writer’s advice – Noreen Lace

What Did You Do?

Published on April 13, 2020April 12, 2020 by Noreen Lace1 Comment

I read an article which stated, there’s no need to feel you have to be productive at this time.

WHAT? Then wtf are we going to do?

I heartily disagree. I think during this time we need to set goals. We need to focus on something to keep us sane!

When this is over, I want to have something to show for it.

When this is over, in another month? another two months? giving us a total of 3 months or more alone in our homes, do we walk out with nothing to show but our muffin tops the size of three tiered wedding cakes?

I’m not telling you not to feel stress. I’m not telling you not to stress eat. I am saying – set a goal and focus on something positive while we’re doing the best we can to survive the pandemic.

This is hard. I get it. We’re scared. If you want to stuff your face full of maple bacon donuts, I’m totally with you. If you have a bad day and want to curl yourself into a ball under your flannel sheets and cuddle your cat – that was my Saturday. I’m not superwoman. I’m not asking you to do anything I’m not doing myself.

When someone asks me, what did you do during the pandemic? I want to say I accomplished something.

I’m setting goals.

I’m in the process of another draft – hopefully the final – of my novel. I want to finish that.

I have two fully drafted novellas that need work – those are next.

I signed up to take two classes. I may take more.

I painted my patio. No shit. It’s nearly finished.

I’m going to have a hell of a lot of rooted clippings – plant speak.

My yard will look amazing – well, for a week or so after the pandemic ends, then the weeds will be back.

I’ve written two new poems. I think I’ll start reading poetry live.

I have a live online reading scheduled for April 24th, if you’re interested.

If you’ve gotten this far, I’m planning on offering a free writing class to whoever wants to share some writing. I may recruit other writers to offer their opinions. I think we should workshop too.

So – speaking from the future – what did you do during the pandemic?

KUDOS and LOVE

to those who are serving,

police, fire, grocery clerks, doctors, nurses, volunteers.

You are my HEROES!

The Idea Farm

Published on March 16, 2020March 11, 2020 by Noreen LaceLeave a comment

The idea farm is a creation – where we keep all of our ideas planted, waiting for the spring.

PLANT:

There’s a time for the planting – every day, every minute, every conversation, every silence. But pick and choose. My favorite place to get ideas is from overheard snippets of conversations, words and lines heard in passing or overheard in a coffee shop. Sometimes, it’s just a word someone throws out that sticks. It might be an image. Someone posted a photo and it was eerie, strangely haunting to my strange little perception. I have notebooks, torn papers, lists of ideas. And the ideas do come to live when they’re ready.

FERTILIZE:

To keep the idea farm going, we need to keep it fresh. New ideas coming, water flowing, fertilizer tossed around. Water is connected, according to Freud, to our unconscious. Taking a bath before bed is a great way to feed your muse. Fertilize – remember to go back, reread, add a word or two, subtract a word or two, think about it before you go to bed, when you first wake up. Something will bloom. Sometimes it blooms prematurely and I’m up at 3am writing like a madwoman. But it works. I wrote a number of poems and short stories struck by a fever of words and rhythm. Of Strays and Exes and The Gold Tooth were written under one of those spells.

HARVEST:

When the time is right, you write. You’ll pluck that idea out of the ground and start massaging it into what it was meant to be. Eddy was on a list. It sat there for quite some time waiting for me to be brave enough to pull it out, confident enough to put the words to paper, and strong enough to show it to others. So many more stories came like that – waiting for just the right time, ripe from the time and the fertilizer and ready to burst forth.

Much love and luck.

Authenticity

Published on February 12, 2020February 12, 2020 by Noreen Lace2 Comments

I think this is my word for 2020.

I feel I’m always authentic, being me, to the best of my abilities.

I reach for the positive in the majority of my interactions. (I admit sometimes I fall short – no one’s perfect.)

That being said, some research seems to suggests positive people ignore the negative. So, when I said to someone today, I’m into the whole positive psychology movement, she stated, “I believe in being authentic.”

I thought about the statement, and her misconception that by being positive I’m ignoring some negative or darker emotions (uhm, have you read my work?) . However, I think of it differently. It’s a way to handle the negative, it’s not about ignoring it, (which is what I explained to her).

Last year, this blog was about writing. In looking at statistics, there were a great number of readers. Good. I hope you guys got some good advice. This year, however, I want it to be more about joy and authenticity.

I think my writing is authentic, sometimes raw, sometimes dark, but always with hope.

Happy New Year – Happy Birthday

Published on January 1, 2020December 29, 2019 by Noreen LaceLeave a comment

Yay – it’s a New Year. There’s always so much hope and beauty at the thought of something starting new and fresh. Many of those who join the gym, lose motivation around March. Writers who resolve to write every day lose motivation about Jan 2nd. Just Kidding!

I resolved last year to write 365 days. Well, it didn’t quite happen. In reflection, I figured out what stunted my writing. In all honesty, it’s the stupidest reason in the world. Computer problems. I hate to run out and buy another computer. I get used to things and want them to continue to work. I kept trying to deal with the problem and would distract myself from the computer completely!

I took up journal writing in an effort to help. It helped! For awhile.

But enough about last year! This is a new year! New challenges to overcome! And, yes, it’s my birthday! When I was a kid, I hated it. HATE. Loathe. Detest. Everyone was burned out from Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The kids were all out of school – no cupcakes for me!

You might think, getting older, would be another reason to hate it. But I don’t. I love it. I love that my birthday is on the first of January. The start of the new year.

I’m told I was born under a mutable grand cross. Similar to Mike Tyson and Charlie Sheen – uhm…. Okay. I’m also told I’m a Firehorse. In ancient China, they used to kill firehorse children, especially if they were girls. Uhm… okay.

Some years ago, on January 1st, I undertook a hike to the top of the Hollywood Sign. Not that easy dirt path some of you may be familiar with; our leader took up ankle breaker trail and cardiac hill. I didn’t know there was an easier path!!! Standing at the top of the Hollywood Sign (the hill behind, really), I met an astrologer (who took the easy path) who became animated when I told him it was my birthday; he said I was a King of Spades and I should be writing books and teaching people. 🙂

At least he didn’t reference Hamlet’s father.

I don’t really make resolutions for the new year. I make goals throughout the year to keep myself motivated. Sometimes, throughout the year, those goals are met, and sometimes they are changed.

Resolutions are bronze: Bronze is a hard metal made of copper and others that form an unbendable form. We are humans; we need something a little less stiff.

Intentions are silver: Silver is harder than gold, but doesn’t seem as immediate. It’s shiny and pretty and we want to continue to come back to it.

Goals are gold: Gold, can be melted down and made into other things.

I’d like to write in different genres. More essays. More serious writing. I’d like to take more time with my fiction writing. I’d like to reach a larger audience – teach – and help.

Happy New Year!
Wishing you much success and love for the coming year.

So… How do you….?

Published on November 11, 2019November 10, 2019 by Noreen LaceLeave a comment

Since my book, How to Throw a Psychic a Surprise Party, came out, people have consistently asked me – so, how do you?

I’m not sure how to answer without giving away the themes appearing throughout the book of short stories, or to get long involved conversation about what we want to to see verses what we hope to see.

One of the basic constants in life is we are consistently surprised by things that have been right in front of our eyes. When whatever it is finally reveals itself, we are shocked and embarrassed that we didn’t know.

Some of our more dense friends will say – how could you not know? and other rude a-holes will actually claim to have known the whole time.

Life is like a magicians trick – he has all the cards in his hands, but one quick shuffle and presto – chango – the card is suddenly behind our ear, in his jacket – pocket, up his sleeve. How did it happen? How did he do that while we were looking right at him.

It’s a matter of keeping our attention elsewhere. We’re too close. Too busy. Distracted. There are signs, but they’re so easily explained away – and then, then… kind readers… it’s Pandora’s box of tragedy released on the human race. It’s what grows like weeds deep inside all of us.

Hope.

That is what the book is about.

Spooky Reads

Published on October 16, 2019October 13, 2019 by Noreen LaceLeave a comment

Imagine being haunted by all your exes at once!

A little less horrifying is being visited by all the women you’ve loved and lost.

After attempting an overdose by opium, that’s exactly what happens to Eddy. Based on the true event of an attempted suicide, the events that follow are a twisting, shadowy melee with spirit after spirit.

Eddy is the fictional account of Edgar Allan Poe’s 1848 brush with death. It’ll get you in the Halloween Spirit!

Other spooky reads: $1.00 Stories, The Gold Tooth, Psychic Surprise Party.

If you’re local, come on by and hear me read.

Mirror, oh deadly mirror…

Published on October 12, 2019October 11, 2019 by Noreen LaceLeave a comment

I’ve always been fascinated with the many myths and much mysticism associated with mirrors.

When I was a child, the Bloody Mary myth made it’s way around school. One girl claimed to be scratched and even showed us the poc mark (might have been a poked pimple!) on her face. Another said that she too had been haunted because she ran away from the mirror after daring Bloody Mary to come and get her.

My tentative relationship with Ghost Adventures proved fruitful as well in the haunted mirror of Bela Lugosi.

Mirrors are magical portholes through which people can travel.

Mirrors speak and offer information.

Vampires can’t be seen in mirrors, but that’s the only way one can view Medusa.

And souls can be trapped in mirrors….

That is where my story, Mirror People, comes in.

Marnie seems to have shut herself inside her house. She hasn’t shown up at holidays and promises to meet her family, but when she doesn’t show for the umpteenth time, her sister comes to visit her. Marnie is secretive and keeps leaving the room, her sister hears voices and noises – and she needs to discover what in the world Marnie has hidden in her house.

I just heard from a reader who asked if I had “any other horror or suspenseful type of stories.”

Mirror People appears in How to Throw a Psychic a Surprise Party.

Other stories which might be considered horror or suspenseful are:

Eddy,

$1.00 Stories,

The Gold Tooth.

Author Signing Tomorrow!

Published on October 11, 2019October 2, 2019 by Noreen LaceLeave a comment

Hi, All! If you’re in the area, stop down and see me. We’ll have a reading, signing, refreshments and a psychic reader!

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Four Fast Facts about Edgar Allan Poe (that I bet you didn’t know)

Published on October 10, 2019October 2, 2019 by Noreen Lace2 Comments

Edgar Allan Poe’s most productive writing period was while he was married to Virginia Clemm Poe. (31 Stories written and published)
Poe didn’t drink as much as he was rumoured to drink. One visitor to his home, William Gowans wrote:“During that time I saw much of him, and had an opportunity of conversing with him often, and I must say I never saw him the least affected with liquor, nor even descend to any known vice, while he was one of the most courteous, gentlemanly, and intelligent companions I have met with during my journeyings and haltings through divers divisions of the globe; besides, he had an extra inducement to be a good man as well as a good husband, for he had a wife of matchless beauty and loveliness, her eye could match that of any houri, and her face defy the genius of a Canova to imitate…”
Poe wrote essays about Street Paving, Composition, and even an intelligent, very modern piece, regarding Stonehenge!
The most famous picture of him was taken after a long sickness and days after a suicide attempt. (not his best picture)

Eddy is about the sickness – his alleged attempted overdose by opium a year before his actual death.

The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe

Published on October 9, 2019October 2, 2019 by Noreen Lace1 Comment

Jane Craig Stanton

A mother one of his friends who encouraged his poetry, he described her as his first “soul love.”

Elmira Royster

She was the daughter of a wealthy businessman who didn’t appreciate Edgar; When Poe went off to college, her father kept all his letters from her. When Edgar came back to town, her father scurried her off to the countryside so they couldn’t see one another. By the time Edgar returned from college for good, she was betrowed to someone else.

Virginia Clemm

His cousin whom he met when she was thirteen. They married later, and seemed to have a relationship that rivaled the best storybook romances until her death.