Just a quick blog – some of you might remember Larry from one of my previous blog posts (if not, go here). Well, that was some time ago and I’ve been in that flea market several times since then, but Larry was nowhere to be found. I’ve often wondered what happened to Larry, hoping that if someone bought him that they were taking good care of him and not condemning him for his perverted antics, which he cannot help.

Anyway, I bought a new desk last weekend and had to drive around to the back of the flea market to have them load it up for me (into my mom’s truck, which I nearly knocked off the side mirror on my way to pick up the desk). As I was walking through the dark and dusty back-of-the-warehouse where all the layaway and other random stuff is kept, I SAW LARRY! He was thrown onto a rickety chair and there was a pile of granny clothes tossed on top of him.

POOR LARRY!

I didn’t have my camera with me, but next time I’ll have it and I’ll get a shot.

A side note: The weather is getting nicer! Come on spring!

Ok, off to work I go….

I got an email today from Toadstool Bookshops offering for me to come to their store in Keene, NH to do a book signing when I get published. How awesome!

Of course, a big thanks to my friend Jon for passing my site along! :-)

Anyway, just a cool quick blog.

Happy weekend.

I’ve created a new side blog that is important to me and my kids. We’re trying our best to finally own our own home and get out of ‘the system’. We’d like you to join us on our journey. At Our Dream Field I’ll be updating every bit of progress and all the inevitable steps backward as well while on this journey.

We’re also trying to save and raise money for a down payment and so my daughter has decided she wants to put some of her art up on eBay for bid as her way to help, so hopefully some of you will check out her art as well. Even if you don’t bid on anything, leaving some nice comments for her on our blog would be great. :-) She’s an awesome artist!

You can also help simply by spreading the word and linking to us. Every little bit helps and is very appreciated! :-)

Anyway, I won’t babble too long here when it’d be easier if you just checked out the ‘Our Dream Field’ site. Also, I created a Twitter account for it too, so please follow us!

Our Dream Field, click here. Follow us on Twitter here.

On another note, a writing update: Same ol’ song and dance with agent-hunting, am about 16,000 words in two different new YA novels and that’s about it.

Sure would be nice to have some GOOD literary news for a change. :-S

I haven’t been much in a blogging mood lately, though I think a lot of that has to do with getting through the holidays and stuff. I mean seriously, I’m just now taking down my Christmas tree today. :-S

Brian came to visit me for 5 great days and we spent New Year’s together. On New Year’s Eve we went to  a nice place downtown called Bosco’s. I know, I look like a wannabe Vegas showgirl or something with the feathers on my head.

The whole time he was here it was cold as hell…wait, okay so that didn’t make much sense, but you get the idea. Really though, it was frigid! Though thankfully not until after our walk/climb up Pinnacle Mountain…

…which was awesome! (Looks like a giant squeezing the little girl’s head, hehe)

And our visit to The Old Mill, which Brian also really loved.

And so did I. :-)

We also went to the Old State House Museum, which was free admission and really should have charged something. Seriously, the place was enormous and had a maze of rooms with great exhibits that was set up nicer than some high dollar museums I’ve seen.

Here’s Brian standing next to…well, his body-double? :-| I still wonder if this is coincidentally cool, or if someone needs to catch up with this century maybe? :-P

We took tons more photos, but I’ve never been interested in seeing other people’s museum photos for some reason, so I won’t bore you with ours. I guess it’s one of those things that you’d rather just see in person. Same with zoo photos – they are boring to look at usually, unless you’re the one taking them. Interested in the museum, follow the link above. :-)

And what would any trip to visit me be without going to FLEA MARKETS! At least he actually wanted to go to a few, otherwise I would’ve felt wrong dragging him along, hehe.

And as I have demonstrated in the past, you can find some weird stuff in flea markets, like this ginormous bag clearly made for ginormous giants. Here you can see shopping carts made for hobbit people and here, perverted mannequins.

We also saw Sherlock Holmes, which I thought was good, but not as humorous as I expected it to be. Though, you can’t go wrong with Robert Downey Jr., so it was worth it!

Looks like my next trip to Chicago will hopefully be in April and then again in July (he wants to DRAG me to the Bristol Ren Faire! I’m terrified!) and he definitely wants to come back to Arkansas so we can go hiking up Mount Magazine or some other cool place like Devil’s Den.

Can’t wait!

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I’m turning this page into a place where I will feature a writer, blogger of literary things, or anyone else interesting of a literary nature.  For now I will do two features a month (will do more or less after I see how it goes) and if selected, stuff about you will be displayed on the page for two weeks. I might do a short interview with you, copy/paste general information about you and/or what you do, from your site, etc. I’ll post a new blog for every featured person and link to it from the many social networking sites I am a member of (MySpace, Twitter, Writer’s Digest Community, etc.).

The Rulage & Stuff:

*All features must have a web site (yes, free sites and blogs are OK).

*Anyone featured must be following me on Twitter.

*Must be writing-related!

*You CAN  nominate yourself!

*Those who nominate others will be mentioned with a link as well  if your nomination is featured.

Follow me on Twitter at @JRedmerski . You can nominate someone here as a comment, or on Twitter – however you want! The first feature will be between January 1st – 10th, and in addition to an entire page of my site devoted to featuring you (or whoever YOU nominate!) the featured will win a $20 Barnes & Noble gift card!

*Judges will be announced soon.

Help spread the word by retweeting this blog! Thanks!

UPDATE 12/20/09 – DECIDED NOT TO DO THIS AFTER ALL. NOT ENOUGH ENTRIES TO DEAL WITH IT, BUT I DO THANK THOSE WHO NOMINATED THEMSELVES.

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Character creation and dialogue are my absolute favorite things about writing.  I was a freeform role player for a number of years and that was how I fell in love with creating characters. I’ve had a lot of practice, and I’ve found that pulling decently crafted characters out of my head is not too difficult (I seem to have a soft spot for evil children characters though-not sure why).

Dialogue.  It’s the easiest and most enjoyable thing for me to write, I guess maybe that comes from being so outspoken in person, and I have a love for studying people I don’t know, how they naturally speak, tone, their facial expressions, body language,  etc. That crazy crack head in the Laundromat intrigues me and instead of shooing him away, I like to listen to him talk to himself.

Yes, I’m sort of a dialogue junkie…and maybe a little bit of a freak?

Anyway, if character creation and/or dialogue are your weaker points, maybe I can help. Of course, I’m certainly no expert, but I’d like to pass on some things I’ve learned and methods that I use.

Characters – What Not to Do:

• Crazy names suck. Almost nothing ruins a book more for me than running across a character with a cutesy made-up name like ‘Jasmaleen’ or ‘Aighymee’ or one of those dreaded fantasy world names like ‘Nemaireri-Cyn’. Even in fantasy books, I prefer simpler names. To me, an over-the-top character name instantly distracts from the story, which is the most important part of your book, right? Don’t pull a ‘Renesmee’….for the love of God.
• Personality stereotypes – avoid them.  If while writing about your character you suddenly feel like something about her is too familiar, sometimes that’s a red flag, so don’t ignore it. You probably already know all about how it’s a bad idea to make your blond character dumb, your main character pathetic because she’s parentless, or your Southern character a country bumpkin. But what about the more subtle things? Watch out for making the blond preppy, the main character sexy, but with that one flaw you have to give him because no one’s perfect (like the dreaded scar on his cheek), or the Southern character that instinctively knows how to ride a horse or bait a hook.
• Action clichés – avoid them, too.  If while writing a scene and something about it screams OVERUSED! OVERDONE! It probably is. For instance, your character quickly picks up a book to pretend he’s reading when he hears footsteps approach. Or, to make it worse, the owner of the footsteps comes in and notices that the pretend reader has the book upside-down. These kinds of clichés pull me out of the story and make the character less real. I remember I’m only reading a story and I don’t like to be reminded of that.

Characters – What to Do:

• Randomness Works – Every character needs something about him that is random. Usually these traits are subtle, but they give your character, character. The young boy that always draws on his shoes, or the teenage girl that can’t control the shaking of her foot while sitting in class. Check yourself out and make note of some random things you do and use one! I can’t sleep with my feet covered and I’m addicted to popcorn. Random little quirks help make us individuals and often they give a character more character better than those prominent traits we give them, like how Ethan loves knives and carries one with him everywhere, or Phoebe is a Goth that always wears black.
• Character Traits – Sometimes it’s difficult to pinpoint how you want a certain character to be, or to act. You haven’t thought about that much, but you don’t want to be stuck trying to figure it out when you’d rather just be writing. Here’s an idea that I used for a couple of my past characters: look at this page, choose just one character trait, and go with it. Having an actual list of traits to sift through helped me find and choose one quicker and easier, but also I realized there are many traits that I may have forgotten about, or may have never thought of. A single word can open the floodgates for you.

So, in general, you don’t want a cliché or emotionless and boring character (unless you create one that is supposed to be emotionless and boring, but when it’s intended, it usually works) so take a look at your characters and see if there’s anything about them listed above that could be changed to make them better. In my opinion, characters are what make any story. Description and setting are also important, obviously, but a lifeless character can easily spoil a good scene.

Dialogue is also what makes a character interesting and in my next blog for Part II, I’ll cover it. I hope this helps. Thanks for reading!

Check out my most recent writing-related blogs:
Phase Writers, Born Writers & Evil Agents
Over 100k Words? Cutting is Gratifying

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The road to publication for the majority of writers is a long, painful and ‘subjective’ one (that word you’ll hear so often you’ll want to choke the person sitting next to you). You’re going to finish your novel and be so proud of it you might think you’ll be one of the lucky few to be published soon after. Sorry, but that only happens to people that sincerely go into it with absolutely no expectations, few intentions and maybe even low self-esteem about their writing skill (in other words, it is pure luck). Rarely will someone who thinks they just wrote ‘the next big thing’ break into the business quickly, if even at all. It’s a sad fact: chances are likely about 90% of us will never make a living by writing and even less of us will hit the big-time.

Why is that? And why am I being so damn negative by pouring vinegar on some of your wounds? Well, the reality of the business is harsh, yes, but the other reality is that it really doesn’t have to be that way and you really don’t have to be part of the statistic. It’s still unlikely any of us will be the next J.K. but I think the best ways to be sure you become a published author and at least be able to see your book on a shelf at Barnes & Noble someday are:

• Actually write a book. Do I really need to say that just talking or dreaming about it will never get it written? I didn’t think so.
• Read. Read. Read. A writer that doesn’t read is like {INSERT ANY WITTY SIMILE HERE – ALL WILL WORK}.
• Learn how to write properly. Just because you can tell a good story doesn’t mean you can write one.
• Get some non-biased feedback on your story (mom’s and husbands almost always either sugarcoat the truth, or are blinded by how beautiful you are).  Join an online writers group that offers free critiques and accept their advice no matter how critical.
• Edit. Revise. Edit. I think 1 year of editing repeatedly is minimum.
• Edit and revise some more.
• Get your query and synopsis ready and by that I mean, be prepared to rather be doing something like getting a vasectomy from that guy that lives behind the 7 Eleven, or eating light bulbs. If the query/synopsis isn’t perfect (and this is the only case where ‘perfect’ does exist), you’re screwed.
• Subjective. Subjective. Subjective. (I’m just helping get you warmed up.)
• Not a good fit for us. Not a good fit for us. (Still helping get you warmed up.)
• Get in the habit of knowing that the unopened agent response staring at you from your inbox is a rejection.  And when you do finally get your first send-me-more reply, expect that one to end up in the rejection folder, too.
• Ignore the urge to #1…whine to an agent about how many rejections you’ve received, and #2…tell an agent off even if you’re the best writer to come around since Stephen King or Neil Gaiman. They’ve heard it all before and anything more or less than a thank-you-for-your-time reply to a rejection makes you look bad. Even I am guilty of whining in my blog to an extent (and I have tough skin!), so I know how rejections can affect a person.  Don’t let it get to you!
• Always write something else while submitting the one you finished. Start a new novel and keep the momentum. A finished book is not a vacation unless you’re Stephen King or Neil Gaiman, I suppose. A writer always writes and a successful writer usually has more than one published book under his belt.
• Never give up. This is most important, because it’s the one that separates born writers from phase writers. The majority of that negative list I began this post with (that 90% way up there) are of phase writers. They’re the ones that never get published because they let the road to getting published beat them down and they give up. Of course, that 90% also consists of the severely unlucky, the delusional and the successful dead (those that are discovered only after they’ve kicked the bucket).

I haven’t been published yet myself so I can’t give pointers beyond what I gave, but I can say that once you do finally get published, like with completing your book, it’s still not vacation time! It’ll be time to promote, promote, promote!

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Is your manuscript more than 100K words? If it is, you might be in some way like I was when one of mine was 116K (ouch! I know!). I thought I had edited it down as much as I could. I combed through the story night after night, editing here and there and saying to myself, “I can’t take that out! It’s important! There’s absolutely nothing else I can, or will part with.” And that was that. I refused to budge.

And then a miraculous thing happened. A bolt of lightning came out of the sky and snapped me right in the ass and suddenly I realized there was quite a lot of content I could take out of my story that was, after all, expendable. (That sentence there was way too long, for example!)

Unnecessary Words – Eliminate Them!

The first thing I did was hunt a list of unnecessary words and I found this link, which is a blog posted by @writing_tips. I’m sure many of you already know this (I did too), but go through each word (also ‘very’ and ‘even’, which aren’t listed) and get rid of them wherever possible. Having the list in front of me allowed me to use the Word Find to go through my manuscript and eliminate each one. Even if you’re a seasoned writer, you might realize you’ve used some of those words, regardless. It happens as we do get carried away sometimes. You might not cut many words by doing this, but every one helps and in this case, it helps with more than just your word count.

Kill Her, Even if You Love Her!

The next thing I did was examine my characters more closely. Chances are there is at least one character you can do away with and no one will ever miss it (if more than one, then great!). I used to think this was blasphemy. I loved each of my characters. How could I bring myself to part with one for the sake of cutting words in my manuscript? Easily. I realized that one of my favorite characters (not one I cared the least for and would have tried to cut first) was entirely expendable. Sure, the scene with her was great and she was an awesome character with a lot of character, but when I looked past her and how much I loved her presence, it was only then I knew that she didn’t have an important enough part to keep her. By cutting her out I eliminated close to 3,000 words and it only hurt for a few seconds. Besides, I knew I could use her in another story.

Need and Want – We Must Differentiate!

After that, I decided to start from the beginning again and examine each paragraph differently than all the other times I edited before. Instead of looking for flaws, or sentences that could be reconstructed, etc. I decided only to look for anything (word, sentence, paragraph) that truly had no purpose other than to make me proud I had written something so ‘awesome’. Of course, I emphasize that word with a lot of sarcasm. What I’m getting at is something we all do. We construct neat little sentences we’re so impressed with and we forget that sometimes we don’t need them; we simply ‘want’ them. This alone allowed me to cut more than…wait for it…I cut close to than 6,000 words!

My 116K-word novel was reduced to around 107K and you know what? I felt great! As I re-read my novel for the hundredth time, it flowed better than ever before, and overall I felt good about what I did. Ultimately, I was kicking myself for not doing it sooner! I still need to get the word count down some, but for now I’m good with what I have cut and I have a completely new respect for eliminating content.

So that’s my little bit of advice from my own word-cutting experience.

Most of the time if you’re still over 100K and you think you’ve cut all you can; you’re still in your sentimental zone.

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It’s 8:10a.m and I’m just killing an hour before I have to go to work. I still need to mop my floors. Two of my kids are sick today and so they stayed home from school, though they are out the rest of the week anyway for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow I’ll turn 34. Guh! That means next year I’ll be 35 and in 6 years I’ll be 40! Ahhh! But with all seriousness, that scares the shit out of me. :-( I NEED TO GET DIRTY EDEN PUBLISHED! It’s down to the grind now and I will be doing whatever I need to do to get this cursed book rolling. That means shameless begging and plugging, kicking a few uncooperative asses, threats that involve the use of sporks and greasy French fries and maybe even me in a cat suit scaling one of those New York agent buildings to plant my manuscript on a desk with an Approval stamp on it.

OK, maybe not so much a cat suit, but you get the idea.

Yes, I’m still going to submit to agents. I guess it’s a necessary evil (that I think is unnecessary much more than I think it’s worth it), and I am ’somewhat’ over my upset over so many rejections. Yes, I’m sucking it up and am going right back into the belly of the beast. For now…. (I talk a lot of shit when I’m thoroughly upset – don’t mind me.)

They say most writers publish their first book in their 30’s. Let’s see if ‘they’ really know what they’re talking about.

Hmmm, let’s see. I’m just babbling this morning. I could tell my Greyhound horror story since it’s technically not in the same happy Chicago post, but I think I need more than 30 minutes to word it right and all, to give you the full horrific effect.  So, I’ll save that blog for next time.

I can’t wait to go to Whole Foods this weekend to get some sushi and one of my new favorite drinks that I can’t remember the name of (Brian?). And I need to go to the AT&T store to get a new battery for my Blackberry. Why am I telling you this? Because, like I said before I’m killing an hour before I have to go to work.

~sigh~ One more day of work this week and I’m out for Thanksgiving, too. I need to get some writing in! I need to get my queries ready again and start submitting, while at the same time writing in my YA werewolf novel and on the side reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Yep. Much to do.

Now the energy to do it….

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There was a lot I left out in my first Chicago blog and here I need to add some of it. Well, I am officially a sushi lover! Brian took me to Tokyo Lunchboxes & Catering (I just read that on the package of chopsticks I brought back, but I thought the place was called something different, shorter?). Mmmmm, I was hooked on the first try. Of course, now I’m back in this depressing place that very likely doesn’t have good sushi that I don’t have to hunt down and drive long distances to find.

Here’s a shot of me in the heavenly sushi place.

(Photo by Brian Salata)

The chairs were up because they were cleaning the floor. Damn. I wish I had some sushi right now. :-(

Here’s a shot Brian took at night as I stood in this odd cubby hole that smelled like pee a little bit. There was a small drain there, as you can see and I could only assume that perhaps bums peed there? I don’t know, but I got out of there quickly once the photo was taken. Nice shot though – good perspective.

(Photo by Brian Salata)

And this photo I’m only putting up because Brian thinks it’s ‘cute’, hehehe. Though for some reason it reminds me of Mary Tyler Moore….

(Photo by Brian Salata)

And I like this one at the Adler Planetarium. We were sitting in the cafe’ having a bite with the best view of The Lake and the city. It was raining, but that made it more special somehow.

Well, I’m ready to go back to Chicago. Like, right now. Yep.

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