A New Look

Yesterday I played around with blog designs and settled on one I really love. It goes with my title like real butter on cinnamon bread. 

The old header included a photo I took a few weeks ago of Lassen Peak against a gorgeous sunrise. I gave up the photo in favor of a new header design. 

I miss seeing this image every time I check my blog, so I decided to create something using one of my favorite Bible verses. I hope you like it.

Feel free to use this image for your blog or website. Please link back to me, http://www.lindastrawn.com, if you do. Thanks!

Kill Off Your Character With A Cow

Writers are always looking for ways to kill off a character in their books by accident or by foul play.

Pick up your favorite suspense or mystery novel, or tune in to the latest episode of CSI or Criminal Minds and you’ll find the most common life-ending causes are GSW’s (gunshot wounds), blunt force trauma, exsanguination (blood loss), or asphyxiation (loss of air). These conditions usually occur at the hands of a jealous lover, serial killer, or someone under the influence of mind-altering drugs. In most cases, the perps are human and occasionally your typical predatory animal.

A cow is not a predator, nor is the backyard Bambi.

But did you know these sweet-faced animals kill more people than the great white shark gone rogue?

I’ve seen documentaries showing the dangers of hippos, I know a jellyfish’s sting can be fatal, and I’ve seen videos about fatal attractions with deer. Still, I’m surprised cows and horses commit murder so often. Certainly, we humans have more contact with our favorite farm animals than we would have with, say, a shark. I’m sure there are more farmers than surfers in the world, so this would make sense. Still, it’s a hard pill to swallow.

Now, if golden retrievers and cats were included in this image, I would really have to get on my soap box.

Let’s give Jaws and jealous lovers a break and change things up a bit. Wouldn’t it be kinda cool to write a story where the character gets clobbered by a crazed cow as opposed to a creature from the Cretaceous period?

Or a flock of formidable ducks set Fargo on fire? 

Or better yet, a bunch of bunnies blow up a building full of brigadier generals? 

Horses take hostages in a high rise in Houston? 

Deer damage the infrastructure of Detroit and take over the auto industry?

The possibilities are endless!

I’d love to hear your ideas, so do what the chimp says.

 

 

 

1949 Advice from Singer and Writers of Old

I saw this image on Facebook and just had to laugh. People had such a different mindset, not to mention expectations, back then. Remember those 1950’s TV shows such as Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy? It seems no matter what the women were doing— vacuuming, dusting, or preparing dinner—they were wearing nylon stockings, high heels, and their hair was perfectly coiffed. Crazy.

I prefer vacuuming in my pajamas or sweats, thank you.

After reading those words from the 1949 Singer Sewing Manual, I got to thinking about authors from the old days. Things were way different back then. They typed entire manuscripts on typewriters using actual sheets of paper. Can you imagine what it would take to produce a full-length novel? Did they type out a first draft, go back and revise it, and then re-type the whole thing all over again? They must have gone through reams of paper and typewriter ribbons in those days. I’m sure they pulled their hair out before “The End” ever made it to paper. Maybe that’s why most of them wore hats.

And what did writers do before the advent of typewriters? Parchment and feathers dipped in ink?

If you think long and hard about how rough those authors of old had it before computers became main stream, with their delete keys and back space buttons, you’ll have a whole new appreciation for writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens.

We have so easy, don’t you think?

Today's Words of Wisdom

My what is for sale?

I allowed myself to get too busy to keep up this blog. Literally neglected the poor thing. Then one day I decided to join a new writer's site. I uploaded a picture for my profile, wrote a bio, and provided my blog's URL. Since I hadn't posted in my blog in months, I decided to pay my blog a visit. Lo and behold, a glaring page came up announcing my domain was for sale. Gasp!
It turned out I let my domain expire.
Thinking all I had to do was renew it, I expected my blog to come up all nice and pretty like it had always done. Not so. I ended up having to go through the steps outlined in Blogger to use my own domain name. I felt like I was reinventing the wheel. After getting through a few glitches with the web host where my domain is parked, my blog finally came up.
Fortunately, my life doesn't depend on my blog being active, so to have it down for a few weeks didn't break me. But there are bloggers out there whose lively-hood is centered around their online presence. I can only imagine how awful it would be for them to lose even a day.
Now that I'm back online with my blog, I'm doing the happy dance. Maybe now I won't take it for granted. The day will come when I might really need it to promote my writing, not to mention retaining ownership of my domain so potential readers can find me.
Word to the wise, don't ever allow your domain name (URL) expire.