Invocation for dads June 16, 2012
Our fathers are our first role models of what it is to be a man.
If we are blessed to have a good one driving our household mini van.
He shows us how a romantic partner should behave;
He demonstrates just how our children should be raised.
He shows us this without a word, by what he does each day,
So we’ll reflect his teaching as we go on about our way.
If we weren’t blessed to have our father there to show us what to do,
Let us be thankful there are men, who’ll gather us in, too.
In thanks for each man, standing by his family,
Who cares, provides, corrects and loves, from those of us who see.
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© Shawn L. Bird 2012 Free use within Rotary, though please indicate when and where you have used the invocation by leaving a comment below. Thanks!
heat in the band room June 14, 2012
The latest snippet from Grace Awakening Myth
Things are heating up in the band room! (Ben is narrating).
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Ryan came in. “Did you see Tanis?” His eyes were wild.
“When?”
“Today. She’s wearing something.”
“I should hope so. Otherwise she’d be arrested.”
He shook his head, as if to shake out an image, “No, I mean, she’s wearing some…thing. Ahhh.” He shook harder, then hissed, “Look!”
Tanis sauntered in. She was definitely wearing ‘something,’ all right. Skin tight. Mini-dress. Black leather.
Ryan cast a frantic look over to Mr. J. Mr. J glanced back and raised an eye brow.
Paul came in, grinning.
Tanis glanced over her shoulder and then bent over.
Paul sucked in his breath.
Ryan gulped. Loudly. Like he had swallowed his tongue.
“Tanis,” Mr. J called. “I need to see you over here, please.”
She grinned at us, our jaws hovering somewhere around our navels, and gave a little shoulder wiggle as she passed us.
Mr. J spoke to her quietly.
She shrugged and left the room.
He came over to us. “For whose benefit was that display, gentlemen?”
“I…uh…well…” Ryan stuttered.
Paul twitched, but didn’t seem to have the capacity of speech anymore.
I inhaled. “It’s complicated, sir.”
light June 13, 2012
I had modified a round plastic lamp shade into a bowl by putting a couple pieces of tape across the hole at the bottom. It was sitting out where it had just served as a draw bucket for a game of charades with my drama class.
We were waiting for the bell. Rylee picked up the lamp shade and set it on his head.
Justin looked up and said, “Hey Rylee, feeling a little light headed?”
Modern pict, in miniature June 11, 2012
NB. Beaufort is pronounced Byoo-furt in this one.
Just a snap shot in words.
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“Beaufort T. Scott! Is that your mama’s blue eye shadow all over your face?” Sadie looked again and rammed her hands onto her hips, elbows jutting out menacingly. “And why on Earth are you wearing your sister’s skirt?
“It’s not a skirt! It’s a kilt. Kilts are for men. Mama says so!” He thrust his tongue out to emphasize the point.
“It’s a gingham skirt with a calico ruffle, Beaufort.”
His lower lip quivered. “It’s a kilt!”
Joline’s kitten pounced by, narrowly missing a lucky grasshopper. Beaufort bent over to examine it, demonstrating that he was wearing his ‘kilt’ in the traditional manner.
Sadie raised an eyebrow. “Careful that cat doesn’t reach up and slice off your privates.”
In alarm, the little boy swooped up the cat and dangled it protectively over the privates in question.
Sadie bit back a laugh. The poor little cat looked for all the world like a pipe major’s badger sporran hanging there, tail twitching between the little boy’s knees.
“Ah, Beaufort,” she sighed. “You’ll be the death of me.”
sewing with words June 10, 2012
When I write, I craft individual scenes. When I have enough of them, I sort them out and put them in order, then I write the ‘in betweens’ that fill out the plot and ensure comfortable transitions, proper development of tension, etc. After than comes the editing and additional padding or trimming that make things tidy.
It’s a bit like making a quilt of words. First are the blocks, individual chunks, that are arranged into an attractive pattern. They don’t stay together, though until they’re backed, and stitched down.
So, I’m quilting the final stitches in the third book of the series, Grace Awakening Myth today. I think I’ll be done by bedtime. Then off it will go to the first round of beta readers who will see if they find any holes in the structure and composition. I’ll darn up what I need to, and then it will head off to the editor, who will trace the pattern for the final quilting. When it’s all done, the next adventure will begin!
Another couple thousand words to stitch, and this word quilt will be done.
Sasquatch sighting in Cinnemousun Narrows June 9, 2012
Angela, an astute reader of this blog and member of the Facebook Fan Page, has sent me a link to two reports of Shuswap Lake Sasquatch sightings filed with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization: http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=11570. Angela feels this report adds credibility to the Sasquatch reports in Grace Awakening Power.
This is not the first time I have written something, only to discover that it fit into research or recorded history. I find it quite amazing that the reports identify sightings in almost the same places as they occur in Grace Awakening Power.
What do you think? Is it the equivalent of ‘dry wall stilts’ as Grace had initially alleged or is there more to this than meets the eye?
Thanks Angela for freaking us out over here at shawnbird.com!
479 June 8, 2012
Pondering short story ideas and this patch of dialogue came to me. I thought I’d write it down. Not sure what I’ll do with it, if anything. Where would you take it?
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“I wouldn’t marry you if the flames of hell were devouring Aunt Ida’s apple tree, and copulation could save the human race, do you hear me Billy Killswell? For the four hundredth time, the answer is no!”
I had meant it, too. I’d meant it the three hundred and ninety nine times previously, and the seventy-eight times after. So what was I doing here in this damn white dress standing beside him?
Four hundred seventy nine is a charm, apparently.
Billy grinned over at me.
I snarled back.
His grin widened.
If I only I’d held out for four hundred and eighty. Four-eighty is definitely a number full of secure denial.
Damn Billy Killswell. Damn him from now ’til eternity.
“I told you I’d get you here, didn’t I?” Billy whispered.
“To hell with you, Billy.” I muttered back.
Pastor Griffith gave a little start, and looked down his bi-focals at me. I scowled as he cleared his throat and motioned the congregation to sit down. The congregation was half-blind Brody Turner and my cousin Lula, who were the designated witnesses to this farce.
“Dearly beloved…” Griff intoned solemnly.
“Stop!” bellowed a voice from the back, and all nine eyes in the church turned to stare at the door.
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So you tell me, who’s at the door? Leave a suggestion or two in the comment section below, and I’ll pick one and see where we go from there!
3 levels of story: Donald Maass workshop June 7, 2012
I am beyond excited to be going to Surrey International Writers’ Conference next fall (in 133 days!). I attended SIWC in 2009 after I’d written Grace Awakening, and successfully pitched it there. I was a walk in registration on the Saturday that year. This year, I registered and paid on the first day I could for the full conference. As a result, I have appointments with agent Victoria Marini and with Diana Gabaldon! I’m so excited I can hardly stand it.
In the midst of my excitement, I’m feeling the pressure to be finishing up book 3, Grace Awakening Myth, and getting back to work on Grace Beguiling. Beguiling is the book I was in France to research in 2011, and it has already had some help from Diana Gabaldon, as she responded to some historical questions about Roman Catholic practice that I’d posted on the Compuserve Writers’ Forum. I was poking around the Forum today, looking for some interesting conversations and tips, and I came across links to this blog post that is the notes that L. S. Taylor took at SIWC in a masters’ class by agent Donald Maass in 2011. Maass handles some serious talent, and I’ve heard him speak before. This workshop is so full of fantastic stuff that I thought I’d direct you to the link. I’m going to be chewing on this for a while. Taylor records, “Fiction that keeps us enthralled works on three different levels at once: the macroplot, the scene structure, and the line-by-line tension. A throbbing beat that keeps us dancing/reading, enthralled.”
Click here to read Taylor’s notes from Maass’s Master Class: Impossible to Put Down: Mastering the Three Levels of Story. Thanks Laura for taking these great notes and posting them on your blog for us all!
Shawn L. Bird 