Jan Epton Seale

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Jan Epton Seale

www.janseale.com

Jan Epton Seale, the 2012-13 Texas Poet Laureate, is a native Texan who lives in McAllen, in the southern tip of Texas. She is the author of seven volumes of poetry, two books of short fiction, three books of nonfiction, and nine children’s books.

Her writing has appeared in many magazines and newspapers including The Yale Review, Texas Monthly, The Chicago Tribune, and Writer’s Digest. Some anthologies including her work are Writing on the Wind, Let’s Hear It!, Red Boots and Attitude, If I Had My Life to Live Over, Cries of the Spirit, Mixed Voices, This Place in Memory, and Birds in the Hand.

In l982, Seale received a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship in poetry. Seven of her short stories were chosen in the P.E.N. Syndicated Fiction Awards series. Her poetry has received the Kathryn Morris Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of Texas, and the Bill Burke Award and Dolly Sprunk Memorial Award from the New York Poetry Forum. Her stories and poems have been broadcast over National Public Radio.

Workshops and readings by Seale have taken place in Washington, Oregon, Oklahoma, Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in Texas in Dallas, Denton, Waco, Houston, Abilene, El Paso, Austin, and San Antonio, as well as many in the Rio Grande Valley.

For 16 years she was the South Texas editor of Texas Books in Review. Other editorial work includes serving as a founding editor of RiverSedge literary journal and as an editor of The Valley Land Fund pictorial volumes.

Seale was born in Pilot Point, Texas, graduated from Waxahachie High School, attended Baylor University, and received a B.A. from The University of Louisville and a M.A. from North Texas State University.

She taught English and creative writing at The University of Texas-Pan American and at North Texas State University. For a number of years, she has taught workshops in creative and memoir writing, both locally and nationally at conference centers such as Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, Gemini Ink in San Antonio, and Mo Ranch in the Hill Country of Texas.

Seale is available for readings of her work and for workshops in writing poetry and nonfiction. Besides these genre interests, she specializes in the subject areas of memoir, nature, aging, spirituality, and women’s lives. She is on the Speaker’s Bureau for Humanities Texas, speaking about the influence of personal stories on family life. She is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.

Jan Seale and her husband Carl, a retired symphony conductor and composer, have three grown sons and four grandsons. www.janseale.com

Panhandle Professional Writers

Saturday, March 16 we look forward to having Jan Seale, with “Writing the Story of Your Life.”  Want to learn the basic story structure to use, what to include, and pitfalls?  Come hear Jan’s talk on writing one’s memoirs.  Greeting time begins at 9:30 a.m. at Amarillo Senior Citizens, 1219 S. Tyler, Amarillo, TX. – entrance on the southwest corner.  Join us for lunch at Noon:  Pasta La Mexican – Penne pasta topped with diced chicken, mixed vegetables, and pablano cream sauce.  Top this off with fresh tomatoes, corn relish and cilantro.  Dessert and drinks are included, all for $10.00, with morning and afternoon snacks also provided.  Come join us to learn more on “Writing the Story of Your Life.”

You may make lunch reservations by contacting Donna Otto at ppwlunch@gmail.com

Rest in Peace Mr. Mouse

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Outtakes 85

Rest in Peace Mr. Mouse

By Cait Collins

 

I never fully understood the importance of my computer mouse until my company updated my system and provided a new mouse. At first Mr. Mouse seemed happy to have me as an owner, but last week for some unexplained reason, he went rogue. I couldn’t understand his problem. I’d ask for my work list, he’d give me the program manager. “Open search results,” the click commanded, but he gave me the completion page. I spent twenty minutes building a complicated search of provision screens. When I hit print to attaché the screens to my proof package, “Abort Print” flashed on the screen and my twenty minutes of hard work disappeared into cyberspace.

His misdeeds continued when I read my email. I keep my inbox set to sort by date received. I’d open a new email and Mr. Mouse would resort my inbox. Not just once, mind you, but every time I opened a new item he’d jump in and move my purple flags to the bottom of the list, or put old emails on top. Deleting was a real trip. Highlight one item, delete three. I spent my time searching the deleted items folder for the emails I needed to keep. My patience with this rodent was wearing thin. The lyrics of a song from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast kept running through my head. I could hear Gaston inciting the crowd, “Kill the Beast!”

How appropriate.

My manager sensed my frustration. Thinking the problem was related to the mouse’s speed, we applied electronic Prozac in an attempt to slow him down. No luck, he became more diabolical. He attacked my quality review file.

Part of my job requires I review correspondence produced by other team members. The letter I was editing needed some additional information, but the mechanical rodent would not let me insert the phrases. I spent an hour editing a one page document because that hunk of junk kept jumping from one line to the next highlighting text I needed to keep. I had to adjust the margins on this document. Piece of cake. Yeah, right. I could read his mind. “Oh, you want to reduce the top margin to .9. You really want a .7 margin. And the side margins, let’s make those .6. I had to battle the gadget to reset margins.

Fed up with the tomfoolery, I place a call to our help desk. The technician searched for possible solutions, but she couldn’t even find a problem. So she called in a Dell technician. He arrived about 15 minutes later with a new mouse.

“I hear you are threatening to smash your mouse.”

“No, I said I was going to put a bullet in it.”

“You’re not the first person to say that. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll fix the problem.”

Seconds later, Mr. Mouse was dead. His lifeline disconnected from the energy giving electricity and programming my computer provided.  In his place was a docile, responsive instrument. I could work again.

I thanked the tech for arriving so quickly. He told me it was no problem. He’d take the offensive piece of trash and throw it away.

“You mean I can’t have that honor?”

He handed the mouse to me. “Have at it.”

Kerthunk! My enemy landed in the bottom of my trash can. Throughout the day, I buried that monster under my empty coffee cup, the wrappings from my lunch, and my empty bottle of green tea. How satisfying. We had finally killed the beast.

WRITING CONTESTS BENEFITS

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Announcing

2013 Frontiers in Writing Contest

Now open for entries

 For one low entry fee you can now enter multiple categories

Cash prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in EVERY category.

Go to:

www.Panhandleprowriters.org

Entry rules, procedures and format regulations are listed on the FiW Writing Contest page

Download FiW entry Application and mail along with your entry.

Entry fees can be check or Money order, or pay online using “Payments” on the PPW website.

Sponsored by the Panhandle Professional Writers

Writing Contests Benefits

By Rory C. Keel

It cost money; why should I enter? What benefit will a contest be for my writing and me? I’m not good enough so I’ll never win.

Those who are looking at entering writing contests frequently express these statements and questions. I know, I’ve asked most of them myself.

Having entered my share of writing contests, let me offer some positive benefits from my personal experience.

  1. Training for working with deadlines – Writing contests give a writer the opportunity to work under a deadline. Most contests will have strict dates for submitting an entry. This is good conditioning for working with agents, editors, and publishers who will place deadlines on your writing.
  2. Provides automatic platform – A platform is your audience, those who will read your writing. While your mother and “BFF” will gladly volunteer readership, contest judges can provide you with an unbiased and anonymous audience for your writing. And who knows, the judge may be an agent, editor or publisher.
  3. Gain feedback – One of the most valuable benefits of a writing contest is the critique. To have the judge’s comments noting any mistakes, suggestions for improvement and yes, even praise can help improve your writing.
  4. Build your portfolio – Writing contests are a perfect why to build your portfolio. When seeking an agent or publisher, a few writing clips, accomplishments and certificates may be the edge you need to sell the deal.
  5. Increase your confidence – Entering a contest gives a writer the opportunity to gain confidence in their writing. Have you ever written something only to tear it up or hide it in a drawer? Have you ever said, “I could never write good enough to be published!” A writing contest provides an inexpensive way to test the waters of being an author.
  6. Avoid scam contests – As with most everything, there are people who take advantage of others. Before entering a contest, research the person or organization holding the contest and make sure they are legitimate. There are a few contests that are no more than book selling scams. When your entry wins, it is accepted for publication in an anthology, with all of the other first place winners, then you must pay an outrageous price to obtain a copy. Winningwriters.com lists a few of these writing contests to avoid. To help find your next contest check out www.placesforwriters.com or www.fundsforwriters.com

Characterization Part 5

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Characterization Part 5

By Natalie Bright

 

I’m reviewing my notes from past conferences and blogging about characterization. Please feel free to comment on any tips you’ve learned on developing believable and likable characters. The past few blogs have been a hodge-podge on all concepts of developing characters. We’re digging deeper again this week, because really, you just can’t know enough about your characters.

Have you completed a character questionnaire yet? There are tons of great examples on the web.

Keep Digging Deeper

What is the one unique component of literature that humans enjoy? The key that all writers strive for? The take-away that readers can take pleasure in?

The answer: emotion.

We can read a story and find joy or fear. We can laugh out loud at the antics of a main character, or we can weep for concern at their plight. The power of the written word is an amazing thing.

As a writer, we must dig deeper. You have your character’s profile and you know their attitudes. As Steven James said, “What are your characters passionate about, desire, most ashamed about, afraid to pursue? Now give them what they want the most and snatch it away. Dangle her heart’s desire in front of her and never let her have it.”

Finding Emotion

We’re just human, with human emotions and life experiences. Real life events of experiencing or observing provides the basis from which our characters emerge.

How can your character respond to death unless you draw upon your experiences in being at someone’s bedside when they passed? How can your character experience love lost unless you weep as you write it? How can you write about the power of indifference without drawing upon your own past? Even if you haven’t experienced the emotion, then you can probably find someone who has.

Authors can’t be sissy’s about this. We have to go there. We have to revisit those painful experiences again and convey them to our readers through the fictional characters we create. I’m not saying it has to be the exact same experience, but you can apply the emotions you’ve felt to fictional situations. As your heroine meets those challenges and overcomes the obstacles, this becomes the character arc.

Developing the Character Arc

Character arc is defined as the emotional problems through which the protagonist (and antagonist and sometimes secondary characters) must face to achieve their goal. 

As bestselling author Steven James points out, “At the heart of every story is tension, and tension is that unmet desire which includes both external and internal.” As your character tries to achieve that desire and overcomes the antagonist, they change, they grow, they become better for their experiences. You must dig past the surface elements of your story and determine the why. 

Some of the most common arcs are: going from emotionally dead to being emotionally alive, learn to accept other’s faults, overcome a fear, learn to take risks, overcome guilt, learn to accept his own faults; and the list can go on and on. These are most obvious in movie screenplays where characters struggle with some emotional dilemma that is resolved at the end regardless of the action going on around them.

More Conflict Please

In order to dig deeper, Jodi Thomas suggests all dialogue reflect some type of conflict. “It’s not necessarily a conflict between the two characters speaking. One could be having internal conflict while they’re saying something else,” Thomas says.

Author Jennifer Talty explained that, “conflict is the fuel that starts your story. The internal motivation of your character is the fuel that drives your story.” 

As the core conflict between the protag and antag increases, the internal emotional conflict escalates and becomes your character’s arc.

For more information, Goal Motivation Conflict by Deb Dixon is an excellent addition for your writer’s reference library.

Have fun and keep writing!

Nat

 

A Pinch of Rodeo – Dismount

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A Pinch of Rodeo

Dismount

By Joe R. Nichols

My dismount in bull riding was terrible. A guy should pull the tail of the rope through his hand, pick a spot to land, and bail off trying to land on his feet. This will keep you healthy. What did I do? Well, if I was fortunate enough to make the whistle, I just quit trying to stay on. Sometimes they would fling me, sometimes they would slam me, but it was never pretty.

Tabasco, of the C-T Rodeo Company, was a small red motley-faced bull with no horns. He would have to hurry to weigh 1100 pounds. What he lacked in size, he made up for in effort. He never went in the same pattern twice, always bucked hard, and kicked high. They didn’t ride him very often.

The other characteristic of this bull; he was extremely hot headed. He was fast and very difficult to get away from. Pound for pound, he was a bad little cat.

Richard had been on this bull four times, and rode him every time, but he was missing four shirts as a result. Nobody was better at getting off than Richard, and even though he hit the ground running, Tabasco would mow him down and stomp the shirt off of him. His advice to me, “You might want to make an effort and pay attention to your get-off. He’s not going to let you get away with your usual flop routine.”

I got him twisted, and I was determined to make a good exit. I had the tail of my rope across my leg, but every time I went to step off the right side, he jumped to the right. I tried to wait him out, but after three attempts, he clicked my feet behind me, laid me down over his neck, and then lofted me in the air. After completing a somersault, I landed face up directly in front of him. I don’t know why he spared me, but he gave a snort and left. Never touched me.

This made my friend mad. “I can’t believe that,” he ranted. “I do everything right to get away from him, and he chases me down and hooks my clothes off. You just flop out there on your back like a fish out of water, and he don’t even look at you. I mean you were right there in front of him. That ain’t right.”

I laughed, although he never meant any of his words to be funny.

A short time later, I drew the bull again. Richard never said a word to me before the ride.

This time, Tabasco was spinning to the left when the buzzer sounded, and then he drained me off to the inside. I was on my feet with my hand still in the rope. I really wasn’t hung up, it was mostly a symptom of not being able to get any distance between us. He leaped and kicked and twisted, slung his head, and bucked all around me, but he never disturbed a single thread on my clothes. The bullfighter tried to get him to line out, but Tabasco payed him no mind. Finally, in desperation, the clown grabbed me around the neck and tipped over backwards, pulling me loose. There we were, laying side by side on our backs, with ol’ Tabasco breathing down on us. Never touched us.

When I saw Richard behind the chutes, he shook his head in disgust. “That proves it,” he said. “God takes care of children and idiots.”

The Gift Of An Author

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

The Gift Of An Author

By Nandy Ekle

 

Imagine walking down a hallway of closed doors. Each door has a plaque above it with the title of a story, and a few doors have plaques with no words on them as if waiting for a name. You hear voices behind every one and knocking comes from the other side of two or three at the same time. You’re standing in front of a door listening to loud, insistent pounding and a voice calling your name over and over. You reach out to turn the knob and realize it’s locked and you don’t have a key.

Where is the key? That door was just opened a few days ago and you visited with the voices behind it like gossiping neighbors. Why is it locked so tightly now?

This is how I imagine writer’s block. It’s frustrating and scary and can even be debilitating. It’s like losing eyesight or a hand. And I’ve been there lately.

These are the times I turn to my good friends Stephen King, J.K. Rowling and a myriad of other flourishing writers. I open a successful book written by one of these masters and beg them to instruct me once again about writing again. I get lost in their stories and feel them tug at the door with me.

Then the miracle happens. As I turn the page, enrapt in the worlds they created, I find the key to the door. I slip it into the keyhole and feel the lock turn, allowing the door to open. My characters run out and embrace me as my hands fly across the keyboard of my computer once more.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

PUDDING

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PUDDING

By Sharon Stevens

My husband was preparing supper on the stove. He does it all the time and I, for one, am so very proud that he does. But this is not what my blog is about this week.

I decided that I wanted to have a little sweetness after the meal and found packages of JELLO pudding up in the cabinet. After choosing “cheesecake”, my favorite, and reading the directions I gathered everything together and began to mix. One problem became apparent though. The instructions said to mix for two minutes. Well my husband was at the stove and the timer was on the microwave aboveYou may think this was no big deal. “Tell him to punch in the time” you say. “Yea right”, I say. By the time he turned from the stove to ask how many minutes, and then by the time he turned back around to set the timer, and then by the time he asked me again, “how many minutes?” the whole shebang would be over. I know this from past experience. Of course there is no way you can ever ruin JELLO pudding. They give so much leeway when you purchase the product. The directions are just guidelines not set in stone. The company just wants you to mix until everything is mixed together and a little more.

You see I can’t even bake bread, or a decent cake, or brownies. Just because the recipe says to cook in a 350-degree oven for thirty minutes this doesn’t mean MY oven or MY temperature or even MY minutes. And when they say cook until the surface springs back, or that a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, well then Heaven help us! This just doesn’t apply to me.

So many times we have the same problem in our writing. How can we ever know it is done? We keep mixing and adding until the most basic recipe is lost in translation. Sometimes we step back to let it preheat or to stew just a little bit thinking this will fix it. Oftentimes the results are far worse. If I stirred the pudding mix for 1.35 minutes or 3.24 minutes I really don’t think it will ruin the final dish. What destroys the original is the distress we insert as we go. We may be mad or angry and our spoons become our weapon. We may be happy or sad and the same utensils we laid out in the very beginning become a symbol for our tears of joy or pain. Under mix or over mix, you just never know.

After we ate the “sloppy Joe’s” my husband made for supper, he dished himself up a bowl of desert. I didn’t tell him he was in the way so I couldn’t set the timer. I NEVER want to discourage his time at the stove. I hope when he tasted my contribution that he couldn’t tell that I didn’t mix it for the exact amount of time the instructions on the box called for.

My sweet husband told me he liked it and that’s all that matters.

Must be that the proof was in the pudding.

The Choice

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Outtakes 84

 

The Choice

By Cait Collins

 

I was once asked which one of my senses I would be willing to give up.  The choice was mine. Did I want to live without my sight, my hearing, the sense of smell, taste or touch? I didn’t know how to respond then, and I don’t know how I would answer now.

I cannot imagine not seeing another sunrise or watching kids make snow angels. I’d miss the fall colors and baby smiles. Imagine going through life and not hearing the gentle rain fall, the voice of a loved one, a child’s laughter. How I love the smell of fresh baked cookies and the scents of the forest on a spring day.  What if I could not taste the spicy bite of my sister’s enchiladas or the slight bitterness of dark chocolate? Touch might be an obvious choice, but then again I’d never feel the downy softness of a rose petal or the feathery paper birch bark as I peel it from the tree trunk. The choice is more difficult because I’ve been blessed to have all my senses. I know what I would be missing.

Test your writing skills. Your protagonist regains consciousness following an accident. He cannot (see, hear, smell, taste, or feel). You select the lost sense. How does the character react to the news?  Is the loss temporary or permanent? What ordeals and obstacles are faced and battled on the road to recovery?   Try writing the scenes with each of the senses and note the differences in response and recovery depending on the missing sense.

Enjoy the exercise.

2013 Frontiers in Writing Contest

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Announcing

2013 Frontiers in Writing Contest

Now open for entries 

 For one low entry fee you can now enter multiple categories

Cash prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in EVERY category.

Go to:

www.Panhandleprowriters.org

Entry rules, procedures and format regulations are listed on the FiW Writing Contest page

Download FiW entry Application and mail along with your entry.

Entry fees can be check or Money order, or pay online using “Payments” on the PPW website.

Sponsored by the Panhandle Professional Writers

Characterization Part 4

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Characterization Part 4

By Natalie Bright

 

Characters with Attitude

Based on previous blogs, you now know the history of your characters. You also know what makes them tick emotionally.  It’s great that you know so much about your characters, but you can’t use it in your novel. Do not bore the reader to death with too much back story.

When I lunch with writer friends or meet with my critique group, we have in-depth conversations about our character’s motivations. We question their motives because characters should ‘stay in character’ for the entire novel. I’m reading a book now where the main character steals money from a classmate and plans a trip with a fake passport. I’m totally bummed. I really liked this character and now I don’t. To me this action seemed out of character for the person I thought she was. (But it doesn’t really matter because I’m not the author, and ultimately we can write our story the way we want to.)

As you write, you will only reveal a small amount of the history you’ve created.  Knowing that background is crucial for it will shape how they act and speak. Their personality and attitude will come through as they face the conflict in your plot. You will reveal your character through dialogue, their actions, and how they respond to conflict.

If the main character is only nine, remember his ideas will be shaped by the experiences he had in those nine years. He hasn’t lived a lifetime yet.

Profiling

Put some serious thought and effort into profiling your characters. Identify specific strengths and weaknesses. If you believe they’re real, readers will believe your characters are real too and will care about their story. For example, author and teacher, DeWanna Pace, pointed out that in most main stream action/adventure stories the strengths of the hero overcomes the strengths of the villain. In the case of romances, the strengths of the hero and heroine combine to overcome the conflict in the plot line. You’ve got to know their strengths and weakness in order to intertwine these traits into the plot.

Heroes have Flaws / Villains have Reaons.

Develop a detailed profile for each of your main characters.

For the protagonist, assign three likable traits and one bad trait. These can be internal or external, emotional or physical. Having bright red hair can be a good or bad trait, for example, depending on the circumstances you’ve set-up for your character. Your main character may whine and complain constantly, but please, give your readers something to like about her. Otherwise, we could care less how her story ends.

For the antagonist, assign three bad traits and one redeeming quality. Give your villain one good trait that makes him likable. Maybe he has a deep love for his mother. Perhaps your antagonist is worldly and extremely beautiful, but evil to the core.

Interview your characters to determine their motivations. You can do this through a structured exercise or by free writing. Start writing in first person from your characters head, and see what they can tell you. Phyliss Miranda uses this method and highlights the traits as they are revealed in the manuscript, which helps her make sure she doesn’t repeat the same information.

I attended a workshop given by a romance author who creates astrological signs for her hero and heroine. The conflicts and commonalities are determined by a star chart, and then she fills in the setting and plot line to construct their journey to find love. Also, there is David Freeman’s “Diamond Technique”, basic Metaprograms test, or “The Hero’s Journey” concept of plotting.  

Character development continues next Monday. Stay tuned!