U is for User-Friendly

I graduated from LSU with a business degree and for the majority of my professional life I’ve developed training materials, taught classes, and composed instruction manuals…all for the purpose of teaching people how to properly use the tools they were provided to do their jobs. I’ve also had the opportunity to design some of these same systems from the ground up – to tailor how the framework is presented to the operators and help guide their interaction. Believe me when I tell you that there is not one single aspect of what I’ve been doing for the past 30+ years that is not made easier by the concept of “user-friendly”.

But have you ever thought about how that phrase applies to your writing?

Think about it…how many times have you been told not to use twenty words to explain something that could be done in ten? More user-friendly. Don’t try and show off your extensive vocabulary by using obtuse words the reader will have to look up when simpler words will accomplish the same result. More user-friendly. Construct your book with short chapters or multiple scenes per chapter to provide the reader plenty of breaking points. More user-friendly. Break-up your paragraph structures so they aren’t so repetitive and keep the reader engaged. More user-friendly.

These are just a few examples, but I think you get my point. Writing a book is more than just an intriguing story, compelling characters, and a unique voice. Technical considerations such as these could be a deciding factor when a prospective buyer picks your book off the shelf and studies it. I know I have put back plenty of books I was on the fence about because they contained pages and pages of long worded paragraphs, or lengthy…thirty page chapters. I did that because I didn’t view the books as easy reads. To me, they weren’t user-friendly.

Think of it this way -- those of us seeking publication, we are creating a product for sale. And hopefully the people who purchase our product will want to recommend it to lots of other people. What better recommendation is there than, “It was really easy to use!”

Did you know I was holding a contest during the A-Z Challenge? You can read all about it HERE.

T is for Third Times a Charm

Today I present to you the third and final segment of a story I started HERE and continued HERE. Enjoy. **Warning - A bit of rough language ahead**




The edges of the blanket obscured whatever she was seeing from Ted, so he took a step closer. Cradled in her arms, unclothed, with a cell phone taped to its chest with a single piece of black electrical tape, was a very life-like plastic doll.

“Ted?” Cami said without looking up.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the play toy, unsure of how to react. Is this is what shock feels like, he thought to himself. What type of demented individual could play such a cruel, irresponsible joke? He looked back to Cami’s face and although her expression was still frozen, her eyes had become unfocused and filled with tears. That’s when the full-weight of what had just happened dropped on him like a load of bricks and a white hot rage started to flow. Soon the emotion was beyond anything he had ever experienced before. He imagined himself with hands around the throat of whoever was responsible for this, slowly squeezing their life away.

A gruff voice startled him out of his fantasy. “Hey, what the fuck is going on?”

A short man, stout in nature with a slight gimp in his step was heading towards them from the direction of the red cab truck. Outrageously dressed in a black western shirt with embroidered red roses and white skulls on the front, dark jeans held up by a wide belt with a flashy buckle, white cowboy boots, and it was all topped off by a black cowboy hat with a white band that matched the boots.

Ted was about to respond when another voice called out from the opposite direction.

“This better be good. Some ‘sum bitch almost got my ass kilt!”

Ted turned around and spotted the Gerber Foods driver also moving in their direction. This one was a lot older, on the tall side dressed simply in a plaid shirt and jeans. He had an angular face that was mostly covered by white stubble and long straggly hair held in check by a dark blue handkerchief tied around his head.

“You’re not going to believe…” Ted started to say when suddenly the cries of a young baby filled the air. Cami jumped when the sound started, almost dropping the doll which had also begun to move its arms and legs. He moved in closer and realized that the howls of the baby were coming from the cell phone and the LED screen now displayed the words CALLER BLOCKED. His anger came rushing back and he snatched the phone off the dolls chest.

As soon as he pressed the answer button on the phone the baby’s cry went silent and the doll went still in Cami’s arms. Looking at his wife’s confused expression; Ted tentatively put the phone to his ear. “Who is this?”

“My name is really not important, but you may call me Hoover,” came the odd sounding answer. Although Ted could tell a person was speaking, the voice was being disguised by some sort of electronic interference. It reminded him of those creepy cancer commercials where the speaker was forced to speak through a device pressed against their neck. “And your name isn’t important either, so let’s just call you Mr. Good Samaritan for now, or Sam for short.”

“What kind of sick joke are you…”

“Sam, I don’t mean to interrupt -- but the next sixty seconds are vitally important for you and your wife, so I need you to listen very carefully to what I have to say, understand?”

Ted was taken back. He half-expected to be talking to some pimply faced kid or some bored college student playing a sick prank, but definitely not this.

“What?” was all Ted could think of to say.

There was a brief pause before the electronic voice continued. “I understand this is a lot to take in Sam, but I need you to focus. To demonstrate just how imperative this is to your future, I need you to do something for me. Do you see Willie Nelson heading your way?”

All of the anger quickly disappeared from Ted’s body, replaced instead by a creeping fear. He now knew two things that brought about his sudden change. The first, whatever was going on, it was no prank. But it was the second that bothered him the most. Glancing at the long hair truck driver who looked remarkably like Willie Nelson, Ted knew that whoever was on the other end of the phone -- was watching them. “Listen, Hoover, I’m not playing any mind games. I’m going to take this phone…”

“Sam, look at Willie, it’s really important,” was the reply, in the same cool electronic tone.

Ted reluctantly turned so he faced the long-haired truck driver directly. Suddenly the man appeared as if he had walked face first into an invisible force field, his head rebounding backwards. At the same time a dark spot appeared in the middle of his forehead and a crimson mist burst from the back of his head, creating a deadly halo. The driver crumbled to the pavement in a lump.

Instinctively Ted dropped to a crouch, grabbing his wife’s sleeve and pulling her down with him. He then turned 180 degrees and scanned the open countryside, looking for any indication of where the shot came from. There wasn’t a sound that accompanied the shot, which Ted’s military experience told him was either taken from a very long way a ways or a silencer was used. Whatever the case, all he could see looking back at him now was sporadic patches of tall grass and lots of small bushes, everything swaying back and forth against the wind.

The phone in his hand, which he had let fall to his hip when the driver was shot, was making noise again. He slowly brought it back up to his ear.

“Do I have your full attention now, Sam, because we need to go over some rules?”

***

So that’s it. What are these rules Hoover mentions and his plans for Ted and Cami? Do you believe the couple was selected by chance, or purposely singled out? What role will the bizarrely dressed truck driver play in this drama? Would you want to continue reading to find out?

The three segments I posted during the Challenge together comprise the first chapter of a WIP entitled THE BABYSITTERS. I’ve been toying around with it for over a year and I’m trying to decide if that should be my next serious project. Opinions?

Did you know I was holding a contest during the A-Z Challenge? You can read all about it HERE.

S is for Stove Up

Stove up (from the on-line slang dictionary) - sore, wore out, to have pain or soreness on such a level that one is unable to get up or move from. Condition in which the body feels very sore, stiff, and unmovable.

I currently live in Arkansas and spent the majority of my life in the south, so I’m pretty familiar with this term. The thing is, even though I know what it means and I’ve heard it used plenty of times, I still can only think of one thing when I hear it…constipation. And being that I’m a writer, and I’m writing about writer stuff, can you guess where this metaphor is trying to lead you?

That’s right…writer’s block!

When it comes to my writing, I’ve never had the displeasure of being stove up. However, I have talked to plenty of writers who have experienced the phenomenon and apparently the problem is very common. I should also point out that there is a distinction between being stove up, or blocked, and simply hesitating for a long time before tacking a particularly difficult section of the WIP. I have done that, waiting weeks before I work up the courage to write my way through a scene I find especially challenging. But being truly blocked means the creative juices have run dry and the author cannot see a way to get them flowing again.

I’ve never experienced this so I’m not going to lecture you on how to get things jump-started again, a topic I know very little about. What I can do is tell you what steps I take that help me avoid this trap.

I hate to harp on this, but by outlining pretty much eliminates the chance for becoming blocked. I say pretty much because there have been times where a piece of my outline has been extremely vague and I’ve struggled to imagine how I’ll fill it out. In these rare cases, I will go ahead and write something I consider sub-par just to reach the next section on my outline and then circle back around to it later. This allows my forward progress to go uninterrupted and me more time to think about the stubborn scene.

Odds are I’ll get stove up someday, and when that happens I’ll go in search of a creative laxative! :)

Did you know I was holding a contest during the A-Z Challenge? You can read all about it HERE.

R is for Rules & Regs

Thank you for all the kind comments yesterday and the well-wishes for my wife. So far her reaction to the first chemo treatment has been on the mild side and we’re hoping things continue along that path.

I’m a military brat, a squid to be exact – the son of a naval officer. Although there was a lot of things I disliked about the military life (constant moving!), the one thing I embraced was the discipline. More specifically, I liked how there was always a manual somewhere to show you how things are expected to operate and the proper procedures. Since several of my blogging companions have discussed their own procedures for handling blog comments and reading other peoples blogs (during any month other than April), I thought I’d provide my own rules & regs on the subject.

Let me first begin by stating that everyone needs to develop their own methodology for how to manage this stuff. I do what works for me, what satisfies my own sense of fairness and time constraints, but it may not be the way that you feel comfortable with. I’m not pushing my way, I’m just letting you know how things work around here. :)

I very rarely return back to a blog I left a comment at to see if the blogger responded to my remarks, so when I answer my own comments I prefer to do it via email directly back to you. I also really enjoy the inter-connectivity that email correspondence sometimes creates. However, that works for about 75% of the time, the other 25% do not have their email address listed in their profile so I am unable to respond back to them. I could answer those few by leaving my own comment, but then I’m into using two systems and eating up more time. So I’m sorry to those of you who choose not to include an email address in your profile, I am reading your comments, but I can’t let you know that.

How do I choose which blogs to visit and when do I leave a comment? One common practice in the blogosphere is the tit for tat approach, where if you stop by a blog and comment, the owner will automatically do the same for you. I use a variation of that style. If you stop by my blog consistently (more than once or twice…or just when I’m running a contest), then I’ll add your blog to the favorites category in my RSS reader and I’ll stop by whenever you have a new post. That doesn’t mean I’ll comment every time I come by though. I still believe that comments need to be earned, so if you decide to post your favorite recipe for chili…you’ll probably not be hearing from me that day.

Those are the rules and regs I’ve developed over the years. What about you? Have any interesting guidelines that you follow?

Did you know I was holding a contest during the A-Z Challenge? You can read all about it HERE.

Q is for Quit

Quit verb - to stop, cease, or discontinue: to depart from; leave (a place or person): to give up or resign; let go; relinquish: to release one's hold of (something grasped).

You know what’s interesting? It’s that nowhere in the above definition does the word failure appear, but for whatever reason that is what quitting has become associated with. A lot of us consider it a four letter word, especially when going after something we really want. But when it comes to chasing a dream, the word almost certainly disappears from our vocabulary. The negative connotation swirling around it is so strong that we’ll even try subterfuge to avoid using it. “I’m taking an extended break”; “I’m in a time-out”; or my favorite…“I’ve decided to go in another direction”.

I don’t think I’ve met an aspiring writer/blogger yet that hasn’t had to quit something related to their craft at some point or another. With what we do, it’s too easy to get overwhelmed and need to back away and regroup every now and again. I myself have “paused” several times during my four years of blogging, and I even QUIT once. That’s why I have the 2.0 at the end of Cruising Altitude. I grew tired of spinning my wheels, so upset with being unable to improve the quality of the material I was creating that I threw in the towel…vowing not to return until I had made significant progress. When I did return five months later, I rebooted my blog with the 2.0 suffix to remind myself where I had once been.

Yes…I quit, but I did not fail. My books will be published someday and you’ll read all about that here. But I will say this; the five months I was away did come at a steep price. There were numerous long-time followers and people I interacted with frequently before I quit, that never came back. That is something I will always regret, but I take solace in the realization that my writing improved so much during that time away.

Did you know I was holding a contest during the A-Z Challenge? You can read all about it HERE.