Most of my long-time readers know that I have a hankering (okay, fine. An addiction) for comparing everything in life to writing.
There was that time I compared querying agents to being a circus dog.
Or feeling like sperm. (You’d have to read it to understand.)
Or the time I compared manuscript beginnings to the crowing head of a baby. (yeah. I know. This one still makes me cringe and I’m the one who wrote it.)
Bottom line is- just about everything in the world can be compared to writing/being a writer/ querying –and I’m pretty sure every blogger has gotten caught up in the analogy wars at one time or another. We are writers after all.
So I thought we’d put it to the test. On the bottom of Wednesday’s post- I’ll put a short promt. For example:
Querying/Writing…
is like choosing deodorant…
is like fishing…
is like wrapping a gift for someone you don’t like… etc.
And, if you feel up to it (or are like me and never have anything planned for Friday posts)- I challenge everyone to elaborate. You can either post the end of the analogy here in the comments section or post it up on your blog for Friday with the title ‘Analogy Wars’ so I see it in my reader. Every week I’ll pick the funniest or most original one and post it up on my blog before the next war prompt is given.
Today’s analogy begins:
Querying/Writing is like picking a check-out line at the grocery store…
I bid you well writerly jedi. May the force of quirky-analogy-writing be with you.
It occurred to me the other day that ‘blogging’ might mean different things to different people.
When I say I’m sitting down to ‘blog’- I mean I’ve posted a blog and am going around to visit and interact with other bloggers. To me- ‘blogging’ means more than maintaining a blog that you post on every once in awhile, although that’s what it might mean to some. (And that’s fine.)
I think there are part-time bloggers (like me) who have a partial 2-3 days a week schedule. They post their blogs, visit, comment when they can and try to maintain interaction with the blogosphere (through facebook or twitter maybe?) even though real life obligations make it hard to be on top of the game 24/7.
Then there are the generous part-time bloggers who post a partial schedule but make time to visit and comment every day.
Then there are what I like to call the hard-core bloggers who not only post a blog every day but also visit and comment on 50+ blogs, respond to all comments through email, and manage to tag interesting things for facebook and twitter throughout the day. (all while maintaining their real-life responsibilities) These people are inspiring. (and okay, sure –They might make me feel a little like a big fat blogging fraud but that’s okay:)
What kind of blogger category do you fall into? What do you mean when you say you’re ‘blogging’?
So Wednesday’s post got me thinking about all the crazy predictions for December 21st, 2012 and I thought maybe it was time we share our own predictions:
What do you think will happen?
Um, nothing. Probably.
What do you hope will happen?
Hmn. I’m rooting for either aliens making contact with our planet. (And it’d be cool if they all look like a young, well-muscled Brad Pitt, too)
OR
We all wake up and discover we can telepathically move things with our minds. (In all honestly, I’ve been hoping for this to happen since I was twelve.)
What do you think/ hope will happen on December 21st, 2012?
There are too many shiny new books begging for attention on the internet. And I’ve been duped too many times to buy without serious reflection.
There are too many chapters I need to cut and revise.
Too many blogs I haven’t checked up on.
Too many loads of laundry, meals, and dishes waiting for me to make them disappear.
Too many kids screaming in the background.
Too many work days in a week.
Too many pounds on the scale.
Too many worthy tv shows that are being forgotten.
And far too many predictions that the world is going to end. 
Yup. That's about where I'm at today. Any 'too many'-s you'd add to the list?
Today’s misdemeanor :
Corruption of a Minor Because ‘statutory rape’ sounds so….well, arrest worthy.
If you’ve been following for a while, you’d know that I usually start off these misdemeanor posts with an anecdote from my own rebellion filing cabinet. (I originally wrote ‘cabinets’ but deleted the ‘s’ because, let’s face it- there’s only really one cabinet, way back in a dark corner. And its contents are quickly being depleted by these posts. I might just have to go out and start committing misdemeanors so I’ll have more material.)
As I was saying- yes, my experience. So, long story short: I was sixteen. He was eighteen. And in the heat of summer, while the moon shone down upon us on the sandy-covered beach we…pfft! (Yeah- like I’m really going to blog about that. You thought I would, didn’t you? Bunch a perves=)
Seriously though, has anyone else purposely waited until their characters were ‘legal’ before the sex scene is written or implied? I’ve been noticing this as I read through some of the YA books that came in recently. The mc’s are virgins and if they aren’t eighteen already, they either get down to business after their birthdays or quite near to it. Ofcourse, there are more than enough literary examples of under-aged girls hooking up with an older guys sans problem as well.
What do you think about younger mc’s doing the 'woohoo' with an older counterpart in literature? Do you think it’s something we as authors need to be conscious of or would you let the characters play out despite going against social norms?
If you’d like to catch up on Creepy’s Misdemeanor Mondays- click here.
**I apologise to my old-time followers for the shameless rerun. The kids and I all went back to school/work today so I had about zero time this afternoon. Hope you all had a great weekend!**
One of my other goals for this two week vacation (which is almost over now. Thank God) was to instill some kind of regular weekly exercise/diet regiment.
There’s a few problems with that, though.
One- I’m not big on ‘real’ exercise. I’m more of a situational exerciser. Which means I only exert physical effort when there is no other alternative. For instance: I lost a ton of weight my first year in Paris because I was too broke to pay for a cab and had to walk everywhere. I worked on the other side of the city and had to basically run from my front door, through the various metro stops and systems (including the 3 mile walk through Chatelet station. In heels.) to get to work every morning. I used to call it the ‘Chatelet shuffle’. I could have probably sold a video if citywide subway systems were readily available for in-home use.
Then there was 2010- when I was trying to get my French drivers permit. I couldn’t very well drive to my daily class and it was a pain to pack up all the kids so the hubs could drive me there and back every day. So I walked instead. Nearly 5 kilometers each way.
Since that time, though. There’s been no real need for exercise. I’ve been trying to find my ‘situational exercise’ wherever I can- telling myself things like ‘Cleaning is exercise. Eating is exercise. Breathing- it’s exercise!’
‘Going up a couple flights of stairs a few times a week? Total exercise! And I walked! To my car! Sure- it’s parked right outside the building but walking is exercise, man!’
Yet, no matter how I try to convince my body that we are consistently active, my waistline doesn’t seem to agree.
Two- The closest I’ve ever come to dieting would be something like the French ‘forking it’ diet. Yeah. Look it up. My weight has fluxuated over the last few years. But I was always able to get back down to ideal by doing something simple- like giving up soda. Now that I’m approaching thirty, though- those extra pounds have seemed to weld themselves in place. For awhile, I tried to convince myself it was muscle mass- you know, from all that stair climbing and eating with a fork.
But deep down, I know the truth.
Any tips for this ‘forking’ situational exerciser?
One of the things I hear amongst aspiring traditionally published authors is that all we can do is our best- that as long as we’re doing the maximum to try and obtain an agent and get that book deal, there’s really nothing more we can do.
But what is the maximum? And am I really doing it? I’ve tried to compile a checklist of stuff we’re ‘supposed’ to do.
Write. There’s writing of course. We’re told not to get stuck on one project but to try different realms, genres, style and to always keep moving and improving our craft. Does that mean we should be writing a book a year? A certain number of short stories? Poems?
Polish. We have to learn how to effectively revise. Find critique partners and betas. Critique material for other people in order to hone a critical eye.
Query. We can’t very well call ourselves a querying author if we aren’t sending out queries. But how many queries? How often? If we take a break from querying, are we no longer a ‘querying’ author?
Blog. Having an online presence and author’s platform used to be a ‘must’ but now some authors and agents are saying it holds no sway and barely puts a dent in the promotion that needs to be done in order to have a successful book launch or career. But still, we’ve got to put our name out there and garner interest for our books and what we have to say. Just in case.
Subscribe to Publisher’s Weekly. To keep an eye on new trends- what’s selling and who’s buying. (I haven’t done this)
Enter pitch contests, first 250 word contests, first chapter contests, break-out novel contests. (Yeah. I haven’t done any of this in a really long time either.)
Self Publish. Because having a self-published book or series that is selling well is a way to garner attention and interest from the traditional publishing industry.
Get short stories or excerpts published in a magazine or an anthology of some sort. (I only have one short story. What can I say? I’m long-winded. So does this mean I should sit down and write short stories in hopes of getting them accepted into an anthology? )
Go to writers conferences. (Never done this. I live too far away. And have you seen the prices?)
Anything I missed? This already feels like a lot and I’m only doing about half of them (and those few alone suck a big part of my time and energy into the trying-to-get-published-vortex). Could I be doing more? Probably. But for me, the maximum is giving your all in the areas you can. Truth is, you could be doing all these and it still might not be 'enough' to get published.
How many of these are you guys doing/have you done?
Do you ever feel like no matter how much you do, it’s never enough?
