A Tip for Writing

See the yellow and black butterfly!

Good news, I found out it was my shoes making my calves hurt.  Hallelujah!  Today I had to walk farther to get in my fifteen minutes.  Meaning I am slowly working back into shape.  LOL!

I received an email from a reader asking what books I would recommend to learn how to write.

I thought about it and realized, I couldn't think of any books to help a person become a writer.

Think of it this way, learning to write is a lot like learning to play a musical instrument.  You can read all the music books in the world, but that want help you to learn to play the instrument.

You need to pick up the instrument and practice over and over again until you have a beautiful melody.

As a second grade teacher I always told my students, that the written word was like music.  There was a rhythm to it.  When you read, you should feel and hear the melody.

Writing is the same way, there is a rhythm and melody to it.  The only way you can become a writer is to write over and over again, until you hear the melody of the piece.

The written word is music and if you do it right, a fantastic melody will be heard by all.

The old saying "practice makes perfect", but really it makes music.

Do your nerves get the better of you when you walk into a doctor's office?  Let me tell you, my BP jumps at least 10 digits.  I don't understand it, I mean really I use to work for doctors.  I know they are human like the rest of us, but lord the anxiety builds the minute my appointment time approaches.   All is fine and BP medication is still working. 

Joan Reeves  blog today is about creating a Gravatar.  You know, that thingy that shows up next to your name on the internet.  Mine is the yellow flowers.

Jonathan Antoine/Charlotte Jaconelli  every time I watch these two sing together it brings tears to my eyes.  For two such young people they are fantastic.  Check it out and see what I mean.

Lynn Viehl  on her blog she has two books she recommends reading if you need help with your writing.  I know I just got through saying, you just needed to write, but some people need books to guide them.  Give me a break!

C. Hope Clark has written about using dialect in your stories.  Give her a peek and you could be happier than a dead pig laying in the sunshine.  Her words not mine.  Ha!  Mine are more corny like thicker than molasses in the middle of winter.

Mary Curran Hackett gives the young girls of today a high five.  It is great to read about what is good about this younger generation.  Mary makes a lot of sense.

Mary Incontro  has an interesting blog over at Writer's Unboxed.  She talks about being self conscious of her age for the first time. 

Sinner's Sonnet another music video from u tube that is good.  I love the tune. 

The Bloggess has a fun blog today.  I wonder if any of our old relatives dug up a body before?  My son did have his grandma ashes on his piano.  Do you think this is strange?

Jungle Red Writer is asking for traveling tips and the other jungle writers give her some tips.  Give it a read and you might pick up hints for your next trip or not.

See you around the block.

 

Can I Visualize?

I think my back is well.  My plan is to start walking again.  I have started with walking fifteen minutes.

Lord have mercy!  My calves tied in knots.  I forced myself to finish.  Hmm, not only has my boobs gone south. it seems the rest of me is following.

Damn, I don't think visualizing my self looking like Sophia Loren will work.   The problem has grown bigger than I thought.  If you can pin point the problem, shouldn't you be able to correct it?   I need to  sweat, groan and moan myself in shape. 

No worry, I don't have to buy anything.  I probably have more diet and exercise books and exercise videos then Walmart.  I also have exercise equipment covered in dust.

Do you think dusting the exercise equipment could be counted toward the minutes of exercising?  Woot, Woot, I may only have to do ten minutes!

I had a great Sunday at  Sunday A'Fair .  My son Wayne and I listened to two great bands, watched people and most important shared time together.

Making a list of what I need to do before my daughter and her husband come for a visit.  Clean house and all that other fun stuff I don't do.   Note to self:  buy more food.

I have also read a few great blogs and I want to share them with you.

Abby  has some great pictures of balloons crafted into some wonderful designs and her blog is funny.


Liana Brooks   has a funny blog on the power of boobs.  Yes you read that right, the power of boobs.

Girl friends book club   has a blog that will let you know, you are not alone, if you are a chunky monkey.  It seems that is part of being a writer.  Damn, I must be great!  I've put a lot of chunky on my monkey in the last nine months.

K. B Owens   site is great if you want a laugh.  Especially the one about a computer programer and a frog.

Hope you have a great week.

See you around the block.

This and That

There are some shows on television, I love to watch.  One of them is Chop on HGTV.  It is amazing watching these chefs come up with some great dishes with time limits and some strange ingredients.  I look up to these chefs, because I know I would fold under the pressure and cry like a baby.

Sweet Genius have the chefs cooking desserts with strange ingredients, time limits and an inspiration, such as a gold fish in a bowl.  These chefs are turning out candies, cakes and etc.  Some of the treats are very pretty and you have to wonder how they learned to be so creative.

Sometimes a title of a program will catch my interest and I will watch the show.  Duck Dynasty, the title caught my attention and it is about some people in Louisiana, that have become millionaires from making duck calls.  They make them by hand, so nothing is mass produced.  This show proves you can take the red neck out of the woods, but you can't take the red neck traits away.  I found this show funny and entertaining, especially since the oldest son is a college educated business major and CEO of the company.  He has a brother, an uncle and other relatives as part of the company who try his patience, but yet bring him a lot of joy into his life.

Have you watched these shows?  What do you think about them? 

I'll write some more later, about some of the other shows I watch, but for right now we are changing gears.

Joan Reeves  has an interesting blog about a company called MUSO.  This internet business helps authors to catch illegal down loads (or is it up loads?  I'm not sure) of their writing.  This is a growing problem in the internet and we need watch dogs out there keeping people honest.  MUSO charges a fee for their services.  This will probably interest author's who are well known and make money with their books.  So far that doesn't seem to be a problem.

Laura Bradford   has an interesting blog on The Stiletto Gang.  She writes about the fine print none of us bothered to read before we became an author.  All the different jobs we find ourselves doing to make it in the writing business.

Jackie King has an amusing piece on growing up in Oklahoma.  Her mom was a single parent before it became fashionable.

Hope you enjoy reading the blogs I have shared with you.  I really enjoyed reading them.

See you around the block. 

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Hello Readers!

I meant to do this on Thursday, but some how I lost a day this week.  Go figure!

Well, my back is finally not painful.  It is a little sore, but I can live with that and work.  I never realized how pain drains you of all imagination and the energy to do anything.  I haven't done any writing for over a month.  I just sat on my couch and tried to breath very easily.

Some of the bloggers are talking about Amazon return system for e books.  It doesn't seem to matter if the e book was free or not, Amazon takes the cost of the e book off the author's pay.  Hmmm!
Now my thought on this is, since this is a digital book, people should not be able to return it.  If you bought a CD or DVD and opened it, you could not return it.  The same should apply to e books, with the idea if you downloaded it, it is considered opened and can not be returned.
Especially since one of the bloggers mentioned they could down load the e book from the Kindle to the computer.  I'm not sure how you do this, but I am sure a lot of people know how to do it.  Which mean the writer is being taken in a scam.

As a writer, I know how much time, energy, blood, sweat and tears are put into a book.  Authors need to be treated with respect and that means do not steal their books.   Lord have mercy think how you would feel if it happened to you!

Okay, off the soap box, but I had to put my two cents in.

The weather has been beautiful outside and my door and windows are open.  I love this time of year in Arizona. 

Tina and Jesse are enjoying the weather also, since their move here.  I hope they continue to enjoy it. 

All the boys and their families and I had lunch last weekend together at Wayne's house.  The only thing missing was Carey and Brian.  I wish they could have been there.  We really had a great time together.

We stuffed ourselves with hotdogs, hamburgers, salad, potato salad and a pistachio dessert.  We all ate too much.  LOL

I have decided, I must be an elevator.  My weight goes up and down.  Problem is I love to eat and I haven't figured out how to work around that.  Ha!  Soooo, once again I will try to get control of my weight.  I hate it when my clothes are tight.  

My brain has taken a vacation.  Question is was it ever really here? 

Have you ever noticed when you talk about something in the past with sweet remembrance, your kids have a completely different version and it is not so sweet?   My boys do that a lot, so I guess I was there, but not there, if you know what I mean?

I have run out of ramblings so I guess I'll see you around the block.

Is It Thursday?

I've been away from blogging for a while because of back pain.  It is getting better.  I am having longer periods of time without pain.

I have to admit, I had a bad time with my back last night.  It woke me up a couple of times with pain.  So I slept late this morning.  Oh well.

I had planned to write my blog yesterday, but if you follow me on twitter or facebook, you know my attention was caught by a book I started reading.

Smashwords is having a special on some of their books for a week.  My books Second Chance  ,  Fainting Damsel   and Charlie are fifty percent off this week.

Nicole Storey also has a book on Smashwords and it is free this week.  I started reading her book Gremsley Hollow The Chosen One and I couldn't put it down.  Sooo, instead of working on my blog, I was reading.  It is really a terrific book.  If you are a Harry Potter fan, you will love Gage in this story.  Check it out before the special runs out on Sunday at Smashwords.

I really need to get back into my writing.  I haven't done any since my back started hurting.  Of course my characters have continued to talk and scenes from my WIP have been flowing through my mind.

There has been a lot of talk about Pay Pal and censorship.  I dislike censorship, because through history you can see it did more harm then good.  It lead to burning of books (trembling body) and etc.  We are grown ups and should have the right to buy or sale what we have created.  We do not need big brother watching over us.  They don't do that great of a job anyway.  Right!  Think of prohibition, one of the stupidest moves our government ever made.

Okay, I am off my soap box.

See you around the block.