Evanston ShopNotes

EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, Inc. Seeking Anthology Submissions

2012-01-21T22:08:00.001-06:00

NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS

EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing is delighted to announce that the Professor Challenger Anthology, is now open for submissions.

Submissions close May 31, 2012.

EDITORS

J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec.

WHAT WE'RE AFTER

A broad range of new and original stories built around Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD character Professor George Edward Challenger. Stories derived from the aftermath of events in the Lost World are welcome however simply revisiting or rehashing the Lost World without good cause is not. Challenger is a man of science first and foremost, not an explorer. Mash-ups or crossovers with public domain literary characters are welcome.
For inspiration think X-files, Quartermass, DR. Who, cryptozoology, aliens among us, supernatural occurrences, science gone awry in a Dr. Moreau, Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll vein, nature run amuck, monsters large and small, world threatening cataclysm, Lovecraft mythos, think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, E.R. Burroghs, John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, alternate history, new lost places, steampunk, whatever -- Be creative.
Mine the potential for all it's worth! Push it out there, get weird, play, have fun!

SUBMISSION DETAILS:

The anthology is part invitation and part open submission. Priority will be given to invited authors but an invitation to submit is not a guarantee of acceptance. A minimum of two slots will be held for open submissions. Acceptance is based entirely on suitability of story and quality of writing.
The maximum length for stories is 10,000 words, with shorter works preferred.
Deadline: May 31, 2012 - midnight).
Do not query before submitting.
Email submissions to: mailto:%20Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
Emails MUST contain the word "submission" in the subject line, or they will be deleted automatically by the server. Please also include the story title in the subject line.
Submissions MUST come in an attachment: Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) are the only acceptable formats.
Emails MUST contain a cover letter in the body of the email; for security reasons, email attachments with no cover letter will be deleted unread and unanswered.
Cover letter: include your name, the title of your story, your full contact information (address, phone, email), and a brief bio. Do not describe or summarize the story.
Reprints (stories having previously appeared in English in any format, print or electronic, including but not limited to any form of web publication) will NOT be considered.
Submission format: no strange formatting, colour fonts, changing fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc. Leave italics in italics, NOT underlined. Put your full contact information on the first page (name, address, email address, phone). No headers, no footers, no page numbering. DO NOT leave a blank line between paragraphs. Indent paragraphs. ALWAYS put a # to indicate scene breaks (a blank line is NOT enough).
ALWAYS include your full contact information (name/address/email/phone number) on the first page of the attached submission.
This is a professional market paying up to 5 cents per word plus a single copy of the book. Full rate to 7,500 words, half rate for balance to 10,000 words.
Rights: for original fiction, first World English publication, with a two-month exclusive from publication date; for all, non-exclusive anthology rights; all other rights remain with the author.
Spelling: the editors will consider stories using British, Canadian and American spellings.
Response time: initial responses (no / rewrite request / hold for further consideration) will be prompt, usually within fifteen days. Please query if you've not heard back within 30 days.
We do not advise that you submit more than one story.
Simultaneous submissions are not encouraged but are acceptable. Should you receive a "rewrite request" or "hold for further consideration" response, please indicate immediately whether your story is under consideration anywhere else.
Publication date: TBA (trade paperback & e-Book).
Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com

Additional information can be found at http://www.edgewebsite.com/books/professorchallenger/pch-guidelines.html

Interview Studio - Jannifer Hoffman

2012-01-17T23:24:00.000-06:00

Please join me in welcoming Jannifer Hoffman to the Interview Studio. Jannifer writes Romance for Resplendence Publishing was born in North Dakota and currently resides in Minnesota. Welcome Jannifer!

For your Douglas Family Series at Resplendence, What have you enjoyed most about writing a series and what has been the most challenging?

I loved bringing back characters that I had grown attached to. Most challenging was the last one’ Random Fire. I wanted to bring together Virgil (the oldest Douglas brother) and Katie (from Rough Edges) I had many request to do both so I thought, okay why not do them both at the same time. To make it interesting I had to dig deep into Virgil’s past find his problems. These are like real people to me. LOL

You write for both Resplendence and Treble Heart. Do you find any particular challenge in writing for multiple publishers?

No. Treble Heart was my first sale. I wasn’t happy with them so I wanted a change. My dream is still to find a mass market publisher.

What was the inspiration for your recent book, Bittersweet Memories? What gave you the idea for the title?

I wanted to do a tormented woman I guess. It’s the only one I actually sat at the computer sobbing as I did the ending. I could readily relate to Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone. (Smile) For the title my editor and I brainstormed. She didn’t like my original title (Twisted Memories) so she made suggestion and I worked them over to come up with Bittersweet. Not the first time we did it either. Edge of Daybreak was even worse. I didn’t have a title at all until she helped. Again we brainstormed. By the way, I always check prospective titles on Amazon to find something that hasn’t been used. Not easy!

Do you have any writing rituals that you follow on a regular basis?

I wish. I’m almost always writing under a deadline. I envy writers who can start with an outline.

What are your must-have writing tools?

It might be a given for most people but since I started writing on an old black Remington upright I would definitely say my computer. One could really understand that if I they knew how bad my typing skills are. Also I use Sandra Brown books like dictionaries. I think she knows more words. LOL

Where do you get your ideas?

I read, read, read. It only takes a tiny seed for me to work it into a story. I start typing and it just comes to me. When I get a block, I lose a lot of sleep.

Dark or milk chocolate?

Dark, only because it's healthier.

Coffee or tea?

Definitely tea, preferably iced tea. I’ve never drank coffee.

Sunday Dinner with Medallion Press

2012-01-08T00:27:00.000-06:00

In the spirit of the New Year we chose to spotlight some editors who publish YA. We hope you will join us every Sunday as someone from the business of Writing joins us. Today we welcome Medallion Press

Q: Tell us a little bit about Medallion Press and what you are looking for in YA.

Founded in June of 2003 by Helen Rosburg, Medallion Press publishes fiction and nonfiction in hardcover, trade paperback, e-book, and interactive e-book formats, and we have national distribution on many levels. Every book Medallion produces is considered a work of art. From concept to cover, it is nurtured each step of the way. Our goal is to have readers find the treasure they expect in every one of our books. This dedication to quality is what drives our dedicated and talented staff. For YA, we’re looking for engaging voices and well-crafted, compelling, unique stories.

Q: I’d like to know whether you think there are certain tones of voice that fit certain subgenres better.

The appropriate tone is dependent on the goal of each book. Certainly, readers have some expectations when they approach a genre, but we all know when we find a voice that can successfully turn that expectation on its head, pull us in, and keep us turning the pages.

Q: What’s hot for 2012?

In YA, what’s hot in 2012 are zombies, vampires, contemporary fiction, speculative fiction, and interactive e-books.

Q: I was wondering if you could give a quick overview/calendar of a book being published by Medallion from initial submission to publication date.

Approximately twelve to eighteen months before the release: The book is acquired. The author fills in an info sheet for our marketing and art teams so they can market the book and design the cover. Approximately six months before the release: Our marketing team contacts the author to coordinate marketing efforts. Our editors have line edited and copyedited the manuscript and send it to the author, who then reviews and revises the manuscript. Our editors proofread the manuscript and send it to the art team to be formatted. Approximately four months before the release: Our marketing team begins receiving and sharing reviews for the book. Our editors and the author proofread the formatted manuscript. Approximately three months before the release: the book goes to the printer and/or e-book conversion. The author's local news outlets are contacted. One month before the release date: Ads are placed in selected venues. Release: Time to celebrate the release, congratulate the author, and share the title through all of our online media.

Q: Do you consider whether a story is a stand alone versus being a series when buying from an author?

Whether a book is a single title or a part of a series, we require that the book be able to stand as a satisfying read on its own. We are most concerned with the quality of each manuscript on its own.

Q: From blog tours to book trailers--what have you seen lately that really pays off for an author in terms of garnering reader interest? And what has worked for some of the Medallion authors to get readers to click & buy? How involved is Medallion in author promotion?

The most successful promotions we’ve seen are from authors who actively participate in communities of writers and fans of their genre. They actively blog, Tweet, and do blog tours. On Twitter, they promote not only their own work but others’, and they connect intentionally with their fans. In other words, they build relationships. What we’ve found to be extremely successful is limited-time reduced-price or free e-book promotions through booksellers. Medallion Press is highly involved in promotion, marketing in Student Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, PW Daily, targeted media outlets, consumer outlets Facebook ads and mentions, and Twitter. Our motto is that publishing is a partnership, and we make a concerted effort to assist our authors with self-promotion as well.

Q: Are all contracts standard or do you negotiate depending on author experience (published etc.) word count, sub-genre?

Our contracts are standard in the industry, and our royalties are competitive. The terms of each are confidential.

Q: I was wondering what percentage of your authors are new, previously unpublished authors?

About one-third of our authors are new, previously unpublished authors. Particularly with YA and fiction, we care more about the quality of the manuscript than about the author's marketing platform and we do our very best to coordinate marketing efforts to help every author build his/her audience.

Q: Where can writers and readers learn more about Medallion Press?

The best place to learn more about us is at medallionpress.com. We hope to hear from your members soon!

Thank you for this opportunity to connect with the writers in Evanston Writers Group. From all of us at Medallion Press, we wish you a fantastic New Year.

Silly Saturday - The Shelter Pet Project Ads

2011-12-31T00:00:00.000-06:00

And for a good cause too.

The Shelter Pet Project has a group of these on YouTube and they are all so funny. The cat ones are my favorite.

If you'd like to submit a post for Silly Saturdays, please e-mail tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org.

Silly Saturday - All I want for Christmas!

2011-12-24T00:00:00.000-06:00

I wanted to share this video, which I'm sure many of you have already seen.

Enjoy!

Tina

And the Winner for Bad Sex is...

2011-12-20T00:00:00.000-06:00

"David Guterson has won the 19th annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award, for Ed King (Bloomsbury). The prize was presented to a representative of his publishers by Barbara Windsor, star of the Carry On films and Eastenders.

*Alexander Waugh and Barbara Windsor (© Alan Davidson/The Picture Library Ltd)*

David Guterson lives in America and was unable to accept the prize in person. 'Oedipus practically invented bad sex, so I'm not in the least bit surprised,' he said in response to his fifth novel winning the award. His bestselling debut, Snow Falling on Cedars, won the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Ed King is a re-imagining of the Oedipus myth in the second half of the twentieth century. The winning scene is introduced in the book as 'the part where a mother has sex with her son'. The judges were swayed by the following paragraphs:

These sorts of gyrations and five-sense choreographies, with variations on Ed's main themes, played out episodically between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., when Diane said, "Let's shower."

In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap. After a while he shut his eyes, and Diane, wielding her fingernails now and staring at his face, helped him out with two practiced hands, one squeezing the family jewels, the other vigorous with the soap-and-warm-water treatment. It didn't take long for the beautiful and perfect Ed King to ejaculate for the fifth time in twelve hours, while looking like Roman public-bath statuary. Then they rinsed, dried, dressed, and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch.

Guterson narrowly edged out strong competition from Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 ('A freshly made ear and a freshly made vagina look very much alike, Tengo thought'), Chris Adrian's The Great Night (featuring an 'impossibly stiff, impossibly eloquent cock' that 'poked her now from the front and now from the back and now from the side'), and Lee Child's The Affair ('Then it was time. We started tenderly. Long and slow, long and slow. Deep and easy. She flushed and gasped. So did I. Long and slow').

The shortlist also included:

On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry
The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey
Parallel Stories by Péter Nádas
11.22.63 by Stephen King
The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M Auel
Dead Europe by Christos Tsiolkas
Outside the Ordinary World by Dori Ostermiller
Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

Last year the prize was won by Rowan Somerville for The Shape of Her published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson..."

The Original article may be found below

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsex2011.php

Silly Satudays - The Hanukkah Song by Adam Sandler

2011-12-17T23:21:00.000-06:00

With the Holidays around the corner, thought you'd enjoy this!

If you'd like to submit a post for Silly Saturdays, please e-mail tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org.

The Walking Dead - My new obsession.

2011-11-08T22:56:00.000-06:00

Okay, Let me begin this premise by stating I love most paranormal shows. There are a few of those that take place in Space that I've not be able to get into.

I was recently watching Nightline, right before Halloween and they were saying it was the year of the Zombie and they referenced a show on AMC called "The Walking Dead". And I thought "Who would watch a show about Zombies?" In saying this I was trying to wrap my head around how you could have an ongoing show, it seemed very unlikely you could sustain this week after week.

So one day I googled it, okay it was probably at three in the morning when I didn't want to sleep. Anyway AMCTV.com had put up Season 2, Episode 1. So I thought what the heck - I'll watch it. I was 10 minutes into it when I began to believe in a Zombie apocolypse and rushed upstairs to wake DH (Dear Husband) and force him to watch it with me because I was scared.

I was never one of those people who liked being scared. I don't like slasher movies or movies with alot of gore, but I do love a good mystery.

Anyway DH diligently watched with me and at the end he said, "I kind of like it."

Me too. So much so I became one of those people who goes to Walmart in their pajamas - but that's another post.

I ran out and bought the first season of The Walking Dead because I found the premise so entrancing and I'm wondering how are these people going to get out of this.

A few notes about the show:

The main character is Rick Grimes who wakes up from a coma to go searching for his family. The show is based on a comic series which I'm suspecting is why it got a second season. The zombies are slow moving zombies - not like the ones from "Resident Evil" or "Zo

1) It is bloody
2) People and animals are disemboweled.
3) There is swearing -quiet a bit at times

Minus the F-Bomb being thrown around. I don't find the gore to be any worse than something you'd see on CSI or any other crime show. Except well the walking dead are eating.

Silly Saturday: "Lessons from Crochet" (or "The Fable of the Old Woman and the Crocheted Dolls")

2011-11-05T00:01:00.002-05:00

A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years.

They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.

For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover.

In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box.

When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000. He asked her about the contents.

"When we were to be married," she said, "my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll."

The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. He thought she had only been angry with him twice in all those years of living and loving.

He almost burst with happiness. "Honey," he said, "that explains the dolls, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?"

"Oh," she said, "that's what I made from selling the dolls."

A Prayer...

Dear Lord, I pray for Wisdom to understand my man;
Love to forgive him;
And Patience for his moods;
Because Lord, if I pray for Strength,
I'll beat the daylights out of him, because I don't know how to crochet.

13 Reasons to Come to the EWW Holiday Party!

2011-11-03T10:22:00.000-05:00

Happy Thursday! In honor of today, I figured I would do a list of 13 reasons why you should come to the third annual EWW Holiday Party. It's a not-to-be-missed event, sure to finish off the year in style!

1. It's the Third Annual Evanston Writers Workshop Holiday Party! You've seen the rest, now come to the best! We are the one and only, doing battle for writers since 2007!

2. You can party with all your writer friends, who don't look at you funny when you want to discuss past participles in public.

3. It's a Murder Mystery! You've heard about them, and now you get to come to one! Put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and follow those clues!

4. Debbie and I will cry if you don't come.

5. No, really. :)

6. You'll be able to have an old war story about the party when it's all said and done!

7. You get to find out what's in the goody bags!

8. We'll have some really good food for everyone!

9. We'll even do an awards ceremony for all EWW folks who come. Come find out what award YOU will be given! (Best Punster, Best Mustache, Best Puzzler...)

10. For all you NaNoWriters out there, come and de-stress after the full month of writing your a** off!

11. Generate fodder for your next superstar story. Even better if you write creative non-fiction - after all, truth is stranger than fiction!

12. You can say, "I was there!"

13. And the best reason of all for coming to the holiday party? TO HAVE A GREAT TIME, EWW-STYLE!!!

Register today!

Thursday 13 Shows I love to watch.

2011-10-27T23:21:00.000-05:00

Castle ( ABC) - I think Nathan Fillon is awesome and I believe Richard Castle is an ancestor of Malcolm Reynolds. The humor is similar between the characters
Body of Proof (ABC) -I'm not sure why I love this show but I seem to be on a crime spree lately - showwise that is.
Unforgettable (CBS) - This is about a detective with hyperthymesia, also called Superior Autobiographical Memory. Mary Lou Henner has this ability and is listed in the credits.
CSI ( CBS) - I'm really enjoying Ted Danson this season.
The Secret Circle (Thursdays CW) - I'm not sure what drew me to this teen focused paranormal show but so far I like it.
The Mentalist (CBS) - I was really hoping Red John was dead.
Supernatural (CW) - I was a late starter into this show and began watching the third season. I started buying the DVD's and am pretty much in it for the life of the show. I was really hoping there was be a Wild West Spin-off giving the history of the relics, hunters, etc. but alas no. :(
Amazing Race (CBS)- One of my favorite reality shows. I love the weekly locales and places they visit.
Sons of Anarchy (FX) - Once again I began watching this series in it's third season on Hulu. Got the husband addicted to it. Went back and bought seasons 1&2. Looks like Hulu won't be airing any more FX episodes though. I guess I'll have to wait for season 4 on DVD. Ugh!
Swamp People (History Channel) - The Alligator Hunting season is over but this one is an addiction at my house. The whole family roots for their swampers.
Ax Men (History Channel) - My husband got me into this one in the Swamp People off-season.
Psych (TBS) - I checked out seasons 1&2 from the library and now I'm hooked. This comedic version of the Metalist reminds me of '80's style TV mysteries (Murder she wrote, Matlock, etc.). I love looking for the pineapples (or references) in the episodes.
Grimm (NBC) - okay it's not out yet (October 28th) but I'm so looking forward to this show, I just know I'll love it.

Editing for Passive Voice

2011-10-24T00:00:00.002-05:00

Editing for Passive Voice by Ross Martinek

Use the table below to find passive voice in your work. If you do this exercise for ten chapters, you will find yourself spotting and eliminating passive voice as you write. The instructions are for MS Word 2011 (2010 on Windows, IIRC), but should be similar in earlier versions. I use this and it works. I wrote scientific works for over forty years, where passive voice is nearly required, rather than tolerated.

The definition of passive voice (from grammardivas.com, an excellent grammar reference site):

“A passive voice sentence will always have:

1. a form of “to be” + past participle for the verb (was called, will be thrown)

2. subject of the sentence receives action rather than doing the action

3. doer of action (if stated) is in a prepositional phrase beginning with by (or to).”

Memorizing this will help, but the instructions below work better.

Target words for passive voice	Chapter
Target words for passive voice	11	22	33	44	55	66	77	88	99	110
had/have/was/ were/been/be/by/to /could/would/should/

Turn off Track Changes

Open Advanced Find

Type target word (one at a time) in search box

Select “Find whole words”

Select “Highlight all items”

Click Find

Click Title Bar of document.

Click highlight color (something you can read through)

Repeat as desired.

Turn on Track Changes

Edit and review

Turn off Track Changes

Advanced Find: Clear find box and any other search criteria check boxes

Select Highlight under the Format drop down

Select Highlight all items

Click find

Click Title Bar of Document

Select None in the highlight color dropdown menu.

*The MS Word grammar checker is essentially useless except for three things: passive voice, cliché, and colloquialisms. After you think you’ve found all the passive voice in your document, try the following.

Open Word Preferences.

Click on Spelling and Grammar

In the Grammar section, clear all check boxes except “Show readability statistics.”

In the Grammar section, click on the pull down for Writing style and select “Custom.”

Click the “Settings…” button next to that pull down.

Clear all check boxes except “Passive sentences,” “Clichés,” “Colloquialisms,” and “Sentence length.”

Click the “Okay” button to close the dialog.

NOTE: If you have previously checked either grammar or spelling, you must click the “Recheck Document” button or Word will ignore everything you want it to find! You must do this every time you want to check the document for these things.

Click the “Okay” button to close the preferences window.

Turn on “Track changes” and have at it.

Remember that not all passive sentences are bad. Sometimes they are necessary. More often, they are not.

Tuesday Review: Ringer

2011-10-18T00:01:00.001-05:00

Sarah Michelle Gellar’s new project, Ringer, has been picked up by the CW network for a full season. I’m sure fans of Sarah’s are overjoyed, because she’s an excellent actress - smart, pretty, and fun.

I saw the series opener and was disappointed. I felt little sympathy for the main character, a former addict with six months’ sobriety. She visits her twin sister to make amends as part of her journey to sobriety, and the sister seems to forgive her. They go out on her sister’s boat and our main character falls asleep.

That’s when it gets weird.

When she wakes up, there’s a bottle of sleeping pills with only her sister’s wedding ring inside. The sister is gone, presumably having committed suicide over the side of the boat. Our main character then goes back to shore and does what any good Samaritan would do:

She assumes her twin’s identity.

See, that’s where I have trouble with it. I know we’re supposed to be sympathetic to her, because she’s kind to the husband and nice to the friend, breaks up with the man her sister had an affair with, etc. etc. But I just can’t get over the idea that someone would blithely take over their sibling’s life, live in their marriage bed and continue their friendships, with nary a twinge of ethical remorse.

I might watch a couple more episodes, because a good series sometimes takes awhile to find its footing. But for right now, I say two thumbs down.

Have you seen it? What do you think? Tell us, in comments!

Thursday 13 October 6, 2011 - Why I shouldn't be at work today

2011-10-06T11:46:00.002-05:00

I need to write. My WIP is staring at me unforgivingly as if to say, "I'm more important than eating or health insurance"
My Physical health. Now which is healthier, sitting behind a computer under flourescent lighting or doing laps in the swimming pool? Need I say more?
My Mental health. I pet my computer today!
We are having unusually beautiful weather in Chicago for October and I'm hermetically sealed 17 stories up with no windows.
I need to be planning my fun and festive halloween party.
Nothing fun for lunch today.
Have a list at home of at least 12 phone calls I need to make.
I could be tweeting.I have 30 followers yay!
I am mourning the loss of Steve Jobs.
I need toothpicks to keep my eyes open.
My doggies are at home missing me.
There are people in the office hacking and sneezing and I can feel the germs trying to get in.
I'm at work writing my Thursday 13 instead of actually working

Interview with an Evie Winner - Renee Yates

2011-10-05T00:30:00.004-05:00

Welcome to the first interview with one of our 2011 Evie Winners - Renee Yates who won in the Fiction Category. Renee pitched at the Evanston Writer's Workshop Conference and received a contract. Please join me in welcoming Renee Yates!

Renee, I want to first congratulate you on your contract with Whispers Publishing!

Can you tell us a little bit about the book contracted ?

The title of the book is The White Nightgown. It is a story about a thirty-six-year-old African-American woman, Michelle, who marries a Jewish man, David, and their difficult relationships with his mother. I'm told that it is scheduled to be released early next year (2012), perhaps February. But that's tentative right now.

Did your publisher say what they liked about your piece?

Yes, Jessica Damien, my editor at Whispers Publishing put it this way:

"The White Nightgown grips the heart in a tear-jerking squeeze as the reader delves into the pathos, depression, and the despairing emotions of the characters. The gritty, down-to-earth reality of the story begs the hope of a happy ending, and one can't put down the book until the end.

This is the sort of story a lot of publishers seem afraid to publish, but it fits in well with Whispers' new search for a broader range of plot devices. We are looking forward to extending our readership with stories like this, which bravely go beyond the typical."

You won the Evanston Writers Contest with a different story. What was your inspiration for the Evie winning short story, “The Easter Outfit.”

"The Easter Outfit" was inspired by memories of how exciting it was for me to get a new outfit every year for Easter when I was a child; and a disturbing experience I had with a neighbor around age eight or nine. Even though the story was inspired by personal, unconnected events, it is pure fiction.

Do you have any writing rituals that you follow on a regular basis?

Not really. Even though I actually began writing in the late 1980s, I still think of myself as a new writer. I’m still trying to figure out what type of rituals or schedule will work for me. Right now, I just write when characters speak to me or when ideas occur to me. That can happen at any moment because the people and events that occur throughout my daily activities often inspire ideas and character thoughts. However, lately, I found that regular meditation and Yoga helps to keep my mind open to ideas.

My Macbook and a smart phone with a Notes application and a voice recorder.

If you could only answer one question, what would it be, and how would you answer?

The question: What is the key to true happiness?

The answer: Mindfulness

Dark or milk chocolate?

Both.

Coffee or tea?

Both.

Thanks Renee for taking the time to interview with ShopNotes. Keep us posted on your career as we'd love to hear how things are going for one of our first Evie winners.

If you would like to interview for ShopNotes please contact me at tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org.

Tina
Editor in Chief What are your must-have writing tools?

Spine Chilling: Mass-market retailing changed publishing before the e-book

2011-10-03T00:30:00.000-05:00

Interesting article published by the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/node/21528641

Tina

Silly Saturday!

2011-10-01T00:01:00.002-05:00

Here are 8 words that the internet loves to confuse. (Just don't be drinking anything while you're reading, or you'll risk choking.)

Enjoy!

Silly Saturday!

2011-09-24T00:04:00.004-05:00

I ran across this video recently and liked the premise...okay I admit it. I love Seth Green and he tweeted about it. :)

Remember, if you have anything you'd like to post for Silly Saturday send it to tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org

Tina

http://www.tinaholland.com/

Silly Saturday!

2011-09-17T00:00:00.004-05:00

Another great video I found on YouTube, anyone with cats can probably relate to this.

Please feel free to send in your silly letters, videos, etc for silly saturday by e-mailing me at tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org and I'll gladly put them in the queue.

Tina
www.tinaholland.com

Friday Flash Focus - "Dr. Ho, The Hawaiian Dr. Who" by Mark Hudson

2011-09-16T11:21:00.000-05:00

Our offering this week for our Friday Flash Focus series is by author Mark Hudson, who is becoming a regular contributor to our series. We're pleased to bring him back this week with a Science Fiction themed piece entitled "Dr. Ho, The Hawaiian Dr. Who." We hope you enjoy!

Dr. Robert Ho had just got back from a luau in 15th century Hawaii with his granddaughter, Lindsay Ho. He traveled with his time machine, a palm tree. He was just in time to try and stop Aloha Technology, the evil robotics company that was taking over the Hawaiian Islands, from coming to fruition. The company had been inherited by a bratty 8-year old kid, who showed up to work in a suit and tie, but made the corporation show up to work in their pajamas.

Dr. Ho showed up incognito as one of the cooks. He planned to spy on little Kaopele Mahiki, the 8-year old boy who was part Hawaiian boy, and part Irish boy. And rumor had it that they’d been doing mechanical surgery so that he’d become a robot. But nobody could quite figure that out either. We join Dr. Ho As he lingers in the kitchen, preparing a bowl of Captain Crunch cereal to bring to His Highness.

Dr. Ho walked to Kaopele Mahiki and presented the kid with the cereal. “Not sugary enough,” the boy stated.

“You are so spoiled,” stated Dr. Ho, giving the boy a kick in the butt in a true W.C Fields fashion.

“Guards…Take this cook away. To the dungeons with him!”

Dr. Ho was led to a dungeon beneath the mansion. Meanwhile, upstairs, the boy was about to start his corporate meeting.

A man spoke. “Sir, what shall we do about the Snake problem in Hawaii?

“What problem?” the boy president said, munching on a candy bar. “If people want to have pet snakes, let them have pet snakes.”

“But aren’t they ruining our ecosystem?”

“So? For that, you get a pay cut. Don’t disrupt my plans for Hawaii. Meeting dismissed.”

The crowd began to disperse. “Oh, Jenkins. I’d like to have a word with you. Would you like to do some putting over the weekend?”

“Pouting?”

“No, putting on a golf course, you idiot! Just for that, you are fired. You’ve got twenty minutes to leave.”

Meanwhile, down in the dungeon, Dr. Ho had installed a secret labyrinth of extra powerful tape recorders and video equipment to catch the boy in continuing his father’s evil practices, dating back to the 1500’s when they sacrificed virgins to the volcano gods. Dr. Ho knew this young whippersnapper was going to have to give up the company, and Dr. Ho could prevent Hawaii from disintegrating.

Just as Dr. Ho, thought his plan was going to work, a giant deadly boa constrictor slithered through a hole in the wall, preparing to bite Dr. Ho. Could this be the end of Dr. Ho? Tune in next time!

Don't Mess with Texas

2011-09-12T02:24:00.001-05:00

Apparently Texas is suing an author over the title of her book. I'm very interested to see how this lawsuit will play out as it refers to registered trademarks and will effect many of us should we reference a character drinking a can of Coke. Oops I think I did that. :)

Here's a link to the original article:

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2011/08/txdot_romance_novel_porn.php

Thoughts?

Tina
http://www.tinaholland.com/

Silly Saturday!

2011-09-10T09:55:00.000-05:00

The Post below comes from one of our members (Hint, Hint). It’s an open letter to Dr. Laura. There’s also a clip of a west wing episode that used the letter.

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an Abomination (Lev 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

g) Lev 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die?

i) I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

If you have something silly you'd like to share please feel free to pass it along to me at tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org and I will gladly put it up.

Tina

Silly Saturday

2011-08-27T02:39:00.001-05:00

I ran across this video and thought it would be something all you children of the '80's would enjoy. I know I did.

Tina

Thursday 13: Thirteen Reasons to Attend Conferences

2011-08-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

1. The classes. You can attend all sorts of classes, from ‘how to write’ to ‘how to market yourself’ to ‘how to get published’.

2. Networking. This is a buzzword, I admit, but it’s a useful one. It’s not a new idea, either, it’s just that in today’s society of distributed social systems, it’s harder than ever for people to make contacts in any industry – much less writing. On the other hand, writers tend to be helpful to others, sometimes even in spite of themselves. You never know who you will meet, and who will end up being a friend, confidant, partner, or publisher.

3. Meet readers. First and foremost, writers are, in general, readers. They love the written word. Since you produce the written word, you get to meet your target audience.

4. Have fun. Conferences are , by and large, filled with lots of social and goofy events. Depending on the type of conference, you can attend parties, costume events, music performances, and lots of other stuff. These all help feed the inner writer.

5. Exposure. The more contacts you make in the industry, the better. You learn the “who’s who” of your chosen profession, and that can help you down the line when you’re working to publish (or now, if that’s something you’re actively pursuing).

6. Meet authors. You never know when your hero, your favorite author, will walk through a door. I’ve gotten to meet two of mine so far, both times unexpectedly. It’s fun to be a fan, and it’s interesting to meet the person behind the book.

7. Get facts. Especially in today’s internet day and age, there’s a lot of information out there. That doesn’t mean all of it is accurate. It’s a lot easier to get a gut-read for facts when you’re there in person than it is online, and this is your opportunity to ask the tough questions. “What are working authors actually making at my level?” “How many times did it take you to get your agent?” “Do I really need an agent?” “Are editors really axe-murderers in disguise?”

8. Get new ideas. We stagnate if we don’t periodically freshen the water in our tanks, and one way to do that is to expose ourselves to the new and unexpected. By attending conference, you will be putting yourself in a place where not everyone will be like you or even agree with you – which is good for expanding your notions of what’s right and possible.

9. Pitch appointments. Some writers conferences offer pitch appointments where you can sit down with an editor or agent in your genre . If you have this opportunity, and you’re ready to submit to publishers, then by all means take the time to do this. It can be scary (it was for me), but it can be a way to get your foot in the door (it was for me).

10. Attend a national conference in your genre. These are not cheap, but if you can do it, they will net you rewards beyond the money spent. You will meet the movers and shakers in your particular genre, learn about trend, and have access to publishers, editors, agents, authors, and other in your genre who can teach you and help you.

11. Good regional conferences can also be of use, particularly if you, like me, can’t afford a national conference yet. Evanston Writers Workshop is working hard to become one such organization; others are run by national organizations’ local chapters such as RWA Chicago North’s Spring Fling. These are worth checking out because many times, they will have editors and agents as well, and certainly classes – sometimes even taught by local authors you may not have realized were in your area.

12. Marketing. It’s a simple fact of the new reality that authors are responsible for the bulk of their own marketing. You need to understand the lingo, and the methods, surrounding how to promote yourself. It’s not hard, but it is hard work . Learn how to budget your time most effectively to get the most bang for your marketing efforts – especially if it’s not your favorite occupation. It’s a necessary one, and you need to know how and what to do so you can focus on what’s REALLY important – the writing!

13. Stay on top of trends. Conferences will teach you what’s going on in your genre, in the publishing industry, and what readers are looking for. Learn about current events that have or may have an effect on you (Borders closure, Google’s purchase of Motorola’s handheld division, trends in e-readers and tablet technology, etc.) These are all important for you as a writer and it pays to stay informed.

Happy TT!

Interview Studio: A Conversation with Debbie Cairo

2011-08-24T00:01:00.005-05:00

Many of our members know Debbie, the cheerful face behind Evanston Writers Workshop. She started the original meetup group and brought in the board that now runs the non-profit company. Tomorrow, the world!

All kidding aside, Debbie has a lot of energy, great ideas, and tremendous creativity. She's written several novels and her first, OVER MY UNDEAD BODY, is published with Whispers Publishing.

We caught up with Debbie over email to discuss her projects and writing process.

SN: You started the original Meetup group of Evanston Writers Workshop in 2007. What made you decide to get things going?

DC: I went to a Romantic Times convention prior to that and met a couple of authors, one of them being Tina Holland, who I became fast friends with and introduced me to the concept of critique partners. Unfortunately, one was in Florida and one was in North Dakota, so our critique sessions were limited to AOL Messenger and email. A gentleman named Richard started a writers group in Evanston through Meetup dot com. Five of us showed up at the first meeting. I found I really enjoyed the companionship and input of other authors. So, when he stepped down as organizer of the group less than a month after its creation, I took it over without hesitation. Since then, as we have grown and evolved, we now encompass much more than the critique group it started as. I’m very excited to see where we go in the future.

SN: When did you start to think of yourself as "a writer" and not just someone who fiddled with stories?

DC: Almost immediately actually. I made the transition from voracious reader to writer. I read a series of books by an author who will remain anonymous, and I thought to myself, I can do better. So I sat down and spent the next seven months writing my first novel. I considered myself “an author” when the great Kate Duffy said, “Damn girl, you can plot!”

SN: You mentioned once that you grew up Jewish on the North Shore, in a predominantly WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) culture. How has that shaped your outlook on your stories?

DC: Actually, I grew up in a predominately Jewish neighborhood. My senior year, they merged my school with another school that was almost entirely WASP. There was a lot of mistrust and bigotry on behalf of the students and the parents. I learned the usual thing you learn when you are a victim of discrimination. I learned what it felt like to be an outsider. I learned to stand up for myself, which is a big theme in all my books. I learned that parents instill pre-conceptions and sometimes skewed values into their children. And since that new high school was filled with some of the wealthiest kids in the country, I learned that money definitely does not buy you happiness. You can see all these themes in the characters I build.

SN: You also run a popular board-gaming group through Meetup. How does your interest in strategy games affect your writing and stories?

DC: I think an interest in science and science fiction go hand and hand with both writing and board-gaming. You can feel the geek in me trying to get out in all my stories.

SN: What was the inspiration for your first book, OVER MY UNDEAD BODY? What gave you the idea for the title?

DC: The inspiration was, what would it be like to be a trailer-trash vampire? In all the vampire stories, the vampires are wealthy and powerful. I wanted to turn that on its ear. The body-switching part of the story came from my affinity for fish-out-of-water-stories. What if that trailer-trash girl was thrown into this world of opulence on top of learning how to exist as a vampire. I wish I had a great story about how I came up with the name, but I honestly don’t remember. I’m sure Tina Holland and I were throwing out suggestions to see what stuck to the wall and that one did. She’s an amazing sounding board.

SN: Do you have any writing rituals that you follow on a regular basis?

DC: Being the technology geek that I am, most of my rituals involve naming conventions and folder organization on the computer. What chapters are in what stage of writing or editing and where do they belong in the file structure. Once a actually put my fingers on the keys to write, I make myself quiet so that I can see the story running through my head. Then I simply write what I see.

SN: What are your must-have writing tools?

DC: My computer is the only physical tool I need. I use it for everything from writing to editing and research. Beyond that I must have my imagination, the Evanston Writers Workshop, and my friends and fellow authors.

SN: If you could only answer one question, what would it be, and how would you answer?

DC: That’s a dangerous question because I am politically inclined. Sufficed to say, our government is broken. The question would be, “how would you fix it?” The answer is way too long and way too divisive for this interview.

SN: Dark or milk chocolate?

DC: Milk, though there is no such thing as “bad” chocolate.

SN: Coffee or tea?

DC: Tea, chai, hot. Drinking it as we speak (or type).

Tuesday Review - Writing World

2011-08-23T00:01:00.001-05:00

Long-time author and editor Moira Allen created Writing World and has built it into a powerhouse of writing-related information and advice. They have a large number of sections, including:

Beginner's World
Becoming a Better Writer
The Business of Writing
The Writing Life
Freelancer's World
Commercial Corner
International Writing
General Fiction
Romance
Mystery
SF/Fantasy
Children's Writing
Poetry/Greeting Cards
Creative Nonfiction
Screenwriting
Publishing Your Book
Promoting Your Writing

I highly recommend poking around to see what appeals to you. There's enough there to keep you quite busy. Just remember to go back to your writing!

Mentor Monday: Language Evolves and Grammar Lurches Along: On Keeping a Toehold on Stampeding Style, By RJ Robertson

2011-08-22T00:01:00.002-05:00

Welcome to Mentor Monday, our second and fourth Monday feature focusing on the how-to's of writing. Today we have another installment in a series from our beloved Curmudgeon of Grammar, RJ Robertson. To refresh your memory, check out Part One. Enjoy!

Language Evolves and Grammar Lurches Along: On Keeping a Toehold on Stampeding Style
by RJ Robertson, Curmudgeon of Grammar

Part One, cont.

Well, enough of excuses and allusions. My discussion is in four parts. In the first I will detail ten of the commonest errors one encounters in everyday speech and writing. It is in the form of a quiz. If you get all or most correct, you might be satisfied to go your way in peace. Or, even if you don’t, you could simply resolve not to do it again, and still go your way in peace. If you endure to the second part, I will present the rationale for the correct choices in common sense terms. In the third part I will say a bit about the parts of language, and how they require the currently-reigning rules. (Heaven knows I’m no expert at it, but I do have the basics, and we’ll muddle through.) Finally, in the fourth part I will reverse course and propose that, if you hang around long enough, many of the things I criticize (following Strunk and White) will be common practice. Off we go, then.

* * *

Which statement in each of the following pairs is correct?

1a “Mom came to town this morning, and her and me had breakfast before I came to the studio.”
1b. “Mom came to town this morning, and I and she had breakfast before I came to the studio.”

2 Which of the above statements do you think a young, radio announcer actually said as she started work?
2a (1a.) 2b (1b).

3a. ”I got tired while reading the article and lay down for a short nap.”
3b. “I got tired while reading the article and laid down for a short nap.”

4a. “No sooner had I lain down than I fell sound asleep.”
4b. “No sooner had I laid down than I fell sound asleep.”

5a. “You could see John was trying to impress Nancy. He was laying it on pretty thick.”
5b. “You could see John was trying to impress Nancy. He was lying it on pretty thick.”

6a. “Mary handed the groceries to him and I.”
6b. “Mary handed the groceries to me and him.”

7a. “Its been a long time since I studied grammar – if ever.”
7b. “It’s been a long time since I studied grammar – if ever.”

8a. “I’ts still important for a writer to know a little punctuation.”
8b. “Its’ still important for a writer to know a little punctuation.”

9a. “There was no one to whom I could give my report.”
9b. “There was no one to who I could give my report.”

10a. “Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap.”
10b. “I was able to buy the house very cheap, because of its dilapidated condition.”

Answers to the quiz:
1 - b; 2 - a; 3 - a; 4 - a; 5 - a; 6 - b; 7 - b; 8 - ( a ringer, “E, none of the above.”); 9 - a; 10 - b.

Comments on the quiz items:

On 1) I tried to tempt you by putting the speaker’s partner before the speaker. This would be considered, perhaps, a little more polite, but it is a distraction; a. is grammatically incorrect, polite or not.

2) calls for a guess, of course, and so is not a real test of grammar, but it emphasizes a point. I heard it on a local radio station – driving through Nebraska a few years back. If that is what one hears from a radio announcer, for God’s sake, what’s going on?

3) is straight forward, just a test of which of two wholly different verbs gives the correct meaning

4) again straight forward – each is the past tense of a verb, but which is the correct verb?

5) a test of which of two verbs – having some forms in common – is correct here. The transitive verb, lay, is called for, because John was laying it (the object) on.

6) once more I threw in the “politeness” ambush just to mislead. It might seem more courteous to hand the groceries to him and me, than to me and him, but either statement is grammatically correct while the other is incorrect, because it has the conjunction, and, linking an objective case with a nominative case.

7) For questions about punctuation, see Truss.* It’s (contraction of ‘it” and “is”) true that the word, it, is extra complicated, because grammarians had to find a way to distinguish the contraction of “it is” from the possessive case of it, which has to be it’s to conform to the rule of showing possession by apostrophe (‘s). Example: “After biting the apple I said, “it’s rotten,” meaning it is rotten.

8) What can I say? Am I supposed to follow my own rules? I threw these misused apostrophes into the quiz because Truss fulminates against them as she finds them all over the place: signs in store windows, announcements of various agencies and even newspapers.

9) This one can be quite annoying, as many people have it just backwards.

10) Unintended humor of this sort results from unnoticed ambiguity.

* Truss gives a raft of hilarious examples, worth the price of the book by itself.

A Literary Quiz, or why speech identifies your social status:

1. Who was the English language author referred to in Heinlein’s motto at the top?

2. Name the work from which the reference is taken.

3. What character speaks the line that Heinlein cites?

4. Name the musical comedy based on this work.

Answers to the Literary Quiz:

1. George Bernard Shaw, the playwright.

2. The play Pygmalion.

3. Professor Henry Higgins, a linguist who bets he can transform a street girl’s speech so that she can be
passed off as a duchess in fashionable circles.

4. My Fair Lady.

* * *

Next time, we'll hear from RJ on "The “Why’s And Wherefores” of this Essay on English Grammar."

Sunday Sit-Down Dinner: "The Value of Notebooks" by Hudson McCann

2011-08-21T00:01:00.001-05:00

Welcome to our feature, Sunday Sit-Down Dinner. In keeping with the idea of a slower-paced, sit-down meal, posts in this feature are essays on life and writing. We hope you enjoy them, as you might enjoy sitting down with friends and family over a meal.

Today's feature is a re-post of one of our early features, by member Hudson McCann.

The Value of Notebooks
by Hudson McCann

While most of my night stand is covered with a disparate collection of items -- a chalk-white lamp; a beige cube clock radio, Kleenex box and 3” Super Woman doll -- a two-foot high pile of books covers the northeast corner. In the past couple of years, as writing wedged itself into my daily life, the height of the books hasn’t changed, but the contents of the pile has. Some of the books are now authored by me.

No, the books aren’t published. The self-authored books are notebooks that contain stories initiated from group prompts, first drafts, revisions of scenes, notes from lectures, character sketches, book recommendations, web pages, trade associations and other writer’s resources.

Once, in a lecture, when my attention derailed from the topic, I turned to the last page and generated an index for the book on hand. Since the pages weren’t numbered in my blank book, that was the first step in making it a reusable source. Surprised and pleased by the sheer volume of material I had captured, I eventually did the same for the remaining books in the pile. What a treasure trove!

Taking the time to go through and index the notebooks, I found rough gems of ideas that simply needed polishing. Seriously, I think I must have written some of the items while asleep or in a trance. I don’t remember writing them. Not that all of them are immediately useful, and some may never be, but many are complete thoughts that one day might be.

Lexicons are my favorite finds in the notebooks. They are accurate lists of words and phrases about a topic or experience that interests me and, might one day be included in a piece. When I develop a lexicon, I write the topic and underline it at the top of the page. Underneath and for some, several extending pages are lists that accurately describe the topic. All lexicons are works in progress and can be added to at will. Now that I have an index, I know that there are a few that I started on one page, then tapped into a vein of information later and continued the lexicon pages later.

Developing a lexicon is much like a writing prompt without connective words. For example, not long ago I accompanied my niece to a tattoo “parlor.” As the tattoo technician inked her dragonfly, I created a lexicon page to capture the proper names of the items in the shop. I started with the names of the equipment, then the surroundings. I listed the types of music he offered and the bands and artists he favored; surprised by a single Brittany Spears in the collection among the heavy metal. Turns out a young girl brought it to play during her time in the tattoo chair.

As a complete novice to the world of tattoos, I listed the names of the various genres evidenced by the books on the shelf next to the CD player. I added my impressions informed by my senses to the lexicon. In this case it included what I saw, smelled, heard, and later, what I felt when the artist inked my Celtic tat, with the precisely named, 'tattoo gun", that he wrapped in a "baggie.” And, so I learned that sometimes accuracy is mundane. I was imagining the gun with an official name, like the Inkerator Three and the sandwich bag he used to cover it was The Trojan. In asking, I learned a better story. The tattoo artist designed the gun himself using parts from others until he got the effect he wanted. The baggie turned out to be a process improvement that saved him maintenance time. My lexicon include bits of information to add texture to writing sometime in the future.

Last year, when attending a writing conference in Taos, NM, where I learned about Lexicons from my instructor and author, Priscilla Long, I started a lexicon, titled, New Mexico. During the week, I kept a running list of impressions From the veranda off my hotel room I saw trees, cacti and prairie dogs. Later I asked or learned the specific names for each. In the morning, not long out of bed with a hot cup of coffee, I used the time to write phrases and metaphors to describe the scene before me as a writing warm-up. Someday, perhaps I'll want to tap those memories. At that time, I will have words for the subtle differences in the bleached color green found in panoramic views of Taos, rather than the verdant landscape scenes in springtime Chicago.

I always have a notebook with me, and I employ it often. It's not hard to imagine that it will be useful for a scene to be written sometime in the future, about an ophthalmologist's office that will include the ladies' room key attached to eye glass frames or the names of the magazines offered in large print.

Since beginning the collection of lexicons, I have expanded my strategies for creating them. My notebooks include pages torn from magazines and newspaper augmented by my own impressions. A new addition, for example, is a brief article I tore out on how to read clouds from Backpacker Magazine. Someday, when my smart heroine is out hiking, she won’t just see a tall, dense cloud, she’ll know its Cumulonimbus and head for shelter.

Sure, I could go to Wikipedia and get the accurate names of things, but lexicons offer deeper, more personal descriptions of a subject. They allow me to form opinions and ideas at the time and tap them much later when I can no longer access them directly. The present moment of creating a lexicon, offers richness and depth especially in rewrite.

Now that I have a variety of lexicons, I find that they inspire me to write. At my fingertips, like a ready-to-heat meal, I have all the ingredients, to which I simply need to add characters… from another page in one of my notebooks.

Silly Saturday: The God of Cake

2011-08-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

For this week's Silly Saturday, I'd like to share with you the blog, Hyperbole and a Half. If you haven't stopped by for a peek, it's well worth a visit. Author and artist Allie creates posts that reflect her unique outlook on everyday life.

For today, I am recommending you give "The God of Cake" a read. You'll be glad you did.

And you'll never look at cake the same way again.

Friday Flash Focus - "The Life of a Dollar Bill," by Mark Hudson

2011-08-19T00:01:00.001-05:00

Welcome to another episode of Friday Flash Focus. This week, we have a feature from our regular Prompt Group member, Mark Hudson. Enjoy!

The Life of a Dollar Bill
by Mark Hudson

As the stocks plummeted on the exchange, my self-esteem felt low. My name is Theodore Peabody, and I am a dollar bill. Never in U.S. history since the Great Depression has my race meant so little. The only people I pity more are the pennies.

My master's name is Walter Thouroughgood. I'm his lucky dollar. I was the first dollar he ever made when he graduated from business school. Well, not really. He sold his beat-up car and made $20,001 dollars. I was the oddball, the one dollar that didn't fit in. So he decided to deem me his lucky dollar.

I have been in a special place in his wallet for years. It's dark here, cozy and warm. But a little information about dollars you might not know, we abhor human hands. Human hands are rather filthy things. I once belonged to a politician who swapped me for an act of prostitution. I watched with my invisible eyes the debauchery of the politician.

On our skin it says, "In God we trust." Nowadays, our reputation is being ruined. The righteous providers we used to be, "In God we trust," has come to sound like a joke. Some people even say, "The devil's house is made of money."

I hope that Walter doesn't spend me on booze. He';s gone belly-up on the stock markets. I was once shuffled around a bar once. People got beer on me and it was really gross. Ever seen a dollar bill get drunk? Put one in a bar. It's like the old days...Charmin...the quicker picker upper.

The Interview Studio: A Conversation with Tina Holland

2011-08-17T00:01:00.025-05:00

Welcome to our regular Wednesday feature, the Interview Studio. Here we will sit down and chat with authors who are just starting out as well as seasoned pros. We will get a glimpse into the world of writing and publishing through their eyes and, if we are lucky, learn some tools of the trade in the process. Join me!

Our first subject is author and Evanston Writers Workshop Board Member Tina Holland. Author of eight books, Tina is also a member of Romance Writers of America and heads up their online chapter, an international discussion group of writers and authors. We are lucky to have her expertise on our board and wanted to share a little about her with you, our members and readers.

SN: You mention in your bio that you are a "military brat." Does growing up with that kind of structure and culture affect how you see your characters in your stories?

Tina: Yes and No. My parents met at a Vietnam Protest Rally – my father registering for the armed forces and my mother getting in his face. They fell in love and had sort of a tumultuous courtship before getting married. While my mother was never a structured person…I am and was from the cradle. According to my mother if she didn’t follow it, I’d be sure to let her know, quiet adamantly.

SN: How did you transition to living on a farm? Do you miss a city and international travel to settle down to a country life?

Tina: I have a few memories of my major city Augsburg, Germany, from there I spent time in rural Kentucky before my parents finally settled in Fargo, ND. (Yes, like the movie). It’s not exactly sprawling. I was initially concerned but find I very much enjoy the solitude my farm offers.

SN: When you say "hobby farm," what does that mean? I know your bio mentions horses and such, but do you grow crops or livestock for market?

Tina: I mean that we don’t raise crops or livestock for anything other than hobbies. We have two Arab horses (Hawkeye & Foxy)for pleasure riding (out of the gutter children). We used to have chickens, which we would “show” at the county fair. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a ‘Poultry Costume Contest’.

We have plum trees surrounding our property that I take to my grandmother’s to make jam.

Also we have two chocolate labs, Kaiser & Mocha, and four male cats, Meeko, Mr. Bubbles, Evian & Oliver.

My husband has always loved birds so years ago we got a Sun Conure named, Zuzu.

SN: Your tagline, "Have you been naughty today," is a lot of fun. Do you try to live by it in your "real life," or do you let that side of yourself out to play on the page?

Tina: I love the word, naughty because to me it conjures up something bad but not necessarily sinister. I think everyone should explore their inner, “Dennis the Menace” so to speak. Eat ice cream for dinner, Let down your hair and of course be creative and playful in the bedroom. When you read one of my books I want it to feel like a guilty pleasure.

SN: What was the inspiration for your first book, THE PILOT AND THE PINUP?

Tina: Two things - An actual flat tire on my way to an RT Booklovers Convention [formerly Romantic Times Convention -SN] in Kansas City, MO – the book opens with the heroine getting a flat tire. A gentleman helped me change it and I thought it was a great way to introduce two characters. The second thing was I’ve always had this thought in my head. What if EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) met RWA (Romance Writers of America)? My husband is in EAA and it was sort of a thing I had in my head. There are a number of similarities in the book between my relationship with my spouse and the characters in the book.

SN: Do you have any writing rituals that you follow on a regular basis?

Tina: When I actually have projects in the queue, I like to work in blocks of time. I prefer to write all day Saturday & Sunday instead of one-hour blocks. I do write in one-hour blocks but it’s usually a project that isn’t contracted or still very early in the book.

I love to research before writing. Since I write Contemp and Paranormal. I’ll research jobs, locations, mythology, etc. up to a month before. I tend to buy a lot of research books.

SN: What are your must-have writing tools?

Tina: My character profiles, my three ring binder containing all the tips and tricks I’ve learned. “The Romance Writers” phrase book and my online thesauruses for my sex scenes.

Be sure to visit Tina's website for more information, and to purchase her books. When you comment, feel free to ask her any questions you may have about her own work or the publishing process.

We look forward to reading more of her stories in the future, and we're very grateful to have her as part of our team!

Friday Flash Focus - Send in the Clowns, by James Kelher

2011-08-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

Send in the Clowns

by James Kelher

I shake my head, the red wig slipping free. I raise my hands to my face, staring dumbly at the plain white gloves that sheath them. The blue and yellow stripes of my costume and the giant red shoes cladding my feet all seem part of a surreal dream.

“Buddy, you ok?” the dwarf asks again, dropping the bucket and taking a step forward. “That was quite a knock you took.”

I wave him away, attempting to rise to my feet. The effort proves more a wish than a reality and I find myself on my rump again, a sharp piece of straw poking me in the thigh.

“Easy there, fella, get your equilibrium back first.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“Elephant,” the dwarf says, looking away.

“What?” I ask.

“Elephant,” he says again, pulling a cigar from his back pocket and clamping his lips firmly around it. He crosses his arms across his chest, signaling, I know, that he will say no more on the subject.

“Ok,” I mutter, carefully feeling my body for broken bones or elephant tracks. Finding none I begin to rise to my feet again. This time I am successful and I stand there, unsteadily, unsure of what to do next.

“So what do I call you?” I ask.

“Name's Peter,” the dwarf said, extending a hand.

I shake it, noticing the roughened palm and the week of stubble that adorns the small mans chin and cheeks.

“I'm.....” I stop, realizing I don't remember my name.

I don't actually remember being the circus, either, but the clown suit and the rubber trout in my pocket would seem to indicate that I might be a performer of some kind. I shrug it away, casting my gaze around tent, looking for the exit.

“Um....” I begin. “How do I get out?”

“When you're ready,” Peter replies.

“What does that mean, when I'm ready?”

“It means when you're ready, the exit will become apparent to you. The fact that there is no exit means you're not ready.”

“Ok,” I say. “How do I get ready?”

“It simply takes time,” Peter says. “Have a seat, take a load off. Read a book, if you like.” Peter gestures to a shelve stocked with books I am sure wasn't there earlier. “You'll probably be here for a while.”

“But where is here? “ I ask. “How did I even get here?”

“Elephant,” he replies mysteriously again.

“Ok, stop with the elephant thing. Just tell me what I'm doing here.”

“Everybody comes here eventually,” Peter replies. “This is the waiting room.”

“The waiting room for what?” I ask.

Peter smiles, folding his small legs under him and settling into the straw.

“The waiting room for everything,” he replies. He sighs as he sees my confusion.

“Look, some people, the true believers, the truly faithful, get the clouds, the pearly gates, and straight-on admission. People like you, that maybe waffle a little, maybe question things a little too much?”

He gestures around grandly.

“You get the tent and the clown suit.”

I blink, not fully understanding but not really sure I wanted to anymore.

“Ok, fine, than how long do I have to wait? How many people are ahead of me?”

“Just one,” Peter says. “But it could be a while.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, when you finally get to leave here you have to tell your life story, at least as much of it as you can remember.”

“Ok,” I say. “So who's ahead of me?”

“It's the elephant,” he says. “And they remember everything.”

Thursday 13: Thirteen Reasons Why I Can't Go to Paris Just Yet, by Marge C.

2011-08-11T00:01:00.001-05:00

Thursday 13: Thirteen Reasons Why I Can't Go to Paris Just Yet
by Marge Coleman

1) Alex needs to get his driver's license. That means he has to practice driving using the 11-year-old family van. It's old and slow EVEN if he painted flames on it. Keep him humble.

2) I need to stay at my job and allow the routine to dominate my days from 8-3pm while my 401K grows (I hope).

3) My basement flooded. What I flushed on Friday re-surfaced on Saturday 7/23/11.

4) My dog is afraid of the thunder.

5) I cannot sell my house. For nothing.

6) I might miss the Cicada songs.

7) Where are my glasses?

8) The left knee I broke last winter ice skating needs additional rehab to appreciate the long walks I will take when I am sightseeing.

9) I drink only decaf. I need more time to learn to drink darker, thicker brews.

10) The electric bill is too high.

11) I cannot decide if I like Frenchmen with or without facial hair.

12) I get plane sick. Car sick. Escalator sick.

13) ******My husband says don't worry, Paris will wait for me. ****

Tuesday Review - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-09T00:01:00.002-05:00

Today I am pleased to bring you a guest post by Xakara, one of the authors of the Beyond the Veil blog. As some of you know, I was recently invited to be part of Beyond the Veil. Xakara is a talented and imaginative author as well as being a social media and marketing specialist, and I am pleased to share her review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Enjoy!

My Two Cents ~ Rise of the Planet of the Apes, A Review
by Xakara

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, starring James Franco and Andy Serkis, rose to #1 at the box office it’s opening weekend with a gross of $54 million—almost $20 million more than the projected estimates, and it earned every penny!

The effects were simply amazing. There is no point where you’re left to doubt Caesar is anything but a large, powerful, frightenly intelligent chimpanzee. The world is believable from the first frame and never wavers. But I fear that the emphasis will be on the effects for the movie while overlooking what those effects made way for in the end.

Andy Serkis is absolutely brilliant in his motion capture performance as Caesar. You feel for the adolescent ape as he comes to terms with his peculiar and unique position as an intelligent ape in modern San Francisco. Facial motion capture and peerless digitial rendering means that every thought to pass behind Caesar’s eyes and every emotion to take his face is viscerally understood by the viewer as if it were your own.

James Franco is subtle and engaging as the earnest Dr. Will Rodman. His research is inspired by his ailing father, played by John Lithgow in a vulnerable and touching portrayal of a brilliant and talented man suffering with Alzheimer’s. As revealed in the promotional commercials, Caesar is taken in by Will after an incident at the facility and he rounds out the family, ultimately named by Will’s father who’s found of Shakespeare. Years pass in this loving environment and Caesar thrives, but his future trials are event from the beginning as he tries to express himself more like the human child his advanced intelligence makes him resemble.

The vast cast of apes and their human motion capture performers, immediately gain your sympathy and despite the ultimate endgame, you can’t help but root for them in every scene. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is analogous to the original Conquest of the Planet of the Apes as far as being an origin story, but this is not a remake. Rise is a complete reinterpretation and one that shows the dangers of science beside the wonders.

Many pre-release write up mention genetic engineering at the root of Rise, this is disingenuous. Caesar is not engineered, nor is engineering a smarter ape even remotely the focus of the Dr. Rodman’s research. A retrovirus is developed to repair brain function in those that have suffered through disease and injury. When it’s introduced into a healthy primate brain, it becomes so much more.

With a run-time of 110 minutes, Rise could have been twenty minutes longer, revealing even more of Caesar’s interactions with his fellow apes and Will’s anguish in being separated from him. Tom Felton of Harry Potter fame, is wasted as Dodge Landon, a cruel man-child caretaker at a disreputable primate shelter. He would have been better utilized as Robert Franklin, the primate specialist at the facility. Not that I would have put Tyler Labine out of job, he was wonderful as the compassionate technician. It would have simply been a refreshing casting change to see Felton in a good guy role.

All in all Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a wonderful summer film, filled with action and emotion, as well as beautiful effects that pull you in and hold you tight for the ride. And there you have my two cents on it!

~X

--
~Xakara
"Weaving Fiction with an X-Factor"
Because Sex Should Be Its Own Character
Xakara.com

Mentor Monday: Language Evolves and Grammar Lurches Along: On Keeping a Toehold on Stampeding Style (Part 1), by RJ Robertson

2011-08-08T00:01:00.001-05:00

Welcome to our new feature, Mentor Monday. Every second and fourth Monday, we will feature helpful articles on all aspects of writing, from the craft of writing to the business of being an author. This week, we feature regular ShopNotes contributor RJ Robertson and his four-part series on grammar. Enjoy!

Language Evolves and Grammar Lurches Along: On Keeping a Toehold on Stampeding Style, Part 1
by R.J. Robertson

"Many years ago a wise and cynical man proved that the way a person talks is the most important thing about him." -Robert A. Heinlein, in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Foreword:
I got this job because – having been educated before the era of “don’t inhibit a child’s self-expression” – I thrust myself unwittingly into the role of Curmudgeon of Grammar in the Evanston Writers’ Workshop.

The C of G is not exactly a knightly title, you understand, but it does have one faintly noble perquisite: you get to criticize the work of writers better than yourself. I populated this role, without realizing what I was doing, by complaining about too many liberties being taken with English grammar in otherwise excellent work submitted for critique in the Evanston Writers’ group.

Unlike with the younger generation – most of whom seem to have learned English in the polyglot culture of popular media, modified by the linguistic license rampant in immigrant cultures thrown together in our large cities – I learned grammar from a gentle, but no-nonsense British lady who taught it in one quarter of my first year at university. It was a sacred mission for her, and it spread to us, her students, as she instilled the rules of English, and convinced us why our language needed its rules.

The latter point is well put in E B. White’s explanation of why he took up the cause pioneered by Will Strunk in The Elements of Style. White said, “If every word or device that achieved currency were immediately authenticated, simply on the ground of popularity, the language would be as chaotic as a ball game without foul lines.” If you examine Strunk and White on style and Lynne Truss’s, Eats Shoots and Leaves, on punctuation, I think it will not be hard to convince yourself of the aptness of White’s dictum.

To be continued...

Sunday Sit-Down Dinner: A Writer's Mission, by RJ Robertson

2011-08-07T00:01:00.005-05:00

Welcome to Sunday Sit-Down Dinner, our weekly essay feature. We will focus on essays by members and friends of Evanston Writers Workshop, including our industry partners such as editors, publishers, agents, publicists, photographers, and others. If you have something you'd like to submit, please email us at Evanston ShopNotes.

Today, we will reprise a wonderful essay written by our member RJ Robertson. A long-time member of our weekly Critique Group, he uses his background as a retired practicing psychologist and author to craft stories and essays on a large number of topics. Here, then, is "A Writer's Mission." Enjoy.

A Writer's Mission
by RJ Robertson

“By their works ye shall know them.” -Jesus Christ

Are writers responsible for anything more than to make a living at writing? I believe so. The very fact that people will pay for a writer’s efforts indicates that the customer finds the work of value. But what exactly is that value? “Entertainment,” one quickly replies, but what does that mean? Depending on how you define it the term can mean escape into a fantasy world in which the reader finds a model of heroic, long-suffering, amusing, adventurous or otherwise fascinating experience to enjoy vicariously and identify with. Or, it can mean glimpsing a corner of the world the reader had known nothing about, Or something in which to lose oneself to howls of laughter, tears of sympathy, or touching empathy. But that’s not all.

Much writing, even fiction, can be informative as well as entertaining, overtly or covertly supplying facts the reader would not otherwise know, or it can promulgate political or economic systems to improve on existing institutions. It can encourage the reader to envision conditions he would not otherwise have thought—or known about. Even the most frivolous kinds of writing, such as the romance novel, can expand the reader’s grasp of what is human, by introducing the reader to life styles she might never have known otherwise, along with material for daydreaming oneself into a more heroic, noble, romantic role than her current “real life”.

I got this thought upon finishing one of my wife’s gothic novels. I had been trying to find out what turns-on the reader of that genre nowadays. The writer had done her homework well—about the English and Scottish engagements in the middle to late sixteen hundreds. I checked her history with Wikipedia and found it accurate. I also learned things about sexual passion that I did not know I didn’t know. My wife said, “Oh, it’s just porn.” What a great advertisement. Had I been still a young buck wondering when and how I might get laid, I would have found hints and instructions on what a young woman might like in a romantic encounter. I presume that a young woman would also find a model of how to enact a ravishing persona and what to demand for herself in the way of equal respect.

Serious writing, of course, is by definition intended to inform you about some important matter and, or solicit your support for a particular line of action. It might be purely educational or purely artistic, combining both entertainment quality and education.

Thus there are implicit, as well as explicit qualifications that all writing needs to satisfy. Just as Tennis, baseball, football, hockey and other recreations have rules, so does writing. What distinguishes a football game from a riot or free-for-all is rules. I maintain writing also has some elemental rules.

First, a written work should not corrupt the language in which it is written. This is not as simple a principle as might seem at first glance. Since all languages are in a state of gradual evolution expressions that once violated the cannon can come in time to be accepted. On the other hand, expressions that clearly violate current practice need their users to justify what they are doing. Prokofiev is reported to have written his “classical symphony” to show that he knew the reigning cannon of his medium, Therefore, when he violated it that was by intention rather than ignorance. If a writer chooses to violate accepted rules of punctuation and grammar he or she needs either to explain her choices or at least follow his own anti-rule consistently.

Second, great ideas are not restricted to non-fiction works. We know Ayn Rand deliberately spelled out a powerful theory of economic principles in her novels. A good number of science fiction writers have depicted hypothetical political styles of society that expand one’s conceptions of how current problems of real societies might be modified or solved. For example, Robert Heinlein’s book, Starship Troopers, is described by a Wikipedia editor as. “a political essay as well as a novel [describing].juvenile “characters engaged in debates with their History and Moral Philosophy teachers…”

That idea made sense to me as a young man—in university on the G I bill—and recently as I have felt critical of the fact that our so-called “volunteer” military, unlike the volunteers in 1776, functions in some ways more like a mercenary army than like patriots. Don’t misunderstand, I believe our G Is are patriots (and deserve far more from our nation than many get on returning from combat), but they come disproportionately from the working class many of whose members were forced into service as a way of making a living, because of all the business sent overseas. How much more thought might have gone into the decisions about the wars if the sons and daughters of business owners, members of congress, etc. were just as vulnerable to end up on the front lines as anyone else? Heinlein’s additional notion—of two levels of citizenship in which only those who joined the service could vote, as “electors”—also strikes me as a worthy experiment. Too bad our society is so controlled by the top that Heinlein’s idea couldn’t be put to the test.

A contemporary novel, The Paris Vendetta (Ballantine, 2010), by Steve Berry, gives a picture of the amorality and acceptance of violence to preserve their prerogatives—of some of the super-rich—that John Perkins documents in his all-too-real non-fiction work, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. (Berrett-Koehler, 2004.) The lesson here might be that—just as many of the super-rich invested far more of their time, energy and risk, to get where they are, than the average person—in this world you can expect to get trampled on, if you lie back and think you don’t have to do your homework. If you aspire to rule your corner of space, rather than be ruled in it—you have to hold your own against the competition.

I like it when a fiction writer chooses to promote a philosophical or political stand. I only ask that he or she stand behind it, keep in consistent and embed it in an interesting adventure.

Silly Saturday

2011-08-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

Get out your silly hats! Silly Saturdays are for those strange, goofy, funny things you see on the internet. Be curious, creative, but keep it PG-13, please!

For today, we have a video that's made its round of the internet, but is worth showcasing again. Enjoy!

Friday Flash Focus - Stressed-Out Santa, by Mark Hudson

2011-08-05T00:01:00.001-05:00

Welcome to Friday Flash Focus, our new Friday series on ShopNotes. Here is your chance to contribute stories, either fictional or non-fictional, and even poetry, to the ShopNotes Blog. Submission of anything up to 1,500 words are welcome; if you have longer pieces, please discuss it with us and we may serialize them over time.

I'd also like to introduce our new Friday Flash Focus Editor, Supie Dunbar. Supie is a long-time member of Evanston Writers Workshop and a major contributor to the Critique Group. We are pleased to welcome Supie into the ranks of EWW and hope that you will give her lots of fodder for posting!

To submit, please email to: ShopNotes .

Our first feature is an entry by long-time Prompt Group member, Mark Hudson. Mark is a poet, author, and artist in the Chicago area. This was in response to one of the prompts in our group, which was to write a letter or story from the point of view of one of Santa's Reindeer or with Santa as the villain.

Stressed-Out Santa

by Mark Hudson

Well, this is Santa reporting from the North Pole. Looks like we won't have Christmas this year. Not only are the elves on strike, but the reindeer as well. They are demanding more pay. The elves are claiming I hired them cheaply because they are immigrants, from the elven land of Vellenhizen. And the reindeers want royalties on their jingles. Rudolph wants a memoir, and his own line of clothing. Rudolph has hired a ghost writer reindeer to write his memoir, named Gustav Robertson reindeer. His line of clothing will include mittens for hooves, llama wool hats, thick scarves, and lumberjack boots. Prancer wanted to do a hip-hop demo, he is feeling oppressed being an animal so he's got some issues to rap about. His no. 1 hit is "Don't lock me in a zoo," and his second greatest hit is "Santa drives his sleigh drunk".

I feel like they're ganging up on me,and Vixen has been having delusions that the air force is after him. Plus the reindeers have complained of nausea and fear of flying, but the children must get their gifts. I'd say my company has been running professionally since the 1600's. I have lived that long because I'm really a vampire! After all, how do you think I could stay alive for hundreds of years? It's not from doing martial arts, would you say? And it's not from avoiding the sauce, either. It's from the blood of reindeers who don't want to act right. If they get out of line, I have a Bloody Mary, and a reindeer feast.

Now you know why i'm so heavy-set.

So if everybody's sick of Santa, too bad, you group of whiners! I say I'm here to stay. And the reindeers better get some gratitude, you disposable lot!

Thursday 13: We Want You!

2011-08-03T18:29:00.001-05:00

Thursday 13 is a custom in the blogging world where folks put together lists of 13 things they're interested in. The only requirement is that there be 13 of them. It could be anything from 13 Reasons Why I Hate Opera to 13 Recipes for Quince. Whatever catches your fancy will be sufficient (but keep it PG-13, please). Pictures are event better, and if you can come up with a list of 13 pictures that interest you - perfect! If you're still stumped about what it's all about, try visiting the Thursday 13 page and reading up on it. Then, send us your lists! We will publish one list a week on Wednesday night by 8:00 P.M. Central time, so put on your thinking caps and get writing!

To kick off the festivities, I've prepared a list of 13 Reasons to Write Thursday 13 Lists! Enjoy!

1. Lists help you to write by "priming the pump." Since there doesn't have to be narrative, we can get our juices flowing without having to be intimidated by a long story idea.

2. 13 is a good number for coming up with a nice thorough list, but not so much as to be overwhelming. Some weeks you might just list 13 links. Others, 13 pictures. Still others, you might like to list a whole big narrative list explaining each section.

3. It's good to have a disciplined structure to write to, and having to come up with 13 things is one such way to coming up with a structure.

4. It's a fun way to explore a new topic. Say for example you're buying a house. You could do a TT (Thursday Thirteen = TT) on 13 tips for new home buyers, 13 places to research home prices, 13 pitfalls to avoid when planning to remodel a home, 13 tips for selecting an agent, or even 13 pictures of homes you'd like to own.

5. You will join a community of other writers and curious people in writing the lists, and might make some new connections.

6. You get practice writing to a specific requirement, which is useful when working to publish our work.

7. You build exposure to your "brand," or your pen name.

8. You build an audience of people interested in what you have to say.

9. You build up a repertoire of topics you can write about. For example, say your current project is based in London, England. You could do a TT on London, where you share the thinks or facts that you've collected - and you can use it as a chance to learn more.

10. We can get to know each other better, through our TT's. After all, what one chooses to write about says a little about them, so it's a way of getting better acquainted.

11. It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. (No, really, it is.)

12. It's a better pastime than most network television.

13. The number one reason to write a TT is that you join the growing Evanston Writers Workshop community! Submit yours today to ShopNotes!

Happy TT!

Shalom: Michael Golenzer

2011-08-03T11:36:00.001-05:00

It is with profound sadness that I report the passing of Michael Golenzer, owner of The Bagel Restaurant. Mr. Golenzer was beloved by his employees, friends, and family, and a generous member of the community. Those of you who attended our Second Annual "In the Trenches with the Writer" Conference this past June will recall that The Bagel kindly donated a meal to our event. Mr. Golenzer was a kind and generous man and he will be missed.

For more information, please visit the Chicago Tribune Obituary.

For more information on his family's restaurant, please visit The Bagel Restaurant.

Shalom.

Tuesday Review - Cowboys and Aliens

2011-08-02T00:01:00.001-05:00

Welcome to our new Tuesday series, Tuesday Reviews. We welcome Evanston Writers Workshop member reviews on whatever books we are reading as well as movies and television we're watching, plays, food, concerts, travel, you name it. To kick us off, I thought we might take a peek at the new film, Cowboys and Aliens.

In some of the promo, Daniel Craig seemed awfully thin. He sure wasn't in the movie: he was buff, rough, and tough enough to take on an alien invasion.

Except, it takes place over a hundred years ago!

Cool idea, really. Directed by Jon Favreau, of Iron Man fame, it delivers all the boom and clash that we've come to expect from a big-budget Hollywood movie. What it also does, though, is a credible recreation of the time complete with ruthless cattleman, played by Harrison Ford (who is amazingly spry for a man his age!), and an almost-love-interest played by Olivia Wilde.

I say "almost" because Daniel Craig is in love with another woman. Wilde, it turns out, is there to revenge her family. Their chemistry is palpable, and you find yourself rooting for them during the action, but Favreau doesn't take the easy way out and shove them together. Their relationship develops organically and very plausibly for the characters.

A performance by Noah Ringer of one of the children in the town is a highlight of the show. You may remember him from The Last Airbender.

Another personal favorite, Clancy Brown, puts in an appearance. He looks completely different than he did as the Kurgan in the first Highlander movie.

All in all, I found this a very well-done film. Yes, it has all the explosions and cool Hollywood effects that one would expect; but the storyline is solid and the characters compelling. And the ending...

Well, that would be telling.

Monday Q&A

2011-08-01T00:00:00.007-05:00

Welcome to the Grand Re-opening of Evanston ShopNotes! We have all new content...some new editors, but the same original talent...You!

This is your chance to participate! We welcome your questions, stories, and your knowledge.
Our new schedule will look like this:

Sundays - Sunday Sit-Down Dinner (Essays on life and writing; open submissions with emphasis for working authors/agents/editors/booksellers/etc)

Mondays - 1st, 3rd, 5th week: Member Mail Bag (Questions from members)
2nd and 4th weeks: Mentor Monday (Grammar, Business, Conferences, Websites of Interest)

Tuesdays - Reviews (we welcome your reviews on whatever books you are reading as well as movies and television you're watching, plays, food, concerts, travel, you name it)

Wednesdays - Interview Studio (We'll be leading this up with some familiar faces but feel free to request anyone. I'll do my best to track them down.)

Thursdays - Thursday Thirteen. Open call for submission of lists of 13 Things.

Fridays - Friday Flash Focus, Supie Dunbar, Editor

Silly Saturdays - You know those articles that crack you up or those viral videos or even the unusual ones. Feel free to share with us.

You can send your questions to me at tina@evanstonwritersworkshop.org.

I hope you enjoy the changes we are making and I look forward to hearing from you.

Tina Holland
ShopNotes Editor-In-Chief
EWW Published Author Liaison and COO

The Trap by Ross A. Martinek

2011-03-18T23:38:00.001-05:00

I have a friend who is a “small business person.” I happened to remark to her that I have a profound antipathy toward the business mentality. “I don’t like business people,” I said.

She immediately asked, “Do you like me?”

My reply was a very definite, “Yes, I do.”

“Well, I’m a business person.”

As the exchange concluded, she made the distinction between a business person and a corporation person—a distinction I had not really made until she brought it up. This caused me to consider the distinction, and especially why I did not make it. The answer is what I will call, “The Trap.” Corporations are a symptom of The Trap—they fell into it so long ago they have forgotten everything except the essence of The Trap.

Most small business people don’t have that attitude when they start. Almost all small business people that I have ever known fall into The Trap to some extent, and the bait is endemic to our species.

There are two myths shared to some extent by all human societies of which I am aware, and I’m aware of most of them. These myths are called “safety” and “security.” Neither exists, ever has, nor ever will. More primitive societies, or rather, those less technologically advanced than ours, are generally more aware of these two myths as such. Yet all humans, of whatever type, desire to be completely safe and secure—even though attaining this is significantly less likely than attaining physical immortality. The lure of these two myths is so great that even those who never allow themselves to feel safe or secure still desire and seek the maximum amount they can attain—even if they don’t quite believe in it.

This desire appears to be “hard wired” into human consciousness, probably to a greater degree than sexual desire. So there is no escaping the desire. To make matters worse, in our current society, the two are constantly hyped and promised by those who have power and money. They are selling an illusion. The so-called Department of Homeland Security is, in the words of Rudyard Kipling, “a fraud of monstrous size.”

These two myths are most of the bait in the trap. The rest is their opposite, insecurity. Human beings are also hard wired to be insecure. Those selling the illusion of safety and security constantly play on our natural and healthy, absolutely instinctive feeling of insecurity.

When a small business person starts their business, they are trying to succeed against the odds, and they often know it. Their goal is the relative safety and security of a successful, prosperous business, usually involving something they enjoy, at least to some extent. They start in debt or with a large investment of their own capital, or both. They want to produce a good product of which they can take pride. They are under enormous psychological and financial stress, both professionally and personally. Indeed, at this stage, there is all too little distinction between personal and professional concerns. The work is hard, the hours long, and even with success, it is often a nearly hand to mouth existence for years.
In that time, the quest for some degree of security and safety can become an obsession, because it seems always out of reach, and never much closer. For most of our species’ history, we have been conditioned to expect bad, unforeseen things to happen. Good things may happen—nice when they do, but they won’t cause harm. It isn’t important to think about, or even remember them. But if bad things can be anticipated, perhaps some way of avoiding them may be found.

In business, this doesn’t mean doing what you love. It means getting well paid for doing what you love. And because the “getting paid” part is the only one that will generate safety and security, it becomes the most important. It becomes obsessive, because small companies generally don’t have deep pockets. One big client lost, one lawsuit, or even a small economic downturn can be terminal. The small business owners, and often some of their employees, are constantly aware of this. Living in constant fear is unhealthy and very unpleasant. The apparent and simplest solution: make more money.

Eventually, this can, and too often does, become: make more money by any means legally possible. At that point, regardless of size, the small business has become the corporation. It is no longer in business to make a profit by producing a product or service of value to others. It is now in business solely to make money.

What was that line about “the root of all evil”?

Short-Story Contest -see hyperlink

2011-03-17T22:52:00.004-05:00

"Call for entries: The Writer's 2011 Short-Story Contest

The Writer is pleased to announce its 2011 Short-Story Contest is open! Once again, we're partnering with Gotham Writers' Workshop to bring you this contest, which offers great prizes to the top three finishers:

• First prize: $1,000; a free 10-week creative writing workshop offered online by Gotham Writers' Workshop ($420 value); publication in The Writer and on WriterMag.com; and a one-year subscription to The Writer.

• Second prize: $300; free enrollment in a four-week How to Get Published seminar taught online by a literary agent and Gotham Writers' Workshop ($150 value); publication on WriterMag.com; and a one-year subscription to The Writer.

• Third prize: $200; free enrollment in a four-week How to Get Published seminar taught online by a literary agent and Gotham Writers' Workshop ($150 value); publication on WriterMag.com; and a one-year subscription to The Writer.

We're looking for your original short stories up to 2,000 words. The story must be previously unpublished in a book, nationally distributed periodical or Web-based magazine. Entries must be in English and submitted by the author, who must be at least 18 years old at the time of entry. No explicit sex, graphic language or graphic violence. Entries will be judged based on creativity, sense of story, characterization, and overall quality of writing, including grammar, punctuation and syntax. Writers may submit more than one story, but each story must be accompanied by a separate entry fee. Complete rules and guidelines are available at WriterMag.GothamWriters.com.

Entry fee: $10 per story submitted.

Deadline: All entries must be submitted online by midnight (EST) on April 30, 2011.

Rules: Click on the PDF below to review a full set of rules.

Finalist judge: Michelle Wildgen, novelist and executive editor at Tin House."

See weblink below for more details.

What Writers Do by Shrinkrapper (RJ)

2011-02-11T12:41:00.002-06:00

There is an interesting, though disturbing, article, “The Rise of the new Ruling Class and How the Global Elite is Leaving You Behind,” in the January/February issue of the Atlantic. The article is written by Christia Freeland, Global Editor-at-Large of Reuters news, according to Wikipedia, and formerly U S Managing Editor of the Financial Times. She reviews the enormous and growing discrepancy in income between the middle class and the world’s wealthiest people, pointing out that the latter are now a global elite who have much more in common with each other than with fellow citizens of their countries of origin. They have a hand on the entire rule-making-, legislative-, and financial-decision-levers of the world, and use this power to benefit their own quasii-nation first and the world as a whole second, or sometimes not at all.

Fortunately for the world—so far—this global cabal is a meritocracy in which many members have achieved their exalted status in their own life times, rather than inheriting it, as with nobilities of the past. Hence they still have memories of their own common origins and friends who are ordinary people; in other words they can experience empathy with people of the “masses.” Some, like Gates and Buffet, devote large portions of their wealth to doing good in the form of foundations for all kinds of human welfare.

That is not universally true. Some members of the elite have little sympathy for people struggling to survive. Influenced by writers like Ayn Rand they tend to believe that financial distress is primarily the fault of the victims; they didn’t do their homework to perceive the consequences of their lifestyle decisions. But, as there are increasing numbers in such straights Freeland sees a crisis looming in the growing estrangement between the immensely wealthy and the rest, concluding, “The lesson of history is that, in the long run, super-elites have two ways to survive: by suppressing dissent or by sharing their wealth. It is obvious which of these would be the better outcome….

There is a step left out in her line of reasoning, as she argues that the growing rage of the middle class must bring a confrontation with the two options above. I agree so far. We are seeing crises of this very sort playing out on the world stage as I write. Sharing the wealth, or the power, seldom comes from those who currently hold it. They must first exit the stage, which does not come easily. Holding most of the tools of violence, as they do, suppression is their usual first resort. When that fails, as we see right now, rioting, looting and chaos is the result. In order to succeed in overturning the old regime that violent energy must be focused by the would-be new leaders with a fresh Weltanschauung, a creative myth—if you will—that promises a better world from the new conception of reality. Visionary writers are the ones who create these new views: Tom Paine and the rights of man; Ayn Rand and individual freedom, especial for exceptional people; Karl Marx and the “fact” that value is created by the worker who shapes raw materials into useful objects. (To name a few of many possible examples.)

The thinkers creating the new concepts are writers; political/economic writers, novelists, science fiction writers, scientific writers and philosophers contribute to imagine realities beyond what is currently conceived. That is what writers do.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T15:30:00.000-06:00

The writers of Evanston Writers Workshop would like to wish you and yours a very happy and prosperous new year. May 2011 bring us all growth, prosperity, and peace!

During 2011, we will re-launch Evanston ShopNotes with a new editorial staff and Editor in Chief. We will resume our series with Richard Johnson and have some interviews with the best and the brightest of the writing world. Stay tuned!

The Delight of Stumbling Around

2010-08-10T09:58:00.003-05:00

by RJ Robertson

“Did you read the directions?” A notorious question. It’s a rare guy that doesn’t endure that question every once in a while. On the other hand, when my wife says, “How did you know this was the way?” my chest swells, my face smirks. I graciously say, “Well, I came upon it one day when I had time to check out the possibilities.”

It’s pure delight when a fortuitous stumble propels an unanticipated treat. For example, yesterday, while returning an over-due book to the library I found I had a little extra time, so I decided to wander through the new acquisitions and just-returned shelves. My left arm, unaided by any conscious intent, darted out at one point and grasped a book, “JORGE LUIS BORGES… THE ALEPH AND OTHER STORIES 1933-1969,” written in large, white letters on an almost-iridescent, pea-green jacket, with a painting of a sprite, in renaissance-art style, in translucent blue on the right of the cover. Below it was a formalized aleph.

All that description—tedious as it might have been—is necessary for you to envision what it was my right eye (the good one) and left arm seized upon. Why? Ah… that is a question locked in my sub-conscious. Sorry, Dr. Freud is out of the office today. What I can tell you is that the very “old-fashioned-ness” (If I may be pardoned a neologism now and then) was part of the attraction. There are those who would say it’s serendipity. That’s a label, not an explanation.

You see, after a heavy dose of what is winning the short story contests these days, the Curmudgeon escapes the dungeon and tears out into the ancient world looking for a kindred (not kindled, dammit) spirit.

A few months back we submerged into The Brothers Kamarozov. It took a couple months to finish, but it felt absolutely revitalizing. I surfaced again when I resumed taking long, deep breaths instead of multi-tasking gasps. Then a few weeks later I picked up Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop, and consumed it with equal zest.

I know, I hate to think what all this might be saying about me, but never mind. It occurs to me that I have wandered quite some distance from my subject, but it’s all relevant in a random sort of way. Anyway, no sooner had I peeked into the first story, “The Aleph,” (1945) than I encountered the following beginning:

On the burning February morning Beatriz Viterbo died, after braving an agony that never for a single moment gave way to self-pity or fear, I noticed that the sidewalk billboards around Constitution Plaza were advertising some new brand or other of American cigarettes. The fact pained me for I realized that the wide and ceaseless universe was already slipping away from her and that this slight change was the first of an endless series. The universe may change but not me, I thought with a certain sad vanity.

Well, that first paragraph (half, actually) spoke to what in me feels, “Hey wait, world, I can’t keep up… [and then] Oh, to hell with it. Do you see what I mean? I have a meg or two of PDFs. of prize winning stories on an (old-fashioned. i.e. from the 1990s) zip drive, a three inch thick file folder with reviews of books I certainly must read, I see new library stocks, every time I go there, of wonderful looking titles I hunger to chew on. If the guys in the white coats fooling around with stem cells can keep me going another two hundred years—and if publishers stop right now—I shall satisfy my longing to know everything about everything. Meantime, I’m not holding my breath.

The point is, however, that Mr. Borges gave me more than a book full of interesting stories. I don’t know whether he intended or not, but I have a new way of selecting my reading.

Grammar with R.J. Robertson Part 2 (Plus a Quiz!)

2010-07-19T08:31:00.006-05:00

Language Evolves and Grammar Lurches Along:
On Keeping a Toehold on Stampeding Style

................

Part 2 (If you missed part 1, click here)

Well, enough of excuses and allusions. My discussion is in four parts. In the first I will detail ten of the commonest errors one encounters in everyday speech and writing. It is in the form of a quiz. If you get all or most correct, you might be satisfied to go your way in peace. Or, even if you don’t, you could simply resolve not to do it again, and still go your way in peace. If you endure to the second part, I will present the rationale for the correct choices in common sense terms. In the third part I will say a bit about the parts of language, and how they require the currently-reigning rules. (Heaven knows I’m no expert at it, but I do have the basics, and we’ll muddle through.) Finally, in the fourth part I will reverse course and propose that, if you hang around long enough, many of the things I criticize (following Strunk and White) will be common practice. Off we go, then.
……………………….
Which statement in each of the following pairs is correct? (Answers below)
1a “Mom came to town this morning, and her and me had breakfast before I came to the studio.”
1b. “Mom came to town this morning, and I and she had breakfast before I came to the studio.”
2 Which of the above statements do you think a young, radio announcer actually said as she started work?
2a (1a.) 2b (1b).
3a. ”I got tired while reading the article and lay down for a short nap.”
3b. “I got tired while reading the article and laid down for a short nap.”
4a. “No sooner had I lain down than I fell sound asleep.”
4b. “No sooner had I laid down than I fell sound asleep.”
5a. “You could see John was trying to impress Nancy. He was laying it on pretty thick.”
5b. “You could see John was trying to impress Nancy. He was lying it on pretty thick.”
6a. “Mary handed the groceries to him and I.”
6b. “Mary handed the groceries to me and him.”
7a. “Its been a long time since I studied grammar – if ever.”
7b. “It’s been a long time since I studied grammar – if ever.”
8a. “I’ts still important for a writer to know a little punctuation.”
8b. “Its’ still important for a writer to know a little punctuation.”
9a. “There was no one to whom I could give my report.”
9b. “There was no one to who I could give my report.”
10a. “Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap.”
10b. “I was able to buy the house very cheap, because of its dilapidated condition.”

Answers to the quiz:
1 - b; 2 - a; 3 - a; 4 - a; 5 - a; 6 - b; 7 - b; 8 - ( a ringer, “E, none of the above.”); 9 - a; 10 - b.

Comments on the quiz items:
On 1) I tried to tempt you by putting the speaker’s partner before the speaker. This would be considered, perhaps, a little more polite, but it is a distraction; a. is grammatically incorrect, polite or not.
2) calls for a guess, of course, and so is not a real test of grammar, but it emphasizes a point. I heard it on a local radio station – driving through Nebraska a few years back. If that is what one hears from a radio announcer, for God’s sake, what’s going on?
3) is straight forward, just a test of which of two wholly different verbs gives the correct meaning
4) again straight forward – each is the past tense of a verb, but which is the correct verb?
5) a test of which of two verbs – having some forms in common – is correct here. The transitive verb, lay, is called for, because John was laying it (the object) on.
6) once more I threw in the “politeness” ambush just to mislead. It might seem more courteous to hand the groceries to him and me, than to me and him, but either statement is grammatically correct while the other is incorrect, because it has the conjunction, and, linking an objective case with a nominative case.
7) For questions about punctuation, see Truss.* It’s (contraction of ‘it” and “is”) true that the word, it, is extra complicated, because grammarians had to find a way to distinguish the contraction of “it is” from the possessive case of it, which has to be it’s to conform to the rule of showing possession by apostrophe (‘s). Example: “After biting the apple I said, “it’s rotten,” meaning it is rotten.
8) What can I say? Am I supposed to follow my own rules? I threw these misused apostrophes into the quiz because Truss fulminates against them as she finds them all over the place: signs in store windows, announcements of various agencies and even newspapers.
9) This one can be quite annoying, as many people have it just backwards.
10) Unintended humor of this sort results from unnoticed ambiguity.
* Truss gives a raft of hilarious examples, worth the price of the book by itself.

A Literary Quiz, or why speech identifies your social status.
1. Who was the English language author referred to in Heinlein’s motto at the top?
2. Name the work from which the reference is taken.
3. What character speaks the line that Heinlein cites?
3. Name the musical comedy based on this work.

Answers to the literary Quiz:
George Bernard Shaw, the playwright.
The play Pygmalion.
Professor Henry Higgins, a linguist who bets he can transform a street girl’s speech so that she can be passed off as a duchess in fashionable circles.
My Fair Lady.

2010-07-13T08:17:00.004-05:00

The Value of Notebooks...
by Hudson McCann

While most of my night stand is covered with a disparate collection of items -- a chalk-white lamp; a beige cube clock radio, Kleenex box and 3” Super Woman doll -- a two-foot high pile of books covers the northeast corner. In the past couple of years, as writing wedged itself into my daily life, the height of the books hasn’t changed, but the contents of the pile has. Some of the books are now authored by me.

No, the books aren’t published. The self-authored books are notebooks that contain stories initiated from group prompts, first drafts, revisions of scenes, notes from lectures, character sketches, book recommendations, web pages, trade associations and other writer’s resources.

Once, in a lecture, when my attention derailed from the topic, I turned to the last page and generated an index for the book on hand. Since the pages weren’t numbered in my blank book, that was the first step in making it a reusable source. Surprised and pleased by the sheer volume of material I had captured, I eventually did the same for the remaining books in the pile. What a treasure trove!

Taking the time to go through and index the notebooks, I found rough gems of ideas that simply needed polishing. Seriously, I think I must have written some of the items while asleep or in a trance. I don’t remember writing them. Not that all of them are immediately useful, and some may never be, but many are complete thoughts that one day might be.

Lexicons are my favorite finds in the notebooks. They are accurate lists of words and phrases about a topic or experience that interests me and, might one day be included in a piece. When I develop a lexicon, I write the topic and underline it at the top of the page. Underneath and for some, several extending pages are lists that accurately describe the topic. All lexicons are works in progress and can be added to at will. Now that I have an index, I know that there are a few that I started on one page, then tapped into a vein of information later and continued the lexicon pages later.

Developing a lexicon is much like a writing prompt without connective words. For example, not long ago I accompanied my niece to a tattoo “parlor.” As the tattoo technician inked her dragonfly, I created a lexicon page to capture the proper names of the items in the shop. I started with the names of the equipment, then the surroundings. I listed the types of music he offered and the bands and artists he favored; surprised by a single Brittany Spears in the collection among the heavy metal. Turns out a young girl brought it to play during her time in the tattoo chair.

As a complete novice to the world of tattoos, I listed the names of the various genres evidenced by the books on the shelf next to the CD player. I added my impressions informed by my senses to the lexicon. In this case it included what I saw, smelled, heard, and later, what I felt when the artist inked my Celtic tat, with the precisely named, 'tattoo gun", that he wrapped in a "baggie.” And, so I learned that sometimes accuracy is mundane. I was imagining the gun with an official name, like the Inkerator Three and the sandwich bag he used to cover it was The Trojan. In asking, I learned a better story. The tattoo artist designed the gun himself using parts from others until he got the effect he wanted. The baggie turned out to be a process improvement that saved him maintenance time. My lexicon include bits of information to add texture to writing sometime in the future.

Last year, when attending a writing conference in Taos, NM, where I learned about Lexicons from my instructor and author, Priscilla Long, I started a lexicon, titled, New Mexico. During the week, I kept a running list of impressions From the veranda off my hotel room I saw trees, cacti and prairie dogs. Later I asked or learned the specific names for each. In the morning, not long out of bed with a hot cup of coffee, I used the time to write phrases and metaphors to describe the scene before me as a writing warm-up. Someday, perhaps I'll want to tap those memories. At that time, I will have words for the subtle differences in the bleached color green found in panoramic views of Taos, rather than the verdant landscape scenes in springtime Chicago.

I always have a notebook with me, and I employ it often. It's not hard to imagine that it will be useful for a scene to be written sometime in the future, about an ophthalmologist's office that will include the ladies' room key attached to eye glass frames or the names of the magazines offered in large print.

Since beginning the collection of lexicons, I have expanded my strategies for creating them. My notebooks include pages torn from magazines and newspaper augmented by my own impressions. A new addition, for example, is a brief article I tore out on how to read clouds from Backpacker Magazine. Someday, when my smart heroine is out hiking, she won’t just see a tall, dense cloud, she’ll know its Cumulonimbus and head for shelter.

Sure, I could go to Wikipedia and get the accurate names of things, but lexicons offer deeper, more personal descriptions of a subject. They allow me to form opinions and ideas at the time and tap them much later when I can no longer access them directly. The present moment of creating a lexicon, offers richness and depth especially in rewrite.

Now that I have a variety of lexicons, I find that they inspire me to write. At my fingertips, like a ready-to-heat meal, I have all the ingredients, to which I simply need to add characters… from another page in one of my notebooks.

Grammar with R.J. Robertson

2010-07-13T08:16:00.002-05:00

Language Evolves and Grammar Lurches Along:
On Keeping a Toehold on Stampeding Style

................

Part 1

by R.J. Robertson

"Many years ago a wise and cynical man
proved that the way a person talks is
the most important thing about him."
Robert A. Heinlein (in his, The Cat Who
walks through walls.)

Foreword:
I got this job because – having been educated before the era of “don’t inhibit a child’s self-expression” – I thrust myself unwittingly into the role of Curmudgeon of Grammar in the Evanston Writers’ Workshop.

The C of G is not exactly a knightly title, you understand, but it does have one faintly noble perquisite: you get to criticize the work of writers better than yourself. I populated this role, without realizing what I was doing, by complaining about too many liberties being taken with English grammar in otherwise excellent work submitted for critique in the Evanston Writers’ group.

Unlike with the younger generation – most of whom seem to have learned English in the polyglot culture of popular media, modified by the linguistic license rampant in immigrant cultures thrown together in our large cities – I learned grammar from a gentle, but no-nonsense British lady who taught it in one quarter of my first year at university. It was a sacred mission for her, and it spread to us, her students, as she instilled the rules of English, and convinced us why our language needed its rules.

The latter point is well put in E B.White’s explanation of why he took up the cause pioneered by Will Strunk in The Elements of Style. White said, “If every word or device that achieved currency were immediately authenticated, simply on the ground of popularity, the language would be as chaotic as a ball game without foul lines.” If you examine Strunk and White on style and Lynne Truss’s, Eats Shoots & Leaves, on punctuation, I think it will not be hard to convince yourself of the aptness of White’s dictum.

To be continued...

Visit R.J. Robertson's website at: RichardJRobertson.Com

A Reaction to Updike

2010-06-21T21:06:00.016-05:00

In a break from our series, Dispatches in the Field, we bring you this brief article from Michael Horvich, in response to a recent article about writer John Updike. Enjoy!

By Michael Horvich

This activity was motivated by an article in The New York Times on Monday, June 21, 2010 entitled “John Updike at Work: Revising ‘Rabbit at Rest’”

1) Why is it that almost every time I reread something I have written, I revise it? I have a tendency to repeat, to repeat too many times, and to prefer repetitions of three with a comma before the “and.” How is it that I will skirt around and around an issue rather than approaching it directly head on? I find that in my writing I will use many more words than I really need to when communicating an idea to my reader. These are some of the lessons that I need to keep in mind and to remind myself of every time I sit down to write and to revise. These are some of the reasons I am constantly revising my work.

2) Almost every time I reread something I have written, I revise it. I tend to repeat my thoughts in series of three, necessary or not. Rather than approaching issues head on, I skirt them. Using more words than necessary does not make my meaning any clearer. These are some of the reminders I use to help myself become a better writer.

3) Almost every time I reread something I have written, I revise it using fewer, more carefully chosen words. This helps me to improve my writing.

Fun to play with. It is in the revising that true writing reveals itself. It would be nice to fantasize about words arriving on the page in exactly the right way. We all know they do not. The written word can always be made better. We also know that at some point one must STOP obsessing and changing. Careful revision helps on that path to clarity as well as with knowing when to stop. I wonder if the Ten Commandments went through many revisions. “Well, maybe an Eleventh? No, let's stick to Ten.”

Dispatches From the Field: "Overwhelmed"

2010-06-17T17:23:00.001-05:00

In the second in our series of "Dispatches From the Field," Michael Horvich discusses his reactions to the conference.

If you missed our conference, be sure to put next year's on your calendar: Saturday and Sunday, 06/04-05/2011.

The Evanston Writers Workshop (EWW) Conference took place in Winnetka, Illinois on May 15 and 16, 2010. The conference was a first for me, a wonderful experience and I learned a lot about the writing profession. However, my mantra became “DO NOT BECOME OVERWHELMED,” although I did a little. Having learned so many new things about the “business” of writing made becoming a published writer seem further away than it ever had been. But I repeated my mantra over and over and listed: I am further along than ever, learning more is good, making connections with like minded people helps, you love writing and that’s what counts, etc.

My therapist and I discussed writing and “audience.” He noted that there are four audience situations. In each situation there is your attitude towards your work and there is your audience’s attitude towards your work. Each has further implications.

First situation, you love what you are doing and your audience loves what you are doing. BINGO! Success. Keep writing!

Second, you love what you are doing and your audience hates what you are doing. Not as bad as it seems. What matters is that you love your work. Maybe the audience will come around or maybe you haven’t yet found the right audience. Or maybe you’ll just continue doing what you love and not worry about an audience. Keep writing!

Third, you hate your work but your audience loves your work. This is a difficult situation. It is more like having a job. And you have to force yourself to do something you really don’t enjoy doing. It may pay the bills, but again ... just a job ... not a love. You probably need to make a decision about your writing.

Fourth, you hate your work and your audience hates your work also. This may not be pretty but it is an easy one. Forget it. Move on to something else.

Currently, and with the help of the EWW Conference, I have reconfirmed my love of what I am doing. I love to write. I love to write non-fiction. I love being a memoirist (if that is that I am, still deciding.) I am writing every day. I never feel blocked. I want to continue to become more aware of what it takes to become a successful, published writer.

I WANT AN AUDIENCE. I am willing to take the risk of finding out whether my audience hates or loves what I write, what I love to do.

DO NOT BECOME OVERWHELMED. A good mantra. Do not stop. Do not give up. Build that pyramid one brick at a time, eat that elephant one bite at a time, become that published author one word at a time.

Dispatches From the Field: "The Middleman Age of Civilization"

2010-06-01T21:05:00.003-05:00

In the first of a series of "Dispatches From the Field," we will host a variety of articles from attendees to our first annual Writers Conference, In the Trenches with the Writer.

If you missed our conference, be sure to put next year's on your calendar: Saturday and Sunday, 06/04-05/2011.

And now, without further ado, here is our first dispatch: "The Middleman Age of Civilization," by RJ.

Driving home from EWW’s first-ever conference I had what, to me, was an insight about our share in where the world is trending (pun intended, sort of). Thinking about all the time and energy that had been devoted to agents and how to butter them up to get your slice of territory under the sun, it struck me: Of course, history has hit a new epoch. The last age of civilization was the industrial age. Now it’s the middleman age. I never was very satisfied with all those books and articles about “the post-industrial era.” So, it’s _post_, but what is it now?

Well, it came clear. What do brokers, agents, supervisors, managers all have in common? They are middlemen (and women). They operate between producers and customers. Only in third world countries is it still sometimes the case that farmers, cottage-industry producers and the like meet their customers and haggle, gossip, lunch together and deal face to face. And that is changing fast. Nowadays only the middleman has the semblance of that old style of doing business, and even then there are layers of middlemen. And it is true in all fields: farming and industry. In the arts it is the agents who are between the public and the performers. Symphony directors, painter’s schools, book editors, county farm agents… are the complement of engineers in manufacturing. They organize the work of producers to make the product more useful to the consumers.

But it is the middlemen, artistic agents, financial brokers, advertising agents, product salesmen, and the like, who make or break the producer of goods. You have to placate them, seduce them, accept the handsome awards they give themselves and take what they offer back, if you want your product to meet a market.

With mass production manufacturing, industrial farming and all I guess it is essential to have someone to bring your product to the attention of the customers who don’t even know what they are looking for until the middlemen inform them.

But with this new development there are new dangers too. Last night on 60 Minutes they reported on a technician on the oil rig who kept notifying his superiors that something was going wrong. He was directly in touch with it. But the decision was made by a “supervisor” from BP who wasn’t directly in touch with the real world of the drill. He said, “Keep going,” according to 60M. That is just like what happened with the Challenger Space Shuttle. The scientists and engineers said “It’s too cold, the rubber O-ring might harden and snap.” The supervisor said, “Keep going.” The shuttle exploded, the crew died. There are many more such stories out there. But what the heck, the world now has three times the number of people it can support. So we can risk a few now and then. The decision makers are never close to the ones that get it in the neck. It’s not their hides.

Just like every development in civilization has its benefits, so it has its problems. I think in the age of the middleman, there should be a law that the man or woman on the firing line gets to veto the middleman, who doesn’t know the scene in the trenches.

We want YOU!

2010-04-08T06:40:00.001-05:00

...to attend our First Annual Writing Conference, of course! You asked for it, and we listened. We have a plethora of panels (and found our thesaurus to boot!), but today I want to highlight our Keynote Speaker: Ms. MaryJanice Davidson. You NEED to hear her speak!

Here's why:

She's more fun than a barrel of monkeys! A multiple best-selling author on both the prestigious (and coveted) New York Times AND USA Today Bestseller lists, she really knows the business of publishing from the inside. From the trenches, say! (And our conference theme IS: In the Trenches with the Writer!)

Prolific, funny, and down-to-earth, we have asked MaryJanice to talk to us about the publishing business, keeping the momentum going once you finish one or two novels and are trying to figure out "what next," and her in-general thoughts she would have loved to have someone like her share back when she was first starting out.

She has written a prodigious 66 books so far! Here's the list, from her website:
1. By Any Other Name (1998)
2. Adventures of the Teen Furies (1998)
3. Dying for Ice Cream (1999) (ebook)
4. Secrets 6 (2000) (Love’s Prisoner)
5. Reunions (Too Good To Be True) (2000) (under the name Janice Pohl)
6. Escape The Slush Pile (non-fiction self-help) ebook 2001
7. Thief of Hearts (2001)
8. Naughty or Nice (2001) (Santa Claws, a Wyndham Werewolf Story)
Was originally released as “Nicely Naughty” as an e-book that is no longer available
9. Chicken Soup for the Teacher’s Soul (What I Learned in Spite of Myself)
10. Undead & Unwed (2002)
11. Canis Royal: Bridefight (2002)(e-book)
12. Love Lies (2002) (e-book)
13. Secrets 8 (2002) (Jared’s Wolf)
14. Lighthearted Lust (2003) (There’s No Such Thing as a Werewolf) (e-book)
15. Under Cover (2003)
16. Beggarman, Thief (2004)(e-book)
17. Cravings (2004) (Dead Girls Don’t Dance)
18. Forgotten Wishes (2004) (Love’s Tender Fury)(e-book)
19. Perfect for the Beach (2004) (My Thief)
20. How to Be a Wicked Woman (2004) (The Wicked Witch of the West Side)
21. Merry Christmas, Baby (2004) (Undercover Claus)
22. Men at Work (2004) (The Fixer-Upper)
23. Undead & Unemployed (2004)
24. The Royal Treatment (2004)
25. Bad Boys with Expensive Toys (2004) (The World is Too Darned Big)
26. Bewitched, Bothered, and BeVampyred (2005) (Night Mares)
27. Derik’s Bane (2005)
28. Hello, Gorgeous! (2005)
29. The Royal Pain (2005)
30. Undead & Unappreciated (2005)
31. Undead & Unreturnable (2005)
32. Betsy the Vampire Queen (2005) (first 4 Betsy books combined)
33. Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace (2005)
34. Romance at the Edge: In Other Worlds (2005) (Beggarman, Thief)
35. Charming the Snake (2005) (Savage Scavenge)
36. Kick Ass (2005) (the Incredible Misadventures of Boo & the Boy Blunder)
37. Bite (2005) (Biting in Plain Sight)
38. Really Unusual Bad Boys (2005) (Bridefight, Mating Season, & Groomfight)
39. Wicked Women Whodunit (2005) (Ten Little Idiots)
40. Sleeping with the Fishes (2006)
41. Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light (2006)
42. Undead & Unpopular (2006)
43. Drop Dead Gorgeous (2006)
44. Mysteria (2006) (Alone Wolf)
a. Fangs Again (2006) never got published
45. Surf’s Up (2006) (Paradise Bossed)
46. Valentine’s Day is Killing Me (2006) (Cuffs and Coffee Breaks)
47. Dead & Loving It (2006) (Santa Claws, Monster Love, There’s No Such Thing as a Werewolf, & A Fiend in Need)
48. Swimming Without a Net (2007)
49. The Silver Moon Elm (2007)
50. The Royal Mess (2007)
51. Undead & Uneasy (2007)
52. Doing It Right (2007)
53. Demon’s Delight (2007) (Witch Way)
54. No Rest for the Witches (2007) (Majicka)
55. Over the Moon (2007) (Driftwood)
56. Mysteria Lane (2007) (Disdaining Trouble)
57. Fish Out of Water (2008)
58. Undead & Unworthy (2008)
59. Dead Over Heels (2008) (Undead & Wed: A Honeymoon Story, Survivors, & Speed Dating, Werewolf Style Or, Ow, I Think You Broke The Bone
60. Betsy: Bride of the Vampire (Undead 5-7; Dead & Loving It) (2008)
61. Seraph of Sorrow (2009)
62. Undead & Unwelcome (2009)
63. Faeries Gone Wild (2009) (Tall, Dark and Not So Faery)
64. Undead & Unfinished – to be released July 6, 2010
65. Rise of the Poison Moon – to be released July 27, 2010
66. Me, Myself, and Why – to be released September 2010

For more information on MaryJanice, check out her awesome website.

And to meet MaryJanice in person, and hear all about her writing process, sign up for the conference! What are you waiting for? Space is limited. Come visit the conference website today! 10% discount for EWW members.

Thow Me Something Mister Game!

2010-02-08T06:52:00.003-06:00

I built a video game as a promotion for my publishing house. Everyone take a look at it. If you want to download and play it, you can win free e-books. They have a link to the promotion on their homepage Whispers Publishing. Hope everyone has fun with it!
Debbie

Call for Submissions! - Magazine dot com

2010-01-29T06:20:00.000-06:00

"NARRATIVE"

Magazine.com announces:

The Narrative Library $25,000 Book Award Series.
Open to previously unpublished book-length works.

AND

The Winter 2010 Story Contest, with $6,500 in prizes.
Open to all fiction and non-fiction writers. Entry deadline March 31.

All entries will be considered for publication.
Please see the guidelines at Narrativemagazine.com.

All submissions must be made online.

Spring Fling 2010

2010-01-20T15:21:00.001-06:00

Chicago North-RWA chapter conference is pleased to announce:

Spring Fling 2010

Dates: April 23-24, 2010
Location: Hyatt, Deerfield, IL
Headliners and Keynote speakers: Cherry Adair and Julia Quinn

We hope that you'll join us for the conference featuring workshops led by our headliners, Julia Quinn and Cherry Adair as well as authors Jenna Petersen, Elizabeth Hoyt, Jade Lee, Courtney Milan, and Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and many others.
Pitch appointments will be available with guest Editors: Amanda Bergeron (Avon), Lindsey Faber (Samhain) and Kat O'Shea (Leap Books & The Wild Rose Press) or Agents: Diana Fox, Laurie McLean, Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, and Paige Wheeler.
Please check our website regularly for updated information:

http://www.chicagospringfling.com/

Hope to see you there!

** Permission to forward granted and encouraged! **

Amazon Sells More e-Books This Holiday Season Than Hard Copy

2010-01-07T06:16:00.001-06:00

You may have read this elsewhere, but the news bears repeating. The ramifications for this, both in terms of the publishing business and in terms of being writers, is serious and far-reaching.

Check out this article from Business Week. Let us know what you think, in the comments section, about whether this is a 'good' or 'bad' development and whether it's changed your writing and submission habits. How about as a consumer? Do you buy ebooks or plan to in the future?

Film Review | Up in the Air

2009-12-26T12:46:00.010-06:00

by debbie cairo

This is the story about Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a man who spends most of his life traveling from city to city. He's got his whole life arranged for this purpose. His actual job is to fire people. Companies hire his company to send someone in to fire their employees and offer them "transition services".

Ryan's world is thrown into chaos when a young upstart Anna Kendrick (Natalie Keener) has convinced the company they can do their business via webcam.

The boss sends the two out on the road together so that Anna can learn the business and try out some onsite webcam firings.

There are some twists and turns along the way that I won't give away, neither will I give away the ending. At its best this is some great character studies, at its worst a hell of an entertaining movie. Ivan Reitman is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors and he's put his own quirky sense of humor into the writing of this one as well.

At no point did I even think of looking at my watch, which is how I judge how entertaining the movie is. There we a few points I laughed so loud it was a little embarrassing. If you have a chance to go see this movie, you should do so.

DEADLINE EXTENDED - TODAY, 12/10/2009 - Contest Announcement: Writer's Digest 10th Annual Short Short Story Writing Competition: Deadline: 12/1/2009

2009-12-10T10:13:00.001-06:00

The deadline for the short fiction contest has been extended to today. Our original blurb about it is here. Good luck!

Movie Review of Brothers (2009)

2009-12-09T10:39:00.004-06:00

About twenty years ago I had a neighbor who was a Viet Nam veteran. He was a personable man with a calm manner who was raising his seven-year-old son by himself. I remember he liked to watch Rumpole on PBS and grow gourds in his garden. He was full-blooded Apache, and had lived on the reservation until he enlisted in the military fresh out of high school. One day, he told me a story that has stuck in my mind ever since.While in Viet Nam, his commander had ordered all the men in his platoon to go into a Vietnamese village, enter each hut one by one, and murder all the occupants inside. In the first hut my neighbor entered he found an old woman standing by a stove, an old man sitting in a chair, and a young boy of about seven seated opposite the old man. My neighbor approached each one in turn, put a gun to their heads, and pulled the trigger. He murdered the boy last, a youngster who had just witnessed the deaths of his grandparents. My neighbor had done as he was ordered without thought or hesitation.

This gentle neighbor of mine, with whom I passed pleasantries, and who seemed to be a fine father to his own seven-year-old son, a man who patched his roof and waved at passersby and brought me leftover slices of birthday cake, was also a killer. Not some Jekyll and Hyde personality, but simply a soldier in time of war. He said that in the intervening years not a day went by when he didn’t think of the murders he had committed. And he said maybe raising his own son would make up for the child he murdered. I never did see how having a child, something he might have done anyway, made up for the annihilation of another child, but his story offered insights into the ways war transforms human beings and the toll it takes on their lives when they return home.

A new generation of troops now fills my neighbor’s shoes and those of his platoon buddies. The human experience of bearing the extreme circumstances of war, of assimilating the atrocities troops are sometimes forced to commit and the atrocities that are committed against them, is the subject of Brothers, a film by director Jim Sheridan and written by David Benioff. Brothers is an undeniably powerful film that stuns the viewer at every turn with scenes of raw emotion and wrenching conflict, scenes delivered in no-holds-barred performances by a superb acting ensemble.

Tobey Maguire stars as Sam Cahill, a diehard family man and marine about to leave for Afghanistan for the fourth time. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Sam’s younger brother Tom, a directionless young man fresh out of jail for petty theft. Natalie Portman plays the military wife and mother with the honesty and seasoned depth we expect from her. Sam Shepherd is solid and complex as the brothers’ ex-military father. Two superb child actors, Bailey Madison and Taylor Grace Geare, play Sam’s young daughters.

(Warning: If you haven't seen the movie, the following summary reveals aspects of the plot).

As the film opens, Sam is spending time with his wife and daughters, all of whom suffer in their separate ways at the specter of Sam’s departure. Sam’s father, Hank, remains stoic all through a family goodbye dinner in which his younger son Tom is all but persona non grata at the family table, openly expressing his disapproval of Tom and comparing him to his older brother. Once Sam leaves for his tour of duty, however, Tom begins a slow maturation as he steps in to help Sam’s wife, Grace, and provide absent-fathering to his two nieces. When news comes that Sam has been killed, Tom’s involvement helps keep the family together, despite his own grief.

But unbeknownst to the family, Sam is not dead. He and a hometown buddy, Joe, have been captured by Afghan fighters. Under torture, Joe eventually buckles. But Sam maintains his wits--until he is ordered to kill Joe or be killed himself. Sam makes his choice in a harrowing scene, is later rescued, and returns home to his wife and children, nearly emaciated and hopelessly traumatized with guilt and shock.

In one of the most wrenching scenes of the film, Sam looks on as Grace is visited by Joe’s widow and young infant, knowing full well that it was he who murdered her husband and left her child fatherless. Soon after this he implodes in an unforgettable scene of unremitting agony that ends with his attempted suicide and being hauled off to a psychiatric facility. And though he eventually confides to Grace, whether he will be able to heal psychologically, and what the ramifications are for his life and the well-being of his family, is left unanswered. The film closes on Sam and Grace seated on a bench outside the psychiatric facility, leaning into each other against the freezing backdrop of a Minnesota winter.

Brothers takes on special meaning in light of the recent decision by President Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan, a happenstance the producers of the film could not have known during filming. But the human toll of war, not only in terms of loss of life, but in terms of the irrevocable soul-destruction of the survivors, is brought to full relevance in Brothers. As movie goers, we are offered an opportunity to take action simply by witnessing the stories of those who have participated in war and whose lives have been irreversibly changed by it, reminding us how vital it is that we not turn our backs on the war experience, that we listen to our neighbors as they tell their stories, even if the story they tell is heart-wrenching, or cowardly, or cruel. The war experience varies for each of our troops--not to mention civilians caught in the midst of battle—and their responses differ depending on their individual makeup. In Brothers, the protagonist murders one of his own but only under duress by Afghan militants. In that sense, the movie plays it safe politically. However, I recently watched a documentary on PBS that showed a Viet Nam veteran, now in his sixties, admitting that for him killing had been addictive and who returned to Viet Nam a second time for the chance to kill legally. A veteran of Iraq admitted to killing unarmed civilians. Not a pleasant thing to hear, but the plasticity of the human psyche, horrific as it can be, is a subject we must consider as we watch ordinary young men and women, people with hopes and futures, return home changed, or damaged, sometimes with inclinations akin to criminals, or bearing a host of horrific memories for the rest of their lives. And whatever their experience, may we all listen.

Contest Announcement: Writer's Digest 10th Annual Short Short Story Writing Competition: Deadline: 12/1/2009

2009-11-17T06:00:00.000-06:00

Writer's Digest 10th Annual Short Short Story Writing Competition: Deadline: 12/1/2009

We're looking for fiction that's bold, brilliant...but brief.

Send us your best in 1,500 words or fewer. Enter the 10th Annual Short Short Story Competition for your chance to win BIG $$$$ - including the $3000 First Prize!

Click here for additional information.

Writer's Digest 9th Annual Short Short Story Writing Competition

Look for the winners of the 9th Annual Short Short Story Competition in the May/June 2009 issue of Writer's Digest.

Film Review | A Serious Man

2009-11-16T16:15:00.006-06:00

by julie

I recently went to see A Serious Man, which takes place in a predominantly Jewish suburb in Minnesota in 1967. Interestingly, the film opens with a short scene from the shtetls of 19th century Europe just a few generations earlier. A husband and wife are visited by the ghost of their deceased neighbor. Neither can agree on whether the neighbor is indeed a dybbuk, and though the wife stabs the neighbor in order to remove the curse, the neighbor bleeds like a human yet walks calmly away. We are left with ambiguity, though the opaqueness of the scene promises a movie rife with profundity. To add to the intrigue, a proverb attributed to Rashi, the 11th century French rabbi, flits across the screen, “Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.”

Of course, if anyone accepted their fate with anything like simplicity, there wouldn’t be much drama left for a film. The movie’s central character, Larry Gopnick (Michael Stuhlbarg), is a college professor and family guy with a cartload of troubles and more to come. His wife is in love with Sy Edelman, a widower who has no qualms about stealing another man’s wife and who shamelessly patronizes Larry every chance he gets. Larry’s dysfunctional brother lives in his house and on his dime. Larry’s bar mitzvah-age son smokes pot and gambles. There’s more. Larry’s tenure is in doubt due to anonymous letters denigrating his character, his neighbor is encroaching on his property, a student is blackmailing him into conferring a passing grade, and—perhaps worst of all--some recent x-rays have come back abnormal.

And so Larry asks the obvious question: why me? Thus begins his search for answers. He turns to faith, seeking explanations and solace from the three rabbis at his synagogue. None of the rabbis is portrayed as having much sympathy for Larry’s despair and alternately offer platitudes, nonsense allegories, or ignore him altogether. I had to wonder why it was necessary for the Coen brothers to portray these Jewish leaders as so disingenuous and uncaring. Was this a commentary on religion in general or are they expressing a complaint about the Jewish religion in particular? And while an uncritical, saccharine approach would hardly be appropriate, there was a decided lack of affection toward many of the film’s Jewish characters that seemed contrived and slightly vindictive, as though the Coen brothers had a bone to pick with their upbringing and were using the film to vent old resentments.

I think the protagonist, Larry Gopnick, illustrates my point well. The film’s title, A Serious Man, begs the question, Is Larry a serious man? His store of oft-depicted Jewish angst shows he’s serious, perhaps too serious. The less obvious question is whether he is really a man. Apparently not. Larry Gopnick fits the mold of many male Jewish characters who are short on masculine attributes. When Larry is approached by the Korean father of his bribing student, Larry’s bigoted gentile neighbor addresses Larry with, “Is this man bothering you?” as though Larry were a woman or a child in need of a real man for protection. Larry is feminized as he breaks down and weeps like a woman. He is passive under his wife’s scolding. He is physically overpowered by his wife’s lover. His neighbor steals his property in front of his face and his brother uses him. Larry is one more Jewish weakling to add to many others in filmdom and literature. I would have hoped for more originality from the Coen Brothers, but I’m also not especially surprised that stronger characters were lacking. Stereotypes are so engrained in our culture I continually have a debate with myself as to whether the people who create them in film and literature are aware of what they’re doing. At any rate, the story of the human condition, ultimately so unresolvable, could yet be told in a more realistic way. From the standpoint of Jewish characterization, the Coen Brothers have told the same old story.

There are, of course, fine performances in A Serious Man. There are moments of great humor, the suburban scenes resound with authenticity, and the Yiddish of the shtetl is heartwarming. A Serious Man is a film worth seeing and worth pondering, if only to discover one’s own foibles as we hope for answers only to discover there aren’t any. Or perhaps we all have to find our own way. But this is also a film without heart. Larry, who wants so much for himself, gives very little to his family other than a paycheck; he virtually ignores his children except to absently police them here and there. Jewish concepts of loving kindness and service toward others are strangely absent from this supposedly Jewish-themed movie. As the movie ends, a tornado approaches in an ominous black cloud. It was a darkness that seemed to follow me as I left the theatre.

Announcing the Success of One of Our Own!

2009-11-15T08:47:00.003-06:00

ShopNotes is pleased to report that our very own Karen N. Johnson’s book is available for purchase in trade paperback. Beautiful Testing: Leading Professionals Reveal How They Improve Software is available from O’Reilly Books and Videos.

From the publisher’s website: “Beautiful Testing offers 23 essays from 27 leading testers and developers that illustrate the qualities and techniques that make testing an art. Through personal anecdotes, you'll learn how each of these professionals developed beautiful ways of testing a wide range of products -- valuable knowledge that you can apply to your own projects.”

In Chapter 12, “Software in Use,” Ms. Johnson connects our personal stories and how they affect our work. The importance of storytelling becomes intertwined with the testing methodology.

We had an opportunity to catch up with Ms. Johnson recently, and she took time out of her busy schedule to answer some questions for us:

SN: What was it like writing a book for software testers that included such personal stories as your relationship with your ailing mother?

KJ: Writing the chapter in Beautiful Testing was a healing process of sorts for me. I blogged about it, see: “Beautiful Testing.”

SN: What did you gain from working with the Evanston Writers Workshop in the process of writing this story?

KJ: I drafted the chapter before I met the Evanston Writers Group. In fact, the chapter was close to going to print. I did ask Amanda from the group to provide a good critical review focused on grammar and some other aspects even though the timeframe was tight. I found having a strong writer helpful as everyone else who'd reviewed the chapter previously knew plenty about software testing but I didn't feel as though my chapter had gotten a true writer or editor's review.

SN: As you work on your next projects, and we understand you have a contract on another project stemming directly from your work on Beautiful Testing, what thoughts do you have on your process? Do you find working with a workshop approach helpful to your work?

KJ: Between having had conversations with another author and my work on BT, I was asked to contribute to another book that will be coming out from O'Reilly publishers. Hopefully I can draft my material in time to be included in that book - slated to come out in the first half of 2010.

Process. I wish I could say I have more of a process. I am deadline-inspired.

The workshop is helping me - its helping me schedule time for writing, think more about writing and I feel like I have a sincere group that I can get feedback from.

SN: Any other thoughts you’ve had about writing that you’d like to share with us?

KJ: I am beginning to understand what helps me write. I'm trying to understand and notice what elements or conditions help me write so that I can do my best to get myself or give myself those conditions.

For more information about Ms. Johnson and her work, please visit her website at Karen N. Johnson.

Welcome to the Shop!

2009-11-01T10:00:00.000-06:00

"It's not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out where the strong man stumbled or where the doer of great deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again. And who, while daring greatly, spends himself in a worthy cause so that his place may not be among those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt

Sometimes, the hardest thing is to just begin.

We have all sorts of myths about beginnings. If we cannot assure ourselves of doing it right, then we can be assured of not doing anything, for fear of doing it wrong.

The only thing this really assures, is that we will do that: nothing.

Which, all things considered, is a real shame.

So how do we spring from doing nothing to doing something? Like anything else. Lao Tsu said, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Have the trust that we can take that one step, and another, and another, just steps – not anything enormous, grand, or big. Just little, gentle steps. One foot in front of the other, like when we teach children to walk.

Of course, as anyone who watches children will tell you, what happens? They fall down. A lot.

Mary Pickford said, “This thing we call ‘Failure’ is not the falling down, but the saying down.”

Experiment, today, with taking a step. Buy a blank notebook. Find one in your stash of office or school supplies. Find a pen. (Preferably one that has ink in it.) Now take a few steps onto the page, string a few sentences around, maybe draw a doodle or two.

There are some lovely writing prompts available on the internet. Try googling “writing prompts” and see what happens. Or try finishing the sentence, “One day, Bob left his house and…”

The important thing is not how you begin. The important thing is just to begin.

Promptly

2009-11-01T08:00:00.000-06:00

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." - Joseph Brodsky

I think that perhaps the worse crime is not writing them. How many of us have so many ideas for stories to write, but when we sit down (or maybe even before we get to the chair), something stops us? Sometimes, it’s a lack of ideas for how to get started. “What do I write?” is a common thought for some of us.

On the other hand, there are some great prompts out there! The internet is a terrific tool – in fact, my personal theory is that it was developed by writers. Don’t laugh! Where else can you go that’s a data repository of all the weird, wild, and wonderful facts you could desire? Where else can you go to procrastinate so productively? Where else can you go to publish blogs, and tweets, and facebooks, not to mention websites, myspaces, and all the other accumulated outpourings of a people who must, simply, write?

So, what do I write?

Let’s share some ideas in this column and develop, over time, a basket of prompt ideas so that we never have to sit, answerless, after asking that question.

To begin:

You are a thirty-year-old woman. You are wearing black. You are in New York’s Central Park. It is six o’clock. Who are you and what are you doing?

Describe a natural setting, a park or a forest, in as great a detail as you can. Strive for at least two pages of description, using all the senses, not just sight – what do you hear? Smell? Can you taste anything from the air, or perhaps a stem of grass? Do you feel anything, heat, a breeze? Do you ‘sense’ anything like menace? Joy? A sense of general foreboding that nothing in the scene immediately makes apparent, but is nonetheless clear to you?

Sniff a bottle of perfume, either someone else’s – a spouse or lover, roommate, or even a coworker. Close your eyes and inhale the scent. Now write.

What are your favorite prompts? Share them with us! We’d love to know!

Critique Tips

2009-11-01T07:45:00.000-06:00

What makes a good critique?

First and foremost, a good critique is one that is useful to the writer. For that reason, the definition of “good” will vary from writer to writer.

The most important element to getting the most from a critique is to write the best piece you can. Avoid common spelling and grammar errors to the best of your ability and submit polished content to your critiquers. (Thank you in advance.)

But what do you do if you’re the one critiquing? Where do you start?

Here are some suggestions, in no particular order, to get you started. Remember, though, just as in writing, critiquing gets better with practice!

-Read the piece through once, just to get a feel for what the writer is trying to do.

-If any grammar or spelling errors jump out at you, note them.

-Some people prefer to critique by hand on a printed copy, while some prefer to do so on the computer. Either way is fine, as long as you write legibly by hand if that’s your method of choice (after all, if the writer can’t read your critique, they can’t very well benefit from it!).

-If you use the computer, it’s a good idea to use something to set your comments apart from the main body of the text. Use a different color, bold typeface, or collect your comments at the beginning or end of the document.

-Be specific.

-Be specific. (No, that’s not a typo – it’s such an important point it bears repeating.)

-Be specific. Vague “this is good” or “this is awful” are not helpful to the writer, no matter how heartfelt they may be to you. The point when doing a critique is to help the writer; if you don’t believe you can do so, then do not critique.

-Give examples. If you tell someone “use active voice,” show them what you mean.

-Do not assume the writer knows the jargon. Define your terms!

If You've Had a Bad Critique

2009-11-01T07:30:00.000-06:00

We’ve all had one. It’s a review or a critique that left us feeling flattened, like we shouldn’t have picked up a pen or keyboard in the first place. And we’ve all tried to smile and say, “Oh, it’s all right, it didn’t bother me,” and laugh it off.

But we don’t laugh. We don’t let it go.

And we don’t write.

If this happens to you, or has happened, then recognize that you have been injured. You’re not silly, you’re not making a big thing out of nothing, you’re not having histrionics.

The following steps are from Julia Cameron’s excellent book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity.

1. Receive the criticism all the way through and get it over with.

2. Jot down notes to yourself on what concepts or phrases bother you.

3. Jot down notes on what concepts of phrases seem useful.

4. Do something very nurturing for yourself. Read an old good review or recall a compliment.

5. Remember that even if you have made a truly rotten piece of art, it may be a necessary stepping-stone to your next work. Art matures spasmodically and requires ugly-duckling growth stages.

6. Look at the criticism again. Does it remind you of any criticism from your past – particularly shaming childhood criticism? Acknowledge to yourself that the current criticism is triggering grief over a long-standing wound.

7. Write a letter to the critic – not to be mailed, most probably. Defend your work and acknowledge what was helpful, if anything, in the criticism proffered.

8. Get back on the horse. Make an immediate commitment to do something creative.

9. Do it. Creativity is the only cure for criticism.