Write like a Truck Driver

I was hunting for a quote for a blog and ended up giving up and making one up.  The more I got to thinking about it the more I liked it.  Most people don't think much about truck drivers unless they are tryIng to get around one on the highway.  Some of you may have one for a relative - well we kinda stink up the place so it's hard to keep us hidden forever.  Sometimes you like to yell at us for tailgating you after you forgot stuff is 'closer than it appears' and whipped over in front of us - thats ok - I will smile and wave at you and slow down so you don't die of stupid - sorry you flunked that physics class.

But I say you should write like a truck driver ----

Know your destination for the day and write to that place.  Is your main character going to get kissed - write to there and stop.  If you feel like it, take the next load - but we all need a good meal and a shower - DOT gives you permission to take a break and rest.  If you have reached your destination -you earned it - enjoy.

There are only two seasons on the road -- winter and road construction -- write anyway.

We all have crap that interferes with our writing - we have relatives and friends and jobs and kids and every excuse in the universe to get side tracked, off tracked, stuck and lost.  If they love you, they will figure out that they can find the ketchup and the forks all on their own.  Give them a chance.

Keep a good map handy in case you find a low bridge and have to reroute!

Funny how a truck is 13'9 tall and some bridges are only 13 foot - If you are not careful you may top a trailer.  That means you peal the lid back like a tin can and cost alot of time and money.  Watch for low bridges ----  If a scene isn't working find another way to get there.  Fix plot holes as you go rather than be determined to make your trailer fit where it won't - just cause you like that line or some little bit of humor.  Go back to where it doesn't work and find a new way to get there.

Chicken lights are soooooo pretty. But they are a bunch of work.

Have you ever wondered why some trucks look like they are having a competition on who has the most lights all over the truck? (psst its cause they are - truck drivers love pretty lights - think of it as instant popular sauce - The biggest complement you can hear is - Cluck Cluck - or bring it on back over Runway) Let's call chicken lights what they are - I am successful and I can afford these dang things - look at me.  In other words don't hide your writing in the dark - You have invested life, time and sleep into your novel.  Shine it. Light it up -Edit it!  It is alot of work but agents need chicken lights.  Your MS rough is a big ole ugly truck - now give it some chicken lights so it looks pretty in that big ole truck stop slush pile!

Now Get Outa here, Kick it in the Big Hole, and keep the rubber side down.  Coops have the big word out and pappas got a doughnut - is all clear back my way....

 Cluck Cluck

awwe thanks for the flowers....

P.S.  One last thought if you are a writer of TV scripts, movie scripts or novels and you want a big ole truck to ram into one of your poor tragic characters --  DON'T HONK THE HORN!  No truck driver in the history of accidents honks the horn!  We are not 4-wheelers.  First my feet stomp on the breaks, one hand on the wheel one on the trailer hand valve.  I am going to try not to kill you and try not to jack-knife my home and livelyhood at the same time.  Now my breaks will lock up and smoke like crazy and I will be looking for an escape option. I don't have a hand for the danged horn!  I howl every time I see it.  You see a big Peterworth barrel down on poor little victim-tagonist - and the truck never hits a break (break lights don't even light up) and he just honks? 

Anyone may enter this contest over on Young Lit Six

They are giving away a whole book critique by them, a first chapter critique and a cool graphic for your blog to celebrate the big 100!  Givem a Flash Flash - and be sure to enter!

http://yalitsix.blogspot.com/2011/02/contest.html

Road trip Wed at YA highway

We are on a road trip and the question is .....

Why is it so hot not to finish your dang novel these days.  I don't mean us unpublished people.  I mean the Books that end with a missing chapter! (it's not a cliff hanger if you don't finish it - its not finished)

I just read Hunger Games - I obsessively do love it...don't get me wrong.  But ----

Spoiler alert ------------------------------Stop now if you have not read it.


Ok first of all - she is willing to die for Peeta Bread - then why be mean on the train.
Then I wait all that time to see poor little Prim's joy and it's left out.  I wait all that time to find out if Mom kept her fruitloops and nothing.
 Plot holes.  If Peeta really wanted her to win, all he had to do was hold the knife or go pick it up - she had the will to kill him - bow notched and at his heart as he threw the weapon away.  He would have seen that and given her no option. 
If he got cut in the leg with a sword and stung - how did he get away.  If I have ya down - I am gonna go ahead and stick ya sweetheart - grin. bugs or no bugs.
Peeta didn't eat any berries as he picked them?  strange.

How did he ever hook up with the careers - don't care if he saved her - what did he have they felt was useful - he hadn't even had a conversation with one of them during training.

Nope I loved every moment but looked in horror at the missing last chapter.  Best line of the book - "Are you here to finish me off, sweetheart."  pg. 252 

How do you love Lucifer?

Not the one You are thinking of -- don't think I am one of those people....lol

Still, the name alone is spine chilling, is it not?  The most beautiful of all angels condemned for all time?  The legend of the one who could not bow to humans - or was It that he loved his Father too much and could show no greater love than to refuse to bow to anyone but him?  The ruler of hell?  The one who let pride bring about his fall?  So many stories to that name. 

The bringer of light.

Who could he be.  Tempter... Judge....a tortured soul?

Why would you hate your child and cause him to be feared and reviled among the humans.

What could the purpose be to that?

But we must remember that the ones who tell the story of him, do not know him.  What would he say of his work?  

My poor character has gone to hell.  She was in fear at first, yet the sad, hard eyes of Lucifer were not what she imagined.  

How to make him not a singular cliche' villain was what got me to really thinking.  Could he be feared because of duty?  Many people fear doctors.  What if Lucifer was a sort of Doctor, what if he had to issue pain to make a soul well.  What if the stories were true, but simply off.  Come with me little ones and let me take you on a tour of my hell, for it is so simple once you see the connections and find beauty in a job nobody wants.

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He bows and kisses my hand with grace, violet eyes intent to read  fear. 
"It has been so long since a living human has been brave enough to visit my realm.  Who was the last Sauriel?"
"Dante?" I smile watching him with equal curiosity and a false mask of courage.
"and she's funny, dear father she makes sport of me?  Sauriel, she is all I have heard.  I am honored child."

"Lucifer we have need of your advice, have you time to share light with us?" Sauriel asks his brother kindly.

"For the two of you, I will make the time, please let us take refreshment in my office." Lucifer, pleased to have company clasps Sauriel on the shoulder and they take off, leaving me to trail behind weaving among the endless tables of hell.


He hands me a blue liquid in tiny glasses with exaggerated flute.  I do not sip it, caught in some old legend of pomegranate seeds.  I stare out the window, thankful that the closed door has taken away the sound of screams.  A tear rolls down my cheek.

"Have you such pity for them?"  Lucifer asks standing by my side.
"Not for them.  For those they have left behind who believe they are at peace."
He nods.  "But they shall be at peace someday.  You do not believe hell is what folklore has made it, or you would not be here.  Do you believe what they say of me?"

"No, you proved that wrong the second I got here.  You bowed to me."

Lucifer smiles and I glimpse the beauty behind the sorrow that holds his face to such strict stillness.  "Would you like to know, could you brave my words sweet child?'

"If I condemn myself to serve in this place, it would be better to know." I admit.

"Few souls die without some light.  I am a cleanser of souls.  I return the light they manage to carry here, back to my Father to be reformed and born anew, to try again."

"You do that by torture?  You inflict pain and call it mercy?" I say with disdain.  They call him the father of lies as well.   This is a waste of my time.

"The procedure is painful, cutting the darkness from a soul, snipping the cancer before it consumes them, is not pleasant.  What hope could they find if I gave up on them and let them all fall to darkness.  Hell is not just a place of sorrow child.  It is a place of sorrows end."  Lucifer does not look at me as he explains, he does not expect me to see or be able to understand.

"You are the light bringer.  You bring the light back to heaven?  You save them?"  It is hard to fathom what he says.

He sighs and his pale eyes lock on mine.  "Standing before me, do you feel evil in me?  Am I truly the wretched horror they have painted?  Will you be fooled as well, by those that would control your thoughts?  I do not bring destruction. Imagine if I did not exist or simply gave up on you all.  Imagine the sin before you returned to the world."

"But we are all born in sin." I argue the ancient debate sure to trip him in his response.

"No you are not.  Each soul is born pure and perfect.  You pass sin on, fostering it and hiding it away for your children.  Generation to generation, you fuel it in hatred and lies.  Man breeds his own sin child.  I redeem those who are not so damaged there is nothing left.  I condemn myself to this ugly task out of love for you, though only fear and hatred is my reward.  Am I so unspeakable?  Would your world be a happier place if I did not exist?  If I did not love you, as my father ask of me, would it be better?"

I meet his eyes, knowing he has revealed himself to me.  Could anyone be more alone than he is?  The protective frost I dipped my heart in to survive this journey, moves with a silent groan of the beginning thaw.  "How do you stand it?" I whisper, no longer able to find power in my disgust of him.

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So, tell me what you think?  Is he an angel or a demon?  Could anyone in their right mind love him?  Is Lucifer beyond hope of anyone feeling any kindness toward him? 

Is the very subject so off limits that no man could pray to God for the soul of an Angel who has suffered for his sin?  If any of the religions are true and wish to press the get out of hell free card upon us, poorly made human souls, why would the soul of any angel be of less value?   Who prays for the fallen?

Your comments are eagerly awaited, but please don't bother telling me of my eternal future, all debate for that was long ago lost.  

      

   

http://nicoleducleroir.blogspot.com/

1. What is your favorite word? Myth and Dominii
2. What is your least favorite word? a bad word that begins with a c and No!
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? love and light given without strings and expectation.
4. What turns you off? People who hate because they are told to, rather than because they have been wronged. 
5. What is your favorite curse word?  the F word...how can yo not like that word!
6. What sound or noise do you love?   diesel engine and the engine break going down a long grade.
7. What sound or noise do you hate?   that high pitched noise electronics often constantly make.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?   history teacher with special interst in Templar, Katharos and Inquisition events.
9. What profession would you not like to do?            literary agent - it would be toooo hard 
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?      Go to hell... and pick anyone you would like to give a get-out-of-hell-for-free card.   Here is stack of them to start you off.

Road trip Wed at YA highway

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Couples magic...

Each week, YA Highway hosts Road Trip Wednesday, a blog carnival in which contributors discuss a topic on their blogs and invite readers to do the same. This week's RTW topic is:

Who are your favorite literary couples?You know -- the ones you like by themselves, but LOVE together!

Well I love Rhett and Scarlett alot, but there are others who I also adore.

I have to say my favorite is Jamie and Claire from Dragonfly in Amber....that was very romantic.

My own characters have to be Natalie and Set, for he is so bad but is right for her even more than his brother Seth or the vampire Malcolm.  The trouble with it all is they are each perfect for her in some strange way. 

I would also have to cast a vote for Tanis Half-elfin and Lauralanthalasa from the Dragonlance chronicles.

Farmville is eating my brain!

Ok, I have a confession.  It is time for a farmville intervention.  I have been wasting long cold days collecting computer blips and It Must Stop.  Farmville is addictive.

I started out just doing it so the kids would have a neighbor to get the daily presents for the stupid little farms they talked about all the time.  I was one of those people who thought it was the biggest waste of time in the world. They were discussing Squash Mastery and rushing home to harvest things they will not eat!  Then I started trying to catch up with friends.....and before I knew what was happening, my farm was full of adorable computer blips.  I joined the forums and got invited into the Pink Patch Club for breeders of RARE computer blips.  There were golden Eggs to snag and calfs to breed and then the horses started changing colors and you could give your friends foals! 

I visit friends and catch up with old high school people by sprinkling sparkles on their computer blip veggies.  I nearly stopped playing as I began writing like a demon, then it snowed.  I have spent the last 4 days finishing buildings, and putting my new pink stallion in the barn 60 times a day so i can afford to EXPAND....and helping the kids get all their blips caught up. 

So I was told that I am at my limit of computer blips for the day.  I am mad.  Do What?  Wait, I was doing something important when I got sucked into my farm again.  Oh yeah....writing.  I have 3 books going that I can't type fast enough on....and what am I doing?  Farmville?  

Oh my gosh.....that game is evil.....It is a temptation.  It is eating my pages as surly as I am growing giant bubble gum trees and won a unicorn by spending an unholy amount of money on blips that I don't want.  Why oh Why must I have that new Disco ball tree and why have I watched facebook like a vulture hoping to score a Rainbow egg?   Cause It is a brain sucking activity and I must  be out of my mind.

Tomorrow I am back to my cave.  Farmville will have to live without me once again because I can either be a writer or I can breed computer blips and hoard cartoon trees.

I have found my writers Block and it's name is Farmville.

 I cast thee out demon game for you shall tempt me no more.    .     .     .     .     .    . is that valentine mini foal still there....click......YES...I got it....hehehehehehe.  Let's see if I move the greenhouse and those trees and delete that plot, I can put them right.....there....Uh oh.  Updates?  did You say they have updates?  

Uhem....yep....I need help.