Ideas I come back to that help me write better fiction

"Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). Father William of Ockham (d'Okham) . (Entities=words, characters, motivations, dialog....I also call this the "need to know" principal--don't tell the reader any more than they actually NEED to know).

"When you get stuck, just blow something up." Andrew Cannon (This frequently works for me. I don't always blow up a thing--sometimes it's a relationship, sometimes a character's misconception, etc.) 

"A novel is like a living body: everything has to connect to everything else. Anything that doesn't is a cancer, draining the vitality of everything around it. " Sean Williams

"Real people are damned inconvenient: they avoid issues, have oblique conversations, feel things others don't understand, and are very rarely think out loud in a coherent and rational way so that the protagonist can get important information." Kelley Eskridge

"The main advice is: Stop looking for advice and just keep putting words on paper. " Orson Scott Card

"Writer’s block is your friend. It is your unconscious mind telling you that something you just wrote, or are about to write, is not working....Your unconscious is your best editor – it tries desperately to keep you from writing crap. So the answer is NEVER to tough it out and force yourself to move on through your outline. The result of that will be garbage that you don’t care about and the reader won’t either."  Orson Scott Card

"Fiddling with language or tiny meaningless details, of course, accomplishes nothing except to kill the spontaneity of the first draft. The first draft is the best draft – you only change spots where it isn’t clear or where the story isn’t working; you never just fiddle with language. That just kills your natural style....There is no virtue to eliminating “needless” words in fiction – and if you’re thinking about style, your style will be dead. You think about story and character, what happens and why, and let your natural voice carry the story. You’ll have an inimitable style then – your real voice – and the rules from the ignorant, miseducated English teachers who abused your understanding of the language throughout your miseducation will fall by the wayside, where they should be left behind. You can’t be thinking about language while you write; that’s like trying to ride a bicycle while thinking about balance and pedaling. And you’ve seen the stories that result from that kind of writing – a “style” that calls attention to itself constantly, so you can barely find the story through the English-professor-pleasing nonsense that has been smeared on the lens."  Orson Scott Card

"^aWoe unto them that decree ^bunrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed." Isaiah 10:1

You wonder "how do you do it?"

People ask me all the time, "How do you do it?" Homeschooling, raising 6 kids, writing, quilting, music career, etc.

Well, the answer is I have to. I can't help it.

And apparently that's part of being who I am (and what I am).

http://talentdevelop.com/articlelive/articles/1123/1/The-Special-Challenges-of-Highly-Intelligent-and-Talented-Women-Who-Are-Moms/Page1.html

So, like other gifted women who are also mothers, I find myself immersed--in creating homeschooling for my kids, in writing, in my husband's music career, in art (quilting).

Gifted adults often have messy desks and messy houses because, as they all say, "I have better things to do." Tim and I have said that to each other. Often. And have you seen our house? Yikes. Eight gifted people, complete with obsessions, hypersensitivities, and projects, living under one roof. Again--Yikes.

But that's how we do it.

We have to.

Did I just read that?

from boulder craigslist free section: " 5" Round folding table - (SW Longmont)"


For mice. Or very small dolls. Fits in a pocket when folded.

Baby pictures

Elijah Jones

Did I just read that?

The top headline on Fox News.com today: "White House to Push Global Warming Policy as GOP Vows Fight"

Go for it, GOP! Anyone who makes Global Warming their POLICY deserves to be fought against. Even if it is something of a shifting of the expected roles.

Luke II

I watched this movie literally hundreds of times over the two Christmasses I spent at the Visitor's Center at the Arizona Temple on my mission.

And it's not Christmas for me unless I see it. I have a video copy of it, but no VCR this year, so I had to go online to find a copy. There are hundreds with modified audio, but I wanted the real thing. It's so much more intensely beautiful that way.

FINALLY found a copy.

And here you go.  Merry Christmas:

Funny kids

Benji just walked up to me and said, "My eyes can be on." Then he slowly and deliberately blinked. "Or off!"

A minute later, Nathanael yelled, "Mom! Help me! I'm too scary!" (He was stuck on a chair....and scared.)

Tim does Christmas--for me

This is what Tim makes for me and for family and friends for Christmas:

Once in Royal David's City


and

Silent Night


Merry Christmas, everyone!

Tim does Christmas--for various companies

For some reason, Tim has been asked to do Christmas videos more than once.

We have this one, which is Tim's voice and arrangement, but not his face:



And this one, which is Tim's original song and him on screen:



And there are a couple of holiday videos for JibJab.com:

http://sendables.jibjab.com/holidays/sendables/204445/kazoo_jingle_bells

and

http://sendables.jibjab.com/holidays/category/new_year

(I can't embed it until they release it to YouTube, but do click on the links. They're really fun.)

Tim has also just finished another project for McAfee--one that started before we moved to Vegas and is just finishing up after being tabled for a couple of years. I'll post links once it goes live.

Isaiah....

I love Isaiah. I found this very short 2-verse revelation tucked into a list with a bunch of others the other day, and it stuck with me.

Isaiah 21:11-12. Dumah comes to the prophet to ask when the trials (captivity) will end:

11¶The ^aburden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of ^bSeir, Watchman, ^cwhat of the night? Watchman, what of the night?

Isaiah responds:

 12The watchman said, ^aThe morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come.

So I really liked his answer. The morning cometh, and also the night. (I realize the footnote explains that Isaiah was saying there is another captivity coming, but the verse is meaningful separate from that.).

I've felt that way before. When we moved to Las Vegas, I had just been asking God, "What of this night?" that we seemed endlessly stuck in, and then we ended up with sufficient work, in Las Vegas. Morning! But it was also the night for us--Vegas was an incredibly difficult place to live, and I was surprised when we were there that the trial I had complained of was over, and yet I wasn't any happier. It was just a different hard. Also night.

Lately, I've been asking God again, "What of this night?! How long?" And I find this verse.  The morning cometh, and also the night. Good will come, things will change, but life is not about all mornings. The morning comes, and also the night, and that's what life is about. So perhaps the answer is not to ask for relief, but for patience and the ability to enjoy whatever mornings and nights we have?

Tim had yet another view of the verse when I told him about it. He said that rarely does something exceptional happen. Most of our lives are spent with a literal morning, followed by a literal night, followed by another morning. The sun comes up, and it goes down, and it's very predictable. So what of the night? It's just part of life, and regardless of exceptional events, most days are just days and most nights are just nights, and we just work and pray and love our families, day in and day out, and THAT'S the POINT. That's what we're supposed to do--live the days and the nights and do our duty and enjoy our lives, but not expect or demand the exceptional, not seek for fame or fortune, not wait for life to happen, because even when "big" things happen, the sun will eventually go down, and then come up, and we still will have to eat and sleep and work and love our families. So what of the night? It will be followed by a day. And a night. And another day. So what of it?

Amazing the power and insight packed into the scriptures.

I love Isaiah! Some day, I would love to thank him.

Did I just read that?

From Foxnews.com home page, one of the four top articles:

"Look Out, WikiLeaks:
CIA Sending in WTF"

While I'm sure a few well-placed f-bombs have been thrown at WikiLeaks, I'm not sure that's the best approach for the CIA to solve the problem!


And then if you go to the article, the headline is even funnier: "Intel Community Responds to WikiLeaks With WTF"

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/22/intel-community-responds-wikileaks-wtf/

I'm pretty sure there were a lot of exclamations of wtf from the Intel Community when Wikileaks released the State Department Cables.  The reporter DID know what that all meant, of course....

Did I just read that?

From foxnews.com main page menu: "Researchers Study Woman Without Fear"

Good thing, since woman is such a fearsome beast!

Astonishing story.

http://www.heraldextra.com/tabernacle/article_db328b06-0b0f-11e0-a131-001cc4c03286.html

Look at all six pictures.

Whoa.

Doesn't look photoshopped to me!

Did I just read that?

Dear Fox News, Please hire a copy editor. Thanks, Becca


""Somebody chose to invade our lives and create a crime that was unjustified. It’s torn a big whole in our family.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/17/murdered-missing-unsolved-crime-stories/#ixzz18PoC1aFU"

Sure it wasn't a big half?

The baby

Even less than a week old, all babies are individuals.

Elijah:

Likes to be warm. Really warm. And is finally sleeping better (ie more than 10 minutes at a time) now that we know to keep him toasty warm.

Can hold his head up remarkably well.

Has already given us multiple smiles, including big open-mouthed toothless grins.

Skips the fussing and goes straight to the screaming if I'm not in the room. If I am in the room, he fusses around and smacks his lips when he wants to be picked up instead of outright crying.

Calms down immediately when he hears my voice and quietly waits to be picked up, even if he was screaming his head off a second before. If I walk out of the room, he starts up screaming again until he hears me coming back in.

Hates being poopy, but hates diaper changes even more. Screams through them but calms immediately when the diaper is on.

Loves to feel things with his fingertips (no fists on this baby!).

Starts rooting and trying to nurse when anyone says, "Are you hungry?" or "Do you want to nurse?", even if they don't give him any physical cues what they're saying.

Loves to look at the Christmas tree.



You'd think that 5 days old is too young to be expressing himself, responding to language, learning things, and being involved, but I guess it isn't!

Nathanael holds the baby

Did I just read that?

From FoxBusiness.com today:

"...hazardous working conditions, such as mining for precious metals or jewels in lakes filled with chemicals and nothing more."

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2010/12/16/countries-use-child-labor-says/#ixzz18JmYEkJO"

Hard to find anything but chemicals if the lakes contain nothing more than chemicals. Seems sort of futile mining there, no?

Did I just read that?

From Fox News today: "Dr Hibbert, who is the secretary of the analytical division of IUPAC, said the periodic table was revised more often than people thought.'These things come periodically, every now and then.'"
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/16/periodic-table-receives-biggest-update-decades/#ixzz18JkNEtzd"

These things come periodically......ha! Wait--don't the elements always appear periodically? Else why call it the Periodic Table?

This is one of the more glib, funnier chemists I've read quoted.  More:

""When we met four years ago we changed the atomic weight of zinc and this caused a bit of furore at the time, because we changed it by a relatively large amount. I know it makes for good copy, but the world hasn't just suddenly decided, like Pluto, 'we've got fed up with a couple of elements so we're going to chuck them out'."

So the Plutonians got sick of a few elements and threw them out? I didn't know there were Plutonians. I wonder if the element they got sick of was Plutonium?

Also, does he realize what he just said about other chemists?

""For most calculations, people will just carry on as before," he said. "A lot of things you do don't require that kind of precision, so we're not going to change the first year chemistry text book and probably half my colleagues won't notice that this has happened at all. The world won't in fact grind to a halt as the result of it, but, for people at my end who do worry about these things, then yes, there will be some changes in the way we do calculations.""

Did I just read that?

From Google News, a "teaser" taken from a picture caption for the article found here:

"A rash of food recalls, from peanuts to eggs, led to several deaths and new calls for a comprehensive food-safety bill, but it has become stalled in Congress."

So recalling food kills people...and what became stalled in Congress? The bill, or the recall?

Baby CAME

A few weeks ago, I had the kids all write their guesses on the calendar of when Elijah would be born. Anda guessed Dec. 11, which she didn't know was her Grandpa Jones's birthday.

She was right.

So, I had been adamant about wanting to do this baby all natural--no medication. Back when I really believed I only had 5 hour labors (which I had, until then).

This time, for some reason, I started into labor on Thursday. I had strong, for-real contractions for all of Thursday, all Thursday night, all of Friday, and well into Friday night. That's well over 36 hours of little sleep. I don't do well on little sleep.  The trouble is, the contractions were only 10-20 minutes apart instead of the required 5 minutes apart. And they sometimes took an hour off, here and there. So I wasn't in "real labor," even though it was exhausting me.

So when the contractions finally got to 5 minutes apart at midnight on Friday night, I was BEAT. Already. And "real labor" hadn't even started. And I didn't have the energy or focus to use any of the natural childbirth techniques I had learned. I was too tired.

At 2:30 am, I decided I wasn't going to sleep it off again, and we called babysitters in (thank you, Heather and Kelly, for waking up when the phone rang!).

3:30, I was admitted to the hospital with contractions 2 minutes apart, strong, but only dilated to 3.5 (36 hours of labor hadn't done almost anything but make me tired). Too tired, I asked for an epidural, hoping I could sleep for a few hours and then have a baby.

5:00, the anesthesiologist came.

6:00, the epidural had numbed my legs but not my tummy. Am I now immune? Who knows, but I was VERY not happy. Doctor tried to re-do the epidural while the nurse, realizing that it wasn't working because the baby was coming "precipitously" fast, started calling in help to deliver a small child. I was so not numb, I felt my water break. And everything else except my left leg and right thigh. And I got to work throwing up, which I always do in labor.

6:19, baby popped out without me even feeling the need to push, and before the doctor arrived. What a relief! And, for the first time, no stitches.

I think the natural childbirth would have been easier if I hadn't been expecting an epidural to work. As it was, the expectation made me angry on top of everything else, and that didn't really help.

6:35 I told Tim if that's how it's going to be every time, I'm not having any more babies. I'm too much of a wimp. Every other child has come with me calm, smiling, and ready to hold him. This baby came to a mess of a mother who was angry, hurting from needle pricks everywhere AND childbirth, frustrated, and downright exhausted from 3 days of little sleep topped off by a miserable night of zero sleep and lots of stress and pain.

Within an hour, though, Elijah and I were contentedly nursing, talking to a very tired Tim, and feeling much much better. Then we all slept. Tim went home and put the kids back to bed (they had been up since about 4:00 am, Anda and Dan trying to help Nathanael, who had discovered I was gone and were doing as I asked them to do and help him feel happier--by playing Nintendo. Which worked.). Babysitter went home. Tim went to sleep.

I think he got more sleep than I did, but I also managed to get to sleep and slept for a long time. Thank goodness Elijah is a good sleeper and a good nurser. (I realize that usually changes after a few days, but today, I needed that!).

So, Elijah James Jones. Born today. 7 lb 10 oz. 20 1/2 inches long. Surprisingly, he has lots of black hair. We haven't had any kids born with lots of hair. A few with black hair, but not lots of it like this. Very cute.

And I am so glad that's over! And so glad he's here.