The competitive edge

There is a mini-competition in progress on one of the chat loops that I belong to. It centers around nudging several of us (writers) into pushing ourselves a little further. During February, March, and even April many of us succumbed to the winter blahs. Now we have to get back into gear, writing and producing stories. It's not always easy to do.

Anyway, as I've observed how things have been going this last week, I find it remarkable how just a little competitive edge along with a certain amount of accountability has nudged so many of us out of our doldrums. I'm sure that warmer temps have helped. I'm sure that sunnier days have helped. But a little bit of show'n'tell has helped the most.

I foresee a flood of submissions for our editors. So perhaps they should rest up now in preparation of the future. Several people have also confessed to trying genres they've never attempted before. Change is good. Encouragement is good. And the high spirits evident when one person urges another on... that's especially good. Whether it's 500 words or 5000, it's forward progress. For some that 500 are much harder won than the 5000 for others.

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I recently read four stories by one author and that led to a detailed discussion with the house hunk regarding the many ways a certain erect body part behaves. In every single book the author described this body part in a position that is a physical impossibility. We tried various experiments and... Realllly impossible. Unless he was hung better than a horse--and probably not even then.

That discussion led to other observations about incredibly silly things that writers describe. Now I am a woman. Yes, I know that probably comes as a terrible shock to some of you, but there it is. You'll just have to deal with it. As I was saying, I am a woman and therefore, I'm pretty sure of the general location of various specific feminine parts. And unless the woman in a book is an alien, then her parts should be located in pretty much the same place as every other woman, right? RIGHT? Well, then, why am I reading books that have those parts in the wrong place? Is the writer in fact a man using a woman's name? Well if he is a she, then the internet is a wonderful thing, you know with pictures in living color and detailed instruction. Or he could ask the woman in his life to assist him in his investigations. If the writer is a woman, doesn't she have a mirror??? Just sayin', ya know?

You might look at it this way (no pun intended... get your mind out of the gutter!) If we're writing this stuff, shouldn't it at least be accurate? To my way of thinking, screwing that up is just as sloppy as a character walking into a room with a skirt on and two paragraphs later having her take off her jeans. Sloppy. And it reflects badly on all of us.

So never let it be said that I don't give my all to my research. And of course, the house hunk is always available to assist. After all, that's what house hunks are for...

Anny

Drop by the ladies blogs and check to see what they're up to. Amarinda, Kelly, and OhGetAGrip.