My friend Lauri posted this very cool tool. Plug in the information and the website gives you the source citation in the correct format. If only I’d had this in college.
I love Bo’s Cafe Life. Great writer jokes!
My new favorite software is Scrivener. I’ll write more about this later, but I like it enough to convert my late draft manuscript to it for rewrites.
I read about Scrivener on author, David Hewson’s blog. It’s jam-packed with great stuff for writers.
We enjoyed New Year’s Eve on the Riverwalk. The crowd was thick with tourists and Alamo Bowl participants, but we hit the town early and left before anyone got shoved into the canal.
We don’t have Currier and Ives snow scenes, but there’s nothing like a San Antonio Christmas. The river is a jewel with lights twinkling from every cyprus tree. They’re on from just after Thanksgiving until a week after New Year’s. Then, the canals are drained and cleaned. I’ve heard the workers find thousands of cellphones, car-keys, assorted sunglasses in the muck before they re-open the flood gates.
We were lucky to have good weather. The afternoon high was 76°. The evening was balmy until a cold front blew in another annual rite, mountain juniper pollen.
As always, click on any photo to see a larger view.
Instead of top ten lists or resolutions or goals, I’m posting photos. I couldn’t resist the romance of last night’s blue moon.
I just finished reading Great Expectations. (Before, I’d read an abridged version from my ninth grade literature book.) At first, I bought the Cliffs’ Notes and the paperback, but I couldn’t get past page fifty. Then I discovered the large print edition from the public library. It’s a lot easier to read seven hundred and twenty-four pages of 16 pt. print vs. 8 pt.
I loved the book. Although I knew almost every twist of the story, Dickens makes the stakes for Pip, huge. Finding out about Magwitch was astounding, and losing Estella to Drummle, life shattering. I found myself re-reading passages, not for understanding, but because I wanted to feel the thrill of the words again. I understand why Dickens’ audience was mesmerized. Waiting for the next serialized installment must have been like my family waiting for the next Harry Potter.
Great Expectations plays a part in my book. Reading Dickens’ original gave me renewed focus. I discovered a few plot ideas, but more than that, I know how to raise the stakes emotionally for my heroine.
Check for Spam
Author Comment In Response To
CHLOE28
Submitted on 2009/12/27 at 3:17pm
With the purpose to prevent the failures in some mini dissertation, that could be better to purchase the perfectly done article close to this topic at the thesis service in Internet. That’s not very hard to get the good grades coming that great way.
This comment was in my spam folder. It’s ironic because the book I’m working on is about intellectual piracy, specifically about a stolen Masters’ Thesis. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve written about the issue before, but the comment appears after the post Less Than Zero about an idiot I saw riding a motorcycle. It’s fairly obvious the poster is not an English speaker, “Get the good grades coming that great way.” The sentence is alliterative, at least.
Click on any thumbnail to see the larger image.
We made cookies this morning. I hauled out my mom’s ancient stand mixer, and Cherry and Coco read the recipe and measured the ingredients. We rolled out the dough and cut stars and Christmas tree shapes, sprinkling them with sparkly sugar crystals. After baking we enjoyed a few and saved a few more to leave out for Santa. Merry Christmas everyone!
Making a decision to do something and then doing it requires not doing a dozen other things.–Georgia O’Keeffe
I was doing research when I came across the quote. Index card in hand,I scurried to get it down. O’Keeffe was talking to Mary Lynn Klotz of Art News, but she could have said it to any number of people. The artist spent a lifetime bouncing between self-promotion and privacy.
She was right of course. When I say I’m writing a book, it’s a green light for everyone to say, “Then you have time to . . . .”
I don’t. I don’t have time. I may be interested. I probably want to. I’d be good at it. But . . .I can’t. I can’t do both. Every so often I forget and have to remind myself, “Keep your eye on the prize.”
Yesterday, I was asked to do something I would’ve taken on immediately, two years ago. I could see the daydream in front of me. Instead of no I said, “I’ll get back to you.” I fought with myself. I tried to fight with Bacon, but he wouldn’t bite.
“But, I know I could.”
“I won’t try to stop you, but you know you shouldn’t.” He turned his attention back to the television news. “You aren’t able to do anything halfway, and you won’t have time to write.”
I hate when he’s right. So, today I’ll call back with a regretful, but resolute, no.
I just saw a guy riding a motor scooter without a helmet while texting.
I sent the manuscript yesterday. It took all day to finish the synopsis, but I did it. Several hours after the box hit the post office, I discovered four small cut and paste errors in the partial, the first fifty pages. I fought with myself for twelve hours and finally decided this morning, I had to let it go.
The contest entry is a deadline, but one that’s self-imposed. I needed the pressure to get to the next step. Second guessing is a form of procrastination. I’m moving on.
Yesterday, pre-error discovery, I made a list of new long term goals.
Now is also the time to begin a new story.
This list should take me through April Fool’s Day. I’ll start tomorrow.
A way of speaking or writing. Briskly decisive and matter-of-fact, without hesitation or unnecessary detail: they were cut off with a crisp “Thank you.”
"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines." Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2
Writer, Elisabeth Crisp
