SYTYCW and A Request

I am a category romance junkie. Those of you who run in romance-writing circles have undoubtedly heard about Harlequin's yearly So You Think You Can Write talent search. This is the third year, and it is taking place earlier than other years as it was combined with another of their talent-search contests that's been discontinued, New Voices.

I said I wasn't going to enter(it can really be a time suck if you keep haunt the site for hours a day, obsessing over your votes), but I kind of got talked into it! So, now I'm making a mad dash to finish this new book on the off-chance that I make it to round two.

Which brings me to my request: the first round elimination is mostly decided by a public vote. You can vote once per day, and if you feel inclined, I'd be happy to accept a click on behalf of Mountain Man: MD (It's under my real name--no signing up under a pen name anymore, alas!)

Or there are loads of other entries up that are just as shiny, if not shinier, and I'm sure their owners would be happy for your vote too. You know, if you feel opinionated and like to click virtual buttons(and who doesn't like that?).

(I need to learn how to do some self-promotion without cringing--like I'm cringing now.)

Blog Design

I know, I know, it's all over the place. I can't stop with the curly-q's. I'm a doodler, especially when trying to figure out where my story is going or what is not working with it.

Will it stay like this? Probably not! But it's like this for at least a month...

Scarf project

I'm not sure how I got hoodwinked into this by my grandma, but I'm crocheting scarves for her to give to her siblings(and every other XX-chromosome person she knows). I'm 25 scarves (the photo below is a day old) into the 32 I've been assigned. Since I have so many, I've been doing the same pattern with different colors. I can do the pattern in my sleep, so it's fast with minimal ripping out of stitches.  ONLY 7 TO GO.

Different from the others, the yarn was super thin and fuzzy, and I love the gradient so I just went simple to let the material do the pretty-making. Actually, I have two of them now. Gotta love that $1 per skein BigLots bargain yarn bin!

This one is made from the RedHeart Sashay yarn. It looks like a ball of shoestring when you get it and you have to open it into this mesh pattern and crochet along the top edge. It works up surprisingly thick and is very boa-like when done. Super girly--which I seem to love when it comes to ribbons and ruffles.

Romance Tropes

Compiling a more complete tropes reference, but have strayed a bit into themes and characters here and there.

Moved this list to permanent page

Maggie Hates Hot Cookies

Maggie 4-1/2 months ago

I need to take a new picture of her, but I gotta get a new SD card first. Current one bit the dust and there is no transferring images to the computer without one.

In the interest of healthier treats, and to use up the Skippy peanut butter no one in the house will eat, I started making peanut butter doggie cookies(biscuits) for Maggie. I make them like this recipe but I use 3/4 c. milk and add 2T sugar.

She loves them. Unless they're hot from the oven--then she is terrified of them. I have not yet figured this dog out, she's really the craziest little hound I've ever known, but she's funny so that offsets the confusion I often experience around her.

Anyway, I made a batch last night took one to her while the others cooled. It was hot but not hot enough to burn my fingers--I carried it to her in my unprotected hand--but it was hotter than anything else she eats and she didn't know what to make of it.

At first, she peeled her lips back to try and take it with just her teeth, but she couldn't bring herself to bite it. So she just bit the air around the cookie several times and bounced back and forth.

I put it on the floor in front of her and she RAN AWAY from the evil-hot-cookie and hid across the room, behind the table.

Naturally, I had to milk this. I picked it up and pretended to eat it and she came rushing at me, barking like an insane thing, and I couldn't resist chasing her around the room with the hot cookie. She hid again. I sat again and pretended to eat the cookie--that never fails to bring her out of hiding. She might not want that cookie but she'll be damned if I'm going to eat it!

It was quite cool by this point, but she couldn't risk it. I know she could smell what it was, the whole house smelled of peanut butter, and she wanted it but still couldn't bring herself to eat it. Thus began phase 3 of her attempt to eat the cookie: running back and forth in front of me, biting the air by the cookie once as she zoomed past, and then barking more until she got turned around and ready to take another bite at it on the next lap.

This went on for a good twenty minutes and may be my new favorite game: Chasing Dog with Hot Cookie... Or Chasing Dog with Previously Hot Cookie... She refused to believe it had cooled off until I broke it into several pieces and lay it on the floor again. Once it no longer looked like the cookie, she came and gobbled it up.

I recommend ya'l bake doggie cookies and chase your dog with them. Best. Baking. Ever.

Star Wars and Storytelling Choices

I know, I've been gone. I tend to do that, like a cat that suddenly decides it has to be in another room RIGHT NOW and flees. I'd like to claim that I'm back and steady now, but I know that's probably not true. But, in my defense, I have been writing up a storm in my absence! If I'm productive here, I'm not productive with my projects and it looks like the opposite is true as well: if I'm productive with projects, I fall off the face of the blogosphere. Need to work on that.

Anyway.... So, first, what's new with me:

• I am currently in revision process on my medical romance with Harlequin. Dunno if it will turn into a sale, but I'm working with an editor to try and make it publishable with them. We'll see how that goes, but I'm actually loving the revision process. Learning heaptons as I go through the editor's notes. 
• Wrote and subbed a 30K novella in July, still out with another publisher but I'm hoping something it will return something good even if it's just a contact.

The past few days, I've been trying to figure out what story I want to work on next. I have three options, but before I pick one, I decided to explore a setting that's been tempting for me a two years. I couldn't imagine where I'd send this story in 2010 when the idea bloomed, but there are now options to send it and today I decided to explore the idea in my plotbook! Ideally, this story would take place over many years, not necessarily a family-saga, but kinda like that. And while deciding what story to start with, I started thinking about Star Wars and all the many episodes... which brings me to my questions:

• Do people who have experienced these movies from the standpoint of beginning with current Episode IV have the same experience as folks for whom Episode I is where they start watching? Is it the same story for them? Does it illicit the same emotions? 
• Are current-Episodes I-III as compelling as they are for those who first saw current-Episodes IV-VI and then really wanted to know how Vader became a bad guy? 
• Do you feel like with the addition of the new first three stories, that the whole of the six stories became more a chronicle of Vader's life or that it subjugated Luke's story some? I don't think I felt that way before the new three, but now that there is a chronicle of Vader-puppy thru to his 5 minutes of redemption and death... and the stories END there... it sure does feel like Vader-chronicles to me. 
• If these stories always existed for Lucas(even if initially as backstory), why did he choose to start the movies with current-Episode IV? Could he not have hooked his audience as well if he started with current-Episode I?

Dunno What to Call It ... Dialogue Revision-Foo

I don't really like to write craft posts -- I'm no authority on writing. I'm just a super-imaginative dyslexic who's mastered reading(just not out loud, God no...) and decided to give writing a go. That's it.

Well, that and I'm addicted to craft books. But I can't tell you whether this habit of mine is in any of them. Like most of the lessons which make the most sense to me, I think it's just from life experience and noticing patterns.

I love to write dialogue. In fact, when I write, it's in layers, and dialogue is what comes to me first. I blast through it like a screenplay and then go back to try and layer in narrative/emotions/yaddayaddafoo. Today, while revising, I noticed a pattern--a habit--and I'm not sure whether it's a good or a bad one.

I swap out colloquialisms and pat phrases with character-specific synonymous new phrases. Since I like to label people crazy, so we'll use that as as an example.

Old Stand-bys for the crazy-labeling:

• She's crazy. (generic, on-the-nose, uninteresting)
• She's nuttier than a fruitcake. (sillier, but still generic and cliched)
• He's not playing with a full deck. (so commonly said it's generic)

Swapped out with character-specific phrases:
    (Examples from actual family sayings. Yes, we're a colorful lot.)

• He's a half-a-bubble off plumb. (Credit: Dad, the carpenter)
• Some of the suds have gone out of her dishwater. (Credit: Stay-at-home mom)
• He's not painting with a full palette. (Credit: Me! Art chick likey)

I do the phrase-swapping willy-nilly, sometimes first draft, sometimes in revisions, sometimes I take it back out if it looks dumb later. And, of course, it's not just for the 'She's Crazy' phrases. Anything that is super-cliched is a possible target.

I don't know if this is good because it defines character voices, or if it'd be irritating in anything but miniscule numbers. Thoughts?