Greetings,

Oh dear - did I ever stir the possum last week?!

Just to show I'm happy to cast nasturtiums willy-nilly, later on you can read some delightful examples of Hickbonics - sent in by a subscriber who just might want to remain anonymous ... contact me please if you want to be identified ... and I'll tell the world ;)

– "Think of all the time you spend clicking aimlessly or fruitlessly around the Web. At the Hunger Site, one click actually accomplishes something: It sends a serving of food to a starving person, at no cost to you. Corporate sponsors provide the food in exchange for free advertisement and links. Since its June 1 start-up, the site has sent enough money to the United Nations’ World Food Program to purchase more than 4 million servings of dietary staples; a WFP official calls it ‘an extraordinary testimony to the power of the Internet.’ The privacy-protected site is run without profit by John Breen, an Indiana software programmer who initially wanted to support Third World education but decided hunger was the priority. As his world map arrestingly illustrates, starvation kills 24,000 people daily, most of them children."

It's definitely worth a visit - if only to make you appreciate how truly fortunate we are to be able to feed our own children each day. While you're there, don't forget to click on the link to make a donation of food!

~ * ~

This week, how about we try for a best-seller? Now, I'm not pretending for one moment that I've ever written a best-seller - but for a fun activity for a writer, I think it would be hard to beat. So here are a few tips I've gleaned on my travels. When I started putting these together, it made me wish I had more spare time to sit and play with a few ideas that have been swimming around inside my head for a few years (yes, we all want to write a novel ...)

* The stakes MUST be high - no good hoping that your tale about whether the daisies will win first prize in the school fete is going to be number one seller at Amazon.com - it's not going to happen, Kiddo.

You need to base your plot around a story of life and death; happiness and tragedy; fulfillment of a life's dream and so on.

* Since this is the case, your characters must be larger than life - sorry, your hero must be tall, powerfully built, not necessarily handsome, but definitely "craggy" in an appealing sort of way. Your heroine must be either drop-dead gorgeous, or have "elfin-like" qualities. The smooth, round thighs are optional these days - but heaving bosoms never go out of fashion.

It goes without saying that one of them must have extreme wealth (since this is what our society values so highly) - it doesn't matter which one - but the poverty and deprivations of one must be in proportion to the wealth and privilege of the other.

It's imperative that your hero and heroine clash to start with and then - gradually - with as many ups and downs as you can manage - finally come to realise that they were meant for each other.

* There should be a single, dramatic question to be answered. The question is posed at the beginning (or merely hinted at for the first part of the book) - but it must be answered at the end. This question should run through the whole book and is the framework on which the rest of your story rests. Some suggestions:

• Will he/she save the world / neighbourhood / heritage listed building / forest / from war / terrorists / greedy developers?
• Can he/she uncover the mystery of his/her humble beginnings / the whereabouts of the missing treasure / the lost formula
• Will she get her man?
• Can he find his true love?

* You need to have a high concept on which to base your story - it can be as far-fetched as you dare:

• A respectable business that is secretly involved with a crime group - the hero has to uncover the secret before a multi-million dollar deal goes through
• Babies are switched at birth - should the dedicated doctor who has discovered this blow the whistle on the doctor responsible who is just about to be honoured for a life-saving procedure he's perfected?
• Twins adopted out to different families, meet and are about to marry - what will their mother (who happens to be the owner of a large publishing house where they both met) do?

* Your settings should be exotic and filled with plenty of detail - your readers can go to the suburban supermarket themselves - they don't want to read about it as well - take them to the Kasbah, the Caribbean; to deserts, rainforests, and coral reefs. Take them into space if you wish - to alien landscapes even!

Hey ... nobody said it had to be realistic!

Paint a picture of the place - its customs, food, clothes, etiquette, architecture and so on.

The most popular settings are those which are set in the present (this also makes it more likely that your best-seller could be taken up by film-makers. Costume dramas cost a fortune to produce!)

Look for topical themes for your story - anything to do with the Internet seems to be flavour of the month at the moment; and genetic engineering, environmental risks and crime are always popular.

* You are free to use any or all of the following:

• Bizarre and surprising actions - car and vehicle chases of all descriptions
• Powerful confrontations - the more the better for a particular type of novel!

• Coincidence - if it was good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for us ...

So, there you have it - a potted (or potty?) guide to writing a best-seller. Feel free to send me part of your royalty cheque when it arrives!

Find synonyms (words with similar meanings) from the list for each word below (note - there are more words in the list - can't make it too easy!):

1. passionate - VEHEMENT

2. cautious - CIRCUMSPECT

3. painful - POIGNANT

4. puzzling - ENIGMATIC

5. treacherous - INSIDIOUS

6. liberation - EMANCIPATION

7. disparaging -DEROGATORY

8. taciturn - RETICENT

9. impecunious - POOR

10.moderate - TEMPERATE

Choose from this list:

Poignant, temperate, enigmatic, emancipation, derogatory, reticent, poor, circumspect, insidious, vigorous, vehement.

This week's quiz will help to increase your vocabulary (so you can write that best-seller). Think of one word for each of these (the word must end in -fy):

e.g. to make into a liquid - liquify

1. to make pleasing to look at -

2. to cause pleasure -

3. to fill with great fear -

4. to put right -

5. to prove or show to be right -

6. to make incorrect or untrue -

7. to give evidence -

8. to show by example -

9. to make up for damage done -

10.to speak ill of -

Here's the short introduction to Hickbonics I promised you:

HEIDI - (noun) -Greeting.

HIRE YEW - Complete sentence. Remainder of greeting.
Usage: Heidi, Hire yew?"

BARD - (verb) - Past tense of the infinitive "to borrow."
Usage: "My brother bard my pickup truck."

JAWJUH - (noun) - The State north of Florida. Capitol is Lanner.
Usage: "My brother from Jawjuh bard my pickup truck."

THANK - (verb) - Ability to cognitively process.
Usage: "Ah thank ah'll have a bare."
BARE - (noun) - An alcoholic beverage made of barley, hops and yeast.
Usage: "Ah thank ah'll have a bare."

DID - (adjective) - Not alive.
Usage: "He's did, Jim."

EAR - (noun) - A colorless, odorless gas: Oxygen.
Usage: "He cain't breathe...give 'im some ear!"

BOB WAR - (noun) - A sharp, twisted cable.
Usage: "Boy, stay away from that bob war fence."

JEW HERE - (noun) and (verb) contraction.
Usage: "Jew here that my brother from Jawjuh got a job with
that bob war fence cump'ny?"

VIEW - contraction: (verb) and pronoun.
Usage: "I ain't never seed New York City... view?"

OXYMORON OF THE WEEK: religious tolerance (ooh...)

And a Latin phrase to use when their people have contacted your people and you're doing lunch:

Nonne potes stilum tuum in hac re paulum acuere? (Can't you sharpen your pencil a little on this?)

Regards,

Jennifer

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