Well, What Have We Here?

Because what this post really needed was a cat picture.

So are y'all getting a little tired of the series I've been posting, or have they been enjoyable? My five-part Avengers review ends tomorrow, although H2WaMM has three more posts to go. I might post a book review next week for a little change of pace.

It's been a while since I updated my Blogs You Should Visit page, so I did that over the weekend to include some of my new favorite blogs. I also cleaned it up a little to remove any blogs that had stopped posting, moved, or just stopped altogether. I realized I hadn't updated it since the A-to-Z challenge, during which I followed a lot of new blogs.

So go check it out, and let me know if you find any new favorites!

On Thursday Lisa Campbell left my 500th comment! I know for some of you bloggers it may not seem like a lot (Alex J. Cavanaugh gets about 100 comments per post, so he's probably up in the millions now) but it's very gratifying for me. Thank you to everyone who comments and continues to leave comments! I love to hear what you have to say.

Becky from Braveheart is currently writing a series that I very much like. It's called Ministry or Malarkey, and it explores whether fiction (malarkey) can help people reach God (ministry). So far she's posted on Christian Inspirational Fiction and Parables. Looking forward to her post tomorrow!

My sister Ava won a photo editing contest over at Randocology! Hop on over to her blog and congratulate her. And then maybe help her boost her follower count...

Speaking of followers, Jenn, who recently gave me the One Lovely Blog Award, also gave me the Liebster Award - an award designed to recognize and promote blogs that have less than 200 followers. Jenn has just reached 100 followers herself, and is hosting a giveaway! Go tell her congrats and enter to win either a $15 or $10 Amazon gift card.

Now, to accept the award:

Thank the person that gave it to you. Thanks so much, Jenn!
Link back to their blog. Jenn's lovely blog, Scribbles from Jenn.
Put the award in your blog. See sidebar.
Present the award to 3-5 blogs with less than 200 followers.*
Leave a comment to let those blogs know that you've recognized their awesomeness!*

*Okay, I'm going to do awarding a little differently this time. Instead of picking 3-5 blogs (choosing blogs is always hard!) or even just holding out an open invitation, I'm going to go with this:

If you have less than 200 followers, and your blog is on my Blogs You Should Visit list, then I nominate you for this award! So go see if you're on the list, and then leave me a link if you decide to pick it up. 

By the way, have you reviewed The Avengers on your blog? I'm collecting reviews to link to in my final Avengers post this Wednesday. If you wrote a review or found one that you enjoyed, leave me a link and I'll include it!

This is Lauren, signing off....

(because cat pictures are like potato chips; you can't have just one)

Isn't It Lovely?

Well, yesterday I promised to post a picture of The Blotter, and here it is.

Lovely, isn't it? Lindsey, a talented artist and one of my very good friends, painted the picture that was used for the cover.

So what is The Blotter? It's a journal of collected stories and poems that were all written by the members of the writing group that I'm a part of.

Why is it called The Blotter? Because our group is called The Inkblot Society (not to be confused with these Inkblots.)

We have three featured works this edition; Bethany contributed a short story, Doug Hayes contributed a poem, and I contributed a poem which I've previously posted on this blog (Death of a Maple Leaf.)

I don't know if I can exactly say that I'm a "published author" now, since strictly speaking the journal is not "for sale" - I think it's more of a "suggested donation." (my, what a lot of quotation marks)

But it's still exciting to see my name in print. I believe the journal will only be for sale locally, although personally I'd like to see it online someday. Maybe an e-zine type thing, you know.

Also, it's kind of a coincidence that when I opened my dashboard today I saw this post by Leslie Rose. She has contributed a story to a short story anthology that is now for sale. It's currently $0.99 on Amazon. Go check it out!

Remember what it's like the first time you saw your name in print? Still looking forward to that day? Ever been part of a writing group or contributed to an anthology? 

Custom Error Message and Kreativ Blogger Award

via Lolbrary

I'm on Google+.  Just so's you know. And I'm following Blogger. (Or is it "circling" Blogger? I'm not sure which is the proper lingo.)

Anyway, Blogger recently posted about how to change your "error message" - you know, that message you get when you click on a broken link. "404 page not found" and all that, wot wot?

Apparently in Blogger you can customize it. Go to "Settings," select "search preferences" and click "edit" under "custom page not found."

It was too good an opportunity to pass up, so I went and changed mine right away. You can see it by clicking this incorrect link:

http://lmswriting.blogspot.com/errorpage

Also, I've been awarded the Kreativ Blogger Award.

Becky Doughty from Braveheart gave me this lovely award. Thanks so much, Becky!

You know, at most award ceremonies it's the custom to give an acceptance speech, but on the blogosphere there are rules that you must follow. (Unless, of course, you're my sister Ava, in which case you write an acceptance speech and follow the rules)

And hey, I love rules, so let's see what we've got here:

June is Coming, I Can Almost See It...

This is the time of year that makes me want to visit the ocean. Of course, the Pacific Northwest ocean isn't quite as blue (or warm) as the ocean in the picture above, but it's still the ocean. And I miss it. Our annual vacation is coming up, though. Pacific ocean, here I come!

Today over at Emily Moir's blog Rantings of a Writer I wrote a guest post for her Blogger Spotlight series. Go check out my post (and Emily's blog!)

Having seen The Avengers three times now, I think it's time I wrote a review. So coming up will be my five part review/analysis of the movie. Yes, five part (I kind of have a lot to say).

Also, I recently started following Miss Jack Lewis Baillot's clever blog, However Improbable. She's a steampunk author (which is pretty cool) and we seemed to have watched and read a lot of the same movies and books. She only has 13 followers, so why not hop on over and check out her blog?

Doing anything exciting this June? Visited the ocean lately? How many times did you see The Avengers? Have you visited Miss Jack Lewis Baillot's blog?

Storyboardishness

Today I had a burst of inspiration for this novel idea (let me clarify - an idea for a novel) that I've had simmering in the back of my mind. It was an idea for a new scene. It opened up a lot of ideas for the rest of the novel.

So, since I've been reading Story Engineering (which is all about planning out your novel) I thought, why not plan out this one? I'm already writing two stories at present, but what if I had this one all ready to go when I finished them?

So I tried something I haven't tried before: storyboarding.

Okay, well, to be clear, it's not technically storyboarding the way I'm doing it. It's storyboarding for writers, which has no pictures. (I found a tutorial on one way to make a storyboard!)

You see that red wallet-looking-thing at the top of this post? That, when opened up, is a photo holder. It can hold 24 photos. But instead of photos, I put scene cards in them, like so:

Just to be clear, this is not the working title. It's just a placeholder until I find a working title.

I started with a title card, and then wrote a query/synopis card to remind myself of the basic premise (and to be thorough). After that I wrote out a scene card for the prologue and the scene after that.

I used a grunge filter to make the iPhone-quality picture look less lame.

And here's another grunge-filtered picture of the whole thing. After I fill out ten scene cards I'm planning on putting them all into one photo pocket since there are only 22 (discounting the title and synopsis card). That leaves room for about 220 scenes.

I'm pretty excited about it - I've never planned out a story this way before. We'll see how it goes...

In other news:

I saw The Avengers over the weekend! It was a fantastic movie. Austin, over at Gift of the Present, did a thorough review of The Avengers that I thought was very insightful. Daniel also wrote a very thorough spoiler-free review, as did Raquel and PolkaDot.

I recently found (and followed) a blog called Scribblings of My Pen and Tappings of My Keyboard, by Anne-girl. She did an excellent post on "being real" that I highly recommend you read. I think she hit it spot-on.

Becky Doughty from Braveheart featured my post "Top Ten Tips for Creating Top Ten Tips Lists" as her Friday Guest post! If you haven't read it or want to read it again, go check it out (and look around Becky's blog a little bit.)

If you haven't already, go leave a comment telling me how you cope with deadlines so I can feature it in Friday's post.

Have you ever done story cards? Ever extensively planned out a story? Do you have any tips for keeping your story cards or scenes straight? 

Do any of the links sound intriguing?

Let me know by commenting!

O is for Ostentatious Prose (Among Other Things)

I had momentary moment of panic today. I logged into blogger, clicked over to my blog to get a link and, horror of horrors...

the sidebar was missing!

I scrolled to the bottom of the page and there it was, beneath the posts. And I couldn't figure out how to get it back to where it was supposed to be.

Thankfully, I've been following The Real Blogger Status for a while now, so I clicked over to the blog to see if I could find out how to fix it.

I came across this post, which advised changing the most recent thing you'd done. Well, that was publishing my "N" post. So I saved it as a draft and republished it, and voila! the sidebar reappeared!

If you haven't already done so, I advise you to go visit that blog.

And now on to our regularly scheduled A-to-Z post

Question: Am I being ostentatious by using the word "ostentatious" to describe prose?

Don't write the way this bird looks.

What does "ostentatious" mean? It means showy, or to do something in order to show off, or to be conspicuous or pretentious.

Yeah, saying "ostentatious prose" rather than "flowery prose" does sound a little pretentious.

But hey, you all know the real reason I'm using the word "ostentatious." Because I already did a post for "F".  And besides, "ostentatious" is such a fun word to say. 

However, ostentatious prose is not very fun to read.

One of the most common bits of advice I hear for writers is "get yourself out of the picture."

In other words, you want the reader to forget about you as a writer. Don't let them even remember that you're there. You want them to forget that they're reading something written by you and just be engrossed in the story.

That doesn't mean you don't have a voice. It means that while they're reading the story they don't hear you in their heads reminding them every ten seconds "I wrote this I wrote this I wrote this! Aren't I such a good writer??"

Compare this:

When I sleepily open my stunning blue eyes to blearily glance at the rumpled, cream-colored sheets on the opposite side of the bed, not only is it inexplicably vacant, but it is also as chilly as an icicle in the far-flung reaches of the frozen north.

To this:

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. 

The first example is so overloaded with adjectives and similes that it makes the story drag, and is very stuffy and annoying. The second example (the opening line from The Hunger Games) is crisp, clear, and to the point. We are placed inside the main character's head, and inside the story, without any unnecessary fuss or detail.

So, in summation, my dear devoted readers, whenever the dreadful time comes when you are sorely tempted by the vile devils of ostentatiousness, it is much advised that you, oh peerless perusers, swiftly flee the terrible clutches of its ostentatious claws of grim death.

In other news:

Feel like giving out story prompts today? Two of the A-to-Z participants that I'm following are basing their themes around prompts given by readers.

Jessica Salyer at Just Following a Dream presents a word each day that readers must use in a sentence that will then be included in an ongoing story. You have until 10 PM CST tonight to enter a sentence that includes the word "omnipotent."

Jessica Marcarelli at Visions of Other Worlds is having a Saturday flash fiction challenge. Go leave her a comment with a prompt that starts with the letter "S"!

Have you ever had trouble with a disappearing sidebar? 

Do you have a problem with writing ostentatious prose, or does clean prose come naturally for you? Is there any specific bit of ostentatiousness that habitually annoys you?

Let me know by commenting!

J is for Jotting Things Down (In Journals)

You've had a 3'o'clock at night experience, right?

You know, when you come up with an idea so brilliant that you can't possibly wait until morning to write it down so you get up and search for a piece of paper in the dark and if you can't find the paper you write on your hand and then when you wake up you have to try to decipher your handwriting?

Yeah, that one.

This stunning picture on the left is the product of one of my middle of the night scribblings.

As you can see, it's got all of the typical characteristics of muse-inspired jottings. It's cryptic, messy, and can only be understood by me.

Hey, kind of like my journal (which is actually where I wrote this scribbled story idea.)

I use a journal for writing down poems, snatches of conversation, descriptions of interesting people, midnight story ideas, opening lines, sermon notes, favorite names, lists (I love lists. Can you tell?), or anything else that comes to mind.

This is the journal I currently use. It was a gift from Hadley.

I used to use my journals (I have about eight that I've filled) for writing down my daily activities. But ever since I started seriously writing, I've found that more and more I only jot down things related to writing.

Today's date last year. 
You're technically not supposed to know about the character mentioned in the above picture. Just pretend he doesn't exist.

Oh wait. He's fictional. He doesn't exist.

Moving on....

Now, I'd like to be specific here. I didn't choose the word "journal" because it fits with the letter J (okay, well maybe I did, but...)

I want to distinguish it from a diary.

A diary is not a journal.

A diary is not a writing journal.

A diary is a notebook in which you write down all your problems and angsty stuff.

A journal is... well, to repeat the common definition, a chronicle of a journey.

(Bonus "J" word of the day!)

So my writing journal is the chronicle of my journey through writing. I can look back at the things I've written, at the random descriptions, the thoughts, the poems and see how far (or not) I've come.

If you don't have a journal or a place to jot things down, I highly recommend you get one.

Download a notes app on your phone.

Buy a pocket sized notebook and a key chain sized pen.

Be ready to record whenever your muse inspires you.

Of course, it will always be in the most inconvenient places - I always find it happens in the car, or in church, or at parties.

But hey! You're a writer. Nobody will mind if you suddenly dive for your purse (or pocket) to write something down.

(It just reinforces the cliche of the mad artist.)

"Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal? "

- Henry Tilney, from Northanger Abbey

Pictured below: my eight filled-to-the-last-page journals.

In Other News:

Rissi from the lovely blog Scribbles, Scripts, and Such (which I've mentioned before and I highly recommend you visit) has awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award.

Hmm, I guess that means I'm

"Capable of or adapted for turning easily from one to another of various tasks, fields of endeavor, etc.: a versatile writer."

Thanks, Rissi!

The award dictates that you must state seven things about yourself and then give the award to fifteen other bloggers.

For this post, I'll skip the seven facts (there's more than seven on my about me page if you're dying to know). And as for fifteen other bloggers... well, that's a lot. Off the top of my head, here are a few I can think of that fit the description:

Daniel

Mirriam

Aidyl

Ava (Spidophile)

Do you keep a journal? What kinds of things do you jot down? Do you use an app for that? 
Do you collect journals? Do you get that thrill when you open a blank journal? When does inspiration strike you?

Let me know by commenting!

The Fantasy Novelist Exam

I came across this post on the blog Visions of Other Worlds today. It's The Fantasy Novelist's Exam, a "rip-off tip-off" sheet for all aspiring fantasy writers. Basically, it's a series of questions (sometimes sarcastic) by which to measure your fantasy story against.

Here are a few of my favorite questions from the exam:

2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage? 

8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?

17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?. 

28.Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?

36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?

46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls? 

47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?

63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?

70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?

74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?

75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.

I would add:

76. Is your first book basically a rip-off of Star Wars? *coughcoughEragoncough*

Answering yes to any of the questions "results in failure and means that the prospective novel should be abandoned at once."

A little harsh, yes. I think a fantasy writer can get away with answering yes to one or two of these questions, but when you answer yes to more than seven (like Eragon. I say more than seven because after that I stopped counting) it's definitely time to rethink your story.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I did evaluate one of my fantasy stories using this checklist. The only one I said yes to was number 71. And in my defense, my bard doesn't play the lute. He... well, actually, all he can do is sing. And be used as a decoy. Yeah.

How does your fantasy story measure up to the exam? Any favorite questions?