Tiny Inventions #1

Objects of creativity!

At one point in my life I had at least twenty old toilet paper tubes under my bed. I was sure they’d come in handy to make a castle, a statue…something. Likewise I had a weakness for scrap wire, a broken mug handle, old greeting cards, and chunks of colorful glass found by the railroad tracks. Everything, it seemed, could be come something better.

Like my mother before me I began to see some of these things as junk and many pregnant possibilities have gone the way of my cardboard tube stash with their masterpieces unborn. After all, clutter breeds faster than mice.

But the possibilities still lurk in everyday things, as my four-year-old son often shows me. Here is his most recent invention, a ‘fire gun’. (Anything that’s cool starts with ‘fire’. Hence a ‘fire car’ is the most awesome car ever.)

I have no idea where he got the light and battery and it is likely I won’t be happy when I find out. But for now he did a great job! And it sure beats toilet paper rolls.

Fire Gun Generation 1

And then we have the second generation weapon that is made out of a small plant sprayer and reminds me of something from Star Wars.

Is it a plant sprayer or is it a...

...Fire Gun!

In 2012 the World Will End in Huge Marketing Hype!

Building catch fire, trees fall over, buildings buckle and slide into holes in the ground…no, it is not just another year in Los Angeles…it’s a movie about the end of the world.

The marketers for this have the news media insisting that ‘The world will end in 2012!’ just to get our attention. I guess it worked, after all, I just watched a trailer for 2012 and found myself wondering if:

• Is there any point to this other than watching stuff get destroyed?
• Where are the people in the plane expecting to land?
• Should we spend the time and money on this movie before the world ends or is there really no point since everything’s over in a few years anyway?
• Am I going to get a chance to care about these characters or will they be 2D clichés?
• Should the American Presidental candidates save their campaign money for a really big boat or merrily all go bungee-jumping for tomorrow we die?

I’ll admit, the cinematography in 2012 looks good and it has the capacity to carry some good character storylines. But will it measure up?

It seems to me as though action movies have become ever more action-filled, struggling to be thrill-packed, yet they so often miss the essential point that I need to care about the characters in order to be thrilled, horrified, or anything more than mildly interested.

And that brings me to the subject of writing.

I love action in both print and film. However, the writer  ignores character development at their peril. Characters should be more than a pretty face and a few canned responses to the imaginative action going on around them. They should be flawed in human ways and have their own story arcs…they should, in some way, learn something or lose faith or gain wisdom.

The most interesting of human characteristics is the capacity to change and adapt, no matter how reluctantly. The thought processes that go along with this are equally fascinating because ten different people can have the same learning experience and all do it for different reasons and have different thoughts about it.

So will 2012 be a hit? I think a lot of people will see it. I will probably rent it, at least, so much of its sales figures can probably be chalked up to rampant curiosity and a nifty marketing campaign. But its true success, if there is one, will be if it actually delivers on the promise…to pull you in to a believable end of the world that haunts you afterward.

And if it all turns out to be true? I’m looking forward to the bungee- jumping presidential candidates.

Homophones Rant

I was talking with Michele today, a most excellent friend of mine who happens to also be a high school teacher. She touched on a frustration that is one of my pet peeves as well, namely incorrect word usage.

One of the most egregious Word Violations (yes, I will capitalize it and make it part of the Shoestrings lexicon henceforth) has to do with homophones – words that sound the same but do not share the same meaning. Spelling checkers are wonderful things but they will not find misused homophones for you, giving rise to the classic poem which many of you have probably long since seen in your email box but I print here for your enjoyment anyway:

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it’s weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

– Sauce unknown

When I see that someone puts an arm around someone’s ‘waste’ I can’t suppress an ‘eww’. It’s a waste of a good sentence.

I often see requests to ‘please bare with me’ but, honestly, I’d rather keep my clothes on. Only balding bears can get away with being bare.

And how many times have you seen someone insist that, “I really like that to”? ‘Too’, ‘two’, and ‘to’ can’t be banged through our heads hard enough, honestly. In fact, say this out loud (maybe when the kids aren’t around):

“Balls,” said the Queen, “If I had to/two/too I’d be King.”

The King laughed…’cause he had to/two/too.

If this isn’t funny we may have to take your homophones away for your own safety.

It is our right to get the words right when we write though to do so may require a rite. Homophone quizzes may rein in the tendency to get homophones wrong so that we may reign as Word Masters instead of being left paupers in the rain.

If nothing else, here is a handy educational video from Veggie Tales to help everyone remember…homophones keep the plain plane from landing out on the plain!

Veggie Tales Homophone Song

Writing Prompt: Use as many homophones as you can in a humor piece of only 200 words.

To WriMo or Not to WriMo? That is the Yearly Question.

It comes back every year like a herd of migrating gophers, NaNoWriMo also known as National Novel Writing Month or Dreaded November.

(I know, I know, gophers?…Stay with me anyway)

I’ve tried it before and burned out after a glorious but short-lived effort. It seems that every November I have more on my plate than I can manage and have to pass. Yet I’ve heard those stories of people who went the whole distance, successfully ending up with a manuscript of sorts in one single month. Then, I imagine, they have to go into rehab for their caffeine addiction and sleep for the next six months.

This year is no different. I have three kids now and should be hunting freelance work. Can I really try to reach some insane writing goal each day? And just how insane would that goal be?

Don’t try to answer that, I’ve got the numbers all ready for you.

The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel from November 1^st to November 30^th. That means 1,666.67 words a day. The ‘666’ part is no accident.

Say I do it. Say I somehow, due to some miracle, manage to do it successfully…would the manuscript require so much editing that all my hard work would be for naught? I did see that someone who had done NaNoWriMo had self-published the result. They shall remain nameless but trust me when I tell you it was not a really good thing.

So this year…do I attempt it or do I keep my hold on reality which is, admittedly, a little tenuous at times? Visiting writers…are you doing WriMo? Comments welcome!

Today’s a Great Day for Worm Racing! And Prompt #1

Yep, it rained last night and as the oldest daughter and I were headed to the bus stop we were duly impressed by the six-inch earthworms that were crossing the road. The little creatures were making pretty good time, too, apparently if there’s enough water on the road they skate along pretty well.

What I don’t understand is why they feel the need to cross the road.  Some are crossing from left to right the others from right to left. It’s worse than the whole question of why the chicken crossed the road. Maybe it was after the worms.

Yes, we are easily amused but we both thought it was pretty cool that some of the worms were side-by-side in racing configuration. Maybe these are the XTreme athletes of the earthworm community.

“Dude! Betcha can’t cross the Big Asphalt faster than me!”

“You’re on bud! Watch out for the Squashies!”

The street is littered with flat little bodies of athletes who dared and lost to a passing Goodyear radial. That’s Xtreme sports for you.

Anyway…it is now time for the very first Creativity Prompt of the Shoestrings blog! I post the following so that the various creative muses might be jump-started and anyone reading this blog might have that most coveted of all creative endeavors, inspiration.

Creativity Prompt #1

Create a new XTreme sport, the more far-fetched the better and write a story, song or poem about it. Or draw a picture of it.

Overture

So here it is! After a morning’s worth of poking around at the guts of this page I finally have a picture at the top and I’m ambling around the learning curve. I’m far from happy with the look of the thing but it’ll come. The toughest part has been letting the real world go while I play with this, usually in the form of my son who is taking every opportunity that my back is turned to try and prove that parents do not, in fact, have eyes in the backs of their heads.

Yes, I’m sorry, parents, I’m afraid I’ve let you down. It’s as bad as telling your child that there is no Santa.