Writer’s Mail
January 20, 2011
by Randy Haselow
Fifth Tuesday Update
Have you had that conversation with your character, yet? Have you distilled it down into a dynamite 500-word piece?
No? Come on, get with it. It’s the writing challenge for our next Fifth Tuesday, March 29.
Select one of your fictional characters – major or minor – and take her or him on an adventure, and the two of you talk.
(thank you, Jerry)
Invasion of the Tablets
A post from blogger Nathan Bransford, written 10 days ago:
I’m in Las Vegas this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show, aka CES, and if there’s one hot device out there this year it’s the tablet. Tablet tablet tablet.
People have been joking that it’s raining tablets in the desert. Seemingly every company even tangentially related to creating consumer electronics is debuting their own tablet, and that’s on top of the iPad, which some people think could sell as many as 65 million units worldwide this year.
What does this tablet explosion mean for books? Well, more and more and more people out there in the coming year are going to own devices that they can read e-books on. All of that competition will inevitably drive down prices. And even if someone buys a tablet for gaming or to watch movies, they still will own an e-reader and will easily be able to download and read books should one strike their fancy.
It’s funny to look back on my original Kindle post way back in November 2007, when the e-book future was still very murky.
Read the entire post at http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/01/tablets-are-coming-tablets-are-coming.html
(thank you, Jerry)
Notes 1-18-11
Randy reads from Chapter 17 of Hona. Jen wondered if book titles should be underlined. Kim and Pat think in fiction they’re just italicized. Pat enjoyed it a lot, especially the language though she found a few idioms here and there. Kim worried about the eating of the fruit – wouldn’t it move? Jen wasn’t sure if he caught it in his hand and took a bite or not. It’s magic that holds the fruit in place, he doesn’t grab it. Greg wondered if one character has been so over-the-top rude in previous chapters. Jerry didn’t think the color of a rug was important, unless there’s something unique about it. How does the character react to it? Kim wondered if Hona would like the smell of the sea right away after having lived inland all her life. John thought the chapter was an easy read and enjoyed it, but he wondered if he could ratchet up the tension. Greg wanted to know why everyone is so worried about the Emperor because we haven’t been told why he’s so terrible. Clayton was also looking for an increase in urgency or a reason to worry.
Greg reads from Chapter 3 from Beyond Cloud Nine. Kim and Millie wanted to know when her broken ribs stopped being an issue for her. Kim wanted more setting description and color. Can the character smell anything through her helmet? Greg admits smell is a tricky sense to describe in this case. Pat thought it was fast-paced and could see it playing out in a theater very quickly. She disagreed with describing a ship as a ‘bar of soap’ though. Leah had a problem with the rifle going ‘ping.’ Clayton suggests if the place is depressurized then there goes the ability to make sound. Jerry wanted a particular thought to come from the main character. John thought it obvious one character was dead, there was no reason to explain it. Pat wonders about the quotes at the beginning of the chapter and the main characters rank in the story.
Cathy shares chapter 18 of Beer Crimes. Millie thought the research into brewing beer was well written. Kim thought the part with the farmer was interesting but it could be worked in somewhere else with some action. Pat found Misty annoyed her and misses Nine and thinks she should be with the hot cop instead of the extroverted Bucky (not the mascot). Things picked up for Pat when Nine got to the police station. Amber had a question about internet access at the cabin in the woods.
John read from chapter 3 of Final Stronghold. John wonders about having a summary at the beginning of everything that’s happened before. Pat cites the beginning of the Star Wars film as an example of using summary. A reminder of the goals of the story would be good to know. Pat asks for clarification – yes, there is more than one Great One. Some clarity is needed since we’ve jumped from book one to book three. Clayton wonders if the main character takes miracles for granted or if they’re still miraculous to him. John explains that the character’s eyes have been opened and he understands now.
Jerry shares chapter six of Thou Shalt Not Murder. Clayton wonders why the daughter isn’t mad that her father planned an emergency landing. Kim thought she would be a little more shook up and then pissed. Cathy wonders if the main character has a military background. She hasn’t but her father’s been in three wars. Pat likes the interplay with a new character and the new info that comes up. Greg thinks that information could have come up at anytime and the story has kind of lost him. Pat disagrees. She enjoys the slower pace of the story.
(thank you, Amber)
Who’s up next?
January 25: Andrea Kirchman (???), Kim Simmons (chapter, City in Winter), Randy Haselow (chapter, Hona and the Dragon), Leah Wilbur (chapter, Fog-Gotten), Anne Allen (chapter, Homecoming), and Aaron Boehm (screenplay/part 5, Hell Cage).
February 1: Justin Schober (chapter, sci-fi novel), Linda Meyer (chapter, Everything’s Going South), Jen Wilcher (chapter, The Hogoshiro Chronicles), Leah Wilbur (chapter, Fog-Gotten), Clayton Gill (chapter, Fishing Derby), Pat Edwards (poems), and Amber Boudreau (chapter 18, young adult novel)
February 8: Ann Potter (memoir), Jack Freiburger (chapter, Path to Bray’s Head), Holly Bonnicksen-Jones (chapter, Coming Up for Air), and Jen Wilcher (???).
February 15: Greg Spry (chapter 4, Beyond Cloud Nine), Chris Maxwell (???), Millie Mader (chapter 24, Life on Hold), Linda Meyer (chapter, Everything’s Going South), Aaron Boehm (screenplay/part 6, Hell Cage), and Kim Simmons (chapter 57, City of Summer).
February 22: Terry Hoffman (chapter, The Tome), Carol Hornung (scene, Sapphire Lodge), Randy Haselow (???), and Kim Simmons (chapters, City of Winter).
March 8: Jack Freiburger (chapter, Path to Bray’s Head).
(thank you, Jerry)
From Wordspy . . .
garden-to-fork
adj. Describing or relating to food grown in a person’s own garden. Also: garden to fork.
Example Citations:
Headteacher Mo Brown said: “What an amazing achievement by our green, mean eco-team. This rich garden-to-fork experience is the very essence of Curriculum for Excellence.”
—”Grass-roots education at its best,” Selkirk Advertiser, June 25, 2010
In his love letter to Root Down, Cheshes admits falling for the joint’s cocktails, design and garden-to-fork food.
—Lori Midson, “Four Denver restaurants get major shout-outs from the New York Times,” Denver Westward, August 27, 2010
Earliest Citation:
Last week I ate the first head of lettuce it was amazing, all that garden to fork crap is true.
—”Lettuce Give Thanks,” The Big Fat Food Manifesto, August 8, 2009
Notes:
Here’s an even earlier citation that uses a variation on the phrase:
Heronswood Café manager David Weill counts gardeners as part of his kitchen team. “It’s a garden-fork-to-kitchen-fork approach,” he says. Heronswood, after all, is primarily a garden. It’s famous, in fact, for its heritage vegetables.
—Donna Coutts, “Garden to plate,” Herald Sun, April 15, 2008
Also, here’s a early cite that uses garden to fork non-adjectivally:
California first lady Maria Shriver has her shovel at the ready. She plans an 800-square-foot garden in downtown Sacramento that she’ll use to teach where food comes from, its nutritional value and how it moves from garden to fork.
—”First garden a role model,” Sacramento Bee, March 27, 2009
Related Words:
cookprint
farm to fork
food miles
foodshed
heirloom seed
locapour
locavore
Posted on January 19, 2011
Permalink: http://www.wordspy.com/words/garden-to-fork.asp (thank you, Jerry)
News from our TWS alums
Jeff Herwig is now office manager for the MATC/Truax student newspaper. He’s also that campus’s orientation coordinator. Says Jeff, “I basically make sure that students feel comfortable with Orientation and have a good introduction to the college.”
(thank you, Jerry)
Overheard on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac on Jan. 19th
It’s the birthday of novelist Julian Barnes, (books by this author) born in Leicester, England (1946). He’s been nominated for the Booker Prize three times, for his novels Flaubert’s Parrot (1984), England, England (1998), and Arthur & George (2005). He’s also the author of a memoir, Nothing to Be Frightened Of, which was published in 2008.
He said about literature: “It’s the best way of telling the truth; it’s a process of producing grand, beautiful, well-ordered lies that tell more truth than any assemblage of facts. Beyond that … [it’s] delight in, and play with, language; also, a curiously intimate way of communicating with people whom you will never meet.”
And he said that a great book “is a book that describes the world in a way that has not been done before; and that is recognized by those who read it as telling new truths — about society or the way in which emotional lives are led, or both.”
His latest book, a collection of short stories entitled Pulse, is due out this year.
On this day in 1897, Mark Twain (books by this author) wrote a lyrical, heavy-hearted letter from London to the Rev. Joseph Twichell in Hartford, Connecticut. He was his closest friend.
Twain’s 24-year-old daughter, Susy, had died from meningitis the previous summer. He would forever consider it the most devastating loss of his life. He’d been traveling overseas and missed her last days. The following winter, on this day in 1897, he wrote about the ways in which his daughter’s death affected him, and about the gratitude he felt for his pastor friend’s uniquely perfect sense of sympathy. His letter is a lament of great grief […]
“I did know that Susy was part of us; I did not know that she could go away; I did not know that she could go away, and take our lives with her, yet leave our dull bodies behind. And I did not know what she was. To me she was but treasure in the bank; the amount known, the need to look at it daily, handle it, weigh it, count it, realize it, not necessary; and now that I would do it, it is too late; they tell me it is not there, has vanished away in a night, the bank is broken, my fortune is gone, I am a pauper. How am I to comprehend this? How am I to have it? Why am I robbed, and who is benefited?”
And Mark Twain wrote to him in that same letter:
“I am working, but it is for the sake of the work — the ‘surcease of sorrow’ that is found there. I work all the days, and trouble vanishes away when I use that magic. … I have many unwritten books to fly to for my preservation.”
The Writer’s Almanac is heard weekdays at 1 p.m. in Madison on 88.7 FM.
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