gdp's Comments

Michael Hyatt Blog : Keeping the Swine Flu in Perspective

Mon, 4 May 2009 05:55:09 +0000

Terri-- I don't think your comment is fair. What the medical community is asking for is vigilance, with respect to handwashing and covering up for coughing and sneezing. Let's face it--as a population, our social hygiene stinks. (Candid cameras have shown an appalling number of people don't even wash up after using the restroom!) They are also asking that when a case is documented, known contacts practice "social isolation" during the period during which they may be contagious, so that we can limit spread of the disease. Neither of these measures is a great big deal. The first is something that should have been part of our daily lives all along. Social isolation? Well, in the past, when we were sick, we actually felt OK about taking time off and giving our bodies time to heal. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to return to those days instead of pushing ourselves to go to work where we expose our coworkers. Perhaps this all has a bright side...

Michael Hyatt Blog : Keeping the Swine Flu in Perspective

Sun, 3 May 2009 16:27:24 +0000

I should add that we don't know why the flu isn't killing in the United States the way it is in Mexico. We HOPE the virus has changed for some reason (climate? distance from original host?) to make it less virulent, but we're not sure--and the danger of complacency is too great to risk complacency.

Michael Hyatt Blog : Keeping the Swine Flu in Perspective

Sun, 3 May 2009 16:24:59 +0000

Michael-- As a physician, I'll admit that the media has hyped this up, but it's a very real fear. There haven't been many deaths in the United States yet (and I don't consider the single death a U.S. death), BUT... the potential for total devastation exists. This is a case where we'd do well to learn from history. This is not like our usual killers. In Mexico, the death rate is somewhere between 5 and 7%. Because of the delay in getting the final serology results, and the inability to exhume corpses, we're not sure on that exact number. Those who are dying are NOT the old and infirm, but the young and previously healthy... between the ages of 2 and 45, for the most part. Those with NO prior health problems. Those who have otherwise enjoyed long and healthy lives. In 1918, 40% of the world's population (at least) came down with the flu. That pandemic started out quiet and slow, like it would be no big deal. There weren't a lot of deaths. Officials weren't worried. Spring and summer seemed relatively calm. Then, in the fall, it came back with a fury and wiped out 50 million people. That's 50 million previously healthy people. The world was devastated. Imagine, if you will, a world where you are walking down the street and 1 in 20 of your friends are gone because over a period of a few short months, they've died from the flu. Imagine a world where there is medical care available to help some--but not everyone can get that help because there isn't enough care to go around. Imagine riots and violence occurring outside hospitals as family members demand care for their loved ones, and hospitals can't provide it, because they don't have enough ICU beds or ventilators to go around... and people standing like vultures at the bedsides of those about to die, waiting for the bed/ventilator. The media COULD pick up on those images, but it hasn't--thank goodness. Doctors, on the other hand, have those images in their minds... and the concern is very real. We don't ever ant to see anything like that happen. We think we can avoid it, but only if we can get the public's cooperation with prevention--and that means closing businesses and schools, handwashing and other hygienic measures. We're also working on a vaccine, but that takes time, and we're not willing to count on beating the clock. I wish the media would do a better job of explaining WHY we're doing what we're doing, instead of just hyping up the fear aspect. The thing is... we (the medical profession, scientists, CDC/WHO and the leadership of this country) think it is better to over-react to the pandemic that never was than to be caught doing too little too late for what could be a tragedy discussed in the history books for centuries to come. Gay Walker, MD American Board of Internal Medicine Fellow, American College of Physicans gaymwalker.blogspot.com

Drew S. Goodman : To Curse, or Not To Curse

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:01:20 +0000

I like the description. It intrigued me and has a Sam Spade-like feel (which is not a bad thing; Dashiell Hammett did quite well with his Sam Spade books). If I were you, I'd want to figure out the major conflict and where you were going with this before I continued--maybe not every point, but at least the major plot points. And I'd be careful to maintain the POV of an outside narrator from the character of interest, and also the voice. It's not an easy voice or POV to pull off, but if you can do it, it will make for a page turner. (Have you read Rasley's POV book? It's a great one and could come in handy as a reread before trying to pull this off.)

Michael Hyatt Blog : How to Update Your Facebook Status with Twitter

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:00:11 +0000

I'd suggest being selective about which Twitter comments go to FB. If you tweet a lot, you'll annoy your FB pals with frequent updates and you'll find yourself losing a lot of FB friends. I used the app for about 3 hours, then quickly disabled it after I received a huge number of complaints from friends. Glad to know there's a way to pick and choose which tweets go through.

Drew S. Goodman : I Am Alive... And Writing

Sun, 8 Feb 2009 19:48:32 +0000

Waking up from anything is a cliché, and is one strike against you for getting a story published. The rest of the writing will have to be exceptional... If you want to stick with the idea, then you might reorder the first paragraph, so that the opening sentence "grabs" more... perhaps: "Cline drank each nigh to forget, but every morning, as he slowly ascended through the watery haze of a hangover, swimming carefully to the surface of consciousness, he remembered his past." Play with it... but something like that. You can then use your wonderfully evocative feel about the awfulness of his neighbors.

The @Bookies : The @Bookies Best Books of 2008

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:51:13 +0000

Neither of my favorites are listed: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan or my VERY FAVORITE, The Ha-Ha by David King.

Drew S. Goodman : I've Been Bad. Very, Very Bad.

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:44:52 +0000

I'm with you, man--in the trying to force myself to get things done. I'm not always successful, but one thing I've tried (and that usually works), it's refuse to allow myself Internet, Twitter or e-mail time until I've done X-amount of writing, and then I parcel it out as a reward for every chunk of work I get done. It helps. Also look into "THINK"--a freeware program that blocks out distractions.

Drew S. Goodman : Expect The Unexpected

Sun, 4 Jan 2009 07:09:16 +0000

We (the writing group I've worked with) have a whole series of things to do when you're stuck , ideas we've collected, that is... things that won't necessarily become part of the story, but that can get you moving forward again, freshen the story, get you excited again. One can be to take the character to lunch and ask him to recall the most unusual thing that happened to him in childhood, then have him tell you why it was unusual. Sure, that absolutely WON'T have anything to do with the story, but it will tell you things about him that will help you see him differently. Another will be to step back and look at the room your characters are in--really look at it--in great detail, right down to the pattern of the fabric on the sofa, if there is a sofa. Look at it in such detail that if it were a house and it burned to the ground, you could reproduce it so accurately that its owners would never realize that anything had happened. Now, search for an object that seems out of place to you. What object is that? Why is it there? Who put it there? What purpose does it serve? That may well play a role in the story. Yet another thing you can do is ask yourself what the four worst things that could happen to your character RIGHT NOW would be, and if they happened, how might he handle them. Okay, now suppose those answers weren't available to him, THEN what would he do? (This will amp up tension. Sometimes you won't want to do any of these things, but thinking in this direction is a good thing.) In my novel, we wanted the mother to be able to tell her daughter a story about lying to her best friend, and it had to be a lie that was bad enough the daughter would be really shocked. So my buddy and I brainstormed, and we decided the mother ditched the best friend to go out with a boy. But that wasn't bad enough... so we decided the friend had asked the mother to a Fleetwood Mac concert and the mother was supposed to be the driver. When the mother bailed, she left her friend high and dry without a ride, and the friend had gone to incredible contortions to win those tickets (it was her favorite band). It took us a while to add layer upon layer, playing the "what if" game until the scenario was right. It's easier to play around with this stuff if you tell yourself that your "experiments" aren't wasted. I save all of mine in a "snippets" file. Some I'll repurpose later, others may show up as "outtakes" on the web site after my novel is published (you'll note that I'm thinking positively here.) --Gay http://www.gaymwalker.blogspot.com

Drew S. Goodman : Listening To Cline

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:34:04 +0000

Your story is on the right track when your characters become real. I've never had a story end as I envisioned, at least not one I liked. The characters always take over, and that's how I know the muse has showed up to work... What I've learned about my writing is that when I pick up the pen (or sit down at the keyboard) I need to give up my preconceived notions and get out of the way, and just let the words flow... and I need to be willing to let the spontaneous detours occur. My chracters will sometimes blurt out the damnedest things and take the plot in directions I hadn't anticipated, and when I let them, magic happens. Trust Cline. He knows what he's doing.

Drew S. Goodman : Rewrites and Self-Doubts

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 04:58:21 +0000

Short stories are the hardest. I spent an entire year studying them (ended up with an MFA in an unaccredited program--BFD). Yes. An entire year. And despite what many people will tell you (including agents that I put on pedestals and very nearly worship), I learned a great deal from the experience that has helped tremendously in writing my novels. There are some good books on the subject. There are some lousy books. And there are tons and tons of stories out there, both classic and modern, that you can read to learn craft. But when it gets right down to it, especially when you're writing a longer one, there's no substitute for flailing away and just plain old trying to make it work. Sometimes, it helps to print out the damn thing and take a pair of scissors to it, then sit on the floor and piece it back together in an order that makes sense. The tactile, perhaps? I had to do that sort of surgery on my novel to get the sequencing right. But I think every piece of art, whether written or visual, goes through a stage of the uglies where you want to throw it away and never look at it again. Yours is far from hopeless. You may need to ask yourself the beginning, the end and the key plot points, then figure out how you get between them to create the tension and the story's through-line. You're just lost in the trees. Step back, see the forest, and you'll be fine.

Drew S. Goodman : You Did What, Where?

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 20:00:34 +0000

Ah, butt glue... Have briefly removed mine to comment here. Good show, working in places where it is least expected. I have my comfy chair, surrounded by cats (who do not believe I can type without their help though if I'm not careful, my characters cuss overmuch and in the most awkward places). Last night, I worked from bed as I was bone-tired and cold (Yes, cold. San Diego high barely into 50's, and for those of us who have lived here more than 25 years, our blood grows thin. I'd ridden horse, put her away, and with damp cold air and my sweaty state, taken bit of chill. So one hot shower later, was in jammies and working from bed.) I don't necessarily like happily ever afters, though I like to leave things open-ended and/or leave room for characters to work out remaining questions (i.e., if hero gets girl, there are still LOTS of things that could get in the way of a HEA, but at least there's a happy tomorrow and maybe the day after). In my novel, timeline looked like scrambled eggs by time I was done. Made my head spin, but it was necessary to get tension correct and make the pacing steady. It's hard work, and I resisted for at least a year too long (to the "I told you so's" of several colleagues). A hard lesson to learn. I won't make THAT mistake again (I hope). This revision is smoothing out transitions, mostly, between present and past and also amped up stakes a bit at beginning with a subtle shift in mother's perceptions. And as always, tightening. Seems like no matter how much I do, I always find I can do more. Where do those extra words come from? Gnomes. OK. Back to the butt glue. --Gay

Drew S. Goodman : Where\'s the Butt Glue?

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:08:31 +0000

Ah, butt glue... Need to get me some, too. Haven't managed to write all week. In all fairness to my muse, she's worked overtime this year (turned out a 90K first draft of novel #2 in 6 weeks, even) and probably deserved a week for the holidays, but still... I've got an agent who said "revise and let me see it again" on the first novel, and it needs representation and a home, so what the hell am I thinking? I'm not waiting for New Year's. Tomorrow, it's back to work. Vacation over. Make you a deal: I'll keep you honest if you do the same for me.

Drew S. Goodman : Some Fresh Perspective on "Lost and Found"

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 07:40:29 +0000

And a good critiquer (is that a word?) accepts that you may ignore any and all advice. I'm envious that you can write a SFD longhand and have it look so GOOD. Mine would have cross-outs all over the place, with paragraphs here and there and arrows connecting them--maybe even numbers showing the order--and you'd be hard pressed to follow anything at all like a linear train of thought. I think that's why I hate writing letters, or at least did, before computers and copy and paste and delete keys. No one has ever really seen a first draft of mine. Hell, I haven't seen a first draft of mine. By the time I'm done with what I CALL a first draft, it's really probably a third or fourth draft. Just saying.

Drew S. Goodman : Who's At The Door?

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:49:00 +0000

Before I even read your response, I was thinking about your earlier post and about your story (it had me that hooked!). I think you can start with your special sentence without having to go into the back story. Let what you subsequently reveal SHOW the anonymity of the big town (well, all right, leave in the small town part about everybody's business, too). The important thing to move until later is the fight scene, I think. Up front, you dissipate the tension and take away the wonder at what the girlfriend is there for... Shorten the anonymity thing, perhaps, or have him thinking (as he passes strangers) what the city means to those he comes across on the way to the bakery? They're all good ideas, worthy of keeping, but as backstory, they bog down the momentum and hold you back from the part that really matters and will make your reader suck in his/her breath with an OMG, now what? It's okay to have them there, as long as there's a sense that you're building to something, sort of like the music in Jaws. Let the reader feel that SOMETHING is coming, but they don't know what it is, only you have to be crafty and clever, because music is too trite, and so is something like, "but this wasn't an ordinary day" unless this story is a retrospective, and even those are hard to write well. Just as you kicked around ideas in your head until you came up with something, kicking around ideas with a friend or friends can be the most helpful thing on the planet. I'm blessed with a best friend who was an English major and who reads avidly. She was a journalist, no longer writes, but she sure as hell can critique and understands writing. She reads every word I write, as fast almost as I write it. We kick ideas around every day (her kid rides a horse at my barn, so my buddy's there, and she'll stand on the other side of my horse while I get ready to ride, even, and we'll talk character development or plot points or whatever), and she knows my characters as well or better than I do, and she asks me the tough questions and pulls my best work out of me. She doesn't write the work, but she won't let me relax until I've said what I wanted to say and until the work is "right." I couldn't ask for a better buddy anywhere, in any critique group. (And when I spent the last year in an unaccredited MFA program focused on the Short Story, she studied vicariously alongside me, even). I don't know everything, but I'm happy to share what I do know with generous others. I'm new to the twittersphere, and you and a few others have been especially welcoming to me. Thank you.

Drew S. Goodman : Who's At The Door?

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:08:36 +0000

In that case... You have all the right ingredients going for the story, but you have it in the wrong order (common in first drafts) in my humble opinion. There's a whole lot of backstory going on before we get to the real moment of truth: old girlfriend arrives. This is just me (and there are as many ways to tell a story as there are writers to tell it), but I'm thinking you want to set the story up with the humble beginning and setting out the bait--no need to go into the whole small town/large city stuff maybe, just show his digs, maybe a brief encounter with a neighbor in the hallway... SHOWING not telling if you can. Does he talk to himself? Describe his actions. Somehow, I'm thinking Kafka and Metamorphosis here, though without going back and rereading it, I don't know why. But something about the way he set up Gregor's life, maybe? Or is my mind on the fritz... could be either, these days, with the holidays coming. Anyway, from there, maybe jump ahead to the girlfriend encounter--and of course she's going to trigger a flashback of that fateful day, right?--although you could amp the tension by having the reader expect something else. Then when he returns, you could have him outside the door, see something is wrong (maybe not quite so obvious but still make him alarmed), and give him a chance to act or not (a phone rings--does he answer?, or he's forgotten to buy milk, something like that). The problems are: Not starting where the story begins and not enough conflict or enough at stake for the protagonist, not enough getting in the way of what he wants. The story works for the reader, but you could really engage him/her and hold his/her attention if you add tension and conflict with little tweaks like these, and make him/her worry/care more... and you also present your protagonist with more of a moral dilemma. I do like the ending. Catching a larger rat works for me, and I also like that you said Cline always thought the rat would be his father. That shocked me, but then again, it made sense. Somewhere, you need to have the musings on the small town/large town... I'm thinking an inner dialogue when Cline mistakenly assumes the old girlfriend wants him to move home and he's thinking no way in hell? Maybe while she's beating around the bush, making small talk, working up the courage to tell him about the kid dying and the father having it out to get him? Cause you wouldn't just blurt out news like that... you'd talk about all kinds of other things first, and maybe Cline would think she wanted to develop a relationship with him again? I don't know... you'll work it out. I'm just thinking out loud here. It's what I do with my writing buddy all the time when my work is in draft (or even close to final) form and we're not satisfied. We just keep throwing ideas at each other until something sticks.

Drew S. Goodman : Who's At The Door?

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:04:09 +0000

Do you want feedback here or privately? I have some comments to give you, if you're interested. (Or it may be too early, and you may not be interested in feedback at all). The story has a lot of promise, by the way.

Drew S. Goodman : Who's At The Door?

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:51:37 +0000

Going to read the story now, but I just wanted to say that I always think of regurgitating the words... like a bird does for her chicks in the nest. All icky, undigested mush that isn't anything at all pretty to look at, but it needs to get out on paper, and if the editor in me is paying any kind of attention at all, the muse goes on strike. I have to stop listening/reading and get out of the way... give the muse full control over the fingers, whether they're working pen/paper or keyboard. Something else I've got now is Jott (www.jott.com)that for very little money/month lets me dictate notes over the cell phone because some of my best ideas occur driving and I got tired of pulling over to write them down (it will also text to Facebook and Twitter, and it's amazingly accurate).

Drew S. Goodman : The First Project- Lost and Found

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 08:17:58 +0000

I love the variety of approaches. Isn't it wonderful? It's one of the coolest parts about Maui: the number of best-selling authors lecturing, and how generous they are with their knowledge, especially during the very very special retreat week that precedes the conference when the masses descend. I've gone two years in a row, and I've already paid my fees to go back for 2009. It's the present I give myself every year.

Drew S. Goodman : The First Project- Lost and Found

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 06:58:15 +0000

I had the good fortune at the 2008 Maui Writers' Retreat to be mentored by Ann Hood, and one of the things she espouses is writing the first and last sentences of her books before she does anything else. In class, she had us write the first lines of our books one day. And if we didn't know what our books were going to be about, she had us write lots of first lines. Then the next day, she had us write closing lines. She liked the idea of the closing lines having some significance or relationship to the opening line... some resonance, if you will, whether it was symmetry or a symbolic relationship or a coming full circle. Some rightness. Then, she'd have us think about the major characters and their conflicts, and the key plot points that we'd need to get from beginning to end, and with those in mind, over the course of a few days, we wrote synopses, which we were to use like roadmaps in writing our novels. It sounds terribly restricting, but I have to say that it isn't because you are FREE TO CHANGE YOUR MIND. It's like having a safe route on your trip from San Francisco to New York. You can take detours, even change the route entirely, but you always know where you're going and the roads you can take if wanderlust doesn't suggest alternatives. You won't get lost. With my synopsis in hand, I managed to crank out a 96K word first draft of my second novel in about a month. Never could have done that otherwise. Course, it's got a lot of work left to do... emphasis on a LOT of work (and it's on the back burner while I'm doing revisions on the first and shopping it based on feedback from agents and the editor I met with at the recent WD conference). Long story short, though, it's not such a bad approach no matter what your teacher said.