If you eat it, it will be gone.

I know, two posts in two days.  Please don't have a heart-attack.  I'll lose half my readership. :) Looking for writing ideas but you don't want to deal with the really dark or dramatic story line?  Need a little humor in your life?  Take a scary object or idea and make it lovable.  Think Twilight.  Think Monsters Inc..  I'm going to use the latter as an example because Stephanie still manages to have drama.

Everyone has dreamed of monsters in their closet or under their bed.  Kids the world over can't sleep without a light of some kind on.  But Disney and Pixar took this common fear and turned it into something funny and mundane.  They don't do it because they want to eat you, it's just their job.  And it turns out they are more scared of you than you are of them because they think if you touch them they might die. 

In Twilight, the dark and deadly Vampire turns into a hunk of smoldering sexiness.  Oh there are scary ones out there, we come to find out.  But the Vampire and then the Werewolf become objects of obsession for girls and women everywhere.  I'm shaking in my boots. 

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*

When in Rome, don't use the toilets

I have homework I'm not motivated to do.  It's almost bedtime so I can't really get into serious writing.  So I'm blogging.  Yes, some may argue with the "serious writing" thing and blogging.  I'm too tired to get into it.

However, I had a good friend tell me he was going to publish his LTUE notes on his writing blog.  Not all at once of course, talk about brain dump overload.  I decided this was a good idea and so I am stealing it, sort of.  I'm going to read through my notes and share the highlights and insights.  Let's face it, no panel is a non-stop treasure trove of brilliance.

My first class of conference was called Complex Narratives and the first point that I want to share is this:  a complex narrative can be created by simply repeating a simple formula with multiple characters.  Just remember that each character does not need to be in the part of the formula at the same time and some characters will linger in one part while others will linger in another.  The formula may not even start for one character until half way through the book.  But applying the formula will give you something to work with and create depth in your characters.  Depth makes readers care.  Caring readers send you hate mail when you kill off a character.  You know you've done it right if you can see the tear stains on the hate mail.

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*

The struggle for dominance

The dark and stormy night began with a terrible fight for attention and domination.  It lasted seconds.  The desire to create and write against the need to do homework.  Homework won of course but the re-match is coming.  It seems more often now as the semester moves towards completion and my thrill at freedom grows.  But until the final grade is posted, the winner is pre-determined....most of the time. 

What can I say...the senioritis won't go away. :)

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*

Life, the Universe and 42.

LTUE has come and gone, and in memorial I finally read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."  I'm afraid to say that for all of the silliness contained therein I found the ending to be quite unsatisfactory.  Alas, such it is with writing and life.  But now I can at least claim the read and not feel so uneducated in the ways of novelists. 

Until I have more time and focus....

This is the Novel Mage saying, *POOF*