Tickle Me Pink

I really don’t like the color pink all that much. This week we are taking a ride on the color wheel. We’ll explore different aspects of the hues that we’re surrounded by every moment of the day.

Picture that spinning playground piece of equipment with the upside down L shaped handles that whips around uncontrollably, causing projectile vomiting to become not so infant-like anymore? And here we go…

First stop:

What does your favorite color say about you?

Blue. That’s mine. Would you guess melancholy, prone to sadness, marred by life? Besides being a little too reflective a little too often, that’s not the best description of me. I’d stick with passionate, fiercely loyal and unafraid to be ridiculous if it means I’m living free. I also am enamored by water and sky.

Cream and purple (plum to be exact) follow close behind as favorite number two and three.

Which brings me to this thought: Writers, do you use color imaginatively in your work? I’m eating up some of Bohjalian’s clever descriptions in The Double Bind.

Here are some quickies:

Sentence one of Chapter Two: “Katherine Maguire had luminescent green eyes, and unlike her chlorine-saturated hair they hadn’t faded the slightest bit with age.”

“He had…thin bay-colored hair.”

Another gentleman was described as having straw-colored hair.

“His hair was dyed the color of orange Kool-Aid…”

"Talia had exquisite, almond-shaded skin and a raven’s black mane…”

And one more: “But she had eyes the blue of delft china…” (this one was my favorite and I couldn’t stop thinking about it).

I’m hardly sixty pages in and these descriptions are making my brain happy. He didn’t overdo it, risking sappiness or provide so little detail it’s hard to imagine what the characters could possibly look like. So far Bohjalian has given me the perfect amount of intentional description. All day yesterday, I dreamed up ways of how I could describe my MC’s hair, other than blonde.

Questions:
What does your favorite color say about you?
Writers, do you work on weaving specific colors into how you describe your characters? Eyes and hair can be tricky. Do you enjoy inventing new ways of elaborating on these features?

*photos by flickr
**Come visit me at Exemplify today
***Tip of the day: Observe the names of the colors in a Crayola box of crayons to get your juices flowing

One Question Friday

Every Friday I’m going to ask a question. The questions I choose might be ambiguous on purpose. The goal is to have you answer the question according to your beliefs, where you’re at in life or a circumstance that might have recently impacted you. The only thing I ask is that you provide an explanation for why you answered the way you did.

It is my hope to understand you better through this and also to gain a greater understanding of humanity and how people make decisions.

Ready for your question?

Fantasy or Reality?

*photos by flickr
** I’m perplexed over at 5 Minutes for Faith today.

Most Memorable TV Moments

Do you ever wonder how much things you watch impact your thoughts? I’ve listed ten of my most memorable TV moments.

Columbine (I had a newborn at the time. I remember thinking, what will schools be like when my children attend?)

Alex P. Keaton Driving all Night to See Ellen (In my early years of puberty I thought this defined romance.)

Fall of the World Trade Towers (I was five months pregnant with my first child. I remember wondering what the world would be like for her.)


Shock and Awe (Our high school staged a walk-out to protest and we all wore yellow ribbons. Bette Midler’s song, “From a Distance” was overplayed on the radio.)


The Loss of the Challenger (I was in fifth grade, band recital, clarinet in hand. When I returned home I saw my mom break down bawling for the first time.)

Richard Hatch Winning (That was the most incensed I’ve ever been over a TV show.)


The Headless Horseman episode (Nothing scared me more than this episode growing up.)


Kevin Kisses Winnie (This was particularly sweet because Kevin and I were about the same age, going through the same growing pains.)


Ross Standing in the Rain (He was her lobster. Ah, to be young and in my 20’s again. No thanks.)


The Hatch is Open (Still my favorite.)


Can you guess some of those shows? What are some of your most memorable TV moments?









*photos by flickr
**interesting that two of my answers have the word hatch in them…hmmm.

A Word On Symbols

Have you ever witnessed it done right? It truly is a privilege to read a book or watch a movie woven with intentional and subtle symbols. Immediately I think of the praying mantis in The Hour I First Believed and I breathe a sigh of contentment as I remember how expertly Leif Enger laced symbols throughout Peace Like a River.

A quick lesson:

Another term used for incorporating symbols into your work is leitmotif. Beautiful word, isn’t it? It was originally used to define musical themes (maybe that’s why I enjoy it so much. Tie music into writing and I’m sold). Leitmotif stands for symbols that define characters and defines the situation he/she is in, or defines both. Essentially it’s when you try to introduce a recurring theme.

Let’s say you want rain to symbolize something in your WIP. It’s important that each time you introduce rain, you ratchet up the intensity. This doesn’t mean that it’s droplets in the beginning of the novel and a thunderstorm at the end. What works is when the character (better yet, the reader) is more involved and cognizant of the rain toward the end. The impact or awareness of the symbol should be greater as the novel moves along. This is difficult to do well. That’s why I treasure when a movie or novel delicately and intelligently deals with the use of symbols. I adore symbols.

In a Writer’s Digest article Karen S. Wiesner wrote, “Whether you make symbols subtle or well defined, they take on layers of meaning each time they’re mentioned, and they become an integral part of the story. As a general rule, every character should have only one associated symbol, but if you have a total of two in the book, one of them should be subtle, while the other should be well defined. The point is to enhance or contrast, not take over the story so the symbol becomes the focal point when you have no desire for it to be.”

Are you currently writing a character with a particular symbol, a mannerism, trait, hobby, scar, or working one into your novel as something tangible like a token, mirror, blade of grass or ladybug?

Also, I’d love to know if you recall a book or movie that blew you away with the eloquent use of symbolism.

“If there is any one thing I love about writing more than the rest, it’s that sudden flash of insight when you see how everything connects.” Stephen King

*photos by flickr (for those of you who are new to my blog, the intentional play on words was just for fun…I’m aware of the spelling difference for symbol. You don’t need to worry about me)

Everyone’s LOL

Everyone’s LOL.

Not me. I’m not pullin’ an Eeyore or anything; I’ve just never been crazy about abbreviations. It’s likely I’m resisting having to learn them now because when my daughters are teenagers I’ll have to go to school to decode them.

~~So here’s how it goes in my thoughts (reminding you that’s where we are when we read this blog)…I see the abbreviation, my mind frowns, and I immediately make the mental “correction” saying, “laughing out loud” to myself.

I’m also not a huge fan of BFF either, but that’s another abbreviation for another time.

Now that my aversion of abbreviations is out, let’s do something about it today. Let’s play a game with LOL, fling it around a bit as a cat might play with a feather and ball on a string. (Do they have this invention for cats? If not, I imagine they’d quite like it). Back from tangent central. Here’s the way to play: Come up with your own term for LOL other than the obvious. I’ll give you some examples, and then have at it. I’m excited to read what you come up with.

LOL

Lovingly Ogling Ladybugs
Lingering On Linguistics
Lettuce On Limburger
Lead Ossification Letter
Loopy Over LOL

Have fun and remember life doesn’t always need to be serious.

*photos by flickr

No Free Rides

Put me in your pocket. Really, I’ll find a way to shrink down. I won’t say much. I can be vewy vewy quiet. I just need one moment, one golden moment to spring from your pocket to present my pitch. Okay, clearly I’m being facetious and a tad silly. I’m not going to the upcoming conferences that my blogging friends are so joyfully writing about. However, I refuse to pout.

Instead I’m going to do everything in my financial power to further my writing career. I’ll give you two examples of things I did this weekend.

1. I conducted research at the fair. One of the books I wrote, Beautiful Bovine called for me to describe oh, maybe a cow or two. At the fair I had dozens of cows to take pictures of and dozens of owners to answer my questions. The smells, sounds and sights surrounded me and I 100% took advantage of my location (so much so my husband had to come find me at one point and my daughter wondered why I’d been taking so many pictures of cows).



2. I attended a book reading/signing. Jacqueline Sheehan, New York Times Bestselling author of Lost & Found and Now & Then, visited a local bookstore (I actually drove an hour) and graciously answered questions, read from her latest book and in the process couldn’t have been more cordial and kind. This outing meant a lot to me for several reasons. One, I escaped my house for a little while, leaving my husband with the girls. Two, I love books. Even more, I love people who are as in love with writing as I am. Hearing Jacqueline describe one of her characters as having “not a whisper of a callous on his hands” stuck with me. I left feeling encouraged and inspired, having connected with an intelligent writer.

Will I attend a conference someday? It’s likely. But for now, at this point in my life, I’m doing what I can to grow as a writer. I’m reading books on writing and well-written books, I’m researching, I’m studying agent blogs, I’m game for attending other book readings, but most of all I’m doing the one thing that will push me ahead most on this writing track—I’m writing.

There are no free rides. Much as I’d like to hop in your pocket and head to a conference, I really don’t have the ability to shrink. Why would I want to anyway? Quiet has never really been my thing. So, I’m investing in the resources I have.

I’m hoping to hear wonderful success stories of newly agented friends. I’ll celebrate with them.

One final thought: Upon entering the fair you pay to park, you pay to get in and you pay for tickets to ride the rides. Writing isn’t much different. In order to ride the ride, there’s a cost.

Are you doing all you can to grow as a writer? And is writing the most exciting ride for you? For me writing is the Ferris Wheel.

*photos by flickr
**I’m over at Live Beautiful later today.

One Question Friday

Every Friday I’m going to ask a question. The questions I choose might be ambiguous on purpose. The goal is to have you answer the question according to your beliefs, where you’re at in life or a circumstance that might have recently impacted you. The only thing I ask is that you provide an explanation for why you answered the way you did.

It is my hope to understand you better through this and also to gain a greater understanding of humanity and how people make decisions.

Question Time:

Justice or Mercy?

*photos by flickr