Happy Halloween!

MY LITTLE DOGGIE WONDERING IF THE MONSTERS HAVE LEFT AND IF THERE'S ANY CANDY LEFT TOO!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

My favorite story of Halloween is of my very first one. I was three and wore my bunny pajamas and my dad carried me around the apartment complex where we lived. Such an adventure! And candy too!

Do you celebrate the holiday? Have a Halloween story, fun, silly, sad, scary to share? Please do.

Fall Musings: What is Failure? Success?

Fall views from my daily walk on the Oregon Trail

Several posts of my fellow bloggers such as Beth, Helen, Kathy, Sandra, Enid and Lynda made me think about how every time the seasons turn it is a opportunity for reflection on a life's course, past, present and future. This time of year when the ground goes fallow is especially conducive to contemplating the past. Not only the past, but what it means for the present and the future. And though the past is gone, it still impacts our behaviors and attitudes today. And while judging our experiences is a bit of a folly, still it's human.

But I've discovered that in judging the past, I'm continually...wrong. Which brings us to the topic. Because, what is failure? Success? It might seem easy to say, "I wish I'd been a bestseller with my first novel and therefore I'm a failure." Except that my first novel was written when I was 11 and much of it was written in colored markers. Now I believe that attempt was a success--certainly I knew I had the passion and discipline to write at an early age! And who can know what a "success" might bring?

And what is success? Again, the definition shifts like fine sand in a loosely grasping hand. I grew up in a posh ski resort and rubbed my hand-me-down Kmart coat elbows with the children of the rich and famous and "successful." And while having money is quite useful--still I'll never forget my friend who could never be without her nanny's supervision (we couldn't go outside often--fear of kidnappers) and who had never tasted peanut butter (chef didn't approve).

I suppose we'd all agree that failure is when we hurt someone, a successful life is when we leave the world a little better off for us being in it--but what about the less important aspects? For me, I count successes when I remain true to my writing passion and true to the love I feel for friends and family. I count when I forget those truths as my failures.

How about you? What do you see as past failures? Successes? Or perhaps more importantly, how has your perceptions changed over time of what might be a success or failure?

Basil and Creativity

Clipped basil re-rooting along with coasters I won in a contest by Enid of Steamy Darcy.

This year, none of the tomatoes were successful. But the basil exploded, witness the photo above, these are the leftovers. So what to do with all the basil? Ah, and there's the link to increasing creativity, because after using it in spaghetti sauce and in tomato cucumber salad and giving it away to friends...what's next?

Here's a few of the recipes I created:

First, preserving it:
Rinse the basil, chop fine and bottle with olive oil. Can use as is for the basil flavor alone or add garlic, onion, pepper, lemon, etc. and make salad dressing. Keep refrigerated when not using.
Hang it upside down and dry it, although this is my least favorite way of preserving it. It loses a lot of flavor, IMO.
My favorite: Rinse the leaves and put whole into a plastic bag and freeze. When the basil is frozen, crunch it up in the bag into little bits and use. A thank you to my s.o. Bruce for this, it works great.

Now for three recipes:
Add basil to any curry to make it "Thai" style.
Basil is great added to any Chinese dish, especially fried rice and chicken dishes.
Add basil to ground chicken or any ground meat when making meatloaf.
Puree basil with garlic and butter or margarine and spread on a halved French bread loaf, bake in oven (low temp or the basil will burn) for a twist on garlic bread.
And my favorite:
Tomato Basil soup:
2 cups of tomatoes (for spicier soup, can use 1 cup green tomatoes)
2 cups milk
1/2 cup of basil (it will taste strong)
Tablespoon of olive oil
2 tablespoons nutritious yeast (optional)
touch of pepper (optional)
Puree tomatoes. Heat olive oil in soup pan and add tomato puree and cook 5-8 minutes then add slowly the 2 cups of milk and simmer for 10 minutes, then add basil, yeast and pepper and simmer another 10 minutes. Soup will be thin, if you like thicker add 2 tablespoons of flour when adding milk and stir well. And my disclaimer: I'm not a professional chef so your results may vary.

Now the creativity piece--I discovered that having such a wealth of one thing, basil, led me to be creative in how I thought about basil. It became much more than "one of the spices that goes into spaghetti." It expanded and took on a more complex role in my cooking in some unexpected ways. And showed me a way to be more creative in my writing. With a character, for example, expand the character so it becomes more complex and then use the character in unexpected ways. Same is true for the plot--try thinking of it as many different ways as possible, play the what if game. What's an unexpected event? Another? Twist and turn the elements of your creativity and then jump out of boxed in expectations to another level.

Anybody got any other recipes for basil? How about a story where a plethora of whatever led to more creative thinking?

One Lovely Blog Award

Sandra of My Little Corner presented me with this award a few days ago in her post One Lovely Blog Award. Sandra's site is great for new short story markets and other of interest to writers sites.

The rules are simple:

1) Accept the award and don't forget to post a link back to the awarding person.

2) Pass the award on.

3) Notify the award winners.

And my first rule is say thanks, thank you Sandra! (Anyone who is looking for short story markets NEEDS to visit My Little Corner.)

Passing the award on is difficult only because there are so many great blogs that I follow. Many of them are on my "Blogs I read all the time" list, so check it out, but that needs to be updated (soon, I promise). Please check it out and go to those blogs.

So, in the interests of brevity and because I'm partial I'm awarding this to one blog, to my dear friend Kathy's fun, wonderful and full of great writerly wisdom, blog: Well Placed Words.

Next, what basil has to do with creating.

Beyond and Above Platforming

This week, a good friend of mine, Lance Thompson, a script doctor will be presenting at the Idaho Writers' League's 2009 Writers Conference: Paint with Words. As well as teaching some excellent workshops, he'll be on a panel about "The State Of Publishing Today." He asked a couple of days ago for my thoughts on same, having gone to a major conference recently.

My recent experience at the conference and elsewhere is that the bottom line is (and will always be):

Like any major business, the publishing world is always in flux. At this time, two major factors are in play. One is the recession and the other is electronic publishing. So there's a lot of "It's harder than ever to sell" out there. But I've been writing and submitting and selling for a long time and that's always been the publishers' lament. In my experience, a recession helps the publishing business, which is usually slow and reluctant to change. And the electronic revolution provides a wealth of new opportunities for publication (I was published on Twitter, for heaven sakes!).

Every agent/editor who I spoke with or who was on a panel said the same thing: "We want to see the writing. It's only the writing that truly matters. Yes, we talk about platform and the publishing world and what's hot right now, but the quality of writing is everything. And as long as some people somewhere still read, we'll still be looking for good writing to publish."

It's the writing. We all need, in our desperate desire to publish, to remember it's the writing that sells.

Do you put the writing (often the most difficult part) first? Do you write first? Write every day? Or set aside times for concentrated writing and then work on other parts of your career by working on your platform or attending workshops or conferences or? Is your focus correct? Is there something you'd like to change?

Writing of workshops, Lance is also giving one of his excellent workshops, "Lance Thompson’s Screenplay Story Structure Workshop," in Eagle, Idaho on October 10 and 11--comment if you want more info.

A Platform for Success

This seems to now be all the buzz. "Platform, platform, platform!" was what I heard at the Willamette Conference from the editors and agents. Platform before publication? Before you sell your book? It seems out of the natural order and it seems the stuff of controversy amongst groups and bloggers--for example see Sandra's post on My Little Corner and the link to the Writers in Residence blog that discusses how and why to platform.

One event, however, convinced me of the reason behind all the insistence on platform. The first night at the conference there was a "pitch practice" session where writers could get up and...practice their pitches, of course. One writer's first words were "I've had a million (!) hits on my blog." That's all the agents and editors needed to hear. Why? Think about it. Even if those million hits meant only, oh let's say 200,000 people have visited her blog and only 10% of those buy the book, 20,000 copies are presold. Plus it's still true that book sell by word of mouth most, so even if it's 10,000 people who visit a lot--the writer has name recognition. Though not a guarantee, chances are the book will be a bestseller.

The publishing world is changing moment by moment and the electronic revolution is driving much of that change. We writers have to change our expectations (the publisher will do all the promoting of my book, I don't even have to think about it) and our business plans.

Does this mean spend all your time writing your blog or developing a web page or working on Facebook at the expense of the writing? Of course not. The writing always comes first and foremost. But creating virtual and real "face time" and "name recognition" is now a necessity, I believe.

So, dear readers, what do you think? Do you believe this may be just another reason to turn down authors or does it have merit? What has been your experiences: with creating a platform, or promoting a novel, or both?

Catching up is hard to do

My niece, Vik and I standing outside of the balcony (above) where Ernest Hemingway wrote "A Farewell to Arms."

My forever boyfriend, Bruce, riding on the ski lift down Baldy.

Me, doing the same as Bruce.

No, I'm not dead and neither is my blog. Both have been on what I believed was a short vacation. Or rather, a longer vacation than expected by me. First there was the vacation, then there was the recovery-catch-up-return-to-normal-life period, often the longer of the two--or at least it seems. While having fun, the time soars away.

Before, I used to balk at this "vacation recovery stage." After all, I'd taken plenty of time off, I should return home invigorated, energetic and enthusiastic, ready to leap back into, well, everything. Instantly have the house clean, the bills paid, and write all the pages I didn't while I was gone. I spent energy berating myself instead of doing what I could do and when.

Now, after vacation is part of the vacation. This works much better. Especially if the vacation has been of the American style "Go!Go!Go!" variety, instead of sitting on a beach somewhere, napping. At the most, guilt cuts into my energy and makes it that much more difficult to catch up and get back to normal. At the least, relaxing about returning from vacation allows me to realize the fun lessons, the epiphanies, the life memories, that help me with my writing. And recognizing the need for recovery time makes it much shorter.

How about you? When you return from a vacation, do you leap into action? Or are you like me, and need a break from the break first?