Fforde Ffun

Worried about eaten by a carnivorous tree?  Here's some advice:

Clutter-free desk, clutter-free mind

Writers are often told to simplify their writing lives to avoid distractions.  If you write on a computer, for example, remove game programs and internet access.  Turn your phone ringer off during your writing time.  Writers even sometimes rent a writing space outside of their homes to get away from home distractions.  But what can you do if your writing space is the distraction?


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This Week's Task List

Since I'm doing The Artist's Way for the next eleven weeks, I've decided to start including those tasks in my weekly task list, as well.  Some of the tasks are somewhat involved in their descriptions, so I'm just going to list the tasks without going into details. Although, for those who have the book, I've included the task numbers so you can see which ones I've chosen for this week.

• Outline essays for grant application
• Finish rewriting chapter two for Pondered*
• Write at least two sections for the coffee house book
• Bean's six-month check-up (Tuesday evening)
• Write morning pages every day
• Take my artist for a date
• "Basic Principles" task (#1)
• "Where does your time go?" task (#2)
• "Affirmations" task (#5)
• "Life Pie" task (#7)
• "Ten Tiny Changes" task (#8-10)
• Weekly check-in (Sunday)

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*"Pondered" is the project name for the rewrite of my NaNo 2009 novel, which I titled She Pondered These Things in Her Heart.

The Artist's Way check-in: week one

1. How many days this week did you do your morning pages? Seven out of seven, we always hope. How was the experience for you? Unfortunately, due to some crazy things going on in my personal life, I didn't do my morning pages every day.  That's something I'm going to work on for week two.  The act of writing the morning pages, though, was a very good one for me.  I've already learned some important things about myself, and I can see a change in how I'm approaching my writing life.
2. Did you do your artist's date this week?  Yes, of course, we always hope.  And yet artist dates can be remarkably difficult to allow yourself.  What did you do?  How did it feel? Yes, I did.  This week, I spent an hour and let my young, inner child artist "play."  It was wonderful to let myself relax and not worry about what I should have been doing for that hour.  I think it was a good first date with my artist.
3. Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Working with the blurts and affirmations was good for me this week.  In dealing with blurts and my monster hall of fame, I realized that there are people in my monster hall of fame I didn't expect would be.  It's been good for me to see how certain people have been supportive (or not), and how to deal with that in my own self-confidence as a writer.

Coffee-Stained Pages: The Artist's Way

I've started working through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron this week.

A friend and fellow writer, Shannon, told me she was starting it this week.  I've had the book for years and have never done it, so I agreed to go through it with her.

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So I've decided to apply for a writers' grant

A couple of years ago, I came across a grant for women writers and visual artists.  I applied for it, not fully understanding the undertaking.  But I was excited, and figured I had as good a chance as anyone else.

Since then, I've been getting email updates from the organization, and I've decided that I'm going to apply for the grant again this year.  My situation has changed, I know much more about the organization, the grant, and the application process, and I figure I still have as good a chance as anyone else.

The application process is quite involved, and I'm putting quite a lot of my heart into it.  I've started working on it, and I'm altering my writing schedule to give me time every day to work on the application.

I don't know what's going to happen.  I don't know if I really have a chance at the grant or not, but I feel like I have to try.  So I am.

Wish me luck!

AROHO's Orlando Prizes and eMessage Competition

Any woman who writes short fiction, sudden fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry are eligible for upcoming the Orlando Prizes and eMessage Competition from A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO).


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February events

It's always good for writers to know what writing/reading events are going on in their local area.  Events can be good opportunities to network, let people know you're around, and learn.  Here are some upcoming events in the Orlando/central Florida area you may want to consider attending.


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10 on Tuesday: Harlem Renaissance writers

In honor of Black History Month, I present the following Harlem Renaissance writers, listed alphabetically:

1. Countee Cullen
2. W. E. B. DuBois
3. Jessie Redmon Fauset
4. Langston Hughes
5. Zora Neale Hurston
6. James Weldon Johnson
7. Alain Locke
8. Claude McKay
9. Jean Toomer
10. Carl Van Vechten

There are many, many other writers of the Harlem Renaissance worth reading, and many, many, many Black writers throughout history worth reading.  This is just a very small snippet of writers.  Enjoy!

Agents applaud Macmillan

After negotiation between Amazon and Macmillan, and lots of discussion and speculation among agents, readers, and writers, it seems an agreement has been reached that has made many industry agents happy.


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This Week's Task List

I'm adjusting my schedule.  I'm going to start getting up early to write rather than staying up late.  Bean usually gets up between 5 and 6 a.m. for an early morning snack, so my plan is to stay up when he gets up (even though he goes back to sleep for a little while, usually) and write until he's up for the day (usually between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m.).  We'll see how it goes.  Here's what's on my task list for this week:

• Pondered (NaNo 2009 novel) rewrite
• coffee house book draft
• finish converting writing documents to Google Docs
• start sending pictures from my hard drive to Google Docs (yep, they do pictures, too!)

Coffee-Stained Pages: Shades of Grey

Well, I've finished reading Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde.  And it was better than I could have expected.

As is the norm with Jasper Fforde, I don't know how to explain the story without giving anything away.  You could read descriptions on Barnes & Noble's website, but it doesn't begin to tell you how fun and quirky and complex the story really is.

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Why it's important for writers to read

You probably know that most writers are avid readers.  And that's a very good thing.  Not only because it's fun to read, but because writers should be using their reading selections to help their writing careers.


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J. D. Salinger dies at 91

The famously reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye died today.  He will be greatly missed, despite having been so possessive of his privacy.

Journalists and bloggers are writing tributes far better than I could, so I'll leave you to them.  The New York Times has quite a bit of interesting pieces on Salinger (as well as Caulfield) here.



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AP Photo

Regional writing

Last week, I wrote an article about using your geographical location as a basis of knowledge for your writing.  I'd like to expand on that a little and talk about your regional writing, specifically in fiction.


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10 on Tuesday: how to know if your spouse is a writer

[Please note: I use the word spouse in this post because that's my relationship status.  I don't mean to diminish other relationships in any way.]

1. You spend more in paper, printer ink, and books than rent.
2. You find your spouse staring at a wall or out the window, thinking. You come by an hour later to find your spouse in the same position, but claiming to have been working hard the whole time.
3. In conversations, your spouse tells stories about someone you don't know as if they have coffee together regularly, and when you ask about the person, you discover he or she is a character in a story.
4. You find ink pens in the bathroom.
5. Your driving schedule for family vacations is determined by bookstore hours.  (Ask Hubby about our trip to a used bookstore in Georgia on a drive home from up north.)
6. Your spouse scribbles a few notes on a paper napkin while you wait for your dessert at a restaurant.
7. When your spouse gets the remote, it's BookTV for the evening.
8. The bedroom light stays on at night until your spouse hits his or her word count.
9. Your spouse's hands are a neon rainbow from various highlighters.
10. When you ask your spouse a question during work time, you get a nod thirty seconds later, but not eye contact. No matter what the question was.

Good grammar feeds the hungry

In this week's newsletter from About.com's Grammar and Composition site is an article about how improving your grammar can help feed the hungry.  FreeRice.com has an English grammar game that challenges your knowledge for a good cause.


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This Week's Task List

I'm testing out a new schedule/routine this week.  Since my darling little java bean is wildly curious, he's decided he doesn't like to nap during the day.  He's afraid he'll miss something.  So he sleeps much longer at night and is awake all day.  That's fine, but it means I have to adjust my time management to be able to get things done.  So we'll see how it goes this week.

That said, I do have things I need to accomplish this week:

• Tristan's story first draft (coffee house book)
• Vivi's story first draft (coffee house book)
• Pondered chapter 1 rewrite (NaNo 2009)
• convert all Word documents to Google Docs

Zora! Festival begins

The Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities is underway, celebrating the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston, who was from Eatonville.


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Bloomsbury changes 'white-washed' book cover

There was a great deal of controversy this week over the cover art of Jaclyn Dolamore's debut novel, Magic Under Glass.  Bloomsbury USA, the publishing house, decided to depict a Caucasian model on the cover of the book, despite the protagonist being described as having brown skin.  Bloomsbury apologized on Thursday for the decision, and will not be supplying any more copies of the book until the cover has been redesigned.


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