Day: June 24, 2015

AlphaSmart: The Writer’s Dream Machine

In 2000, I bought a miracle machine. It was called an AlphaSmart. It was a portable key board with memory for 100 pages in 8 separate files. It ran (forever) on 3 double A batteries. It weighed next to nothing. The screen showed only 4 lines at a time, but could be read outside. It came with cable to hook to a computer to upload what you’d written into a file. And you didn’t have to worry about hitting a save button. “Alph” automatically saved everything. The unit was more portable than a laptop.

alphasmart

Other authors discovered AlphaSmart. In the Reno airport in 2004, after the RWA national conference, I overheard an airport employee saying he’d never heard of them until that week, and it seemed all these women were traveling with them.

I used Alph for years. I had to replace a couple of keys, the space bar, and the batteries, but entire books were written on Alph. Eventually the LCD screen popped a vessel or something a couple of years ago and the liquid crystal bled across the viewing window. The plastic holding the metal springy thingy for the spacebar broke. The “B” key split in half and fell off. The company had been sold, the new owners no longer sold replacement parts, and discontinued making the Writer’s Dream Machine. After nearly 10 years of slave labor, my original Alph had to retire. My $200 investment had been a great one.

Last year, one of my critique partners was cleaning out her office. She had an AlphaSmart she’d rarely used and offered to give it to me. I hemmed. I hawed. Eventually I caved.

Why did I hesitate for even a second?

I can pound out a page before I leave for work in the morning; another page is written on my lunch hour–all without waiting for my laptop to boot up. There’s no Internet distraction. I can sit on my patio-in-progress and just write. I still have an index card I wrote out years ago with a page conversion table on it: 0.6 Alph pages = 1 “old-fashioned” 250-word page; 1.2 = 2; 1.8=3; and so on.

Other authors I know still use their AlphaSmarts. I’m glad I rediscovered the joy of mine.

 

Getting Caught

May is National Get Caught Reading Month.

If I’m going to get caught doing anything, reading would be right there at the top of my list.

Other things I wouldn’t mind getting caught doing:

  • random acts of kindness
  • laughing
  • cuddling a cat
  • enjoying a meal
  • listening to music
  • being with my friends

What would you like to get caught doing?

 

 

WIP Wednesday: Prepping for the New Year Part 1

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I do set goals every year. My best friends, my writing peeps (a.k.a. The Purples), and I have been doing goals together since 2005. We even gave a workshop on goal-setting to our local chapter in October of last year.

I first started seriously thinking about goals–specifically writing goals, but all goals–after attending then listening to a workshop by Barbara Samuel at the RWA National Conference in 2004. It seemed appropriate to run into her when thinking about my goals for 2015. I found this blog by her shortly before Thanksgiving.

I shared the link with the Purples. One Purple friend shared this link. And this one. Another Purple shared this. And another link showed up on our e-mail loop.

I think the recurring theme in most of these shared blogs is that we’re all feeling overwhelmed. We’re juggling too many roles. The demands on our time are increasing and any support systems seems to be vanishing. I once read a book–I thought I’d written down the quote, but I can’t seem to find it–in which the author wrote, “If one more person tells me to get up an hour earlier to do whatever they think I should do–eventually, I will never get to bed.”

We are too demanding of ourselves when we set our goals. We need to take a step back and take a deep breath.. Setting our goals needs to be rooted in reality–our reality, with our families, our homes, our day jobs, our spiritual communities, and other obligations.. We need to create realistic expectations for ourselves, and the number one goal should be, “Say No.”  Our goals need to be grounded in truth, not fantasy. One person can do only so much.

 

 

 

WIP Wednesday: Gay Yellen

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Today I’m pleased to welcome author Gay Yellen to Work In Progress Wednesday.

Gay, what are your top three dream destinations and why?

GY: Paris, because I lived there when I was twenty, and I can never get enough; Montana, because hiking in Glacier National Park is a big dose of heaven; Venice, because it’s Venice.

MJ: What is one thing most people don’t know about you?

GY: I used to have a nightclub act.

MJ: Really? What did you do?

GY: I was cabaret singer–some Broadway, some pop, some French/American hits.

MJ: That’s wild! If you weren’t writing, would that be your dream job?

GY: No. I’d be a philanthropist. I’d love to help create meaningful solutions to some of our most intractable problems – educate the poor, aid in medical research – and encourage struggling artists, too.

MJ: What do you normally eat for breakfast, or do you skip it and get straight to work?

GY: Multigrain toast with almond butter and a slice of fresh fruit (peach in summer, pear in winter) or my brother’s yummy fig preserves) and a big mug of coffee. Then I’m ready to work.

MJ: Describe your ideal/dream writing space.

GY: A room of my own, with a big beautiful view.

MJ: Briefly describe your writing day/process.

GY: I try to visualize the next day’s work as I’m falling asleep at night, so that by morning I’m ready to start the next scene, or fix a passage that’s been bugging me. It’s an old habit from my student years, when I’d use the same technique to review whatever I’d been studying. Of course, this can backfire, and keep you up all night worrying! But it usually prepares me to start writing the next day. I work until the muse leaves me, or life gets in the way.

MJ: That’s a great process!  Name one writing-related website you use a lot.

GY: I find Anne R. Allen’s blog useful (annerallen.blogspot.com), and Pamela Fagan Hutchins is the queen of successful indie authors (pamelahutchins.com). Even though I have a publisher, I learn so much from her. Sorry, you said one, but I have two!

MJ: That’s okay. What book do you wish you could have written?

GY: The Book Thief

MJ: Name 3 things on your desk right now.

GY: A crazy pile of manuscript edits on the sequel to The Body Business. Three full flash drives and a fourth waiting to be used. A paperweight my husband made for his Mom when he was in third grade with his adorable school picture on top.

MJ: Love the paperweight! Do you listen to music when you write? Explain.

GY: When I work on the historical fiction I hope to complete before I die, I listen to music of that place and time. Otherwise, silence is golden.

MJ: What do you love most about your WIP hero?

GY: He’s a man of mystery, with a sad past and a kind heart. Handsome and rich, too. I like everything about him, except that it’s hard for him to share his feelings.

MJ: What do you least like about your WIP heroine?

GY: She’s still trying to find herself, but I think she’s going to make it!

MJ: What genre is your current WIP?

GY: Mystery.

MJ: What’s your favorite genre to read?

GY: Literary fiction.

MJ: How did you come up with your hero and heroine’s names?

GY: I pictured them in my mind and tried a few until something stuck.

MJ: Do you ever base characters on people you know?

GY: Not consciously.

MJ: How did you chose the setting for your current WIP?

GY: It’s a sequel to The Body Business, so for now, the characters are in the same place, which is Houston and the beautiful Central Texas hills. Stay tuned, though . . .

MJ: LOL! And with that, it’s time for the lightning round. Wine: red or white?

GY: Do I have to choose? Red, mostly, but I do love Prosecco.

MJ: I don’t blame you. Beer: can or bottle?

GY: Bottle.

MJ: Cinco de Mayo or St. Patrick’s Day?

GY: Cinco de Mayo. I live in Texas, and even if I didn’t – the margaritas!

MJ: Paper or e-books?

GY: Paper.

MJ: Introvert or extrovert?

GY: Introvert.

MJ: Favorite ethnic food?

GY: My comfort ethnic foods are Italian and Mexican.

MJ: Mmmm. Now for the meat of the blog: your current WIP. Can you share the opening lines with us?

GY: The working title for this is The Body Next Door.

Miles of dark empty highway had lulled me into a stupor until, out of nowhere, a thundering convoy of eighteen-wheelers caught up to me, hurtling their loads like freight trains. They closed in around my compact rental—a Ford Ferret, or Frito, or something like that—threatening to crush it between their bullying wheels.

My brain jerked into hyper-alert. I drained the last of the Super-Sized Java from the All-Nite in Denton, switched the radio to hard rock and turned the volume up to ear-bleed. Maybe it was foolish to try to make it home from Nebraska in one go, but after two days of reliving the second-worst chapter of my life, I’d had it. By dawn I’d be home, or what passed for home these days: Carter Chapman’s condo in Houston, on loan while I got back on my feet.

Practically everyone important in my life was gone, the career I’d worked so hard to build, destroyed. And the person I thought could be the man of my dreams, vanished. The future was a great big blank. Yet here I was, bee-lining it back to the city where it all went down.

MJ: Wow! I understand you have a current book out.

TheBodyBusiness3_850-(2)

GY: Yes, The Body Business, which is available at Amazon.

MJ: And how can your fans stay in touch with you?

GY: My website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkdIn, and Goodreads.

MJ: Thanks for stopping by today, and good luck!

 

 

Great News!

Toke Lobo

I’ve been waiting to hear from my editor at Soul Mate Publishing about the second werewolf book.  The timing of my submission could have been better: my editor was on her way out the door to San Antonio for the RWA National Conference when I sent her the manuscript.

But the wait is over. Stoker Smith, keyboard player for Toke Lobo & The Pack, gets his own story, And Jericho Burned. And if you’re not sure who or what Toke Lobo & The Pack is, check out Moonlight Serenade.