Holy Cow. Or Holy Horse.

I got bit in the head by a horse.

My daughter and I were at the stable getting the horse ready for her weekly lesson, and he took a chomp at my hair.

I should have expected it. I mean, he was being a pill that day as my daughter prepped him for her lesson. He pushed. He nipped a few times. He lifted his head as high as he could knowing there was no way I could get the halter on him.

I was reading the signs. Watching to make sure his hoof didn't end up on my foot. Or in my gut. Or that he wouldn't take the pocket off my coat.

But I wasn't expecting the chomp-o-rama of his teeth against my scalp.

Especially on the top of my head.

After I toweled off the horse spit and poked the bruise 20 times to prove to myself that he really did bite me, I was still thinking to myself, "Holy cow. I can't believe he bit me."

And that, my friends writerly and otherwise, is good plot. The signs are there. The audience is invested and interested, and then: WHAM-O. They get something they weren't expecting.

Spit on the head. Teeth in the scalp. All of it.

Great plot happens when a writer makes the audience look back and say, "I thought I was reading all the signs. I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner."

So onward. Charge ahead on that steed before he decides your head looks like a bag of oats...and work on writing great plot.

Moving mountains

I've noticed a very distinct, absolutely true correlation between two things:

The more I have my BIC (Jane Yolen's: butt in chair) to write, the W-I-D-E-R it gets. When I look in the mirror and notice my flatter, flabbier office bottom it's disheartening. And boring.

Now I have two choices:

1. Quit writing.

2. Keep writing. And keep moving.

Punch it up with stairs, hills, and miles. Stop shoving junk in my mouth when I'm bored. Or frustrated. Or working.

My characters are the same way. If I sit on them too much they are as wide, flat, and flabby as an office butt. If I fill them with words they just talk, talk, talk and never get around to doing things. But if I give them a few miles to travel and mountains to climb, they take on a shape that is much more interesting.

So here's to having a butt in a chair and moving mountains all in the same moment...and then working out a few miles more!