monday poke! *poke poke poke*

hey, all. this week's prompt:

step 1: turn your eyes to the right hand column on this page.
step 2: scan down. futher, further . . . until you see the writer's unblock tool.
step 3: use it.

(if you don't like the current surreal prompts in the box, refresh your page and i think new ones pop up.)

if one hits you in the sweet spot, write write write and then come back and tell me about it!
that is all. :D

aunt aggy's agony column

one of the wisest souls i know has opened up an advice column for the lovelorn and shopworn, the confused and bemused and abused, the blocked and half-cocked. all questions are welcome, be they writing-related or not--aunt aggy knows all!!

click here: http://www.writing.com/main/forums/item_id/1542964

in other news, i need to pound out a flash fiction tonight. and it's gotta be good. juicy. something to get me back in the groove, because i've been dry as an exposed tendon in the sun. all creaky and chewy. mmmm...tendon. *slaps own face*

all right, back on track. writing starts now. (will get back to you with results.)
go visit aunt aggy--i'm not kidding.

dang-it-all-to-chicken-scratch!

you ever have the feeling you've forgotten something? doesn't come to you, but it kind of inches around the back of your neck and tickles at the tiny hairs there while you swat at it. won't go away. something . . . something i was supposed to--frick!!!

i remember now.

yesterday was Prompt Monday. mother fudgebucket. sorry, sorry. apologies.
*walks to jar on counter with brain inside, removes lid and cradles gray matter in both hands*
i really should use this thing more often.

this week's Official Tuesday (but really Monday) Writing Prompt:
http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=139788

i love this image, full of mist and mystery. gets me thinking about dark fairy tales. ooooh.

let me ask something else, while i'm here. is your communication style ever affected by a prolonged writing abstinence? as if your creativity testicles are swollen and tender with the growing need to spill forth their dna-soaked verbiage onto the quivering, fertile page?!?!

*draws deep breaths, bosoms heaving*

i'll notice that my most mundane memos become overwrought with veiny prose . . . and i'll use lots of excessive exclamation punctuation marks, too. heh. as a public service, i should just go ahead and write my fiction more often; not so much so people will benefit from reading, but so they don't have to suffer through my turgid non-fiction scribblings in the meantime.

how important is setting the setting, anyway?

starting a story, breaking the cool white of the blank page with your black scribblings is a moment of enormous potential; potential, and pressure. i have been thwarted many times. to be honest, i'm somewhat thwarted right now, as i blog to delay returning to my story-in-progress. even with the magic of computers and word processors, there's something about that first crack in the eggshell, that first dip into the smooth water, that makes us draw and hold our breath for a second. well, me at least. i know i'm about to sully that perfection with my fallible attempt at setting my scene. with each character typed onto the page, the potential for greatness ebbs away. sad, isn't it? as much as we strive for greatness, we know that most of the time we settle for competent, or well-told. or truly awful, on a bad day.

so, why setting? what's so important about it? even if we begin our story smack in the middle of some hair-pulling adventure, a moment of such adrenaline and terror we forget to swallow as we gobble up the words, we still have to get a clue about where the story is, and when it is. even if all we receive is the essential clues, we have to have a hint of a world in which to plant our thirsty imagination. readers don't mind filling in a few holes, but they need that weedy framework upon which to work.

so, setting. how to go about it. i'll start a story without the foggiest idea of what's gonna happen. i may have a specific scene in my head--wild-haired gypsy in a circus tent, werewolf cowgirl by a desert campfire, sri lankan fisherman staring at his feet on the beach--and just follow from there, seeing where the characters take me. but i don't think we can begin a story without having a clue about where and when it happens. can you remember a successful story in which this is true? seriously--because i'm always up for learning a new skill.

but, how to know what to include and what to leave out?

for me, i try to see the scene through my character's eyes. what's important to them? what would they notice? is their emotional state affecting how they perceive the world around them? i've read stories in which the author describes with loving--and sometimes skillful--detail everything in a scene down to the stitching on the curtains. curtain stitching may be vital to the telling of the story, but i'm not sure i'm interested in reading a story where the characters find stitches in fabric an essential part of life.

but, take the ornate bowl of fresh fruit on the table, just in from the front hall. the dewy skin on the apple, the fragile pear with its wooden stem still intact, the banana just beginning to brown at the tip. if our character's a street urchin, brought inside a fine mansion for the sake of delivering a mysterious message, you can bet he's gonna notice that fruit bowl. he might be cramming fruit down his trousers as we speak, not thinking ahead about how to explain to the head butler the suspicious bulges around his thighs. the urchin might like a fine coat made from well-stitched curtain, but consider the hierarchy of needs--he'll be looking for food first. and the odds against him making off with a curtain? not so good. fruit in the trousers? pretty good, actually. it's doubtful the butler's gonna reach down the boy's filthy pants legs for a smudged apple.

okay, i've beaten this one to death, i think. no, wait.

the only other bit of technique i could offer on this is: less is more. if i have to choose between moving my story along and spending time fluttering my eyelashes over a setting description, i'm going for the action. if you can impart a tone, a feel for the place along with a few well-chosen details, that will give the reader enough to work with. they'll get it--they're not dumb. you can always add more detail in a later scene, if you feel you need to. and if your character never needs to return to this specific setting, it may not warrant a full description, anyway.

okay, i think that's it. what suggestions do you have on setting a scene? tricks? techniques? lessons learned? favorite scene descriptions? please let me know.

here's a fun and informative article delving a little deeper--okay, a lot deeper--into what i've been saying: http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/description.shtml enjoy!

monday promptiness.

so, i had an interesting conversation with a guy last week. yes, he was clinically delusional, but that doesn't discount the creative value of his observations.

he had been sitting inside his house, and noticed that the house had somehow 'grown' more windows than it had had before. he'd look through one window to look through another and then another, never actually seeing through to the outside world. he was puzzled, rightfully so, and decided he needed to investigate his house from the outside to solve the puzzle. he walked outside to examine the exterior, circled his house, and noted that, now, his house had developed more corners than it had had before. corners upon corners, until he had trouble finding the front door again.

imagining his experience got me feeling all mind-bendy, wondering how to develop a plot around this phenomenon. or a character. a sympathetic character with which readers would identify. fabulous.

i hope this scenario gets your brain apoppin', too. happy monday. :)

wee hiatus interruptus.

hi, all.
sorry for the week-long disappearance--but, i'm back! and today's pretty special. special for me, i should clarify. today is the launch date for a brand new online magazine called Ruthless Peoples Magazine. (find it at www.ruthlesspeoples.com)

this behemoth of love and talent is run by dominic hamer and stewart baker, two cohorts and writers themselves, and it's a thing of beauty. speaking objectively, of course. it's a free subscription, so please go check it out--you won't be sorry. and maybe bang a bottle of champagne against its bow for good measure. launch ahoy!

(in the interest of full disclosure, i should mention one of my stories is in the lineup. :D)

it's prompt monday again.

official monday prompt:

okay, random word groupings to spark that brain!
logy
bricklayer
flatbrain
metatextual
lumpen
anachronometer
backslasher

how to use the weird stuff.

today's been kind of weird for me. i'm not talking fellini weird, but more of an emotional offness due to job-related changes. funny how closely we identify with what we do for a living. hm. and how much it can affect us without warning or explanation.

but this post isn't about jobs. or fellini. (too bad.) or even really about weird emotional upheaval.

it's about how we can use these moments to help us write. you've seen those scenes in movies where an actor is instructed to use their personal experiences to enhance their connection to their role? this is what i'm talking about. characterization, whether on stage or on the page, is all about details. we learn who this person is by piecing together moments we're given throughout the performance; we form a cohesive portrait. just like in life.

when we meet someone, we don't know who they are within the first few minutes. we come to understand them over time, through observing how they react to and feel about various influences, how they dress and carry themselves, how life interacts with them to bring out who they are. writing is just like this.

which brings me back to the emotional weirdness. we all seek truth in our writing. we create characters who ring true for us, no matter how peculiar they are to someone else. they each hold an internal integrity which makes them real. the key is not to aim for the easy and predictable, but for what's true. not every good guy wears a white hat. not every hooker has a heart of gold. if we want our characters to hit with power, we have to break through those stereotypes which only fog up reader's attention spans. maybe our hooker has a bad latex allergy. well, first, she's in the wrong profession, we think. but then, she surprises us by developing a no-touchie clientele. kinky. and she overcharges. demand versus supply, baby.

go for the emotional weirdness. remember those moments in your own life which forced an unexpected reaction from you--pick apart the how and why. store those moments, retaining the feel and intensity of the emotion, the tics. reconfigure those minor truths to create a unique and solid character when you need him.

what is it about writing that makes my legs itch?

as soon as i settle down for a nice bash at the keyboard, i begin to notice things. the same things, interestingly, that i noticed the few times i attempted to settle down for a nice bout of meditation. my skin itches in variable spots. i suddenly feel i have too many eyelashes and certainly one or more of them is about to drop into my eye and slide up under the lid. i have to pee. that leaf i'm focusing on, the one floating in the stream as i allow every other bit of flotsam to pass on by, keeps shouting distracting things to me. "you've got all the creative juice of an old raisin." . . . "what? you think you're up to a story? with a plot? all right. belly up if you've got the stones, but i wager there's not a conclusion fit for my mum's teat in there." apparently, the leaf floating in my zen stream is a pissy brit. (no offense, dom--you're fabulous! don't ever change.)

when i tried meditation several years ago, i discovered i have what's referred to as 'the monkey mind'. my thoughts are a constant jumble of activity--not necessarily useful, creative activity--and slowing them down is tantamount to death for me. i resisted clearing my mind because i was afraid if the thoughts slowed and disappeared, they might never come back. not that i feared coma. i was afraid of losing the buzz that keeps me constant company. i don't know any other way to be. sometimes the jumpy brain gets in my way, but more often it gives me those sparks of inspiration.

i don't feel i can summon a creative thought when i need one, but i have faith that if i sit and muse long enough, i'll have a germ of an interesting idea. and that's enough for me. i wouldn't want my ideas to come to me too easily--i know me, and i'd just take them for granted.

so, that itchy leg and that hairy eye? i'm keeping 'em. to me, they're just another tool to finding the next story. hopefully, not every story of mine is gonna have a hairy eye in it.

http://www.scribophile.com/authors/laurie-paulsen/works/scratching-the-surface/

*edit: these serendipitous moments are what make life worth living, yes? i reposted my year-old eyeball story yesterday and received today an invitation to publish the thing in the April 2009 issue of Ruthless Peoples Magazine!! Woop!! so, bad news: i've gotta take it down for a few months. good news: you can read it for free on april 14th at www.ruthlesspeoples.com!! go now and subscribe for updates! gehee.*

prompt monday writing prompt

i was reading about the different anatomical parts of the skull and came across the term fontanelle. man, what a great word. moms (and unnaturally learned people) might know about it because it's the soft spot babies have in the top of their skull because their cranial bones haven't knitted together yet.
this got my brain to wander, thinking about the metaphorical significance of having an opening in our skulls when we're born. awesome.

i hope it does something for you, too.

latest acceptance/rejection letter

hi, all. i received my first combination rejection/acceptance letter today--very exciting! i submitted two stories to www.alienskinmag.com in january, and they've accepted one of them, sensory overlord, for their june/july issue. yay! here's a snippet from the email i recieved:

"Dear Laurie,We have all read, reviewed, and discussed both of your stories and we reallyenjoyed one of them. We would like to use Sensory Overlord in our June/July2009 Issue of AlienSkin Magazine.We have to pass on Alison's Crush, the tale just didn't appeal to us."

the other story wasn't quite in their genre, and i can understand their lack of interest in it. alison's crush is more of a straight horror story, and alienskin is sf-oriented (as if the name didn't give it away.) but hey, if you're interested in reading a bit o' scary, please check it out at: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1117622