#FridayFlash: Says The Master

Two years ago, my older daughter, lured by the pretty dresses and tapping shoes, pulled us into Irish Dance. When she began classes, this hispanic family knew absolutely nothing about Irish Dance. Reel? Jig? Hard shoes? It all might as well have been Gaelic as far as we were concerned.

The dance school family embraced us with open arms. The dance instructors, the dancers, and the parents helped our daughter, and the rest of the our family, to understand and love the sometimes crazy, but always fantastic life of Irish Dance. Now, our younger daughter has joined the ranks, we've made life long friends, and we know more about trebles than I think possible.

Recently, a fellow Irish Dance parent/writer challenged me to write a piece for something like an Irish Dance Storytime. So, me being me, I searched the internet for the history of Irish Dance. I came across information about Dance Masters, instructors that traveled across the land teaching villagers Irish Dance.

That history, as well as Darren Maguire's commitment to Irish Dance and his students, are the inspiration for this little poem that I wrote for my 21 Moments writing challenge.

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Says The Master

To the beat. With grace.

This foot here. That foot there.

Dance with your heart.

Says The Master.

Dancing gets the chores done.

Dancing brings the neighbors to call.

Dancing starts the ceili.

Says The Master.

In the morn, Dance to school

In the eve, Dance in the streets.

In the night, Dance in your dreams.

Says the Master.

Dance to forget.

Dance to remember.

Dance to love.

Says The Master.

Dance is life.

Life is Dance.

Love Life. 

Love Dance.

Says the Master.

A Tech Tip - Personalizing your Digital Workspace: Google Mail

A writer forum leader recently charged members to personalize their writing area. So far, people have added plants, organized paper stacks, painted walls, hung colorful or inspirational posters, generally spruced up their spaces.

There is also the digital makeover, which is just as easy to do. Here are a few suggestions.

• Clean up the computer desktop.
• Delete old files.
• Rearrange icons.
• Change out your computer desktop with a favorite photo or something related to your current work in progress.
• If you can, set your computer desktop to rotate through a series of photos, then you'll have something fresh to look at every few hours.
• If you use GMail in a browser, you can customize your Google Mail Tab background with a theme, a stock photo, or even one of your own photos.
• Just click on your Setting Gear, click on Themes, scroll down to Change Your Background Photo Image, then select/upload one of your own. Voila, now you might actually get to Inbox Zero so you can see the picture. (It's the little things that make the difference.)

Here is a screenshot of my Google Mail background. The uncluttered and calming blue photo is of the North Sea. (I took the pic on our family trip to Scotland last year.) Perfect and uniquely mine.

Be it the physical space or the digital, play around with it, try different themes, make it uniquely your own.

Did I tell you...

... that I contracted with an editor? Just last week. While I'm excited to be working with one of my favorite authors, her first exercise for me is giving me lots to think about: details.

I consider myself a detail-oriented person. Let me show you spreadsheets of details and you'd see data in rows and columns, color-coded. However, it seems that I don't convey details well in narrative writing. Probably because I don't like reading it.

Back in high school, I had to read Lord of the Flies. There was a passage about the jungle, and I'm sure I'm remembering this wrong, but one paragraph was longer than one whole page. It took me forever to slog through that passage. Even now, I find myself skipping long paragraphs that are mostly description. Give me action or dialogue and I'll gulp it down, but long descriptions -- ugh.

So adding description and the right details, all from the perspective of the POV character, is proving a bit more difficult that I thought. It's not just describing the setting, but how a character thinks, senses, reacts. A word here or a phrase there can be powerful and add richness. Something I didn't realize that was missing from my writing.

Working with an editor this early in the game was the right thing for me to do.

My Take on the "The Plot Whisperer"

In my continuing self-education for my writing craft, I read The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master by Martha Aldersen.

Before I start my review, I have a confession of sorts. Many of the writing books I read lately sound the same to me: Show, Don't Tell; Details Matter; Dig Deep; Develop unique Characters; Conflict in Every Scene, etc. I get that these are important story elements, and that the authors of these books can't assume the reader has read other writing books. However, reading the same advice for what seems like over and over again, doesn't reinforce the concepts for me, but makes me want to put the book down. I haven't done that yet, keeping an open mind that I just might find a new way of improving my writing craft. Not that I haven't been tempted. Confession over.

So, given that, I'll focus on the aspects that stood out as unique.

Much of Alderson's approach in the book concerns her almost meta take on writing. She asserts that as one writes, one also undergoes a story arc, almost parallel to the main character of the story. Throughout the writing process, she suggests taking moments to realize one's own place in the story arc. She also includes journaling ideas to help get at the root of any resistance one may have during the writing process.  (Something I'll explore to see if I can get over my revision dislike.)

Source: http://www.blockbusterplots.com/resc/PP.html

She introduces the Plot Planner, a visual representation of the story's plot, traced out on a large pieces of banner paper. For a more complete description of her method, see her blog post about it here. Uses sticky notes representing certain aspects of the story, like characters and theme, one graphs out the story plot while keeping track of external and internal conflicts.

I can see how this might be a useful tool, keeping track of the who, what, and when of a story. Her structure, with the beginning, middle, and end, dovetails nicely with Larry Brooks' Story Engineering structure.

Source: http://www.blockbusterplots.com/resc/ST.html

She also uses a scene tracker, a spreadsheet of sorts that tracks each scene. Holly Lisle and Larry Brooks both use scene tools, this one is unique in that it lists emotional change, thematic details, and goals. I'll be adding these extra elements to my scene essentials such as POV character, protagonist, antagonist, conflict, setting, and twist to my meta-data in Scrivener. Perhaps, by adding these few extra details in the outlining process, I might have less to do in the revision process. And an easy add to my meta-data in Scrivener. Always a blessing.

I'd recommend this book to any level writer. Less experienced writers will get good advice on the basics. More experienced writers will get a deeper understanding of the how and why of their writing, getting breakthroughs that could get them to the next level.

Aldersen maintains a blog in which she discusses various aspects of the Plot Planner and other tools she's developed. I've just added her blog feed to my RSS reader.

Until next time ...

Playing with Book Covers

Playing around in Photoshop Elements with some of my own photos, I made two temp book covers for the two stories I'm working on.

Death's Choice: The composite is made from a very red Tucson sunrise and a desaturated bloom from my travel in Scotland.

Stranded by Lightning: The landscape is from outside Dunrobin castle, the stone (all three the same stone) from a cairn near Inverness, and the person is my youngest daughter from a photo where she is rushing to get out of a tunnel from  under St. Andrews Castle.

They may not be the right format, but for the moment, they'll do. Besides, if I publishing these stories, I'll seek professional services. (I don't think my youngest daughter will appreciate the photo in years to come.)

And not all my time has been spent playing around. Via Google+, I may have found a writing buddy. Looking forward to her critique on Death's Choice.