The Great Depression From "Honest Sid"

- Guest Post by Ronald Probstein

          The Great Depression shaped much of Honest Sid.  The general situation is described on p. 58:

“ In the fall of 1932, Roosevelt had been elected President; still, while there was new hope, one-third of the American workforce was unemployed, with the figure even higher in New York.  Every half-dozen blocks there were lines of hungry men who waited for a meager handout of bread, soup and coffee; countless thousands of homeless were sleeping in subway trains and stations, telephone booths, empty lots, parks and under bridges.  Men had no jobs, no money, nothing with which to feed their families.”

But the Depression affected every individual differently. Sid’s wife knew his addiction to the horses and when one day she learned he gone to work in a horse betting parlor she greeted him when he came home with (p. 60):

“What the hell are you doing?” in a shrill and belligerent voice.

“Listen, Sally, let me explain.  Things ain’t the same.  Makin’ a buck on theater tickets is tough.  I just wasn’t getting’ the calls anymore.”

“But why the horses?”

……he said, “ Look, Sal.  Things are so bad.  At least the plugs give you a better play than the slots or the numbers. Any palooka knows the only way he has even a chance of getting” out of hock without stickin’ up a bank is gamblin’”

The thought of a job never even passed through Sid’s head.

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Genre – Biographies & Memoirs 

Rating – PG13

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Inside My Cluttered Head

- Guest Post by Keira Michelle Telford

My head is filled with voices, all clamoring for attention. When one (or more) really take hold, that’s when a book starts to develop. For me, it doesn’t begin with an idea, or a plot, or a setting – it begins with a character.

Some characters are fleeting. I get a brief impression of some thoughts and feelings and that’s all, then they fade away. Others, like Ella ‘Silver’ Cross, show up one day and get stronger every time I think about them. The same way that Freddy Krueger feeds on fear, and gets more powerful the more you fear him, my characters gain strength every time they cross my mind.

Occasionally, a character becomes so real to me that I develop genuine affection for them. Most recently, I fell in love with a whore. (Actually, technically, she’s not a whore – she’s the madam of a whorehouse). See, the inside of my head is chock full of people. Some have already been brought to life on paper and just won’t leave me alone (they’re very boisterous), while others are standing in line, waiting for their turn. If I was born in a different age, I’d probably have been institutionalized. (Or medicated … or both).

Everything stems from the characters. Through their conversations with each other, I learn more and more about the worlds they inhabit, until a book finally starts to take shape around them. I don’t pick a setting deliberately – the characters tell me where they belong – and I tend not to plot anything out. The process of writing feels very organic to me, and I think it helps if you can just go with the flow and be flexible.

If you begin a book with very rigid ideas of how you want the plot to develop, you might end up with something that feels forced and unnatural. In my experience, the characters will always steer you in the right direction, which is why it’s important to get to know them inside and out before you start writing. After all, the more you know about your characters, the easier it is to spot moments in your writing where motivation, dialogue, or plot have gone askew.

Try writing biographies for your main characters – that can be a good way to get to know them better, as it forces you to answer questions about details of their lives you might not have thought about before. Where were they born? What’s their favorite food? Favorite color? Song? The more you ask, the more you’ll learn.

Ultimately, I probably know Silver better than I know myself at this point. I know everything about her life, from the day she was born, till the present – and that’s exactly as it should be. She’s become so close to my heart, sometimes I’m not even sure if it’s me who breathes life into her, or the other way around.

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Genre – Science Fiction

Rating – 18A

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How to Write by the Seat of Your Pants: Outline or No?

- Guest Post by Kim Cano

I know people who outline extensively and others who fly by the seat of their pants. I’ve tried outlining and it doesn’t work for me. I usually get an idea, then let it simmer and form a bit in my mind. I get to know the main characters, how they feel, what their personalities are like. And I always start out knowing the end. Sometimes I will write it first so I know where I’m ultimately headed. There are times the characters alter off path slightly and surprise me with their actions, but the end is always solid.

My first draft tends to be more of “getting the story out.” The second draft I visualize it more, adding more sight, sound, and smell. I check for words I tend to repeat and switch them out for better words. Then I keep polishing. Then I use a developmental editor, and re-write from there and he and I work together again to polish.

I have friends that do outlines. There are people who like note cards. I say whatever works to get the words on paper. It’s a personal creative process.

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Genre – Women’s Fiction

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.kimcano.com/

Guest Post ~ Hi, My Name is Tracy and I Read (A Lot of) Fan Fiction

- Guest Post by Tracy Sweeney

Many years ago, before I had an adorable nephew who loves Jake and the Neverland Pirates and a gorgeous baby niece who I am going to just ruin, my sister and brother-in-law went to Mexico for a romantic getaway.   As soon as my sister landed back in the country, I got a frantic phone call from her.  No, she hadn’t lost her luggage and she didn’t need probiotics.  (Well, maybe she did.  That wasn’t why she called.)  She needed me to read a book.  About vampires.  Um, ok?  I hesitantly agreed to read it after I finished the rest of my grown-up-big-girl book for book club.  I wasn’t a big fan of young adult books so I was in no rush.

That was sadly the very last selection I read for my book club because once I picked up the story about vampires, everything changed and my life took a very, very strange turn.  It’s a turn that led me here, so it can’t be all that bad because you guys seem fun.

A lot of women share my story.  We tore through the first Twilight book, ran out immediately to get the second, almost died plowing through the third and for me, were lucky enough to finish the week the fourth installment was released.  I found myself reading all the time.  It was all-consuming.  And honestly, I needed my life back.  I decided that I would just power through the series until I was done and then some sense of order could be restored to my universe.  I couldn’t wait.

But finally, when I was done, I felt…empty.  Like, what now?  Was I really supposed to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo after that?  I mean, I was fairly certain there were no sparkle vampires in Dragon Tattoo.  So instead, I took to Google.  I found fansites—places where I read about the filming of the movie, places where readers discussed whether they were Team this or Team that, places where they discussed Rob Pattinson’s hair.  (Yes, that’s very newsworthy, ok.)  But even Rob’s hair didn’t really fill that void.  Until I found something else—a place for other stories.

I had never heard of fan fiction prior to stumbling upon the Twilight fandom.  I didn’t even initially understand the concept.  There was an entire online community dedicated to writing stories using the names of the book characters but in most of the cases, they weren’t vampires or werewolves.  They were human.  And there were no Rated-PG-Fade-to-Black scenes like the Isle Esme fiasco in Breaking Dawn.  These versions of Edward weren’t as, well…gentlemanly.

I read voraciously—secretly on my phone twenty-four hours a day.  I slept with my BlackBerry under my pillow.  It was my dirty little secret.  It made the long hours at home alone with a three-year-old and a newborn baby that much easier.  I was tired and lonely and it was honestly my salvation because I’d swoon and blush and sigh and not feel like a mommy machine for just a little while.

I was astounded by the degree of talent that I discovered in these communities—women (and a few men) who wrote under pennames and crafted beautifully written (and often, awesomely racy) stories.   I was inspired by these writers (and not just by the racy parts).  The plots were solid and the stories were captivating—some utterly gut-wrenching.   It was these women (and a few men) who got me to finally put the ideas in my head onto the page.  For this, I’ll always be grateful.  Because it doesn’t matter what or who you’re writing about.  Your little story, as silly as it may be in your head, might be the inspiration for someone you’ll never meet.  Someone like me.  So it doesn’t matter where you’re writing.  Just write.

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Genre – Chick Lit

Rating – PG13

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Website http://www.tracysweeney.net/