This is a thread from a published author on writing. I am presently in the middle of reading it.
Monthly Archives: February 2004
Wonderful Words
I found a great site, well, I got there via an old blog from someone whose blogs I haven’t read before, but it’s there and it’s great. It’s about etymology, where words come from. Being a bibliophile and a lover of words, I think I have spent half an hour there reading through some I knew and some I didn’t. I’m going back after I post this.
Homeschooling responses
I wrote a long entry on homeschooling at my other blog and people are still commenting there rather than coming here.
This was an interesting comment I received this week:
When I finished my home schooling I was not ready to face life. I had few friends during my youth and I was extreamly shy. I am a slow reader, slow with numbers and as you may have guessed I cant spell worth a darn. socializing was very difficult for me I am much better at it now but then I’m 44. I did not have a good relationship with my grandparents. Our family was very close( dad, mom and six kids ) we did alot of camping and hiking together. I generaly have fond memories of my childhood and my parents were responscible and did the best they Knew how. We were church attenders and as such I have lived a generaly good moral life. My only regret is not being ready to face life on my own.
Every thing I have just shared with you is absolutly true except for one thing, I lied about the homeschool part. My parents never did homeschool me or my siblings. I am a product of the lousy stinkin public school system. Many of my teachers were poor at best and they didnt care about me. My sixth grade teacher, a male gave me zero personal time. He brought in other T. aids for that. I misrably failed that year and had to repeat it. Enough said about that.
I am now happily married and have two school age children. My wife and I are BOTH homescholling them. My oldest daughter was shy like me since birth but. I vowed that she would not repeat my childhood. AND SHE IS NOT. She can converse with adults. Ive had adults tell me that she is a talker. She gets excited about going to grandmas house and calls her on the phone often. When she was a baby she would cry just looking at other people. Even grandma couldnt hold her. My cildren routinely socialize with people of other races. In fact my wife is of a differnt race and my children are mixed and are becoming bilingual and if I might add the most beautiful children this side of the mississippi. My nine year old can read almost as well as me, minus the vocabulary and no doubt will spell better. YOU can have your lousy money wasten, humanistic, condom passing out, drug and smoke infested, crude and vulgar language lousy teacher, anti social public school. Don’t tell me it ain’t so, Ive been there.
Handwriting
I have two sons. Right now we have been focusing on the youngest’s handwriting skills. They are abysmal. I have gotten him a new pencil type and we are working on writing every day. I am thinking about switching to cursive. This is a major concern for us.
This site was forwarded to me by my hubby, because it deals with the problem.
Sometimes you have to keep moving forward even when you aren’t sure how you are going to get where you want to go.
IRS Relief
Thanks to a coworker, my husband and I don’t owe the government almost $1000. Actually, we didn’t owe it before the coworker came to our rescue. But we thought we did and we were going to tell the government we did, which would have meant we did owe it.
But we can deduct part of our insurance premiums, which were $13,000 last year, and that means we DON’T owe the government money. We get some of our money we’ve already paid them back.
Thank you God and coworker.
Editing and goals
I have finished editing the majority of novel one. However, the final chapter needs a major re-write. It’s all tell, no show. Or very little. I think I have finally figured out how to work it out. But I don’t feel up to writing it right now.
I am six pages behind, as of now, on novel two. I do know where I want to go, but it is taking longer to go there than I expected. It is hard to keep the conflicts going when I don’t like conflicts. Yet I know that conflicts are what makes the novel readable.
In chapter one the main character’s parents are shot. At the end of chapter one I let the reader know they are not dead. I wonder if I should. The main character grieves just as much, since she does not know they are not dead. But the reader doesn’t hurt as much for her since they know the folks are okay, or at least the mom is potentially okay.
The next conflicts are her caring for people who she is the only person who can talk to them and then being sold away from them. Then she is sold to someone and separated from her uncle. She does manage to, she thinks, get her uncle free. He, however, tries to finagle it so that her owner buys him as well. Her owner does bid on him, but since he buys Uncle with Uncle’s money, he tells Uncle he has only need of one and that he is free. That’s a problem.
Then I’ve got them separated. Uncle is a main character in the first part of this book. I guess I should just write.
My husband thinks I won’t send out book one, or so he says. The problem is there are only two publishing houses whose books I mainly read. One does not accept unsolicited manuscripts and the other is notoriously slow at going through the slush pile and likes to “guide” a new author. (A recent “guide” has ruined a new author for my husband.) So I can send to a house which does accept slush and has a quick turn around or I can send it to a house with a very slow turn around.
Plus, I want book one finished before I send it off. June 15 is my goal for finishing the final editing on book one and sending it off. It is also my goal for book two to be finished as a rough draft.
Anonymity
The Curmudgeonly Clerk discusses anonymity of sites here. I agree wholeheartedly with his conclusions.
I could not talk about my students and my work if you knew who I was. I couldn’t discuss my life with any strength.
There are some people, perhaps even reading my blog, who know who I am, but I do not think that it is traceable on the net. I could be wrong. If you are good at that kind of thing, please see if you can tell me who I am.
Sci fi and the devil
I just can’t get over the parent who is sure sci fi is from the devil. (See January 20 post.)
Two of my friends became Christians because of science fiction. Can’t remember which book convinced one of them, but the other read Atlas Shrugged and decided Christianity was true. (Don’t ask me how he got that out of the novel, I don’t know. God works in mysterious ways.)
I put in “Christian science fiction” on google and came up with some totally not related cites. I wonder what was up with that. I did, however, hit this interesting list. John Bibee, the first author on the list, goes to my old church in Austin. I’ve read a few of the others: Lewis, Lawhead, Peretti, Percy, Chesterton, Stasheff (a personal favorite), Bradbury, L’Engle, King…
I put in “Christian fantasy” and found a small list with Phillip Jackson and Lars Walker on it. I found a longer list that was mostly the sci fi authors listed above, but with fantasy stories next to their names.
Turtledove’s Byzantium book was on the list. Problems with Orthodoxy, but it says it’s a good book. I might want to read that one.
Slush pile dramas
My husband sent a must read URL. It’s from Tor on slush.
I am editing my first novel, trying to get it into shape to send out to publishers. I am writing my second novel, trying to have it going somewhere by the time I am ready to send out novel one. Plus novel two is a sequel to novel one, so sometimes, when a better idea appears in novel two, I go back and edit novel one.
I read through the article. I figure I ought to at least get to number 9.
Then I read through the comments. This saga of a manuscript in the slush pile was highly entertaining.
I am actually in the middle of reading confessions of a slush pile reader as I write this. I wonder how it will turn out. It is not as punchy as the first, nor as entertaining as the second. At least, not yet.