August 1, 2007

Welcome to my blog!

Since I'm just launching this blog, I welcome comments on what you find here. And on what you'd like to find here. And what you hope you never, ever see.

I might on occasion post on something relevant, like world peace. Or my really funny dog.

For those of you feeling that gnawing urge to write, I'll post about that too.

Humor is one weapon I find helpful in the war against taking ourselves too seriously. But there are serious issues that absolutely must be taken seriously. Together, we will decide exactly what those are and address them with a delicate balance of wit and profound wisdom.

Thanks for stopping by!

5 comments:

Christa Allan said...

Welcome to blog-land!

Christa Allan said...

OOPS...My blog is ~christa~
www.cballan.wordpress.com and I saw your post on the ACFW loop!

Karen said...

Camille, I saw your link in the TWV2 discussion. I like your blog: love the background, enjoy your forthright style, and look forward to future entries. Check mine out as well!

Donald L. Moir said...

Camille,

I saw your question at Randy's blog and took a read of your chapter. Here are some comments:

1. On the whole, the arc of the chapter works for me. There's a push-pull dynamic of conflict between brother and sister, with a nice inversion.

2. By comparison to the first chapter of Randy and John's "Oxygen", note that Oxygen has the heroine dealing with the initial problem of her own in real time. Your chapter shows Ian's wisdom being applied to a problem of someone else (the sister's husband), and it's told by referring to past events. The chapter says that speaking to his brother-in-law had stung Ian. What if Ian's action started with that scene on the boat?

3. The chapter sets out Ian's problem, but leaves him going back to that problem, his ordinary world. We know the sister will be around to push him toward change. And Ian himself sees the need for change but is still refusing to do what he needs to do. So I can see the next few chapters leading toward some crisis that will push him out of his ordinary world.

4. More specific comments:

a. The opening line works for me as a grabber.

b. The next para not so much. I dropped out of the "fictive dream". I couldn't immediately see what "edge of lamp-lit street" meant, and the "strides" and "bridge" feels overwritten in the sense of too many words. It might be that the "he made" verb tense is confusing because it follows "he had almost escaped": had escaped is further back in the past than "he made". (The English majors in the room will put proper terms to the difference.) So, either "Ian MacLean almost escaped. He made..." or "Ian MacLean had almost escaped. He had made..." The time sense of the passage is: Ian had almost escaped. He had made it to the street, when his sister's voice called out....

Or, after the first line as is, consider cutting to around "four good strides": Ian MacLean had almost escaped. Four good strides would take him to the freedom offered by his grannie's farm truck....

c. Similarly, I would take a blue pencil to the phrase about "hard on his heels like a bullet... small... swift... deadly." Too many metaphors, and then you explain them, too, instead of just letting them work.

d. "feisty little" feels cliche. The character is great; it's just those words.

e. "head barely reached...probing stare": my blue pencil is quivering here. I'd focus on the stare; a person's height as a tempering effect on their gaze doesn't work for me (all 5'5'' of me).

f. The last para feels a little of out of the POV of Ian; it's much closer to a narrator's voice. This is arguable, but I mention it anyway.

I look forward to see what other troubles you're cooking up for Ian.

Camille Eide said...
This comment has been removed by the author.

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF. . . .

RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME:

I've published five novels and 2 novellas (more about those on my website.) I've been writing all my life, but decided in 2007 to get serious about being published.

I love action movies and Jane Austen. (she’s dead, I know. I found that out when I tried to get her to endorse my novel)

They let me play Bass guitar and sing in a worship band.

I can produce 4 dozen homemade cinnamon rolls in a flash for a crowd of drooling young adults. Or publishing house editors.

I used to have a Harley. Now we have seven grandkiddos. Decent trade, really.

I am a proud Grammy. Don't even think about taking candy from my babies.

I hate shopping (Yes, I'm aware that I'm a girl)

MY ROOTS:
I've lived in Oregon all my life, spent time in Eugene (Go DUCKS!), Springfield, Reedsport, and Smith River. Which is not really a town, but a river, about 70 miles long, a tributary of the Umpqua River in southwest Oregon.

Although it's not a town, it is a community with a strong sense of pioneer history. It's cool to say you've lived there, especially if you lived there during the days when you had to take a boat to school. No joke! The old farmhouse my grandfather and my mother grew up in still stands, nestled into a narrow, pasture carpeted valley, complete with a swimmin' hole and its own 'crick'. It may turn up in one of my novels.

There's a rumor that my ancestors had a connection with the Mafia back in Sicily. I used to fantasize as a kid about a big black limo with tinted windows pulling up and whisking me away from school. Ahhh. So THAT'S why I'm having so much trouble conjugating my dangling participles now.

NOT RANDOM: I am challenged by the truth and amazed by the grace of God. And it's either in spite of or because of that grace that I hold a PhD in Learning Stuff the Hard Way.