Deborah Woehr

I found this fun quiz on Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to write. As I’ve been writing the latest draft of Prosperity, I’ve noticed that my strong suit is dialogue and action, where my description and narrative could use some serious work. What are your writing strengths?

You Should Be a Film Writer

You don’t just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!

I’m down to the final edit for the 2006 Writer’s Blog Anthology. Then I have to format it for the ebook and print versions. I’m going to submit the ebook to Lulu so I can (hopefully) get some interested readers to buy the book, once I find a publisher for it.

Bubba and Junior were standing at the base of a flagpole, looking up. A blond lady walked by and asked what they were doing. “We’re supposed to find the height of the flagpole,” said Bubba, “but we don’t have a ladder.”

The woman took a wrench from her purse, loosened a few bolts, and laid the pole down. Then she took a tape measure from her pocket, took a measurement & announced, “Eighteen feet, six inches,” and walked away.

Junior shook his head and laughed. “Ain’t that just like a dumb blond? We ask for the height, and she gives us the length.

Bubba and Junior are currently doing government work supervising the reconstruction of those New Orleans Levees.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina are testing a new treatment which will attack malignant cells at the molecular level, leaving healthy cells alone. These nanoparticles could significantly reduce the side affects that are caused by chemotherapy treatments.

Quoted from Yahoo! News:

“I think this will transform the way one detects and treats cancer,” study leader Joseph DeSimone, UNC chemistry professor and director of the school’s Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology, said in a prepared statement.

If this research proves viable, we may have more cancer survivors.

February and March have been teasing me with the promise of warm weather. Most of the time, it’s been cold and threatening to snow (which is rare). But there have been several days in between cold bouts where the temp got up to 70. Then it would shoot back down to the mid-40s.

Speaking of colds, I’ve been battling one since Tuesday. I was fine on Monday, until I went to my youngest’s Cub Scout meeting. Two of the boys were hacking like crazy. The next morning, I woke up with a nasty sinus headache that bordered on a migraine. I was able to head that off with some Advil, but all week I felt like crap.

My oldest woke up with a sore throat and headache on Wednesday and was crying because he didn’t want to go to school. He didn’t have a fever, so I made him go. Junior high is a tough period, and he’s struggling to keep up. Otherwise, I would have kept him home for a day.

Last night was the annual Blue & Gold Dinner for the Cub Scouts. I would have flaked if I hadn’t invited my mother-in-law to go. I’d forgotten about the skit my youngest had to do for the dinner. So, we went, and I had a good time in spite of my initial crappy attitude.

Our den mother came up to me towards the beginning and told me that her son had developed pneumonia. She felt bad because she had sent him to school before she realized how sick he was. I immediately looked at my oldest after she left to set up the raffle table, and felt a pang of guilt for making him “tough it out.”

He looked tired, and we asked him how he felt. Tired and bored, he said. He’s out and about with his dad right now. He’ll bounce back from this thing. So am I.

I’m getting tired of the cold weather, though. I’d like to be able to open the windows in the afternoon and let the fresh air blow through the house. I love the smells of the flowers and the grass. Even better, Spring marks the end of the the cold and flu season.

How many of you perform Google searches on yourselves? I do this occasionally to see who’s linking to me or to my websites. On Tuesday, I performed a search and found my name on a website about my high school.

I haven’t been to a single reunion since I graduated and don’t have any real desire to go to any future reunions. However, it amazed me to look at the pictures and see how much some of my classmates had changed. Some of them, I recognized right off the bat. Others, I had no clue until I read the names at the bottom of the photographs.

The memorial page hit me hard. We had lost two classmates early after graduation, so I had expected to see them there. I didn’t expect to see the other four.

I sat there in numb shock for several minutes. Then I went out to the garage and told my husband what I had found. He went to work, the kids went to school, and I worked on my editing as I struggled to work through the emotions that this webpage had stirred up.

One of the girls had died on my late brother’s birthday in 2003. I suppose that’s what upset me the most. We’ve all lost people who we care about, so I’ll stop this right here. But I will say that it’s important to enjoy the people in your life and make time for them, even when your life is hectic.

Lately, I’ve been pulling myself away from the computer to do just that. Last weekend, I went out with a good friend to see Failure to Launch. The movie was great, but I enjoyed our conversation even more. It felt good to laugh and talk.

On Thursday, I had a coffee date with another friend, whom I hadn’t gone out with in well over a year. We’ve gotten together for parties with other friends, but it has been at least two years since we met at a Starbucks or had lunch together.

It’s these rare treats that bring me joy and make me appreciate my life.

As an admin veteran, I know that it’s hard to catch every mistake when typing up a small document. It’s worse with a book. I’ve learned never to rely on the spell-checkers because they don’t catch subtle mistakes such as “their” versus “there.”

Editing on the computer doesn’t work either, because I find myself too close to the project to catch even the most obvious mistakes. Eye strain is another factor. Instead, I print out the manuscript. Then I leave it and distract myself with other projects.

This helps me purge my memory of what I’ve gotten used to staring at. When I return to the manuscript, I’m looking at it from a fresher perspetive. I usually catch over two dozen typos and several formatting mistakes. Once I’m finished with this pass, I set the manuscript aside for another day.

This time, I’ll start with the last word on the last page and work backwards. I may find more mistakes. If not, I’ll do a little dance, and then set the manuscript aside for several more days.

Another trick I’ve learned is to read upside down. This is harder to do because of how I’ve been trained to read. But I find that it helps me pay closer attention. Sometimes, it helps me catch misspelled words.

I’ve outlined the easy part of the editing. The hard part, as you know, is the story mechanics.

I finally finished cranking out the last words for Chapter Fourteen. Amanda has a crisis after the malevolent ghost attacks her. And Bud is about to discover what it’s like to be his victims.

First we had the abortion law passed in South Dakota. This week Missouri is in an uproar over the proposed laws brought to the table by conservative lawmakers. Basically, they want Christian religion brought back into the schools, sex education in high schools to stop, and to help women work from home.

Read the full story–>It’s time to get back to the basics. (Originally from Marti’s blog)

Families have suffered over the past few decades (see ADHD: What’s Going On). Something needs to be done, but you can’t change things overnight. Look how long it took us to get into the place we’re in now.

I see society’s changing, albeit very slowly. It’s becoming more “in” to stay home and raise your family. About five months ago, I watched a news segment about teenagers who have vowed abstinence.

My husband’s late grandfather once said, “The pendulum swings one way, and then the other.”