To all of my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving to you. For all of my non-American readers, today is still a real nice day to reflect on the past year and note all the blessings/good things in your life. Dwell on the positive; something Humanity seems to have forgotten how to do.
Me? Well, I'm watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, and then prepping a small meal, enjoying the food and football, and then heading to my mother's for the weekend. Shortly followed by Hubby's birthday.
In other words, not the most productive time for writing purposes. At the same time, I knew this already. It's never a good time to think about writing the week of Thanksgiving. Always on the go preparing for the holiday, and the trip to my mom's, and then getting set for Hubby's birthday.
At the same time, I don't have a new writing prompt to share with you fine folks today. However, both tie together, because next week will be the same as this week. Namely, filled with me mulling more things over in my head while waiting for a moment to write those thoughts down.
I stated this last week, but I'll do so again today as a refresher. Last week, one of the writing prompts that was emailed to us was a quote: "The difference is, I lie for a living."
Now, I had already completed my short story based on the two Dove chocolate wrappers - which was well received at the writing group - and so I wasn't really all that focused on this quote prompt. It still took hold of me, though. I'm still trying to figure out who lies for a living, and why that tidbit would be brought up. Here's what I have so far, and I apologize in advance if you have one of the below professions and are offended by the generalization. I worked at an ad agency myself for a few years, if that's any consolation:
- Lawyers
- Ad Agents/Copywriters
- Con-artists
- Politicians
- PR Reps
- Prostitutes/Escorts
- Sales Rep
And for the situations:
- Cheated on a significant other
- Caught for a crime
- Reassurance that lying won't be hard
- Explaining why one got away with something the other didn't
I've also thought a bit more about Please, Let Me Explain. Is that part any sort of surprise? Anyway, I think I may have thought of a few changes that might help with a few sections that have been bugging me lately. I wrote up my notes and sent them on their way to Ronoxym. In surprisingly quick fashion, he already responded. Seems the things that were bugging me about the story were exactly the same ones bugging him, he just couldn't put his finger on why. Now that I pointed it out to him, he's a geared up to fix those issues. We may have some progress yet again. However, as I mentioned above, this week is a crapshoot when it comes to writing, so please don't expect any update on PLME next week.
That is, of course, unless I just can't get it out of my head. For instance, while pointing out my issues to Ron, I realized that I might have some studying and researching to do. Something I might work on throughout the ten days of my vacation from work.
The other thing I've been really thinking about all day yesterday, is the NaNoWriMo story that DFL is writing. At the Tuesday meeting, she talked about how she finished the story, but she's still a few thousands words shy. Her struggle now is to go back and quickly fluff up the story before Monday in order to "win" this year. She seemed frustrated, to the point of shaking and having difficulties talking, but at some point that shaking transitioned into excited anticipation. She really wanted to dive back in to the book when she was done with our group. I love that! That's one of the great reasons for having a support group around you. They're people you can talk to about your story, which helps you iron out the bumps, as well as keeps you excited to write.
Anyway, back on topic here, not only did she talk about her story some more, but she READ some of it as well. Of course, just like with poor Ron almost two years ago, or Delaroux close to four years ago now, the story just erupted inside me. It took hold, and I wanted a part of it; even a small one.
The entire time I was at work, I thought back through DFL's problem, as well as remembered the opening chapter she read to us. For me, little miss wordy, it was easy to pick up on tons of places where she could erase some repetition, as well as add description in order to increase that dreaded word count. Over the course of my lunch break, I wrote up an email to her explaining my perspective of things.
True to form, she started off by acknowledging that they were sound points. Very diplomatically. She didn't say one way or the other whether she'd use the suggestions, just that they were valid ones. I dig that. I disregard suggestions about my work frequently enough that it's only fair I understand that others might disregard my opinions too.
The long and the short of this story is that I might be back into Beta Reading, unintentionally, because I agreed to read through her backstory in order to help give some insight. So, that will be neat to check out.
Keaton didn't bring anything to share, and we focused a lot on the rest of the group on Tuesday. Yet another reason she reminds me of an older version of myself. Even when I ran the in-person writing group among my friends, I always seemed to focus more on the rest of the group and getting a dialogue between them. No room for my writing troubles or triumphs. I feel like Keaton's in the same mindset. Anyway, she didn't bring anything to share, and DFL only brought her NaNo story. So, moving through that part of the meetings went by super quick.
In truth, I was the only one there that night that had followed through with the Dove chocolates assignment. That's fine though, it was crunch time for DFL to get her NaNo story done, so I had no problem focusing on helping her.
I also met a "new" member on Tuesday. I say "new" because she actually joined the group at the start of the year when she moved up here from NYC. She just hadn't been to the group for a few months, and so it was the first time I met her. Seeing as she openly admitted to have both dyslexia and ADHD, among others, I just HAD to promote Rick Riordan and his Percy Jackson series. She seemed intrigued, but she also could have just been humoring me. Either way, until I think of something better, her blog nick-name shall be Demi, for demigod.
Demi is both a short story writer and a poet. You can feel the raw emotion in her poems, and the short story she read to us was amusing as well as equally raw. You can tell the woman was hurt, and is working through it via her writing. And I love it. It's so beautiful, and I'm grateful that she's allowing others to peak into that hurt.
She has also self-published for years, and is now trying to transition into traditional publishing. Self-publishing is just too much work and not enough writing for her tastes. I can see that. I'm hoping to learn a lot from her.
So glad I joined this group; so diverse!
Alright, I can't really think of anything else, and I really should focus more on my turkey now. Enjoy your day, and remember to reflect on those good things. I know you have some.
Take care, everyone!
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