Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero

I often find myself coming to my blog, sitting and staring at an empty screen while I try to think of something to talk about. It’s not that I have nothing to say, it’s just that I don’t have anything interesting to say. There’s a big difference!

It’s easy for me to forget that not everything I do or say has to have some deep meaning behind it. At the end of the day, I’m just another person that does mundane things every day. While I’m passionate about it, I can’t talk about writing forever, and even if I did, that would be sort of boring. But if I’m not going to talk about writing, when I am a writer, what is there to talk about?

I often look at my friends who blog regularly and feel a pang of envy at their ability to find interesting things to talk about. One friend has a new blog post every week, like clockwork, chock full of interesting tidbits on everything from books to Disney World. I guess it’s because she draws on life experiences to tell interesting stories. But if I did that, what could I tell you? That I learned it’s easier to keep the oven clean if I bake a cherry pie with a piece of aluminum foil on the rack underneath it?

All in all, maybe I worry too much about being boring. But what I need to realize and get myself accustomed to is that everyone has slow weeks, or even slow months, and might not have a lot of riveting tales to tell.
So in that case, you get this – A very short, very simple blog post, in which I finally acknowledge I can’t be entertaining all the time.
Sometimes I’m boring, and you know what? That’s okay.

For as much as I love the written word, you might be surprised to know that there aren’t very many books in my house. Our video game collection fills two whole bookshelves and then some, but books? There’s only enough of them to fill two shelves. That’s shelves, mind you, not bookshelves – As in two boards to set things on inside a bookshelf.

Don’t get me wrong, I love books. I love the look, the feel, even the smell of them. But I’ve always been a big fan of the library and pretty frugal reader. The advent of the Nook my parents gave me for my birthday at the beginning of the year only made me more so. There’s very few books I find worth re-reading (Aside from reference manuals, that is) so there’s obviously very few I find worth keeping.

That said, there are a few that I would always be happy to have in my house… or take with me to a deserted island.

5. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The first real book I ever read on my own, I’ve actually never read The Hobbit again since my childhood. Still, it was powerful and moving enough that I’ve never forgotten any of it! With the film due to come out in just a handful of days, the desire to revisit one of my favorite childhood memories is fresh in my mind, and Tolkien never disappoints.

4. The White Dragon, by Anne McCaffrey
Though it comes halfway through the series, The White Dragon has always been one of my favorite Pern books. There’s something very endearing about Ruth, the only different dragon. His attitude makes him something of “The little dragon who could”, and the unique bond between Jaxom and Ruth makes this one worth revisiting any time.

3. Dracula, by Bram Stoker
The undead have always been alluring, but the popularity of vampires never really came about until Dracula was published. Few people realize that Dracula was far from being the first vampire book, and while it was the first to make vampires a mainstream concept, the modern vampire was first illustrated in Der Vampir, a poem written in 1748. Even so, Stoker’s work contains such vivid imagery and graceful storytelling that it remains the authoritative work on the world’s favorite kind of undead.

2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
The Chronicles of Narnia tell a lot of different stories, several of them able to stand alone. While it’s not the chronological first in the series, there’s a reason that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the first book in the set. It presents strong characters and a compelling storyline, giving just enough of a taste of the world to make you want to keep going. The last pages of the first book wrap the story up into a satisfying little package that would have been enough on its own – The fact that there’s more to read afterward is just the icing on the cake.

1. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Okay, so it’s technically three books – Six, if you choose to acknowledge that each book is divided into two volumes inside. That said, it’s all part of the same story and each volume can’t really stand on its own, so I still consider it one book. Being my favorite story, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this starts tops the list. If I had to choose just one thing to read, and have it be the only thing I could read for the rest of my life, this would be it.

Which books would you consider something you could never give up?

The month of November represents a lot of things. With Halloween officially past, everyone starts gearing up for the winter holidays. People begin making travel plans, decorating their homes, shopping for feasts and festivities. But it holds something else for writers.

If you’ve never spent a lot of time writing, you might not be familiar with National Novel Writing Month, or as many now call it, NaNoWriMo. It’s a pretty simple idea, really, a bunch of writers getting together to encourage each other as they try to write a novel in a single month. The traditional goal is 50,000 words in 30 days, which averages out to 1667 words a day, though ambitious writers can set themselves a higher word count goal.

Since 2004, the only year I participated, people always ask me at the beginning of November if I’m going to take part. Sometimes I consider it, sometimes I think it’d be great. But really, who has time to devote to hammering out fifty thousand words in a single month? Especially one as busy as November!

I didn’t complete the story I started back in 2004, by the way. It’s never bothered me – Sometimes it flows, sometimes it doesn’t. The week before last, I wrote over 8,000 words in two days and was disappointed that my writing time was interrupted by other responsibilities, because I could have done more. Since then, I’ve only managed snippets of 50-60 words here and there.

I don’t worry about it any more. I used to stress myself out over writing deadlines I’d foolishly set, knowing I couldn’t keep such a rigorous schedule amidst all the other things I do. Good things come to those who wait, and as I get older, I find I’m developing more patience to let those good things come in their own time.

So no, before anyone asks, I will not be participating in NaNoWriMo this year.
However, if I keep the pace I’ve been working at, I will finish writing my second novel this month. And that’s definitely something to be proud of.

The autumnal equinox slipped by with very little notice in the Alvarez household.
The change of seasons is something I’ve always loved to watch, the subtle shifts in the weather especially pleasant. It’s always a great feeling when you encounter the first cool autumn days after a particularly long summer, or the first warm kisses of spring after snowy winter months.

With everything going on here at home, it was easy to forget the equinox on the 22nd. Our home is currently undergoing some major renovations, thanks to the big, half-dead old maple that stood in our front yard. The maple tree is no more, though, and my husband is very proud of his impressive new lumberjack skills. A number of logs have been stacked beside the garden shed out back, waiting to be split and seasoned for use in the fireplace this winter.

The combined disappearance of the old tree and the remodeling of the damaged portions of the house are just the beginnings of changes, and how fitting for them to happen at the change of seasons? With a baby girl due to arrive on December 19th, there’s many more changes yet to come.

Change isn’t something I’ve ever handled very well, but instead of hiding from it, I’m doing my best to embrace it this year. It’s all change for the better, after all! So as a small gesture of how I’m changing myself to better embrace everything changing around me, I changed the design of my blog, as well. It’s a small step, but I think the transition from green and leafy to more mellow creams and browns is ideal for the transition from summer to fall.

I’ve also decided to change my outlook on life and my career. When people ask me what I do, my answer will no longer be the acknowledgement of my day job, it will be an emphasis on my real job – I am a writer, and it’s a job that I’m thrilled to have! Embracing the title is the first step to changing how I and others feel about my work. Again, it’s a small step, but I believe it’s one that marks a new beginning and a new stage of my changing life.

“What’s that?”
He didn’t seem interested in the thick black binder until I opened it, even though it had been in his hands just a moment before.
Saturday evening was particularly pleasant, the weather just cool enough to make it worth spending a few minutes outside. My husband was working on cutting down the old, dying maple tree in the front yard. I decided to work, too – Though my work is much different.

As tends to happen in small neighborhoods like ours, as soon as someone was outside, neighborhood children appeared in our yard. They’re a curious bunch, always wanting to see what’s going on. If there’s tools, toys, or machines involved, they’re even more likely to appear. So I wasn’t surprised when I sat my binder down on the only front porch chair, helped move a branch my husband had cut, and turned to find Jordan sitting with my binder on his lap.

It was just a boring black binder until he handed it to me. As soon as I sat on the edge of the porch and opened it up, Jordan was leaning over my shoulder. The very first page was nothing special to look at, just a size 12 Times New Roman font, double-spaced and marked all over with glittery red ink. I think it was the glitter, sparkling in the setting sun, that caught his eye.
“It’s a book,” I said, holding the binder up for him to see. “I’m writing it. It’s about halfway done.”
His eyes went round, his mouth working in a big “O”. His brother, Ty, did a double-take from where he stood.
“Halfway done and it’s already that big?” Ty asked, sounding surprised.
“Well, yes, but it’ll be much smaller when it’s in real book form. This is only printed on one side, so it’s twice as big as the real thing will be.” I showed them how it was printed, the back of each page blank, some of them with notes scribbled all over.
Jordan moved closer, observing at the words scratched out or replaced with a glazed look in his eyes. “So what do you have to do?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant.
“To write it? What do you have to do to write?” he asked.

I realized then that I wasn’t sure I knew the answer.
“You just do it,” I said, turning through a few pages. “You have an idea for a story and you just write it down. All you do is tell the story. Then you read it again to make sure everything makes sense, and change whatever doesn’t.”  It seemed so obvious to me, I never would have expected someone would want me to explain it.
“Haven’t you ever written anything?” I asked.
Jordan shook his head.

Many of my friends are writers. Writing comes to us as naturally as sleeping or breathing to anyone else. It’s simply a part of who we are.
As people tend to do, I’ve spent most of my life becoming friends with people who share interests with me. Since so many people I associate with either already identify as writers or identify as people who wish to write, I’ve all but forgotten how few people really sit down and do it. Many people will say they want to write a book, some even have stories in mind, but how many will actually take the time to make it happen?

But not everyone understands the compulsion or desire to write. As a bibliophile, I can’t wrap my mind around this. The written word is a huge part of my everyday life, but a passion for reading isn’t something found in many people, either. My mother was always an avid reader. But in all my life, I can’t recall ever seeing my father pick up a book. I can’t remember a time where I didn’t read, where I wasn’t interested in books. Seeing one of the neighborhood children so mystified by the concept of a book and the act of writing one was both surprising and saddening to me, though I know it could have nothing to do with his schooling or his way of life.

Maybe books just don’t speak to him the way they always have to me.
Maybe he’s never been presented with a story that really caught his interest.
Either way, though, I feel like both of us learned something in that moment on a quiet Saturday night. You could see the way his concept of books changed, in realizing the people who write them are people just like us, living normal, everyday lives. And for me, it was an important reminder that not everyone understands my craft. Books are an amazing thing, and as a writer, it’s important for me to be prepared to introduce someone to the written word at any time.
Perhaps I’ll sit on the front porch to write more often.

I didn’t want a dog.
I’ve never really liked them much, my dislike only intensifying through the years. So when my husband announced that he wanted a puppy, my heart sank to the pit of my stomach.
We’d had a puppy, shortly after moving into our cozy 3-bedroom starter home. To say she didn’t fit our lifestyle was to put it into gentle terms. Cassie was every bit Joe’s dog, and I don’t think she liked me at all. She would not listen or obey when he wasn’t around, was occasionally aggressive toward me while he was at work, and generally was difficult to manage. She couldn’t quite grasp the concept of house training, no matter what we tried. And she was destructive.
Cassie ate the wind chime that had been a gift when I was in my maid of honor’s wedding. Cassie ate shoes. Cassie ate the corners off all the kitchen cabinets. Cassie ate the window sill. Cassie ate a hole into the brand-new kitchen linoleum. More than once, Cassie tried to eat me. Looking around at all the Cassie-induced destruction we still hadn’t had the time or money to fix, I couldn’t believe that he wanted a puppy again. Cassie had gone off to live with a kind, older gentleman with a very big yard and enough free time to see to her needs as a high-energy breed, two things we were lacking.
I so did not want another dog.

But every day, he’d get online, searching everywhere from PetFinder to Craigslist in attempt to find his next dog. One day he said he’d found one, and I thought I was going to be sick. I had visions of him arriving home after work with some horrible mutt that was going to wreck our adorable house and put a strain on our marriage when it did. I dreaded what I would hear next with every fiber of my being.

And then the text message came. “What about this one?” it asked, with a picture attached. I was a little surprised by what I saw – A tiny white puffball sitting on muddy ground but looking clean as could be. It was so fluffy that at first I thought it was a Chow. But its eyes were a vivid shade of blue, so vivid it was startling.
“It’s adorable,” I texted back.

The rest of the story came when Joe got home from work. It was a Siberian Husky, a girl. She belonged to a family in Mississippi and would be ready to take home in a few days.
I didn’t want a dog. I didn’t want the responsibility of training, of cleaning up after it while Joe was at work. But he looked so hopeful and so eager every time he looked at that snapshot of the little white puffball in the mud. My resolve weakened. I didn’t want a dog, but I wanted him to be happy. “We can go look at the puppies,” I told him.
With that concession, I knew I had lost the fight.

That weekend we made the drive to the middle of nowhere, out in Mississippi. He had the address, I had the GPS pulled up on my phone. But as it happens, phone GPS works best when you’re not somewhere so rural that there’s no connection to your wireless carrier. Once we were out of range, we drove another hour.
The house was gorgeous, overlooking what seemed like endless rolling hills, all covered in lush Southern foliage. It was springtime, the grass wet with dew and the ground just slightly muddy from the recent rains. A big gray and white male Husky met us at the driveway, giving us a lazy inspection before apparently approving, letting us walk to meet with the gentleman of the house.

We met the mother dogs, both of whom were as quiet and lazy as the male. There was a pen out back for the puppies to play in. We gathered all four pups from one litter for playtime, then the other. My husband wanted them all. I wanted to escape with my leather shoes intact. All four puppies that hadn’t been spoken for yet were white, they all looked the same to me. But Joe was a lot more experienced with dogs than I was, and he insisted on differences in each of them, from nuances of appearance to quirks that quickly surfaced in their behavior. The selection narrowed down to two that Joe liked best. Then he asked me which one I wanted.
I don’t want either of them, I thought to myself. I don’t want a dog. I don’t even like them. But I put on my brave face and told him to get whichever he preferred.
The next thing I knew, we were in the car with a fluffy white puppy sharing the floorboard with my feet, her chin laid on top of my shoe.

Not forgetting my preferences in pets, Joe ran to the store to get the few things we’d need for a puppy, and came back with a palm-sized kitten for me. Noodle, of course, is a terrible cat, so we won’t discuss her here. This story is about Xochitl, besides. And Xochitl, for the first two days, shared my sentiments with the arrangement exactly.
We discussed names only briefly. I suggested something Aztec, because something Russian or Inuit would be too cliché. We agreed on Xochitl, and though I can barely pronounce it, it stuck.

For the first two days, the dog was so depressed that she did nothing but lay about and sigh. Likewise, I was so depressed at having a dog to deal with that for two days, I did nothing but lay about and sigh.
And then she started laying next to me.
Oh, she still sighed, but she did it next to my feet. Everywhere I went, there was a little white puffball right by my side. She started sleeping on top of my feet while I was at the computer. She started following me around the house while I did chores. When it was time for resting, she’d clamber onto my lap for cuddles, curl up and go right to sleep. And right away, I started noticing that this dog was very, very different from Cassie.

Xochitl was smart as a whip. Her accidents in the house were few and far between from the beginning, she was fully house-trained in only a few weeks. She learned to sit without effort.  Ten minutes and two treats taught her to give high-five. We kept her kenneled at night for the first many months. She knew what her kennel was and would put herself in it when it was time for bed, or when she saw me putting my shoes on – But only when I was in my work uniform. She picked up commands like “lay down” and “stay” and “speak” without any real training. She also learned “quiet” a little too literally, making us change the command to “no speak” because telling her to be quiet would make her reduce her volume, and still bark – just quietly.

And then came the fateful first night that we left her kennel open, meaning she was ready to be out all night. No more accidents in the house, no concerns that she would destroy anything while we slept. We went to bed, and as we settled in for the night, Xochitl settled in too – Curling up right next to my side of the bed.
That was when I realized the horrible truth: Xochitl was supposed to be Joe’s dog… But she thinks she is mine.

Suddenly all her quirks made more sense. Why she pushes him out of the way when he gives me a hug. Why she always tries to sit next to me on the couch. Why it’s always my feet she curls up at, or my side of the bed she sleeps beside. The poor, dumb animal doesn’t even know that I hate her kind.
And blast it all if after all these years of hating dogs, I can’t hate her at all.
I didn’t want a dog, I never wanted one. But she wanted me, and now I’m stuck with her.
And I guess that’s okay by me.

There are some clichés that I don’t mind in my fiction. Depending on the writer, sometimes they can carry it off without it being detrimental to the story or their integrity as a writer. After encountering this one in each of the three books I’ve picked up in the past week, though, I’ve decided that it’s one I can’t abide.

Describing a character can be hard. Regardless of the perspective you’re writing in, one character inevitably becomes the narrator for the scene. It’s difficult to express a physical description of your narrator without it seeming unnecessary or even contrived, but there’s nothing that seems more contrived to me than the standard fallback I keep seeing used: Mirrors.

The mirror description is the bane of a writer’s creative voice. Sure, I’ve used it in writing before – When I was sixteen and very inexperienced. Okay, that comes out a little harsher than it should, but it’s true. If you can’t think of a better way to describe a character to me in the first few pages, why should I have confidence in the idea that you can relay a deep and compelling story to me?

It takes longer to describe a character without use of a mirror, but being introduced to a main character should be a slow process anyway. You discover their motives and personality over the course of a few chapters, there’s no reason a description of their appearance has to arrive as an info-dump. Actions and description of other characters can be used just as effectively to give you a mental image of the protagonist you’re reading about. For instance, a line about the character having to walk twice as fast to keep up with their friend and their much longer legs. This is effective for several reasons – It describes the main character (short), their friend (much taller) and sets a picture of the mood, possibly frustration or irritation that it’s difficult to keep up.

Likewise, dialogue from other characters can be used just as effectively. A side character asking the protagonist to fetch something on the other side of a narrow gap implies that they are thinner than the character doing the asking, one that you can describe easily whenever the main character looks their way. Or maybe a character’s friend is letting her borrow a piece of jewelry, because said friend thinks it would help bring out the green of the main character’s eyes.

There’s countless other ways to go about it, but those are just a few examples. Not only do they give us the desired image of the protagonist, they do it while enriching the scene.
And, even better, they do it without having to rely on the crutch of a character’s reflection doing the talking.

What are your favorite ways to describe a character’s appearance?

I grew up in a family of gifted musicians.
I remember my mother’s delight when we obtained a lovely old upright piano, the ivory plates missing from some of the keys. It didn’t matter, it didn’t keep her from drawing the most beautiful music from it.
My father has always been a great singer, serenading my mom by singing into a spatula while making breakfast, though his song choices are usually goofy parodies he makes up on the spot.
My older brother and youngest brother are great with guitar, my middle brother (Younger than me, but not the youngest) rocks the ukelele and bass.
My three younger sisters play piano and violin, though to be completely honest, I can never remember who plays what.
My husband plays guitar and sings, though he doesn’t sing as much as he used to, and only rarely for me.
And then there’s me.

My mother tried to instill music in me, and she did a great job of giving me an appreciation for the art form, but there was just no helping my lack of musical ability. As a child, my older brother and I took piano lessons. My brother excelled. My mother and my instructor insisted that I did fine, but I always felt like I struggled, and it wasn’t until much later that I learned why.
My instructor taught the Suzuki method, which teaches a budding musician to play by ear.
And I, my friends, am tone deaf.

I couldn’t tell you why it took me so long to figure out. I’ve tried a variety of instruments in my life, but now that I’m grown and I realize that I have no ear for music and can’t carry a tune in a bucket, I understand that I was just going through the motions. Not because it was expected of me, but because I was surrounded by all these amazing musically talented people, and I desperately wanted to share that talent.
I started with piano. I moved on to recorder. I tried to use my brother’s guitar when he wasn’t looking. Eventually my parents gave me an electric bass for my birthday – I’d asked for it specifically because if nothing else, I thought I could play it if I had tabs from the internet to go off of. Visual patterns instead of audible rhythm, numbered and lettered instructions instead of notes I couldn’t tell were flat or sharp or sour.
I can sort of play bass, if I have a tab for what I’m trying to play. Without them, well…
There’s a reason the bass mostly stays in the closet.

I am now okay with the fact I’ll never be able to play music, but I will never be able to forgive myself for lacking one skill I’ve always wanted: I wish I could sing.
Being tone deaf, whenever I’m alone in the car and therefore not embarrassed to sing along, it sounds great in my head. However, I’ve had the misfortune of hearing my own singing voice played back to me, and that’s an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone! This is frustrating to me, largely because I’ve always been a Jack of all trades. Or Jill, which I suppose would be more proper. I can learn to do anything – But I can’t learn to sing.
I will never woo my husband with the sweet sound of my voice. My future children will likely cry when I try to sing them lullabies. But that’s all right. Well, not all right for my poor kids, who are going to have to listen to me, but it’s all right that my talents lie elsewhere.

After all, I’m a writer – And at least in the written word, my voice will have a chance to be beautiful.