Nanowrimo Starts 1st Draft

Signed up for NaNoWriMo today. 

I wrote two drafts with this crazy method before.

My theory being- type the words and get it done.

They ask for 50000 words but that’s not a novel – a draft should be 120000+ to slash and erase down to 90000.

My target is 90000

Right now my last book, The Eco Terrorist is in submission and I’ll give it the month.

Was completing an audio version of two prior novels, but the recording is slow and it seems the best my vocals can do is two chapters a sitting. I want it to be live without much edit polishing to sound the same as when I do an actual reading. Those projects are going on a shelf.

I work full time at a demanding job, and need to support my family all by myself. This is a risky proposition to put 1600 hours into a first draft of a story I’m not so sure about. The novel is about suicide or surviving near death by choice by someone I love dearly. Going to be written in first person and will surely be dark.

I don’t believe the lady at the register of Chic fil a is reading my books (you know the sweet one who asks you if you will be fine dining with “us?”) Why do I find that smugness of sweet so offensive?

 asked me recently again why someone with such a cheerful outward appearance has a penchant for thrillers and dark topics. IF you can come up with a light hearted come back please let me know.

With this I tell you I won’t be as quick on line and probably all my fun on Pinterest will be put on hold. I still have the giant house to sell, so craft projects are only a messy daydream to be enjoyed by pinning ideas.  

Please please leave me a comment send me a paper letter as I’m going to be up at 5:15 and working for 3 hours then closing mortgages all day and back home at 7:00 to get three more hours in for 30 days. I forget about Match.com, those videos for my mortgage banking job and painting daughter’s room by myself- Until December
Update tonight 3509 words today and outline 500 and story board started
I pushed and got my ACX audible  version of The Lucky Boy finished this morning
I won't have time to promote it and do Nano

Novels written by C G

Abandoned House

Abandoned house

We were superb.
Memory makes things grand.
Pain of stiches after croquet mallet to the head.
Tulle scratches under a First Communion dress.
Under the fruit trees sisters gorged on peaches.
⁂


We were together.
Recollect bits of time, if you can.
Children played outside when Dad was manic, waiting.
Ride a bike to work, deposit the cash before you return.
How many stray dogs did we have? four five or six?

⁂
We had joy.
Go back with yellow tinted lenses.
Put iodine in the baby oil, spit at the sun.
Catch fireflies in Kerr jars, to light the graveyard.
Pray my children adventure to remember childhood.

Caroline Gerardo
copyright  ©  2014

Abandoned house

Honey's Days Under a Canopy of Sunflowers

I finally heard back from the Vet about Honey our Golden Retriever. She will be fifteen tomorrow, she has been healthy, loving, fast, funny and wonderful until this past July. Her ear infections won’t cure, the pads of her feet seem to bother her so much that she stopped taking her swim in the pool and won’t go in the ocean excepting for the very soft foamy waves. This is a dog that swam with the surfers and rode waves with us until we called her to stop. The last two days she doesn’t want to eat or move around.

Carson had a Lacrosse camp at Whittier College all day in the heat, and I couldn’t take her into 102 degree temperature so I had a couple different people check on her at home. She sun bathed in the morning and enjoyed her routine of watching the hummingbirds and dragonflies hover over the pool but come afternoon she didn’t go into her favorite spot among the Colossal sunflowers. Honey didn’t move all day from the kitchen floor where my laptop is and where she keeps me company to write.

I felt this boulder in my chest calling to check on her, I redialed the Vet’s exchange in hopes he would call in some prescription. Last visit he spoke of quality of life. I’m bringing her in tomorrow, going to ask for pain medicine, something to perk her appetite and a miracle. Are you connected with your pets? I am closer with my children, but our dogs offer unconditional love and joy. If you ever knew or have a Golden Retriever, you know what a funny breed they are. They talk and make noises but are terrible watch dogs. They are afraid of lightening and all they want is to be a nanny to your children and make certain everyone is comforted.

Honey knew when I was sick with chemotherapy, she saw us survive the fire, and she is still diligent in watching for bunnies who steal my flowers and produce. She no longer chases them but they are afraid of the big amber colored dog who once guarded her garden.

I’m home now after a fun day at Carson’s Lacrosse Camp, gave her a piece of cheese with her pills. Then an extra pieces of Trader Joe’s sliced turkey because I know it is yummy. She shook her head and smiled that big dog one but her eyes are cloudy.

My son Carson said tonight, “Mom, you say that when you are ready to die, you will swim out in the ocean to some far away buoy to avoid being a burden--”

I stop him mid-sentence, “No, as much as Honey loves the ocean, Green River or the lake she would panic and be afraid. I don’t ever want any of you to be afraid.”

He nods, I feel a tear in my eye, and blot it off with my shirt. He’s sixteen and life and death are fast as the wings of a dragonfly. I put my hand on Honey’s head so she won’t have to get up to be with us for a group hug. Then we get down on the floor and thank her for being a beautiful girl. Her tail still has some thump in it.

Sunflowers the size of a basketball player

I think this is what Honey sees when she sleeps under the sunflowers, a big happy face full of seeds of promise for next year.

Win The Pulitzer Fiction Prize

"Writer as Circus Dog Howling Stories"


No one wins in fiction?
It seems Un-American.

As a writer, I sometimes feel the marketing, competitions,

and ranking is contrary to creating art.

Winning a Pulitzer is after all, big business. A Pulitzer sells through your next couple of books, aligns paid speaking engagements and lines up the glory of tenured professorship. Thank you very much Columbia.

All three are shortlisted books are five stars.  However, I am going to speculate on why none of the front runners actually "won." My opinions here are as from the mind of a judge, wringing their hands on making the right decision. I believe failing to make choice is wrong, bad and flawed .

Three books were "shortlisted" Swamplandia by Karen Russell, Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. It is not that there were no good books to read in this past year, I believe the problem is in the three choices. 

First, Russell's (I loved it- the southern topic and the dazzle of her writing) -but book is quirky right from the cover. It is an American story, but a tad too contrapuntal with the ordinary and the bizarre the first person narrative jumping to third. The Pulitzer for fiction is ultimately supposed to represent the best American telling a great American tale. Second, Johnson's Novella though beautiful and moving is just too short to win. I can only fault the number of pages as the reason why it cannot stand in history with some of the other big boys  (save two exceptions) And finally The Pale King, Wallace's look into the dull soul of the IRS and the lonely secrets of mindful moments. It is a wonder. Again I add my hat on head as Pulitzer judge, it is unfinished and I dare say having met the man and read the other works some of the voice is "over-edited," (may not all be his ?).

Pony who leads the show

In the light that no choice was made I ask all my writer, reader, and friends with opinions to vote for the Pulitzer. You may nominate your own work, you may vote as many time as your little heart desires. Open your heart and your brain to vote in my comments section. Vote for one of the three above.

You ask - Prizes?

Winner with most votes (comments) will be mailed the Not a Pulitzer trophy ( being created from duct tape as you read this), $20 Amazon gift Certificate hopefully you will be buying books, and some nice brain cactus ( if your country of origin allows me to ship).  

Copyright ©2012 Caroline Gerardo

All photographs are Caroline Gerardo's and not to be used in any format without written permission

White Not Blue

"White Not Blue"

for iiChallenge 1/28/2012 written in 40 minutes

June moved to California with Albert, her husband, to chase after another job.

“This one in the aircraft plant-”

“Do we have to go?”

“This gig is better than house painting, leak detection or pest control.”

June spends the ten grand from Pappa’s estate to invest in the dream in California.

“It seems like a good idea at the time.”

Between the morning job as a crossing guard and the night work at the nursing home, June has time to make meals for the children because Albert is gone. Albert went off on a new wanderlust.

June works at Aging Fountains home in Huntington Beach. When she applied for the position, she lied (just a little white one) marking that she had a Certified Nurse Assistant degree when in fact she had not taken any classes. June knows how to push an I.V., administer diabetes tests and check blood pressure. Skills she acquired caring for her father back in Crystal Springs. She misses the lazy evenings on the porch before Pappa died.

It is almost Christmas. California does not offer a season change; there is no blanket of snow. The lights in the lobby of the nursing home are the only sign of the season. Pine trees decorate the front of the apartment complex next to Aging Fountains. June takes it upon herself to cut stacks of the sappy needles to decorate the bare rooms at the nursing home. June parks her Chevy with the branches and the left over boxes of handmade tree ornaments from Mississippi near the service entrance of the building. The confier resin odors swell in the rear entry, blocking that of urine.

The last room in the hall is occupied by what looks to be a shriveled bobolink. In the electric hospital bed rests a lined buff body, dangling grey legs and piercing blue eyes.

They tell June, “John O’Grady in that room never speaks.”

“But he sits up?”

“That bird’s been in some kind of coma since 1977.”

“Can a person live that long in bed?”

“It’s the strangest thing. He can eat when spoon fed.”

“Anyone visit Mr. O’Grady?”

“Never, just gets a monthly check from John O’Grady signed by himself on the back  for $5000.”

“What does the home do with the money?”

“They sign it over and pay for his rent, and keep the rest in the slush fund.”

In her calico scrubs with the garnet rhinestone pin June turns the television on in John’s room to a station playing, “I’ll Have a Blue Christmas,” sung by Elvis Presley. June hums as she tapes the branches on John's bulletin board. She push pins some on the windowsill. Then June allocates ornaments from the box choosing the crystal angel to place in the center. Her back is to Mr. O’Grady as she looks up at the North Star to hide the tears in her eyes. June thinks of family back home.

Mr. O’Grady starts to sing, “And when that blue heartache starts hurtin'. You'll be doin' all right, with your Christmas of white, But I'll have a blue, blue Christmas.”

“Mr. Presley is that really you?” June says startled.

The man with the cornflower eyes is silent. June tucks bleached covers around him kissing his forehead goodnight.


***


“I'd rather go on hearing your lies, than to go on living without you.”

Elvis Presley

Prompt from

http://www.runningforautism.com/

Tell a story that Ellis is in fact not dead from Kristen Doyle

Indie Ink Writing Challenge this week, KristenDoyle challenged me with "Tell a story that Elvis is in fact not dead" and I challenged ChaosMandywith "Tell me about caring for your mother who had a stroke".



Notes:

Bobolinks are a native Mississippi lark like bird that eats insects and grains and has a long undulating flight.

The use of John O'Grady's name is fictional use and no reference to any real person.

Copyrights 2012 caroline gerardo for all short story and photographs reserved



I incorporated a bit of my own prompt to make it harder. I also used the prompt idea I gave to Chaos Mandy about caring for someone with a stroke. I haven't been a part of your group as much as I enjoy, busy finishing my next book. Please tell me what you think.

Soldier Home For Christmas

Dear John,


The President announced the troops come home from Iraq. I wonder, will you come off the plane last? Will you be wearing your ACU (the service uniform holds that dusty smell of charcoal) when you ship home? Our son will want to keep that jacket with the letters of your name on the chest. I know it is common enough and we might be able to buy one with SMITH on it at the army surplus, but he will want yours.

In your last letter you wrote about how every night the image of Smith Park’s oak trees and ivy pathways kept your mind green. The sounds of leaves touching in the wind are like karaoke vocalizing the lyrics we listened to on that oldies station. It is December now, they will play Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas on the car radio. I sing along loud and joyful. I keep putting antifreeze into the radiator just as you told me, but the Jeep is running cold.

Things here at home will be strange when you return. I did not have the heart to tell you in my letters that our park is gone.  The city redeveloped the area into something commercial. What remains is a little triangle between busy streets in the neighborhood. They let the grass turn brown. The sign remains steadfast, as I have waited for you my love. It is in front of the graveyard where I hope to finally put you to rest, we will all be together. War has been a troubling enemy I could not touch or understand but knowing it is over will make us start to heal.

Merry Christmas to All With Love,




Copyright © Caroline Gerardo 2011

User Comments Brand Reviews

Drink Me Five Stars

Reviews my neighbor leaves behind

User generated comments in product review in social commerce.


Amazon just quietly erased a million some product reviews written by persons paid to write a positive post. The cottage industry of bloggers offering book reviews for $ 25- $100 a pop are temporarily thwarted. Amazon deleted anyone who wrote these listings and gave five stars to novels they likely never read without warning. This is only the first phase in Amazon’s attempt to clean up a flawed premise that sales will generate the best to the top. A theory I equal to keep stirring the pot and the bones will pop up.

Amazon does not have an editing staff that checks how you review the latest ginzo knife. They have relied on consumers to honestly rate products and sellers. Amazon has a small staff that deletes obvious or reported spam posts and unrelated drabble. The reviews list in chronological order. A few enhancements to the system have been rolled out, but none so clearly (and silently as Amazon does not announce nor want to reveal future changes) will make the playing field level. No longer will posters ask for throngs to tag their product for a dollar. Amazon added “questions” and “rate the reviewer” type features that they hoped would make the system less “scammy.”

Durable goods, wholesale product manufacturers all started to realize that if they open a Facebook Page, or some industry website then ask people to like them no-one will come.  However, if they offer prizes, incentives and money they can get an individual Facebook page that generates interest in their brand. Facebook has added so many bells and whistles using a Facebook page seems to also have lost its lightening as a method to connect with consumers.

A woman I know made a fortune selling Google page rank, she is one of many black hat SEO experts who touted herself as a marketing wizard. Google can now identify the thirty some methods used to game page rank and they are silently erasing websites that use the cheats from searches without any notice or recourse to “webowners”, or brands. She’s now selling IRS illegal tax credits knowing that her past associations are all crumbling. This same person rather maliciously posted reviews with intention to harm on Amazon as a regular course of entertainment. Seems all her reviews have now disappeared.

If reviews are merely a fringe portion of buyers (Reviews on Travelocity, Amazon, CNET, Epinions, Consumer Reports… gazillion other sites are less than .08% of purchasers) why do buyers even bother to read them? We are human, we care what others think.

How will all the information gathered, collected, graphed and monitored about us as individual consumers typing words on the internet be used in the future for brands?

What I want to know is how is this going to change how books are reviewed and rated in the future? What do you think?

Pomegranate Seed Poem Time Out

copyright 8/13/2011 Caroline Gerardo

Time out for me at midnight. Date for death past.Stage four termites in fertile soil.

The experts wire health graphs. Life stolen seven months - it is now seventeen.

“There's nothing else to do.

Miracle you had a child."
Ask peripheral questions,

 easy anger, swift of sword.

"Do not take my everything
  blackened mold tar Umpire."

Another ring. Bell? Time out.

Shrug shoulders to children,
Who cares? Times a game.

Abandoned... I regress too.

Our Father in plastic shroud,
question DNA month before

A life is duty honor courage.
Cells membranes connected

- we all are touch and erase.
 Godot nothingness you say.

Vocation has no such path.

Physics love a connection,

regenerating a dust without
color of monarch chrysalis.

Pomegranate aril venetian 
astringent attracts termites.

Memory burn Nordic star,

 You never loved four years

Joyful toss the crematorium.

Career in Sudan.  Time out.

Soul stolen from an Arabian
mare wearing ruby blankets

her grains in my sandals are
from Aortic Sea as in glass.

Diatomite needle in my heart.
Hands touch - form the letter.

Anti-hero Burning

My first reader has returned the manuscript fortunately without a red pen.
She is analytical about some of the details, and wants me to make the main
character turn for good about halfway through the story. I am not going to
make him into a nice guy. This is not the point. She says it is not mainstream
enough without the turn.

I can think of a few anti-heros who readers like but they do not find redemption,
but yes, there are not many. He will find change.

I miss my old first reader, need to find a new one who I trust the same. With eyes
that hear and a way of making me build a skyscraper, not burn down the house.
 I miss the most -
          and  the brainstorming. (gap intended).

So on to the next revision, marching.

P.S. to writers friends - a brilliant idea from J. A. Konrath - put the copyright legal mumbo at the end of the book, as ereaders will be more tempted by your work.
I just changed a couple books to add a clause that I do not allow lending ( a silly girlish idea that if I write it they will feel arrows of guilt) now with Konrath's idea, I perhaps am going a different route- to put the copyright disclosure at the end and some note in the front that if you want my work for free, all you have to do is ...ask ?

Pallets of wood to burn all my paper books ? ...#amwriting
Today is Sunday, this is my ROW80 check in- I finished ahead of schedule,
my deadline was July 5th. I go round three on the book- read aloud.

Thriller Lake

Photograph Central Park Scary Wisteria Framing the Lake 2011

copyright Caroline Gerardo

Eleven days until my deadline, the novel is shaping up.
How many violent scenes, beats and situations can I leave in the story?
Will my reader get tired on the thriller roller coaster?

I looked online statistics and my novella Greed has past 10000 sales. 10011 exactly as of yesterday.
I have not been checking and was shocked to find it in the top 100. This brings with it some negative things that I mentioned to a couple other writers. I found my books on torrent sites, and lending sites when I never agreed to lending. I also found a couple negative reviews by persons posting under alias names.These things are completed for the purpose of only money. This should not surprise me, this is a business.

My answer is complex:
I want to warn anyone who signs up for a torrent site or a free book lending site. There is nothing in life for free, the owners of these websites are making money off my work but ALSO your personal information. When you enter your email, your address, your credit card all this is farmed and worth a great deal of money. Information on what you buy is sold to third parties. The persons touching your privacy may be organized crime.

Most authors never make a living from their hard work. It takes a year for me to write a book at the minimum. If anyone needs to read my work for free, please contact me and I will find a way.

Meanwhile back to work writing.

Caroline Gerardo Being a Writer

books
Caroline Gerardo
photograph by Blair Barbeau copyright  2011

I need a black and white photograph for the Thriller Fest catalogue. I just signed up. I fussed over this weekend. Daughter says I need to look tougher. I was thinking the turtle neck beatnik look. She says NO smiling Mom. I think I have settled on this image.
All these silly decisions can make a person wake up thinking.
Learning curve for an author: it is not just about writing a great book.
1. Edit like a demon - use words as clean as arrows or ones with secret sauce. Writing is not just a process it is an art. (background ballet dancers, symphony and  Musée d'Orsay )
2.know formatting for epub, pdf, word, HTML, paperback sizing. I love Garamond and some formats don't - why? Know why. Understand everything about publishing.
3. Learn to produce and worst of all edit a video trailer ( I wake up hearing the word string) Perhaps my next thriller is about an author killing a video editing program/softwear.
4. Social networking: finding your posse. They call it platform I think of it as posse. Manage the time reading all the fabulous things the posse is doing .I find myself lured by the siren song of now twenty one books on my nightstand that I am dying to read. I think there is some procrastination self-sabatoge in the pile of books. Share with anyone all the great opportunities in the world today. We live in such an amazing moment in time.
5. Memorize new poetry to keep word choices with a sound and a fury ( thank you William F.)
6. Keep taking photographs for blogging and visual cues for the writing. I am playing with the idea of using the thousands of pictures I have in a online reading version.
7. Promptly answer emails and incoming requests This task surprises me. I am hearing from strangers who now are friends.
8. Ask for opportunities for reviews, ask people to listen to me read, ask for people to buy my books
as I write this please link on the Smashwords site and order a FREE BOOK or go buy one at AMAZON .
9. Exercise, keep up the day job, feed and water the children -garden and pets.
10. Pray, be thankful, and tell everyone how dear they are to me. Show my joy and love to them. Write some more.
If you are attending Thriller Fest email or tweet me I plan to have fun.

Submit Writing in Online Magazines

Submitting to magazines offers a mire of new information.

I have about thirty finished flash fiction pieces with photographs, and seventy poems. I thought I would submit them as a book to a small publisher, but am rethinking that process. I searched a few literary magazines, and there are thousands of online.
Many charge a "reading fee" which I believe is not worth the dime. Yes someone is going to jump on me and say, "What about the work and time the editors and staff must contribute?"
 I am going to share my thoughts, brain and time for free all in the name of art.

So looking for input on who is right for my work. I have had four say yes. I assume my batting average is good?

In no order here are reviews, magazines, online free sites to submit flash fiction, poetry and short stories. My (previous) as I call him agent said,
"C. G. don't waste time on shorts, there is no money in it."
Well he may be right but there is fun.


No answer back yet from:
WordRiot  Monkeybicycle  PANK  Sycamore  Scapegoat  Conclave   American Literary Review  34th Parallel  10000 Tons of Black Ink  20 X 20 Storyglossia
Slush Pile  Foundling  Hobart  3:A.M   Blackbird  Antioch  Los Angeles

Some sites are down, does that mean closed for business? - riddlefene

There are a couple services which will submit for you. They charge money. I don't see the advantage in paying for that either. Perhaps using heypublisher just helps one organize the submissions?  The process is simple enough. The important fact one must determine is: who or what is a match for me.

If  I had just a little time I would put up a website that is a match.com for writers. Writers put up profiles and tasty samples then we tumble them through the questionaire process all for say $ 39.99 a month? I have to pitch that idea to someone.

INPUT ? who else


P. S. Buy my book

Luke Romyn Go Save the World

Luke Romyn's novel  The Dark Path just released. It is set in villianous New York City. The lead man, need I call him a hunk, is a military assasin /bad boy. Vain is assigned to protect and save a young boy.
 I'm not done with it yet, will let you know how it ends. O.K. maybe I don't spill the beans.

Novel Release February 1, 2011