~ RANT

I seldom rant in public, but this one is well deserved.

I'm something of an oddity, locally, in that I can't eat spicy foods.

...what?

... ... notice that I didn't say I didn't like them (I don't, for the most part) but that I can't eat them.

Oh yes, I like *spice*, salt, garlic, various and assorted herbs, but not hot peppers or anything that has produces capsaicin or any of the various acids so many people seem to enjoy.


According to wikipedia ...

It is common for people to experience pleasurable and even euphoriant effects from eating capsaicin-flavored foods. Folklore among self-described "pepperheads" attributes this to pain-stimulated release of endorphins, a different mechanism from the local receptor overload that makes capsaicin effective as a topical analgesic.

Pardon me!? ... It doesn't seem to me that I'm the one who should be looked at strangely.

Be that as it may, I don't really care what other people eat.

The problem I have is that so many people seem to have a problem with what I don't eat. I've learned I have to be careful when I'm ordering out because nacho rings come standard on a staggering assortment of foods.

- if you order a baked potato at a steak house, they ask if you want cheese and sour cream on it. Is it too much trouble, if you order enchiladas, to ask if you want peppers on them?

The pseudo problem is the eye-rolling and not-so-subtle inference that I'm high-maintenance when I'm careful to avoid peppers.

The real problem:
and I'm going to put this in bold because people don't seem to be able to grasp the concept...

You CAN NOT pick them off because the juice is still in the food. (Like olives. I don't like olives either, but they don't cause me pain. You can't pick olives off because you can still taste them. Mushrooms, you can pick off. No problem.)

If you use a fork to pick peppers out of the jar, do NOT use the same fork for ANYTHING else.

... and I get accused of being too sensitive and over reactive.

So this all came to a head last Friday night.

I'd been on the road since 8am and hadn't eaten since 2pm. At 10pm, I drove thru my favorite Sonic, ordered a Mayo-cheeseburger and continued down the road.

with the first bite, I realized I'd gotten a mustard burger instead. yuck. But, you know, you always get screwed in the drive through. And that seems to go double for me. No matter how polite and/or precise I am, I tend not to get exactly what I ordered.

On the second bite - the mustard seemed a little spicy. I had never had Sonic's mustard before so I wasn't sure what to think. It certainly didn't taste good to me in any way, but I was hungry and already several miles down the road.

On the third bite, I got a mouthful of jalapeño. The inside of my mouth felt like it'd been spritzed with acid. (literally, actually, that's about what happened. ..swabbed, not spritzed).

I pulled over, turned the light on and, yes, my burger had a generous handful of pepper slices, seeds and hot stuff and all. I turned around and drove back to the Sonic and had a chat with the manager about it. He was very understanding and sympathetic as was the young lady who had worked the window.

They gave my $4 back and I went on my way.

The problem is that, for a moments inattention by the girl working the window, my mouth burned for nearly 40 minutes. By the next day, the roof of my mouth had blistered.

- I'm assuming she simply grabbed the wrong burger and that it wasn't some kind of sick, malicious joke on the part of the kitchen.

Three days later, the blisters are finally healing.

Now, I don't know if the girl at the window was stressed in some way, if she'd had a bad day, or maybe one that was good enough to keep her distracted, but for whatever reason, she handed that burger out the window. Maybe it wasn't her, maybe the kitchen staff accidentally switched the bags. Who knows?

The girl that served me that burger has probably never considered that it might *really* be important to get the orders right, or that she might have a real influence on someone's day. She probably gets frustrated and even agitated at the complaints she has to put up with. But wouldn't it be great if more servers would take a real personal interest in customer satisfaction?

I'll bet if she had blistered the top of her mouth, she'd start being more careful about what she handed out the window.


(argh - this is getting too long) but to tie it back in to writing, my Sideways class last week was on using intended, as well as unintended, consequences in your plotting. This is certainly the kind of thing that would be guaranteed to cause conflict between characters.

- And this is exactly the kind of thing Holly talks about in using unintended consequences in your plotting ... following a simple, seemingly inconsequential action, to a logical yet unexpected conclusion.

Thinking Sideways ~

Lots of us here in the inter-spaceways are taking Holly Lisle's "How to Think Sideways" class, I've seen a lot posted around on various forums and blogs, but I find I have to throw out my own two cents about it.

First, let me say that I've been a fan of Holly's for a long time. Her books first, and I used to lurk in the Forward Motion community. I've read over and over again all the good free articles and advice she has on her website. At a point, before I had really gotten a good start, I'd been beaten down and was close to giving it all up, but the encouragement and support that she offers to anyone who will take the time to read what she has to offer tossed me back on my feet and helped me find my backbone and keep going.

When she started making her writer's workshop series available in the Holly Shop -- I elbowed my way to the front of the line.

Now, the second thing I want to say is that I've done the usual round of online classes as well as f2f workshops at various conferences and worked somewhat extensively with some very talented authors - and not to take anything away from any of that, because I've learned a lot in so many different places it would be impossible to list them all - and I have a full shelf of 'how to' books, including a short stack of well-thumbed favorites -- but on the whole, Holly's workbooks are in a class of their own.

There are a lot of good authors out there, good writers and good teachers. But it is a rare and unique individual who has the extraordinary talent to teach well the thing they are successful at. It takes a special *combination* of skill and talent that few people have.

Holly has that extraordinary, unique combination of talents -- not only of being able to figure out what she's doing that helps make her successful but being able to break that down into steps and explain it in a way that others can use what she's done to build their own skills.

I have most, if not all, of the writers workshop series and love every one. I have links to her shop in my sidebar because I believe in what she has to offer. When she opened up submissions for the '33 Mistakes' Series, I was excited to be included and ecstatic to get to be the first release.

So when Holly opened up registration for the first Think Sideways course, I was right there.

- my life has a series of explosions going on right now, so I wasn't able to keep up with weekly lessons for the 2nd through 6th week ... but I got caught up over the holiday weekend, which leads me to the reason I feel compelled to blog about it, even though so many others are as well, is because even though I went into the course with the highest of expectations - she totally blew me away.

It's not the kind of course I've seen anywhere else. She doesn't necessarily tell you anything.

What she does is show you how to use tools you need in order to learn the skills to ask the right questions and how to use the answers.

By the time I had worked past the barriers, through the clustering and done my Sentences, I had three muses screaming at me in full Technicolor scenes with plots, characters and conflict with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining why each one was on the Group W Bench ... *ahem* ... or something like that. Amazing stuff came up out of the back of my mind and coalesced into complete stories faster than I could work through the pages of the workshop.

I had to physically cap the pen and close the notebook and put it away for a couple of hours so the muses would quiet down enough that I could hear the voices of the stories one at a time and get some notes down for them.

And, with all that, she shows you how to make the connection between writing what you love and writing something marketable. ...and I'm only six weeks into a six month program. I can't even imagine what else she might have in store for us, but I'm very excited about it.

I will say it should come with a warning label: not for the part-timers, wannabes and light-weights. I printed the first six weeks' lessons to take on the road with me last weekend and it completely filled a three inch binder. But the beauty of it is that you can go at your own pace so you don't miss lessons because of the ebb and ka-booms in your life.

If you are serious about a career in writing, if you love writing and you want to make a living doing it, this course can help you learn the skills you need. I haven't seen another single course that comes close to offering what just the first six weeks of this one does.

It's on sale, now, Monday Sept 1-Monday Sept 8. It's a full six months to a year long with weekly or bi-weekly lessons and much more affordable than it should be given the value of what you're getting. It comes with a guarantee, if you don't like it and want out, let her know and the payments stop.

LOL! ... I've been sitting here for 20 minutes trying to think of a way to say "you owe it to yourself to give it a try" without sounding cliché, but it's simply the truth and there isn't a better way to say it - so there ya' go. ;)

Mistakes our brains make...

So when I was about halfway though the session on writing horses at the February DFWWW Conference -- someone pointed out that on my handout, where I commented on the fabulous characterization by Eddie Murphy as Donkey as the White Stallion, it said Shrek III, and those scenes had been in Shrek II.

I was sure I had copied most of that paragraph about stallions from the draft of 33 Mistakes, Mistake One - Stallions. And so I was sure that the mistake must be in the final version of the e-book as well. You can imagine my mind was going a thousand directions and none of them good.

It truly was one of those cold-sweat kind of moments and in hindsight I was really glad I didn't have my laptop with me because I know how hard it would have been not to stop everything, turn around and check the file. As if it would have done any good to know, in that instant, if I had really screwed up that badly.

At any rate, once I did get to where I could check the file, the original correctly said Shrek II. *whew*

And, thankfully, if I blubbered too badly over those next few minutes, it's blocked from my memory. Have you ever notice how the human brain is wondrous like that, sometimes, to just pretend that it didn't happen. Is that kind of memory loss a type of survival mechanism to protect us from embarrassment and pain?

What about how denial kicks in at the time something is happening.

- "That isn't really a rattlesnake. It's a harmless snake that just happens to have rattles and a head shaped like a pit viper."

- "Just keep driving. That funny noise the truck is making will quiet down if you can just keep it going for another few miles."
- - on a side note, it's true that if there is smoke or steam coming out from under your hood and you speed up, it will seem to have disappeared. *blink, blink* ...although if it's a smoldering fire, it will burst into flames when you slow down ... don't ask me how I know that, it's a long, sad story with a bad ending.

Or what about those people you know who are (naively?) eternal optimists?

- I know my boss said they'd have to let me go if I was late one more time, but I now they didn't mean it.
- I know I shouldn't have that candy bar, but I'll get back on my diet tomorrow.
- I know my husband said not to bring another stray dog home, but that one's just too pathetic to leave here. He'll understand.

Do you ever put those people in your novels? Not the people of course, but those characteristics? Have you considered what wonderful character flaws these things can be? The bits of blank memory, the outright denial, the justification and the 'just one more time' refusal to step up to the bar. Are these things that keep your character down? Are they issues your character can grow and overcome? I know these are issues that I deal with everyday, both in myself and in those around me, and I suspect I would easily identify with a protag dealing these traits.

Where's the ka-boom?

There is usually at least a small ka-boom when someone asks a question that should have a simple answer that actually requires discussion.

Like a couple of days ago, Js was out helping feed. He brought back a stack of empty buckets and waited in the doorway.

"Do the girls in the shark pen get a bump?" Now, I knew that 'the girls' meant 'the mares' in the 'shark pen' - is what we call the mare pasture because of the daily feeding frenzy.

'a bump' is a "bump bucket" ... that is, when I pasture feed (set feeders out in the pasture with loose horses) I fill five buckets for four horses. That way, when the dominate horse 'bumps' the others down the line, the last horse still gets to eat.

The only problem is that kind of question makes my brain implode.

Because it's not a simple "yes" or "no" kind of situation. Because: two of the mares share a bucket, so "yes" there *is* a bump, but .... he didn't ask the right question. What he meant to ask was: "How many buckets did he need to carry out there?"

If I had answered his original question: "do they get a bump?" "YES" (because there is a bump available) he would have filled and carried five buckets for four mares, which normally would be right - but in that particular case, with the two mares sharing, it would have set out two bumps instead of just one - which is not a disaster, but it is wasteful.

If I had twisted my mind around what I thought he needed to know and said "NO" - what if I had misunderstood what it was he meant to ask and there was another meaning .... and so I took a deep breath ... "What you mean is, 'how many buckets do you need to carry out there?'."

He stared at me for a moment and then nodded. problem solved.

Our little exchange stayed on my mind because it struck me I've seen that conversation gone over in writers groups - how important it is to say what you mean and how hard it can be to get exactly the right thing down on paper. Or how much fun it can be to ask one question and answer another... yes, I'm evil that way. ;)

- and so today, my son was with me, waiting in the truck while I fueled up and we had parked beside a piece of (very odd looking) heavy machine.

"What is that?" he asked.

I stared at it blankly ... and finally realized it was a "Traffix Device". It said so right on the big ugly butt of the thing. Traffix device and Traffixdevice.com

And I told him so, in a confident tone that implied I knew what I was talking about. ... "It's a Traffic Device."

But having had to put up with me for his entire life thus far, he wasn't fooled, but he smoothed it over. "What's it for?" he asked in an even tone.
I shrugged. "No idea."

He blinked at me and stared in the way that kids do when they know they can't say to their parents "that was stupid".

I just shrugged again. "I guess you asked the wrong question, then."

...but the funnest part of it all was just a couple of hours later, he turned it back on me when I was the one to ask the wrong, inane question. We had a laugh over it, but (and this is probably a whole 'nuther post) the best part for me was knowing feeling that - boy-childs do (sometimes) listen to their mom's, but more than that, that something had connected inside him and grown him a little bit and given him a little sharper focus on this tough world we live in.

RWA National Conference

Leah Braemel is here and we're having a great time here in Dallas.

After spending the morning at the conference in workshops about creating spunky heroines and conflict, we skipped over to Fort Worth's 'Northside'. We had lunch at Risky's and discussed the morning's classes over a couple of cold brews.


I think Leah was getting a little carried away with it all. ... what do you think? ;)