These last days, I didn't post anything and only comment on your posts because I have been a little down. We have been sick for almost 3 weeks, of cold, of stomach and now again we have a cold. Grrr I hate to be sick.

But I managed to do my assingnments and finally I'm up to date in my writing class. Although I'm still fighting with the query letter! I outlined the first changes I'm going to do to Glowing Shadow and finally I can continue translating.

This weekend was my son Carlos birthday. I don't know when the time passed away but now he is six and I wonder were is my first little baby! Anyway we spend a great day , we brought Mc Donald's ( his favorite food) the grandpas and his godmother came to have lunch and we all played with him kinect and wii! He was very happy!

Here is a photo of me with my two babies, as you can se we had chocolate cake Yommi! Please don't see the black circles under my eyes (I used corrector if not believe I'm a raccoon)



I love Mafalda I know it is in Spanish but I found this one with translation and thought that it was perfect for what we are living all around the world.

#???, Mafalda 10 (1974)

Man: "Changing the world! Ha! Kids' stuff!" Man: "I, too, had such ideas when I was young, and now you see..." Mafalda: "We're doomed, guys! It turns out, if we don't hurry up and change the world, the world changes us!"

As Mafalda says we can only hope to change the world before it change us.

Have a wonderful day!

1. I have been working hard this week. I'm still working in my query letter for my class. Right now we are doing different types of them.

2. Also I realized that I will have to change some big things on the plot of GS. I'm working again in the outline so I can see where to apply the changes. I'm making it in english and spanish.

3.Also I'm working in the three dimensions of my characters to have a better perspective of them.

4.I finally have done some translation as you can see in the bar on the left, although I haven't revised that part. I will do it next.

5.Well those are all the updates from  my writing. How are you doing?

Have a wonderful weekend!

I was considering whether to upload this post or not. But then I thought you would understand me better than anyone. You are also writers.

I'm in the process of translating my book while I'm revising. I know what are the things I have to change, the things I should avoid, but I am not able to do it.

It's so hard to accept that you know what you have to do but can’t do it! Sometimes I can’t find a stronger verb to replace an adverb. It sometimes seems impossible to me to know if I am showing or telling, I know the things that identify it but it is difficult to know when it’s appropriate to use each one of them. I know all writers battle with this.

There is also the dialogue, I know I should not explain much in dialogue but what if the narrator is a person who thinks and analyzes everything? I don’t want to bore the reader but my narrator is a person who feels what other people feel, so she constantly perceives things in the midst of situations and conversations, and she gets conclusions in the middle of them about what is happening. I avoid her to think or talk to herself through the dialogues?

Surely at some point I'll find the solution and is only a process but now I feel useless as a writer. I know that most likely this is also a problem of English not being my native language and it’s harder for me to find new words. That I must continue trying and that eventually it will be easier but right now I’m in a hole.

Really it has been a very difficult day with my writing, so much so that my SIL called from Spain and as soon as she heard me she knew I was depressed. She argued with me for half an hour for not having the Messenger of AOL which is what connects to the internal messengers of many companies and that way I could have talked to her about it when it was happening. Yes, i am a stubborn I have MSN, yahoo and Skype so I could have AIM. So I’m installing it also, another messenger to the pile ( is what you need when everybody is far away) I would love to talk more with my SIL and my phone service only gives free calls to Mexico, United States and Canada, so this is the solution.

Well finally talking about what matters I'm depressed and I do not know what to do with it but deep down I know I'll go out of this hole, that this is something I must do if I want to write in English. Probably tomorrow I will get up with a better attitude.

For now I feel relieved to have taken it out of me, to express what I really feel. I told my SIL, but she doesn’t understand because she isn’t a writer, so sometimes I can imagine her face of: are you really depressed about that?

I hope you understand me and not get bored with this post; I assure you that tomorrow I will return again to be me...

I wasn't sure if I would post anything before new year. Right now I'm mad with life but most of all with my mother. But what can I do she is my mother and I love her even when she says things that hurt without even noticing it. I will never be the perfect daughter in her eyes no matter how much effort  I put. But as I said I will always love her so I must calm down and go on. I will not pay attention to her words anymore (or so I hope)

I haven't translated anything but I do revised. I didn't have time because I am the cook for the holidays so with the kitchen and the kids on vacation I don't have free time.

I hope your holidays aren't as painful as mine!

By the way the tarta de santiago (cake) was perfect I will post the recipe in January.

I  hope I can come back with a happy post to wish you a wonderful new year.

PS: Sorry for talking about the things that got me angry but I had to write of it to take it out of my yistem.

Have a great day!!

This weekend I was making a summary of all the tips Tracy gave me and all the ones I have read on internet for revisions. I thought I should share it here so anyone can print as I will do and have it near.

Also please if you know or think of another thing important when revising please comment and I will go adding to this post.

Things to look for or change when revising:

1. Show, don’t tell:

“Show, Don't Tell invites understanding; I cannot find a better way to say this”

“If you are as captivated by what you read the tenth time you read it as you were the first time, then the author has succeeded in Show, Don't Tell”.

“When "showing" would prove to be more information than anyone wants or needs, then telling is perfectly acceptable. A good rule to keep in mind is that if it isn't important to the story, it's okay to keep it to the realm of telling”.

"In the case of "acceptable tell" always keep in mind that IF you can change it without it becoming more than you want it to be, do so. This leaves room for those necessary tells. Too much tell, even if it seems acceptable, drags a story down."

            “In resume if you want to build a character, shape a mood, you must show. But I you want to move the story maybe tell is correct. I guess it is the balance of them what makes the prefect story.”

-          The words: I heard, I saw, I felt, I was, usually are signs of telling.

 

2. Try as must as you can to substitute adverbs for strong verbs.

3. Avoid using as much as possible “which” “who” and “ that”.

4. Describe, you want the reader to experience the story.

5. Always check grammar.

6. Very and so are filler words. Find other words.

7. If there’s no dialogue in a while we must evaluate our technique.

8. Characters have to be in movement, living, making things.

9. Little or no ambiance and presence. If we gloss over important events, giving the rundown on who said what, when, where and how, and then slip out of the event without so much as a drink, it may be time to ponder. Why did we feel the need to include this important event in the first place?

10. Give the reader a reason to care for the character

11. Use dialogue effectively. Let the character speak, make the reader eavesdrop the conversation, not only hear it from you.

12. Use gestures and movements. . Act out the scene, if necessary to capture details.

13. Make every word count. Make every word mean something, be important for the history.

 

**One of the Links were I found this, I don’t remember the other ones ( I had the tips in post its all around my desk) And   of course. I added the great advice of    also