I'm baa-ack

Okay, so I'm maybe a day late, but I am back at the site. I am trying to keep my resolutions, though I'm sure the proper word is goals. I've seen several writers use that expression, "goals," and perhaps it does make one more focused. Goals seem to confer on one the need for more determination to succeed.

I haven't written anything in some time, though I still "think" about doing so. I just don't have a "need" to write just yet. My mind is elsewhere. I've done some editing for friends and that is satisfying (it's always easier to edit someone's work than it is to create it--sigh). I did finish the "Jane Eyre" novel and started reading a Robert Parker "Jesse Stone" story, but my son swiped the book off my table the other night. I'll have to choose another out of the stack of now fourteen that I have in my bedroom.

I recently read an essay on the "Savvy Authors" website (December 30 issue) about writers showing versus telling (ie., telling uses linking verbs and adjectives). At one point, author Steve Liskow uses a scene from "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzerald to illustrate the idea. When Fitzgerald describes the Buchanans' house: "the lawn started at the beach and RAN up the hill, JUMPED over sundials and bird baths, and CLIMBED up the side of the house as ivy." The reader is able to imagine the grandeur of the yard. Steve writes that "the active verbs change a static landscape into an event." And I agree. . . . Thus ends the cj mini lesson for today.

The year 2011 did not have a merry ending and the new year 2012 did not have a happy beginning for many in my family -- some in emergency rooms, others being hospitalized, and saddest of all, my dear cousin in Texas did not survive her bouts with cancer. Yes, that was plural. This is one time that words fail me.

You all guys keep on keeping on, and I'll try to do the same.

cj