Writing Confrence and a Contest

Read below to see how you can win a free copy of Room for Two. This might strike some as a strange confession, but I’ve never been to a writing conference before. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to check one out but, for one reason or another, things have never fallen into place so I could attend. So I didn’t know what to expect when I presented at and attended Cedar Fort’s writing conference on Saturday.

Thankfully the writing conference turned out to be a fabulous experience. I did a good job on my presentation (or so everyone told me) and it was nice to meet people whose blogs I read or have only communicated with via email. Additionally I was also able to meet some writers whose books I’ve read and others whose books I’m looking forward to reading. (There’s a big pile of new books to read on my nightstand – which Marathon Girl has already begun to devour.)

The best part though was a piece of advice the keynote speaker gave at her presentation on what all successful writers have in common. Her advice gave the extra push I needed to make some small changes in my life and sprint toward finishing the first draft my next book. (I wrote an entire chapter last night!) Coincidently, this same piece of advice was subtly reinforced by an article in an essay titled “The Running Novelist” (sorry, no online version is available) by the Japanese writer Haruki Murkami in the June 9 & 16 issue of The New Yorker that I read Sunday afternoon. (No, it’s not running.)

I’ll tell you what this common trait is and how Murkami applied it to his life, and the small changes I've made in my next entry. Until then, I’ll offer a free copy of Room for Two to the first person that correctly guesses what trait all successful writers have in common. Guess by leaving a comment below.

Note: Those who attended the writing conference are ineligible to participate. :-)

Update 1: Per an email I received: 1) Yes, you can guess more than once but each guess has to be a separate comment. 2) I'll announce the winner (if any) on Friday.

Update 2: Four of the five comments are close. Yes, writing every day is important. But think of a specific trait or characteristic that describes the ability to do that. This trait isn't something that is unique to successful writers but to successful businessmen and women, sales people, and other highly successful professionals.

Writing Confrence and Writer's Block

I apologize for the dearth of posts this week. I’ve been preparing for the writer's conference I’m presenting at this weekend and been struggling with a bit of writer’s block on my next book which, for some unknown reason, makes it also difficult to blog. Maybe I need to write a diet cookbook. (See cartoon below.) :-)

Picture Perfect

As I parent, I know that one day one of my kids will leapfrog me when it comes to technology and understand how to work a computer, video game, or some device that hasn’t been invented yet better than their old man. However, I never thought that they’d be four years old when they did it.

Our oldest is fascinated by cameras. He loves taking pictures with my digital camera (gulp!) or my cell phone camera. And I like looking at the photographs he takes because it’s interesting to see how he views the world.

(This is what our kitchen sink looks like from his perspective.)

Usually he’ll take pictures with my cell phone camera until the memory is full. Later I’ll go through the pictures, save the one or two I like, and delete the rest.

On Saturday I was going through the latest round of photos and noticed that they some of them had some special effects added to them.

I called our oldest over and asked if he had taken that picture. With quite a bit of pride in his voice, he told me that he had done that.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Push seven,” he said.

I pushed seven. Nothing happened.

“It’s not working,” I said.

“You have to start at the beginning,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Obviously frustrated with his old man’s inability to work a simple cell phone camera, our four-year-old took the camera from me and in a few moments was pushing the seven button and scrolling through a list of special effects.

“See?” he said.

“Wow. That’s amazing. How did you figure that out?”

“I just learned it,” he said.

He scrolled through the special effects and held the camera up so he could see me.

“Smile, Dad,” he said.

I smiled.

And he took a picture.

LOST: There’s No Place Like Home (Season Finale)

LOST just gets better and better. Last night’s two-hour season finale was one of the best episodes they’ve ever done. Not only did we get answers to lots of the questions that have been plaguing viewers all season but we also learned it was John Locke who was in the casket.

The writers picked a perfect way to start the story by picking up where Season 3 left off by Jack’s calling after Kate that they need to go back. Kate slams on the brakes and lays into Jack and mentions Jeremy Bentham’s obituary, her “son” Aaron, and “all the horrible things that happened when they left.” The message for the viewer is clear: You’re going to get some answers to questions.

And what did we learn? We learned what happened to Jin and Michael (though I’m not convinced they’re dead), that Charlotte has indeed be on the island before, the Dharma Initiative was playing around with time travel, why the Oceanic Six are lying about what happened, that Walt is back on the show, Locke is dead, how the Island is moved (I guess it won’t be a character for awhile), Locke is dead, Claire doesn’t want her baby to come back to the island, what happened to Ben after he moved the island, and that Desmond and Penelope finally found each other again. For a show that’s been very hesitant to give its audience answers, this is a lot to digest. But it sure made the show fun to watch.

I thought the plot was great, the story moved at a fast but comfortable speed, and even though you knew the Oceanic Six were going to survive, there was still plenty of tension regarding their rescue and the fate of other characters throughout the episode that kept you on the edge of your seat for two full hours.

I only wish I had been more up on my philosophers. Had I know who the real Jeremy Bentham was, I would have realized it was Locke in the casket as soon as Kate mentioned his name. The writers dropped a big clue by using another philosophers name as Locke’s alias. Alas, I didn’t pay attention when Jon made this connection almost a year ago.

The writers have set the show up so next season we’ll see the Oceanic 6 try to make their way back to the island (after they’ve convinced everyone to come along) as well as what were the “bad” things that happened on the island after it disappeared. If the show keeps the same pace as the season four finale, we’re going to be in for a fun, wild ride.

Jon is a God

I need to give a shout out to my friend Jon who picked out the Jeremy Bentham reference in the season finale of LOST last year. In my comments of this entry Jon wrote:

yeah, i bet it’s ben’s funeral. there is a really awesome screengrab of the news clipping in jack’s hand on losteastereggs.blogspot.com. maybe i need to start watching lost in hd. it shows that the clipping is indeed real and details the death of someone with the first name starting with j and maybe the last name ending with antham. i guess there’s this philosopher from the 16th century named jeremy bantham. that may be another one of ben’s names or something and it would go well with john locke’s philosopher name.

Okay, he didn’t get the funeral right. But he picked up the Jeremy Bantham reference and tied it into Locke – the person in the casket.

Well done, Jon! You are a God! :-)

The Last Detective by Robet Crais

While in Arizona, I had a chance to catch up on some reading – something I don’t as much as I’d like since I’m in the middle of writing another book. However, with the laptop at home, I was able to spend an hour or two reading while the kids slept. Back in February, Marathon Girl and I bought his latest book, The Watchman, on a whim and both really enjoyed it so I was glad to have another one of his books to read. Crias is a good writer and one I recommend if you haven’t tried his books already.

So while the kids were sleeping I read The Last Detective by Robert Crais. The Last Detective is a fun, page turner that centers on private investigator Elvis Cole’s attempt to locate his girlfriend’s son who was kidnapped from Cole’s house. Cole, with the aid of his partner Joe Pike, goes on three days of a no-sleep fueled mission to find the boy and return him safely to his mother. With an intriguing set of characters and a well developed and fast-paced plot, it’s a read and one that actually makes you cringe whenever you think the boy’s going to be hurt. Though I thought the “twist” in the book was a little too obvious, Crias shows his skill as a writer by delivering an emotional but realistic ending and that gave the book a satisfying conclusion.

As far as the detective fiction goes, I like Michael Connelly better – but not by much. Crais’s books (the two I’ve read anyway) are more testosterone charged then Connelly’s novels which makes them faster paced and a little more exciting. Connelly, however, does a better job on character development. But, like Connelly, Crais is an excellent writer and manages to keep his the plot moving forward while telling an engaging and fun-filled story.

I’m looking forward to reading more of his books as soon as I’m done with my novel.

Death Becomes Her

While flipping through the most recent issue of The New Yorker last night, I had a good laugh over the above cartoon because 1) it is the exact opposite of the “Is the widower I’m dating ready to move on?” question I receive a lot of emails about and 2) I have a dark and twisted sense of humor.

Update: It's a coincidence that I posted this right before the Memorial Day weekend.

Boys and Baseball

While in Phoenix my friend Brent and I took his oldest boy and my two boys to a Diamondbacks/Tigers baseball game. Considering the ages of my boys (three and two) I was taking somewhat of a chance on whether or not they’d be able to sit through an entire game. A game typically lasts between two and a half and three hours and most of the actions takes place between the pitcher’s mound and the batter’s box – not exactly the most interesting thing to watch if you’re young, full of energy, and have a typical little boy attention span. Yet all three kids had fun time. And I really have to thank Brent who has done this enough times with his oldest boy that he knew exactly what to do to keep them occupied and entertained when they weren’t watching the game. Between learning how to shell peanuts, drinking root beer, watching the world’s largest HD television in center field, letting them take pictures with my digital camera (gulp!), looking at all the people in the stands, watching a few pitches each inning, and playing with each other they had a good time. Their favorite part of the game, however, was the 10 minute firework show at the end. (At least I know they’ll enjoy any fireworks shows I take them to this summer.)

As young as they are, a few years from now they probably won’t remember the game or the fact that Tigers lost a game they should have won. But seeing the smiles on their faces and how much fun they had, I’ll remember this day for the rest of my life.

I’m looking forward to taking them to more games in the future.

Things I Learned from Our Vacation

Before we left on our trip last week, I wasn’t sure how our first family vacation with three kids was going to turn out. We’ve taken kids on overnight trips before but they’ve usually been a three or four hour drive away and we’ve always stayed with a family. We’ve never taken them on a 1,300 mile round-trip, stayed in hotels, and had them meet people and kids they’ve never seen before. Thankfully, we couldn’t have asked for things to turn out any better.

Instead of making the drive to Phoenix in one day, we made it a two-day journey. We thought that the kids would do better with shorter drives. We were right. After about six hours in the car the kids were ready to run around. So it was nice to have a place to stop and let the kids expend all their energy. It was also nice to learn that the kids found the hotel an exciting, mysterious place with cool things like swimming pools, ice machines, and elevators – three things they couldn’t get enough of.

The second good decision we made was to buy a portable DVD player. Okay, the DVD player wasn’t just for the trip. Marathon Girl and I do like watching movies together on the weekends after the kids are asleep and my laptops a little too big to be comfortable in bed. But we thought that during long stretches of the drive the kids might like watching a movie and keep them out of mischief.

I should admit that until this trip I’ve been opposed to kids watching movies in the car. And there was no real reason for my opposition other than I just figured the kids would either sleep or find something to do themselves or enjoy whatever part of the country we were driving through. Of course that’s easy to say when you’re an adult and the one doing the driving. I remember talking long, family vacations when I was a kid and being bored out of my mind during the long drive. At the very least, this would give them something to do for a few hours.

The DVD player worked just liked we hoped. About two hours into a drive, the kids would become bored and restless so we’d start a movie. This would keep them focused on something for another two hours. After we turned the movie off they’d sleep or play until we reached our destination. And while we won’t use this DVD player on short, every day trips, it’s nice to know that when we have to take a trip longer than two hours, the kids have multiple entertainment options – including the occasional movie.

The third good decision we made was not to pack the days with lots of events but small things that the kids would enjoy. (This was helped by the fact that the friends we visited had kids roughly the same age as ours.) Whether it be trips to a “train” park, a baseball game (more on that later), or swimming at the hotel, or eating at a place the kids would enjoy, we tried to make the trip as kid friendly as possible. We must have done a decent job of it because, much to our surprise, our two oldest kids expressed disappointment when we told them we were finally heading home.

It’s nice to know they enjoyed the trip just as much as the adults.

We're Alive!

We arrived back from our 1,300 mile family vacation safe and sound. Everyone had a good time. Updates coming soon.