End of the Year Round-Up and Review from the NY Times

The 10 Best Books of 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/books/review/tenbest.html

Holiday Books
100 Notable Books of the Year
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/books/review/notable-books2005.html

Interesting Quote-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay is my favorite poet. Her writing is descriptive, poignant, very often cheeky, and always on point, at least in my opinion. She tamed the chaos that we call language, emotions and experience by using them to create art.


A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Type: Author Quotes
Category: American Author Quotes
Date of Birth: February 21, 1892
Date of Death: October 19, 1950
Nationality: American
Biography: Edna St. Vincent Millay Biography
Find on Amazon:Edna St. Vincent Millay
Related Authors: Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Dean Koontz, David Eddings, Lynn Abbey, James A. Baldwin, Henry Miller

Word for the Week: discipline

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Dis`ci`pline
n.
1.
The treatment suited to a disciple or learner; education; development of the faculties by instruction and exercise; training, whether physical, mental, or moral.

Wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity. - Bacon.

Discipline aims at the removal of bad habits and the substitution of good ones, especially those of order, regularity, and obedience. - C. J. Smith.

2.
Training to act in accordance with established rules; accustoming to systematic and regular action; drill.

Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature's part,Obey the rules and discipline of art. - Dryden.

3.
Subjection to rule; submissiveness to order and control; habit of obedience.

The most perfect, who have their passions in the best discipline, are yet obliged to be constantly on their guard. - Rogers.

4.
Severe training, corrective of faults; instruction by means of misfortune, suffering, punishment, etc.

A sharp discipline of half a century had sufficed to educate us.- Macaulay.

Writing Prompt--The Writing Fix

"Most on-line sites for writers contain long and rather uninteresting lists of topics a person could write about. WritingFix has taken this idea to the next level; we've transformed good writing ideas into interactive on-line word games."

To explore what this site has to offer, click on the lighthouse in the title of this post.

Fiction--Sites of Interest

The Scriptorium
"....the Scriptorium, a virtual room for writers. In each monthly issue you'll find articles, interviews, exercises, book reviews, and more to help you become the best writer you can be. "
Check out this terrific toolbox with printable forms:
http://www.thescriptorium.net/toolbox.html#forms
Word count guide:
http://www.thescriptorium.net/words.html

Science-Fiction, Horror and Fantasy
www.specificworld.com

General Fiction
fictionblogs2.blogspot.com

Blog Fiction by Tim Wright
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Process/index.cfm?article=91

"BritBlog is a directory of blogs that are written by British citizens from all over the world. This blog is used to announce new BritBlog features, discuss development issues and ideas, and to keep you informed..."
http://www.britblog.com/directory/category/fiction.html

AP Style Resources and a Blog Concerning Journalism

AP Style online resources:

www.apstylebook.com

www.bu.edu/com/writingprgm/ap_styleguide1.pdf

Practice your AP Style
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/apexercises/default.asp?s=&n=&i=&v=&o=&ns=0&uid=0&rau=0

AP_Style
http://www.utexas.edu/coc/journalism/SOURCE/journal_links/AP_style.html

Interesting Blog:
Pressthink; Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine by Jay Rosen
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/03/25/con_prep.html

Interesting Quote--Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws

"So many are the advantages which monarchs gain by clemency, so greatly does it raise their fame, and endear them to their subjects, that it is generally happy for them to have an opportunity of displaying it."

Tookie Williams--If executed, will he become a martyr?

Tookie Williams is the self-acknowledged co-founder of the Crips, as such, he bears some burden of the responsibilty for a few generations of corruption and blood shed among African-Americans, particularly African-American males. However, Tookie has either experienced a true conversion or merely played the system well. He appears to be reformed and striving to correct his earlier poor judgement. He's written children's books, garnered a Nobel Prize nomination, and actively speaks out against the gang legacy he helped to create.

I don't think that a person, who is proven guilty of murder, should be released to live in the general population, but Tookie's situation proposes a serious dilemma. If Tookie is executed, will our penal system be creating an icon, a martyr, to be sanctified at the altars of disenfranchisement and nihilism? Will the latest generation that belongs to Tookie's legacy have their lack of faith in themselves and the possibilities beyond street knowledge reninforced and supplemented, if their reformed founder is dealt a dose of justice without mercy or compassion?

Click on the Lighthouse in the post's title listen to the story at NPR.org:

Nation
Facing Execution, Tookie Williams Hopes for Clemency
by Mandalit del Barco
Morning Edition, November 21, 2005 · Crips co-founder Tookie Williams faces execution in California on Dec. 13 unless the governor grants him clemency. Williams, convicted of four murders, has become a noted anti-gang crusader, writer of children's books, and a Nobel Prize nominee while in prison at San Quentin.

THE MORAL IMPORTANCE OF CLEMENCY
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, AlterNet
Governors are afraid of being seen as soft on crime, runningfrom granting clemency to convicted murderers. But in thecase of 'Tookie' Williams, it must be considered.
http://www.alternet.org/story/28580/


Victim’s brother breaks silence

By JOHN SHULTZ / The Kansas City Star
Through 24 years of legal wrangling over the fate of the man convicted of killing his brother, Wayne Owens stayed above the fray. ... In that time, convicted murderer Stanley “Tookie” Williams, co-founder of the Crips street ...Tuesday, November 22, 2005 (KansasCity.com)

No Special Break for Tookie
Celebrities and 'Redemption' Aren't the Point. States Shouldn't Kill.
By Eugene RobinsonFriday, December 2, 2005; A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101396.html

Word for the Week: surrogate

surrogate

SYLLABICATION:
sur·ro·gate
NOUN:
1. One that takes the place of another; a substitute. 2a. A person or animal that functions as a substitute for another, as in a social or family role. b. A surrogate mother. 3. Psychology A figure of authority who takes the place of the father or mother in a person's unconscious or emotional life. 4. Law A judge in New York and some other states having jurisdiction over the probate of wills and the settlement of estates.
ADJECTIVE:
Substitute.
TRANSITIVE VERB:
Inflected forms: sur·ro·gat·ed, sur·ro·gat·ing, sur·ro·gates(-gt)1. To put in the place of another, especially as a successor; replace. 2. To appoint (another) as a replacement for oneself.


The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Writing Prompt--Imagination Prompt Generator

Sometimes, the wheels of our imagination get rusty. Occasionally, they grind to a halt and need a little oil to get them moving. The Creativity Portal website may be the oil that gets your imagination and your writing moving.

They offer a handy Imagination Prompt Generator. It was recently featured in Blogger's September 2005 Buzz. Click on the Lighthouse in this post's title to check it out.

Writing Mechanics: AP Style

You may be wondering why I have AP Style entries juxtaposed against those concerning fiction. I assure you, there is a good reason. Many creative writers have what we call "day jobs," and/or we write articles, brochures, textbooks and the like to pay our day to day bills. If you find yourself in this category, I believe a little AP know how will go a long way until you and your muse make it big.

possessives
DESCRIPTIVE NAMES: Some governmental, corporate and institutional organizations with a descriptive word in their names use an apostrophe; some do not. Follow the user's practice:
Actors' Equity, Diners Club, the Ladies' Home Journal, the National Governors' Association.
See separate entries for these and similar names frequently in the news.


--Source: The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, Norm Goldstein, Editor, p. 164

Craft--Fiction--Imagination

As writers, we apprentice ourselves to the world. Art, in this instance writing, can influence and shape the world, but there are many occasions where the happenings around us fuel and shape our imaginations, and in turn our writing.

Here's a little fuel for your imagination's fire:

Liberian President-Elect Details Plans for Presidency
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5012098

Joan Didion
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4956088

Hip Hop in the Palace!!!?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3008210.stm

Interesting Quote: Anne Rice

Anne Rice on the Science VS. Evolution Debate

She is not so receptive to the various efforts to challenge science, such as Kansas’ recent troubles with evolution versus “intelligent design” or creationism. For one thing, Rice cannot really see a conflict between science and religion.

“If you can make the world, you can make it any way you want; you can use evolution. God is infinite; he can do anything. And that’s the way it was presented to me when I was a child; my mother told me that. Nobody said how long the seven days were.
“I’ve never understood why people are getting themselves so worked up about this. These controversies seem to come when people are afraid and protective of Scripture. They seem to think that if DNA exists and evolution exists, that’s going to mean Scripture is going to lose its power.

“But Scripture doesn’t lose its power! It never does. No amount of information about the world is going to change the power of Scripture. It is, if anything, better understood and better appreciated as we gain knowledge.”

Source: The Kansas City Star; See the full text of this interview www.kansascity.com, Posted November 13, 2005

Word for the Week: evolution

evolution

SYLLABICATION:
ev·o·lu·tion
NOUN:
1. A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. See synonyms at development. 2a. The process of developing. b. Gradual development. 3. Biology a. Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species. b. The historical development of a related group of organisms; phylogeny. 4. A movement that is part of a set of ordered movements. 5. Mathematics The extraction of a root of a quantity.
OTHER FORMS:
evo·lution·al, evo·lution·ary—ADJECTIVE
evo·lution·ari·ly —ADVERB


The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Writing Prompt--Fiction

Use this prompt as a starting point for a flash fiction or micro-fiction piece.

The lid creaked and dust wafted on the air as the curious
investigator opened the antique trunk.

Feel free to post your writing in the comments section of this post.
This is just for fun. Authors retain all rights.

Craft--Fiction

Fiction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Fiction is storytelling of imagined events and stands in contrast to non-fiction, which makes factual claims about reality. A large part of the appeal of fiction is its ability to evoke the entire spectrum of human emotions: to distract our minds, to give us hope in times of despair, to make us laugh, or to let us experience empathy without attachment. Fictional works—novels, stories, fairy tales, fables, films, comics, interactive fiction—may be partly based on factual occurrences but always contain some imaginary content. The term is also often used synonymously with fictional prose. In this sense, fiction refers only to novels or short stories and is often divided into two categories, popular fiction (e.g., science fiction or mystery fiction) and literary fiction (e.g., Victor Hugo or William Faulkner).

To read the complete article click on the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiction
*******************************************************************************
This month, I've taken on the challenge of writing a novel of 50, 000 words. As with many things, this feat was not solely the result of my desire to write a novel. Desire is not always enough--a little push and some momentum get much better results. My push to write a novel has been provided by the National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo website, http://www.nanowrimo.org/index.php. A fun and irreverent take on the writing process, which this site provides, seems to be just what I needed to begin my journey. Check them out, you might find the site a source of inspiration as well. The deadline for signing up is November 25.

Writing Mechanics: AP Style

Associated Press Style
As a pictorial representation of language, writing must have rules. In order to communicate clearly and well, a speaker or writer and their audience must of course have a shared understanding of meaning and how that meaning is relayed. Those rules are applied in various styles. Now that I've stated the obvious for clarity's sake, this month we will explore Associated Press (AP) style. Many publications, especially magazines and newspapers, use this style of grammar and punctuation.

Each week for the month of November, a different aspect of AP style will be presented.

Flu season comes every year beginning as early as October and ending as late as May. In recent years vaccinating oneself to prevent infection or decrease the severity of the symptoms should one contract the flu, has become the socially accepted and even expected course of action. Who can afford to miss work?

Recently, the threat of a more virulent flu, the avian flu, seems to be creating a mild panic. It is being compared with the Spanish Flu of 1918 which killed at least 40 million people.* It is feared that if this flu makes the jump from birds to people, the result will be a global pandemic which leads me to the AP style entry for today:

pan-Prefix meaning "all" takes no hypen when combined with a common noun:

panchromatic pantheism

Most combinations with pan- are proper nouns, however, and both pan- and the proper
name it is combined with are capitalized:

Pan-African Pan-Asiatic
Pan-American


--Source: The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual--Fully Updated and Revised
Norm Goldstein, Editor, p.153

*What You Need To Know About Avian Flu By Catherine Arnst in New York Feb 09 '04
http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/BusinessWeek/2004/02/09/363380?extID=10038&data=avian_flu

Aaron McGruder:

Is He An Example of Political Consciousness Gone Adrift or Doing Good Business By Maximizing Market Dollars for the Revolution?

This article about Aaron McGruder brings with it a question, "What, if any, social responsibilty does an artist have concerning the consumers of their work?"

McGruder's The Boondocks is viewed by many as an expression of the social and political concerns of the largely ignored and marginalized African-American Middle Class (everyday people), as well as those euphemistically categorized as "urban youth" or simply "urban." His brazen and humorous political and social commentary receives equitable amounts of applause and antagonism.

His latest project, a TV series version of The Boondocks for the Adult Swim component of the Cartoon Network, will take a few decidedly low brow turns by some accounts. Hmmmmm. Is he simply conforming to the limitations of his new medium or is this part of his ingenious plan to save America from itself?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/03/tv.boondocks.ap/index.html

Word for the Week: indigene

indigene

Main Entry: in·di·gene
Pronunciation: 'in-d&-"jEn
Variant(s): also in·di·gen /-di-j&n, -d&-"jen/
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin indigena
: NATIVE

http://www.webster.com/dictionary/