She wanted a ukulele for Christmas?

My dd wanted a Ukulele for Christmas. And not just any ukulele, a professional one. My reply? "They have professional ukuleles???" I thought they were more or less a joke. A plastic thing you bought at the gift shop in Hawaii, but evidently there's more to the Uku than meets the eye. Check out this guy:

The talent out there in the world amazes me.
I'm not a city person but the one thing I do love in NYC are the street musicians. (Okay, the pocketbook guys are a real close second-you can never have too many purses!) Musicians give the day a flavor unlike any other. I always dig in my pocket to tip these guys because I want them to keep coming back.
Do you think we writers could get anything for standing on street corners reading our stories? I mean, how about if we put a typewriter case on the ground, drop a few coins in it and just start reading, would they tip us too? What if we did it outside of an agent's office? Or publisher?
Okay, okay, it was just a thought...
So I bought her a Uku, now I'm waiting for my concert.

Got Crayons?

Does the medium control the artist or does the artist control the medium? Whether painting, writing, or preforming (singing, insturmental, acting), would your talent extend to other venues? Could the concert violynist master the piano at will?
Or if you're an excellent artist with pencil is it that much of a leap to move to paint?
To relate this to writing how many writers switch genres at will? Is it really such a stretch to believe a romance writer can write a thriller? One of my stories is a thriller but with romantic elements. I didn't do this on purpose it just came out that way. I think in real life those "romantic elements" can come at us at any time, no matter what we're going through. So doesn't that stand to realize the same would be true in any kind of fiction? I think the degree that we inject it into our story is in our control. A thriller still needs the main focus to be whatever is pushing your plot but a bit of romance or an other element that would normally happen in real life could give your story more life.
Just a thought. Am I making any sense here?
The above picture makes me wonder about these things. This picture was done in a medium I never would have attempted. If you go to his website you can see more of these amazing pictures done entirely with Crayola Crayons.
And you thought they were just for kids...
:)

Where do you go when you're not here?

Anywhere this guy's not...

Next time you need to win something, try this:

If only the great leaders of the world could settle things this easily.

Does your WIP fit the Hero's Journey?

Does it have to?

There's a pretty good site (okay, their selling something but I still like their outlines) that talkes about the Hero's Journey. They list a bunch of movies on the site and outline them into the Hero's Journey. And they do it more indepth than I've ever seen it before. 188 stages!

Now I want to go back and watch the movies so I can match them up visually to the Hero's outline, because I just want this to sink into my brain better.

Now I'm looking at my own WIP and trying to see how it fits. Did I cover all my bases? Forget a major part that will leave my work looking weak? And if I have a hero and heroine who are both major players....do I have to "journey" them both? I mean, sometimes I'm in the heroine's head so does she need a journey here too? And did that guy who wrote Star Wars have the hero's journey in his head when he was writing it?

Here's the basic journey I'm working off of:

The Call

Threshold

Challenges

Abyss

Revelation

Transformation

Atonement

The Return

Not 188 but its a start.

Does anyone think of this while their working their WIP?

Opinons?

We Can't Let This Bank Fail...Blogging out Hunger

The economy is in a slump, people are cutting back on all but essentials, everyone is saving, not spending.
And this bank is almost empty.

Last night I saw my friend Middletown Mike and he told me about this great Blogger movement to help our food banks.

Today, Monday December 15th, Bloggers are uniting to get the word out and help Stamp Out Hunger. This action was started by www.jerseybites.com and they are trying to get 100 bloggers to put out the word. Won't you join us?

Ways to help:
1. Run a food drive. Set up a box at work, school, or in your local church or library and ask for (non-perishable) donations.
2. Volunteer at your local food bank.
3. Make a monetary donation. (Every little bit helps!)
4. Be an advocate! Get the word out about how desperately donations are needed.

We Can't Let this BANK fail!

Who are the Characters in your life?

Ever meet people- you know,those exuberant, enjoy life (or hate life) , type of folks who you'll always remember-and then find them in your book?
Sometimes when I look back over my work I recognise people, or at least, pieces of people who I know in real life. Their personalities have worked their way into my writing and turned into characters. Maybe they're not exactly like the real life person but their spirit is there, dancing on my pages. And I never saw it happen.
I didn't sit down at my keyboard and say I'm going to put Kevin in here, or I'll make Scott into this tall, suave executive or hey, Sean would make a great artist type...
No, I didn't see them hop between the pages and come to life. But I guess the essence of their life has so impacted me that a part of my subconscious built entire characters around them.
My latest WIP (or at least one of them) started with a car accident. My car got hit from behind. I drive a bright yellow car and never thought anyone would hit me....how do they not see me? The car practically glows in the dark! But they did, slammed me good. So this made me think...what if someone hit someone from behind on purpose? Motivation? Other motivation? Ultimate outcome? Who's the winner here? What if the tables turned suddenly and the hittee becomes the winner? Or the hittee planned all this from the start?
So guess who's in my WIP now? Or at least a piece of him.
Do you see real peeps in your characters? Or at least a little bit of them?

Don't you hate breaking in those new shoes???

Getting the groove back...

After getting the wind knocked out of your sails, when nothing seems quite so important as it did before, how do you get your groove back?
I've been taking my WIP to work with me and editing on my lunch our and any down time I may have. I work in a cubical now (love it!) and I'm pretty much out of sight from the powers that be so when I have nothing to do I pull out the old WIP and go at it. (or sometimes I go blogging)
But it's been a bad week and now when I look at my WIP -- I don't like any of it. I fight not to throw the whole thing in the trash because I'm guessing this might be a carry over of feelings from the bad week.
I think I need a good romance novel. Something with nice thoughts and happy endings. Something to lift my overall mood.
I had it.
But I lost it.
Take a break?
Or keep plugging along feeling like someone stuck pins under your finger nails?
What do you do when life throws you down?

Lokie

Lokie has renal failure. I brought her home so my daughter can come home from college tonight and say goodbye. Tomorrow we go back to the vet so she can be put to sleep.
:(
Very sad day in the Aimless house.

This is Lokie...

Lokie is 13 years old. She's a Shetland Sheepdog. When we take her to the dog park Lokie herds the rest of the dogs, running in circles and yapping.
When she was younger she did tricks like Hi Five, Bang(we point our gun finger at her and she keels over dead), Speak, and the normal sit, stay, lay down, and roll over. She's the easiest dog I've ever trained.
Now Lokie is 13 and for a while now she's been having trouble with her back legs. She struggles to stand and it takes her a while to get anywhere. In the past week she hasn't been able get up the two steps on the deck so I carry her up. In the rain on Sunday dh went out and built her a ramp to get up on the deck. Which she was afraid to use. So dd went out and got a rubber mat and I nailed it on the ramp. This morning she still wouldn't use it so I went out and carried her in the house.
She's eaten very little in the past few days and this morning she turned her nose up at breakfast. When I got home from work tonight and went to find her, she couldn't stand at all.
I carried her out to the living room and offered her food and water. She took a little water.
:(
I sat on the floor and brushed her, cuddled her for a bit and tomorrow we have to take her to vet.
It doesn't look good....
Please pray for Lokie. She's the best dog in the world.