Mark Twain: Writing Tips

All Things Literary

(sorry NPR--If the paraphrase works--use it)

Want to be a great writer? Follow these tips. Mark Twain is back by popular demand.

• Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.

• Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

• Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.

• It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

• Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Image via Wikipedia
• The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

• What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

Guest Blogger Mark Twain--Water

Funday-Monday

Cover of Mark Twain

I'd like to introduce my guest blogger, Mark Twain. As we know over the last week, we've been inundated with Hurricane Irene news. Well, Twain is an expert meterologist and here are some of his insights about water.

• The solution to our water problems is more rain.

• Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.

• My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

• Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

• In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

• Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

Can you share your water experiences?

Roxana Saberi--Between Two Worlds

Character Counts

    On January 31, 2009 journalist Roxana Saberi was arrested in Iran, whisked away to Evin Prison and detained for one hundred days. Fear forced her to accede to her captors demands and give a false confession stating she was a spy. She implicated an innocent man and yielded to all the details her captors demanded because she believed their threats: if she didn't, she'd be an old lady before she was released. 

     Once out of solitary confinement, she was able to converse with other political prisoners--ones who would not and could not confess to crimes they did not commit. Shame overwhelmed Saberi, and she recanted.

    Her ordeal kept her imprisoned and denied her access to a lawyer. Her captors hid the charges against her, forbade contact with those outside the prison, began her trial without warning--as a matter of fact, she was fifteen minutes into some questioning when she realized she was currently being tried. Throughout her incarceration, she lay on hard floors with few blankets, little to do and much time in solitary. Her book Between Two Worlds paints a picture of a nasty government and people with no rights.
     As I read of her ordeal I wondered, what would I do if I were imprisoned for my faith (or politics--but my faith is dearer to me). Would I acquiesce to demands so I could be free? Would I submit to physical torture? (Saberi faced only the psychological torture--an awful punishment for unspecified, trumped up crimes.)
     I am grateful I live in a time and a place where I don't need to be subjected to these indignities--but I pray my faith and convictions are strong enough to withstand them.
    We need to guard our liberties so we, in America, don't end up like those in so much of the world. 

Journey to Riverbend by Henry McLaughlin

All Things Literary

(sorry NPR--if paraphrase works--use it)

   

     How to start? I should, with a book review, start with the book. But... 

     I know Henry as personally as one can in cyberspace. He was a crit partner for me, and his eye for edits was unparalleled. Last year we lost him from the group because he had entered a contest with Jerry Jenkins--and apparently didn't win. As he was going to their conference, he decided, in his quintessentially humble manner, that winning wasn't the end and he would go and learn all he could from the experts. To his surprise and his crit group's joy, Henry won the First Novel contest. The committee had goofed and had left his name off the finalist's list.

     This, of course, was fantastic news--but as he needed to work on the book, we did lose him as a partner. Henry's a fine man, great writer and fervent Christian--which brings me to his book--Journey to Riverbend.

     In my youth, I adored westerns and sadly the genre has faded. We do get a taste with prairie romances--but never the masculine intensity of a true western.

     I said Henry was "quintessentially humble," thus the rawness of some of his details surprised me--the West in this book is not sugar-coated. A near rape, the torture of the disreputable Sam Carstairs, and the grittiness of Riverbend form a background of adventure and love for Michael Archer who tries to carry out an innocent man's dying wishes to reconcile with his father--Sam Carstairs.

     In Riverbend, Michael meets Rachel--a former "soiled dove" and falls in love. Sam is kidnapped--and the adventures escalate--to find out how, I advise you to buy the book.

     If you love westerns and clear Christian messages--you will LOVE Journey to Riverbend.

    

What's Your Memoir?

It's--Funday-Monday

In six words, can you write your memoir?
I heard in this Sunday's Sermon that Ernest Hemingway was asked to prove his writing skills by creating a short story in six words. He wrote: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." The congregation as a whole gasped with the power of the "story." Other examples:

• I still make coffee for two. (From an 88 year-old man who lost his wife two years previously)
• Revenge is living well without you. (Joyce Carol Oates)
• Not quite what I was planning. (unknown)
• If it looks good, eat it. (Andrew Zimmern, Bizarre Foods)
• Living is Christ, dying is gain. (St. Paul)

So I wondered, what would my memoir be? I decided:  
Dreams come true through due diligence.
Or--God answers prayer--Neil is proof. (But then, that's could be considered 12 words because I gave two examples!)
Or-- Shoot it, scrap it, share it.

Can you share with me, in six words, your memoir?

Time and Hour?

Image by scubadive67 via Flickr    Tuesday night NBC told a human interest story about a police officer Jeremy Henwood who was shot while sitting in his patrol car outside a McDonald's in San Diego. Henwood survived tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and no one expected him to die while eating lunch. Minutes before he died, a young boy entered the McDonald's and asked to borrow ten cents because he didn't have quite enough for cookies. Henwood bought them for him. Minutes later, he died.
     His last act, his last words were of kindness. What will ours be like?
     Will we be playing solitaire on the computer? Watching questionable TV shows? Dreaming about what we're going to do in the future? Will we die after maligning a neighbor or cursing our politicians or sleeping too late and ignoring our homes?
     We need to be cognizant that we are guaranteed nothing but the moment we are living. We must make our character count. How will people remember us?

Wacked-Out Words

Where'd we get these words?

Image via Wikipedia

1. pulchritude--means great beauty. Sounds like me after food poisoning.
2. flummoxed--confused? Again, sounds like the after effects of food poisoning.
3. bung hole--sounds obscene to me. It's just a hole drilled into a barrel with a cork in it.
4. concupiscence--sounds like problems with the urinary track--but it means sensual desire, lust
5. synecdoche--I could never say this even though I had to teach it. It's a metaphor--like arm of the law for cop. The arm's a part of the cop. The ABCs represent the alphabet.

Can you give me some of your favorites? Maybe they'll show up here!

Calli's Corner: Five Steps to a Better Life

The nose knows

I'd like to introduce guest blogger, Calla Lily Sunbird Mac. She has a few words of wisdom she'd love to share:

How do you get the most out of life? It's simple. KISS--Keep It Simple Stupid.

1. Always kiss her good morning. Morning mouth is an added benefit.
2. Always comfort her when she's sick. And you just might get something out of it, too.
3. Toys are only good when they're shared.
4. Relish your dinner no matter how simple--someone loves you enough to feed you.
5. Nothing you're doing is too important and if she wants to take you for a walk or a run, drop all your plans and go for it with gusto.

Of course, depending on your genetics, you can change the she's to he's. It works equally well when your friend's a male.

And the key is to go for it with GUSTO!

Under construction

  The brick wall had tumbled down, trash littered every square inch of the floors while raccoons chirred in the walls and plaster hung in large chunks.

  “This house is perfect,” our project manager, Mo, said. “It’s beautiful.

  The board accepted his recommendation and currently is renovating the house on Academy Street for a large, blended family who deserves a home.

  We cleared the yard, coated ourselves in plaster dust as we stripped walls, and exposed the rooms to the outdoors.

  Amish masons restored the limestone foundation and the brick walls. New floors are in the process of being laid.

  This home is still a long way from completion—but the work we’ve done displays the beautiful bones of a historic house, and before Christmas, the family will have a home more beautiful than it's original design.

  This, too, is us.

  What were we before Christ?

  Some, blessedly, had always been good and upstanding and didn’t need to see the filth of depravity to know he or she was a sinner.

  The rest of us struggled with drugs or alcohol or bad marriages or rotten relationships or loneliness or depression or cruelty (ours or others) or…

  But God sees our glory—sees through the debris and knows what a master craftsman and our hard work can produce.

  Yes, I said hard work. Jesus won’t do it all, but we won’t do it without Him and He won’t do it without us.

  We can become a glorious habitation if he adhere to Eph 2:10

“For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”