Today’s Birthdays: Mortimer J. Adler, Rod Serling, Manuel Puig

Thought for the Day: Always leave enough time in your life to something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an effect on economic well-being than any other single factor.” – Paul Hawken

Tips and Teasers: What makes you buy a book? Is it the cover? The blurb? The first pages? The writer’s name? A friend’s recommendation? Or something else?

The challenge: Pick a book you know well and describe the book jacket you would design for it, then write a two sentence blurb telling us what the book is about.

I was looking over my most recent projects and trying to figure out where I want to go. I’ve got two manuscripts about a third done, one done, but needs heavy editing (as in a complete rewrite) and three others that need lighter editing. I’ve also got at least four other manuscripts I should look at to see if I can do anything with them. And three short stories that are done and ready to go, but I’ve had trouble finding a home for them.

So where do I begin?

Which one do I work on first?

Maybe I’ll assign each of them a number and leave it to a turn of the cards? Or throw them out on the floor and see which one comes out on top? Or do it alphabetically by title? Or by date finished? Or…

Yeah, I know. Silly. The point is not which one to start, but just to start.

I’ll let you know which one gets my attention.

Today’s challenge: Use the word “hornswoggle” in a contemporary scene between two best friends.

I just finished watching the Star Trek movie that originally came out last spring. I don’t do theaters so had to wait for it to come out on DVD. I have been a huge fan of ST since the first series hit TV (yes, I’ve been around that long). But then, I was a huge fan of anything science fiction. I have been since I read my first science fiction book. Until then, I was hard core into Nancy Drew (and other young girl mysteries) as well as books about horses (Black Beauty, Black Stallion, Misty, etc.).

While I continued to read mysteries – and still do – as well as other genres, science fiction became my first love. And when I could watch the stories unfold on television and in the movies, I was in heaven.

Today, that love affair continues. I love anything to do with looking to things that might be. To imagine the future, or return to the past. To fly to the stars. To meet other beings. To create gadgets that may one day really exist. Or to dream up things that may never be, but are just fun to think up. Can there be anything better?

Today, I read just about anything. Part of my job working at a bookstore is to read books (hard job that!). The large majority of ARCs we get in are literary novels – not my first choice. Or even my fifth. But I do read them, and have read some very good ones that I’ve enjoyed immensely. But my first love, and the ones I gravitate to first, will always be science fiction and fantasy books.

So, thank you Jules Verne and Ray Bradbury and, especially, Gene Roddenberry. You, and many others, have given me many hours of enjoyment. And, I’m happy to say, I’ve passed the legacy on to my offspring.

Today’s Challenge: Use these in a scene: jogger, electrician, statue of a sphinx

I was at a writer’s workshop yesterday and, while the speaker was interesting, most of the workshop was mostly useless for me as all the other participants had never written anything and needed the basics. Which is fine – we all have to start somewhere. I wish I’d known about things like this when I started. And, although a large portion of the class was repeating what I already know, sometimes that’s not a bad thing. It reminds you of things you might have forgotten or shuffled off to one side.

One of those things was that writers need to set goals. This is something we stress at my monthly writer’s group meetings. And it is echoed at many other groups and loops I belong to. And it is the one thing many of us fail to do.

What does a goal do for you? It gives you something concrete to aim for. It forces you to take responsibility for something – whether it is writing, or something to do with another aspect of your life. My local writer’s group just finished a challenge we called 50/50 – the goal was to write a minimum of fifty words a day for fifty days. You were allowed to take two days a week off, but no more. We posted our word counts each day and one of the members put them in a spreadsheet to be tallied at the end of the fifty days. It was interesting to listen to the word counts reached. Though we were aiming for a minimum of 2500 words, almost every person participating more than doubled that. And several came in at more than ten times the count.

The goal wasn’t to see who could write the most, but to get us writing on a daily basis. And we did. So many times, I and others would sit down, just not in the mindset to write – but the challenge – and the goal – was there. Write the fifty words. Then fifty became 100. And 200. And more.

So, to you I present this challenge: what are your goals? Post one of them here. Since this is a writing column, I’d prefer it to be writing related, but I’ll take what I can get. And I’ll even start you off. My goal is to blog, or tweet every day for the next month.

Today is my birthday and, no, I won’t tell you which one!

But I love birthdays. The excitement of the day – all centered on you. For me, it’s a day of celebration, no matter if you’re one or one hundred; no matter if you’re with a crowd, or sitting by yourself. Celebrate.

Like the new year, it is, for me, a day of reflection. Of looking back over the past year to see what I’ve done and consider what changes I need to make, or what was right that I can rejoice in. It is also a day to look forward to the coming year, the challenges I will face and how to use my experience to cope with them. It is a day of quiet contemplation, and celebration.

As I look over the past years, I can remember the best and worst presents I received. The best was a surprise trip to the nearby RenFaire. Though I was feeling lousy, the day was lovely and I had a grand time. The worst? A bag of rice cakes from someone who knew I was trying to lose a little weight. The person’s heart was in the right place, but come on. Really? For a birthday?

So celebrate with me. Tell me about your best and worst birthdays. And what is your fondest wish for your next one?

Over the past few weeks, life has tossed my family some lemons. We are attempting to make lemonade, but as anyone who has ever made it from scratch knows, the real stuff takes a lot more time than the instant.  Then I received an email from the newsletter editor for my local writer’s group.

Each month, she sends a question to the group for us to answer for the newsletter. Usually, they are something like “How did you get started writing?” or “How long have you been writing?” or something like that. Something dealing directly with writing. Something I can usually dash off a couple of sentences for in a minute or two. But this month’s question was different. This month’s question has made me stop and think. And it’s not even an involved question. It’s actually quite simple. It’s: “What are you grateful for?”

Five words. Only five simple words. And yet they carry so much power. They have made me look at the way I’ve been looking at life of late. Almost like I’ve been sucking on the lemon slices without benefit of water or sugar. Palatable, but barely.

So, I will answer her question.

I am grateful that I have a warm, dry, comfortable little house. I am grateful that I have a wonderful family who love me and each other and will help each other in times of need. I am grateful I have friends who stand behind me and nudge me or hug me when either is needed. I am grateful I have food on my table. I am grateful for the ability to read – and the books to read. I am grateful I have the ability to tell a decent tale and that people actually pay me for this privilege.

I am grateful for a lot more. But this is a start.

What about you? What are you grateful for?

My dad was many things in his life: a soldier, a cook, a cop, a lineman, a farmer, a janitor, a lay minister, a guide, and much more. But to me he was always a teacher. One thing he taught me about was books.

Dad was a voracious reader who read everything from Shakespeare to Zane Grey. He loved westerns and mysteries, history and biographies, poetry and drama, and silly little “bathroom” joke books. He taught me to enjoy words. Anytime we were waiting in a parking lot, he would point out a word on a sign and challenge my brother and me to find as many words in that one word as we could. He made learning how to spell fun. I remember the games of Scrabble we used to play, though we stopped when I went to college. He said I knew too much for him. Hah.

It is because of him and his love of the written word that I am able to follow my dream of being a writer. Thank you, Dad.

I went into work today (I work very part time at a small, independent book store) to find my boss digging through a huge box of catalogs. She was just back from BEA (Book Expo of America) and had brought back a lot of “stuff”. Since business was slow, we sat there and started looking through all the publisher catalogs. We were looking specifically for materials for the store to purchase for sales, but we couldn’t avoid having some fun for ourselves.

There were a lot of books that we would have loved to get, but knew they would never sell in the store for one reason or another. In most cases, it was price. We know how much people are willing to spend in our area. Note to publishers: $28.00 hardback novels aren’t it.

In some cases, it was geography/sociology. As a former librarian, I do not and cannot condone censorship. But by the same token, as a salesperson in a small book store in a small town in a very conservative area, my boss and I are keenly aware of what will not sell. Erotica is not it.

But for the rest, we had a good time, pointing out good buys to each other, marking them for possible inclusion on the list, showing each other what we’d personally like, but wouldn’t buy (the cookbook showing decadent chocolate desserts looked wonderful, but at almost $50.00? No.) Favorite authors and best sellers were debated. Children’s books looked over and carefully considered.

In the hour we spent, we got through most, but not all, of the catalogs and I can’t wait for the orders to go in, and the books to arrive because looking through the actual books is a whole lot more fun than just reading about it in a catalog.

And one of these days, my books will be in those catalogs for someone to consider. Someday soon, I hope!

I work at a small, independent new/used bookstore in my hometown. We get a lot of people bringing in books, hoping we’ll take them off their hands. Many times, the boss has to turn a lot of them away because he knows he won’t be able to sell what they have and there simply isn’t the room to hold unsaleable books. I can understand the donor’s frustration, though. They can’t just throw a book away. That would be wrong. But what do you do when the library won’t take them?  Or the used bookstore?

I sit here and look at my shelves of books. I’ve started paring them down, but somehow, I keep accumulating more than I purge. Several years ago, I started a system with the books I read. If I love the book and it’s one I want to keep, it gets a gold star. If it’s a blah book, but there’s a reason I want to keep it (I know the author, etc.), it gets a silver one. If it’s something I don’t ever want to read again and really don’t want cluttering up my shelves, it gets a red star. Thus, I can see instantly what books I want to keep or get rid of. And there’s been a lot of that of late.

So what makes a book a keeper? For me, it’s both characters and the story. I call it the “put-downable” factor. If I lose myself in the story and don’t want to put it down and can’t stop reading it, that’s a keeper. If I’d rather clean, do dishes, or some other chore than pick up the book again, that’s an instant red star and I will probably not even finish the story. I simply don’t have the time to waste on a book that doesn’t draw me in right away.

So what is your reason for keeping a book? What puts it on your shelves instead of at the used book store?

I spent the past weekend, actually Thursday through Sunday, at a writer’s retreat along with thirteen other members of my local RWA group.  It was a time filled with work, laughter, good food, good friends, and lots of writing.

Because of the weekend, I was able to finish edits on my current WIP, a paranormal romance that I am totally in love with. I was also able to plot out two more stories and get some writing done on them. So it was a very productive weekend.

But it was also educational. I learned:

1. The more things you spread out on your bed to work on, the more you have to spread out. It’s like hangers – they increase exponentially.

2. Sitting on a bed for for an entire weekend typing away at your laptop is not necessarily a good thing. You do need to eventually get up and move. Even if it’s only to go down three flights of stairs to the dining hall for meals.

3. Yelling “I need a word” works better in a groups of writers than in your regular home or neighborhood.

4. Ditto on saying “Not now, I’m in the middle of a scene.”

5. Sleep deprivation is not necessarily good for writing, but it is good when that lack is from having fun with your fellow writers.

6. Even with the lack of sleep, the headaches and other various ills that come with travel, I can’t wait to go back next year.