Learn More About Vooks

Thanks for all your comments and questions regarding VOOKS.
Here's a great link for a quick look at this growing trend:

http://promo.simonandschuster.com/vook/

Writing Rapture

“We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”

                         -Joseph Campbell Author, Editor, Philosopher & Teacher, 1904-1987



Previously I wrote about life’s light bulb moments. Today, their Grande Papa…Rapture. Getting lost in the moment. For hours.

When is it that you lose track of all time? For me it is often when I’m deep into my writing mode, both fiction and non-fiction. Sometimes I feel I have been writing for an hour only to look up at the clock to see that three or four hours have passed. In a blink.

A page-turning book can do it. Currently I’m reading some Dennis Lehane, an old Mary Higgins Clark, and Patricia Cornwell. Occasionally I’ll become totally absorbed in an art project. Often it happens when my husband and I are sitting outside shooting the breeze, a ritual for us. This is pretty much amazing in that we’ve been shooting the breeze together for over 25 years!

Time is an odd thing, isn’t it? It’s an innate condition of our planet that we can’t ignore. Deadlines are to be met, dates and appointments are to be honored, and sleep must be respected and attended.

As a writer I am blessed. I do something I love. I have passion in my life.

Today I wish you time to think about your rapture experiences. And, once you’ve identified them, I wish you time to go get lost in your rapture.

Convening With Nature

I recently posted about the inspiration derived from nature and the need to convene with nature. This is NOT what I had in mind!

Look for my post later today... Writing Rapture. We will not be talking Gila Monsters.

Hooked on Vooks?

Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure.


—Edward Thorndike

Putting aside all debate on bookstores & libraries over e-publishing & electronic readers, the only sure thing we know is we must adjust to change. It’s not in the air; it’s in the lightning-speed shockwaves of our delivery systems. The metronome of the communications world seems to be on a cocktail of crack, Adderall, and steroids. Ask any kid. Emails take too long these days for those with nimble fingers able to text out their messages in nano-seconds.

Enter the Vook. High concept and arguably the next wave of story-telling, the Vook brings us the opportunity to read and watch at the same time. While reading online text, the user is able to click on high quality video at any time, as it relates to the story.

The advantage in the non-fiction category is obvious. Instructions can be illustrated so that the viewer can SEE the how-to exercise program, they can read the recipes, then see what their finished meal is supposed to look like when plated at the table, they can enter the boardroom, the courtroom, or the classroom, and experience the development of trendsetting thought through graphics and virtual blackboards.

For fiction, the Vook adds another dynamic. Reading becomes a true sensory experience. Imagine highlighting key moments in your manuscript with sound and color that explodes off the screen. Scenes elapsed by time are easily and quickly depicted with rising suns and fading light. Settings, once necessary and time-consuming to describe and often bordering on purple prose, are now instantaneous. This just may be the ultimate answer for the writer battling that age old rule… Show. Don’t Tell!

If you’re interested, Simon and Schuster has a good page on Vooks. Check it out at http://promo.simonandschuster.com/vook/


While we brace for the future of publishing and communication, all this speed, all this business of more and more information delivered faster and faster, can at times be dizzying to the soul.

This weekend we received a beautiful handwritten thank you note from a recent houseguest, via the good old USPS. Breaking open the seal on the envelope caused me pause. This had impact. This was happiness on paper.

Today I hope you’ll explore the arrival of the Vook, and I also wish you a good old-fashioned card, hand-written, in your mailbox. If you don’t receive one, send one. You’ll be amazed how good it makes you feel.

Light Bulb Moments

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.



                                —W. Somerset Maugham

We all have them. Aha moments. Epiphanies. Breakthrough out-of-the-box thinking.

We break the code, come up with an untold story, or finally just ‘get it’.

A lot of what writers write about writing is overwritten. Much has to do with writer’s block. All is well-intended guidance, but the pieces of advice I find most valuable are about staging and observing.

If I need to write a dark scene I set MY scene, first. I shroud myself in darkness. The music might by George Crumb’s Lux Aeterna. The ambient lighting is austere. If it’s a lusty sex scene to write, the candles are lit [even in daylight] and I might choose the sultry notes of Ravel’s Bolero to fill the air. Staging is a valuable tool in order to feel and live the scene before you write it. Music and lighting are a good start, but think about all the senses you have, because when you write, you want to WRITE all the senses.

The second profound bit of advice is to always keep your notepad, be it loose leaf paper or electronic device, within reach, then get yourself out in our world. For people-watching, head for an airport, a coffeehouse, or a crowded beach, and just plain eavesdrop. Maybe you'll only walk away with a unique name you overhear, or a good title for a plot unknown. Sometimes, Holy Moly, you’ll walk away with a well-rounded character, a full scene, or even an entire outline. For me, another important element in getting out into the world is to get out alone. Find quiet and solitude. Convene with nature. Just be. You’ll see!

I found myself troubled to read an interview with Sue Grafton, upon nearing the end of her alphabet series. She’s likely to name her last book, “Z is for Zero”. [Writer’s Digest, Feb, 2010] How sad. I’m sure it’s not writer’s block, per se, as much as dealing with the pressure of turning out 26 books. Grafton is known for her dry wit, and much to her credit her newly released Undertow is some of her best work, but still…

With or without deadlines, remind yourself that the filament is always attached. The light bulb is forever connected to the omniscient source of creativity. Sometimes it just takes a little bit of nourishment and effort to pull the switch.

Today I wish you a shatterproof light bulb, promising you effervescent light, and the shadows that come with it.

Just Be. You’ll See.

A Isn't Always About Apples

"The most important things are the hardest to say,
because words diminish them."     — Stephen King



How are those New Year resolutions working for you?


Here’s a quick exercise I developed to help me stay on my writing path. It also helps me stay on my ‘me’ path. With repeated use I:

• Stay on track with progress

• Identify roadblocks

• Document the inevitable evolution of goals

• Evaluate my platform, strengths & weaknesses

• Solidify my visions & values

• Understand ‘ME’ and my journey

Lala’s Ladder is simple to climb!

1. Identify the area in your life you would like to explore. It might be your career, your marriage/relationship, your financial or physical well-being.
2. Write out the letters of the alphabet, single-spaced. twice.
3. Take your first alphabet list. Using the area you identified in step one, go through the alphabet [I encourage you to do this quickly] and assign the first word that comes to mind starting with the letter A, B, C... Write down all the good stuff. What you value and are trying to achieve.
4. Take your second sheet and write down your No-No's as they relate to your focus area.
5. Date and save your answers.
6. When the time is right for you—in a month, this summer, next year... do your alphabet words again BEFORE looking at your saved history. What has changed? What is currently on your mind, and what stands the test of all time for YOU?

No rules. Add sentences, alliterations, or multiple words as you like. It’s YOUR list.


Here’s a quick peak at my latest relationship ladder. JK! Here’s the start of my writer’s ladder:


My Good Alphabet

A Accuracy


B Boldly [go where no man has gone before]


C Cutting edge


D Determination

E Editing, evermore



My No-No Alphabet:

A Anonymity. Get myself into the scene or I can’t take my readers with me.


B Buts


C Criticism


D Delusions of Dialogue. Make it real.


E Ego. Get rid of it.




You get the idea.

Admittedly, X’s are tricky. I’ve heard rumor Sue Grafton is still hoping there will be a new crime that starts with X by the time she gets to it in her Alphabet Series. The only X words on my list are the good: Xanadu, and bad: Xeno, which is a good word for me when writing suspense. Go figure.

Golden Storms

Last evening I sat in awe of the setting sun. Shrouding the mountains, inky menacing storm clouds commanded the northern sky. Twilight came consumed in darkness.
Until I really looked.
And then I saw.

The setting sun cast filtering golden streams of light. The glint of yellow lined the blackness. It presented itself in layers, both in front of the dark ominous clouds, and beyond them. It lived, symbiotic within the storm. It wasn’t bright. It didn’t pop off [the page].


Nature is in conflict.

Life is in conflict.

A good read is in conflict. Evil and goodness coexist as do despair and hope. Under the scrutiny of those who see, they will be in every scene.

For 2010 I wish you
the full vision in your first version,
and winnowed vision in your final version.
Merry Christmas to you & yours!


'Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure.'
                                                                          -Edward Thorndike-