Sister Scribe

This week I finished Chapter Two of Someday at Christmas, and I'm loving this story. Here's the meter as of yesterday:

I spent most of the day housesitting for my sister and working on a short story (excerpted from one of my early manuscripts) for Love Stories magazine,

Hopefully I can get a few pages in while I'm cooking today. Everyone is coming to our house, but they're all contributing to the menu. All I'm doing is the turkey and dressing, corn pudding, sweet potato souffle' and two pistachio cakes.

Since my mind is in the culinary arena this morning, I'd like to leave you with this thought ...

The case for real whipped cream:

Cool Whip

A delicious blend of sugar, wax, and condom lube.

Water

 It's the main ingredient. But like any whipped product, Cool Whip contains a high percentage of air. At 41 cents per ounce, you're buying mostly water and air for just over twice what it would cost to whip real cream yourself.

Natural and Artificial Flavorings

Cool Whip doesn't really taste like much, but Kraft's recipe for blandness is a trade secret. That means the company doesn't have to disclose the specific flavorings.

Corn Syrup and High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Sugar by other names. Corn syrup is mostly glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is corn syrup treated with amylase and other enzymes, which together help convert glucose into fructose. A diet high in fructose is known to make lab mice fatter than other diets, so keep your research animals away from

Hydrogenated Coconut and Palm Kernel Oil

Cool Whip needs to feel like whipped cream in the mouth without actually being, you know, made with cream. One cheap, reliable way to replicate the texture is by using semi- solidified plant oils. The best method of solidifying plant oils: Bubble high- pressure hydrogen through them. Of course, if not done completely, the result is trans fat. These days, Kraft avoids that.

Polysorbate 60

Polysorbates are made by polymerizing ethylene oxide (a precursor to antifreeze) with a sugar alcohol derivative. The result can be a detergent, an emulsifier, or, in the case of polysorbate 60, a major ingredient in some sexual lubricants.

Sodium Caseinate

Also common in powdered non-dairy creamer, this protein derived from cow milk helps oil and water mix.

by Patrick Di Justo

WIRED MAGAZINE: ISSUE 15.05

Now that's a case for REAL whipped cream ...

Enjoy your friends, family and food and have a wonderful Thanksgiving! No matter what you're going through, if you're alive and breathing then you have a lot to be thankful for.

I want to take you into the holiday with a little music:

Someday at Christmas is coming together faster and easier than I expected. I wrote a scene yesterday that I laughed all the way through. It's great when that happens!  Here's the meter:

I'm rushing to get out of here this morning. I have to drive a friend to the doctor, so I'm taking my Alphasmart with me. I can write while I wait for her.

There's nothing I love more than starting a new story. Some writers talk about how they hate facing the blank page, but meeting new characters, learning about their lives, dreams and goals is way more fun to me than typing The End.

Yesterday morning I uploaded the first chapter of Someday at Christmas to my critique group, and I can't wait to hear their comments -- good or bad. In general my heroines usually share my morals and my world view, but this time around I wanted to write a heroine who has a job I would NEVER do (even if I were young, skinny and totally hot).

Tamyra is an exotic dancer, and her reasons for choosing this line of work are central to the plot. Needless to say, since I won't be visiting any of the Atlanta "gentlemen's" clubs first-hand I've been doing a LOT of research on the clubs, finding online interviews with women in the field, and watching scores of videos from pole dancing classes.   It's fun and educational. 

Today the meter looks like this:

 I am already 4,000 words into my new story, Someday at Christmas. Here's the meter:

The query letter for Hollywood Swinging is with my critique partners. Now all I need to do is put together the dreaded synopsis ...

Hollywood Swinging is finished!

It came in under my anticipated word count, but that's fine, because I'm always too longwinded. The ending came out better than I'd expected.

So here's the final meter, but I'm sure it will change somewhat after I go through critiques of the final chapters with my partners.

I know I said I was going to work on rewriting Lyrics, but suddenly ideas for a Christmas story jumped into my head. Since I've never written a holiday story before, I think I'll jump on that before I dive into Lyrics.

Guess I need to think of a way to reward myself, but how do you do that with no cash? The general concensus is that you shouldn;t reward yourself with food, but I haven't had a box of Cheez-It in over a year. Maybe that will be my treat for reaching The End once again ...

I am closing in on the last two chapters of Hollywood Swinging. It looks as if this manuscrit is going to be shorter than I'd expected, but that's okay. I need to write shorter, more concise stories since books are getting shorter (with the exception of J.R. Ward, whose latest release is 482 pages!)   

Here's the meter this morning:

Ideas are swirling around in my head on what to do next, but I'm leaning toward reworking Have You Seen Her?  the multicultural romance I wrote a couple of years ago before I write anything new. I loved the story and I really loved nightclub bouncer, Taylor Villanova, the ultra sexy bi-racial hero.

Jumping to another subject, this is my second week going to the gym. Can somebody tell me when that wonderful energy I've heard people talk about is supposed to kick in?  All I feel is TIRED ...

On Saturday I attended a workshop entitled, "Editing for Writers: How to Grow from Good to Great." It was held at the beautiful Southwest Arts Center in Atlanta. The workshop presenter was Malaika Adero, Vice President and Senior Editor of Atria Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster.

First of all, I had never been to the Southwest Arts Center before. It's about forty minutes from where I live, but I'd heard that it is a very active venue for black arts events - film, music, dance, literature.

The number of participants was limited  to twenty-five, so the workshop had a small, intimate feeling. Ms. Adero shared for over two hours from her vast experience in the publishing industry. I was so impressed by her relaxed, confident demeanor and even moreso by her knowledge.

Ms. Adero talked about:

*  What makes a writer great

*  How to shop for an agent

*  What makes a writer successful

*  What makes a great book proposal

*  What makes a professional manuscript

*  What happens once you're offered a publishing deal

*  What do acquiring editors and publishers actually do

Even though the host could have easily charged $25-$50 for the seminar, it was provided for free. That's one of the things I love about Atlanta. There's always something going on, and it's not always expensive.

Right before the workshop started, I saw a woman come in and sit at the back of the circle of chairs. I thought to myself, "Wow, she looks like Jasmine Guy."  Come to find out it was Jasmine, the actress who played Whitley Gilbert on "A Different World" from 1987 to 1993. She writes stage and screenplays now.

Did you do anything interesting this weekend?

The meter on HOLLYWOOD SWINGING has jumped because I added a storyline from another manuscript that I wrote several years ago. It was the most exciting part of story, and since I never submitted that story anywhere, I figured I'd steal from it..That story was written in third person and changing it to first is time consuming. As I go through it, there are a lot of changes to be made. I see how my writing has matured in five years.  

So here's where it stands today:

With the start of the new television season, I've been trying to sample the new shows and decide which ones I'll stick with. So far, I absolutely     ABC's Flashforward and CBS's The Good Wife.  Castle was my favorite debut last season, but I'm skipping Dancing with the Stars (boring cast),

Whatchadooin?

I gave today's entry a different title, since I haven't posted anything since last Wednesday. This week I've been so busy doing critiques for my partners, rewriting Ch. 14 of HOLLYWOOD and writing Ch. 15. The meter has jumped because I added two scenes that came from a previous manuscript that I've decided to change and use in this story.

On another note, one of my critsisters is leaving our group because she and her family are opening a restaurant and her time is going to be very limited. We've worked together for three years, and I'm going to miss her. Wish you the best, Chelle!

If I can figure out how to post a couple of videos here in the body of my blog, I'll post them on Friday. In the past few days people have sent me some doozies.

See you Friday.

I'm almost 3/4 of the way finished with HOLLYWOOD SWINGING. Here's the meter as of last night.

In the nine years I've been writing, I have experienced a strange phenomenon. As soon as I hit the middle of my work in progress, the ideas start forming for my next manuscript.

Not this time ... I got nothing, people, absolutely nothing!

This has never happened to me before, so I've made up my mind to go back to my first manuscript and rewrite it. The reason I chose this particular story to rewrite is because it was the "story of my heart."  The problem was that I didn't know what I was doing as far as the craft goes. All I wanted to do was write the story. Then I discovered there were rules to this stuff -- all of which I had broken.

I loved Dee and Michael, the interracial couple featured in this story, and I want to give them another chance.

What I plan to do is print out a hard copy of the manuscript, start reading from page one and make notes of what's wrong. That should keep me busy for aboutt three months ...