This little guy came right up to the road.
I guess he was just as curious about us as we were of him.
Next stop, Bedrock.
That’s right. It’s possible to visit the land of the Flintstones, right in Arizona!
We didn’t know exactly what to expect. It added 40 miles to the trip, so when we pulled into the parking lot we were disappointed. Sure there were a couple of Bedrock-looking buildings and a dinosaur, but not enough for the long drive.
Until we noticed that one of the buildings (the only one we could actually go inside) was a diner. We knew we had a long drive before we got anywhere else, so we decided to see what they had to eat.
Duh! It was the entrance into Bedrock! The parking lot was thankfully just that, a parking lot.
We paid our entrance fee and went inside. I’m so glad we did!
Because what we found was the entire town of Bedrock. Houses, playground, school, theater, gas station, post office, cars, dinosaurs, doctor’s office, jail, etc. Whatever you’d expect in a town, it was there.
The insides of the buildings were staged appropriately. So the doctor’s office had giant teeth, and the post office looked ready for a town meeting.
I wonder what this guy did to get this long of a jail sentence?
My very favorite part was the Goatasaurus’s that housed the cutest, friendliest little goat you’ve ever seen!
Maaaa!
Off to London! Bridge, that is.
Lately I’ve been feeling a little stagnant. Like I need to see more of the world.
After all, a writer needs to experience the world in order to write about it.
So instead of flying my daughter home from college, I flew out to Arizona and we drove back to Seattle.
That’s right, your eyes are not deceiving you. We drove. An old fashioned road trip. Through deserts, mountains, forests, and very small towns. Just the two of us.
The mission:
Experience as many quirky/interesting sites as possible and still get home in less than a week. And in case you’re wondering, to find the quirky things you need to take the road less traveled.
So that’s what we did.
Our first stop was a meteor crater, which we found to be more educational than quirky. But hey, you have to start somewhere, even if it is with a giant dent in the earth.
I was taking a bath when out of the blue this conversation popped into my head.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago. I’m making a hole in the universe big enough to send you home.”
Where this odd little piece of dialog came from I haven’t a clue, nor do I know what I’m supposed to do with it. All of a sudden it was just there, clear and firmly implanted in my brain.
Hmm.
Two years ago my husband and I went with family to the tulip festival. We were so inspired that we planted our own little festival of colors.
What do you think?
Okay, so maybe our tulips aren’t quite festival-worthy. But it’s a start!
The title for this book still eludes me. Maybe by the time I finish the rewrites something perfect will pop into my head.
This moment is the catalyst that sets everything in motion.
“Don’t you get it, Annabel?” Philip asked gloomily, “She didn’t give me a fighting chance. And she never will. She’s prejudiced against me. Just because of the way I look.”
Annabel took a step back and examined her husband from head to toe. When love began to cloud her eyes she shook her head and shoulders several times, assumed an arrogant stance with hands on hips and chin held high, and looked again. Her intention was to put herself into Dr. Morgan’s shoes so she could see Philip through her eyes. After a few moments of this she managed to see him as if for the first time, the way Dr. Morgan saw him, and she nodded her head thoughtfully.
“Does that mean…?” Philip began, but stopped short as the fragile bud of hope sprouting in his heart was drowned by a wave of gloom.
Annabel was studying her husband’s face and did not miss the wave of gloom that extinguished the flicker of hope so quickly and thoroughly. It pained her to see her husband like this, depressed and vulnerable.
Maybe she could help him, just this once. She’d made hundreds, maybe thousands of trips through time for the greater good. Philip was a good man. Wouldn’t helping him also be serving the greater good?
Annabel studied her husband’s face for a moment or two longer before she spoke. “I might,” she conceded warily, “be able to make a few careful adjustments.”
When I went to library school we were taught to cater to boys when we selected books for the juvenile section of our public libraries. We were told to stuff the shelves with books filled with male characters, male characters, and more male characters.
Here’s the logic:
Girls already love to read and need no further encouragement. Besides, they’re not picky and will read books with male protagonists, male villains, male supporting cast, etc.
Boys, on the other hand, don’t like to read. So to even the playing field we need to bend over backwards to encourage them. And since boys won’t read books with female protagonist, or too many female characters, we need fill the shelves with boy-appropriate books.
To make this logic more logical, we were also taught that the content of the library should reflect the interests of its patrons.
So a library situated in a hipster part of town should be loaded with hipster content. One near the beach should carry an abundance of books with a nautical theme.
But a public library situated next door to an all girl’s school still needed to focus on books with boys as the main characters. Just in case one of the poor little fellas wandered in off the street and accidentally managed to open a book and read a few words.
Why, if he saw a girl’s name on the page he might slam the book closed and run, screaming in terror, never to again open a book.
Sigh.
Come on, people, give boys some credit! They’re tougher than that, and more intelligent.
Unless the real goal is to teach boys, and girls, that the female half of the population isn’t important.
In that case, job well done!
I’m a writer now, but before I settled into writing I was a librarian, a job that required almost constant interaction with a multitude of people from all walks of life. And even though I’m an introvert at heart, I still loved meeting and talking with all those people, hearing their stories, and helping them to solve their problems.
But before that I was a budding anthropologist. I adored studying cultures from around the world and learning the mechanisms needed to keep each culture going.
Which is why when it comes to the stories I write, I’m all about the kind that could be labeled ‘family friendly’. (BTW, contrary to what some snobs think, family friendly does not mean boring, wimpy, or simplistic.)
You see, what we use as entertainment not only reflects our society, but it also forms it. This is especially true when it comes to younger viewers.
Children want to be normal, and normal is what they see most often. They’re hardwired to copy what they see, it’s the way they learn how to act in society. So if they watch shows where kids are rebellious drug addicts who hate their parents, they are likely to grow into rebellious drug addicts who hate their parents.
There’s already enough doom, gloom, and violence in the world. I want my stories to
show a different world, a world that may not be perfect, but is certainly worth living
in.
I guess you could say my plan is to write the world into a better place.
I should be writing this morning, but…
I write both screenplays and novels. They feel very different to write, and each has its own challenges and rewards when it comes to going from first idea to completed project.
But just how different are they?
I am obviously in avoidance mode this morning, because before I realized what I was doing I’d made a mathematical comparison.
First I opened two new Word documents with identical formatting. Then I copy/pasted a completed novel into one document, and a completed screenplay into the other.
I took out the ‘extra’ stuff, like title pages, etc.
Then I divided the number of words by the page count.
Which is how I now know that when it comes to density, the two types of writing are HUGELY different. Or at least the two I compared were, and it’s my guess that the same would hold true for most screenplay/novel comparisons.
Novel – 500 words per page
Screenplay – 160 words per page
So now I know.
And so do you.
You know how it is. You work, and work, and work some more.
But since there’s always more that needs to be done, you feel you’ve accomplished nothing.
I have a habit of looking forward at the huge list of things I want to write, which currently numbers about fifteen storylines.
I feel so sorry for the poor little things, sitting on the back burner, waiting their turn. Waiting for me.
And that doesn’t take into account the twelve or so picture books, some of which are practically written.
Or that oh-so-brilliant idea I had to turn every screenplay I write into a novel and every novel into a screenplay. (Nothing like doubling your own work!)
Is it any wonder I feel I never get anything done?
Then the other day, when I realized that nearly three and a half years has passed since I obtained my MFA, I nearly freaked. How could I let so much time zip by without accomplishing anything?
At first I tried to console myself by remembering that during that time we sold our house, moved to an apartment, bought another house, and moved in. Buying, selling, and moving houses is rather time consuming. I should cut myself some slack. Maybe I have been a little lazy-
“You idiot!” A little voice called out.
I was offended. How dare that little voice speak to me like that. Why, I had half a mind to-
“Stop all that inner babble and listen,” the voice continued. “In those three and a half years you rewrote and published a novel, wrote and published two picture books, adapted three of your novels into scripts, wrote three original feature-length screenplays, and wrote the first draft of an entirely new novel. Does that sound like laziness to you?”
That silenced the inner babble. I turned to the little voice to thank it, but there was nothing there. The voice had come from inside my own head. From the logical part of me that can stand back and look at the big picture.
“Thank you!” I whispered. But I got no response.
The logical little voice is obviously the quiet type.