I Have a Lot of Words

I have an assortment of magnetic words on my refrigerator. Romantic words, corporate words, spiritual words, rock and roll words, and country words are all jumbled together in a big jar. I put the words together to create silly little poems out of them or clever phrases. Most people who visit our kitchen play with them. My daughters and hubby switch them around and laugh at the results--so I'm never entirely sure who wrote what.

Now and then, I take all the words down and put up a different batch. However, before I remove the poems and phrases, I write them in a notebook for posterity ascribing the name of the author, if I suspect the guilty party.

For instance, here's a good, short one for Halloween. I think hubby put the words together--that's why it's such a brief piece.

his song was full of moist blood

The next one sounds very artistic.

come dance on
your sensuous wet canvas
imagine a color
of love

Daughter #1 wrote the following:

liquid dew
surrounds the rose
secret petals blush
in a red bouquet

Here's one of suspicious origin:

champagne cloud note
I always sing sweetly
into the drunk microphone
breathing an alcohol miasma
like slow lyrics in metal blues

Here's another with a musical theme:

righteous raucous roadie rap
by punk artists
crank it loud
group scream between songs

Words are fun. More words are more fun. Get a few sets of magnetic words and watch the silliness begin. :^)

Romantic Encounters of the Wrong Kind

I have three daughters. Sometimes the discussions in our house are rather illuminating. Recently, I listened to my daughters detail situations where they were with a young man who had the wrong idea about their relationship.

This discussion was a bit scary for a mother to hear, though I was not surprised about the problem. When I started dating, my mother warned me, "Men want only one thing." She was speaking about sex, of course. In my mother's day, making a pass--or getting "fresh" was liable to be rewarded with a slap in the face. Nowadays, young women accuse men of "hitting" on them. Whatever term is used, it refers to an unwanted advance and it has been going on since the dawn of time.

There is a crazy statistic making the rounds about men thinking about sex every seven seconds. Snopes has debunked this and you can read about it here. Still, men do have all that testosterone flowing through their veins and it can ruin their judgment at times.

On several occasions, my daughters assumed they had a platonic and casual friendship with a young man. However, the young man had other ideas--and my daughters claimed that very often it was the setting that seemed to turn the young man's thoughts to sex. Granted there are times when a woman would welcome an advance, but that would be with Mr. Right--not Mr. Wrong.

Here is the list they made of situations which could turn too romantic:

• Sitting on a roof together.
  
• Sitting on a couch together.
  
• Playing the guitar, listening to music, or simply hearing music in the background.
  
• Riding in a cab or a car together.
  
• Riding on the ferry together. (In fact, any vehicle other than a bus seemed to be conducive to turning a young man's thoughts to sex.)
  
• Eating together.
  
• Sitting in a park together.
  
• Sitting next to each other at all.
  
• Being near the woods and/or near a body of water together.
  
• Sitting next to a fire together.
  
• Crossing paths on the way to separate destinations.
  
• If either party is staying in a hotel. (i.e. for work)
  
• Drinking coffee together.
  
• Holding onto the same subway pole.
  
• That five minutes when you are at your parents' house but your parents aren't there.
  

As a romance writer, I looked at this list and thought that I could use some of these ideas for my characters, but as a mother it disturbed me. I worry about my daughters.

Confessions of a Romance Writer

I Told You So

My first book, Sea Of Hope, was published in 2001 by Awe-Struck EBooks. It was originally published only in digital format. However, for those who wanted a physical "book" it could be purchased as a file on a 3 1/2 inch diskette. (Remember those?)

It was very difficult being an e-published author at first. While I believed in the viability of ebooks from the first time I held a Rocket eReader in my hands, most of the world had no idea what I was talking about. Worst of all, many traditionally published authors denigrated those of us who had decided to try our luck with ebooks. That stung a bit, but I knew I was right and that ebooks would catch on.

Nevertheless, I spent several years attempting to educate people on the wonders of ebooks. For the most part, it was a wasted endeavor.

Then came the Kindle. It was the right gadget at the right time with the right price. Suddenly, reading on an electronic device was the height of fashion. Ebooks took off and soon their sales surpassed those of paper books.

Now traditionally published authors, who were unwilling to give any credence to ebooks at first, have mined their backlists and republished their books on their own, making tidy profits in digital sales.

I hold no grudges. I was aware from the first that the traditionally published were fearful of the new media and waiting to see what would happen. In truth, ebooks turned the publishing world upside down. To those traditionally published authors who are now enjoying success in digital publishing, I offer my congratulations. I am glad that ebooks have become accepted as I knew they would.

I am happy writing my stories and being a published author. That's all I wanted in the first place.

Simply Amazing

Dad bought a Mac Mini this week. This amazing computer is very, very small--but very, very powerful. Dad had been frustrated by his old WebTV. Microsoft stopped supporting it and the browser cannot display such sites as Facebook or YouTube. Nevertheless, it had been easy for Dad to receive and send email with the WebTV, so he was reluctant to change.

I thought the Mac Mini could nearly duplicate the experience of Dad's WebTV because he could use his television as the monitor. With a wireless keyboard and trackpad, I had hoped it wouldn't be too difficult. It was a breeze to set up.

However, there's a huge learning curve involved. Dad now has a very powerful machine. I bought him a book on the Lion operating system, which is the latest Apple system. I went through the steps of how to turn the machine off and on, find his email, and log on to Facebook.

It's going to take a while before he is proficient, but it is wonderful that he is willing to take this on at his age. Many elderly people refuse to use computers and they miss a lot.

Dad signed up for Facebook when I told him he had to do it to keep in touch with his grandchildren. He enjoys the gossip. He also enjoys reading the New York Times online. He gets a big thrill out of sending pertinent articles to everyone, a task that had become impossible with his old WebTV.

Watch out world. Dad will soon be cluttering up your inbox with news he believes you should read. :^)

Too Much Water

Hurricane Irene is gone, but she left a lot of misery in her wake. For the first time in the thirty-two years we've live here, the reservoir near our house overflowed at the same time the tide rose. This created a huge flood.

There have been several storms where the level of the river was high. I have a blog post with photos from several years ago here. However, Hurricane Irene dumped more water on us than any other storm.



There is a bridge somewhere underneath all that water. Fortunately, the dam did not break--though we were worried that it would. Other dams in our state did not hold.

Our house was safe up on the hill. Our neighbor's house, to the left of the road in the photo, was flooded and knocked off its foundation by a chunk of the bridge that broke away. That house has now been condemned. Another neighbor had a tree fall on their house. Many of our neighbors have lived for a week without electricity.

Other communities in our state had far more devastation from this one storm and my heart goes out to all of those who have lost so much.

A WRITER’S INFLUENCE

Many authors have promoted worthy causes and influenced readers’ opinions. Philip Freneau, the poet of the Revolution, rallied patriots to the cause of freedom. Rachel Carson sounded a warning about the grave danger of synthetic insecticides when she wrote Silent Spring..

Harriet Beecher Stowe helped to abolish slavery in this country when she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She did it with fiction. (If you haven’t read her book, you should.)

Not all authors set out to change the world, but all have the potential to do so. Some—like me—intend to entertain and offer their readers hope in the beauty of everlasting love.

Other writers do not expect to change the world—only a small part of it.

Marguerite Henry was given such an opportunity. As a children’s author, her publisher sent her to Chincoteague, Virginia, to write a story on the town’s wild ponies. Ms. Henry stayed at Miss Molly’s Bed and Breakfast, visited the Beebe Farm and forever immortalized Misty, the little filly who is still loved by millions of children. It wasn’t quite the same as fomenting a revolution, but the book’s popularity has endured and among other things provided a booming tourist trade for Chincoteague.

We visited Chincoteague through a Road Scholar program. Last summer, hubby and I joined the Road Scholars and journeyed to White River Junction in Vermont to learn about the railroads of that area. You can read about that adventure here.

Road Scholars’ motto is “Adventures in Lifelong Learning.” An elderhostel, their programs are all-inclusive. In addition to all meals and lodging, they provide participants with lectures, excursions, and other experiences so that they can understand more fully the culture of the area.

We were treated to the seafood at various restaurants on the small island. We learned about the wild birds of the area, watched an artist demonstrate her skill in painting a duck, and saw a decoy carver fashion a sandpiper from a block of white cedar. We listened to the music of the Three Sheets. We heard the tale of a waterman and how he spends his days catching crabs or gathering oysters.

We also went on a safari of the interior of the wildlife refuge.

We heard about the history of Chincoteague and how the ponies came to the island.

Nearly every shop has copies of Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry. You can see Misty and her foal, Stormy, at the museum in town. They have been preserved by a taxidermist.

Every year in July, the ponies are rounded up to swim from Assateague to Chincoteague. Thirty thousand—or so—people come to witness the event immortalized my Ms. Henry in her book.

How’s that for influence?


Whatever you write, write well.

The Circus Came to Town

Hubby and I went to the Cole Bros. Circus yesterday. We haven't seen a traveling circus show for a very long time. The last time we went our daughters were very young.

The Cole Bros. put on a good show. There were tigers, elephants, ponies, poodles, trapeze artists, clowns, and the guy who gets shot out of a cannon. The motorcycle act was something new to me. There were three motorcycles inside a huge metal cage--they drove around inside the ball--at a very fast speed--and did not crash. They made me very nervous.

Hubby and I were entertained. We truly enjoyed the show. It was far superior to a movie. It was all live. Simply watching the speed at which the stage was set for the next act was intriguing.

My brother was a circus roustabout one summer. He needed a summer job after high school and when the circus came to town, he decided to join it. In a few weeks, he was muscular and tanned. He had lots of exciting stories to tell about the way the circus works, how the whole circus moves from town to town, and the life of a roustabout.

I never forgot my brother's tales of the circus life. When my hero in The Fiend of White Buck Hall needed an intriguing past, I decided the circus had been a part of his life. It fit.

If the circus comes to your town, go and see it. It is well worth the price of admission. Maybe it will inspire you. :^)

Grounds for Sculpture

Manet painted The Boating Party. Seward Johnson made it into a life-sized reproduction. And I put myself in the picture, just for fun.

If you haven't visited Grounds for Sculpture, you should. Seward Johnson founded it and many of his works are there. However, many other artists are featured there as well.

We were there last week because Daughter #3 had some of her pastels displayed in a special exhibit.



Grounds for Sculpture is incredible. I would love to go again--soon. I highly recommend it.

Just Write

Last week, a friend asked me what software I use to write my books. I was a bit surprised by the question. I just type my novels into Word. The publishers want the books in Word, or Word's rtf--depending on the publisher's preference. I don't know of any other authors who use a special software to create their stories--and I belong to several writing groups. None of those groups has ever had a workshop on writing software. Of course, I only belong to fiction writing groups. We all make up stuff in our heads and I don't know how that could ever be programmed. :^)

I went online and discovered a wealth of software programs for those who want to write a book. Some are very expensive. You can see a bunch of them here.

In looking at the features of the various programs, I must admit that having a program to help organize an index for a non-fiction book would probably be a good idea. However, for a fiction book, there is no index.

I have attended many, many writing workshops. I have read many books on writing. I have had my work critiqued. I own several dictionaries and I am a frequent visitor at dictionary.com. I have a favorite thesaurus. I write my own outlines and if I need to brainstorm, I call up a friend.

Word count and spellcheck are built into Word, but it's always good to have a real editor because Word can screw things up.

I think the best aid to help any writer in getting the job done is to put glue on the chair and sit down. Then just write and keep writing. Don't stop until you've reached the end.

You can save a lot of money on software programs that way.

Carrot Crunchies Cookie Recipe

This cookie recipe is an old favorite. There's some real good nutritious stuff in these cookies so I think it is perfectly acceptable to eat them for breakfast. Everyone in my family agrees. :^)

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup finely shredded carrots (about 2 small carrots)
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts
2 cups toasted rice cereal

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare 2 large cookie sheets with parchment paper. (Or you can grease them, but the parchment paper makes cookie baking easy.)

In a bowl, combine first 5 ingredients; set aside. In large mixer bowl with electric mixer at medium speed, cream butter, sugar, milk and vanilla. Beat in eggs until light and fluffy. Add flour mixture. Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop batter by tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheets. Bake about 15 minutes. Remove from sheets, cool completely on wire rack.

The original recipe called for pecans, but I like walnuts. I also substitute a small amount of shredded coconut for some of the carrots--if I happen to have the coconut. The original recipe called for dropping teaspoonfuls of batter onto the cookie sheets and baking the dough for 10 minutes. However, the cookies came out puny. I like big cookies so I use a tablespoon.

Enjoy!

Inventions and Fiction Writers

I have an iPad. One of my sisters has an iPhone. Lately, instead of talking on the phone we video chat with FaceTime. It is almost as good as having my sister here for a visit. Way back when we were kids, the idea of video chatting was science fiction. Now it's a reality.

The amazing thing is that so many inventions were dreamed up in fiction. Most readers are familiar with the gadgets Jules Verne and H.G. Wells wrote about that were able to be produced much later when technology caught up. However, I found an incredible site on the web that details many more technological wonders that were dreamed up by novelists who were way ahead of their time.

Go to http://www.technovelgy.com/

This compilation will show that ebooks were thought up in 1961 by Stanislaw Lem. Frederik Pohl wrote about cellphone voicemail in 1965. Poul Anderson wrote of laser rifles in 1966.

So though truth may be stranger than fiction, fiction writers are rather clever when it comes to devising useful tools that people need.

Thanks to fiction writers, my sister and I can talk to each other in real time. I love those fiction writers!

Two Years Ago

Two years ago today my mother died. In the photo above, my mother is the toddler on the right. She was the daughter of a coal miner and grew up in a family with six other children. She went to art school and then joined the Marines in World War II. She met my father after the war.

Mom was truly gifted as an artist, but she also had an indomitable spirit and a heart filled with compassion.

I miss her, but I can't help but believe that she's still busy painting, giving out good advice, or delivering food to some poor soul somewhere.

Invasion

Large, black carpenter ants live in New Jersey. In fact, carpenter ants are hearty and find many locations just to their liking. Though they are not termites, they are still destructive to wooden structures like houses. You can find information online about these prolific insects here.

Over the years, carpenter ants have wandered into our house--typically during the springtime. We stepped on them and bought ant baits which we placed in corners about the house. That seemed to alleviate the problem.

However, on Thursday the ants chose our home for their annual convention but they really should have made reservations first. We were totally unprepared for the invasion. There were hundreds of them crawling around in the living room. It resembled a scene in a horror film. I got out the vacuum to remove them and while that did not kill them, I placed the scurrying contents of the vacuum into a plastic bag and tied it tightly in the hope that they would suffocate.

An exterminator came later in the day to assess the situation. He was impressed with the size of the ants. Maybe what we had in our house was a convention for bodybuilding ants. The exterminator set up an appointment to have the house treated on Saturday. Meanwhile, I had to deal with the ants. I spent much of the day vacuuming the aliens life forms crawling across the rug. Some of them came in carrying food on their mandibles. Maybe there was a potluck supper going on.

By that evening the influx of bugs had diminished but Daughter #1 read online that carpenter ants are most active from 10 pm to 2am. She placed another fresh ant bait near the spot beside the chimney which the ants appeared to be using as their special entrance to the big convention.

We did not sleep well, but in the morning while we did find a few ants it was nothing like the inundation of the previous day.

The exterminator sprayed outside and inside on Saturday. On Sunday, not a single ant was to be seen. I'm hoping it stays that way.

My Experience in Sales

One summer, between my junior and senior year of college, I landed a job as an aide in a summer school program. It was a great experience since I intended to become a teacher. However, it paid next to nothing and I needed more money for college. To supplement my puny salary, I decided to sell cosmetics. My success in selling cosmetics depended almost entirely on the vanity of women. Fortunately, many women long to be beautiful and anything that will help them toward that goal is something they desire to own. (Especially if it is not too expensive.)

In fact there were only two real problems selling a line of beauty aids for me. One was my fear of getting bit by a dog. I went door-to-door initially to gather a customer base, but I skirted around any house with a snarling dog.

My other downfall was that I tended to use up my profits by buying many of the cosmetics for myself. Yes, I longed to be gorgeous and alluring just like everyone else. I believed all the hype--and, of course, I looked in the mirror and found myself lacking--even though I was twenty, thin, and did not have a single wrinkle in my face. Still, my lips seemed too thin. I had freckles. I wanted glowing cheeks and come-hither eyes. I put on way too much makeup.

Nevertheless, I had fun. I got to chat with people, something I've always enjoyed because in the process I collect gossip and characters--an extremely useful habit to develop for a writer.

My customers never complained about the products I sold. I'd douse myself with the newest fragrance, they would get a good whiff when I walked in the door and then they would order some for themselves.

It was a great business.

Selling books is far more difficult than selling cosmetics. Some people don't read and those who do read, don't read romances. Most people refer to my habit of touting my wares as shameless self-promotion. In addition to that, there's always criticism in the form of reviews.

Despite that, some of the techniques I learned in selling cosmetics actually do work in selling books.

Here are the salient points:

1. Stay away from snarling dogs.

2. Dress up and smell good.

3. Smile.

4. Enjoy the conversation, wherever it goes. (You might get an inspiration for another character.)

5. Always believe in your product. (I have had to explain over and over what a romance novel is. Some people really do not understand the genre at all.)

6. Help the customer find what they want. If they don't want to read any of your books, point them to another author who writes in the genre they claim to enjoy.

7. Keep writing!

For Sale--Again!

Prince of the Mist was originally published in 2005 by New Concepts Publishing. At that time, the book received wonderful reviews and sold surprisingly well in those pre-Kindle days when few readers knew what an e-book was.

NCP decided to cull their collection at one point. Like all publishers, they wanted room for new books. Still, they quickly gave me back my rights and subsequently published two other books of mine--and one of those has been my own personal bestseller, so far.

Three of the four books returned to me were picked up by another publisher, but Prince of the Mist languished in slush piles here and there. I found it disheartening because I loved Wildon and Tia. I knew there were readers who would love them, too.

Fortunately, despite all the negative things said about e-publishing, it has created a wonderful opportunity for authors with a backlist. Any author can take their previously published books and publish those books on their own. Many have done it.

I decided it was time for me to dip my toe gently into self-publishing. I started by whipping up a new bookcover--something eye-catching. Then I uploaded the cover and the manuscript to Amazon's Kindle. It was not a difficult process at all.

Feeling confident, I decided to try Smashwords as well so my book could appear at other e-book distributors. Smashwords was a bit trickier. I had to carefully go through their style list, but I got the hang of it after a few tries.

Once the book was up for sale, I made another book video for it. I don't do anything fancy for the book videos, but I love the process. To me it makes the book comes alive.

Now all I have to do is promote the book, which is a job I have to do even if a publisher gives me a contract. I do not have plans for a paper edition of Prince of the Mist. For now, it can easily be read on personal computers, Kindles, Nooks, Kobos, iPhones. and iPads.

And that's awesome enough for me.

Lowering My Blood Pressure

I was diagnosed with high blood pressure about seven years ago. Since my mother suffered from high blood pressure for over thirty years, learning that I had the same problem was scary. My mother took several prescription drugs specifically for high blood pressure, but her doctors believed her anxiety exacerbated her condition and so she had tranquilizers as well.

Nevertheless, her blood pressure would often spike. Her greatest fear was that she would have a stroke. She decided to take a proactive stance and though she never stopped taking her prescription medicine, she tried every alternative known at the time to keep her blood pressure in check. She went on the Pritikin diet--reducing her fat intake to the lowest level possible. She ate raw garlic. She tried juicing her vegetables and tossed into the mix every vitamin that experts claimed would help reduce blood pressure levels. She kept a careful record of her blood pressure readings. None of her tireless efforts cured her. Her blood pressure was never truly under control.

She had a stroke at the age of eighty-six. She died a year a half later. Maybe all her healthy eating did help--there are a lot of folks with high blood pressure who never get that far.

Last week, my heart rate plummeted but my blood pressure went up. I went to my doctor who ordered another medication for me. (This is the fifth one.) However, he also became very serious and told me I will have to start walking--a lot--everyday. I was relieved that he did not suggest tranquilizers. I do not want to live in a Xanax-induced haze for the rest of my life--especially since it never did help my mother.

My father was quite surprised by my doctor's advice since none of my mother's doctors had ever mentioned anything about walking.

Obviously, times have changed and medicine is continuing to evolve. Maybe someday the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies will figure everything out. For now, I'm happy to put on my athletic shoes and take a walk. It's great medicine!

The Blogs I Miss

I have been going through my long list of bookmarked blogs and deleting some of them. There are bloggers who haven't posted anything for a year or two--or more. The blog is still there, but nothing is happening. I feel bad about deleting them from my bookmarks, but there is nothing fresh to read.

There are plenty of people who give up blogging after a while. I don't know why. Perhaps they are too busy. Perhaps they said what they have to say or they moved on to another hobby. I miss them. To me, for a while, they felt like friends. I especially loved the blogs written by other mothers about their families. It was easy to relate to them because I had gone through many of the same experiences. Sometimes I would offer advice. :^)

Inexplicably, they stopped writing. With most there was no explanation. One claimed she lost interest, but most simply no longer posted.

I worried about them.

There are those of us who continue to blog. I don't think I'll ever run out of things to say--but, of course, I also have an ulterior motive for blogging. I have books to promote and blogging regularly helps in garnering followers who might be interested in reading my books.

That's the theory. Blog and they shall read. If they like what they read on my blog, maybe they'll pick up one of my books. Marketing--not very subtle, but that's what it is. Besides, I don't always write about my books or writerly topics. I tell true tales about my family, our travels, and troubles.

The blogs I enjoyed most were the ones where nobody was selling anything. The ones where the busy mother was herding her kids here and there, feeding them, taking care of them--and the house, the garden, etc. It's not an easy job and eventually the kids grow up. Maybe that's why they stopped posting. Maybe their offspring were starting to go through that phase where they aren't cute anymore. :^(

Or maybe, they found that they enjoyed writing. Maybe they are writing their own book--right now. Maybe they'll come back to the blogosphere and start hawking their wares--like me.

I don't know, but I pray they are all safe and well.

Peanut Chicken

This is delicious, quick and easy. The perfect dish for a busy writer to prepare.

1 onion, chopped
1 clover garlic, chopped
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup honey
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon curry powder
a pinch of cardamom
a dash of Tabasco sauce
4 chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces

Combine the onion and garlic, cook on high in the microwave for 2 minutes.

Stir in the peanut butter, chicken stock, honey, mustard, curry powder, cardamom, and Tasbasco. Add chicken. Cook, uncovered, on high for 6 minutes. Stir. Cook on high for 6 more minutes.

Serve over rice. (You should have a rice cooker for that!)

Pantster or Plotter?

There's that white page. What am I going to write on it? The blinking cursor waits and time moves on. I close my eyes and start typing. I can see my hero and my heroine--shipwrecked...on an island with a white sandy beach...

This is going to be fun!

That white page can be daunting, but authors are brave souls. However, they use different methods to get their books written. Some are methodical. They are the plotters. Then there are those who just sit down and write. Those are the pantsters, so called because they wing it--flying by the seat of their pants, or in their case, writing by the seat of their pants.

There are some writers who employ both methods.

Much has been written on this topic and you can find plenty of other blogs covering this subject just by typing pantster vs. plotter into Google.

As for myself, I have used outlines for several of my books, but I have often wandered away from my original plans. I have written some books completely by the seat of my pants--winging it through the manuscript. When I use that method, I have a lot more fun but I tend to go off on tangents. That results in more editing when all is said and done.

Nevertheless, I always have the story in my mind even if I do not have a detailed outline. I know the main characters, the main conflict, and the setting. It is quite an adventure to set sail without a script.

A brief survey of my Twitter friends indicates the pantster method is alive and well.

Mia_Marlowe @penelopemarzec Definitely a pantster. Once I figure out who my characters are and what they want, keeping them from getting it is my plot.

suzannelazear @penelopemarzec I'm actually a puzzler with pantster tendancies.

LdyDisney @penelopemarzec Pantster! :)

freyasbower @penelopemarzec pantster all the way. (g)

Some of my Facebook friends chimed in, too.

Nancy Sue Petersen Brandt I'm a pantster trying to reform!

Catherine Guerrero I'm a pantser and proud of it. Got my rough draft for a new novel started that way back during NaNoWriMo.

I believe using the pantster method is rather like recording a dream while being awake. To do it, I must turn off my internal editor. Then I just let it rip.

Are you a pantster or a plotter or a little of both?