The 7th Day of Christmas

Today is the 7th Day of Christmas. And I know how the gift-giving goes. But, I wouldn't have wanted a partridge to begin with. And, this is the day when my true love gave to me:

seven swans a swimming...

Now, where the heck would I put seven swans a-swimming? In my bathtub? I think NOT.

That present would be completely foul and totally for the birds because that is one, no, seven things I don't have room for. So, this gift would be a total fowl-fail.

I definitely don't want anything I'd need to clean up after. After all, I already have three "kids" and my hubby to follow around after.

What I really want is a kindle or a new laptop. Santa . . . are you listening? "Do you hear what I hear"?

But, if you'd like to get an embroidered version of that seven swans a-swimming, you can find this patch on-line, check it out here.

A Little Angel Story

When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves couldn't keep up. They weren't producing toys as fast as the regular elves. Sadly, Santa started to feel the
pressure of the season.

And, when Mrs. Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, he really
stressed more.

Then when he went to harness the reindeer and found three of them ready to give birth he was beside himself but then he noticed two others had jumped the fence and were out on the town. Only Heaven knows where.

Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked,
the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot
of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drunk
all the cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally
dropped the cider jug. It broke into hundreds of little glass pieces
all over the kitchen floor so he went to get the broom before Mrs. Claus found out. But, he found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang. An irritated Santa marched to the door and
yanked it open. There stood a little angel with a great big
Christmas tree.

The cheerful angel said, "Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a
lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to
stick it?"

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas
tree.

Only a few people know this part of the story ;)

Tour of Holiday Homes

I love to decorate. . . but, it's difficult with dogs in the house.

I spray painted some pine cones and nuts and put them in pretty glass bowls. Then I set them out around the house. The problem: Sasha didn't understand that spray paint meant "NO EATING".

I came home to find chewed up pine cones littering the floor. She'd actually cracked the nuts and eaten the insides out.

"Spray paint," Sasha says, "NO PROBLEM!"

Not for those giant teeth of hers.

But when I saw that she'd eaten the glass Christmas balls, I was worried - for a second. Sasha must be part goat. That glass didn't even hurt her at all. Still, she knew better and quickly crawled underneath the coffee table to hide. She just didn't think to hide the evidence - empty nutshells were right beside her head.
Still, I decorate. But now I don't put tempting treats (like glass balls) so low to the ground. No need to tempt those teeth of hers.

I pulled out some of my pretty Christmas plates and did a test run on the table - higher up.
And, some of the pretty plates, I even hang on the walls - way out of reach from Sasha.
Plus, I've got stockings hung by the . . . stairs with care. Well, not so much care but I still think they're pretty.


How 'bout you? How do you decorate and do you have any challenges - like Sasha?

And, if you want to check out more blogs, hop over here.

Just Me and the Girls

I know we may not have Kit much longer, after all she's 17 and that's 119 in people years. But, she's still going for walks with me. And, I want to remember (especially at this time of year) the things I'm thankful for. Pets are such a blessing.

Recrafted Gift - a Seatbelt Buckle Belt

I love this idea. Take an old seatbelt, add some cool fabric stripping and WAH-LAH the best ever repurposed piece of clothing you'll ever wear.

Have you done anything like this? I would love to know. Share your sustainable secrets, and gift-giving ideas in the comments - please.

What a JERK

Or maybe He Isn't much of a character at all. Think about it. That might be the problem in your story. Your characters need to jump off the page and become living, breathing people--at least while we're reading your story or we won't care about them at all. Then, we'll put the book down to go do laundry, dishes, or...

Have you ever noticed why you love a good story? It's because you get involved in the journey the characters are taking, at least emotionally.

I can't put a book down when I care about the characters and what happens to them. But, to care about the characters, we have to get to know them really well.

It doesn't even matter if we love or hate the people in the stories we read. We simply have to feel so strongly about them that we can't wait to find out what's going to happen to them.

As writers, that's what we have to do to make our stories come alive: make the reader love or hate (and maybe both) our characters. To do that, the characters have to be multi-dimensional.

The best way to achieve that goal is to give your characters many facets to their personalities. We have to work hard, as writers, to chip and shape our characters into full-bodied individuals. Before you know it, those boring lumps will turn from mere words into brilliant diamonds.

One way to work on this goal is to use a Character wheel, which is similar to a color wheel. We want to make our characters so vivid they'll stand out in the crowd.

Worksheet:

Start by drawing a circle on a piece of blank paper for each of the main characters in your manuscript.



Now slice the circle into sections - like a pie



Put your character's name in the center of the page, above the blank circle or "character wheel" so you can come back and refer to your wheel time and time-again.

Character's Name

Label each section of your pie with one of the following topics and fill that piece of the pie in with character specific information:

1) Personality: Shy, timid, selfish, sneaky, conceited, impatient, sly, determined, impatient, cheap, etc.
2) Likes: Video games, tennis, running, t.v., reading
3) Dislikes: homework, dancing, playing the piano
4) Physical Appearance: Hair color, height, weight
5) Hobbies: rock collecting, ballet, soccer
6) Impressions: How others see your character

My critique group used this worksheet to develop character wheels last Saturday during our bi-monthly session. We all worked on one writer's main characters during that session, next time we will work on another member's characters.

We simply started throwing out characteristics that we thought fit the "people" we had read about during our critique sessions.

It was a lot of fun and we all came away knowing the characters much better.

If you have fun with this exercise, you can adapt the character wheel to make a story wheel. Simply label the pieces of the pie with:

1) Story setting,
2) genre,
3) major problems,
4) conflict,
5) action,
6) resolution

Now start filling in the pieces. Before you know it, you're going to have a multi-layered, rich pie ;)

Magical City Lights