Three Months Separated

I decided a momentary break from my blogging hiatus was due. I'm surfacing for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is to convey gratitude to all who have been checking in on me from time to time. Your compassion and support have been incredibly welcome and helpful.

I also wanted to let you all know how I'm faring.

Three months ago, death separated me from my wife of twenty-nine years. For all twenty-nine of those years, I've loved her more than life itself. I've searched for reasons and meaning. I've clung to hopes and promises. I've remembered and I've cried. God, how I've cried.

Her wedding rings are never far from my heart

This tempest of emotions is neither brief nor tame. I'm but an island besieged by a hurricane, its fury unyielding. Moments of calm are only the storm's eye. I've wept in its wind and railed at its rain, but the tempest persists. It always will.

But I am weathering the storm!

It's grueling. It's painful. But I promised her I would live and love for us both. And I'm doing it. Thankfully, I'm not doing it alone. My mother, brother and children have given vital support. And those three precious grandsons of mine are three very important reasons to succeed.

I've chosen to share some very specific things that have helped me succeed so far:

• The bereavement counseling at Hospice. (Thanks for persuading me to give it a shot, guys!) There, I'm free to talk about Myra and my loss without burdening family and friends. And I've received some excellent suggestions and comfort.
• Wearing her rings around my neck. Having something of hers that's tangible somehow preserves the physical connection. I hold them, kiss them and tell her how much I love her.
• I remind myself--frequently--that Myra was God's before she was mine. She was God's gift to me, but only for a time. I choose to be grateful for that time.
• I write Myra a letter every single day just as if I were on a business trip. Captured within those letters are every significant thought, event and emotion I've experienced since her death. They express my anguish, my love, my despair, my hopes--everything. It's probably the single most therapeutic thing I do.

I've already filled up one 160-page journal, and am well into the last third of this 200-page journal. I have two more waiting.

I have no idea how long I'll continue writing her or how long I'll continue writing daily. I'm guessing that I'll never completely stop.

In the short term, I have a couple very difficult months ahead of me. We've always made big deals of Thanksgiving, Christmas and even the traditional New Year's Day dinner. However, December also holds her birthday, my birthday and a grandson's birthday. Those too were big deals in our family.

This week has been a good one. Last week was tumultuous and I wrestled with some serious anger. Bouts of depression arise--often without warning. Laughter can become tears in mere seconds and vice versa. It's all normal and part of the grieving process.

The important thing is that I am healing. It's an agonizingly slow process, but it is happening. In time, I'll return from my hiatus. I'll resume work on my writing, hop some blogs and again contribute what I can to this awesome community of writers and bloggers that I've come to call friends.

Authors Reviewing Authors - Feb IWSG Post

I see it all the time: authors requesting reviews of their books from other authors.  It's understandable.  There are many benefits to having a decent number of well-written reviews.  Authors (as well as readers) do deserve reviews.  And most writers really do want to help.

So why do I have such a problem obliging these requests?

I believe that, for me at least, it's largely due to the potential for a conflict of interest.  It's a valid concern because the conflict can be quite real. I worry too much about the oddest of things.

Should my reviews overlook or forgive shortcomings simply because I know the person and their efforts to overcome the insurmountable?  Am I to hold a gifted high school student to the same standard that I'd use for a Robert Jordan review?  What about the struggling single mom who dropped out of school and now self-publishes paranormal romances?  Would my five-star for her be a three-star if Nora Roberts had written it?

The conflict of interest could also be nothing more than someone's erroneous assumption or perception.

Does anyone take seriously one author's review of another author's book?  Do they assume that a favorable review means that the reviewing author is a friend of the reviewed?  Or that they're soliciting a favorable review in return?  Or if both authors are published under the same imprint that their publisher is requiring them to promote each other?

Doesn't everyone with a Kindle view the self-published masses as a unified armada that would never sabotage another indie with a bad review?  Wouldn't the indie armada consider that nothing short of treason and punishable by the heretic's excommunication? (Please forgive my hyperbole; I'm merely showing how my mind makes mountains of molehills.)

And what about the negative reviews written by authors?  Do people perceive them as the author's attempt to eliminate competition? Retribution for some slight? Ego run amok?

How can anyone dismiss these doubts with any degree of confidence?  Isn't a buyer supposed to rely (at least to some extent) on ratings and reviews?  Must readers research the reviewer to determine if that glowing or scathing review was warranted or habitual?

It doesn't really matter if I do my dead-level best to review everything fairly and honestly.  How can I compensate for biases I'm not even aware I have?  Or different standards?  Should I even try?  A review is, after all, essentially little more than an opinion.

I have no problem critiquing--even reviewing--an author's book.  My hesitation is in making that review public.  Besides, I will tell an author something privately that I would never write in a public review. And until that changes, I just don't think I'll be comfortable writing public reviews.

And all other things being equal, I may still be a little insecure about how much weight my personal opinion should carry, whether I ever publish my own novels or not. :-)

How about you?  Do you have the same reservations?  Have you overcome them?  Please share!

Things For Which I'm Thankful

I'm thankful for:

Marrying the most wonderful woman alive. No one loves me more, is more supportive or as proud of me as she is.  I firmly believe that God himself fashioned her just for me.

My children. My wife and I wed believing we'd never have children. God gave us two. I love them with every fiber of my being.

My grandchildren. Bundles of energy, life and laughter, these three boys are. Nothing is sweeter in my ears than hearing them yell for Paw Paw!

Living in the greatest country on the planet.  I love my country, warts and all.  I served it as a member of the armed forces.  I vote in every election.  I take my freedom seriously.

My job. Despite the frequently excessive hours and often taxing demands, it pays our bills and I enjoy the work.

My health.  Two bouts with disability and a series of surgeries is enough to remind me that my health could always be worse. I'm mobile, productive and thankful to be so.

And I'm thankful to have met so many wonderful writers and bloggers.  I've found kindred spirits, die-hard supporters, voices of reason and wisdom, and folks who inspire just by being their awesome selves.

For these and so many more things, I'm thankful, not just today, but every day.

To every last one of you, I wish a most Happy Thanksgiving!

Catherine E. McLean: The 9 Kinds of Writers

I love lists and I love classifying things.  Catherine has graciously delighted me on both accounts with her Guest Post discussing the...

NINE KINDS OF WRITERS.

by Catherine E. McLean

Copyrighted material @2012 - 

Taken from Mrs. McLean's "Writing & You" workshop and used with permission.

Catherine E. McLean

Are you a pantser or a plotter? Or maybe your method of writing a story doesn't fit either style? Well, I've discovered over the course of more than fifteen years of reading, conferences, workshops, and meeting other writers (from the novice to the multi-published and award-winning) that there are nine basic types of writers:

1. Pantser
2. Plotter or Outliner
3. Foundation Writer
4. Reverse Engineering (also called Backwards Plotting)
5. Piecemeal Plotting
6. Constructionists
7. Transcriber
8. Dictation
9. Multitasker

There may be more types, but let's look at these nine:

1) Pantser--one who writes by the "seat of their pants" which means the writer sits and types a story that unfolds, not knowing where the story will go but excited by the prospect of discovering the story.

The most common drawbacks are:

• the narration goes off on tangents, 
• the story stalls out, 
• another character takes over the story, or 
• cliches and triteness abound. If the entire story is drafted, the revision process is extremely onerous and draining. A pantser usually ends up with lots of ideas but few completed stories.

2) Plotter or Outliner--This writer is one who does pre-writing and planning before drafting, which nets a completed story and a better first draft. The plotter doesn't use the traditional Roman-numerals type of outlining. Their methods of outlining utilize various processes and diagramming, i.e., using "plotter's tools" such as:

• The Hero's Journey format
• The Three-Act Play format
• Arcs/Character Arc (curves and arcs, arcs on arcs, zigzags on arcs, etc.)
• Box diagrams (story boarding, calendars, use of sticky notes, index cards, Rolodexing, etc.)
• Clustering or radial graphs, (also known as mind mapping, netlining, bubbling, snowflake, leaf/vein/frost, etc.)
• Straight Line (horizontal, vertical, diagonal)--with or without arcs or zigzags--the W plot, etc.
• Triangle (Freitag's Triangle) and Pyramids
• Curves and circles, funnels/spirals
• Other geometric diagrams of the plot (or a combination of diagrams)
• A personal "project bible" or "cheat sheets"
• Journaling

The drawbacks to any type of plotting or outlining are:

• the writer becomes bogged down in providing minute details before actually writing the story, 
• too much effort and time goes into filling out countless forms, and 
• doing too much delineation of character and plot. Thus the writer loses enthusiasm for the story, and the story is never actually written.

3) Foundation Writer--the writer gets a story "dump," which is usually a scene (or the opening of the book) or a character comes onstage. Everything about the story can be extrapolated and plotted from the information contained or implied by the information dump. Often this writer employs various "plotter's tools" (mentioned above).

The drawbacks for foundation writing are:

• the same as those of the plotter/outliner, and 
• if not able to decipher an aspect of the story, the story is set aside (to be completed some other day--or perhaps never).

4) Reverse Engineering--This is Backwards Plotting. The story begins with the ending-climax and works back to the beginning.  This is often a method used for mysteries and crime novels, thrillers, etc.

The drawbacks are:

• it may not be possible to figure out "the beginning," and 
• the plot is trite.  Reverse engineering also benefits from "plotter's tools."

5) Piecemeal Plotting--As story information comes to the writer, it's in no particular order, but the various scenes are written. At some point (when enough scenes are developed), the scenes are sorted and a plot-order emerges.  Gaps are filled with additional scenes, and the story is fleshed out from beginning to end.

The drawback to this type of writing is the inability to tie all the pieces together. (This style of writing could benefit from "plotting tools" like a radial graph or clustering.)

6) Constructionists--This writer is one who does not visualize a story as they write but step by step constructs the story.  The writer relies heavily on logic rather than imagination.

The drawbacks are:

• the writer overwrites, and 
• using too much description or detail. The story may also become too linear, dull, and tedious because researched information or detailed explanations stop the story's forward flow.

7) Transcriber--a writer who writes their stories in longhand then enters them into their computer, editing as they go. This also works for the writer who dictates into a recorder and then transcribes the material into their computer.

The drawbacks are the same as those of the pantser.

8) Dictation--using a computer voice recognition program to dictate a story directly into the computer word processing file.

The drawbacks are the same as a transcriber's and pantser's plus rewriting to eliminate speech repetitions (like "ah" and "and") as well as run-on sentences.

9) Multitasker--This writer starts one story until they run out of steam and sets that story aside to begin another story. When they run out of steam on that current work-in-progress, they return to the first. That's because while this writer worked on the second story, they figured out what to do about the first.  The multitasker then writes more of the first's story before switching to the next story.  There may be three or four stories going at once.

The major drawbacks are:

• the writer never figures out a story and, therefore, never finishes the story's first draft, and 
• it can take a very long time to finish one story.

So, are any one of the nine types better than another?  Not really. Each writer must determine what's normal for them--which is done by trial-and-error. It's also not unusual for a writer to start as one type and end up as another.  And, by the way, it's not unusual for a story to need to be written a certain way, a way that isn't the writer's "usual" method. In other words, whatever works, works.

ABOUT CATHERINE E. MCLEAN

Catherine's paranormal-fantasy-romance novel, KARMA AND MAYHEM, will be published late this summer by Soul Mate Publishing.  Writing as C. E. McLean, she has sold short stories in science fiction, paranormal, and contemporary to hard-copy and online anthologies and magazines. She is also a writing instructor and workshop speaker (both online and in person)--her schedule is posted at her home web page. She sincerely believes a writer needs to be self-educated so she studies and reads extensively about the business and craft of writing--and addresses various elements of fiction writing at her The Sampler blog. She invites readers and writers to join her at Facebook, Twitter, or Linked-In.


Many thanks to Catherine for permitting me to host her fine article!

I think I'm a pantser with a dab of piecemeal.  Which are you?

March 18, 2012 Fantasy Writer's Challenge

This was my response to the March 18th, 2012 Fantasy Writer's Challenge.
The challenge: "Describe an unappealing place for a travel magazine."

Perfect Copy

Rodney Rat pulled the sheet from the typewriter.  His grin grew so wide that his whiskers tickled his ears.

Mona Mouse sat at her desk across from him, typewriter forgotten.  Munching straight from a box of Cheez-Its, she had her beady little eyes fixed on him again.  "What now, Rodney?  Another perfect copy?"

"It flows like butter, Mona.  Slices right fine when it’s hot."  And hot it was.  Next week’s commission would have him rolling in peanut butter.  Rhonda Rodent flashed in his mind, his date come Friday night.  She likes peanut butter.  A lot.  His grin grew wider and he squeaked out a giggle, remembering how he liked the way she nibbles.

"So where are you sending them to this time?  Paradise Pub for a night?"

"Better!  A whole weekend at Bernie’s Bistro.  You know the place, right?"

"I don’t travel Maple Ave.  There’s a Terminix at the corner of 17th street."

"Ha!  Bernie’s is at the 21st Street intersection.  Terminix is not a problem."

"Well, come on, let me hear it.  Somebody’s got to proof it before Gerry Gerbil gets it.  You know how he hates typos."  A Cheez-It fell to the floor.  "Rats!  Five-second rule!  Called it!"

Rodney shook his head and began to read.  "Bernie’s Bistro: Hedgehog Heaven."

"Oh, please.  Really, Rodney?  Is that the best you can do?"

"Hush, Mona.  Listen while you munch, okay?"  He watched her force another Cheez-It in her mouth.  The whole thing!  "Manners, Mona?  Is it too much to ask?"

"Just read."

"Two luxurious nights on the wharf.  Amorous aromas for lovers of life."  Mona choked and sent the soggy Cheez-It flying across the room.  It missed his eye by millimeters.  He squeaked his frustration and continued.  "Stay in one of Rodentia’s Twin Green Towers overlooking Bernie’s to the west and the rubbish-laced wharf to the east.  Leave your sunglasses at home and enjoy the shade only the Rodentia’s Towers provide.  They can accommodate your entire family.  Have your meals delivered by drop-in, their taste pre-tested by patrons of the establishment."

"Mmmm," Mona moaned.  Her tail, the only slender bit left on her brown body, rose.  "Leftovers."

"Should you choose to leave the luxury of the Towers and take a leisurely stroll, you’ll find the sleek brick and mortar walls doused daily with fresh refuse.  A manhole cover sits nearby, capping the perfect excursion for you and yours."

"Doesn’t sound so bad.  Maybe I’ll check it out."

"You wouldn’t like it, Mona.  Bernie’s requires a deposit and doesn’t serve Cheez-Its."

"Oh, just go take your copy to Gerry.  I got work to finish."