Most Popular:

• Princess Bride’s Count Rugen on Why Daylight Savings Time Sucks.

Most Commented:

• Judging a Book by Its Cover – Boys and YA Literature

Most FUN!:

• Ending Your Book Like a Party
• Being Fashionably Late Within Your Story

Most Thoughtful:

• A life lesson for the New Year from a squirrel
• Some things need never change

YA Specific:

• Judging a Book by Its Cover – Boys and YA Literature
• One Guy’s Perspective on “Guys” in Fiction

Road Trip Wednesdays:

• Various posts where I play along!

Poetic (aka actual poems):

• Random poems I’ve written

And of course since this is for YA Highway I have to pimp my very own YA Highway post from back in the wee early days of the “Highway” when the uber-thoughtful Kirsten Hubbard invited me to share a guest post because I’d played so nicely with the other bloggers. :)

• Finding Your Voice (on YA Highway)

Invite your characters over for dinner.

Out here in the real world a simple and fun way get to know someone better is to share a meal with them.  So why not do the same with your new characters?  While your at it why not invite all the characters from your current WIP over at the same time?  Instead of just dinner, hold a banquet!

Once you’ve made the decision to play host and the imaginary invitations have been sent out, the real work of character observation begins.

Here is a list of some things you’ll want to pay attention to as your fictional evening unfolds:

• Which of your characters was late and which ones were on time?
• Who took the time to RSVP and who simply showed up at your door?
• Did anyone come empty handed?  If not, what did they bring?
• Did anyone arrive unexpected or uninvited?  Who decided to bring a date along?
• How did each of them come dressed for the occasion?
• Who seemed happy to be there and who seemed annoyed?
• How did they each arrange themselves at the table?  Did anyone presume to sit at the head of the table?
• Assuming you’re a stupendous host with a boundless spread of delicacies, what kinds of foods did each of them eat?  Are any of them vegetarians?  Vegans?
• Who knew which fork was for what?  Who talked with their mouth full?
• Who put their napkin in their lap?  Or tucked it into their collar?  Who didn’t bother using a napkin at all?
• Did anyone pick at or push their food around on their plate?  Who cleaned their plates or asked for seconds?  Or thirds?!?
• Did anyone try to make off with any of your stuff when no one was looking?
• Which of your characters dominated the conversation?  Who sat quietly trying not to be noticed?
• Who was ready to, or needed to, go home as soon as the meal was over?  Did anyone stay too late and wear out their welcome to they had to be asked to leave?
• Did anyone find the liquor cabinet then need a cab to get home or even pass out on your couch?
• . . .

The purpose of the exercise is simply to notice how each of your individual characters behaves in a commonplace, imaginary setting.  This can help you better distinguish your characters from each other as well as point out where some of your characters are more alike than you had thought.  The most most thing here is to give each of your characters plenty of room to act freely then expect to be surprised!

It can be difficult, even painful at times, to throw away some those early, hard fought words or scenes from your early drafts.  Spending a little time up front really getting to know your characters first can help you hit the ground running when you do sit down to draft.   And if you feel you may be one of those writers who keeps too much early drafting around, simply plan in advance to use disposable tableware.

Just in case.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I decided to try this one based on the ratings and comments of my Goodreads friends though I was skeptical.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  I’m not at all into werewolf stories (this was my first in fact) and I was prepared for a tale of a dangerous werewolf boyfriend who’s bad but really good and just misunderstood.  Ack!

This story isn’t like that.

It’s first and foremost a love story, not a horror story.  What I appreciated the most is that the werewolves in this story aren’t “monsters”.  Unlike some stories where the protagonist’s risk of being murdered by their monster lover (should that lover give into their “true” nature) is somehow supposed to add to the elicit danger of the story, the power in this book is emotional as the protagonists themselves grapple with a reality that constantly threatens to keep them apart, yet neither character poses a direct threat of mortal danger to the other.

The writing is beautiful.  The characters are well-drawn, believably flawed and grow and change naturally as the story unfolds.

I’m definitely considering giving Linger a try.

View all my Goodreads reviews >>

When I first entered college, I didn’t know anything.
When I received my degree, I thought I knew everything.

When I first entered the workforce, I didn’t know anything.
When I received my first promotion, I thought I knew everything.

When I first entered parenthood, I didn’t know anything.

. . . Some things never change.

In my recent fiction writing efforts I had forgotten how much fun words can be, not just for their precision, but simply for their sound.

I’ve posted the sentence I wrote below along with a challenge of my own.

“He knew he didn’t know what he didn’t know, but knowing he didn’t know it didn’t mean he didn’t need it and he knew he needed it more than he needed to know it.”

Okay.  Now it’s your turn!

The challenge:

Using alliteration or assonance, or both, craft a sentence that’s simply fun to hear.  Write something, anything!  Don’t worry if it makes sense (think Dr. Seuss if that helps), as long as it sounds interesting then post it in the comments if you’d like to share.

As for me, I’ve started hearing all my neglected poetry calling out for me to come and play this weekend.

Maybe I will . . . it sounds like fun!

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ayn Rand’s stated intention with Atlas Shrugged was to explore her own philosophical ideas about life and human existence and the “ideal man” in novel form.  As a college Philosophy major I was intrigued by the idea of a novel intended to flesh out new philosophical thinking.

Ayn Rand’s style is beautiful and her writing is excellent, but the characters come off as too specifically drawn and singularly focused to be believed.  Each of them embodies an ideal rather than being “particularly” real.  The result is none of them feel like people you might run into anywhere in everyday life.  While I could see some the emerging themes being explored within each character, as reader of contemporary fiction, I prefer my characters to be tangible.

Ayn Rand demonstrates a keen and insightful understanding of human rationality and her characters are equally self-perceptive and self-aware.  Nevertheless, they often lack the ability to understand the motivation behind the ways other characters think and act.  While her exploration of character insights are eerily perceptive, each character’s continual rational analysis of their every experience gives the impression they are each navigating the overall story in isolation, reacting to the actions of the other characters, but never really connecting with them.

While the strength and beauty of the writing carries the reader along from page to page (an essential ingredient of a 1,200 page work) this work feels more like an intellectual exercise, albeit a very well written one, than like a story.  In the end, my commitment to the story itself didn’t last the full 1,200 pages and I ended up putting this one aside.

View all my Goodreads reviews >>

A few months ago my grandmother, Alice Lee Hedrick, sent my oldest daughter a special package containing a 100-year-old family mini-treasure trove.  In that package was this photograph of her own mother, Bobbie Collier Williams (my great-grandmother), in her cap and gown where she was valedictorian of her graduating class from Martha Washington College in 1910.  The package also contained her graduation cap (seen in the photo), the monogrammed lapel pin she wore (not in the photo), and the original typed script of her valedictory speech.

The world has changed immeasurably since 1910 as has the way in which our culture views women in society.  This post, however, isn’t really about any of that, although there’s plenty that could be said.  Instead, I’ll simply let the words of my great-grandmothers valedictory speech speak for themselves.  The speech itself is not earth-shattering.  It doesn’t contain any cryptic prophecies for the future, nor does it speak to any political issues of her day.  It’s simply a voice from the past; one that carries with it the same sorrow of partings and hopes for the future as from 100 years ago that students graduating still feel today.

I hope this voice from the past speaks to you today.  Please feel free to pass it on.

VALEDITORY TO CLASS OF ’10

Another year of our school-life is finished and many of us have come to-day for the last time. The occasion brings with it a comingled feeling of joy and sadness- joy because we have reached the goal for which we have so long been striving; sadness because of the severing of long and intimate companionships. Yet there is an end to all things “The shortest path and to the longest lane there comes and end”. The events of this day and of the past days are to be remembered and recalled with pleasure, perhaps with pride, when we have passed far down into the vale of years. As we hear the aged of to-day rehearse the scenes of their youth, so shall we revive the memories of our school when the battle of life had been fought, and we sit down to repose after the burden and the heat of the day are past. Then little incidents which seem no hardly worth telling will possess a deeper interest, and will linger longer and fondly in the imagination. To-day with its trials and it’s triumphs will be regarded as an epoch in the career of some of us; as a day worth remembering by all of us.

To you people of this historic old town, we extend the parting hand with emotions of especial regret, we came into your midst quietly, but we celebrate our departure; we came untried and unlearned, but we go bearing the marks of discipline, we came with our careers scarcely yet opened, but we go with our careers as students finished. It was to you we came as strangers seeking knowledge, friends and home. It is in your midst we have tarried thus long with pleasure and profit. To the scenes and places grown familiar to our view, which time can never efface from our hearts ‘fond recollection- good-bye. When the brows that now flush high with youthful ambition shall become withered by the advance of age, perchance we shall look back as to a bright sunbeam amid the shadows of the past, to the dear place, to these well remembered faces to which we now say – farewell.

There are those before us to-day who hold special claims upon our gratitude. To you, our beloved President, in behalf of the graduating class, I offer congratulations on the growth and increasing influence of the college to whose prosperity you are so zealously devoting your energies, and not for her sake only, but for our own as individuals shall we remember you with honor and regard for we have felt the impulse of the keen insight and the fine candor in which we have delighted, and know that you send us away with both clearer understanding and higher ideas, the farewell word we would speak to you is full of deeper meaning than we can now express.

It bears the fragrant memories of deep obligations to you for your kind words, wise suggestions, and fatherly advice.

To you, our dear teachers, at whose feet we have so often sat whose patience we have so often tried, whose best laid plans we have so often foiled by our heedlessness, yet whose labors have been impressing powerful influences on our lives- How can we voice our farewell to you? There has been the silent good-bye from many of you as we were together for the last time in your class-room, and as we turned away never more to be called up, nevermore to listen, and nevermore to think with you, the good-bye we say to you now, won then from heart to heart – farewell.

We must take our last farewell leave of you also we have been students with us. The duties which were once ours have largely become yours. To-day we leave and we leave the old college in your care. You are to walk these paths and halls when we have wandered away. You will still make the groves and halls ring with the cheers in which our voices have so often been joined. You are to have the many little incidents, the quaint experiences in class-rooms and campus such as we have had. And these things make us the more interested in you. We don’t expect to be long remembered by each of you. Our places will be taken. And, as you do the work that we have tried to do may it help you to know that you have with you in it the heartiest sympathy of those who to-day bid you farewell.

Classmates! This hallowed place holds us as its own for the last time to-day. Never again will it see us meet as we are met now. Unspeakable memories fill our hearts. The sweet scenes which are fast fading behind us pause to hold our view once more. The message which they send us falls richly upon each heart and whether or not we are saying the last good-bye to each other, we are saying good-bye to the old College days. They at least, will never come back. We cannot take leave of these familiar walls and sunder the pleasant associations which have bound us together here without acknowledging the debt of gratitude we owe to our Alma Mater. In these years we have learned to know the value of one another. We have formed the unrivaled friendships of college life. We have shared our pleasures beneath these beautiful shades and together we have read to the end of the long chapter of opportunities, and now there remains but the last brief words of farewell.

Let us not part with any false sentiment, but neither let us underestimate the sacredness of this hour. Ties beyond all measure are being severed forever. They may not concern others but they are ours.

The influences that have been wrought in our lives must be abiding forces even though the parting words must be spoken and our several paths lie in different directions henceforth. That moment has now come, and forgetting as we do all the heart wounds of class rivalry let us bear away from this place the precious casket of our strong true love, and from heart to heart, as we wait this moment let there be breathed a silent, as last good-bye.

God be with each one and if our next meeting be in the great Hereafter may an unclouded path of glorious labor, toil, and triumph lead back and back amid and beyond the scenes of time’s life to this time and this spot were now we say farewell.

(Where possible I’ve left all the original spelling intact, only taking the liberty to correct a few typographical errors, common in the days of manual typewriters.)

I thought I’d give it a shot.

A strong “guy” character in fiction is one who is confident in who he is (which doesn’t mean he’s not vulnerable), he has a distinct personality of his own making him interesting in his own right, and he doesn’t become someone else with the introduction of a love interest.  That’s not to say that falling in love (like having children) doesn’t push people to be better versions of themselves for the sake of those new relationships.  It certainly does!  (Or at least it should.)  What it DOES mean is that a strong character (male or female for that matter) is one who doesn’t stop being the person they are – the person the other character fell in love in the first place.

I’ve always believed a healthy relationship is built around two people looking together in the same direction, not two people (or even one for that matter) looking only at the other.

For the story to carry on after the romance ensues, strong characters are those who expand the scope of their own interests, even their lives, to include the other without completely trading in their independence for dependence (or even worse, co-dependence).  It’s a delicate balance.  However, each of the characters had a life before they met and each needs to continue to have a life after they meet, albeit an expanded one.

After all, where’s the excitement, or the conflict (fictionally speaking), in a relationship where one partner is merely hanging on the heels of the other doing nothing but waiting to be needed?  Without that underlying, ongoing tension which keeps them independent yet together, the romance is over.  Even if the characters themselves don’t appear bored with each other, the reader almost certainly will be.

Thoughts?

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Beautifully written and elegantly woven, like the Old Man of the Moon’s red threads of destiny, the story of Minli’s quest to change her family’s fortune takes her on an incredible journey of child-like mystery and self-discovery.

Reminiscent of The King of Ireland’s Son, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a delicate weaving together of many stories into a single tapestry of magic, hope, friendship and thankfulness. Simply told and powerfully experienced this is definitely my vote for our next family read-aloud.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is the winner of the 2010 Newbery Honor and the 2010 Josette Frank Award.

View all my Goodreads reviews >>

Consider this a first step.

The award: It’s a fun and simple challenge to tell six outrageous lies and one truth about yourself then see who can guess the truth.

Sounds harmless enough, so, here goes . . .

1) I have nine children.

2) Over the years I’ve worked as as babysitter, a library page, a bookstore clerk, a restaurant busboy, a glass installer, a landscaper, a programmer, an administrative assistant, a youth minister, a data processor and a clown.

3) I once stood on a table in my college campus food court at the University Place Hotel in the midst of the lunch crowd to serenade my future wife in apology for not getting her anything one year for Valentine’s Day.

4) I worry about everything, but somehow I’ve never had performance (audience) anxiety.

5) Because I’ve never looked my age I’m often mistaken for Justin Bieber.

6) I am wanted by the police in three states.

Any takers?  What do you think?  Leave your guesses in the comments below.

In the spirit of playing along, I’ve also decided to pass this along to a few other writers to see what they might do with it.

Jennifer Walkup, Megan Powell, Anna Staniszewski, Dawn Metcalf,  Tracy Clark & Heather Petty.

Have fun!  I look forward to reading your lists if you decide to play along.