Unless it’s absolutely necessary, you probably shouldn’t hoop while wearing glasses.
Especially if they’re no-line bifocals.
You know, the kind of glasses you really, really want and need to remain straight on your face?
Month: November 2007
Hunkered down in revision mode
On Monday morning I suddenly realized I wanted to revisit my middle-grade that’s out on submission. So I’m tightening and reworking some things. It feels good to make the story even better.
And
![[info]](https://i0.wp.com/stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
, in case you poke your head out of your writing cave today I want you to know I’m rooting for you. Writing the ending is sometimes SO hard because I don’t want to say goodbye to my characters (and then there are the times I want to load them all onto a bus at gun point just so I can drive them off a bridge). Maybe that’s a little of what you’re feeling; a bit of melancholy. Either way, put down the paintbrush and get that story written!
Report back when you’re done, and I’ll do the same.
Lost in Translation?
This morning I was reading the newspaper and came across an article on the television show “Ugly Betty.” Now, I haven’t watched the show and don’t especially care about the show. But I do like something to read when I’m drinking my coffee, so I read the article. Apparently the U.S. show is based on a Columbian telenovela called “Yo soy Betty la fea” and in Columbia, “Ugly Betty” is seen as a pale imitation of the original.
No arguments here since I haven’t seen either show.
But I practically spit out my coffee when I came across this: “Watching the gringo version [of “Yo soy Betty la fea”] would be like reading “100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE” in English,” says Fabian Sanabria, an anthropologist at the Universidad Nacional who studies television. “It makes no sense.”
WHAT?
I’ve read the English translation of “100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE” several times. The book is gorgeous and incredible and I’ve said many, many times that if the book is that gorgeous and incredible in translation, it must be beyond belief in its original Spanish. I acknowledge that things are lost in translation but the book still made perfect sense to me. I love that book. And even though I was once nearly fluent in Spanish, I know I couldn’t read that book in Spanish; the Spanish wouldn’t make enough sense to me and I’d miss too much.
?Yo soy Tracy la loca?
Thankful
It’s been a wild ride the past few days but emotions have calmed and personalities have stopped clashing, at least for this moment. And for that, I am thankful.
Wishing all of you a calm and peaceful Thanksgiving.
Waste-Not Wednesday: Fallen Leaves
It’s that time of year when the leaves jump off the trees and hit the ground.
Really. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve yet to hear any screaming, though.
This past weekend I raked my leaves and scooped them into an empty trash can.
After each scoop I stomped down on them with my foot to pack them in tighter AND
break them into smaller pieces. If you don’t have long legs (or an enormous foot), use the rake handle to
stir the leaves. When the can is full, pour them onto the flower bed you’ve already
sprayed with the hose. After spreading them around the plants, spray the leaves with
the hose so they’ll be less likely to blow away in the wind.
Leaves are a great mulch that will hold the moisture for your plants plus they’re full
of nutrients for your soil.
When you mulch with leaves:
1) you keep stuff out of the landfill
2) you don’t use a plastic bag that ends up in landfill
3) you feed and protect your plants over the winter months
4) you add fall color to your beds (at least for a little while!) 
JoNoWriMo+1.5: FINISHED!!!
I’m pleased to announce the completion of draft #2 on a middle-grade novel (working title FRAMED). The first draft was written and completed during last year’s JoNoWriMo+1.5. That draft was pretty stinky. This one has a bit of an odor to it, also, but nothing a little airing out won’t fix. I mean, we’re not talking rotting cabbage or anything. I hope. We shall see in a couple months when I pull it out and read start to finish.
Thank you, thank you to
for spearheading this community effort again. And thanks to my LJ friends who cheered me on along the way. It’s really so wonderful taking this journey with all of you.
I wish each of you happy writing as you forge ahead with your projects and deadlines.
Mad Dash for THE END
I’ve finished writing the draft of my MG for JoNoWriMo+1.5 and am currently plugging holes in the ms (I use BLANK in the text and then go back later to fill in the character’s last name, or the food item someone was eating, or whatever I hadn’t yet figured out at the time I was writing) before making my official announcement that I finished.
But I wanted to share what I discovered about those 3000 words I cranked out last week in one sitting. Those words were in the last big scene of the book which I knew pretty well since I’d written lots of notes and could visualize it. Today as I moved around the document plugging holes, I realized that the last big scene slipped from past tense into present. It read like an announcer at a horse track calling out the race. You know, that neck-in-neck kind of stuff.
Anyway, it made me laugh.
Waste-Not Wednesday tip
A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE.
That’s what I wanted to post late this afternoon. It was the only thing I could handle posting because although I had all sorts of ideas for today’s environmental tip, I couldn’t wrangle the words. I just could not wrangle words into a coherent paragraph. I felt like the world’s worst writer.
Then I forced myself to leave my family for the evening and head to the library with my laptop.
Guess what? I wrote about 3k words and am now past my JoNoWriMo+1.5 goal of a 38k-words middle grade novel. Don’t worry, I realize that exceeding my word count goal is about as meaningful as still having checks in my checkbook when there ain’t no money in the account. But I’m a helluva lot closer.
I understand I’ve got to keep writing until The End. I’m just grateful I didn’t waste this Wednesday.
Beating its wings in my face
I’m still working on my JoNoWriMo+1.5 project. Despite being ahead of schedule, I’m experiencing almost daily bouts of Help, my book has fallen and it can’t get up!
Last night I felt the need to take a break from children’s literature so I started reading Edith Wharton’s THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON. The Nick Lansing character is writing his first novel, and Wharton begins her seventh chapter with this:
Of some new ferment at work in him Nick Lansing himself was equally aware. He was a better judge of the book he was trying to write than either Susy or Strefford; he knew its weaknesses, its treacheries, its tendency to slip through his fingers just as he thought his grasp tightest; but he knew also that at the very moment when it seemed to have failed him it would suddenly be back, beating its loud wings in his face.
Ain’t that the truth.
Tracy Abell 