Pokeydots, you are so versatile!  As lovely as the realistic renderings are, I have to say the last one tickles my funny bone.  What a cozy scene.

It's in my shopping cart for this week. I'm glad to see these litle beasties make an appearnace. Thank you.

Check out this thread:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2644585
about *DICTIONARY of GESTURES, SIGNS & BODY LANGUAGE CUES 
*I don't know if it will help or not but it wouldn't hurt.

I would really be careful about flying body parts in telling about an emotion.  As a reader, too much twitchng is distracting rather than effective. Read a good writer and you will see that less is more in description.

"It makes no difference whether you are old or young, tall or short, skinny or plump.. . . Reveal your special talent to the world."

From the jacket-flap of Mikhail Baryshnikov's children's book Because...

"There is a myth at large in the general population, easily quashable
yet somehow allowed to persist, that writing comes smoothly, like gas
from a pump, or at least unbidden, like tears. This is bull. No decent
prose is ever dashed off, especially that which appears to be
effortlessly dashing. Just as Buster Keaton and Douglas Fairbanks had
to rehearse their leaps and pratfalls, so grace on the page has to be
earned with infinite sweat." --Anthony Lane

"When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: 'Only stand out of my light.' Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light."
John W. Gardner

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer. - Karl Kraus

"Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what is going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."

• Gilda Radner

My dad died many years ago.  I can't write an ode to him.  My memories are little ones that might seem pretty meaningless to anyone else.  

I remember he used to take me for drives and pretend we got lost.  We would drive and drive all over the countryside, but we always ended up a Dairy Queen for root beer floats or malted milk shakes.  Nothing tasted as good as those icy drinks on a hot day.

He always complained about the animals I brought home, but it was all bluff on his part. He would fall asleep with a hamster in his pocket, or pick dandelion flowers for a paralyzed rabbit.  Once he came home with a puppy, thrust her into my hands and said, "Don't ask."  She had been dropped in the bed of his pickup truck while he was at work.  He meant, he said, to take her to a shelter but it didn't happen.  I like to think my dad is on the other side of the rainbow bridge and stll taking care of our little ones as he did in life. 

He was my only fan, the only one who would tell me to go for it when I wanted to change jobs or try something new.  It wasn't until after he died that my uncle told me how worried my dad was about my ability to support myself.  It was never a concern he shared with me.

When I moved into this house, a house he never saw, I started receiving mail addressed to him.  I like to think he came with me and that this mail is his way of telling me he is thinking of me.

After his death, my mother wanted to tell me stories about my dad.  I wouldn't let her because (a) she grew to hate him in their old age and (b) she makes things up to fit her perception of a world intent on making her miserable.  She's very unhappy that she doesn't get to touch my memory of my father, but she doesn't realize that she wouldn't touch my memory of him but my memory of her

My dad wasn't perfect. He smoked cigarettes. He drank excessively in his younger years. He snored terribly.  He was homophobic and racist.   I can't change what he was.

But he also was a guy who risked his life for his country during World War II.  He stayed with a woman who despised him because he had promised he would never leave his children fatherless the way he had been left.  He had a high school education, but he made sure both my brother and I went to college.  We were the first in either family to do so.

I asked him why he didn't go to church and he said he thought we all sit in a circle around the truth.  He said we all see part of the truth, but no one sees all of it.   And that included the churches. For better or worse, I absorbed that message and believe it still.

So he wasn't perfect. But he was my dad. And I miss him

Happy Father's Day, Dad.  I love you.

I have personally not seen any great advances in the grammar chck for MS Word 2007.  If you haven't tried the 2007 trial version, I suggest you might want to before buying because the interface is quite different, and has not made everyone a fan of the "ribbon."

Like any tool, a grammar checker is a help, but I wouldn't accept it as a replacement for finding a human reader who is well-schooled in grammar and punctuation.  Just as the spellcheck can suggest the wrong version of a word, the grammar check can err in its interpretation of a sentence.  You have to know enough grammar and punctuation to realize when the software is wrong.

But I'm sure you knew that.

"Be willing to write very badly, because the good comes after the bad, but you've got to release that bad stuff, sometimes, to get at the good." 

- Jennifer Egan in an interview in The Writer, May 2007

"Sometimes the rewriting is kind of like twitching -- it's a twitching that keeps you active while you're trying to figure out what to [write] next. You're rewriting the scene that you're rewriting, but that's causing your writing muscles to actually start writing the scene you're going to do next."
– Mr. Brooks' Bruce A. Evans

Here is part of the interview with editor Hilary Sares fom Kensington. 

*1. What do you look for in a face-to-face pitch? I love to be
surprised and I don't have set expectations—writers just have to give
it their best shot and relax as much as humanly possible. You really
don't want to come across as a quivering ball of sweaty-palmed,
trembling neediness in an uncomfortable blazer (most editors go for a
Publishing Casual look, which is pretty close to Thrift Store
Half-Price Tuesday). Somewhere safe, stash the bulging carryall bags
that proliferate at conferences and do the same with sundry
impedimenta that make for awkward entrances and exits. You won't be
able to shake hands real well with an overstuffed promotional tote for
a book titled, say, SWEET SAVAGE HUMP, slung over a charm-braceleted
wrist. Basically, you want to come across like a pro. Practice your
pitch with a funny friend over and over. Practice it in mock
Hungarian. Practice it in charades. I.e., get loose and get it down
cold. Keep in mind that editors have heard thousands of pitches and
most will do what they can to put you at ease. If we seem quiet or
noncommittal, it's because we're waiting to hear what you have to say.
By the way, it often happens that the quietest writers will pitch the
most outrageous ideas. So, what do I look for? An author who shows
real passion for her/his story or her/his non-fiction concept gets my
attention—it's likely to be interesting even if it's something I'm not
acquiring at the moment. Index cards and a droning, step-by-step
recitation of plot are not the best way to present yourself or your
work. Opening a laptop instead of using index cards? Don't even think
about it. Make eye contact. Smile. Editors with reasonably good
eyesight will usually return the favor.

1. What do you look for in a query? Brevity.

2. What's your biggest pet peeve about queries? Tiny print and
   crowded margins, used in order to squeeze in as much information as
   possible. Just sell the book. That's all I'm buying. Got awards and
   professional credentials? List those in a back sheet but don't make
   it look like a resume and don't go on and on. Writers who provide
   gabbling, overly detailed lists of accomplishments tend to write
   similar prose. Get to the point. You can't go wrong.

3. What kind of books do you like to read? Everything.

4. What kind of books do you represent/edit? The verb is acquire. The
   confusion among new writers about these terms unfortunately means that
   a lot of them sound like amateurs in cover or query letters. Agents
   represent books, editors acquire books, copyeditors edit books. Yes,
   editors edit, but it is a very different kind of editing from what
   copyeditors do. And since what the author wants an editor to do is
   buy her book, the term is acquire. Anyway, I acquire romance,
   historical romance, romantic suspense, erotic romance, paranormal
   romance in all those genres, mainstream women's fiction, mystery and
   thrillers.

5. What's your best advice for new writers? Focus on improving,
   developing, and energizing your writing. Every new writer has a lot
   of competition, but keep in mind that a lot of them spend far too much
   time online obsessing over silly stuff and not actually writing very
   much. You may feel like, tra la, you're in the club if you do it too,
   but it will eat up time and energy if you do too much of it.

Don't critique your work to shreds. By the way, editors do not want
to hear what your critique group thinks. We don't care.

Whether you are sending a letter or meeting with an editor in person,
keep a few Sort-of Commandments in mind. Thou shalt not grovel.
Editors aren't gods. Thou shalt not worry too much. Nothing you say
or do is going to make you or break you. Editors aren't mean, as a
general rule. Thou shalt not drone. Editors get sleepy. Thou shalt
not apologize for being nervous or being a stay-at-home mom or working
in a profession that doesn't have much to do with writing but wanting
to write anyway. You wrote something, you're a writer. Yup. Really.
You are.*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, I know this is an editor of romances, that possible not many here are as interested in but the advise is sound no matter what the genre.

For those of you who didn't subscribe to the workhop (and you may have had trouble given the fact that the link didn't show correctly: www.candacehavens.com), here is part of the interview from the first agent:

Agent Elaine Spencer from The Knight Agency.

Elaine Spencer joined The Knight Agency in September of 2005. She acts
as the liaison between clients, publishers, and agents as Manuscript
Coordinator and Agent. With a strong background in both comparative
literature and economics at the University of Georgia , she has
experience with legal contracts and executive management, as well as
writing, editing, and publishing. Consistently producing strong
results with a high degree of integrity, dedication, and efficiency,
Elaine is a perfect addition to the TKA powerhouse.

1. What do you look for in a face-to-face pitch? The number one thing
   that I look for is confidence. It can make or break a pitch. If
   someone can confidently pitch there story to me it shows that they
   truly believe in their work and their writing. I realize that this is
   much easier said than done because so many people are so nervous. But
   Confidence is key.

Beyond that I really look to be "engaged". The best pitches are when
someone sits down at the table and talks TO me about there book as
opposed to talking AT me. I tell people that the actual book pitch
should last no more than 1-3 minutes. The rest of the time we should
be in interaction about their story, their writing, their career, etc.
I'm not going to know if the writing is good until a later time when I
can actually sit down and read the work, so there's not need to spend
extraneous amounts of time on something that makes no difference. I'm
very interested in how we interact because as a possible future client
we need to be comfortable and have a good vibe flowing. This is the
chance to see if that happens.

1. What do you look for in a query? A great hook. The hook can make it
   or break it. It is also VERY important that I can tell someone has
   done their homework. I want to see that they have a basic competency
   surrounding our agency and the process of the query letter (how to put
   it together, submit it etc). Again, just like the pitch, I don't want
   a detailed explanation of the plot, just a few key points that really
   draw me in and make me perk up and want to learn more. Its also a plus
   if the writer can draft the letter in a vein that is true to their
   writing, their voice, the feel that you will get from the book.

2. What's your biggest pet peeve about queries? When people fail to
   get to the point. When I have to deeply read and sort through a bunch
   of garbage to figure out what the actual story they are pitching is
   about. I also hate it when it isn't on a white background with 12
   point arial/times/ normal font. After looking at a computer for 10+
   hours a day, the queries that come in at 8pt are just asking to be
   rejected. (Smile)

3. What kind of books do you like to read? I like to read everything.
   I am a HUGE fan of YA. Its so entertaining and real. In romance I
   enjoy contemporaries, paranormals, and romantic suspense. I also like
   things that are a bit heavier, things that could be considered women's
   fiction. I'm also a HUGE fan of Thrillers and Mysteries. And sometimes
   I want something more literary just to be swept away. Yes you can tell
   I'm hard to please, NOT!!! Some of my recent FAVORITE reads include 19
   MINUTES by Jodi Picoult, TWILIGHT by Stephanie Meyer, JR Wards WHOLE
   series, RED HANDED by Gena Showalter.

4. What kind of books do you represent/edit? All of the above! I am
   really open to pretty much anything. I'm really REALLY looking for
   some more hot YA and MG/Tween. I am also looking for some great
   romantic suspense or a really different Paranormal. I really want a
   Pirate story and a good witch story. I know those are weird requests,
   but they are a weakness within me!!

5. What's your best advice for new writers? Continue to read. Stay up
   on the realities of what the writing is like that is on the shelves.
   And network. Your peers will be your biggest sources of inspiration,
   guidance, and knowledge about the realities of the business.

Walking is a series of controlled falls. Each step forward shifts our center of gravity. In harmony with this fall, our bodies extend a leg to catch the center and balance it momentarily before it is cast forward again. We can do this with our writing - throw ourselves off ballance in order to catch our balance again as we move forward." 

Richard R. Powell
Wabi Sabi for Writers