Nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award? Me?! How cool!


I've not paid a lot of attention to awards outside of the Oscars, maybe because I've never been nominated for any (I'm still holding out for an Oscar nom sometime in the future, when Hollywood makes a major motion picture of one of my novels and I cut a deal to star in it, along with George Clooney. Hey, it could happen. Ok, maybe not the Clooney part ... or the me starring in it part ... Sigh.). But I do get excited when friends and fellow writers get nominations for various awards, and even win, and I can picture them jumping up and down in front of their computer, feeling happy and proud.


Well, I can no longer say I've never been nominated for anything. Lovely new friend and amazingly versatile blogger herself, Doreen "Dody" Cox ( @mothersitting on Twitter), was kind enough to nominate me for this award that I especially like because versatile, to me, means being fascinated by many things and compelled to write about them all.


Or maybe I just have a short attention span. ;-}


Anyway, thanks so much, Dody!


I write novels and short stories in several genres, and on any given day my blog might be about ... well, anything. Yes, my brain does bounce 'round and 'round, landing on whatever I find interesting at that moment.


There are a few requirements to this award, such as adding a list of links to your favorite blogs, as well as that of the person who nominated you, and I shall try and fill them all. But I would actually be more qualified for the Versatile-But-Technologically-Inept Blogger Award. I had been thinking about adding a list of blogs I read, but had trouble figuring out how to get the links on there. But I will find a way, hopefully by tomorrow. And I'll add Doreen's beautiful blog there as an actual link, as well as the other blogs I enjoy.


Another requirement: Listing 7 things about myself. Where do I begin?


1) I grew up reading classic sci-fi, from when I was barely old enough to read. My two older brothers collected it, and I liked to swipe their books. I skipped Cat In The Hat and went straight to H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein. I didn't always get it, but I loved it.


2) I am totally fascinated by manta rays. Big, spooky, awesome undersea flyers, that look like they could just as easily be gliding along on some distant planet, or through deep space itself. During Shark Week 2011, the Georgia Aquarium had a week of live streaming video of their 6 million gallon tank, complete with a half dozen mantas and two gigantic whale sharks (also way up on my list of ultra-cool creatures). I swear I watched it about 20 out of every 24 hours, every day. When they turned it off, it broke my widdle heart.


3) I used to be a sculptor. I did fantasy & science fiction — mid-sized figurines and tiny gaming figures. Sculpting is what i do best and what I love most. But serious sensitivity to the materials (among other symptoms, I couldn't breathe) forced me to give it up.


4) I'm a vegetarian and almost always have been. I remember being maybe 3 years old and finding out that the shrimp I was eating were not veggies at all, but little bitty creatures from the sea. I freaked out, in an ewwwwwwww! sort of way. That should have been a clue right there. I still ate some meat throughout childhood — a minimal amount — plus tuna, but by the time I was about 14, I went totally veggie. Not because of any social views or to be trendy, or because someone says it's a healthy lifestyle. I'm not a cow-hugger. I just find it, well, icky.


5) I could not live without TV. There, I said it. I've loved TV ever since I was little. I love that the characters from my favorite shows visit me every week. Of course, the more I like them, the more likely it is that the networks will banish them to Cancelville.


6) The first time I watched Stephen King's THE STAND on TV, I instantly developed a huge crush on Gary Sinese. I figured it would go away as time went on. Nope.


7) I love potato chips so much, aliens could probably entice me onto the mothership with a can of Pringles.


BLOGS I ENJOY READING:

http://doreencox.blogspot.com/
Doreen writes about love and commitment and many other things touching and unique. I love her humor and her humanity and of course her love of cats.


http://chicksinlit.blogspot.com/
I was introduced to this blog by my friend Cindy Schuerr (@cswriter59), who is one of its contributors. At Chicks In Lit there is writing, promotion, reviews, and support for writers.


http://www.neilgaiman.com/
Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite writers and one of my favorite members of the human race. In his blog, he's shared much with his fans -- married life while on the road, his thoughts about writing, his love for his pets, and more about beekeeping than we ever thought we'd know.


http://shellijohnson.com/blog/



http://kristenlamb.org/




Again, thanks for the nomination! It's nice when you hear that people enjoy what you do. Especially when you enjoy doing it. :-}

As writers, we're told by the best/most successful (and you know who you are/were, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Anton Chekhov ... and no, he was not on the Starship Enterprise ... etc.) not to TELL what's happening, but to SHOW it. Sometimes that's easy. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's not something visual, but something auditory, and to show it would require a sound effect.


In one scene of my not-yet-pubbed novel, a police car slams into a vehicle during a chase, and I just wrote, "Wham!" That works for me because, in my mind, and I think in the minds of readers, it tells you that here was a collision — it was sudden, it was loud, and it was unavoidable.


When I had a scene with multiple gunshots (and it is a pivotal scene near the end of the book), I also wanted to have it just happen, not to say, "... and then gunshots rang out." And in my very first draft — which I wrote so long ago, Lincoln was President (ok, maybe it just feels that way) — I wrote "Ka-blam! Ka-blam! Ka-blam!"


Yikes.


For many drafts, it looked fine to me, and then one day I realized, holy &$@%!, that looks like it belongs in a Marvel Comic. Along with "Kapow!" and "Zap!" and "Bam!" in an exciting, colorful font. Yikes, yikes, and double-yikes.


On the other hand, being able to notice it tells me I've improved as a writer, over the years. Yay me.


But I still needed a sound for that scene. A major character MUST get shot, several bullets whizzing out of a gun barrel, and it needs to be sudden and dramatic. If it were a big, powerful weapon, cannon-like, I suppose "boom!" would do. But this is a handgun.


I eventually settled for a generic "Bang!" (I searched a bit and did find at least one famous author who used that sound effect for a gunshot). But who knows, maybe I'll change my mind before actually self-pubbing it.


There should be a writers' dictionary of sound effects, don't you think? So we wouldn't have to rack our brains late at night trying to come up with something that works perfectly, conveys the sound we want, but doesn't look like The Hulk might be crouching nearby, ready to pounce on an evil villain?


Do you have trouble with sounds in your novels/novellas/short stories? Explosions, snores, coins dropping on a sidewalk, a wheel rolling away from a disastrous car wreck, a victim's last choking sound before strangulation does them in, a drawer slamming shut ...?


And if you hadn't thought about it before, now you have yet one more reason to sit up till the wee hours, fighting to find exactly the right word. Sorry about that. Pour another cup of coffee. It's going to be a long night. ;-}

I've started becoming a bit obsessive lately about writing short stories. I've written them since I was a kid, but only a few I felt really excited about, and they got lost some years ago. But now all these little story prompts keep popping into my head, out of nowhere. At first I figured it was just my subconscious entertaining itself. After all, I have a huge imagination, always have, like a big, demented monster baby stumbling around up there, knocking into things and spilling characters and scenes and dialogue … and story prompts … all over the place. But lately, all that stuff has started coming together all on its own, when I'm busy with other things: The perfect concept … or a character's thought … or a flashback to a colorful past … that forces me to abandon whatever else I'm working on and either start typing on the keyboard or scribbling in a notepad. It's not like this has never happened before. In fact, it happens all the time. The difference here is, the entire thing flows out almost effortlessly, culminating in those two oh-so-coveted words: THE END.


Me. Finishing something. Holy crap on a cracker! (to quote one of my brand new characters) Have we accidentally bumped into one of those Star Trekkian parallel universes and switched Nikki Barnabees?


Maybe not.


I suspect I've been especially influenced this past week by Neil Gaiman (could any writer listen to his recent address to The University Of The Arts and not want to start writing RIGHT THAT VERY MINUTE?), and then by a 1963 video doc I watched yesterday — Ray Bradbury, talking about his creative process; seeing the child-like joy he found in everything, and how amazingly encouraging he was to new writers. I've been reading his work, loving it, since I was barely old enough to read at all. I'll miss him.


So.


I shall give in to the urge, not to churn out tons of short stories, but to set free ideas that feel like racehorses at the starting gate, all jumpy and excited and yearning to RUN. It sounds like fun. And that's what Ray Bradbury said writing should be. FUN.


Also, what I originally perceived as a problem — the fact that, having grown up reading so many genres, and having an overactive imagination that loves them all — isn't really a problem at all. Yes, I've mainly considered myself a crime/thriller writer for all these years I've worked at getting my novel finished (completely, can't change another bleepin' thing finished). And the second thriller I started.


But my short stories go in stranger directions. Science fiction (yay, Ray!) and horror.


We who would be authors are encouraged these days to “build a platform” on social media and create a focus on who you are and what you do, which is good — no, pretty much essential if you're going to self-publish, or pub with a small indie publisher, or hell, even the big-time publishing houses, who would like you to do all the work yourself, THEN come to them. But although it might be more commercially viable to stick to one genre so you don't confuse readers/book purchasers … personally, I think readers are intelligent enough to say, hey what do you know, Nik Barnabee writes all kinds of stuff.


Because, after all, Ray Bradbury wrote “all kinds of stuff” — some of it difficult to categorize at all. And he did all right. And, especially, he loved doing it. I suspect he'd have been bored writing the same kinds of stories over and over again. Not that he would have. He did things his way, always, and went wherever his awesomely creative mind took him.


And aren't we readers lucky that he did?