Friday, October 2, 2009

Fiction Friday: Please Say "Hi" to Dee!

The first time I attended the Central Ohio Fiction Writers' Conference, I met Dee Garretson, a woman a little younger than myself who was working, as I was, on a historical romance. We emailed a few times after the conference, but I suck at keeping up contacts and we lost touch.

Three years later, I again went to the COFW conference, where I met up with Dee once more. She was pitching her historical romance, but growing frustrated, and I had moved on to Novel #2, a suspense thriller. This time we managed to keep in touch, meeting occasionally for dinner and non-stop writing talk.

Then, in the spring of 2008, for a lark, she dashed off a middle-grade action adventure novel about the President's son getting trapped, along with two young friends, inside Camp David while outside a forest fire raged. She wrote it with her own son in mind and when she emailed me the manuscript, I was blown away. It was terrific.

Long story short, she's one of the few people whom I know personally who's ever gotten a contract with a major publishing house. HarperCollins will publish Escape from Camp David next summer.

Last week, at the prodding of her agent, she launched her blog. If you find time, go visit her: she's not only a great writer, she's a cool lady.

This Week's Prompt:

Describe a character ONLY by the things in her purse/his pockets.

Think of things that will tell us her/his age (no driver's licenses - that's cheating), profession, marital status, religious beliefs, political persuasion, criminal history, relationship status.....

13 comments:

  1. Nice to hear such a success story. The only comparable story I have ever encountered was a colleague who applied for a high profile job in advertising , just for a lark. A million miles out of his reach, he thought - but he was offered it! Must be a moral in there somewhere.

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  2. a prompt? I can barely get out the door on time as it IS!!!


    maybe tomorrow..........

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  3. Keep swingin' at the ball, and sooner or later you'll get a hit...

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  4. What a cool brush with literary fame! Congratulations to your friend!

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  5. "Nice looking family!"

    Matt held up one of the photos from the wallet.

    "What else, Matt?"

    "Holy Shit!!!...Sir, there's ...uh, over 600 dollars in this wallet here.....mostly 50's"

    "What else, Matt?"

    "..Uh, a phone number on a card,sir, plus some other oil change and muffin coffee bullshit membership crap"

    "Call the number, Matt."



    "Helloooo, this is Charlene. Can I help you tonight?"

    "Hi. I'm Matt Tremaine from the Montgomery County Coroners Office. Who are you with, Charlene?"

    "What? This is the SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE, DUDE! Who'd you say YOU'RE with?"

    Click.

    " Sir that number was a suicide hotline number."

    " Right. Now put that soggy wallet down on the table next to that soggy assed corpse so we can go have some lunch. It's 2:45 for Christ's sake.

    By the way, welcome to your first day on Homicide."

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  6. Thanks for the mention! Good prompt. I'm in:

    “Kate! Get Sir Lancelot out of my purse.”

    “Why? Doesn’t he look cute? In France, people carry their dogs around in purses. “

    “Maybe they do, but I’ve never heard of them carrying around their hamsters in purses. And those aren’t purses anyway. They are special dog carriers. Please get him out of there before he eats something.”

    “There’s nothing in there to eat. I already checked. You did have my lucky pencil and my rock with the sparkles on it. You know, the one I found in the parking lot at the museum. Why do you have such a giant bottle of headache pills in there? Even if we had a dog, that bottle’s taking up so much room, a dog wouldn’t fit. You should get a bigger purse. Don’t you think Sir Lancelot would look cute in a beret?”

    “Kate!”

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  7. A writing success story besides JK Rowling? Finally!!

    Purse contents: telescopic rod, reel sunglasses, casting plug, utility box, plastic lipstick, dog brush, convertible keys and Ex lax.

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  8. On my way to check out Dee right now. And I mailed the coupons today.

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  9. Hooray for Dee! Kinda gives you hope right? Maybe the key is to not struggle to write the perfect book but just dash something off. That must be what the ordinary reader wants.

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  10. You can tell that someone is a Grammy when you find a pacifier in her purse--and you know she is too old to be the Mama. ha ha

    Congrats to both you and Dee for your writing.
    Hugs,
    Betsy

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  11. my purse says so much about me, it's scary. If I carried my xanax with me, then it would say everything about me

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  12. I'll go visit, thanks for the link :)

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