letusdare

Interviewing 101

This should probably be part of my writing lessons on Mud Pie Press. I just checked to make sure it wasn’t there, and it's not. Don’t know what I was thinking at the time -- probably that interviewing is not writing? -- but after a couple of conversations on the topic, I am rethinking that.

Conversation 1: I mentioned to my spouse that I knew of at least one reporter who hated to conduct interviews. When I asked why, she told me that she actually got fairly queasy to upchuck-sick when she had to talk to someone. My spouse then asked how people learn to conduct an interview. I don’t know how they learn it now (journalism teachers, feel free to answer), but when I was first learning about working for a newspaper, we learned on the job. Don’t they have a class to teach you that? my spouse asked. Nope, I said.

Conversation 2: I checked with fellow classmate Ray to make sure I my fact-and-trivia filled brain had not forgotten some long-ago interviewing class. He assured me my memory was fine, at least in that area. We just went out and covered things, he noted, and added, I think that if you have the inclination to be a journalist, you inherently know what questions to ask.

Maybe his second point is right, but we also learned from watching our colleagues and eavesdropping on others. One reporter I know of who always got the difficult assignments had a habit of waiting until the end of an interview to ask people how to spell their names. It was less intimidating at that point, he said. I guess it's kind of like asking someone how they are before you ask if you can borrow their car.

The reason I am thinking a lesson on interviewing should be part of my writing lessons is the second thing Ray said about interviewing: "I always thought interviewing was the fun part…especially if you had a good subject to interview." See, some people go into journalism for that, and some go into it because they are idealistic, and some people go into it because they like to write. You can go into it for all of those reasons and more, but most people usually list one or two at the top.

So if you like to write but aren't sure about all that interview stuff, watch this space. Rather than posting the lesson about interviewing on the lessons page, I’m going to do it right here. Consider this a quick and snappy, no-credit class. Look for it in the next few days.

• Hey! Saviors of the Bugle, my book about teenagers who save their town’s newspaper, just got another good review. Danielle, the reviewer for Reader Views, really nailed it when she said: “…the heroes of this book are ordinary kids who found something they were passionate about. They are not kids who do extraordinary things every day.”

Thanks, Danielle Feliciano, for getting it. To read the whole review, go here: www.readerviews.com and click on Read Reviews. You can search by book title or by author. That would be me. You can also find it on www.amazon.com on the Saviors of the Bugle page.

Pulitzers!

Sometimes things work just the way they’re ’sposed to – the cake icing covers the whole cake, the car starts up the first time, Word doesn’t shut down in the middle of a difficult editing job and the water from the garden hose doesn’t spray you instead of the peonies.

That was the way of the world Monday when the New Orleans Times-Picayune (online version) and the Sun-Herald in Gulfport, Miss., (online version) won Pulitzers for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina. The victory goes not only to these fine newspapers but also to the journalistic spirit that lives everywhere.

As a newspaper executive in the ’80s and ’90s, I attended marketing seminars where the frequent message to newsroom workers was, “You’re not doing God’s work.” OK. I got it. We shouldn’t believe that every word that hits the pages of our newspapers is worth its weight in a barrel of oil. We shouldn’t be afraid to have a little fun. We shouldn’t be afraid to -- gulp -- market our newspapers.

I think most newspaper people realize most of that without being told. It’s why we have comics pages and why we have page one. This knowledge allows the newspaper journalist to bury the Pulitzer story on the same page with the story about the guy who killed a young girl because of cannibalistic urges. At least that was the juxtaposition in my local newspaper, which rankled me a tad. (Will I stop reading the paper, or even call to complain that the Pulitzer story should’ve been in a better spot? No. I rank my rankles and I know about making up a page on deadline.)

The dual Pulitzers honor the newspaper companies’ commitment to publish, even when their newsrooms and presses were unusable and employees were left homeless and searching for relatives. It honors the reporters and editors and photographers and all the others who went to work because it’s what they do and they believe it important.

All newspaper people can take a bit of vicarious joy in the triumph because any good journalist would’ve done the same thing. Tell a nosy person to get the story and they’ll be paid for it, and they’re off on the trail. More seriously, good reporters and editors understand their responsibility. They do their jobs without being told. Those who misjudged the job get out of the profession quickly.

It’s also a victory for mainstream journalists everywhere who are told daily that they are liberal, biased, too stupid to understand complexities, and/or are marching to the tune of owners who have an agenda. Those who do have an agenda are top-notch at this name-calling.

Congratulations, journalists. Imagine me and many others tipping our hats to you. Keep up the good work. It may not be God’s work, whatever you define that to be. But it’s darn close.

The truth about bullies

Among the columnists in my daily newspaper, I have many favorites. Most are on the editorial page, but one is on the comics page -- the Everyday Cheapskate, aka Mary Hunt. I have to mention her column today because it’s about a topic dear to my heart.

Bullies.

Hunt called her bully a heckler. He sat through two sessions she gave on Debt-Proof Living and through his yelling and mannerisms tried to distract her from her topic. Then he handed her a letter and told her essentially that she was no good and should find another line of work.

You’ll have to read her column to find out how she resolved this matter. The important thing is that she resolved it.

I learned slowly about bullies. Men seem to get their education early on, and it usually involves pain or at least physical intimidation. It’s especially bad for males who are small, or who are successful in the parents/smarts/money or looks departments. I don’t think it always involves the cliche of a big guy holding down a little guy and rifling through his pockets, but I believe it’s pretty blatant.

Girls bully in subtler ways (“Barbara, I’ve always liked that dress. Every time you’ve worn it.”)

At least for me, it takes reflection to realize when I’ve been bullied. I’m getting better at it, though. At a recent panel discussion about books, when the moderator asked me where I got the idea for the bully in Saviors of the Bugle, I surprised myself when I said that everyone faces bullies, whether we realize it or not. I added that this is not just a problem for children, either. Apparently I didn’t surprise very many people in the audience because I saw heads nodding.

Here are a couple of hints for anyone who’s been attacked by a bully and then wondered what YOU did wrong: If a person pulls out in front of you in his large pickup then rolls down his window to yell at you because you almost hit him…he’s a bully. If a person insults, patronizes or manipulates you to get his way…he’s a bully. If a person attacks your religious or political beliefs or other values without provocation…he’s a bully. And although I use the pronoun “he” in these examples, feel free to apply it to both genders. I know women bullies and so do you.

As I told a child recently as we discussed the topic of bullies in school, there’s usually a reason for everything. However, analyzing the reason the bully is the way he is should not be your first concern. Recognizing bullying for what it is, and learning how to deal with it, is paramount.

Go, Mary Hunt -- and all you other bully fighters out there.

So many books, so little time

My downfall at the Plano (Texas) Literacy Festival in March was buying a book. I attend book festivals all the time, and most of the time I can will myself not to succumb. The reason: I have a tall bookshelf full of unread books, and I am woefully behind.

But Frank Schaeffer’s Voices from the Front tempted me, especially after I listened to his keynote address at the festival's authors' banquet, and heard him speak again the next day. Schaeffer, who says fiction is his love but writes a lot of nonfiction wrote Voices to introduce readers to the men and women who are laying down their lives for our country. I’m just now getting into the book, but two things strike me about it -- one, that Frank lets the letters speak for themselves. He inserts a note here or there to explain a phrase that a civilian might not be familiar with, but omits his own opinions and attitudes. And two, I’ve found very little political opinion in the letters themselves. What I find mostly in these compelling snapshots about our military men and women is a desire to tell parents or other loved ones about how it’s going where they are. No partisan politics, no pro-war sentiments. Maybe I will find those later. I’ll write more about the book when I’ve finished it.

A note here about book festivals…if you find one in your area, go. In Texas, the ones I have been to attract some very interesting people. Also, book festivals are generally free. And they provide a way for readers to get autographed books and meet the author face to face. More later about some of the people I met in Plano, whose books I didn’t buy but plan to.

A belated note from March…one of the best reviews ever for Saviors of the Bugle appears at this link. I like the review not only because the writer liked the book, but because she gives reasons.

Saviors, my latest book of middle-grade fiction, was a featured book at the Plano Literacy Festival and I enjoyed participating in a panel discussion about writing with two other authors.  

On the book-selling trail

In December I sold my books at two weekend events. On the chance that others considering such venues want to know how these things go, I give this report:

December is a good time to sell books, and anytime is a good time to meet the public. However, I'd advise vendors to have no expectations and counsel them to adopt the Scout motto: Be Prepared.

One event was Authors on the Square in Fayetteville, Texas, a charming town with a picturesque courthouse square and lots of programs for the holidays, including a visit by Santa in a fire truck.

I sold several books to adults for their children, their children's friends, and their grandchildren. Almost all my sales are to adults. Occasionally I sell to children, but mostly the adults have the money. And to the young grandmother who bought all three books and had me autograph one to each grandchild -- Thanks! I hope they enjoyed the stories. And please remind them to trade the books around.

The next weekend, I reserved a booth at a craft show in my hometown sponsored by the local newspaper and benefiting a literacy program. Since my most recent novel, Saviors of the Bugle, has a newspaper focus and a literacy emphasis, it seemed like a natural fit. During the two-day show I sold more books to gift shoppers and generally found the show to be a beneficial exercise in meeting the public, answering questions about how to get books published and gently correcting those who look at Saviors of the Bugle and see Survivors of the Bulge. I've come to believe they think it's the story of the Battle of the Bulge. It's a good idea to cover this battle in a young adult book, but I can't claim it.

This has happened so often that I've learned to expect it, and it doesn't offend me to have the title misread, as long as the misreaders are not offended when I correct them.

Now for the bumpy moments:

· A woman looked carefully at each of my books and asked me if I wove religion into my stories. ("No," I said.) "Well that's what it all boils down to, doesn't it?" she asked me. (Silence from me as I pondered the meaning of "it".) "I guess it depends on your point of view," she continued. (That bothersome "it" again, and more silence from me. I don't like being silent, but I could not think of anything agreeable to say. Any ideas? All suggestions considered.)

· Another browser looked carefully at each of my books and asked how parents and other adults are treated in them. ("They're books for kids," said I. "Parents are in each book, but they are not the main characters nor do they solve the issues that come up. In books for kids, kids solve their own problems.") "But do the parents help them?" she persisted. ("Not directly," I said.) She drifted away, much to my relief. My husband later suggested I should have shrugged and said, "I guess you will just have to read the book and see." Now why didn't I think of that?

· A woman pushing her mother in a wheelchair asked me no questions but surveyed the books and yelled, "These are religion books, Mom." ("No they're not," I said. "They're books for young readers age 10 and up.") She drifted away without further engagement. For the record, my books are named Breathing Room (it's about asthma), Crookwood (a family with "issues"; the name of the book is actually a fictional place, or so I thought until I learned about a family who named their home that in roughly the same area of Texas…go figure) and Saviors of the Bugle (see above).

The moral of this story? If you get a chance to sell your books directly to the public, do it. But be prepared. For anything.

Calling for a curative

I started the Let Us Dare blog to address writing and editing topics. But today I'm going to stretch the form a bit to include an issue that may not seem related. Please read on. You'll see it's quite related -- just a bit indirect.

As I read in the latest issue of Newsweek about a doctor working on a cure for all manner of diseases with a single kind of drug, my first selfish thought was "Great -- who's going to be able to afford that?"

The question was rhetorical. I know that under our current system, only those with good insurance or lots of money will get the treatment. That means people who get full benefits through their work, the wealthy who can afford to buy anything, and the U.S. senators and representatives whose health insurance I help pay for.

I think of medical advances in a new way these days because I see them from the point of view of a person who purchases private insurance and in return receives little coverage.

When I quit my job more than three years ago to develop my own freelance business, I felt trepidation about the insurance coverage I was leaving behind. It was very good, insuring my freelancing husband and me for very little. And in fact the company required us to take the coverage or prove that we were otherwise insured -- a policy our government should take note of.

We were spoiled. Like so many others working for a company with good benefits, we had only a small idea of just how good the coverage was. I think that's a big part of the problem with the uneven insurance system in this country. Those with the economic power to do something about unequal insurance and medical care either don't know a problem exists or don't care. Our politicians have no stomach for correcting these ills -- yes, it will be a huge fight -- and are glad that so many are lulled into this false sense of well-being or a feeling of "I've got mine." Those who want to fix it probably remember the pillory of Hillary.

My husband and I researched purchasing private insurance before I left my job, but were troubled by what we found initially and decided to continue my workplace insurance via COBRA, or the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, for a few months while we further looked into private insurance.

We did purchase private insurance. We've applied with about half a dozen companies and have switched coverage once in three years. One salesman told me we'd probably switch five or six times over the next few years because we wouldn't be able to afford the ever-increasing premiums. And I feel like Jason seeking The Golden Fleece. If only I had my own Argonauts and Medea-like cheerleader.

What I have found is a wealth of companies eager to insure us. We'd like a high-deductible plan with a co-pay? No problem. We’d like a prescription drug plan? No problem. Yes, our doctors are in their plan -- no problem. Then the underwriting begins. Remember all the "no problems?" Suddenly, there are plentiful problems.

For example, my lifelong asthma is a big problem. One insurance company didn't want to cover me at all until I wrote a letter assuring them my asthma was completely managed. Another refused to cover asthma or anything related to asthma for at least two years. The insurance salesperson told me to write a letter after a year, asking that the prohibition of coverage be removed. "And they'll remove it just like that?" I asked. "Why?"

"They're good people," she said.

Hmm. I wrote the letter a year later and received one back asking for a letter from my physician about my medical status. I haven't asked my doctor to write that letter yet. I suspect the insurance company wants a letter saying I no longer have asthma. Why do I think that? Because another salesperson told me his company would put a non-coverage rider on the policy for a year, then all I had to do was send a letter saying my asthma was cured…or something like that.

Compounding the problem is that my doctors seem to have no idea what their patients face. When I asked one doctor recently about a cheaper medicine for asthma, he said he could prescribe that, but I had to keep using the other medicine too. "And then you will have two co-pays," he said.

"You think I have co-pays?" I wanted to ask. But I didn't. I've told him before about the insurance situation, but I can't expect him to remember. It's not his responsibility. On the other hand, I do wish doctors would become more informed overall about the lack of quality insurance coverage for their patients and tell insurance company underwriters that they have no right to practice medicine unless they are physicians. It would also be nice if a doctor who knows about asthma would educate others that managed asthma doesn't mean "cured" asthma, and that not treating asthma creates more expensive health problems than preventing it with medicine.

Policies must change in our country to create a more equitable system for those of us who purchase private insurance and for people who cannot afford to buy insurance. Don't get me wrong -- I am not asking for free medical coverage. I am asking that someone with the authority to do so require that insurance companies offer actual coverage for the premiums they charge. (Note to insurers -- sending me blizzards of paperwork with coded reasons why you cannot/ do not cover a doctor visit or flu shot does not equal coverage.)

I am asking that insurance companies be prevented from increasing premiums by 42 percent or more per year, which our insurance did this year. I am asking that those of us who try to be responsible and pay our medical bills not be charged with the bills of everyone the government refuses to be responsible for. We can't afford it, and our country cannot afford not to offer universal coverage.

I am going for that Golden Fleece. I hope to someday write that I am no longer carrying Hera on my back and that I am no longer being fleeced by an insurance company.

Any Argonauts out there who want to join the quest?

Balm to a wandering storyteller

Author Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and many other books) said something the other day that I chose to believe was specifically for me.

"When you talk -- when you're a full-time writer -- you don't have to keep to the point."

Love that. I like telling stories, but I can't keep to the point. It's a trait I inherited from my father, whose stories bled into each other until you needed a map to get back to Go. They were Stories Without Endings.

I'm not alone. I know every storyteller in that room felt just like I did, and we all knew he was talking specifically to us. I wanted to throw him a parade.

McCall Smith didn't keep to one point and nobody cared.

Other points he made:

· Stories tell us how to live our lives. They help us establish a human connection and make sense of the world. His topic centered on folk tales, but he was talking about all stories.

· Resolving problems, issues, evil in literature -- fulfilling our need for justice -- is important. More precisely, he said that it's important for evil people to get their just desserts.

· Once a writer develops a character that people take interest in, he doesn't own that character any more. Those who read his books now own Precious Ramotswe, the famous character from his Ladies' Detective Agency series. "I can't have her say things out of character. Or bring her to an end. That would cause difficulties for me. I wouldn't be able to appear in public."

· The conversations of women offer more promise to him as a writer than do the conversations of men. "Men are much more inhibited," said the sibling of three sisters and no brothers. For example, he said, women are much more likely to use the word "bitch."

· He is a cofounder of "The Really Terrible Orchestra," for which he plays the bassoon. But not the whole bassoon. He plays only the easy part of it and if I knew more about a bassoon, I could probably tell you where he stops. (I believe this makes me qualified to play in his orchestra, but first I have to find an instrument.) For now suffice it to say that he stops playing when it becomes difficult. He and his orchestra members play only when the music is accessible.

He encouraged all of us to form or join a really terrible orchestra if possible, because he was sure our city had its fair quota of really terrible musicians. "Get a professional conductor," he advised, "but you don't need to pay them. Find someone who will do that as his community service."

For those who want more trivia about Alexander McCall Smith, plug his name into Google and have fun. If you want to know more about his writing, you can do same. These are the books in his No. 1. Ladies' Detective Agency series. He's been writing books for years, but this series made him famous:

1. The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998)

2. Tears Of The Giraffe (2000)

3. Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001)

4. The Kalahari Typing School for Men (2002)

5. The Full Cupboard of Life (2003)

6. In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (2004)

7. Blue Shoes and Happiness (2006)

Boo!

Startlements are great in writing as well as life. And when I saw a couple of Halloween startlements this morning, it reminded me how good it felt to come out of myself and not take life so seriously.

If you go out on the streets of your village today, I'm betting you'll probably get lots of surprises, some that may even make you question your perceptions and attitudes.

To wit: Standing in line at the post office this morning was a young woman who looked from the back like she was outfitted in normal casual wear. When she turned around, I noticed a lip stud, a nose ring, a lethal-looking spike-and-leather bracelet, fishnet sleeves, a chain belt, and heavy makeup. My first thought was "Whoa! She's a brave young soul who must own her own business!" My second thought was "Congratulations, Sweetie, for wearing what you want!"

My third and embarrassingly slow thought: "Today is Halloween!"

She was in costume, and a very good one, apparently. Several people at the post office knew her but few recognized her until she said hello and told them her name. Then they felt comfortable enough to converse with her, even though they were dressed quite normally and she sported a lip stud. (Apparently glued on because it was moving around. Weird.)

So OK. I then realized the person behind me wearing operating room scrubs complete with one of those hair bubbles (sort of a squashed-down chef's hat) was really in costume and not some doctor or nurse who came out in public dressed like that just to impress us with medical credentials.

On my way to a client's office, I decided to drive by and see Darwin, the huge gorilla who graces the front lawn of a really nice home, to see what kind of costume he wore. Darwin's plastic body on the front lawn in a very nice neighborhood is a long story and a frequent surprise and delight.

More's the pity, I didn't have my digital camera. I'm sure some of you would've recognized the green body stocking and head covering, which sported a triangle in the middle of Darwin's forehead. Anybody know who he was supposed to be? I suspect it has something to do with Texas upcoming amendments election, because Darwin is frequently a political statement.

Forgive me my Halloween slowness. I haven't dressed up on this day for years, even when co-workers went wild with creative expression. It's taken me long enough to get comfortable in my own skin, so I don't want to go backwards by pretending to be someone else.

But here's the real fun of Halloween, for me and those like me. We get to be surprised. We get to tell ourselves, even as we are rushing around to complete the details of a day, to not look at every blasted thing as if it were a life-or-death situation.

Planting surprises is a good lesson in writing, especially in fiction. You can do this with a fun turn of phrase, an unexpected event, an off-the-wall character, a character's clothes, writing someone "out of place," where no one expects to find him. Writers can write surprise in a number of ways.

I think I'll go find a glue-on lip stud before I visit my next client. Can you talk OK with those things?

Voguish?

This week I learned that unclear writing irritates me a lot more than spam. More about how I learned that important fact in just a moment. First, I wish to give clarity to something I perceive as crystal clear: Unclear writing is most often a sign of muddled thinking. Clear writing doesn't necessarily have to be great writing, although it often is. It just must be, well, CLEAR.

This is one reason I'm not looking forward to voting in the upcoming amendments election in Texas. Our proposed amendments must be read backwards to make any sense. If you agree with something, you often must vote against it. If you disagree, you probably should vote for it. But that's politics and this is writing, and the twain rarely meet.

Last week I received spam like I do every week. For some reason, two of those Nigerian spam letters crept into my inbox instead of my spam box, along with the stray advertisements for viagra, web cams, great mortgage rates, *fun* dates and other detritus. For some reason, I happened to catch a glimpse of the contents of one of the Nigerian letters. You know the one. It asks for all manner of personal information so they can rob you blind.

Here's what the letter said in part: "I wish to inform you now that the square peg is now in square hole, and can be voguish for that your payment is being processed and will be released to you as soon as you respond to this letter."

Voguish? For that your payment is being processed?

Since those lines caught my eye, I had to read the whole thing. It was that bad all the way through. Is all spam this poorly written?

I don't respond to spam, but if I were going to, here's what I would say…

Dear Nigerian Minister of Robbing Idiots Blind:

I don't respond to spam, but if I did, I would react much better to well written spam than stupidly written spam. I am sorry to say that yours is of the latter variety and makes you look like a blooming idiot yourself.

Stupidly written items make people work too hard to get their meaning. They send people down rabbit holes where you didn't intend them to go. They don't carry a universal idea, something that rings the same bell for someone in Tennessee and Timbuktu.

I daresay, Mr. Nigerian Minister of Robbing Idiots Blind, that people would react better if you would say what you mean. You could simply write that you want all manner of personal information so that you can rob idiots blind. Once you make your wishes clear and state your point honestly, the idiots might even follow your directions and give you what you want.

Sincerely,

A Picky Reader

P.S. "Voguish" means chic and doesn't really go with the context of your sentence. It does sort of rhyme with bogus, however, in keeping with your theme.

Here's the dirt

I just sat down to write about the importance of character development, especially in fiction, and stared at the screen blankly for 15 minutes. "What can I say about it?" I thought. "That it's a good thing to do and here's how?"

The point is, a good writer knows that character development is important, and also that developing character is more than saying that her hair was a mass of blond ringlets or that he had a square jaw.

Point 2 is that I can't write well about character development in a short space. Maybe someone else can. Or maybe I can, too, if I have something specific in mind.

But just now I wanted to tell a story that I heard.

And that brings me to point 3, which is that writing should be fun, and that, to me, means telling a story. My story is about a friend's recent brush with dirt. She calls it a brush with the law, but it's really about dirt, and how her motivation to get some dirt caused her to have a brush with the law.

My friend is a walker in the neighborhood. As it happens, some other neighbors one street over had a big pile of dirt sitting in their front yard. My friend walked by it one day. Being in the market for dirt herself, she asked them where they got it.

They told her they had more than they needed and she could help herself to the pile of dirt. So, one morning recently, after checking once more to make sure they still were ready to be a few pounds of dirt lighter, my friend went to their house with a pickup and picked up a good deal of dirt. Then she drove home.

The trip from the dirt-owner's home to her home probably took less than a minute.

Shortly after she arrived home with her newfound load of black dirt, she answered a call at her front door. The caller was a police officer. "Ma'am," he said, "is that your pickup?"

"Yep," she said.

"Ma'am," he said, "is that your dirt?" (I wasn't really there, nor did I take notes when she related the story to me. So I am taking literary license with the quotes. This, however, is a reasonable facsimile of how the conversation went as told to me.)

"Yep," she said.

"Mind telling me where you got it?" asked the officer. And so she did.

As it turns out, a neighbor of the dirt owners saw my friend helping herself to the extra dirt. That neighbor called the police. The police sent over an officer to check out the report of dirt theft. Somehow, the police quickly found my friend's house, with the telltale pickup load of dirt parked in full view.

Good police work, I say.

As they sorted the matter out, someone decided to call the workplace of the dirt owners. Yes, said they, a woman had asked for some of the dirt. And yes, she had their permission to take some.

And so the case was settled outside the courtroom. A happy circumstance.

And this brings me to the neighborhood. For years, I have contemplated writing a picture book titled Claude takes a walk. Claude was my former walking buddy, and we saw some surreal things on our walks here over the years. For example, there's the story of the nude lawn mower. Claude saw him, and I saw him, but by the time anyone else happened by his yard, he'd apparently gotten wind of the fact that at least two sets of eyes saw his naked behind. And he hid. Or got dressed. I didn't stick around to find out.

It didn't help my credibility that Claude was a Great Pyrenees. He was a good listener and saw everything, but it wasn't like he could vouch for my story of the nude lawn mower.

Now I have a more dirt for my potential neighborhood book.

Aren’t neighborhoods great? You can find, and develop, all sorts of characters there. And that's what I have to say about character development.

May you find at least one tidbit here that helps you in your own writing projects. Feel free to e-mail me with your own thoughts or questions. You can do so from my Web site at http://www.mudpiepress.com, or leave your comments here.