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Kay: Quiz for Y’all—Would You Go Here?

7 bedrooms, 3 full baths, 3 half baths, 5,000 sq ft, small city environment

Motivated by the arts community Yaddo, I cooked up an idea some time ago that I’ve begun pursuing with some interest.

For those who don’t click on the link, Yaddo is an artists’ retreat located on a 400-acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York, where artists of all stripes can apply to work for up to two months. They get a studio and room and board for free if they’re accepted. Collectively, Yaddo artists have won 74 Pulitzer Prizes, 29 MacArthur Fellowships, 68 National Book Awards, and a Nobel Prize (Saul Bellow, who won the Nobel for Literature in 1976). Notable Yaddo artists include James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Patricia Highsmith, Continue reading →

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Elizabeth: A Turn of Phrase

agents, editors, agent, editor, pitch, pitching, manuscriptIt’s probably no surprise to anyone, but I’m a big fan of words.  When writing, I love it when I find just the right one, with just the right nuanced meaning to get an idea across.  I like words that are slightly old fashioned or not commonly used; words that are whimsical; and words that are evocative.  I’d give you some examples but naturally, all the words in my head went into hiding as soon as I tried to find them.

I’ve been doing more of my reading on my Kindle app recently and one of the things I’ve really enjoyed is being able to click on a word and instantly get a definition while I’m reading along.   Sure, I could pull out the dictionary when reading a physical book, but that’s not nearly as instantaneous.   I’m finding that I’m looking up words fairly frequently – even words I’m pretty familiar with – just to be sure I’ve got their meaning correct.  I’ll admit there have been a few occasions where my understanding of the meaning of a word was not quite as precise as I’d thought.

Looking up a word when you are not completely sure of the meaning is one thing, but what happens when you encounter a phrase that leaves you puzzled?

I’m thinking about a book I read a while back that had the line: Continue reading →

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Jeanne: When Art Imitates Art

So this is the cover of my book that was released in September:

snake winding its way around a practical female hand holding an apple

The Demon Always Wins (image via Amazon)

And this is a statue on display at the Illinois State Capitol, courtesy of the Satanic Temple-Chicago Chapter.

Satanic-statue-exlarge-169

In case you can’t make it out, it’s a sculpture of a woman’s arm, wrapped in a snake, leading up to her hand, which is holding an apple. The inscription on the base reads, “Knowledge is the Greatest Gift.”

Not sure exactly what to make of that…

 

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Jilly: Pity Party

So, how was your week? Mine started well, but from there it’s been downhill all the way.

The good news is that I successfully uploaded my *three* entries to the RWA Golden Heart Contest website. Two of them still require tweaking, but they’re close to ready, and seeing the titles set up on the contest system gave me a huge sense of satisfaction. 😀

I celebrated by hurting my back. Fortunately it was muscular, and a few sessions of physiotherapy have helped no end, but while it lasted the effects were spectacular. Getting out of bed was a four-step process, with screaming. Sitting at a desk was impossible, so no GH tweaking happened this week 😦

I marked the improvement in my mobility by cracking a tooth. I’ll have a new crown for Christmas, please, Santa 😦 😦

And to put the lid on things, I somehow acquired a bonus ear infection 😦 😦 😦

They say things go in threes, so I’m hoping that’s my last nasty surprise. All being well, I’ll have butt in chair/hands on keyboard soon, and I’ll see you all back here in two weeks with this year’s Christmas Short Story.

Here’s hoping your week was better than mine. Did good things happen to you?

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Michaeline: Go Ahead and Bang Some Rocks

A monkey sculpting a bust of a woman

Banging rocks can be a fabulous hobby. Who knows what can come out of it? (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Efficiency, productivity, streamlined, maintenance . . . buzzy buzzwords that can keep our butts in the chairs and us writing our hearts out. However, sometimes, The Girls in the Basement (our inner muses) send up something that seems just . . . useless. For almost two years, my mind has been pre-occupied with David Bowie and the ukulele. I’ve written two short stories and worked on a longer piece thanks to the David Bowie obsession, but the uke? It hasn’t paid off – except I love doing it, and it’s brought me a lot of joy and feelings of achievement. As hobbies and obsessions go, you can’t ask for much more than that, really.

However, my upper mind – the Censor in the Attic, perhaps – is terribly concerned that I should be Writing, and not just any old writing, but Great and Wonderful Stories that Will Enchant the Masses (or at least a few Niches). It’s almost a daily battle between the Censor, who wants to direct things, and the Girls, who just want to have fun. Sadly, as is often the case in war, neither side wins on many days.

But this week, I stumbled upon a 2016 Atlantic piece that soothed my censor a little bit. Ed Yong’s “Rock-Smashing Monkeys Unintentionally Make Sharp Tools” really resonated all over for me.

Here’s the basic premise: Continue reading →

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Elizabeth: Friday Story Time and Sprints

Are you in the holiday mood yet?  I can hardly help it myself, having been watching the Hallmark Channel holiday movie marathon for weeks now.  I figure it’s better for my piece of mind than watching the nightly news.

My house is definitely getting in the holiday spirit, though not very quickly. There is a holiday tree in the corner, but it’s still awaiting lights and ornaments.  Guess I know what I’ll be doing this weekend.

Maybe.

Right now I’m just focusing on making it through one final day of work before calling this week done.  I was off at a conference for a few days, so that made the week fly by.  As a bonus, the conference was near a favorite New Orleans style restaurant, so my week included Jambalaya and Beignets – a definite win.

Now that the leftovers are gone, it’s time to turn my mind back to writing, which has been on the back burner lately.  I have some revisions to do, but first I think I’ll flex my creativity a little by giving today’s story prompt a try.

Care to join me? Continue reading →

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Michille: 50,045

NaNo-Shield-Logo-Web

Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month

National Novel Writing Month is over. And for the first time since I’ve started participating, I DID IT! 50,045 words. 32 scenes (plus a blog post). 24 days with words on the page. Fewest words – 0 (6 days of no writing). Most words – 5,307 (on November 30). Fortunately (or unfortunately) I ended up with a severe case of insomnia for the last week of NaNo so I was up at three or four a.m. making up word count from the previous weeks/days of missing the mark.

How did I do it? I wrote. A lot. I didn’t stop and go back and edit. One day, I wrote, ‘she grudgingly pushed the cell phone across the table to him’. I started to think of what that would look like instead of using the word grudgingly. How does one ‘grudgingly’ push a phone? Then I told myself to stop that nonsense and just keep writing. I could fix that later. Every line of dialogue had a tag. There are lots of adjectives, adverbs, filler words, inane conversation, and side bars. Continue reading →