The Writing Group Rules

 The blogger's topic for October is this:
 What unique situations have occurred in the writingprocess of any of your novels? Perhaps, but not limited to,things like where what you planned changed, or the direction you thought
the story was on deviated or transmuted?

I have a couple of tales of when my writing group objected to something I wrote and I changed my story because they said, "You can't do that! 

The first instance of this was in World of MIrrors (set in then East Germany) where a couple wanted to snoop around someone's house.  The owner wasn't home, but his watch dog (a dog who formerly patrolled the Death Zone around East Germany) was.  The dog pinned the couple down  in the driveway.  Didn't bite; didn't bark, but growled and threatened. The couple's so-called friend, arrived,  saw their dilemma, and  hauled off and shot the dog.
In the first iteration of the story, the dog died, and the friend told them to dump the dog in the harbor.
My writing group said: "You can't do that!  You can't kill a dog!"
"But he's a mean dog".
Didn't matter.  So, I changed the story.  The dog was still shot and  wrapped up in a tarp weighted down the rocks.  In the new version of the story, the dog whined when the tarp was opened, and the couple realized he was only wounded.  They had qualms. This presented a problem, because trying to explain to anyone about the dog would give them away.  It was the middle of the night and they were parked  on a sort of bridge by the harbor.  A car stopped and asked if they needed help.  They asked for the name of a vet.  The driver passed on that information and they took the dog to the vet and rang the bell, leaving a wad of West Marks and the dog.  Ran like hell.  This led to some interesting further complications in the story.

2nd Verse.  Another novel, this one Chased By Death, just published this month.  Another dire   situation.  In the desert, the heroine, trying to protect two kids, faces a man with a knife. He is a very bad man who has killed many people and he has held her hostage for an entire day. He doesn't know she has a gun. In the first version, he threatens her  and she shoots into the air because a helicopter is (maybe) about to land. The bad guy turns and  runs  toward the woman.  
My writing group said, "No, she has to shoot him.  He' could take them all hostage." So she shoots him. Stone cold dead. Helicoptet lands.  Yada Yada.  More satisfying because heroine has saved herself and the kids. Always better if the main character saves herself.  In this day and age.

Suspense and a woman in jeopardy.

My writing group would not let me kill a fierce dog, but had no qualms about my killing the evil man with the knife.  Crazy happenings on the writing front.  Both times, they were right.

The authors below no doubt have interesting tales.  Read on.
 
 A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Dr. Bob Rich  https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1JS
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

Cool Photos Taken at Burning Man

Earth and Clouds and Sky

Black Rock Desert with Pink Clouds 

 

 

 

How could you not want to be at Burning Man to see nature in her finest displays?

The Man Burns Saturday Night in the Shadow of the Black Rock

From my 2004 Burning Man experience:

The boat carried us out of Black Rock City and moved across the playa always avoiding the people, bicycles, and mutant vehicles that converged on the fixed point of the statue.  In a perfect state of inebriation, I had ridden a horse with no name to a strange but friendly planet of flat alkali desert surrounded by dark mountains. The desert dwellers came to this place and formed an immense circle around the god of fire, who had assumed the mythic shape of a blue neon man, glowing over the desert. Dancers twirling hypnotic flames spun around the statue while ships and dragons and animals belched propane-fueled fire.  Weird and wonderful shapes descended from the sky, lit by a yellow moon that crept above the mountains.  The fire dancers swirled like dervishes, and drums throbbed in the eerie light where glow sticks burned like neon candles.  I was eerily conscious of each detail of this carnival night with its colors, sounds, tastes, smells and the absolute anticipation.   The dancers spun in their circles of fire, and the drums pounded to a crescendo. Alone, the neon man loomed over the desert, canopied by thousands of twinkling stars. 

The ritual began with a massive barrage of shooting rockets and fireworks illuminating the man, then a blaze of fire and a magic conflagration roared to life in a frenzy of heat and flames. The inferno raced up one of the man’s legs and consumed him bit by bit even as his triumphant arms remained raised, as in defiance.  Everyone was yelling and shouting and the air pulsed with music.  In an eruption of galactic grandeur, the Man was burning bright.  The Man was burning.   

God, I wish I could be there again.  

Burning Man

Ah, the Man burned last night, and I wasn't there. Every year that I don't go, I'm seized with such a visceral longing to be in the heat and the dust and the art and the anarchic chaos that defines Burning Man. If you've never been there, here is the description of "the burn" from my manuscript, Festival Madness.

The boat carried us out of Black Rock City and moved across the playa always avoiding the people, bicycles, and mutant vehicles that converged on the fixed point of the statue. In a perfect state of inebriation, I had ridden a horse with no name to a strange but friendly planet of flat alkali desert surrounded by dark mountains. The desert dwellers came to this place and formed an immense circle around the god of fire, who had assumed the mythic shape of a blue neon man, glowing over the desert.

Dancers twirling hypnotic flames spun around the statue while ships and dragons and animals belched propane-fueled fire. Weird and wonderful shapes descended from the sky, lit by a yellow moon that crept above the mountains. The fire dancers swirled like dervishes, and drums throbbed in the eerie light where glow sticks burned like neon candles. I was eerily conscious of each detail of this carnival night with its colors, sounds, tastes, smells and the absolute anticipation. The dancers spun in their circles of fire, and the drums pounded to a crescendo. Alone, the neon man loomed over the desert, canopied by thousands of twinkling stars.

The ritual began with a massive barrage of shooting rockets and fireworks illuminating the man, then a blaze of fire and a magic conflagration roared to life in a frenzy of heat and flames. The inferno raced up one of the man’s legs and consumed him bit by bit even as his triumphant arms remained raised, as in defiance. Everyone was yelling and shouting and the air pulsed with music. In an eruption of galactic grandeur, the Man was burning bright. The Man was burning. ©

Nevada Nocturne

I've been working on a poem for the past two evenings. I change it whenever I pull it up on my computer.


Nevada Nocturne ©

In Gerlach , Nevada,
In the deep September night,
A slide whistle player tooted along the street
A cheerful sound, whistling in the dark.

Somewhat later, the long freight,
Having crossed the Black Rock Desert,
Raced through, passing the old water tower.
And shaking the single-wide where I slept.

I have always known
Trains racing through the night
Trains running west
Trains vibrating sound, like a tornado.

And I slept again.

Still later, but before dawn
In the hills beyond Gerlach,
The coyotes howled
A lonesome plaintive sound,

And I slept again
Into the September morn,
In Gerlach, Nevada
Soundlessly.

Northern Nevada Landscapes - Three Images

A lonesome road to nowhere, coming into Gerlach and the vast empty playa after the burn. It looks ghost-haunted, doesn't it, with Burning Man a dream-memory? That big sky is foreign to us in New England. Its beauty catches my heart. That's what comes of being born in Montana--these immense, Western landscapes become imprinted on your brain.

Grapeshot

A New Calf and Au Revoir for A while

The young black cow with the crooked horns has produced her first calf, a little black cutie. The cow has been acting kind of standoffish and odd for weeks, and now we know why. The sweet-faced young bull has been busy, and now we have three calves in the fields around the corner. They are Highland Scottish cattle, large, lethargic (usually) and self-sufficient. We feed them our fruit and vegetable scraps and the odd old muffin, and they eat with relish.

This morning the older calves were gamboling, as in kicking up their heels and racing around the pasture, enjoying the fun of being calves together. Their antics gladden the heart.

So I am off to Reno and points north, i.e. Gerlach and the Black Rock Desert for a week of total chilling. Clue. There won't even be a hair dryer. My host says to bring plenty of conditioner. Since I'm checking luggage, no problem.

If I have access to a computer, I'll post a couple of times, letting you know how the denizens of the desert are coping after the man burned. Post-burn decompression.

Have Ipod and ancient hiking boots, will travel. S.O. will sit the cats, the birds and the house.

Grapeshot