Hiatus

I guess I've taken a hiatus from blogging for a while. Just in case anyone misses me, I promise I'll be back. Like that proverbial bad penny, although, what with inflation and all, I'm at least a bad nickel now!

Life Interrupted

Actually, it's not life interrupted so much as it is that my freakin' new novel keeps getting interrupted. It's Day Three, and I've only got a little over 5,000 words! I've had to just jump in for an hour here and a few minutes there because this silly thing called "life" keeps getting in the way.

Why won't doctors, attorneys, DirecTv repairemen, propane gas delivery guys, Avon ladies, and frankly pretty much everyone else in the county understand that I HAVE MADE A COMMITMENT. If I is gonna be a writer, I has gots to write! Even the dogs are conspiring to keep me from having two connected thoughts. Buford wants in, Lizzie is hungry, Buford has to pee, Lizzie needs a hug. How on earth do people with children do this?

So, for one quiet moment here (well, quiet except for Buford's whimpering that it's raining outside and he really needs to pee so could I please quickly build him an outdoor toilet where he won't get his feet wet) Clark is in bed taking a nap, Lizzie is snoring beneath my feet in the little cave she's decorated as her bedroom beneath my desk (I love what she's done with the place, the sheepskin feels so good to my toes) it's raining so I don't have to feel guilty about all the outdoor things I'm not getting done.

I think it's time to pull up the Girl in the Mirror and see what Dixie is up to today. Well, as soon as I answer the phone and turn the burner off under the boiling eggs. And...

Tick Tock Tick Tock

Time is couting down to the start of the NaNoWriMo competition. I'm so excited. I always get cold chills when I'm getting started on a book, but this time is even more so since I have a real deadline and people counting on me to help in a private contest between regions for total word count. So not only am I aiming for the 50,000 words by Nov. 30, but also as many more as possible to help my 'team.'

I've met some very interesting people, and am looking forward to actually getting together in person at some point.

I would imagine my blogs will be short and sweet and few and far between in the weeks ahead.

 My "real" novel manuscript is with an agent as we speak, and 2 more have partials of it. Having this new project takes some of the pressure off of 'Hot Bubbles', putting it straight on 'The Girl in the Mirror'. I work best under pressure, so, guess we'll see what happens.

Thanks for being there! I wish more of you would write comments in here instead of emailing me privately or sending PMs. But, it's always nice to hear from you no matter where it comes from. :)

 Wish me luck and bon voyage!



I'll be fine so long as the laptop battery stays hot, I stay cool
and there's plenty of books, Cokes and Hershey Bars!



NaNoWriMo Fo Me

I've heard writers talk about "NaNoWriMo" in the past and I've seen it listed in portfolios, and finally, after all these years I remembered to do a Google for it. And, now I'm officially a 2010 participant.

If you've been living in a cave as I apparently have been, NaNoWriMo is the affectionate nickname for the National  Novel Writer's Month (or something like that). November is the official month when participants sit with fingers poised over the keyboard waiting for 12:01 a.m. November 1st to start writing the Great American (or Middle Eastern, or British, or wherever the Internet hits them) Novel. And fingers must cease typing at midnight on November 31st at which time you have pledged to have 50,000 words on paper.

So far it's been great fun getting to know other participants in my area through the NaNoWriMo forums, and we're planning some 'meet and greet' work parties in the future at various Mickey D's and libraries (both sure bets for WiFi, although I've eaten orange marmalade that ran faster than the WiFi at the Guntersville McDonald's...and why should they care? You've gotten your food by the time you realize that you're eating way too many carbs and calories just to be able to get online while you do it, and then could send Pony Express quicker than getting an email to send).

Luckily, my pants have wings because I've been planning to fly by the seat of them waiting until just after midnight Sunday to let ideas flow. And then, like a bolt out of the blue, the whole novel just appeared in my head as I was waiting for sleep last night.

The title will be "The Girl in the Mirror." Story line: Protagonist is Dixie Cantrell, the proprietress of a New Age emporium (tentatively entitled "The Market Bizarre" featuring "Unique Junque and Other Curiosities...I love the English language with its spelling quirks) she has inherited from her great-aunt. She will find her aunt's journal and discover that some of her ancestors were well-known for their talents in mystical affairs. A face she sees in a mirror in the shop sets her out on a mission. While on the mission she spends time with a sexy detective who happens to be the one who answers the phone when she calls the police after a break-in at the shop, and she helps guide a troubled foster kid who desperately needs something, anything, to believe in.

Since I can't start to flesh out the characters yet and start writing, I've been searching for artwork to tape up around my desk to inspire me, something inspirational and "quirky" to use as the desktop for my computer during the month, and as always I get carried away and do something very time-consuming and silly like the 'art' up there featuring the front window of the Market Bizarre. Believe it or not, I, with my previously limited ability to do "photoshop-type" stuff, took a picture of French doors, put them into FotoFlex (online software program that I LOVE for removing backgrounds) removed the windows and pasted in bits of pieces of "curiosities" that I found around the internet. It ended up being someplace I'd like to live (Lori said the same thing, what do you think?) surrounded by crystals, wind chimes, candles, glass bottles, suncatchers, dragons, fairies, amulets and the like. You can tell when insomnia hits me by how creative I get. Obviously, I haven't slept in a while.

I tried working with the 'girl in the mirror' aspect and I came up with this, which isn't all that great, but it's enough to inspire me if I tape it to an upper shelf and look at it without my glasses on. The girl in the story is a blue eyed blonde, and this kid looks like a brunette, but...like I said, without glasses...

I'm sort of excited about the idea. I have lots of 'side stories' just aching to be worked in. So, I guess I need to focus on Halloween to get my mind off writing until I can write. Lizzie's fairy costume is pretty much done, but Buford may have to go as a Big Blue Dog Wearing Bandana at this point because I can't find clothes to fit him. (He is oh so obviously my son!)

Literary Midget Me

I posted a reply on another blog where I referred to myself as a literary midget. I got a couple of personal responses saying that I should never denigrate myself so in public.

Denigrate hell!  I am proud to wear that title. Certainly if being a literary giant means you have to write so deeply insightful that readers need a stepladder to put into the hole to get down to your level of misery. If you look at bestseller lists, books that garner the highest credits are those that 'touch nerves'. Ouch. I've had abscessed teeth before. And when the pain subsided, I admit I'm guilty of touching the tooth with my tongue to see if it's still sore. Once. And being surprised when the touch throws gasoline on the embers of the pain and it flares to life. That whole "touching a nerve" thing is way overrated from my point of view.

I think a lot of people go through life so drenched in their emotions that they forget to live the today because they're so engrossed in reliving the past. I know that what misery I've experienced is likely a drop in the bucket to someone who, for instance, had their only child kidnapped, tortured and murdered. How do you live through something like that? I'm in awe of anyone who kept even a thread of sanity after living such nightmares. But, I've had enough in my life to give me ample opportunity to walk through it wrapped in black gauze, refusing to look at the light because the dark seems so much safer.

I didn't grow up in a Disney movie. My mother was an untreated bi-polar schizophrenic and my dad was an enabler. I started life as a twin, but my mother miscarried my brother. The fact that when I was pulled from the womb I didn't have a penis was a huge disappointment to them, an emotion for which they constantly overcompensated towards me giving me all sorts of complexes.

As an adult, I've watched the people I loved most in life die slowly after a long battle with cancer. Then I had to fight that same battle (which I appear to have won....and always have to include the addendum... so far) not once, but twice. The second diagnosis occurring two days after my father, my childhood hero's funeral. I have been so miserable with my life that I prayed to die. And I have been so afraid when that life was threatened that I prayed to live. I've heard other cancer survivors say the same thing. "I never realized how good life is until I thought I wasn't going to have it any more." How many people who successfully commit suicide have major second thoughts about a nano-second too late. As the noose tightens, as they see the bullet coming in slow motion, as the car wheels leave the tarmac. I would imagine that if there was a way to get those percentages, they'd be pretty damned high.

I believe that misery, when all is said and done, is a choice.

So is writing about it. And reading about it. I choose to 'just say no.'

I will never be a literary giant because I learned long ago that touching your tongue to an abscessed tooth causes pain. And no matter what the choices life gives me, I'm ALWAYS going to take the door that definitely does NOT have pain behind it.

I want to create characters that make people laugh, and make readers wish they were real people that shared their life. I don't care about being "laugh out loud funny" ... but I never understood why the movies that critics gave the most emphatic thumbs up were always the ones that my friends told me "Oh, it was so good, I cried all the way through." Screw that. I've got enough real honest memories to cry over. I don't need to pay to watch or read someone who's create fake ones to do the same thing.

Now, I'll get down off my soapbox. If someone will get me a ladder. You know what short legs we midgets have!

A Writer Must Read, but what?

I only wish my books were so attractively displayed in real life.
This is how they appear in my head at least. (Desktop design
is my second love. When I get bored with writing I create some-
thing artistic. I love collages, weaving together bits and pieces
of art into something as warm and comfy to me as my
one of my gramother's quilts.)

I have been told that to be a good writer, you should read. I started reading long before I learned to write (remember those big chunky pencils we used to use in first grade? Do kids still use those or do they now use iPods with small printers attached?) and I haven't stopped since. I am not a book collector, I am a hoarder. They could easily film an episode for the TV show based strictly on the sheer numbers of books that are housed under our roof (not quite so bad that we simply have trails through teetering stacks, but I'm only 52, give me time). 

Our "Friends of the Library" have a small bookroom where they sell donated and ex library books to make money for buying 'extras' for the library. By this point, I think surely they should have been able to add on a new wing and probably hire thirty new employees just from the money I spend there. Even at $1 and $2 a book, it adds up. Especially since I always leave with fabric shopping bags stretched to the max with books.

When I got married recently, we added on a master bedroom. It's 24x36' with 8' off one end for a whirlpool tub bathroom and walk-in closet, and 6' off the other end for a library/office. The room divider wall (open on both ends) between the bedroom and the office is floor to ceiling bookshelves on both sides (the headboard is built into the shelving.. I love sleeping surrounded by books! How peaceful.

My husband was a little stunned at how quickly those shelves filled up. We're talking about a space of almost 275 square feet. And it's not only filled, it's filled to bursting. Leaving no place for his collection of antique car models or my dog and horse figurines for which the bedroom side was originally intended. I see more lumber in our future and another grumbling wall of books. If reading alone made you a good writer, I should be on the bestseller's list. Actually, if I could resell all the books I have on the craft of writing for what I paid for them, it would probably equal a fairly good book advance.

I have found that the one thing that is most detrimental to my writing is reading books about writing. Telling you "how I do it", or "how it should be done" or "the basics of writing" which are usually basics that if I had started out doing I would have fizzled long ago from boredom. I know some writers need the regimentation of outlines and copious notes, but I'm more a seat-of-your-pants kinda gal. If I think about it too long it gets boring. (Yes, I'm a Gemini, what are you?).

Writing is like anything else in life. It is only satisfactory if you do it your way. If you are an individual and express yourself in every as such. I am currently reading a book that was on the "every writer must have" list. I won't say what it is, because it's a really good book, beautifully written and I have enjoyed many parts of it. The author is one of my 'cyberfriends' and I hope she never knows how very close her words have come to shaking my faith in myself.

Perhaps some writers become more confident when they can knowledgeably discuss Kafka, Salinger, Chekhov and a bunch of writers I've heard of only when the more pompous among my friends toss their names into conversation. I have tried to become "better read" and all I got was "bigger bored."

Not that I don't own and read classics. Admittedly the shelf that holds that collection only whimpers from the weight, whereas the shelves that hold my collection of Robert Parker, Mark Childress, Jim Patterson, Thomas Perry, Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller, and all the rest of my heroes' work groans so loudly I keep expecting the neighbors to complain. I love the classics that I read often, but I read the ones that entertain me: Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Wizard of Oz (all of the titles), Mary Poppins, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Emma, Gone With the Wind, Sherlock Holmes... those to me are classics. Because they entertain me, they spread my mind into other places, and they make me feel good about coming home again.

In the writer's book that I'm reading now, there are constant references to authors whose works I don't think I could stay awake through if I mainlined caffeine and put toothpicks as props for my eyelids. They are gloomy, full of defeat and doom and reminders of how badly the world does suck sometime. The entire book seems gloomy and filled with dire warnings of what can happen if you stray from the norm.

Sorry, when I have time to read, I want to either learn something (I probably own more non-fiction books about subjects that have captured my fancy over the years than I do fiction) or I want to be entertained. That entertainment may come in the form of laughter, shivers, or the warm fuzzies, but for me to sit still through it, it has to leave me as happy with my life as I was when I opened the flyleaf or it will immediately go into the discard bin. (Currently I'm filling up a bin of discards for the NaNo book drive...usually my unwanteds go to the library to be resold to another bookophile.) I only discard what I think I will never want to read again, or won't ever possibly need for research.

The last thing I need in my life right now is worries and doubt. I was thrilled when I completed my last novel in 7 weeks. Then I read that if you write quickly, there will be so much editing later on that it will become a thing of drudgery instead of joy. I was thrilled that everyone who read it before it was submitted to an agent told me that it was quite funny and they had chuckled throughout. Then an agent told me she didn't find it all that amusing. My feathers drooped. They perked up a bit when one of the larger agencies answered a query with a request for more chapters. Another agent liked the book well enough to ask if I'd be willing to rewrite and if so, she wanted the entire manuscript on approval when it was completed. Another agent called with a half hour's excellent advice (which pointed out the same problem areas previously highlighted, so it made the rewrite much easier).

I guess the point of all this (and somewhere in the babbling there usually is one, if you look hard enough) is to ask... what do YOU read to be inspired to write? Or do you read at all? Is reading a hobby or a chore? Do you read books suggested by agents and publishers and other writers? Or those suggested by other readers? Do you read How-to books to "hone your craft?" Or do you spend spare time reading about gardening and bungee jumping? Do you read books you enjoy, by authors whose style you hope to emulate just enough to be a jumping board for your own creativity to make its splash? Or do you read what's on the "must read" list? Do you write better after  you've been warned how hard it is, and how many writers fail to make the cut? Or do you write better when you ignore everything around you, books and all and just write the story in your head.

Please, make title suggestions and tell me WHY you read what you read. (Meanwhile I'm headed to Amazon to check out Janet Evanovich's "How I Write" which I've been told is a "must have." I'll let you know!)

But The Best Part Is...

There are a lot of wonderful things about being a writer. There are a lot of things that suck about it too (like having to rewrite the old stuff to get it sold when you'd really rather be fleshing out the new idea you just had for the next project).

Today's blog is going to be short and sweet thanks to Verizon who sent me a whopping $200 bill for my MiFi wireless. I know and expect some months that I'll go slightly over my allotted 6 gb (which is a pittance, but I live in a rural area so my choices are limited and Verizon until now has seemed like the least of all the evils) and I always pay my over-charges without complaining...but this billing month, what with my father being hospitalized and then dying, and me getting a cancer diagnosis with all the medical appointments and surgery/hospital stay that that entailed, I know there is NO way that I logged in that many gb in a month. But I digress.

Because I'm between carriers, and grabbing Internet hookups where I can, I'm going to ask my fellow writers to reply to this question: What is the one thing you enjoy most about being a writer. The one moment when you know that no matter the downside, there is nothing else you'd rather be (even if you had a choice, which "real writers" don't). Is it the moment when you type The End? When you can get revenge or show your appreciation of someone by inserting them anonymously in your novel? The moment when an agent says "let me look at that?" The few minutes that you spend writing that you realize later was over an hour but seemed like no time at all because you were so engrossed?

Share! Let's see how much alike we really are at heart.