details, details

I don’t think I’ll ever write a 100,000 word manuscript.
First of all, my attention span isn’t that long.  Also, I have been known to search for just the “right word” for 45 minutes.  You don’t pound out 100K words doing that.  But the biggest reason is…
I’m just not that into detail.
I can’t spend three pages [...]

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not-so-minor characters

This is the Hairy Beast that lives with us.  (Like the kids, I don’t want to compromise her privacy by revealing her true name.)  She is totally devoted to me and the crumbs that I drop.  She follows me around, hides under my feet–I am her mama, through no fault of my own.
Our first dog, [...]

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what’s so dang funny? the characters

I think about 15% of my time with my friends is spent in deep, serious discussion.  The other 85% is spent laughing.  Giggling, guffawing, snorting, chortling, snickering, tittering, sneering…
Etc.
Pretty sure you see the point bearing down on you like a freight train: we like people who make us laugh.

And we like [...]

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for writers: the hero journeys through the magical woods and finds…motifs

Poor, poor Shane from Maine.  He’s been stuck on those Spanish steps for months.

Get up, Bucko, it’s time to journey.
First, our hero must become wise in the ways of the Magical Woods.  Like most of us, he’s got to learn through trial and error. (Better known as “ the hard way“.)  He will overcome these [...]

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for writers: the hero’s initiation in the magical woods, and 14 characters plus one he might find there

So our little Shane from Maine stumbles into the airport, his regulation-sized carry-on rolling behind him. 

He is in Italy, the Magical Woods.  With his red flannel shirt and lumberjack boots, Shane from Maine is a Stranger in a Strange Land.  Time to begin his INITIATION.
The Magical Woods does not need to be literally “magic”,

nor “woods”. 

 
It is simply a place that [...]

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