The buttons are back!/The History of The Fork Contest

Yea!!! All the buttons (bold, italic, etc.) are now back on blogger. I'd figured out how to do it by typing the tags, but it's a lot easier this way.

Let's see...what's going on?

-My current project was trundling merrily along...until I hit another snag today. But I have to keep reminding myself that it happens. I can only go about fifty to 100 pages without hitting something that throws me off guard. Really, I think that's what ends up making it more fun is that I don't always know what's going to happen.  But sometimes it's hard, especially when you just want to keep going!

-I'm looking for contests to enter The Silver Spoon into, to try to generate more "buzz" about it.

-Party preparations are coming along nicely -- I've confirmed with that the clubhouse is still available, at least as of Monday. So, when they receive my check (today, I hope), we should be set. I'm holding off on invitations until I get that confirmation from them.

-I really, really want to start submitting Bitter Pill. It was so much fun to write and the second one, Sleep Tight, was also fun. Not that writing The Silver Spoon wasn't fun -- just a different sort of fun. With sci-fi, it's always more like, what if? With the mystery, it's set on present-day Earth, life as we know it. So, writing the mystery was really different because I didn't have to think about things like, "Could he use his powers that way? What happens when they touch?"

When you're doing stuff like that you're building a world, creating a universe. And you darn well have to stick to those rules you created, no matter what. It's exhilarating, but a challenge. But because Bitter Pill is in this universe, all the rules were already made -- I just had to follow them. Which creates a different sort of challenge. Bitter Pill is populated entirely by human beings --  normal ones, relatively speaking. One dead, of course, because it's a murder myster. Okay, and maybe not so normal. Rennie's mother is a diagnosed hypochondriac (a real disease, ironically enough), someone is a murderer, and Rennie's in love with a married man, the sheriff, no less.

Slightly spoilerish information ahead (though not spoilers at all for those who have read The Silver Spoon and Bitter Pill) If you don't want to read this next part, just skip to the bottom for details on the history of the fork contest!

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It occurs to me as I describe Rennie's dilemma with love that I do gravitate toward the some of the same themes, regardless of genre. The romance in my stories, sci-fi or mystery or whatever, is never an easy thing and something not usually resolved or easily resolvable in the space of one book. When I was in college, I wrote a couple short stories, the first "real" stories I ever wrote. Both of them were about relationships and they ended in a rather depressing manner (the stories, not the relationships in them, although now that I think about it...) But the funny part is I actually like happy endings, honestly! I had a good laugh when I read RWA's (Romance Writers of America) guidelines for their book contests. Every single one specified a HEA (Happily Ever After). I'm not sure that quite exists for me. Maybe because I think things in real life are rarely so simple. You get lots of good stuff, true, but usually some amount of bad comes right along with it. But that's cool, because that's just the way life is. If everything in life was great and you got everything you wanted without any pain or sacrifice, then life would be...well, great, for about five minutes and then boring. That combination of good and bad in life is something I think fiction should try to represent -- as one of the instructors from Writer's Institute said, don't protect your characters. Let them be real and feel the pain, just like the rest of us. : )

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End of slightly spoilerish information.

Okay, I've rambled long enough : )

One last thing...Major, major imaginary dollars (or bookmarks, a key chain or bookplate or postcards) for someone who can find information about the history of the fork. Like when it was invented (I don't need an exact date, just the century) or started being used regularly. If not the fork (because that could be going back way too far, like prehistoric or something), how about the spoon? The invention of the fork is mentioned as a bit of dialogue (in a sarcasticky kind of way) and I need to know when the fork (or spoon) was invented to make sure it makes sense.  Or to provide an accurate rebuttal from the other party in the conversation. If anyone has time to kill and can find a site that has the info, that would be great. It's on my list of things to do, I just thought it might be interesting to see what everyone finds. It was so much fun when you guys responded to the ampersand trivia a few months ago. : )

Email me at sklemstein@msn.com or post comments here.

Talk to you tomorrow!