In Which Love YA Has A Contest

Quick! Quick! Quick! Get over to Love YA to submit to the Vickie Motter judged contest. Closes when the entries hit 50! Go now!

In Which I Get Another Story Idea

his one has been haunting me for years*, but it's been getting literal** over the past few days. So, it's officially going on the to "to be written" list. It's a story about a cop with tinnitus. Yeah, it doesn't sound like much when I put it that way, but there's a story in there. Trust me, I'm a writer :)

*Technically, it was the first book I ever tried to write. I think I was in junior high. It never got past the opening paragraph, but man what a paragraph!
"How did you know where that guy was?" 
She shrugged, "I just heard him." She wondered how her partner had failed to hear the music in the warehouse.
Stellar writing there. Deathly prose, even.

**Yes, I have symptoms of tinnitus. However, I find that elements of stories tend to "manifest" for me, until I acknowledge them. Then they go away. When I was writing Scratched, every night for weeks I would hear a loud banging as I was going to sleep. No one was knocking on the door, and nothing was falling over. Finally, in desperation of getting some sleep, I promised to include Tommyknockers in the story. The banging stopped. It's like that thing where med students think they have whatever disease it is they're studying at the moment. Or like writer's hypochondria.

In Which My Son Offers Writing Advice

s my son and I were talking yesterday, he said something funny, and I said, "Oh, I'm totally going to use that line in Penny's Luck". He said, "How will you use it?" and then we proceeded to talk about the book for the next few minutes.

After I talked about some of the scenes, he interrupted me. "I'm sorry, but I'm just not feeling it. Where's the ticking clock? There's no sense of urgency here."

That's my boy! (And he's totally correct. I need a ticking clock in this story.)

In Which Mandy Hubbard Judges A Contest

 know you love contests as much as I do! Quick! Get over to We Do Write for a Twitter pitch contest judged by Mandy Hubbard!.

In Which I Am At WriteOnCon

'm at WriteOnCon, hanging out in the forums. How about you? Let me know, and we can be friends :)

In Which Scrivener Has A New Beta

he Scrivener Windows Beta version has a new release today. (The Linux one will be out in a few days.) If you haven't tried out Scrivener because you don't have a Mac, or if you have been using a previous beta version of the one for Windows, you can get this new release at http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/

In Which Snape Advises "It Will Get Better"

love this video. It's very funny (especially the end). Several things you should know, before you click. First, it's not really Snape. Second, it contains spoilers, so be warned! (I feel like I should put in a third mention, because while it's done in the spirit of the "It Gets Better" videos, this one is about being a villain, not about sexuality.)

In Which I Start My Outline

enny's Luck is now officially past the major research stage and is now in the outlining portion of the writing. I've got 22 plot points. I generally write about 1,000 words per plot point, so that means... not nearly enough words for this book.

Fortunately, I don't have all the plot points down yet (I still have to do all the villain plot points), and I haven't plotted any of the subplots yet. So, there's a good chance this will be a good length yet. Fortunately, it's Middle Grade, which is reflected in the word count.

In Which I Fail The Bechdel Test

realized today that "Penny's Luck" fails the Bechdel Test. In case you haven't heard of the Bechdel Test, or don't remember the details, here it is.
The work (book, film, play) has:
1. Two or more female characters
2. That speak to each other
3. About something other than a man

In "Penny's Luck" I don't have any other female characters! Argh! And I can't think of a good way to fit one in. Even if I turn the butterfly smuggling neighbor into a woman, she and Penny will still be talking to each other about Penny's dad. Double Argh!

I don't know how I'm going to fix this. Well, obviously, I'm going to have to add another female character. Cal's coach? Cal's mom? A BFF?

In Which I Blog About Research

oing research is one of my favorite parts of writing. It's when and where I get ideas for plot points, find ways to make the unbelievable a little more believable, and I like learning about new things.

Here are some of the things I've been researching for "Penny's Luck".

• Names of magic tricks. (Many years ago I was a magician, but other than "French Drop" I couldn't remember the names of many of the magic tricks. It's part of the jargon that Penny will use, so I'm brushing up and learning new names.)
• Butterfly smuggling.
• Human Growth Hormone and how it's given. (Squik.)
• Meningitis, and how it's spread.
• ASL. (I'm not sure this counts, as I took lessons in sign years ago, and my son is taking ASL in high school as his foreign language, so it's stuff I may use, but didn't start learning about just for this book.)
• Cochlear Implants and the controversy around them. (Again, was learning about this stuff for a while before this book, so I'm not sure it counts as research for the book.)
• Deaf and Hearing Impaired subculture. (Same as the two above.)
• Storefront floor plans.
• Organized crime.
• Pole vaulting.
• Escape artists.
• Las Vegas. (Jobs and housing and local schools, as well as the viewpoint of the city.)
• Average growth rate of teenage boys.
• PTSD in humans.
• ATF agents.
• ATF canines. (Did you know that ATF canines are failed Guide Dogs?)
• PTSD in canines.
• Paranoia.
• VW Bug.
• Italian names for "grandfather".
• Agoraphobia.
• Monty Python. (Oh, who am I kidding? That's for fun. The fact that I can work something into the book is just icing.)
• Comic books.

Ok, that's all I remember for now, but I haven't finished outlining, so I'm sure some more things will be coming up.