We Lost Our Dear Sister Janet Fogg

Quirky Props for Characters - Bizarre Stuff For Your People

There are many places you can get ideas for personal belongings that set your characters apart.

When I fly United, the greatest source of entertainment is the Sky Mall Magazine. 

I can’t believe what wise guys invent and others, less wise, buy.  Writers, take note; a quirky character can own quirky things.  Sky Mall is full of inspiration. On the most recent trip, gone was my favorite - the Lawn Yeti - which always made me question the mindset of crypto zoologists. 

The new Sky Mall featured improved items to thrill those-with-everything who crave unnecessary and ludicrous gadgets. 

Appropriately, I listened to Madonna’s Material Girl as I thumbed through the catalogue and saw a blow up thing that you’re supposed to lean on, not your face, your whole body.  On the next page, I learned I could rest secure in the knowledge that I could make a perfect pop-up egg in an electric Eggmaster – like it’s hard to use a pan????  Then to complement it, page 25 offered Environmentally “Green Gourmet Cookware.”  Really?  Must we be P.C. even when we cook?

Since much of my writing involves food as a theme, I thought something like that could come in handy for an oddball character.

 

HAVE A HIPSTER CHARACTER?

I turned the page and puzzled over a faceless watch  -  a wrist band where the time shows up on the links of the watch band.  Why? I asked myself. Haven’t all the gear-head, gadget-loving people moved on from watches altogether?

 

Then there came the Miocrodermabrasion System that will clear those pesky pores, featuring a pore-sized vacuum straw, no kidding!

Great for a spurned wife seeking a new lover or a desperately insecure teen maybe?

If pores weren’t your problem but your butt was, the Magic Benefit Panty promised to give those who are butt-less a seriously great bubble butt.  This is quite important when dancing these days…especially if you are shaking you stuff to the namesake song: Bubble Butt.

The last one truly confused me – a shirt with pockets under the armpits.  I could understand it if it was meant to hide a container of deodorant.  But I’m sorry, a passport, jewelry, and credit cards under your arms?  Really?  It advised me to put my cash there.  Really?  Who’d want it after it’s been to Sweat Heaven and back?   If your character wants one, it’s called a Compression Security Travel T-Shirt.  With seven (yes seven!) hidden pockets, it’s only $69.95.  But they don’t offer reimbursement for the pain of scraped and chapped underarms.  I can see a character suffering after wearing such a thing for a few hours as he perspires heavily as the bad guy sits next to him with a dinner knife aimed at his ribs.

 

GOT A NERD TO OUTFIT?

 

Sky Mall isn't the only place to discover quirky belongings for your characters.  At Uncommon Goods you can find ideas for outfitting your nerdish secondary character.  He might like a ray gun sculpture which can be had there for only $170.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or a skateboard stool...  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEALTHY CHARACTERS?

And for your wealthy couple a map made of license plates.  They'd only need to fork out $3,900

 

If one ignores the other, maybe he hides in an ostrich pillow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or wastes money on a Back To The Future Flux Capacitor!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Caticorn Cat Unicorn Shower Curtain?

 

FOODIE CHARACTER?

 

Being the foodie that I am, I was especially attracted to the Spam and Ketchup cookbooks.  Each only sets your cook back about $10

 

And if your character is a low budget foodie, maybe he has a $13 Wilton 'Football' Novelty Cake Pan.

 

 

 

ROMANCE CHARACTER?

For your kinky romance character the handy dandy Baby Banana Toothbrush with Handle.

SCENTS:

Because you also want to engage your readers senses, they also sell cookie dough or zombie cologne.

 

 

TEEN CHARACTERS?

 

ModCloth will thrill your quirky teen with a taco purse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                              a jaws necklace

 

 

and math leggings for your genius cheerleader.

 

 

 

Have fun tooling around on these and other quirky gift sites for props. They are great places to find the little fun belongings that bring characters alive. Do you know of any cool places to find prop ideas? 

    

 -----Inky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s Your Loot? Remember Book of the Month Club?

If someone handed you a box and told you there’s loot inside custom chosen just for you.  What would you imagine the contents would be?

[Books perhaps?  All your favorite genres?]

 

When you were a kid, did you ever wish your birthday came more than once a year?  How about once a month? 

 

Ready to commit $20-150/month to have unexpected goodies with a theme mailed to you every month?  It’s the new book of the month club.  They are subscription boxes. And I’m not talking about the Dollar Shave Club.

 

These little monthly “gifts” offer a general smattering of items each month, gear related to your interests.

 

[Like a book you choose because of your interests.  I remember my father getting Books of the Month-The Godfather, The Happy Hooker, Joy of Sex.  I wonder if he had a secret life.]

 

One of my sons has rated wine choices in his monthly delivery. The other son has, on top of that, delivered goodies targeted toward hipster guys-Bespoke Post.  Among other funky, foodie items, he got gourmet salts and squid ink which he used to take his homemade pasta dish to the next level.  He chooses from a short list, but many of these subscription services offer boxes of awesomeness filled with random surprises.

[like a great book!]

The possibilities are endless now that buying on line is standard practice and shipping costs are negligible.  We’re talking about year-round Christmas for all ages.

[Do we not love to go into a bookstore and browse, collecting a handful of stories we hadn’t planned on getting?]

There’s Birchbox for guys, delivering a monthly selection of grooming and lifestyle products, from face cleaner to bow ties.

Awesome Pack thrills big kids and families with board games, plush toys and activities.

Some subscription boxes are higher end--$100 and up--like Wil Wheaton Quarterly Co. curated by celebrities, style experts, authors and bloggers. You might even open up to a Dungeons & Dragon starter set.  Carrots for new parents surprises with books and toys for $120/box. 

Some are more focused like TeeBlox and Once Upon a Tee targeting fans of Doctor Who and The Legend of Zelda with officially licensed t-shirts; Brick Loot specializing in building items like legos; for college kids, a care package with snacks and household items called Pijon; BarkBox for dogs; NatureBox for snackers [popular with high Coloradans?]; Tasting Room for wine; and Kiwi Crate for 3-7 year olds who like craft projects. And one I would have loved as a kid, Tinker Crate, for older kids’ science projects.

GET YOUR GEEK ON!

The trend seems to be all the rage among geeks and gamers, who have flocked to Lootcrate, 1Up, Geek Fuel, Geek Me Box, ComicBoxer, Star Wars Smuggler’s Bounty, Nerd Box.

 

 

Power Up Box, HeroCrate, Super Loot ZBox, Comic-Con Box, IndieBox. Super Loot and ZBOX from Zavvi and VillainCrate.

[Really want to invite VILLAINS into your house?]

 

 

What do the Geeks and Gamers who pay for them get?

 

[Just like a book, they have to crack it open and dip in.]

 

What the Geeks can expect to find:  South Park gear, Nintendo exclusive t-shirts, Marvel, Star Wars, DC Comics and Pokemon figures, prints and figurines, and Horror Collectibles

 

[…which made me wonder if it all the elements are legal.]

 

These thingies of the month clubs are not companies unique to the U.S.; if you are in Australia, you can order up Box 51 and Epic Crateness.  Hero Box.  

 

My favorite company name is Bento Box.... clever.

 

They claim to use a panel of experts to pick comic issues around a theme each month, that the value of each box is at least $60. But the monthly rates: $20 (1 mo.), $18.34 (3 mos.), $17.50 (6 mos.) Shipping:  $5 in the U.S. / $12 to Canada

Some are aimed at female geeks:  Fan Mail from who you may receive a Spider Man necklace and a Superman Comic, Gamer Girl Monthly (which offers exactly what it sounds like),

Instead of reading about your favorite manga or movie character, you can wear him in the form of a t-shirt.

Friend Alicia Howie enjoys her $20/month with S&H subscription to one of the most popular subscription box companies, Lootcrate, especially her Labyrinth t-shirt.  I wonder if Merle Haggard and Prince have t-shirts in any company’s box of loot this month?

What would be in your ultimate loot box?  Mine would definitely have gourmet food items, books, yellow pads, and a great pen.

      --- Inkpots

Secondary Characters visit Catherine Hamrick's Blog

By way of my guest post on her quite popular blog, I'd like to introduce you to Catherine Hamrick.  She's one of those rare writers who take your breath away, even before it's captured by one of the big publishers. I describe her writing as Haven Kimmel if she wrote from the South.  She's not only a seasoned editor and writer, she's an accomplished cook and a keen observer of culture and the beauty of down-home folks. What more is there in this world?  Riding on her coattails, I selfishly hope others will read my post.

I'm honored she featured me and doubly honored that she calls me a "Triple-Threat-Talent..." Wow, figured I had to use that description in a post of my own!

http://randomstoryteller.com/2015/09/05/pump-up-your-secondary-characters/#respond

Do come, read up on my take on Secondary Characters, then tool around on Catherine's site.  She has an eclectic blog; no doubt you'll find something there that will fascinate you. 

WRITER OF THE YEAR!

 

Hooray Sister Shannon (AKA Nib)!

 

Shannon won RMFW Writer of the Year! 

 

A good time (and champagne) was had by all Saturday at the comfy BookBar in Denver. 

 

A rowdy crowd of RMFW members were there to celebrate

along with fellow nominees 

Christine Jorgensen (who was also nominated for a Colorado Book Award this year)

and

Terry Wright (a long time contributor to the organization and small publisher) 

Talented writers all! 

Congratulations!

All Dogs Can Learn New Tricks

Take it from this “old dog,” it is possible to change course, attitude and goals. In elementary school I wrote poems, later 12-year-old erotica. 

My high school creative writing teacher entered my work in contests and drove me to regional writing conferences.  Together we started my high school literary magazine.  A few of my shorts and poems found homes in regional lit mags.  In Paris I had the privilege of editing Paris/Atlantic which published writers as well-known as Archibald MacLeish, David Avidan, Vasco Popa and Antonio Cisneros.  It was a perk to be published alongside such great writers.  I had a happy little stack of published work, and I started to feel I was a real writer. 
After getting married, I was distracted from my writing as I worked as a weight-loss counselor then as a high school substitute teacher.  When I became pregnant with my first son, I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.  What’s a more flexible way to do that than to be a writer?  I had no affiliation with a literary magazine at that point.  I’d need to learn a new trick, write something book-length.  I wanted to honor my husband’s resilient, loving family by writing their remarkable story.  His father was put on death row for whistle-blowing on his Taiwan-government-connected employers.  It left the rest of his large family homeless. That creative nonfiction was represented years later by NY agent, Kathleen Anderson.  It didn’t sell, perhaps in part because expectations were set high.  She compared it to master Amy Tan’s work.  Though my subject matter--Chinese family dynamics--is similar, her style is quite different than mine.

American Moon had food as one of its themes, even recipes in the back for each dish served in the story.  Having been raised on mac-n-cheese and hot dogs, it’s ironic that exotic food is one of my passions.  I loved food cooked in leaves (vine, bamboo, lotus, etc), I decided to write a cookbook.  Time for a new trick.  Wanting the cookbook to reflect my love of story, I decided it would be a literary cookbook, with folktales that explain the foods.  I worked on the research and proposal over the course of many years.  Legendary agent Jane Dystel tried to sell it for a year, then our contract ran out in 1997. A few other agents had a passion for my subject and represented it only to receive similar editor feedback: “Karen leaves no leaf unturned, this is a great proposal but we can’t imagine someone coming home and saying, ‘I think I’ll cook in leaves tonight.’”  It’s hard to fight a 3-minute cookbook trend or one that prefers famous chef authors.  The three file drawers-full, knocked from within every so often trying to get attention.  A few months ago my new agent, Deborah Ritchken, brought my book to Skyhorse Publishing.  I had to learn the new trick of social media crunching, needed to build my numbers, join every on-line food organization I could find, become active in the communities.  I needed to learn a very important new trick before I signed my contract with Skyhorse for Nature’s Wrap.  After some contractual adjustments made by Deborah and quite a few clauses I caught and addressed, I took my agreement to amazing transaction attorney, Susan Spann, who suggested more important changes to the contract before I signed.  When the agreement was as favorable to me and my photographer as it was going to ever be, I signed and faxed it off to no-doubt exhausted Deborah and patient editor, Nicole Frail. But all the new contract tricks ended up being filed for future use. Literally hours after I signed, my photographer backed out.  The money, she decided, didn’t make all the time worth it for her.  After a wide-net search for another photographer who could work with the low photo budget (including loop queries, Craig’s List ads, and lots of social media outreach), Deborah and I realized that my own attempt to take the photos came up quite short and my learning curve made the project impractical.  We had to back out of the contract.

 Trying another trick, I wrote a draft of a mystery utilizing my experience volunteering at a crisis center.  I quickly set it aside having the itch to get back to my food theme.  Without much thought and even less planning, I decided to learn yet another new trick.  I wrote a series of humorous personal essays about marrying into a Chinese family.  Some were honored in contests and were subsequently published as one-offs on line.  But my agent at the time, Kathleen Anderson, insisted that essays don’t sell unless you already have platform.  Not wanting them to simply sit in the drawer under the one occupied by American Moon, I took the recommendation of my Sisters of the Quill to use them to put together a novel.  So I turned first person narrative to third person action and dialogue and created a plot on which to hang the stories like clothes on a line.  That was the most challenging of my new tricks.  But I still had fun with it.  It didn’t catch fire (or at least hasn’t yet).  I’ve been told that the humor feels more appropriate for stand-up comedy than a novel, and that the essays still peek through.  The point of view character is still me.  Too much of the “personal” stayed behind.

Several years ago, at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, in a pitch practice session, I hesitantly read into the microphone the pitch for a new paranormal suspense novel I’d started.  “A mother wades through Chinese mythical culture to free her son of the hunger striker who has possessed her son.”  Workshop leaders, Jan Jones (a filmmaker and future mentor of mine) and producer Ken Berk, asked me to read it again.  Ken asked to see me after the workshop ended.  He wanted to package my story for sale if I was willing to write it as a screenplay. After I signed with an entertainment attorney and purchasing a stack of screenwriting books, I buckled down to learn another new trick.  That first screenplay placed second in a contest right out of the gate and my trajectory changed.  I completed a dozen scripts (a few of them shorts, several of them collaborations – with Janet Fogg, Christian Lyons and indie director, Eric Toll).  These scripts all counted as new tricks since they involved a new format but also a wide variety of genres: Sci-Fi, romantic comedy, dark comedy, broad comedy, supernatural thriller, paranormal suspense, dramedy, and heist. Most won regional, national, or international awards.  One caught the attention of a Hollywood agent who brought it and a few others to Barry Sonnenfeld, James Cameron, HBO, Showtime, and Sci-Fi Channel.  It was yet another new trick to have one of my short writer-for-hire scripts produced by a local director after one of my spec scripts was chosen by an indie producer from among other audition pieces.  That long screenwriting detour included one of the most rewarding new tricks of my career, collaboration, and led to the column I write for BTS Book Reviews. 

In the middle of it all, one of my short stories caught the attention of Maggie Osborne, a wildly successful writer.  She offered to mentor me.  She advised me on the business end of writing and took early peeks at my new projects.  She told me when it was time to seek a different agent, something I was afraid to hear.  To this day I’ve had 5 agents and have been offered representation by a few others.  At one time it was scary letting an agent go—as if nobody would ever come along and offer representation again.  I’ve conquered that fear…. a new trick for me.   

Now I’m writing a serial-killer suspense novel, one I suspect will be the most marketable of my book-length works.  Still food themed but it’s a new trick for me to dive into the mind of a serial killer.  Kind of fun.

For a while now, I’ve been able to contribute to the family income through professional editing, coaching, writing-for-hire, ghostwriting, and writing for magazines and newspapers.  I judged contests, facilitated critique groups, wrote monthly columns, and taught on cruises, at conferences, retreats and in schools.  All new tricks.

Some tricks I wish I hadn’t been forced to learn: One agent sabotaged a big celebrity ghostwriting project, forcing me to hire an attorney.  One client failed to pay me for months of work.  The cookbook still doesn’t have a home, which means my bucket list of one item (publish a book length work of my own) is still without a checkmark.  Many of my projects still rest in drawers, testaments to the longest apprenticeship on earth.  But I wouldn’t trade the years of effort for all the success in any other career.  I’m a writer.  For me it has been all about learning new tricks.  And it will be until I can no longer hold a pen in my hand.          

What new tricks have you learned?  --Inkpot

Writing is Like Painting

Richard Diebenkorn's ten rules for beginning a painting:

1. Attempt what is not certain.  Certainty may or may not come later.  It may then be a valuable delusion.

2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued--except as a stimulus to further moves.

3. Do search.  But in order to find other than what is searched for.

4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable.

5. Don't "discover" a subject of any kind.

6. Somehow don't be bored but if you must, use it in action.  Use its destructive potential.

7. Mistakes can't be erased but they move you from your present position.

8. Keep thinking about Pollyanna.

9. Tolerate chaos.

10. Be careful only in a perverse way.

My good friend and great writer Tony Van Witsen sent this list to me.  

Stay tuned, I hope to apply these rules for beginning as I enter into a new contracted project.  More details on that later.     -  Hugs from the Inkpot