Really? It's like just great already

Yes, I've posted on "crutch" words before, but I guess I'm tuned in to some more than others.  I was in a training session today where they overused the word "really."  I also listen to a radio station where I hear "really" and "just" in every sentence (and sometimes twice)!  It's quite annoying, and the more editing I do, the more I recognize these things creeping into my writing.  Talking to my DH, his favorite word is "already."  He pops it in everywhere, even when it isn't appropriate.

Am I on my high horse?  Heck no!  I have my own share of personal crutch words.  It just makes me smile when I hear them and recognize them for what they are.  Like when a teenager like you know uses like every other word, you know?

Conversely, I'm reading Diana Gabaldon, whose vocabulary is immense.  I have a large vocabulary.  My son inherited that gift.  But as I read "An Echo in the Bone," these words are jumping off the page for the same reasons - there's such a thing as writing over a reader's head.  Don 't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the book so far (more than I expected I would, but I'm only 250 pages in to an 800 page epic).  The large words are conspicuous, however.  Also noted by me after having this pointed out in my own writing, that although you don't want to "dumb it down," you also want to take into account the words that the average Joe doesn't know.

So for now, I'm going to really make an effort to just catch up on some of the things that, like, I've been behind in.

Anon.

Influenza

What I'm reading:  Echo in the Bone -Diana Gabaldon (yes, I told you I was going to read it).


Isn't it something how a pandemic can send everything into upheaval?  The stuff stories are written from :-)

People I meet on the street are asking me to weigh in on the whole "did you get a flu shot?" question.  For my part, no.  I'm a healthy woman (blessed with good genes).  My husband tells me I'm a carrier, which means I don't get sick, but I carry it to other people to get sick.  I don't like to think of myself that way, but I suppose choosing between the two, it would be my preference.  Either way, I am not at high risk, even if the flu should strike me, so no, I'll save the vaccines for people who need it more than I do.  I'm sure my day will come.

The other thing that I marvel at is the way people are describing this pandemic as a killer flu.  Sadly, I think these people are grossly misinformed.  The data that I've seen shows that the chances of getting the flu or greatly increased this year, but the chances of it becoming more serious are still less than one percent - those instances being the high risk factor that is exacerbated by the flu.  So again, I'm not panicky.

So what's your take on this whole pandemic thing?  Is it the end of the world as we know it or is it just he flu, like every other year (or somewhere in between)?  Did you get YOUR flu shot?

Cleveland Rocks

This has been a busy week for me.  In addition to my regular job, I've been training and traveling.  I did a whirlwind visit to Cleveland - first time I've been IN the city.  I've driven BY it before on the expressway (is it the turnpike through Ohio?) a number of years ago.  Props to the office there - they have a beautiful location on Lake Erie, overlooking the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame and Browns Stadium.  (They're also very friendly folks :-) )

My cabbie asked me how it compared to Chicago.  Keep in mind, I only saw it through the window of a cab and the window of the office building, but as I told him, it looks "clean" compared to Chicago.  In MY big city, we have tall skyscrapers crowded together that take on a dirty kind of look.  Don't get me wrong, I love Chicago, and there are magnificent buildings in the city, but Cleveland, by comparison, looked shiny and new.  I'll have to go back when I'm not buzzing in and out so quickly!

The traveling has put me behind with my home life again (of which my writing is a part).  It took me the rest of the week to catch up with myself, but here I am (and a cat helping me with my post, just to make sure).  My inclination tonight would be to post about efficiency, and hard working people versus slackers, but I'm not wanting to dwell on the troubles of the week, so I'm just going to keep it short while I take a deep breath now that I've caught up to myself and maybe my creativity will spark better tomorrow and I can blog something more fun.

Anon

Is everything about writing?

Believe it or not, the answer is more yes than no (but I'll agree to not always).  To illustrate my point . . .

Last night (and today) we had family visiting from out of town, which delayed my blogging, and while I was feeling guilty about not posting, I asked my DH what he thought I should blog about.  He said, "traffic."  You see, all the east/west highways in our area are under construction, so there's no easy way to get from Point A to Point B, unless you are only travelling north to south, and even some of those roads are under construction.  Our commute times have doubled travelling only a very short distance.  "You'd think someone would have planned this better," he growls.  But I can't post about traffic.  Everyone has to deal with traffic.  Unless . . .

You can imagine all the possibilities bad traffic can add to a plot.  Babies being born, road rage waiting to explode.  Traffic can bring on major conflict.  So is it just something wrong with me that I start imagining all the stories for people in their cars stuck in traffic?

It's in every day events that people relate to your stories, like getting caught in traffic, or meeting someone for the first time.  There is commonality in these things, and there is uniqueness to them.  The way someone greets you, the car you let into traffic who only moves half into your lane to block the people behind who didn't move over soon enough, the idioms and idiosyncrasies.  These are the things that I see that stick with me, like hiking and encountering a woman with a small dog who jokes that it's a pygmy albino coyote (see my Sedona post - still one of my favorite encounteres that will likely creep into a story). 

So yes, most often, everything relates into my writing.

Books and favorite authors

Do you have a favorite author - every time they put out a book you can't wait to buy it?  There are those we watch for, anticipating their next release.  It's been a long time since I was that excited about new arrivals.  Walking through the airports, I did see Dan Brown's new book on the stands, I'm interested to read that, and browsing around, I saw Diana Gabaldon has a new book out.

This post might offend some of Diana's die-hard readers, but when I saw she had released the next installment of the Outlander series, I wasn't as excited as with previous works.  I will probably still read it - but this time I'll probably get it from the library. And here's why.

After I'd had my first child, I was watching an exercise program to get back into shape (a program I still do now!) and one of the commercials was for "A Dragonfly in Amber," by Diana Gabaldon.  Good marketing - getting the female audience.  So I went to the library and checked it out. I was absolutely mesmerized by the story.  Then I discovered it was the second in the series, so I couldn't wait to read more.  I picked up Outlander and was even MORE mesmerized.  These books were so spell binding that I actually took a trip to Scotland (Karla's Big Adventure) by myself because I wanted to experience the haunting mountains and meadows for myself.  I wanted to stand in an outcropping of stone circles and travel through time to a cold, dark place where the food was sparse and unflavored (on a side note, I was also going through a very difficult time personally, so the escape had even MORE allure for me).  Then came the third in her series - Voyager.  Another good novel, but now the pace had sped up so that I was getting whiplash keeping up.  An interesting read, and I still enjoyed it, but it wasn't the same experience as the first two had been.  Where could she go from there?  Well she brought the characters from Scotland to the "New World" as refugees.  But in Book #4, I was a bit put off by their daughter.  And they were getting older, but the adventure continued.  Well written?  Yes.  But again, the magic wasn't there for me anymore.  I still enjoyed it and when Book #5 came out, there I was buying it.  Book #5 was a stretch for me.  The main characters, the ones I had grown to love and admire, were aging, and yet they weren't aging.  Some of their antics were a stretch for me, and the story moved much more slowly.  Her 1,000 page epics, which I easily read through previously, were becoming more difficult.  Could it be my own aging process and inability to keep up?  Maybe the plot was a little thin.  She's moving in a direction, has a vision of where she wants these books to take us, but the individual installments were losing momentum for me.  So now, with the latest, I read a review first.  I read MANY reviews first.  They all read like the fan that I am - I love her work, but it's getting hard to continue on this same road, and the daughter, whose task it is to step into her parents' footsteps, doesn't have the personality her mother and father have.

Will I read the book?  Yeah.  Most likely.  But I didn't pick it up at the Poisoned Pen (Diana's home book store) when I was there, and I'm not inclined to put out the money for it.  I don't feel the excitement of picking it up immediately now that it's on the stands and I won't sacrifice three days of my life rushing to get through it, on lunch hours, after work, before I go to bed, into the wee hours of the night. 

This is disappointing for me.  I miss having an author I can't wait to read.  There have been several through the course of my lifetime, and one by one I've fallen away from dedicated fan status.  Maybe it's just that life gets in the way, or maybe it's pushing your characters too far, beyond the point of suspended belief.

I still enjoy Diana Gabaldon.  I'm still going to read the next installment, the characters are "old friends."  But I guess the honeymoon is over.  Maybe that's just one of the pitfalls of writing a series.  You get comfortable with the same old characters, but if they don't do anything different, there isn't anything to keep you engaged, just comfortable.  Another sad commentary on today's society, I suppose. 

Which authors do you hang on waiting for to release a new book?

A Trip to Paradise, or the Land of the "Woo-Woos?"

Destination: Sedona, Arizona. Home of the Red Rocks and Vortices. There is no doubt about the fact that this is a beautiful place. You drive down the main drag and the mountains stare you in the face. Big, red mountains that look like cathedrals, and bells, and lizard heads, and coffee pots. The landscape is stunning. For some, this is a spritual retreat - that's where it gets tricky - the spiritual part.

I like unusual things. Supernatural. Preternatural. Things just beyond explanation. Do I buy into these things? Sometimes. Probably not to the extent of blind faith. But it spurs on my imagination to think about what they might be or might represent. For example, at midnight,

December 31, 1999, a congregation of people gathered at Bell Rock in Sedona to wait for the rock (an alien space ship in resting) to take off and carry them back on a journey through the stars. Would I join that group? Nope. Not even a slim chance. But watching the "woo-woos" is interesting. Understanding what they believe is interesting. I am a spiritual person - I have faith in God. There's a whole other realm of folks in Sedona.

I went to visit friends. {waving to J and J} We had a great time, and while we were there, I told them I wanted to visit a vortex, since that is one of Sedona's great mysteries. Did I expect something transcendental? Not really, but it would have been interesting to see what someone might have interpreted as something supernatural or spiritual. My analysis is that the sensations are probably adrenalin rushes attributable to the spectacular landscapes in those locations.

Certainly I don't want to discount another person's experience and I am fairly receptive to thoughts and ideas, but when I see a circle of crazies (sorry) chanting and scattering something to the four winds, I'm a little leery. No offense to other religious sects, but these folks were more than a sect. Bordering cult. In fact, my girlfriend and I looked them up when we got back to her house and one of the "prayers" (yes, in quotes) was the Diva's prayer that made the rounds on email jokes a while back. I'm sorry, but if you're serious about your religion, you don't put a joke prayer on your website. I have the utmost respect for Native American customs and tradition - and I get the tribute to the four winds (this is not unique to Native Americans). These folks were imposters, pretenders, and what they were doing was, in my eyes, irreverant to those traditions and customs. I have no doubt they were serious in their endeavors, but again, where is the respect when you post a joke as a prayer?

As to the vortex hunt, we searched out the twisted juniper trees (isn't it funny that juniper trees tend to be twisted anyway?) and certainly I was in awe, but that would be attributable to the surroundings more than to some mystical experience. I was looking for inspiration for a future novel. I got it, but not because of the vortex sites. Truthfully? I was hoping for something along the lines of what Diana Gabaldon wrote in Outlander when Clare goes through the standing stones. A rushing of wind (there was that!), a sense of vertigo (not so much), visions of generations past, present and future whizzing by (ummm, nope). Did I expect to actually feel that? No, but I have an excellent imagination and I was hoping to envision it. Sorry folks. I came up empty. Like Ms. Gabaldon, I'll have to invent an experience at the vortices if I want to incorporate them into a future novel.

Maybe I should interview one of the "Woo-Woos."

In the meantime, I've got other ideas that I can incorporate into a story (after all, I DID meet a pygmy, albino coyote on one of the hiking trails!), and I had an excellent vacation in a unique location with good friends.