Clint's Blog

Lindsey's Story

6/8/2012

Welcome to what may be the last entry in this Way Cooler than Clint blog tour. Enjoy the first two chapters of Lindsey's story!

Vegatopalis: The Battle of the Beans
by
Lindsey

Chapter 1

One day in Vegatopalis there was a storm and every veggie had to be locked up in their houses it was that bad. Then surprisingly gaurds from the other kingdom came marching up and down that road saying, "hep two three four." "Whats happening," said a baby carrot? "I have no Idea", said Daddy carrot, "but I think we're about to find out". And they were, because the general stepped onto a stool and said, "People of Vegatopalis we beankeas have come to take over".

"Why, what have we done?" asked a tomato. "You steal all of our food and supplies." Now that the general had spoken the tomato was very red with embarassment. "Never fear," called someone from above." It was Captain Celery. "If you want to fight lets fight!" "The battle of the beans is on."

"Oh so it's on"? Said the general. "Well well well." "Oh yah," spat captain celery. "Well blah to that." "Blah". Said the general back at him. "You'll be very very very sorry for this, captain celery", screamed the general. "Oh pa leaeeeese," said captain celery, "call me crunchy."

Chapter 2

"Now all of you", said the general to his knights, "I want all of you to help win this war even if we have to cheat to do that." "Yes sir" can the echo of the beans throughout the kingdom. "Excelent," said the general. With a grin," get the butter ready."

4 Comments

Tad's Creation

6/5/2012

4 Comments

A Creation
by
Tad

a sand car with guns, some are bad and some are good, it smells like toxic egsaust, it sounds like a high pich roaring terex, it eats any thing in is path, it can drive and can change with feet and wing if it wants to fly, when it dies it produces a baby and in 1 year will be in full growth, the gun shot laser beams that have poisonous chemicals that if touched it can kill fast, it is indestructible, it can smell any thing even some thing toxic it has good eye site in day and is invisible in day and night, it is steal it can burn small as a bug or be as as a normal sand car.

4 Comments

Jayden's Story

5/30/2012

3 Comments

For the next installment on the Cooler than Clint blog, we turn to Jayden, who would like to share a sizable portion of a story. Enjoy!

The Worst Life!
By Jayden

The last three chairs, just happen to be in France. That map says the chairs in an old palace. "Great, that place is haunted!" said Elizabeth. "Thats a myth," said Kyle. "Stop fighting and let's get our buts moving!" said Kathren.

Soon they reached the palace. "I'm not going in there," said Elizabeth. "Fine you can stay out here and watch for danger," Kathren said. "Let's go in there!" Kyle said. They all went in, except Elizabeth. She stayed outside and looked for danger. Four hours pased, suddenly a nun came up to Elizabeth! She said, "Come... follow me." Elizabeth was so interested she followed the nun not knowing she was an evil witch. After a few minutes they arrived at another palace, more of a castle.

Kyle and Kathren got skared when the big bell rang. The second time it rang munks came slidding down a rope! Three floating chairs came down and three monks caught them. Three other monks got rope. The last three grabed them. They put them in the chairs, And used the rope to tie them to the chairs! The chairs instantly started to fly up in the air to an old castle "Elizabeth," said Kathrin. Elizabeth said, "The nun, don't licen to her, she is an evil witch!" The evil witch came out in a pointy hat and black clothes. "O more guests, yes!" Now you have your friends to wach me take over the world And you all will be my hard working slaves, Ho Ho Ho! First I will assign you a job. You my gorgous will be a maid," She said to Elizabeth. "Put this old maids dress on." next she told Kyle, "You can be... a... Knight. You look buff enough to be a knight."

"Yes! I'm a knight!" Then she gave Kyle a sword. Then gave Kathren an apron and a spoon. Kathren guessed she is the cook. Then the evil nun said, "I know what you can here for." "Ho..." "How do I know." the witch cut her off. "What do we want then?" Kathren said. "You want the three chairs I caught you in" "Ah can you read our minds?"

3 Comments

Emily's Play

5/28/2012

13 Comments

Welcome to day two of the Cooler than Clint Blog Tour. Today, for your enrichment and very great edification, I am proud to present the first act of Emily's play King & Queen Thieves. As always, the following is Emily's writing verbatim, with no editing on my part. So all props to her.

King & Queen Thieves
By
Emily

characters
- Violet (servant)
- Ivy (Princess Servant)
- Jenny (Queen servant)
- Janna (King servant)

N = Narator
V = Violet
I = Ivy
Je = Jenny
Ja = Janna

Act 1, Scene 1

N: This is a play about 4 crazy girls that become servents for the King, Queen & Princess.
V: I am so excited!
I: Not me! I am scared.
Je: I am nervous & I am scared.
Ja: I wonder what sallary we get.
N: They were all nervous and very scared.
V: Do the King and Queen steal from people?
I: Maybe they have people steal for them!
Je: And the people get lots of money for stealing for the Queen & King.
N: When they met the Queen, King, & Princess they could tell the Queen & King were hiding something. The Princess however was innocent.
I: I wonder what the King & Queen are hiding?

13 Comments

Today, This Is Abi's Blog

5/24/2012

2 Comments

Well, it was bound to happen. My neglect of this blog has resulted in a full-blown rebellion. The Internet elves have gathered together, taken a vote, and decided that this space will be far better used by more diligent, more interesting, and vastly more attractive people than myself.

So for the next week or so, this blog will now belong to a series of very smart and even more awesome grade schoolers who participated in the book club I ran for their school. Over the course of the club, about the last three months, each of these students devoted herself or himself to writing, revising, and editing a piece of writing from the club with the intent of being published here. I made clear that anyone featured here would have to produce a truly excellent written piece (a rule that I excuse in regard to myself). That is exactly what each did.

So today allow me to welcome you to the blog of Abigail, who I and other very lucky people are allowed to call Abi, and to the first public description of a newly discovered species: the Torpion. The following is a transcript of Abi's description of the Torpion without any editing or adjustment on my part whatsoever--so she gets all the credit. (Oh, and I should also admit that she taught me how to spell tarantula correctly.)

*****

Torpion
by
Abi

The Torpion is a small but deadly creature. It is EVIL! It is covered in little tiny hairs like a tarantula, it can also fly. It smells like this special perfume. When someone smells the perfume they fall into a deep sleep. When they wake up they are under the Torpion's control. The more the Torpion catches the more likely it is to take over the world. It sounds like a baby croc crying to it's mother. It has a tail like a scorpion. It has ten eyes and three legs. It hast two arms like a scorpion. It eats fish called minos and for a treat it eats small birds and bugs.

2 Comments

A Very Cool Work in Progress

5/8/2012

6 Comments

This post is a glimpse at one reason among many--Many, MANY--for why I have been incommunicado. But as you'll see, some things are just a priority.

The following is a work in progress, a play, by a friend of mine named Reagan. She is one of the girls in the book club I run once a week in conjunction with the author residency program I'm overseeing at a local elementary school. Last week she was so productive in her writing that I projected her play for the whole club so she could receive some feedback and we could run through the play, acting it out to see how it plays. It's pretty awesome.

Now, understand that it isn't completely done yet. There is some more revision and editing to be done, but Reagan has three more weeks to polish it up. But her good work to this point deserves some recognition. So here's a look at Reagan's work in progress. Other kids in the club are writing pieces as well, and at the end of the year those who revise and editing their pieces until they shine can be found right here on my blog. So consider this a taste of what is to come from some very talented kids.

Untitled

By

Reagan

(The characters have names but they are not yet recorded in the text. Something to be added later.)

C: Ah, the arcade.

B: It is fun to me you get to play games.

C: Well I think it will just make people Koo-Koo.

B: Well why don’t you go play the Barbie Game.

C: Ok!

B: Well I am going to go play Star War.

C: Ok I will meet you in 20 minutes.

They leave and come back in 20 minutes.

B: Hey do you want to get pizza?

C: Yah that sounds good.

They go to get some pizza.

B: Are you ready to go home.

C: No, I want to keep playing

B: Well why dum dum!

C: Did you just call me dum dum.

B: Yah dum dum.

C: Fine I might as well slap you in the face…

6 Comments

A Bomb for Charity. Does That Sound Bad?

4/19/2012

0 Comments

Last month I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Writing for Charity event here in Utah, where more than twenty professional authors got together for a writers' conference where all proceeds go to charity. As part of the effort, a number of us wrote short works for an e-anthology, the proceeds of which also go to charity. The result is The Gruff Variations: Writing for Charity Anthology Vol. 1, which is now available through Amazon and elsewhere. The anthology includes more than 100,000 words worth of poetry and stories from 34 authors and is edited by Nebula Award winner Eric James Stone.

Today we are holding a "book bomb," a concerted effort to encourage those interested in the anthology--or in donating to literacy charity--to buy the book in order to drive up its placement on the Amazon sales ranks, hopefully garnering more attention. Every penny spent on the anthology goes to charity, either to local kids in hospitals and shelters through a partnership with the non-profit group Children's Literature Association of Utah or to the Future Light Orphanage in Cambodia. More information on the charities can be found here. So please take a look at the anthology description below, and consider buying a copy. Purchasing anywhere is certainly welcome, but today in particular we're encouraging people to buy from Amazon. It's good writing from good writers for a great cause. I'm buying my copy today. Hope you'll join me.

Here are details on the anthology:

The proceeds from this book go toward buying books and school supplies for underprivileged children through Writing for Charity (writingforcharity.com).

The stories and poetry in this anthology were all inspired by the legend of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. But you won't just find goats and trolls in here. You'll also find xenoarchaeologists hunting a legendary burial ground, a harried troll who wants nothing more than peace and quiet, star-traveling cities in search of resources, a cloaked warrior of prophecy, an honest politician, princesses on vacation, interstellar probes, superheroes (and villains), cursed princes, necromancers, fairies, bikers, aliens, violinists... the list goes on.

Contributors to this anthology include New York Times best-selling author Shannon Hale, award-winning children's picture book author Rick Walton, Hugo Award winner (and Nebula Award nominee) Mary Robinette Kowal, Edgar Award finalist Dene Low, Nebula Award nominees Brad R. Torgersen and Nancy Fulda, and many other authors such as Kristen Landon, Lisa Mangum, Kristyn Crow, Clint Johnson, and Dean Hale. Nebula Award Winner Eric James Stone edited the anthology.

The full table of contents is:
"The Three Billion Goats Gruff: A Bulrovian Tale: Part I" -- Rick Walton
"A Starscape Slightly Askew" -- Nancy Fulda
"Touch of Power" -- Erik Peterson
"Haiku: The First Goat" -- Shannon Hale
"Bigger Than You Think" -- Dan Wells
"A Princess Predicament" -- Danielle Christensen
"Cold and Hungry" -- Bret Carter
"Trip, Trap, Tripping" -- Mary Robinette Kowal
"The Ladies Billet-Gruffin" -- Jenel Copeabout
"The Three Billion Goats Gruff: A Bulrovian Tale: Part LXII" -- Rick Walton
"Gruff Riders" -- Martin L. Shoemaker
"Bridges Dark and Distant" -- William Ledbetter
"The Three Princes of Grufflan" -- Danyelle Leafty
"The Troll by the Footbridge: A Study in Four Parts" -- Janet Kay Jensen
"The Deposition of Harald Throckmorton, Esquire, the Troll beneath the Bridge" -- Clint Johnson
"The Wicker Warrior" -- Joseph Zieja
"The Necromancer’s Sons" -- C.A. Lyons
"The Three Billion Goats Gruff: A Bulrovian Tale: Part CXIII" -- Rick Walton
"Sheep Dog" -- Brad R. Torgersen
"Haiku: The Second Goat" -- Shannon Hale
"A Tale Of Two Billies And A Troll" -- George Nikolopoulos
"Primary" -- Cary B. Bishop
"The Chili Stoat Bluff" -- Emma Nelson
"Gruffs in Debt" -- Kristen Landon
"A Mean, Mean Billy Gruff" -- Kristyn Crow
"Bridge to the Meadow" -- Mandi Ellsworth
"Indigestion" -- M.K. Hutchins
"The Three Billion Goats Gruff: A Bulrovian Tale: Part CCCIV" -- Rick Walton
"The Three Brother Cities" -- Deborah Walker
"Haiku: The Third Goat" -- Shannon Hale
"Sold Out" -- Lisa Mangum
"Gruff Noir" -- Dene Low
"The Third Goat" -- Dean Hale
"Three Billy Goats Who C Sharp: A Norwegian Folktale" -- Jared E. Stoddard
"The Three Deaths of Devin Ochre" -- Juliana Montgomery
"A Gift Freely Offered" -- Nikki Trionfo
"The Three Billion Goats Gruff: A Bulrovian Tale: Part CCCXXXIV" -- Rick Walton

0 Comments

Writers and the Media Workshop

4/11/2012

3 Comments

I am making time to post this because it looks like a particularly good workshop with a focus that isn't common for these types of workshops. So if you are interested in a wide variety of genres of writing, particularly journalism, life story writing, and other forms of non-fiction--including non-fiction narrative--this is a rare opportunity. Carol Lynch Williams and Carolyn Campbell are particularly great. So check it out.

*****

LEAGUE OF UTAH WRITERS SPRING WORKSHOP

PROVO CITY LIBRARY at ACADEMY SQUARE - APRIL 21, 2012

WRITERS AND THE MEDIA

WELCOME: Irene Hastings, LUW President-Elect

12:15 – 1:15 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

ROBERT KIRBY: Columnist, Writer, Salt Lake Tribune. Popular Speaker.– Well-known for his observations on life with all its variations. He has an uncanny knack for finding the absurdities of things we take too seriously.

2:30 - 3:30

CAROL LYNCH WILLIAMS: Award-winning novelist, with an MFA in writing for children and young adults. As a mother with seven children, she is well-qualified, not only for superb writing, but for down-to-earth experience in her writing genre. She holds the prestigious PEN/Phyllis Naylor working Fellowship. Award books include: The Chosen One; Glimpse; Miles From Ordinary.

3:30 – 4:00                                     *REFRESHMENT BREAK*

4:15 – 5:30                                            WORKSHOPS

CAROL LYNCH WILLIAMS: “Getting Your Novel Where It Needs To Go”   Maeser Room         214

CAROLYN CAMPBELL “Making the Most of Marketing”
PATRICIA G. STEVENSEN, “Fleshing Out Characters—a Standalone Book”
N. KAY STEVENSEN, “Designing Your Book From Cover to Cover.”
       Book Wording, Arting, Pitching                                                            Young Events Room 201

PAULETTE STEVENS, “Profit By Preserving Life Stories, Using Memoir Writing and Audio-Visual Techniques.”                                                                                             Young Card Room 308

DOOR PRIZES following workshops. It’s been our pleasure to host LUW’s Spring Workshop. Remember ROUNDUP, September 14, 15, the Yarrow, Park City. For more information see: www.luwriters.org

3 Comments

A List of Life Changing Books for Various Authors

3/27/2012

4 Comments

Mette Ivie Harrison wrote a blog post about how Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold changed her life, and sent out an invitation for others to do the same. I don't know who else will or will not follow suit, so this list might end up being pretty short, but I thought I'd add my contribution. (You might read Mette's post first, as it is the progenitor of what follows.) I'll try to list others who blog about this issue with links to their posts.

*****

In theory, I was once a child. In practice, I sometimes doubt it.

I don't remember a great deal of my childhood, and whole years of my adolescence have melted into a blunt white fog. Years of chronic insomnia can do that to a person. So there's a lot about my early literacy experiences I don't remember. I know my mother read picture books to me often as a boy, though I don't remember many other than "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," a conglomeration of Seussness, and some strange Sesame Street book with write-your-own text and staring my cousin and me, which my parents bought for my birthday (I think). Later on, I dimly recall either being read or reading or both the Hardy Boys books, The Indian in the Cupboard series by Lynn Reid Banks, and Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. This gives me a nebulous sense of being a reader earlier than I can clearly remember being anything.

I don't know if it's the fogginess or some reflection of how things really were, but I don't recall any story ever Changing Things as an early child. I assume I liked books because I know I read them, but honestly, nothing changed the way I viewed the world--changed me--enough for the metamorphosis to linger until today. Not until I reached fourth grade when two books Changed Things.

This Change happened in two phases. The first, subtle, like the cracking open of a newly found door to someplace Elsewhere and Unknown, came thanks to another book by Banks, The Farthest Away Mountain. This book introduced me to a new story that felt very old and classic, written in the style and with the substance of a fairy tale. That tenor of fantasy that runs through much high or epic fantasy as well as through fables and fairy tales still resonates with me, and before this book I suspect I was unaware that new stories could feel like the great old classic stories. Perhaps of greater importance, however, this book made me care more about a story before and behind the story than the book itself. To this day my favorite part of The Farthest Away Mountain is a story told inside the story, about a good magician and his evil apprentice, and how the magician tried to save the apprentice by taking him to a blessed mountain, yet the apprentice's evil overpowered all the good, damning the mountain and all near it. That story is told in dialogue and not shown, and covers maybe a page and a half of text--but it Changed Things. Something about that scrap of the past within a book created a real world not only to read about but to imagine, to explore, even to recreate in my own mind. That story become much bigger than others because of what I did not know and what was not said, and created a voracious appetite to fill in these gaps.

The first Change was an expansion of my world, a swelling, sweeping growth of horizon. The second Change was far more potent. Like moving from a black and white world, both shallow and neatly beautiful in its simplicity, The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle washed the world in which I lived in color, raw and vibrant and thrilling and terrifying. It made life frighteningly real.

It is one of my childhood memories I remember best. Not turning pages or the cover of the book or telling my parents or friends about the story. The feeling. That book Changed Things, and I knew it the moment I closed the cover and never stopped knowing it. For days afterward, I thought about that story. It possessed me. It made me care, made me feel things, some that I wished afterward I could stop feeling. The story was exciting, and funny, and unique, and fantastic, but it was also tragic, and sad, and haunting, and refused to offer even an immortal unicorn a simple happy ending. It made me ache for the people--not characters, but people--in that story. Physically hurt for them. At night that story sang to me instead of letting me sleep. The Last Unicorn combined the resonance of truth I always have and still do feel about a perfect fable with an emotional and moral complexity that defied an absolute answer. The story was beautiful in its joy and in its sadness, and impossibly real for being beautiful for both. I wasn't the same after reading that story, and I couldn't go back--even though I sometimes wanted to.

After several days the disturbance faded and the Changed world settled into its new form and place. I suppose the reality is I settled into the newly enlightened me. It's hard for me to splice together words to communicate anything at all of this great shift, but the best way I can say it is this: I was a little less a child after having read The Last Unicorn, but the portion of that child-like me that remained was so empowered by the experience it has never left. That book cost me a few beliefs and instilled many more with adamantine strength.

To this day there is no book I love more than The Last Unicorn. My own writing--completely unforeseen and unaspired to by that forth grade boy--has only deepened my admiration for Peter Beagle and his story. It is a masterpiece of composition, from the sentence level to its greatest themes. Yet it is one of the only books I can read today and be so caught up in I do not notice the masterful skill of the hands leading me on. I can just ride along. It probably played a greater role in my writing than any other book, not because it shaped how I write, or even what I read. It Changed the way I see life, and I will always be thankful for it.

*****
Mette's Life Changing Book

4 Comments

The Gruff Variations

3/26/2012

1 Comment

I am under the weather and buried in submissions I'm in the process of sending out, so please excuse the silence on the blog. I did want to mention that the anthology published in conjunction with Writing for Charity is now available on Amazon and Smashwords. It's called The Gruff Variations: Writing for Charity Anthology, Vol. 1. Inside you'll find short works by New York Times best-seller Shannon Hale, award-winning picture book author Rick Walton, Hugo Award winner Mary Robinette Kowal, and many others. Including me. All the proceeds go to charity, so you might check it out.

1 Comment

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Lindsey's Story

Tad's Creation

Jayden's Story

Emily's Play

Today, This Is Abi's Blog

A Very Cool Work in Progress

A Bomb for Charity. Does That Sound Bad?

Writers and the Media Workshop

A List of Life Changing Books for Various Authors

The Gruff Variations

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