer back to working order after so many months (that’s another blog) and my gummy bears all lined up on my desk.

Oh and as promised, in my other blog, the gummy bear story.

Most writers I know, have a ritual or something they do to get them in the mood to write. Whether it’s listening to music, or facing their computers in the optimal feng shui position, everybody does something. Among other things, I eat gummy bears.

Now, while it’s not the healthiest snack, it does the trick. But these aren’t just ANY gummy bears. These are and MUST be Haribo gummy bears, because I believe that all gummy bears are NOT created equal. (Some of them are too gooey, some leave an aftertaste and then there are some that make you wonder why they even bothered to put them in a pack and sell them.)

Okay, sorry …I digress.

Anyway, my writing ritual includes lining my gummy bears across my computer desk, and plucking them off one color at a time. My daughter referred to it as the firing squad. Okay, maybe.  

But I line them up, and as the creative juices start to flow and my keyboard starts to click, the gummy bears disappear. Green ones … red ones …yellow ones. Gone. And my WIP starts to take shape and I’m happy. (I do try to hit the treadmill afterwards. As I admitted earlier, they’re not the healthiest snack.)

So, today for a few hours while being Poe-less, I will write. Yum. I can taste the gummy bears now.

It’s a scary thing when a four-legged buddy knows what you should be doing. After a handful of gummy bears, I started to review where I left off and looked for something, if anything, that could be salvaged. It’s 9:00 p.m. I still have time to read another chapter before I pass out at the computer. And maybe another handful of gummy bears. (I have a gummy bear ritual, which I’ll share at another time.)

But there’s something I’ve learned as a published writer and an aspiring romance author. There are three things (IMHO) that you should be equipped with if you hope to improve your craft, and get published: A thick skin, perseverance and belief in your work.

A thick skin comes in handy because everyone isn’t going to like your work, and they will call your baby ugly. But you have to let it roll. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a pity party, or get upset. By all means do that, and then get writing.

Perseverance is important because no one is going to knock on your door and ask you for your manuscript or what you’re working on next. You have to be determined enough to take the blows, the criticisms, dust yourself off and keep moving forward. It takes perseverance.

Last but not least, believe in yourself and that your work is worth reading. We’re our own worst enemy. (I know I can be.) We’re hypercritical, and full of doubt. Get over that too. If you have a consistent record of putting out good work, thrive on that. Make your good work even better, and then strive for excellence.

I entered two contests once and the first time around didn’t final in either. Talk about disappointing. I sulked for a few days—okay weeks. Thankfully, I got over it and decided that I wanted to be a published romance writer. I refused to give up. So, I attended more workshops, became immersed (even more than I already was) in books on plot, point of view, and conflict and talked to industry professionals. I used what I learned and began to revise that story that originally fell short.

The results?

After submitting a few years later, to both contests, I not only placed in final round, but won third place in both. (one of them just happens to be the Romance Slam Jam Aspiring Author Contest.) This is a huge accomplishment for me, and the experience did two things. It verified my growth as a romance writer, and allowed me to see, without hesitation, that the road to publication is worth the angst that sometimes accompanies it.

Go for yours.

A writer’s life is a precarious one. On one hand you set up a blog to communicate with others who share the same woes, triumphs and challenges. Yet on the other side of that double edged sword, you can’t blog all day and night because you’d never get any writing done.

So what’s an author/blogger to do? Establish a schedule to blog, whether it’s daily, weekly, biweekly or monthly and stick to it. And, starting now, that’s what I intend to do.

It’s good to be back online, but I have some writing to do—my hope is a few pages or chapters this weekend. But before I log off, I wanted to share a bit of good news. A few days ago, I received a call informing me that I was a finalist in the “Put Your Heart in a Book,” contest for my manuscript, “The Heat Between Us.”

Needless, to say I screamed, and once again, called my critiquing partner. After all she shares in my successes and, every so often, my miseries. I’m very excited and honored, and look forward the October announcement of the winners at the NJRW conference.

In the meantime, it’s back to working on my second book and hopefully, completing it in time to pitch at the conference.

The first thing that popped into my mind was Stevie Wonder’s (and I’m dating myself) “Innervisions” album because it was a collection of lofty songs such as, “Higher Ground”, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” and “Living for the City.” IMHO, these were songs of hope, struggle, achievement, and love.

InnerVision Books will publish fiction, poetry and non-fiction in a digital format. Its name, which is reminiscent of Stevie’s songs, implies (again, IMHO) that it might also offer hope to authors—veteran and aspiring—who write multicultural characters and plots, but are struggling to achieve success.

With a publishing company dedicated to highlighting “multiculturalism in a global society,” authors have a chance to work with a company that understands that multicultural literature is expansive and layered, and shouldn’t be placed in one section of the bookstore.

And InnerVision Books doesn’t want to stop at e-publishing. Eventually they would like to publish trade paperback editions as well. Woohoo!

It’s wonderful to see a publishing company dedicated to working with authors of the multicultural genre.

Perhaps well-written multicultural stories that don’t make it to the larger publishers, because they’re not, “a good fit” or “not what they’re looking for,” will fit perfectly with InnerVision Books and be exactly what they seek to publish.

Bravo to Donna Hill and other publishers, who look for ways to tell these stories and embrace them.

Next year will consist of a couple of writer’s conferences. The Romantic Times Convention, takes me to Columbus Ohio. I can’t say I’ve really ever been there. I’ve flown over and driven through.

This time I happy to say, I’ll be staying for a few days. The conference kicks off at the end of April and looks to offer a great deal of information that authors, published and aspiring, will want to know. E-publishing, social media, writing erotica, (Woohoo!) and good old fashion how to write a synopsis are just a few of the things I saw on the agenda. The RT Convention Web site has a list of events happening and over 400 authors who plan to attend.

I’m all about learning all I can, so this will be a definite stop.

Romance Writers of America National Conference is in Nashville this year. Since I attended in Washington, last year I’m not sure if I’ll make this one. However, plans do change! Of course they’re offering great workshops on the craft of writing, publishing and marketing your manuscript. It should be a great conference.

If you don’t think you’ll be able to attend any workshops or conferences this year, there’s a great book entitled, “Writing the Breakout Novel,” by Donald Maass. Yes, of the Donald Maass literary agency. You may want to check it out. This is a great resource and I’ve shared this information with all my writing buddies. Mr. Maass also has a workbook to complement the book and it features actual exercises and workshops that he uses during his live sessions. I purchased mine at Barnes and Noble, however I’m sure you can find it on Amazon.

Those are the trips so far, but locally I will attend writers’ meetings for inspiration and craft.

How are you planning to write better, and get the work done?