Sunday

Photo by me.

This is a different view of the icy crab apples I posted last Sunday.

Upcoming Holidays

Many of the teens on my list are getting animals this year, in the form of symbolic adoptions from World Wildlife Fund.

Do any of these kids really need more stuff?

Don't they all need a good cause to support?

Happy Thanksgiving

In this momentary lull in a day of cooking, I'm thinking of friends and family, remembering past Thanksgivings and counting my blessings.

On Twilight, Vampires and General Creepiness

I have no plans to read any of the Twilight series or see the movie. Vampires are creepy. Here are my random (4:00 AM) thoughts on vampires.

I liked the Sherlock Holmes vampire story.

Zombie is a better Scrabble word than vampire.

The bats in Michigan eat the local vampires (mosquitoes).

Vampire bats don't suck blood. They cut the skin with their teeth, and lick the blood that flows from the cut. Their saliva contains an anticoagulant.

Inertia

Sarah Miller got me thinking about inertia.

A body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion until they are acted upon by an external force.

This is the story of my writing life!

When writing is moving along, it feeds itself. I get new ideas all the time, even (especially) when I'm supposed to be doing something else. When my revising stalls, a huge force is required to get it going again.

Another Colorful Expression

My dad was a great storyteller who often began with the phrase, "back in the olden days." I just checked. Olden is a real word.

Odds and Ends

The paperwork mountain has become a mountain range. Each time I think I've created a plateau, another peak erupts. Perhaps instead, I should focus on lava cake.

Thanksgiving is in two days. Today, absolutely today, I will buy groceries.

The holiday decor in my living room includes the awards podium from my sons' Tae Kwon Do studio. I offered to give it a ride home after last Saturday's tournament, but by the time we got to the studio, it was closed. For lots of reasonable reasons, the studio will not open again until next week. Maybe we'll have our own Thanksgiving Olympics right here.

I joined facebook, sort of by accident. One day, I'll even put my face on facebook.

My novel? What novel? After reading Barbara O'Conner's blog today, I'm contemplating cutting yet another character.

Sunday

Photo by me.

I need to think of a new name for this series.

Colorful Expression

Today at a Tae Kwon Do tournament, one of the elder black belts said, "I remember how little your boys were when they started. Now they're big drinks of water."

All A Twitter

The kidlit blogosphere has been buzzing about twittering. This and this were posted yesterday.

The bane of writing contemporary YA is keeping up to date on the technologies teen characters and readers use, and I was dismayed to learn of another new thing.

So I asked Jeremy, "Do you twitter?"

"You can't do that on a tuba," he said.

That seals it. My WIP will not include twittering.

Weather

Today’s forecast predicts a high of 29° F. Does that mean the thermometer is half full or half empty?

2008 Writing Goals

Around Thanksgiving, I check my yearly writing goals in hopes that with a big push, I can accomplish a few more before the New Year's Eve deadline. This year, with a gargantuan effort, I may be able to complete one more.

That brings me to a record low of 5 goals accomplished out of 11. (45.45%)

At least I won't have to write a new list for 2009.

Overheard #33

"Controversy is a dead issue."

Lost In The Translation?

One of my brother's employees translated the pronunciation of our last name into Kanji.

Isn't it beautiful?

Ｆ： 富
ＩＮ：允
ＫＥ：華
Ｌ： 瑠
Ｓ： 主
ＴＥ：手
ＩＮ：引

Our dad used to say Finkelstein meant sparkling stone.

Conflct: Making It Worse

Tim Bogar invented a good Write Night exercise designed to crank up conflict. We started by compiling a list of twenty characters. We did this as a group with each person suggesting a few general characters. (For example, a milk toast or the most popular girl in high school.) Next, each person chose two or more characters to put in conflict, and wrote the scene. After we read each scene out loud, we brainstormed ideas to make the conflict worse. (Okay, we got a little silly sometimes.) Then we rewrote the scene with heightened conflict.

Try it.

Conflict: Hidden or Missing

Recently I've read two books that are similar in concept, but to my mind, only one works. In both books, a young female protagonist is rescued from poverty and abandonment by a wealthy, apparently beneficent woman. At the start of these novels, the protagonists believe this is a huge stroke of luck, they idolize their saviors and are eager to do their bidding.

In the effective novel, the reader quickly realizes the benefactor has some mysterious ulterior motive, even though the protagonist skips along (for a time) thinking everything is peachy. This creepy sensation of hidden secrets makes for gripping writing.

In the ineffective story, Lady Bountiful seems too good to believe. She may eventually turn into the conniving witch the reader hopes for, but the first 40 pages are nothing but sweetness, light and golden auras. I couldn't stomach any more than that.

Perhaps this is a long, dull post to point out that conflict is essential, especially when it bubbles just below the surface.

Sunday

Photo by me.

Overheard #32

"If I were within the range of normal, you never would have married me."

Bad Pigeon

Here’s the latest, coolest discovery in the world of feathered dinosaurs. Epidexipteryx hui was a pigeon-sized dinosaur that lived in what is now Daohugou, Inner Mongolia during the Mid-Late Jurassic (152-168 million years ago). This animal could not fly, but its body was covered with downy feathers. Check out that tail!

The tail is made up of four feathers that extend beyond the end of the tail bones. The feathers are not as sophisticated as the feathers of modern birds, but they do consist of a central shaft and un-branched vanes. The October 23, 2008 issue of the journal Nature has exquisite photographs of the tail feather fossils. I’m sorry I can’t include those pictures or a link on this blog. Scientists speculate the tail may have been used in courtship rituals.

Don’t let this pigeon drive the bus.

The scientific article is:
F. Zhang, Z. Zhou, X. Xu, S. Wang and C. Sulllivan, A Bizarre Jurassic Maniraptoran from China, Nature, 455:1105 (2008).

Also see Live Science.

Overheard #31

"A quarter of a waffle in one bite. What do you suppose the record is?"