Deanna Hoak

I just passed 85,000 words on my novel. It would sure be nice if it would pick up to that “all downhill” point I hear of from so many other writers, but instead I feel like I’m nearing the end of a marathon and am stumbling and gasping for breath. Damned if I’m not going [...]

The Bulwer-Lytton (Bad) Fiction Contest results have been announced!
I keep meaning to enter this, but I always forget. The winner this year was pretty awful (as it is supposed to be), but I think that any random chapter from Atlanta Nights (of which I am the “proud” author of chapter 33) has worse. :-)
(For [...]

I spent about two minutes thumbing through the new Harry Potter book last night and came upon the following on p. 10: “The site, therefore, of Fudge stepping out of the fire once more, looking disheveled and fretful and sternly surprised that the Prime Minister did not know exactly why he was there, was about [...]

This headline was on Google news this morning. What on earth is that editor thinking?!
Questions Remain as Scouts Express Shock at Deaths
New York Times – 7 hours ago
WASHINGTON, July 26 – It was early Monday afternoon in Anchorage when Ward Merkouris picked up the telephone and heard his son, Robert, so shaken he could barely [...]

I finally finished up a copyediting project yesterday that should have taken me a week and instead took me more than three, because I have the kids home for the summer. I’m just glad I knew better than to overload myself, because I had it as my sole project and was still able to make [...]

I’ve been doing this lower-ab exercise lately that sounds like it should be nothing:
1. Lie down on your bed.
2. Put your arms by your side and your feet together.
3. Raise your legs up to a 45-degree angle. (Don’t bend your knees.)
4. Put them back down.
5. Repeat.
Seems like simplicity itself, doesn’t it? Give it a try [...]

I love coming back from a workout with my muscles all loose and trembly. I even love being sore the next few days.
It feels like accomplishment. :-)

There’s a really neat color photo of Emily here: http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/hurseas2005/Emily2115zb-050717-1kg12.jpg

Okay, , I did my thousand words.
Thanks, Charlie. :-)

I was playing the picture game with some chat buddies today, where someone puts up a neat image, sets a timer, and you all have exactly five minutes to write a story about the picture–a little piece of flash fiction. Now, five minutes is obviously not enough time to come up with anything earthshakingly great [...]