Writers Need Online Resources

The longer that you work as a writer, the more you need to find help with a lot of issues that weren’t as urgent when you first started. In other words, the more you write, the more you learn and the more you realize you don’t know. If you are attempting to get a book published on Amazon and you see a huge plot hole that wasn’t there a minute ago, you may start to panic.

Thirty Reasons to be Thankful, Part Two.

Nano is over!  I’ll get back to original posts on Thursday. Thanks for keeping up with all this! — DLH

Continuing from last Sunday  last Thursday with numbers 16 through 30. And you do realize, I don’t really live on Facebook, right?

The Changing Male Ideal

Still sick, still busy, sorry to post a repeat but it is from so long ago I doubt anyone now reading has seen it. Thanks! — Demi

This blog is a bit difficult for me to write as I keep getting sidetracked over delightful images. I certainly hope my keyboard is waterproof. I especially drooled over a clip from Beau Brummel – This Charming Man, starring James Purefoy. Sincere thanks to Kristen Koster for posting that delectable eye candy here.

Thirty Reasons to be Thankful, Part Two.

Continuing from last Sunday with number 16 through 30. And you do realize, I don’t really live on Facebook, right?

Games to Play With Books

An advantage to Facebook and Scribophile is the ability to play weird games that would be much less fun face to face. Imagine getting out lists of silly words, one for each letter of the alphabet and one for each month of the year, and having your friends at a party tell you what their porn star name would be, based on the month they were born and the first letter of their last name. Not enough alcohol in the world to make that funny.

Names for Characters and More

Many writers struggle with find the perfect name for their characters. I currently have, I believe, two female main characters with the same first name. Oh well, neither story is going to be published before I get a chance to work on it.

Clean Eating, Dirty Fiction

On the last Sunday of every month, I like to share part of what I have learned in my weight loss journey. To be a better writer, I need to get exercise, plenty of sleep, have good posture, and eat clean food. To me, that means eliminating foods Grandma would not recognize as food. Like Flaming Hot Cheetos ™ or bacon-wrapped Lil’ Smokies ™ Grandma might have enjoyed the bacon wrapped stuff after we explained it to her, but it’s the need to say “This is edible” that is the problem. http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/clean-eating/

Trends in Eye Candy, Part Two

Today I will look at what was considered attractive in men and women from the 1980s through the current rages. I understand that in the course of the decades, different looks were popular year by year, and that different cultures, West Coast vs. East Coast, etc., made a difference.

Many of My BFFs are Writers

If you are a writer and you don’t know any other writers well enough to say, “Let’s go get coffee and talk about the plot,” you have a serious problem. Sure, people you know will talk out the plot with you. They will listen to you rant about the characters, and they will nod knowingly when you talk about publishing. But they have a very slight chance of knowing what the whole world of a writer is about.

Art Imitates Life

Being chronically obese is something like being a shape changer. I’ve often joked about over-inflating my feet when it’s hot. Just one of the outside influences that impact my shape.

Here are things that contributed to my weight issues:
*Raised in a low-income home
*Raised without a father
*Genetics, mostly from my mother’s side
*Tonsils out at age 2
*Molested, 3 separate incidents
*Spoiled
*Felt unloved
*Afraid of close contact with men

I gave myself permission on my birthday to eat pretty much what I wanted to eat. The next day, I jumped back on the health wagon. Did really good for four hours. Then I had a clear feeling of fighting an entity that wants out, much like a werewolf or wild cat or dragon. Leashing the beast is what my life is all about. Well, that and writing.

My inner-eating-dragon isn’t the only one I battle, either. There’s my inner couch potato, inner sex addict, and inner gaming nerd.

By the way, my inner sex addict is an introvert. Writing about sex is fine, acting it out with my husband is wonderful, but just thinking about doing anything with strangers? Let’s eat some chocolate instead.

Now I have this idea that probably isn’t new, but so many shape shifters belong to packs and families, all of the same animals, all life long. My idea – and I’m cool with sharing it here, there’s no way I will get all my stories written out. So if you resonate with this idea, go for it! – is a shape shifter who is a loner, and can become any of 4 or 5 different beings. And each of those creatures “lives” full time in the person’s brain.

There was a television show some years ago, Manimal, that went with a similar premise. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085051/ But it was a crime drama and not a lot of attention was paid to how he got that way, were there others like him, etc. Lois McMasters Bujold looked at multiple personalities is an awesome way with Mark Vorkosigan’s disturbing evolution in Mirror Dance. Not about shape shifters, but still exactly what I am thinking of. Ms. Bujold is an amazing writer, and the glimpse of many personalities in one brain is as smooth as silk and eye-opening. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_Dance

So I just need some demon bane to be successful at my diet and exercise. I need to fine the valve to deflate strategic areas. And I need some good crowd control moves to keep the brain characters in order. See you on Thursday.