Madeline Turnipseed - Author

Happy Friday friends!  My current wordcount is 30,928.  Yep, behind. Today I'm posting the last of my extended metaphor series, and ending with my job as a metaphor for my hobby.  Does that sound a little weird to you?  Me too.  Yes, I know there's another week in November, but I'll be with my family next week, so I'm choosing them over you.  No post next week.  I think you'll live. iPharMD.net You never know what you'll have until you get there. EMT Life It's not always stupid calls,  Sometimes we get called out for things that sound stupid and we realize that it's hit the fan when we get there.  Or that we were called out for chest pain and it's really an anxiety attack or back pain or muscle spasm because of dehydration.  The point being, we have to be ready for the most serious and most un-serious at all times. Writers Write I've kind of already alluded to this this month, but it bears bending for the sake of repea...

Hey!  It's Friday.  There's supposed to be a blog post.  My current word count is 19,926.  Behind, I know. For more on the extended metaphor, today, writing is like cooking. Lifehack Quotes That's a pretty good start.  We'll go with that. It's not the ingredients, it's the skill in combination. CraftFail The Expectations vs. Reality memes have pretty well borne out this argument.  The explosion of domestic blogs and Pinterest have both set the incredibly high bar for the at-home cook.  Let's face it, we all want to be clever, and sometimes, we have to settle for storebought because of how un-clever we turned out to be. Orbit Books I kind of already made this argument in a previous post, so click through to that here . Sometimes substitutions are OK.  Sometimes they aren't. juil So, that is a chart for substituting a greek yogurt for fattier dairy products in cooking.  You see the tiny tip down at the bottom that say...

For me, anyway.  Current word count:10,011, so as long as I can get some writing done today I'll be on track! ermilia Disclaimer:  the views expressed on the sites where I get my photos for this post are not necessarily (and sometimes, definitely not) views I agree with or represent.  Be advised, the internet is awash with bro science on the gym in general and weight lifting specifically. As I discussed last week , I am a fan of extended metaphors.  This week I'm comparing writing with another one of my interests:  Weight Lifting.  Reading this post will not give you traps like Tom Hardy, but it won't make your sore either. muscle.iuhu.org I started lifting in April of 2011.  I'm 5'6" and was about 115 lb at the time.  I was hired on with an EMS service and knew that I had to be able to move patients safely.  Our service requires that we be able to lift 100 lb by ourselves, but that's being optimistic about the weight of our patie...

Happy Halloween!  To get you (and me) in the "spirit" I'll tell you a little about the inspiration for this year's costume before highlighting what you can expect throughout the month of November.  Also NaNo memes because the internet. traceywritesbooks.com This Halloween I have decided to dress up as Brighid, celtic goddess/Catholic saint.   Yes, really. purplefaerey There are a few awesome stories about her , but my favorite one is when she pulled out her own eye to avoid being told she was beautiful so that people would stop giving her grief about not getting married. Lindowyn She is associated with fire, the hearth, the forge, medicine, animal husbandry, poetry, motherhood, arts and crafts, sacred wells, spring, high places, lilies, the color white... basically if you can think of it I'm sure there's a way she relates to it.  I think she is a great muse to channel as I start on Spitfire tonight at 12:01 am, so I'll be dressed as her fo...

Happy Friday friends!  This post is about plot:  what we traditionally think of as plot, and what other options exist in the world. For starters, let's define the difference between plot and narrative structure.  Plot is (loosely) the events that happen in the story.  Narrative structure is the order readers experience the story events.  Ingrid Sundberg does a good job of differentiating the two here .  (May as well open that up in a new tab and leave it open, I'm going to be referencing her blog a lot today.   She's pretty much already done what I wanted to do with this post. ) If your public education was like mine, you were probably introduced to a figure similar to this somewhere in your English classes: Fritz Freiheit This is the standard plot that we can fit most stories into.  This describes a plot centered around conflict that follows a traditional three-act structure.  It's very popular.   In the Middle reviews a book ...

Happy Friday!  You still have until midnight 10/17/14 to enter the giveaway here .  The blog cleared 5k views this week!  Yay! I've been prepping more for Spitfire , though not as much as I'd like.  Check out this awesome cover I made to motivate myself! Yes, my name is off center. I used the wonderful resource of morgueFile , which lets you utilize photos for free on the condition that you edit them and give credit to the source (thanks superchappie for taking and uploading the original!).  I've been focusing more on my characters.  There are tons of character questionnaires out there, most are either too superficial or too long for my taste.  One that's pretty down-the-middle is this  one from the nice folks at NaNoWriMo .  I like to fill out questionnaires like I'm interviewing my characters before the story starts.  I try and get a feel for their personalities and temperaments by listening to them answering my questions....

(It is night.  You are standing in front of a house.  The porch light is on.  You approach the door and ring the bell. The door opens.  Madeline is standing on the other side of the doorway.  She is holding a tray of funny hats.  You can see other people inside the house milling about, each wearing some type of hat.) MADELINE:  Hello!  I'm so glad you could come!  Here, pick a hat and I'll let you in. (She holds the tray out in front of you.  There are six hats to choose from.) JillieKatCreations CarynWellsDesigns KatarinaHats LojangoDesign Kutiebowtuties DragonsWood (You select one and enter the house. In the front room you see several people, some talking in pairs or small groups, others holding down the floor alone with their tiny plates of party food in hand.) MADELINE:  It's quite a good turnout.  It's mostly writing buddies, but there's some of my family over there (she waves) and some...