"It's time to get up." A hand shook Denise's shoulder, dragging her up from sleep. She pulled the blankets over her head. Her mother was already in the next room, annoying her brother, Jay. As she drifted back down to unconsciousness, she remembered what day it was and sat up straight in bed, throwing back the covers.
"Hey, it's Sunday." She jumped to her feet. Her favorite holiday dress, deep green velvet covered in tiny poinsettia flowers, lay draped across her rocking chair. "We're going to grandma's house." She threw on the dress and took the stairs two at a time. Once downstairs, she started setting the table for breakfast.
"What are you so excited about?" Jay was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Grungy sneakers completed the outfit that Denise was sure was not what her mother had picked out for him. But Jay was sixteen years old and usually rejected anything that her mother picked.
"It's Sunday. We're going to grandma's house."
"Yeah, like I said, what are you so excited about?" He crossed the room, popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, then turned back to look at Denise. "It's like going back to the dark ages. There's nothing nearby for miles, hell, she doesn't even have a television."
"Well make the best of it." Denise's Mom was putting on her earrings as she came into the kitchen. She grabbed a cup and poured herself some coffee. "It won't kill you to be away from the boob tube for a day."
"Jeez, ma! Nobody calls it a 'boob tube' anymore." He poured himself a cup of coffee too, as though to underscore the fact that he was no longer a child. "Can't I stay home? I'm sixteen years old for crying out loud. Do I still have to go on these dumb family trips?"
"Yes. You have to go on these 'dumb family trips' as long as you live in this house."
"Forget it. I'm going out." Jay grabbed his coat and stormed out the door.
"Aren't you going after him?"
Denise's mother sighed. "No, I'm going to use—let's call it persuasion." She picked up the phone and dialed. After a short wait, she said, "Hey, Marge. I think Jay's headed your way. When he gets there inform him that he doesn't have to go with us today. Then tell him that if he doesn't, he won't use the car for two months." She smiled at Denise as she hung up. "That'll get him."
They were clearing up the breakfast dishes when the phone rang. Denise didn't have time to say hello before she heard, "You were right, Agnes, he came here."
"Sorry, Mrs. Simmons, it's Denise." She put her hand over the phone. "Hey Mom, it's Mrs. Simmons."
While she waited for her mother, Denise rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.
When her mother came back to the kitchen, she was wearing her coat when she came back to the kitchen. "It's time to go."
"Isn't Jay coming back?"
"Apparently not. He'll just have to live with the consequences."
He might not have been there, but Jay was the main topic of conversation at Grandma's house. Finally Grandma summed it up with, "Well, he always did have a temper." She smiled. "Short tempers and impulsive behavior run in the family."
"What do you mean, Grandma?"
"Well, you know that my grandmother's family came from Poland. My great-grandfather was a farmer who lived near a small town outside of Warsaw.
"One fine winter's day, he went to Warsaw. I'm not sure exactly why he went there, but he dressed in his finest clothes for the trip, including a beautiful leather coat that was his pride and joy. The coat covered him down to his ankles and kept him warm, even in the coldest weather.
"After he finished his business, he decided that since the day was so fine, he would see the sights before he went home." Gram poured herself some more coffee. She took a sip and then continued, "As he wandered about the city, he came upon a small park.
"It was a really beautiful place, even in winter, with lovely evergreen plants and carved stone benches scattered along the gravel paths. You know the kind of place I mean?"
Denise nodded. "Did he go in?"
"Well, he tried to." Gram paused. "But a man standing by the gate stopped him saying, 'This place isn't for peasants.'
"Naturally great-grandfather was insulted.
'Why do you talk to me like that? You're no better than I am.'
"The guard said, 'Look at you with that long coat. It just proves that you're a peasant.'"
"But gram, what does that have to do with what Jay did?"
"Be patient, dear, I'm getting to it." She picked up the plate of cookies and gestured with it towards Denise and her mother. "Would anyone like another cookie?"
"Gram!"
"Naturally, this made great-grandfather extremely angry. He stormed off and went directly home.
"His wife saw him come striding into the yard. He tore off his coat, and tossed it onto the chopping block.
"This made her curious. She got outside just as he raised the ax and chopped a good foot off the bottom of the coat.
"'What are you doing?'
"Great-grandfather looked up as he made another swing. He said, 'If having a long coat makes me look like a peasant, than I'm not going to have a long coat.'
"So you see, Denise, being impulsive, hot tempered, and hard-headed runs in the family. Great-grandfather would rather have chopped up his prize leather coat than be considered a peasant, just as Jay would rather walk everywhere than be treated as a child."
For the next two months every time Denise saw Jay hoofing it down the street, it made her laugh as the picture of her great-great grandfather with his leather coat on the chopping block popped into her mind.
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
I have finally had to come to the conclusion that I can’t do everything. I was trying to update this blog weekly, write a book, participate on Brigit’s Flame by writing a short story every week, study for Microsoft Certification, and also do my real job, the one that pays the bills. This left very little time for everyday things like, oh, sleep and spending time with my family.
I just couldn’t do it. Trying to do too many things at once caused a system crash (my system, not the computer) and I just haven’t felt like doing anything for several months. My health has been suffering and so has my psyche. The whole experience just made me feel sorry for myself and left me incapable of accomplishing much of anything. The few stories I did manage to write got me nothing more than a bunch of rejections.
Is it time for me to give up on writing? Maybe I’m just fooling myself. I thought that I write well. Most of the people who read my stories like them (except for the magazine editors, apparently) so if I haven’t figured out what I’m doing wrong by now, maybe I should just quit.
Why can’t I do that? No matter how many rejections I get, I find myself writing again. It builds up, like water pressure behind a clog in a pipe and after a while, I start getting story ideas that swoop and dive around my head like crazed birds until I sit down at the keyboard and get them out there. I can’t help myself.
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
I am a procrastinator by nature. I tend to do things at the last moment. Most of the time it works pretty well for me but sometimes…
Last weekend I was busy. We had a party for my son’s birthday and by the time I thought of the blog post, it was Friday night. I vowed that this week would be different. Yet here it is quarter to midnight and I haven’t written anything yet. Maybe this is why I haven’t had a major publishing success?
Even so, I’m too persistent (too stupid?) to quit. I keep trying.
It’s time to go back to the drawing board. I am going to throw out everything I’ve already done and begin at the beginning with a new idea, a new story, and maybe, finally, a success.
They say that one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Maybe that is what I’ve been doing. I have about half a dozen different story ideas and I keep trying to redo them and get a bestseller out of it. Maybe I’m just getting bored with my own stories. And, if I’m bored, my readers will be as well. Time to start fresh.
So…
Tonight’s post is going to be short and sweet. I’ve got a book to write.
See you next week…
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
Take a look at the following short exchange and see if you can tell me what’s wrong with it:
“Good morning.”
“Good morning to you,” I replied.
“What is new?” said my boss, George Newbinging.
“Nothing. How was your weekend?”
“Great,” he replied. “How are the kids?”
“Oh, same old, same old,” I said.
So, what do you think? Besides being boring as hell, this little dialog does none of the jobs that dialog is supposed to do within a story. Dialogue can do any or all of the following:
- advance the plot
- tell us about the characters
- heighten the conflict
- provide information the viewpoint character might not otherwise know
I suppose I could make a case for increased tension if the employee had done something terrible, say screwed up some paperwork or lost an important order. Then the very fact that the boss doesn’t say anything about the incident could be a means to heighten the tension. Otherwise? Not so much.
While people exchange comments like the above every day in real life, they can’t afford to do the same in fiction. Dialogue in fiction must perform at least one of the functions I listed above.
Advance the Plot
Take a look at this short exchange:
“You must be my new master.” The man looked around and sighed. “What year is it?”
“Two thousand and nine,” Ken replied. He tried to get up but he couldn’t move.
“Only eight years this time,” said the man shaking his head. Then he bowed low. “I am a jinni and you are my master. What is thy first wish?”
Now Ken was glad he hadn’t run away. “How many do I get?”
“Three wishes are standard. Everybody knows that. ”
“Finally something is going my way,” said Ken.
In just a few lines we’ve managed to convey the information that Ken has found a jinni and that he is entitled to three wishes in a more entertaining way that “Ken found a jinni and it told him that he was entitled to three wishes.” The narrative version might use less words but the version with dialogue is more interesting.
Tell us About the Characters
If you are doing your job right, the characters in your stories each have their own mannerisms in speech and action. For example:
“Yo, man, how’s it hangin’?”
“Good morning, my dear fellow, how is the world treating you on this fine day?”
Obviously there are differences between these two characters’ speech patterns. The informality of the first speech (yeah, I know it sounds corny) might indicate a lower level of education or it might indicate someone who is putting on a personality that isn’t really his own. Which it is depends on the context of the story of course.
Heighten the Conflict
Dialogue is the perfect way to heighten conflict. Don’t tell us that two characters are angry at each other. Show it in the way that they speak. Instead of:
Mom was angry.
Have Mom show us herself like this:
“Matthew Denis Smith, what in the wide world do you think you are doing?”
No question that Mom is a little bit annoyed now, is there?
Provide Information
Dialogue can give us information that we might not be able to get any other way. For instance, if a story is told from the point of view of a character that was not a witness to something that needs to be presented, a character that did see the incident can tell the viewpoint character about it in a much more interesting way than, “Later I found out, blah, blah, blah.”
I find dialogue is more fun to write than narrative too. But that’s just icing on the cake, so to speak.
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
I went to a free course at the Gotham Writers Workshop on Wednesday night. It was worth the extra effort that I had to make to attend. It really was a bit of a hardship because the class ended at 8pm so I had to take the 9:58pm train home. That meant that I didn’t get home until 12:30am. How easy is it to get home and go to sleep right away? I can’t do it. By the time I was in bed and falling asleep, it was nearly 2am. Needless to say I was a bit tired the next day, although it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe the high I got from going to the class is what kept me going the next day.
It was a high. The funny thing is that I didn’t really hear anything I didn’t already know, but hearing it made me anxious to apply the information myself. What we talked about was character. We talked about how you go about creating characters that have depth. Really? Everybody knows that.
Then we were given ten minutes to describe a character. It could be someone you know or someone with whom you are barely acquainted. I thought I had this one down pat. I started off and (I thought) was going along great.
After a second little exercise where we were to show the character eating breakfast, the teacher asked some of us to volunteer to read what we had written. That was when I realized what a poor job I was doing. The two students who ready their breakfast scenes had basically written what could have been the beginning of excellent stories. I almost had the feeling that they were ringers, professional writers invited to the class to make the rest of us realize how much we needed to take the full, paid-for 10-week course.
I tried to put my failure down to the fact that I don’t think quickly, that if I had more time I would have done a better job. I even blamed the fact that I was writing with a pen instead of a keyboard.The truth is that most of my characters are about as three-dimensional as paper dolls. I have known for some time that my fiction was missing something and i think this is it. I don’t think I really understood what it meant to create three-dimensional characters.
My characters often have desires, quirks, I try to make their speech patterns enough different so that you can recognize them from their words. But, when it comes right down to it, they’re still boring, often nothing more than a collection of quirks.
Since I was eliminated early (for the second month in a row!) from the monthly writing competition at Bridget’s Flame so I’ve got time to work on my characterization skills before the next competition begins. So this is what I am going to do:
- I am going to create a character by giving a physical description.
- Then I will write about the person’s past.
- I will look at his or her hopes and desires.
- Finally I will describe the person’s deepest, darkest secrets.
- Once all of that has been done, I will place the character in a situation and see if all that preparation will give me a better story and a more interesting protagonist.
It’s worth a try. If you want to try it too, go ahead. If you end up with something you want to share, put a snippet or two in your comments to this entry. I’d be interested to see what you come up with. My results? See you next Saturday.
Without further ado, here is my story...
Margaret and her brother, Simon, sat on the front porch of farmhouse where Margaret lived with her husband and children. Croplands stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see. Tall corn stalks swayed under the late afternoon sun as her husband supervised the harvesters in their labors. Margaret missed city life and was happy to see her brother, a Dragon Knight, lately come from the capital for a visit.
As they sat, sipping apple juice that had been chilled in the well, they talked lazily about the latest gossip from court. Suddenly, Celia, Margaret's oldest daughter, burst out from between the rows of corn. She came up the front steps and was about to go inside when Simon called her over. He hugged her close and then held her at arms length, examining her. "Well, well, Celia, you've grown so that I hardly recognize you."
Simon was alarmed to see that tears streamed down Margaret's face. Her cheeks were red and her lips were tightly clenched as though she was trying not to cry out loud. "Why what is the matter?"
"Don't want to be a girl no more," said Celia. She scrubbed at her face. "Rob says that girls don't get to go to school and they don't get to be anything but mommies."
"That's not true, Celia," said Simon. "Girls can do lots of things."
"But--but, Rob said that boys don't hav' ta be nice to girls."
"Why that little brat," cried Margaret. She stood up and said, "I am going to remind him of how--
Simon held up on hand in a stopping motion and Margaret sat back down. "Even if you could change," he said, "why would you want to be a boy?"
"Cause boys are more 'portant than girls."
"Nonsense," said Simon. "Let me tell you a story and then you can tell me if you still want to be a boy." He leaned forward in his chair and took a long sip of his juice. "A long time ago, when Sir George, the first Master of my order, still walked amongst us, there came a day when he visited the village of Droflim."
"He was right near here?" said Margaret.
"Yes, he was here for some time before he went to the capitol and founded the order of the Dragon." Then he turned back to Celia and continued, "On that day, many, many years ago, he entered the village square and was shocked to see a man beating a woman who crouched on the ground, covering her head with her arms.
"He approached the scene and said to the people who crowded around the two, 'Why do none of you stop that man?'
"There was no answer at first, but then one of the men said, 'Why should we stop him? That is his wife.'
"'That does not make it right,' said Sir George.
"He approached the man and, just as he pulled back his arm to strike the woman again, Sir George grabbed him by the wrist and stopped him. 'How can you be so stupid?' he asked the man.
"The man stared at Sir George, obviously angry. He finally replied, 'What is stupid? She will not do as I say so I must teach her to behave.'
"'I say that you are stupid and I will show you how. But first, how do you make your living?'
"'I am a miller,' said the man.
"'Then you are familiar with the small gear that transfers the motion of the oxen to the plate that grinds the grain.'
"'Yes, of course,' the man replied.
"Would you smash that gear?'
"'No.'
"'And why not?'
"'It would be stupid. If I broke that gear, the mill wouldn't work.'
"'Exactly. And that is why you should not beat your wife,' concluded Sir George. 'You see, your wife is like that gear. It is she that is at the center of the family; she who makes things work within the home and without it. Break her, physically or mentally, and your home will no longer work.'
"As the man stared, Sir George reached down and helped the woman to her feet. Leaning closer to her, he said, 'If I were you, I would leave this fool and find a man who already understands your value.'"
"Did she leave her husband?" Celia asked. She stood with one hand on Simon's shoulder, leaning close so as not to miss one word of his story.
"The tale does not say," he said. "It ends there. But we all know that it is true that a wife is the heart of a home. Do you disagree?"
Celia shook her head.
"Do you still wish you were not a girl?"
As she opened her mouth to reply, her brother, Rob, came running out of the fields and onto the porch. He screamed with delight when he saw his uncle and threw himself at the man to hug him.
Rob glanced at this sister and saw the tear stains on her now smiling face. He looked from his mother to his uncle, eyes wide, as though waiting for a punishment he was sure would come.
"Rob, who told you that girls were less important than boys?"
"The overseer's son, Stefan," he said. "Isn't he right?"
"Take a look at your mother, children," said Simon. "Do you think your home would be a nice place to be if she wasn't here?" When they both shook their heads, Simon asked again, "Do you still wish you weren't a girl, Celia?"
"No, uncle." She turned to her brother with a mischievous grin and said, "Don't you wish you were a girl?"
- Location:Home
- Mood:
cheerful
Let's see if you can find the parasite in this little tale:
"Call me. I can help."
Martin Wayne, the tall, handsome host of "In the Stars," looked soulfully into the camera. He radiated confidence and compassion as the 800 numbers flashed across the screen under his chin.
Suddenly he said, "Susan in Carpenter's Point, I'm sorry, but you're right, he is cheating. I have good news though, so call me."
"Must be a put-up job," Susan muttered. "They probably saw the engagement notice in the paper. Don't know why I watch this show anyway." She turned off the television. as Jack, her fiancé, burst through the door waving a bunch of red roses.
"I brought you one rose for each hour of the day I spend thinking about you." He paused and then continued helpfully, "There are two dozen."
Susan found this speech annoying rather than romantic. Somehow, Jack's behavior struck her more and more often as phony instead of endearing. "I just can't imagine spending the rest of my life listening to speeches like that," she thought.
Jack was distracted and barely heard anything she said. He ate quickly. As she was serving the coffee, he said, "Did you get that money?"
"I did," she replied. "But, Jack, are you sure this is a good investment?"
"Of course," he replied. "Don't you trust me?"
"The money should be in my account tomorrow," she said.
He scribbled his account number on the back of an envelope. "Got to work late tomorrow," he said. "Just transfer the money to this account."
He left without kissing her goodbye.
The next night, she lay in bed, watching the late-night episode of "In the Stars" opened. "We have a great show for you tonight." He gestured at the audience. "We've got Cathy from Syracuse, New York, George from Miami, Florida, and Paul from Everett, Washington." The camera turned to show the surprised faces of Cathy, George, and Paul.
As the music swelled to a crescendo, Martin turned to the audience and said, "Susan, I'm disappointed that you didn't call me." He paused. Then looked directly into Susan's eyes and said, "Don't worry, Susan, it's not a scam"
As though in a trance, Susan leaned over and picked up the phone. When she heard Martin's voice, she said, "Where did you get my name? Why do you want to talk to me?"
"Let me explain how this is going to work," he said. "I will explain who you are, that you are the one I talked to yesterday, and then I will explain everything."
Susan reached behind herself and plumped up the pillows. She lay quietly, listening to the sounds in the studio. Then she heard the fanfare, followed by Martin's voice, "I've got something special for you. For those of you who don't know the story, Susan's name came to me yesterday as I was closing out the afternoon episode. I told her something that she probably didn't want to hear, and asked her to call me.
"Susan, tell the audience what I told you yesterday."
"You said my fiancé had been cheating on me." She stumbled over the words, her face flaming, despite the fact that the audience couldn't see her.
"Was I right?"
"I don't know. I find it hard to believe."
"He brought you flowers, didn't he?" After a pause, he said, "Do you know anybody who wears perfume that smells like roses?"
As she opened her mouth to deny it, she heard Kathleen's, voice in her head saying, "Yes, it is nice isn't it? Essence of roses."
"Well..."
"That's who he's seeing. Call her. He's there now."
"But he's working late."
"Go ahead and call," Martin said. "Then call us back."
Feeling numb, Susan hung up the phone and dialed Kathleen's number. The phone rang two times, three, four, then Kathleen answered.
"Kathleen? Sorry to bother you so late. I'm looking for Jack and someone said he was at your house."
After an eternity, Kathleen said, "Why would he be here?"
Susan heard a man's voice whispering and then the sound was muffled as an indistinct, but obviously heated, argument ensued.
"Susan, what made you think I'd be here?"
"Why are you there, Jack?"
"I asked you a question. Now please answer me. What made you call here looking for me? Have you had me followed? Don't you trust me?"
"I trusted you one hundred percent until yesterday, Jack." Her heart began to pound. Her voice sounded funny in her own ears.
"Susan—"
She slammed the receiver down, breaking off Jack's protest mid-sentence. She sat, frozen with disbelief, for several heartbeats, and then burst into tears. Hands shaking, she dialed the television show.
The staff person who answered told her that Martin would be with her shortly. Gradually her tears subsided and her breathing returned to normal. After another click, she heard Martin's voice. "Was I right?"
"Yes. He was there."
"I'm sorry. I wish I could have been wrong."
"How did you know?"
"The same way I knew that you were watching yesterday afternoon, not watching earlier today and that you are watching now." Susan heard the audience gasp.
She glanced at the screen in time to see a close-up of Martin's face. Either he was a really good actor or he really sympathized. She suddenly became aware that he had the most amazing green eyes she had ever seen.
"You said you had good news for me too. What is it?"
"I'm sure you will find this unbelievable as all the rest of it but, when I heard your voice a little while ago, I realized that you are my soul mate." The audience gasped again. Before Susan could answer, Martin continued, "I won't rush you. Let's get to know each other but I ask you to start by having dinner with me tomorrow night."
"I might as well," she thought. "What do I have to lose?"
"Yes," she said aloud.
Martin called her after the show was over and they talked for hours. The last thing he said as he wished her goodnight was, "As sorry I am about Jack, I'm glad you called. Our meeting was foretold in the stars."
- Location:Home
- Mood: accomplished
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
When learning to paint, beginners often learn by copying the work of the great masters. Go to any art museum and you are bound to see at least one student sitting in front of a great canvas, sketching different portions of the work and, therefore, learning how to make a few lines and dots appear to have substance.
The technique I am about to describe is similar. I have used it several times more or less successfully and I have always learned something useful in the process. The results you achieve will vary and you may end up with something that you can’t sell because it is too close to the original. On the other hand, you may end up with something totally new. Therefore, this technique is probably more useful for short stories than for longer pieces because only a masochist would write fifty thousand or more words knowing that there is a good chance the final product can’t be sold.
Pick a story you like. Read it casually. Then read it again. Study it. Keep reading until you can state the plot in a single sentence. Identify the protagonist, the antagonist, and any other important characters. Then make a list of the scenes. There may be anywhere from one or two to a dozen or so scenes in a short story. Make a list. Record everything on paper or in a computer file and then go away and do something else for a few days.
Now it is time to write your own story. Don’t try to remember the exact wording of the original; just read over your notes and write the story step by step according to the blueprint you have created. You may want to use a similar voice or style just for fun, but the important thing here is to write the story.
The last step is to compare your story to the original. Did your version progress at the same speed? Did you alter the pace, the voice, or the ending? If you did make changes, does your story please you as much as the original? If so, you have won big time. If not, write it off as a learning experience.
What now? Pick another story and do the same thing or, and this is even more valuable, wait a few days and write another story from the same notes. Whatever you do, make this exercise your own and let me know how it worked for you.
By the way, I came up with this idea several years ago when I was reading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. He describes having learned to write newspaper stories by reading existing stories, reducing them to a single sentence, and after giving himself enough time to forget the original, writing his own version. At that point, although I had started a lot of stories, I hadn’t ever finished one. This exercise was, for me, the way to a complete story. I hope it does something as good for you.
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
Is it Saturday already? No?
Actually, today is Sunday and I messed up. Hence the title of this week’s post. If you are shaking your head in confusion at this point I don’t blame you. Let me explain…
Normally I work at home on Friday. My boss is away on vacation this week. She is out of reach by phone or email. I had to be in the office on Friday in case something happened that couldn’t be managed long distance. That little change in my routine threw off everything. To make matters worse, I took two days off earlier in the week to visit with friends from Seattle. I have absolutely no sense of what day it really is.
At least half a dozen times yesterday I thought, “It’s Saturday, I have to write my post.” Then I promptly became involved in programming, writing, or any number of less productive things (like farming on the Facebook app Farmville) and forgot all about it. Don’t worry, it’s just a minor setback. We’ll be back on track next week.
This little error made me think, however, about how much of our lives we spend doing things without thinking about them. Sometimes this is good. For example, the fact that you drive to work the same way every day (if you are unlucky enough to have to drive) means that you don’t have to concentrate to hard on the how of getting to work. You know where to turn, where the traffic lights are and you automatically slow down for the spot where the policeman always hides behind the billboard to catch speeders.
On the other hand, when there is construction along the way, it is extremely difficult to change the route, even if by going a different way you could avoid the delay. We all face this trade-off between habit and thought. And, unfortunately, advertisers are counting on habit winning the battle. This isn’t new. As long as there has been advertising, advertisers have counted on the fact that, once they have won you over, they’ve got you for life. Once they have convinced you to buy, they want you to continue to buy automatically. They don’t want you to think about it.
This type of message is usually reasonably subtle but some aren’t. Lately WalMart has been running an ad on television lately where a woman says (as well as I can remember it), “Luckily WalMart checks the prices of all its competitors so I don’t have to.”
They’re counting on you to do the same. They want you to assume that the WalMart price is the best price, turn on the automatic pilot and shop at WalMart for everything. With our economy in the shape it is, we can’t afford to do that anymore. We have to check out the prices, even when it takes longer. Don’t assume that anybody is the best. Check it out.
By the way, I am not advocating that you not shop at WalMart, I am just saying that you need to compare before you buy.
Case in point I recently bought a new computer. Before I did, I went on the Internet and looked at Best Buy, WalMart, Tiger Direct, and Sam’s Club. I found what I thought would be a good deal at Best Buy. Then I hit the stores.
My husband said, “You should look at Staples too, while we’re out.” I walked in and found that they were having a sale. For less than the price Best Buy wanted, I was able to get a computer with everything the Best Buy computer had plus it had a larger hard drive and for just $20 more than the 2-year warranty, I was able to get a four-year waranty that covered parts, labor, and surge damage.
I nearly bought it on the spot. Then I looked at my husband and I realized that he was going to hold me to my promise to look at Sam’s Club, WalMart, and Best Buy as well. So we did.
Then we went back to Staples and purchased the computer I wanted, confident in the knowledge that we had gotten the best possible deal. We compared features, prices, and service and settled on the best computer for the least money. I ended up saving over $100 and got a more powerful computer than I would have if I had assumed that Best Buy (or WaloMart or Sam’s Club) had the best quality and price.
Will I buy my next computer from Staples? Maybe. If they still have the best computer for the best price, of course. But I am not going to do it out of habit.
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
Our parents taught us and we teach our children that if you are nice to others and fair in your dealings, others will be nice and fair to you. If you want to find a place where this is clearly not true, all you need to do is ride mass transit. Take a look at the PATH or the New Yorki City Subway. When those doors whoosh open, there is a general stampede for a seat such that anyone who is polite (doesn’t push and shove) is guaranteed to be standing.
There are signs that say, “Please give this seat to the elderly or infirm.” How old is elderly? If you are 17 and you see someone who looks as though they must be in their 60s, is that “old” enough? Apparently not. I have seen men and women in their twenties and thirties watch an octogenarian stand holding on to the pole for dear life. Have I given up my seat? I hardly ever have one but I have given my seat up more than once to people who seemed more needy than I.
There are other things too…
Most cars have a sign that says, no eating, drinking, smoking or open food containers. More than once I’ve seen people sit directly across from one of those signs while eating a McDonald’s value meal or drinking a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee. Of course, what doesn’t occur to these people who feel they “have the right” to eat and drink whenever and wherever they wish is that it doesn’t take much of a jolt to make them drop food and/or beverages.
I mean, if you spill your coffee down my back in the morning, are you prepared to pay to have my clothing cleaned or to replace a completely destroyed garment? In my case, a disaster like that would mean either buying new clothes or sitting around in wet, smelly clothes all day long.
And there are even smaller things. If you are carrying a huge suitcase, backpack, or briefcase is it that difficult to figure out that the people around you are likely to be hit by it if you don’t pay attention when you move around? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been hit in the face by a tall person’s backpack.
Then there’s my pet peeve. I’m short–barely five feet tall–and that means danger in a crowded car. Does it really take a genius to figure out that the small person in front of you might not want to have their nose jammed into your armpit? Or that if the paper you are holding at reading distance might be unpleasantly close to someone who doesn’t have room to back up? Would it really be so terrible if you couldn’t read the paper for one day?
So much of what I’m complaining about can be prevented with a little bit of consideration for the world around you but so many people are so self-absorbed that they seem completely unaware of anyone else.
We need not spend all of our time saying, “After you…”
“No, after you…”
All we need to do is take five seconds to look around and think, just a little bit, about how much more smoothly and pleasantly the world would work with just a touch of consideration. Just that little change would put us on the path to a much nicer world.
Gabriella Wilson, Gaby to her friends, leaned closer to the campfire. The last of the light was gone from the sky. Gaby and five of her closest friends sat around the camp fire swapping ghost stories. The small circle of sky overhead was satiny black and thick with stars. It looked as though a drunken decorator had thrown hands full of sequins against satin sheets.
It was getting cold. The wind had picked up around sunset and the six girls huddled closer and closer to the warmth of the fire. Even the trees around the clearing seemed to be leaning forward to share the comfort, rubbing their branches together as though to warm them. A young woman came out of the trees and approached the fire. "May I join you?"
When nobody protested, Gaby said, "I suppose so. We've been telling ghost stories but they've heard most of mine already." This was greeted by shouts of laughter and a couple murmured comments that Gaby couldn't quite catch. "I can always use some new blood." She leered in the stranger's direction.
As the giggles, punctuated by occasional little screams of fright, died down, Gaby looked around the group. She waited patiently for them to stop and give her their full attention, and then she started her story.
“I've saved the best story for last," she said with a grin. "Did you know that these very woods are haunted?”
She looked at each of her friends in turn, and then paused again. Her friends’ surreptitious glances into the darkened woods were gratifying. This story would work so much better out here than it would in a warm, cozy room. “It’s true," she continued. "Many years ago, a girl named Mary came here with some friends on a camping trip.
“From what I understand, she and her friends camped very near to here, maybe right where we are now.” Tracy, Gaby’s best friend, shifted uncomfortably and glanced over her shoulder into the darkness behind her.
“They had a lot of fun during the day, just like we did today. The weather was clear and warm, but shortly after dark, it began to rain. Mary and her friends quickly set up their tents and crawled into their sleeping bags.
“Tired from the day’s activities, they were soon asleep. Mary was normally a sound sleeper, but several hours later, something woke her up. Striking a match, she looked at her watch and saw that it was only minutes before midnight. When she glanced over at her friend’s sleeping bag, she saw it was empty. Thinking that was what had awakened her, she rolled over to go back to sleep. Just as she was dozing off, she heard a scream from beyond the edge of the clearing.
“When Mary finally managed to disentangle herself from her sleeping bag and crawled out of the tent, she realized that it would be stupid for her to go into the woods alone to try and help her friend. If she had been attacked, Mary might be the next victim. So, she opened the flap to the boys’ tent, intending to get them to help her find her friend.
“The tent was empty. With a sinking feeling, deep in the pit of her stomach, Mary realized that she was alone in the middle of the woods.
Gaby reached down and picked up the can of soda at her side. She took a long sip, then put it down again and looked around the circle. The girls stared at her, their eyes wide. They had all moved closer to Gaby and sat leaning forward, waiting anxiously for her to continue.
A draft of air skimmed icy fingers up Gaby’s spine and she shivered. She glanced up and saw that the sky was no longer as clear as it had been when she started her story. Stringy bits of cloud streamed across the face of the moon, obscuring its light. The wind was picking up. She glanced at the stranger who sat staring at her with rapt attention.
“Mary was completely alone," she continued, and the stranger nodded in agreement. "There was no sign of her friends anywhere. She looked around the clearing where they had made their camp, but there was no sign of a struggle. Despite the fact that the ground was muddy, she couldn’t even find footprints from anybody but herself. If her friends had left the clearing, voluntarily or otherwise, they had done it without their feet touching the ground.
“Mary became increasingly frantic. She spent the rest of the night trying to find her friends. She was afraid to stray too far from the clearing, but she walking in increasingly larger circles around the ring of trees, calling the names of her friends every few seconds.
“In the morning, she hiked out of the woods. The police gathered a search party and this entire area was searched for days, but no sign of the three friends who had set out with Mary was ever found."
"Wow, she was brave," said Tracy. "I would have hidden in my sleeping bag until daylight."
“Poor Mary; she was brave all right, but the shock must have driven her slightly mad. Every year on the anniversary of her friends’ disappearance, she returned to the woods and spent the night alone, searching for them. In the late sixties, when she was nearly seventy years old, she died right here in the woods.
“It took several weeks before the body was found by some campers. Her will stated that her last wish was to have her body cremated and her ashes scattered in these woods, so she could be with the friends she had lost so many years before.
With one last look around, Gaby said, “They say she was cremated and her ashes were spread on the exact spot where her body was found.”
"Good story," said the stranger. "But the truth is, they didn't cremate my body. They buried me right over there," she pointed to a large tree on the edge of the clearing, "under that tree."
Gaby and her friends watched, horrified, as the stranger faded to invisibility and the heavens opened to soak them all with icy rainwater.
- Location:Hone
- Mood:
ecstatic
I nearly tossed the envelope on top of the junk mail pile and forgot about it but on some impulse I still can't explain, I ripped open the envelope and pulled out a cover letter, a contract, and a check--a check! I called my best friend, Margery, and shouted into the phone. "I did it--"
"Good for you," she answered. "You've been a little on the tense side lately. When did Paul come home?"
"Get your mind out of the gutter, that's not what I meant! I made a sale--for money--" I took a deep breath. "I'm a real writer now."
"So? When can you be here? We have got to celebrate!"
In the twenty-five minutes it took me to get from my house to hers, she had called all of our friends. We drank Cosmopolitans, ate chips and salsa, and just generally partied.
After everybody else had left, Margery brought out a leather-covered box about the size of a cigar box. She opened it and pulled out a joint. Pot, Mary Jane, weed, whatever you want to call it, this stuff was the best and Margery didn't share it with just anybody.
"I know," she said when she saw the look on my face. "You don't usually smoke, but today is a special day."
The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the broken-down flowered couch in her living room and staring at the huge mirror over the fireplace, watching the thin plume of smoke rising from the joint in my hand. It proves just how high I was that when my reflection waved at me I didn't scream and run out of the room. I looked down at my own hand where it was resting on my knee. Had it moved? I looked from one to the other, from the real me, the body that I inhabit, to my reflection. My reflection was now making a "come here" gesture.
As I moved closer, the other me nodded with encouragement. I looked over at Margery. She had dozed off, leaning against the footstool. Next to her on the floor, her fat, black cat watched me intently with its mint green eyes. I turned back and touched the mirror. The glass didn't feel right. Instead of cold, slick, and solid it felt warm, soft, and slightly sticky. I pushed against it and the next thing I knew, I lost my balance and fell forward.
I heard a soft noise that reminded me of the sound gauze bandages make when you rip them. Then I was standing on the other side of the mirror, watching the mirror-me walk across the room and drop onto the soft pillows of the couch where she leaned back and took a huge drag on the joint.
I know. I don't believe in that kind of crap either.
I remember reading Through the Looking Glass when I was a little girl. Afterwards, I had spent a lot of time trying to peer into the world behind the glass. But I never really believed that it was possible to go through. I've been wrong about many things in my life.
I did what anybody would try to do in my situation. I tried to get back through the mirror. From this side, the glass felt like--glass. Whatever had happened to facilitate my passage had stopped happening. I was on the other side to stay--at least for now.
I made a circuit of the room. The furniture, the arrangement of the room, everything in the room around me was a reversed image of the room on the other side of the glass. At least, the inanimate objects were the same. I was the only living creature in the room. Both Margery and the cat were gone.
I looked through the glass again. Except that I no longer had a reflection in the normal sense, everything on the other side of the glass was exactly as I had left it. Margery still drowsed against the footstool, the cat still curled on the floor next to her. Mirror-me was still slumped on the couch asleep or unconscious. The only difference that I could see was that the cat, instead of staring at the person on the couch was now staring directly into the mirror.
I knocked on the glass. Maybe I could wake up Margery. If I could make her realize that something was wrong, maybe she could help me. When there was no response from my friend, I knocked again. I waved, I banged on the glass with my fists, and then I noticed something. I tried to yell. And that was when I began to panic. There was no sound.
I suppose, in a weird way that made sense. When you look in a mirror, you see images but there is never any sound from the reversed world on the other side of the glass. I mean, if you stood in front of a mirror and spoke, your mirror image imitated your motions, but you wouldn't hear an echo.
I became obsessed with the idea that if I could find Margery on this side of the mirror that maybe she could help me find a way back. I searched the house from basement to attic but I was the only living occupant. Everything else about the house was a perfect duplicate of the world from which I had come but I was still the only living inhabitant.
Dreams can sometimes move you from place to place in a heartbeat. It was just like that. One minute I was in the mirror equivalent of Margery's house, the next I was standing in front of my own front door, key in hand. I had no memory of driving home but my car was in its accustomed place in my driveway. It was dark outside and none of the houses on either side of me showed any light.
I opened the door, surprised that my key worked, and went inside. My house was as silent as Margery's had been. No joyous barking greeted me.
"Rick," I cried. There was no sound.
I took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. My office, just as messy on this side of the mirror as on the other, was not exactly like the original. The shelf above my computer monitor contained a row of paperback books. In my world, a row of dragons, fairies, and other magical creatures marched across that shelf. I called it my inspiration shelf. I looked more closely and had to acknowledge that the books would have provided me more inspiration than any plastic dragon. The reversed text on the books was just like what Alice had found on her trip through the looking glass. I could still make out the author's name on the books--on all of them--was my name. These were my books. Maybe I didn't want to go home after all.
I searched the rest of the house.
That my husband wasn't there didn't worry me. He was out of town on business but the dog should have been there. My dog, Rick, always greeted me at the door with ecstatic barking, wagging his whole body with excitement. He was gone and might never have existed. There was nothing left to mark his existence, not even a dog dish in the kitchen.
The many photographs that lined the walls of our home were there but instead of friends and family members, the photographs showed empty rooms and landscapes. I looked outside. We live on a main street and there was normally a steady stream of traffic going in both directions but after five minutes of watching I didn't see a single vehicle.
I went into my bedroom and looked in the closet. My clothes hung neatly on the left side of the closet but the right side was empty. The mirror over my dresser showed my room, exactly as it always did. Well, not exactly. I could see my husband's sleeping form on the bed in the mirror but not myself. Somehow, I was not surprised to see that there was nobody on the bed on this side of the mirror. I began to pound on the mirror, using both hands.
This time the glass did what glass usually does if you pound on it--it shattered. Pieces of glass cut into the sides of my fists and shards of glass and blood splattered everywhere. There was nothing behind the glass but a blank wall. What had I been expecting?
I cleaned and bandaged my hands, all the time watching in the mirror above the sink as my life continued on the other side of the mirror without me. Maybe I am sleeping, I thought. I pinched myself. Nothing changed.
Let's see, I thought. I can't get through the mirror, I can't wake myself up, maybe I need to go to sleep.
I lay down on the bed and tried to sleep. It didn't take long. I woke up early the next morning; the sun had barely risen over the horizon. Broken shards of glass were scattered across the top of my dresser, my hands were bandaged, and I was still alone. I picked up the telephone. I don't know who I thought I was going to call but there was no dial tone.
I had to do something, didn't I? I sat down in front of my computer and gave the mouse a slight push to wake it up. When the screen cleared, opened Microsoft Word, and started to type. It took a bit of getting used to because the type was backwards, but after a bit I got into the story and stopped looking at the screen.
At first, I didn't try to direct my thoughts or to write about anything particular, but after a bit I began to describe my circumstances. As I typed, faster and faster, the world around me began to flicker as if there was a strobe light overhead. For the first time since crossing through the looking glass, I began to hear sounds. I focused on the screen and watched in nauseated fascination as the letters flipped back and forth between left to right and right to left.
I felt an electric tingle in my fingers as they danced upon the keys. Encouraged, I continued, describing my arrival on the porch, searching the house, breaking the mirror, and the faster I typed, the faster the flicker between real world and mirror world became.
I felt a popping sensation in my ears, a feeling I associate with taking off or landing in a plane and the world spun around me faster and faster until everything turned black.
When the spinning sensation cleared, I realized that I was in my bed, next to my husband. Rick barked and chased his own tail on the floor next to the bed and downstairs, I heard footsteps on my front porch and the sound of the mailbox lid as it clanked shut. I jumped out of bed and raced the dog down the stairs to get the mail.
- Location:Home
- Mood:
giddy
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
I have been writing for–oh hell, nearly forty years. I wrote my first book, a horrible mish-mash of The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Doctor Doolittle when I was 11 years old. It was really bad, but the way, in case you are curious. Not only did I steal every plot twist and turn from my favorite books, I included every one of my friends as characters.
For most of those forty years, I believed that writing fiction was something that had to be inspired. By what? Who knows. I guess I imagined some schizophrenic muse residing somewhere in my brain. Once in a whle she would throw me a bone and I would write a story. Mostly I wrote parts of stories that had beginnings and no ends but that’s beside the point.
When I write non-fiction, articles or documentation, I have no problems. No blocks have ever existed for me with non-fiction. There are times, in fact, when it seems like cheating. I don’t need to be inspired. The words just appear on the page. Sometimes it feels as though someone else is dong the work and I’m just getting it all down.
Fiction is hard. I write, I re-write, and I question every word. At least, I always did. I worry about writing clichéd stories. I want every story to be perfect and wonderful and–you get the idea. Usually about halfway through I begin to hate the story and, more times than not, I end up throwing it away. For every story I have completed, there are at least five more that will never see the light of day.
Today I decided to stop trying to write perfect, unique, absolutely fascinating stories. From now on, I’m going to write stories that are fun to write whether they are “wonderful” and “perfect” or not.
That’s not as easy as it sounds but I wrote a story–a complete story–today in about three hours. It’s not long (only 1,970 words) but it is complete. It’s not perfect. It’s not totally original, but it’s done.
If you want to read it, go here… Of Smoke and Mirrors
Does this mean I’m going to become the prolific, successful story teller that I’ve been trying to become for the past forty years? Probably not. Yet I feel as though I’ve taken a huge step forward today. I’ve stopped believing in writer’s block. I’ve stopped believing that I need to be inspired to write, and–this is the best part–I wrote a complete story because I decided that was what I was going to do. **Pats self on back.** That’s a good start.
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
Did you know that the Internet can be a great time waster?
I know, who would have thought it.
There are times when I think that I would get a lot more work done if I turned off the wi-fi. I know that I get a lot more writing done on the train (when there’s no Internet connection) than I do when I am at home.
When I am working at home, I don’t allow myself to spend time surfing the ‘net unless I have research to do. For example, if I’m trying to do something with an application and I’m stuck, I’ll look to see if someone else has solved the problem and written about it. Otherwise, I do my work and pretend that the Internet is “off” for the day.
When I am trying to write, it’s a different story. Stuck with a story and don’t know what people should do next? Check on Facebook, MySpace, Live Journal, or Twitter and see what people are talking about. I can spend tons of time updating my status, writing a blog, uploading pictures and not even realize the time has gone by. Check me out…
Irene Smith on Facebook
Irene on MySpace
13-Stories at Live Journal
Story_Teller at Twitter
Once that’s done, there are online games to play. I have two destinations that are particular favorites. Do you like jigsaw puzzles? I do. JigZone has tons of great jigsaw puzzles and you can decide how difficult it should be from six pieces to 247 pieces and if that doesn’t sound like a lot, believe me, 247 pieces on a computer screen makes the pieces small enough to be a big challenge.
When it comes to other kinds of games, my favorite place to waste time (and believe me, it can waste a lot of time) is Club Bing. It used to be called the Live Search Club but Microsoft changed it recently. This place is not a total waste of time, by the way. At Club Bing you can earn tickets and with tickets you can earn cool prizes. This is one of the few places that doesn’t make the prizes impossible to win either. So far I’ve earned enough tickets to get an XBox 360 game, an XBox 360 controller, and a copy of the Zoo Tycoon 2 Zoo Keeper’s Collection. They even pay the postage.
If nothing else fails, I can pretend that I’m doing “research” for a story. I go to Behind the Name to research the meaning of names and to look for names for my characters. Or, for a whole host of fun name generators, I go to Seventh Sanctum where I can make up names for everything from exotic fantasy races to kingdoms.
All together these web sites (and more like them) combine to make what little free writing time I have disappear as quickly as light into a black hole. I have become a master procrastinator and while I hate myself for it, sometimes I just can’t resist.
So now that I’ve confessed some of my favorite time wasters, it’s your turn. Where do you go to pass the time? Leave a comment and tell me about it.
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
Have you noticed how few truly scary movies there are lately? I love horror stories and horror movies but very few new movies are truly scary. For example: I once saw a vampire movie. It was one of the Hammer films, I believe and it wasn’t even in color. I had nightmares for weeks. I couldn’t go to sleep without checking the closet and under the bed and I spent most of each night with the blankets pulled over my head for protection.
What made it scary was the atmosphere; the sense of doom. You knew that something was going wrong but weren’t sure what it was. The vampires seemed to be beautiful and attractive until they show their “true colors” and attacked.
Horror movies today nearly always end up resorting to body parts and blood to make you scream. And when they don’t, they are hardly scary at all. The Vampires have had their fangs extracted and the werewolves have been groomed with a Pedi Paws. They inhabit more romance novels than horror movies.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Twilight series of books and Sookie Stackhouse books, but they make the supernatural seem so mundane that they have lost their power to scare. And yet…
I’m watching the movie Coraline. There’s no blood, no gore, no stalking serial killers. And yet, this movie is truly scary in a way I never expected. It does a wonderful job of following the rules of a truly scary story. It starts off by making everything seem wonderful. Coraline is unhappy with her life and then she discovered another world behind a tiny little door.
On the other side, Coraline finds her “other mother” and “other father” and they seem to be so much nicer than the ones she has in real life. Without giving anything away, life for Coraline becomes increasingly terrible until she has to commit to a contest in order to save life as she knows it.
Too bad it’s too hot to hide under the blankets.
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
In the first Lethal Weapon movie, there is a scene where Riggs (Mel Gibson’s character) is shot by Gary Busy’s character and thrown through a plate glass window (as I remember it.) He stands up and says, “Now I’m pissed.” For some bizarre reason, after all they can talk about being pissed off on the network channels, when the movie is run on TBS, “Now I’m pissed,” becomes “Now I’m miffed.” Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post…
As I said in the title, “Now I’m miffed.” And that’s putting it mildly. Back in May I pre-ordered a DVD. The total cost of the transaction was just over $16. On July 15th, the day when the movie was to be released, I checked in at Amazon to see when I would be receiving my order and discovered that there had been a “problem” with my order. It seems my credit card had been declined. I checked the credit card company’s web site to see what was wrong. According to the web site, I had more than enough money to have bought ten or twenty copies of the movie if I had been so inclined.
I called to see why they declined my card and discovered that the account had been closed. They claim to have sent me a letter saying so, but I haven’t gotten it yet and even now, several days later, the web site says I have several hundred dollars available. Am I pissed off that they cancelled the account? Not really. I was considering doing so anyway because I had already received a letter from them telling me that the interest rate was going to be raised sky-high. No, I’m pissed off because I made what I thought was a perfectly legitimate purchase and they made me look like I was trying to pull off a fast one. Fortunately there was no surcharge because the card was declined but I suppose there could have been.
I opened this account about six years ago. It was originally a Paypal credit card. Then it became a Providian credit card, was sold to Washington Mutual, and then was purchased by Chase. During that entire time, I have never missed a payment, never been late with a payment, never gone over my limit or even paid less than the minimum. In fact, I have always paid the bill early and the payments were always considerably more than the minimum. This is true of all of my credit cards. It is also true of the fixed monthly payments as well. My mortgage, my utility bills, and all of my other bills are always paid on time or early.
Now here is what I think. (Not that what I think seems to matter a lot!) I think that by closing this account, Chase has deliberately tanked my credit rating. Furthermore, I think it is irresponsible on their part to take an action that is likely to further damange not only my credit rating but my pocketbook. After all, how long do you suppose it will be before this closed account will set off an avalanche of increased interest rates and/or closed accounts? And if the companies don’t close my other credit card accounts, how long do you suppose I have before they threaten me with interest rates so high that I will be forced to close the accounts myself?
By the way, in doing research into this, I found that the new credit card bill will require companies to give you 30 days notice before they can close your account. Had Chase allowed me this courtesy, I wouldn’t have been so embarrassed or so… um… miffed.
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
Q10
Web Site: http://www.baara.com/q10/
License: Freeware
When you really, truly want to focus on the words, the Q10 word processor helps you do just that. Q10 is not Microsoft Word nor does it try to be. What it does is give you a clean, customizable interface. No distractions, no way to get lost in formatting your pages instead of piling up word count. Best of all, it is free.
If Q10 was simply a text editor, it would be a nice Notepad replacement. However, it’s more than that. Q10 is perfect for people doing timed writing because it includes a timer. If you are the type of writer who sets word count goals for yourself, Q10 can handle that too. You don’t have to worry about compatibility because Q10 saves your work in simple text format. You can import the file into a larger work or have it all ready to be submitted via email or to a blog or other social web site without having to worry about special characters.
Here is a list of useful features:
- You can specify the number of words per page. If you know the approximate number of words per page for your finished document, this feature will give you a much better idea of the page count for the finished document.
- Set the screen so it is comfortable to look at hour after hour by specifying colors, line spacing, first line indent, and more.
- You can put Q10 on a jump drive along with y0ur documents and use it on any computer. The program consists of a single executable.
- Yes, Q10 has a spell checker.
- Q10 allows you to mark a paragraph as a note. You can view a list of notes and note paragraphs work like internal bookmarks that you can access quickly.
- You can set target word count and multiple word counters.
- It is possible to define auto-correct entries for those typing errors that you make over and over. You can also define quick text lists for frequently used word and phrases.
- If you like to be safe (and who doesn’t?) you can tell Q10 to automatically save your work on a regular basis.
- Finally–and this is my favorite–Q10 makes typewriter sounds as you enter text. There’s something comfortable about the clackety-clack for those of old enough to actually remember typewriters.
All in all, Q10 is a small, fast, and stable application that allows me to write without other applications becoming a distraction. I recommend it to anybody who wants an easy to use text processor with a clean undistracting interface. It’s great for sprinting at NaNoWriMo time.
I just wish I had the number of comments on that blog that I have on this one. I get about 200 visits a month and since most of my visitors are using Windows XP, I am fairly confident that these numbers don't count my own visits. So, the question is, with so many visitors, how come most of the comments are from spammers who just want to get visitors to their own sites? So far I've had 228 spams and 16 legitimate comments. To be completely honest, some of the "legitimate" comments were probably spam too from people who say things like, "That's very interesting. I was just thinking about that." In other words, I'm posting this so people will see my link and I have no idea what this post is about.
On the other hand, I suppose spam is better than nothing. But I would surely love it if i had some actual comments too. Once in a while.
Google Irene Smith. Go ahead, I dare you. My web site comes up in the first page. Of course that's only when you search on my name and, unless you know me, you wouldn't be searching for my name, would you? I've never been very lucky when it came to getting my site associated with anything else. I wouldn't even know what to associate it with. Any ideas?
OK, enough shameless plug for my "other" site.
By the way, I've been cross-posting here from irenesmith.com using a WordPress plugin. If it isn't interesting, let me know and I'll stop.
- Location:Home
- Mood:
lonely
- Location:Home
- Mood: cheerful
Originally published at Irene Smith. You can comment here or there.
This is the beginning of the year of postings. I actually remembered. Starting today, I plan on posting one entry a week from now until next July.
I have this urge to run away from my life. There has been too much sorrow lately; so much that I don’t notice the good things that are surely happening as well. I want to hide, to be alone, and there isn’t time. I’m watching the movie Elizabethtown. It’s nearly over and Orlando Bloom is running around the flea market, looking for Kirsten Dunst. I’m certainly not looking for Kirsten Dunst, but I think I am looking for something. I just wish I knew what it was.
If I had the money to do it, I’d hop in the car and just drive away. I love my husband and my children and grandchildren, but this is a trip I’d take alone. Just me and a bunch of CDs with my favorite music.
I’d go looking for those places that people seldom notice and rarely visit. I’d visit museums and tourist traps. I would stop to eat when I felt like it and stop to sleep when I got tired. I’d check out big cities and small towns. I think it would be refreshing and invigorating, and when I came back, I’d be ready to go on. Of course few people get to do in real life what people get to do in movies.
Despite the fact that I have a really good job, I can’t afford to “run way” even for a few hours because there’s never any money left over. So I go on from day to day, building up a sleep deficit that I’ll never be able to pay back. Getting more and more emotionally exhausted by the day. I eat too much, I sleep too little, and I don’t know how to change it.
There is something very soothing about writing. I’m sitting here in the darkened living room (it’s daytime outside, but dark in here) with the television running the background (Elizabethtown has given way to The Truman Show) and the physical act of hitting the keys and seeing the words appear on the screen is soothing.
I’m trying to think of a cool way to close this off, but I can’t. So I’m just going to end it. Here.
See you next week…
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