Wishing all my family, friends and fans the merriest and happiest of holiday seasons! Hold your family close and your nog closer. May you have a New Year filled with good health, prosperity and laughter.
Thank you all for your support of my work this past year!
I was rattling on, to my 82 year old brother, about ‘cc’ing’ my email to a team of people. I stopped…realizing that he had no idea what I was talking about. And then he confirmed by asking, “you mean your private email went to other people? That’s not good.”
It got me to thinking about our urban dictionary and how we use ‘pop’ phrases. I’m no ‘spring chicken’ (a different decade) but I can’t help using today’s vernacular. So with a giggle and an abiding love of words, I thought I’d write a post about it.
CC: ‘I cc’d it to the team.‘ cc: at the bottom of a paper letter or memo meant that the people listed got a copy of the message. Today if I ‘cc’ Joe Smith, it would really mean I made a copy of Joe.
I’m Going to Starbucks: Everyone on the planet knows this phrase means you’re going for a coffee. Continue reading “Pop Culture Expressions”
Running out of ideas for that hard-to-buy-for person on your gift list. Or maybe you are looking for a really unique gift…
These Journals-Handbooks are customized just for you! 275 blank, lined pages for the writer who dwells in all of us. Each page margin is embedded with quotes from famous writers, playwrights, actors, directors, singers.
“The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as that between lightning and the lightning bug.” Mark Twain
There are sections on “How To…’. How to get started, how to develop rich characters, how to write a play, how to tell a story, 
how to write poetry and more!
Four wonderful covers to choose from. 
You still have time to order from www.amazon.com or scroll down and order from this post.
“I’m in love with the potential of miracles. For me, the safest place is out on a limb.” Shirley MacLaine
“For those who can do it and who keep their nerve, writing for a living still beats most real, grown-up jobs hands down.” Terrance Blacker
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Julia London, Matt Jorgenson, M.J. Moores, Mark Koning and actor/narrator Tavia Gilbert.
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Over and over again, I preach the concept: ‘let it flow’, ‘let your characters take you on a journey’, ‘If it’s going well, I will happily be just the typist’.
I recently interviewed Dean Koontz and here’s what he said on the subject:
“And then I start. In the first few chapters, the lead characters are forming, and I am learning who they are. I’ve often said that if I give characters free will, if I don’t plot out the story and instead present them with a problem and watch them deal with it, they begin to take on a life of their own, frequently surprising me with the choices they make. This is mysterious and exciting. When it’s going well, it’s simultaneously an intense intellectual endeavor and an almost dream-state journey of wonder and emotion.”
Author, Matt Jorgenson recently said when asked: Where do you first discover your characters?
“Initially I don’t think of them as characters. It’s kind of like arranging furniture. I need 
something tall here, wide there, elegant there. I often just plop them in for the energy they lend to the development of the story. When I’m unable to sit at my laptop and write I will often sketch out backstories for some of the characters with pen and paper based on what seems reasonable according to how they act/function in the story and then weave those details back in later.”
Continue reading “Authors, Where Do You Find Your Characters?”
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
Initially I don’t think of them as characters. It’s kind of like arranging furniture. I need something tall here, wide there, elegant there. I often just plop them in for the energy they lend to the development of the story. When I’m unable to sit at my laptop and write I will often sketch out backstories for some of the characters with pen and paper based on what seems reasonable according to how they act/function in the story and then weave those details back in later.
Q. What inspired your story/stories?
I suppose most of my stories are inspired by a frustration with the status quo and comfort zones. Particularly when there is needless pain or discomfort. A little orderliness and predictability can be nice, sure. What breaks my heart is watching and listening to people take a rote approach to life that’s making them miserable. Whether it’s their job, their relationship, their sexuality, drug of choice, inherited system of morality, or favorite hockey team… hanging on to some inherited or cultural obligation that blocks a person off from experiencing all that’s great with the world as they tick closer to death is truly tragic. Continue reading “More with Matt Jorgenson, Writer (part three)”
Matt Jorgenson – the author of Extraordinary Ostriches, Possible Particles and the Bifurcated Homunculus, The Hermaphroditic Shaman and the Missing Bottle of Ketchup, and Coagulation – A Clot of Stories. The titles alone should intrigue any reader but what really fascinated this blogger was that Matt has hung canvas on his wall, at home, so visitors can express their artistic bent while there.
Q. Matt, where do you write?
MJ. I do the bulk of my writing at home with my laptop. There’s a chair in the den/dining room I use when settling in for a long session. There’s a pub table in the kitchen I switch to when I’m on a roll and family obligations need to be juggled. It’s good to switch back and forth between the two as it’s easy to stand up and work at the pub table. I do little isometric exercises to stave off the aches and pains of prolonged sitting and get my blood pumping. When traveling or trying to break through a tough plot point I will break out a legal pad and a pen and write long hand. Cars, hotels, the basements of extended family members, and bars are some of my favorite places for this approach.
Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write?
MJ. Big glass of ice water. Hot coffee. Wordless music, typically EDM or House. Since I tend to write fast-paced, intense stories I find that a high level of beats-per-minute in the ambient music Continue reading “An Interview with Author, Matt Jorgenson”
Congratulations, this is just a quick note to let you know that your poem, Remembered Love is one of the poems being featured on the PoetrySoup.com home page this week. Thanks again and congratulations.
Sincerely, PoetrySoup.com
Remembered Love ©
Ashes waft over the meadow
a jet stream of sorrow,
beckoning the widow to the
edge, down to the river.
Contented epoch, at the
creek where the wolves run,
he lived and laughed.
We watched the bright blue
stars foxtrot across the milky
way, a midnight indigo quilt
shivering with light.
Mountain men whose Continue reading “A Story Set To Silent Music”
Do you read mysteries? Then you’ll love this mystery series set in the tough streets of New York City. 
Detective Jack O’Roarke, a big rough Irish cop, and his gentle, lady-like partner, Stella Garcia (make no mistake; she can take down a perp twice her size) enter the mysterious world of stripper clubs, art museums, Broadway theatre, the priesthood, and cooking shows to catch their killer.
The series begins with The Art of Murder and currently ends with the most recent, The Taste of Murder, which takes you behind the scenes of reality cooking shows. Please enjoy the following excerpt.
Patrick Shelley, dressed in his signature pink dress shirt and matching paisley tie, walked up to O’Roarke and dropped a case file box on his desk, barely missing the detective’s nose. Another detective, right behind Pat, set two more boxes on a chair and, snorting in disgust, walked away. Pat scowled down at O’Roarke as he flipped open the lid.
“What’s this?” Homicide Detective O’Roarke asked.
“A cold case of mine.” The cop barked. “Boss said to give it to you.” Continue reading “Looking for a Good Mystery?”
Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?
(con’t. from Part 2) JL. From there, the manuscript is improved over and over again with subsequent rounds of editing by me, by an editor’s notes, by copy editors who catch inconsistencies that, unbelievably, neither me or a developmental editor caught. So the finished book has been massaged and manipulated many times over. At least in my experience.
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing/stories?
JL. Just living life informs the writing. I meant what I said about having to be in the world to understand it. It would be very easy to never leave my house, to sit in front of a computer all day. But I won’t allow myself to do that. I have an active lifestyle, I travel, I have an extended family I love and that has been dysfunctional from time to time. Continue reading “More with best selling author, Julia London (part 3)”
I was sitting, in my car, on a freeway, (some might say a parking lot), stuck in traffic, not moving. To while away the time I was reading the bumper stickers and signs in the back windows of other automobiles. Wondering if I’d ever get home, it suddenly struck me; the parallel between totems, talismans, and these stickers, magnets, paste-ons that modern man posts on his steel steed to declare his beliefs.
Here is an excerpt of the poetry that was born while impatiently sitting in traffic. Grabbing scraps of paper from the floorboards, writing on a restaurant napkin, old receipt, the back of a grocery list… lest I forget my words~~~~
Totem and Talisman ©
Totem. Storyteller of the tribe’s history and lore,
felled and carved in reverence, from the tree centuries old sculpted in living wood;
a face, a fish, a spirit, a bear, the sun, the moon
Totems live on as statuary in the garden; a wooden rooster tops the mail box.
A mural brushed upon a barn wall; the flag of a beloved country, the star of a lone state.
The Nations painted their sturdy, brave little horses before battle…
a circle of paint about the eye for truer vision, hand prints on shoulder
and flank to ward off the spear
Today’s tribes paint their vehicles with bumper stickers, magnetic ribbons,
and window decals. All proclaiming some truth, totems to tell other tribes what they believe.
Support this, hate that, down with this, up with that. Proud to be a redneck,
a woman, a boater, a christian, a Viet Nam vet, proud to be a farmer,
a republican, a parent, a fisherman. Prouder still to be a soldier,
a grandpa, a boy scout, a sailor, a golfer, an Irishman, a lover of guns.’ ©
Keep yourself open to inspiration…eyes, ears, brain and heart. You will be inspired by strange and wonderful things and you will write strange and wonderful things. You will leave totems for following generations to read.
To read more of my poetry……..click here
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Julia London in October and Matt Jorgenson later this winter. Coming in December! My review of a new release by Dean Koontz, Ashley Bell.
To receive my sign up on the home page and enter your email address. I love comments! Take the time to write one at the bottom of the post.
