Wasted Calories

I think the candy du jour needs to be Krackel. Kinda nasty chocolate only mitigated by a ricey crispy crunch. It's low on my favorites list, possibly only ahead of its sister chocolate made by Nestle, the dreaded Crunch bar. I think they make the chocolate, taste it, and if it's a bad batch or the milk was sour or something else was generally "off", they say, "Ew. Let's throw in some Rice Krispies and sell it anyway."

Yes, I ate a Krackel just now. I hate to admit it. It was the miniature size, and it was the only piece of chocolate in the house. (Nothing against all y'all who just love a Krackel. Some of my favorite people in the world love a Krackel bar.)

Sometimes I find I do my reading that way. Whatever happens to be on the shelf that I haven't read yet, I'll just pick it up and read. I don't necessarily like it, but there's this compelling force in me, a need to read, that's irrepressible. Quite often I end up reading stuff I really don't care for.

This year I went on this forever long diet. It's calorie counting and my goal was to stay on it for 200 days. I'm on like day 146 now, and there's been some progress. Down two pant sizes, so whew. (Really, I mean: Yay! Much needed since child #5 is nearly three years old now, and I can't keep using the excuse that I just had a baby.) So eating the Krackel -- dang it! Those were wasted calories! It kills me.

Yeah, this analogy, it's pretty thin, I know. But I guess what I am thinking is that the junk we injest into our bodies and our minds -- we could be choosier. I don't mean I never want to read cotton candy for my soul again. It should just be cotton candy (which I love) and not Krackel (which I don't love.) If it's going to be a fun read, I should at least love it.

My sister (the funny one) has a mantra: life's too short to read books we don't want to read. She may be right. What I love is her corollary: Life's not too short to watch dumb movies.

Therefore, I'll take all my Krackel and Crunch on film in 90 minute increments while I'm eating something much better--movie popcorn, and I'll just save my reading time for stuff I really love.

Oh, and I guess my main goal is to write stuff that won't leave anyone (or at least most readers) feeling like, ew, why'd I read that?

Speak to me, honey!

As I go through this novel, trying to get every detail to work together to tell the story, one of my big goals is to get the lines of each character to sound both unique and authentic. What I mean is, I'd like each of the speakers to have his/her own voice, and to be able to sound true in the reader's ear, so that the reader can really imagine the character as being a living human being.

It's kind of tough. In one of the stories I wrote, I loosely based a character on a friend of mine from another country. Even though she and I never spoke much English to one another, I knew her well enough to be able to imagine how she would speak if she were to say something in English. In feedback from readers, one of the compliments I got was on the authenticity of that particular character's voice. "She seems so real," they said. Even though my foreign pal never did anything I had my character do in the novel, her "voice" came in handy when I was looking for a speaking style for a character.

I have wondered if other authors have different tricks for hearing their characters "speak."

If so, speak up in the comment section!

I guess in honor of this topic, the candy I should probably go track down is Pop Rocks because they talk to me, right? And, it's so awesome that I found *this* flavor of Pop Rocks online, eh?

Sweet Inspiration

I just returned home from the annual summer Retreat of the American Night Writers Association. I've been a member of this excellent writing group for about 3 years now, and joining has been the best decision of my writing career. My publisher, Chad Daybell suggested I join, and it took me a month or so to decide to do so.

He was so right.

The group is fantastic. I have learned more about writing from these women (and it is women only in the group) than I did in my entire college career, or in my years as a writer for the U.S. Congress, or in my years as an aspiring author. It's just a great, motivational, educational group.

During the Retreat in the high country of Arizona this year, I met several women who really helped me figure out how to make strides in my writing, and I appreciate them very much. For a long time I have resisted starting a writing blog, believing there are enough of them out there. (And there probably are.) I am quite averse to self-promotion, and I saw a presence on the web as annoying to myself and others. However, one of the women in my "suite" helped me see otherwise.

When I told her the catchphrase I've always used for my writing, "Cotton Candy for the Soul," she laughed and told me that needed to be my personal trademark, my logo. She said I should name my blog this. I laughed, thinking, no way. Then I came home, and it sank in. Voila, this blog. Then, as the "Crazy Coincidence" above states, the evening after I created the original page, a neighbor stopped by with six bags of cotton candy in hand. He'd just bought a machine and thought he would drop some by for us. I couldn't believe it.

It made me think, wow, the whole universe is reaffirming this decision.

I know. Now I'm sounding like candy corn for your soul.

But I believe there is a need for entertaining writing. We have a lot of people out there aspiring to write that "Great American Novel," one that will both wrench and open the eyes of each reader. There are others who are out to write something to educate the reader about a social issue, or to do all manner of shocking writing.

However, not I. For some of us, the great gift of reading is escape. I aspire not to write chicken soup or meat and potatoes or spicy salsa.

My stuff isn't deep. It's just light, sweet, gone.

And can't we just enjoy some cotton candy now and then?