My wonderful friend is here visiting from Texas. Her boyfriend traveled back with her. I have never met him as I haven't seen my friend for two years. He had wanted to propose to her while they were in Iowa but he wanted to propose in the snow. I told him that Iowa doesn't always get snow in November but it was a nice thought, she loves snow and loves Iowa since she grew up here. Well on Saturday some parts of Iowa did get snow. My mom's house was one of them. He told her he really wanted to see the snow so they went to my mom's and he proposed. It was all very sweet and she didn't suspect a thing.
We went to David's Bridal and she found her dress and I found my dress. She has asked me to be her Matron of Honor. I am honored. My entire family is in the wedding. My daughter will be a Junior Bridesmaid, my sons will be ring boys and my husband will perform the ceremony. It will be a family event.
She was so happy and looked beautiful. She has always been a wonderful friend and I am so happy for her. She has waited years to find mister right and after seeing the two of them together I think her patience has paid off. He is a great guy who treats her wonderfully.
I pray everyone has a great Thanksgiving. I have so many things to be Thankful for.
Why are there so many rules. Adverbs, pronouns, proper-nouns, and yuck. Someone critiqued chapter 2 for me, someone I met at the writers conference. He loves my story, my characters, and he thinks I convey emotions really well. I couldn't believe, however, how many punctuation errors he pointed out. It was a little embarrassing but very helpful.
And when did the spacing rule change? In high school I was taught to put two spaces after a period. Now only one is needed, which was pointed out very frequently in the corrections.
So lesson learned: no matter how brutal it may be to see all of those marks and changes it is worth it if you really let yourself learn from those mistakes.
I'm sorry to bore everyone but I am still working on the concept of Show don't tell. I think it is a fairly normal problem for writers.
It is definitely becoming easier to spot the problems, I think that must be a good thing. One positive side to all of this work is my word count is growing. It was still a little short for most publishers. As I work on removing sections that are telling and writing new scenes that show the reader things my count has grown. Just by re-writing the first two scenes I have added over two hundred words.
I am going to start working on another article for Momsense magazine. I have submitted two, one of which they rejected because they said it didn't fit with their themes for any near issues. The second I haven't heard yet, it can take 10-12 weeks. (Keep your fingers crossed)
The new submission is due on December 15.
Oh and a book recommendation. My favorite writer Deeane Gist has now written several books. The second book she wrote I just now read it though it is a couple of years old. It is called
The Measure of a Lady. It is amazing. There is humor, romance, and what I like best is it is not a cookie cutter Christian novel. I highly recommend it.
I am off to Des Moines, my nephew is turning one. It is kind of sad, he is my only nephew and I have only got to see him a handful of times. Anyway, have a great weekend
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Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. E.L. Doctorow
Wow! Finding how to make the reader feel the rain instead of telling him about it is way harder than it sounds.
I am re-reading In The Rain and am finding lots of telling. I want the reader to feel what the characters are feeling, smell what is being smelled, hear what is being heard.
Jeff Gerke (a writer-publisher-freelance editor) calls telling Blah Blah Blah, I have lots of Blah Blah Blah right now. I am planning on sending my manuscript to him at the end of the month but I already know what he's going to say.
Anyway haven't posted in a while so I thought I would update anyone who cares.
Talk to you soon.
