The Write Way (because there is no ‘Right’ way….
November 18, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives
Okay, maybe this woman had it a little harder than WE do!!
But when the holidays roll around and there’s family making all kinds of demands on your time, what’s a writer supposed to do?
Today, the plan was to finish my current chapter and get at least half way through the next one. What’s the old saying?? If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans??
Well, no writing was done today. And you know what, it’s okay. I’ll make up the pages. I’ll pick up the pace again later. Because as writers, that’s what we do. It’s who we are.
If you’re lucky enough to be making a living at this wonderful/miserable/fantastic/challenging career, then you just suck it up and do what you have to do.
Someone asked me the other day how I’d managed to write and sell more than 100 books in the last mumble mumble years. The answer? You keep typing. You keep imagining. You keep your butt in the chair and you do the work. If one proposal’s rejected, you do another one. When you finish one book, you move onto the next one.
Now, with the holidays upon us (and how did that happen so quickly??), my game plan will be to write when I can and do however much I can a day. Try to write at least a page every day. Keep yourself immersed in your story because after two weeks off, it’s hard to remember how to string a compelling paragraph together!
So remember that you’re a writer. When the family demands your time, remember to give yourself some time, too. To do what you were born to do. To tell your stories. To live in your imagination. Because, as my favorite old saying goes…….If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!
Writer’s Word
November 17, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Jenny Hansen, Writer's Word“Replace†the Tendonitis
by Jenny Hansen
At the November meeting our Esteemed Presidents plugged my column at the podium and invited anyone who had a question about Word to email me. One brave soul stepped right up and shared with me that her editing was giving her a BAD case of tendonitis.
Her question: I’d like to see the Find feature be enhanced in Word. When I edit, I use this to find my overused words like- she/her, was, “ly” adverbs, etc. I highlight them in different colors, then go back and edit them out. Problem is, I get tendonitis in my arm from working the mouse back and forth between the word and selecting the color! Is there any way to “hold” or “lock in” the color selection?
No one should have to deal with tendonitis from writing, especially with something like this that can be done so much easier. There are actually two fixes – one is more manual and one is more automatic. I will share both of them with you, along with some of my thoughts about the beauty of the Replace feature.
Manual method:
In all Microsoft programs, the F4 button on the keyboard means “do that again!” So if you highlight the word you want and set the color, then the next word you highlight should allow you to hit the F4 key and give you the color again. I can’t say this has a lot of finesse, but it will save your arm when it comes to changing the color of the words in the first place.
Note for those of you who do not know how to change the Font color in Word:
You can click on the Format menu and choose Font and pick a color from there (CTRL+D brings up the Font dialog box with no mousing) OR you can simply click on the last button of the Formatting toolbar. It looks like the letter “A†with a colored line under it. The color of the line will most likely be black but, if you’ve been playing with the colors, it will be the shade of the last color you chose.
Automatic method:
If the F4 method doesn’t work for you (perhaps you want your words to be bold AND purple), you might want to use the Replace feature instead.
The Replace command is located in the Find dialog box – it is the second tab. To use the keyboard: Find is brought up with the CTRL+F keyboard shortcut, Replace is brought up with CTRL + H. I also know people who like to double-click with their mouse on the Status bar at the bottom of the screen in Word – this is the one that says “Page 1†and “Sec 1†and sits at the bottom to the left of the page numbers (these look something like “2/12â€). If you double-click on the Status Bar, the Find/Replace/GoTo dialog box will pop up. Simply click on the Replace tab and you are in business.
In the Replace dialog box, there is a button called “More” with a double arrow on it. If you click on that More button, it will expand the dialog box to where you see an entire lower section that contains a bunch of nifty stuff. In order for you decide for yourself which nifty stuff you really like, I encourage you to click on the question mark in the upper right corner of this dialog and see what is here.
Now that you have expanded the “More†section, that same button will read “Less†to shrink things back down. Definitely take a look around here – this is a jackpot for writers.
For example, if you wanted to find all the “she” or all the “her,” you could put the same word in both the “Find what” and the “Replace with” lines. Then highlight the word in the “Replace with” line and click on the Format button down in the lower section of the dialog – pick the font color and style you want. Hit the Replace All button. This will replace every instance of that word with the same word in the formatted style that you want. You can always do the same thing with a different font/color request to change everything back. There is no mouse involved in this, hence less tendonitis.
The unnamed Chapter Member who asked this question found a piece of “shareware” out there that I thought I’d pass along. It’s called Fore Words. It’s an add-on to Word, and will find repetitive words and phrases. It is priced at $14.95 and I’ve included the link: http://www.cro-code.com/forewords.jsp
If anyone thinks up another question that MUST be answered, just email me at jennyhansensmail@aol.com. Otherwise, prepare for a column on using Track Changes next month. By then, my Christmas baking should be all finished!
WRITE ANGLE
November 16, 2007 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster tagged as Rebecca Forster, Write Angleby Rebecca Forster
Like hopscotch, anyone who is anyone (think Hallmark, Macys, my children) leap off Halloween, land firmly on Christmas and roll their broke –and- tired- of- celebrating selves into a new year with only a quick touchdown in November for Thanksgiving day. All this makes the month of November seem irrelevant, a step child, a wallflower at the dance. A chapter that one can skip without missing anything important to the story.
Case in point. The grocery store, November 1. Milk is the mission. To get to the dairy case I had to dodge the sale bins of Halloween candy (brown corrugated cardboard) and slalom around the even bigger full-price bins of Christmas candy (red and green corrugated cardboard) . When I finally got to the milk it was surrounded by little soldiers encased in waxy yellow cardboard – the infamous eggnog..
To be fair, I did spy a display of cornstarch (bright yellow cardboard), Cornbread stuffing mix (brown cardboard) and pumpkin pie goop (hallelujia, a tin can). I suppose my brain should have registered Thanksgiving but the wreath display above the end-cap made me think Christmas dinner.
Which brings me to November and its one-day claim to fame – Thanksgiving. Other months are filled with days of celebration. October is spent sewing costumes, watching horror movies, getting ready for trick-or-treat. December’s days come with luncheons, holiday parties, gift exchanges and cookie baking. Thanksgiving’s frenetic cooking and eating is twenty-four hours long and the next day Christmas sales wipe November from our minds completely.
For me, though, ignoring November is like skipping over a chapter that really deserves attention. Sure there may be a hot love scene in chapter twelve, but chapter eleven gives you all the subtle little insights into why you’ll care what happens next. So here is my November; here is what I would miss if, every year, I leapt over this chapter in my life.
November is the month when I first feel the bite of a cold wind that reminds me even California has seasons and that, in reality, I’m still a Missouri girl. It is the month when long days become short and the early darkness makes me feel like nesting. Cuddled under a quilt of my own making I take the time to truly appreciate the feathers of that nest: chicks who come and go, a husband who still finds this bird the most lovable in the flock after 31 years, a warm place to hunker down if the rain comes.
November is a month in which we celebrate the birthdays of my sisters-in-law – a set of twins and one more. They have been my good friends for what seems like forever. It is the month I travel to see my own brothers and sisters half way across the country. I can’t wait because seeing their faces – even if it is only now and again – makes me feel as if I am still young, my father is still with us, my mother will still rule the roost and all is right with the world.
November isn’t the end, so I still have time to do things that will make me feel as if I am wrapping up the year well; it is not the beginning so there isn’t the uncertainty that what lies ahead might not be as good as what was left behind.
A Veterans Day Memory…
November 11, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Confessions of a Podcast Goddessby Jina Bacarr
On this Veterans Day, I’m reminded of a cold, dreary January morning when I wandered over the frozen ground in a forest in Luxembourg, the hushed voices of fallen soldiers whispering in my ear, begging me not to forget them. An unbearable chill settled into my bones, a shiver striking me between the shoulder blades when I heard the crunching sound of iron-shod boots behind me. Heavy boots. The same sound an American soldier would have heard during the long siege of the Battle of the Bulge that took place here during the freezing winter of 1944-45 in World War II.
The enemy. Ready to strike him down.
Was there no greater fear?
But today the boots belonged to my guide, a wizened old man with a pipe settled between his thin lips as he pointed out where different parts of the battle took place. I never forgot my tour of the battlefield then later the memorial site, where rows of white crosses mark the graves of fallen American soldiers, as well as the gravestone marker where General George S. Patton is buried. I also visited a similar field down the road where wooden German crosses mark the burial place of their dead. Snowflakes drifted down from the gray sky overhead in a peaceful pattern, scurrying from one marker to another before settling on the graves. It made no difference whether those graves were Allied or Axis. They were fallen soldiers.
War is hell.
Our military men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan know that same fear, day in and day out. No wonder when they have a few moments to relax, they catch up on emails from home. They also like to read. Books have a way of taking the soldier’s mind off from his fear, his pain, his loneliness. And that’s where we can help. Send books to our fighting men and women overseas.
Best, Jina
Jina Bacarr is currently working on an erotic fiction novel set during World War II about a cabaret dancer who becomes a spy.
She is the author of The Blonde Geisha , Naughty Paris, Tokyo Rendezvous, a Spice Brief, and Spies, Lies and Naked Thighs, an erotic spy thriller, March 2008.
Jina writes erotic adventure for Spice Books. “Get Caught in the Act!”
THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO MMMRUH!
November 10, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Things That Make Me Go Mmmruh
Stealing Back the Thunder
by
Geralyn Ruane
Recent conversation that took place in a supermarket parking lot between me and a homeless man:
Homeless Man: Do you have any spare change?
Me: (Giving him seven bucks) Here ya go. Hey, I have some old blankets in my car. Do you need a blanket?
Homeless Man: I could use a blanket.
Me: Okay. I’ll be right back. I just have to run to my car to get it. You’ll stay here?
Homeless Man: I’ll be here.
I run to my car, grab a blanket, then grab an unopened bottle of water off the back seat. I hurry back to the man.
Me: Here. (I hand him the blanket.) And here’s some water. (I hand him the bottle.)
Homeless Man: Thank you! (Takes the stuff then looks me in the eye.) You’re a Christian, aren’t you.
Me: Actually, no.
Homeless Man: But you believe in the Lord.
Me: I believe in being nice to people.
Homeless Man: I can see in your eyes that you have the Lord in you.
Me: (Waving as I turn away) Take care.
Homeless Man: (Calling to my retreating back) The Lord is in you! I know it!
God is stealing my thunder and I don’t like it. Or rather, people are stealing my thunder and giving it to God. Why does everyone insist on giving a Higher Power credit for the things I do right here on earth – or for the good things people do in general? What about my friend Kristin? Does God get her thunder, too? She gave me those blankets in the first place because she knows I dole out blankets and socks to the homeless once the whether starts turning cold.
I don’t think the human race gets enough credit for its goodness. Sure, I actually know some people who help others because they are getting older and want to build up points for Heaven. But I know far more people who help others because, for them, there is simply no other way to live.
My ire on the subject of misappropriated thunder rumbles deep and strong, but not out of brewing jealousy or rankled pride. The big picture is far more disturbing, especially when you flip it over. Do you see it? Giving God credit for the good people do is the mirror image of making God the scapegoat for all the evil people do.
Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, pickets the funerals of fallen servicemen, shouting at the mourners that God is killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq to punish Americans for their tolerance of homosexuality. Does God deserve to take this bullet? Or does such inflammatory rhetoric instead serve to distract from the reality of what certain people are doing to other people, and why? If we give God the blame, or the credit, we miss out on what our fellow humans are doing.
Like the woman who chased me into Trader Joe’s the other day.
Woman: Excuse me! Excuse me! Do you drive the red Volkswagen?
Me: (Turning around) Yes.
Woman: You need to put change in the meter. I know it’s Sunday, but they’ll ticket you. The car in front of you has a ticket.
Me: (I follow her back to my car and see both the other car’s ticket and the sign I’d ignored posting the parking rules.) Thanks!
Woman: I just know that I hate to get a ticket.
Me: (Putting change into the meter) No, really, thanks!
Was God looking out for me by sending that woman to prevent my possible ticket? I prefer to let that woman keep her own richly deserved thunder. She helped me out. Mmmruh!
I steal back the credit or blame given to God whenever I can. No matter what Higher Power we believe in or how we pray, we should acknowledge the thunder of humanity. We need to recognize the good done by people, or we’ll miss the sublime moments of mmmruh! that give life its pulse and light and hope. And we need to recognize the evil done by people, so that we can do something about it.
Mmmruh! It’s all about people. John Lennon could imagine it. Can you?
Geralyn Ruane’s favorite Hardy Boy is whichever one Parker Stevenson played, and these days she writes romance, chick lit and women’s fiction. Last year her short story “Jane Austen Meets the New York Giants†was published in the New York Times Bestselling anthology The Right Words at the Right Time Volume 2.
