Holy Crow!

I am in awe of those of you who hold down a full time job and manage to blog every day.

It's been a while since I've been subject to someone else's schedule and I'm still getting used to the intrusion.  Don't get me wrong, I am VERY thankful to have a job, but working takes up so much more time than just being at work.

My new position is at a call center for a national glass company.  I'm in that big ol' warehouse eight and a half hours a day, smiling on the phone to people about repairing or replacing their glass.  I'm used to an hour lunch, but no such thing here.  It's a 30 minute thing and I need every second of it.  

Because we have so little time, I have to pack in my lunch every day, and because I'm glued to the phone, there's no such thing as dawdling over the water cooler while filching a doughnut and nursing a cup of coffee.  So every morning, like a good girl, I eat breakfast (oatmeal, coffee and a glass of water), and every night I make lunch and pre-prepare said breakfast.  Add in the commute and altogether I  am somehow spending an extra two hours a day on work prep.

Ten and a half hours a day on work.  Whew.  I'm used to a ten hour sleep days, followed by a light snack, a book, and maybe a nap.  The good ol' days...  Aaaaahhhh

No worries though, I'm adjusting.  The first adjustment consisted of an expanding waistline.  Ooops.  It seems snacking at every break to keep my energy up keeps my weight going up too.  Yeah.  Within ten days I switched to fruits and veggies for my snacks instead of cookies and a candy car.  Mmmmm cookies.  The second and third adjustments came in not writing (or blogging) regularly and reading only ONE book at a time.  Seriously.

It didn't help that in my first three weeks of work I had two out of town visitors who took up every other ounce of free time I had.  I was thrilled to see them, but honestly, couldn't they have waited until I was used to working and not having my two daily naps?

Today was my first full day off (no work or friends) in three and a half weeks.  I lolled in bed, finished a bad book, and watched TV.  Delightful. 

I'm looking forward to getting into a routine.  Back in the dark ages (1999) when I worked at an ISP I managed to write 100 pages of my first book in four or five months.  It was fairly simple, I promised myself I'd spend an hour working on the book every day, and I did.  Time to get back on that determination wagon.  I just need to figure out where to fit it in my day. 






Just Finished: Witness In Death 
Just Finished: Simon Says Mommy 
Just Finished: Devil May Cry 
Just Finished: He Calls Her Doc 
Currently Reading: G is for Gumshoe 
Stalled: Collide

"I'm gonna be there with you somehow"

Two weeks ago, the universe sent me a little message from an old friend.  Today, he sent me the same one again.

I was sitting outside, alone, at a different coffee shop, concentrating on my MS, MP3 player plugged in, pen in hand.  Everything I have written thus far has been typed in as I promised myself I'd get done by the end of this week.  Way back last year I felt like my hero wasn't telling me enough about himself and I didn't understand his needs, secrets or motivations enough to provide him with his own arc.  I had written a scene that felt out of order, so I snagged another notebook and tried to fill in the parts in between.

That notebook wound up containing about 40 pages and three scenes, and in it, my hero got weirder and weirder.  Instead of loving all over the heroine like he had been before, he became strange, Distant Guy.  And as I typed in my work I realized that one of the reasons I don't know what to do with him is because while he's great for her, she doesn't really bring anything healing to his world.

He's already normal.  Healthy.  Happy.  (That bastard)  And well-adjusted people make for boring stories.  Of course, I need him to be a good guy and good for the heroine but, to provide a satisfying story for the reader, I need her to be good for him too.

So I've got myself a structural problem.  And I'm aware of it.  And I'm sitting at a dainty little outdoors table writing it out.  I'm basically talking to myself on paper about my hero and his problems and whether this damn book can be fixed.

I write down: The question is, can this book be salvaged?  And the answer is yes.  I know it can.
I was just about to add: But I don't know how.
 
-when a woman stops by my table and interrupts me. 

She was riding by on a bicycle and says that she just got this urge, a compulsion, a "message from God" (or the universe),  to stop by my table and tell me to keep working on whatever I was writing.  She thought maybe I was writing a song (I confess to probably singing out loud.  I do that when my headphones are plugged in and I think I'm alone, so she's forgiven for thinking that I was working on music) but no, I was working on deconstructing - and reconstructing - my MS. 

She said she was nervous about stopping, so she circled around a few times, but she couldn't get the urge out of her head that she needed to talk to me and tell me to keep going.  She was worried it was going to be awkward.  She was a stranger and couldn't imagine that I'd accept, appreciate or understand the message to keep working on whatever I was writing.   We chatted for a few minutes.  I told her of my frustrations with my structure and my issues with getting my hero to talk to me.  Hell, we were already in a woo-woo space, I figured she could handle my being upset that an imaginary character wasn't talking to me.

She reminded me that that's exactly like real men, they're not so much for the communication.  Interesting.

After a few more minutes of friendly chatter, she hopped back on her bike and rode away, back to her life.  I turned my MP3 player back on.  This time, instead of the song Tony had once sent me, it was a song I once sent him.  A song that, to this day, makes me smile because it reminds me of when we were falling for each other and how I just wanted to be with him forever and ever.

Within minutes of my personal messenger riding off (and the song ending, because, of course, I had to sit back and listen to it), I had a nice little breakthrough.  My hero expressed his frustration in that ultra-male way that they do.  He picked a fight to defend his woman's honor.  Heh. 

So I'm gonna keep working on this MS.  I was planning to anyway, (I have a stubborn streak in me) but with the upcoming changes in my life it seems the universe, in its own special way, is also determined to make sure I get it finished.





Just Finished: Perfect Chemistry 
Currently Reading: Witness In Death 
Currently Reading: G is For Gumshoe 
Currently Reading Baby In Her Arms 
Currently Reading: Collide

I suck

A few weeks ago I was, again, lamenting my lack of employment to myself.  It takes a hideous toll on one's sense of self-worth to be chronically unemployed.  I spent some mental energy cursing the world and thinking about all I had to offer an employer:

I'm whip-smart, customers love me, I'm lazy enough to prize efficiency, I have integrity out the yin yang, I always get my work done, I don't watch the clock, I'm reliable and I mind my own business.  After patting myself on the back about how wonderful I am, I had one of those lightbulb moments.

I am an awful employee.

You know that whip-smart thing above?  I'm often smarter than my boss, and while I don't rub it in, the way I keep my mouth closed seems to tip them off.  Customers love me and often wonder (to my face) why the boss is such a tool.  If a system is inefficient, I'll say so - I'll also try to fix it, which, for some reason, bosses take as an affront on their authority.

My integrity means I won't break the rules - even for the boss.  While he's nudge-nudging and wink-winking I'm sitting there saying, "But that's illegal."  Yeah I always get my work done and don't watch the clock, but to me that means if I arrive 10 minutes late and then stay 20 minutes late it doesn't effing matter so long as the work is done.  Employers, however, tend to frown on tardiness.  Sure I show up every day, but I don't always have the best attitude because frankly, I'd rather be sleeping.

And that minding my own business thing?  What it really means is I'm not interested in your boring stories about getting drunk last weekend or the big client you're trying to schmooze on the golf course.  Even if you are the boss, I don't want to know anything about your personal life and sure as heck I'm not going to share mine with you.

Within days after my epiphany, I got a phone call offering me a job interview.  Was that all it took?  Just admitting it to myself?  Apparently not.  Cuz I SO didn't get that job.

Recognizing this failing in myself did make me refocus on my writing, however.  The people who need me on their staff are highly unlikely to hire me.  It was time to get back to my plans for myself.  Last May I sort of fell off the writing wagon.  I've certainly worked on it since then, but not with the energy and determination it needs.  In the few weeks since my revelation I've once again gotten back to treating writing like the job it is. 

In the past two weeks I've typed in over 50 MS pages, editing along the way.  I can see where my story is losing focus and rambling in parts and am actively engaging my brain to find a fix for that.  By next Friday I plan to have everything that I've written all typed in and then start a second pass at edits the following Monday. 

Why the new stringent schedule?  Because now that I've decided that I'm a crapass employee, and now that I've made a conscious choice to go back to treating writing like a job (instead of looking for a job and treating writing like a hobby) I got a job!  I start March 1st.

Let's all keep our fingers crossed that I'm well into a healthy publishing schedule before my new bosses discover what a schmuck I am.





Just Finished: The Groom Wore Tulle / Conyn's Bride 
Just Finished: The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second (skimmed) 
Currently Reading: Collide 
Currently Reading: Baby In Her Arms
Just About To Start: Perfect Chemistry

He still visits

Five years and nine days ago, someone I was deeply in love with died.

Actually, by the time he died, I was no longer "in love" with him, but the depth of my love for the man had only expanded as the in love part of it compounded and intensified into regular old love.  We met online and never met in person.  It was one of those odd chance encounters when you're looking one way and life kicks you in the head to get your attention.

We met late one night.  I sought him out to address some random comment he'd made and three months later, we still hadn't stopped talking.  He was the first person to ever make me feel truly loved and cared for.  The first one to ever convince me that I was beautiful.  My own personal cheerleader in all things great and small.  He believed in me and supported me and made me a better person just for knowing him.  I can only hope that my contribution to his life was similar.

I'd known him for about four years when he died, but I'd been mad at him for the past two.  The sort of angry where you know you don't have the right, but you can't help your feelings.  The last time we talked, he called me on my birthday in July.  We're both cancers, and I'd missed his, but he was extending the olive branch and I was happy to chat with him, but not too happy, because, you know, I was still angry.  I was also at work, and therefore couldn't talk to long... ten minutes?  five?  Not nearly long enough.

I told him I'd call him back.  I meant it and didn't at the same time.  I knew I'd get in touch eventually, but righteous anger is a bitch of a thing to overcome when you're a natural procrastinator anyway.

That October he was in a very bad car accident.  He wasn't wearing a seatbelt.  WEAR YOUR SEATBELTS, PEOPLE.  His passenger, and wife (see: anger righteous and otherwise, above) went through the windshield and became an organ donor.  He was trapped and crushed and never got any meaningful part of his life back.

In that accident he lost his wife.  He was paralyzed with only limited motor movement in his left arm.  He woke up on a vent, which helped him breathe for months.  He lost him home, as there was no one there to pay the rent.  And he lost his favourite dog, who, without him around, ran away from the person who was taking care of her and drowned.

Still, he lived on for four months in the hospital.  Once I got over my shock, I also got over my anger.  I wrote him every day.  Real letters.  On paper.  He never wrote back (see: paralysis, above) and we never talked on the phone again (see: vent, above).  But those last four months formed an even tighter bond between us.

My guy was a really popular fellow and the web was abuzz with updates on his accident, his wife's organ donation and funeral, his recovery and eventual death.  People who visited him told me he used to light up when he got that daily letter.  They read my personal communications to him while he breathed through a tube. They spoke my secrets out loud. 

In February, long-term care was ready to take him off the hospital's hand.  He was slowly getting better, one baby step at a time.  He'd gotten off the vent, but was only able to say a few words at a time.  I never got to hear any of them.  Arrangements were being made to move him when, in the middle of the night, he died.  His heart just stopped.  I think it was broken.

I cried every day for six months.  I'm crying as I write this.  The pain has faded, but the love hasn't.  Over the course of our friendship, we exchanged gifts.  Those few things I have from him are very precious to me.  One of his gifts was a mixed CD of songs we'd discussed or shared.  The night he died I took a long drive into the rural desert and listened to that CD while I stargazed and tried to absorb the loss.  And, as songs sometimes do, one of them spoke to me that night--carved itself in my heart and is forever associated with him.

Here's where it gets. . .improbable (for the unbeliever).  I felt him around me after he died.  His spirit honored that connection we'd made in life, and stood by me after his death.  It was both comforting and odd.  He finds a way from time to time to remind me that he's still there, my biggest cheerleader, watching over me, reminding me to believe in myself, my beauty, my worth.

Last night, that special song came on while I was out writing.  I took my fingers off the keys and sat back to allow myself to fully feel the joy of having known him.  While seating myself in that old love I let my eyes wander and noticed a man across the way.  I observed him for a bit, and then went back to my song.

When the song ended, the man I'd observed came over and started chatting with me.  He said that I looked so interesting sitting over there, and wanted to know what I was doing.  We fell into conversation and he talked about allowing oneself to be open to the universe, and the importance of travel and pursuing the things that bring you joy.  When he left he smiled at me and reminded me to get this book finished.  It needs to be done.

My Tony, he still finds a way to visit. 





Currently Reading: Collide 
Currently Reading: The Dream-Hunter 
Currently Reading: Wolf Tales VII 
Currently Reading: Healing Luke

I had a miserable fucking day.

Then I bought Godiva.

Then I came home, crawled under the covers, and stayed there until the day was over and it couldn't touch me anymore.

Then I ate the Godiva.

It's over.





Just Finished: The Mistake She Made 
Just Finished: With Extreme Pleasure 
Currently Reading: Wolf Tales VII 
Currently Reading: Collide 
Currently Reading: The Dream-Hunter 
Currently Reading: Caitlyn's Prize

The lies we tell ourselves may be true

My old local RWA still has me on their e-mail list.

I left the Tucson at the end of September and before that I don't think I'd been to a meeting since March--suffice to say I'm not very involved in the chapter.  But I am on their e-mail list, and I do get a lot of messages from them that I'm sure they don't even know they're sending me.

One of the things they've been going on about lately is the "false stories" we tell ourselves that get in the way of moving forward with our writing careers.  I wasn't at the meeting where this was brought up (apparently to profound effect) so I have no clue about all the details.  But I garner from the resulting online discussion that the group was challenged to think about all the things that keep them from writing / revising / submitting etc. and acknowledge in their heart of hearts how many of these things are real barriers and how many are mere excuses.

I did a 100 / 100 challenge last year at this time.  I heard every excuse in the book from the participants.  Do you know how little time it takes to write 100 words?  Do you know how much energy it takes to actually talk yourself into giving over that time to writing instead of the forty-eight other things you could be doing?  It doesn't compare.  Still - I didn't make my 100 words per day on a regular basis.  I gave in to the excuses, and I knew I was doing so as I did it.  It was a lie I told myself, and I was prepared to believe so long as it got me out of doing that minuscule amount of work.

And now I'm thinking about these false stories that my old RWA is chattering about.  I have read and heard almost every story of writing and publishing adversity out there.  Most compelling to me is Sherrilyn Kenyon's.  That woman persevered.  Look it up yourself.  I don't want to check facts on her story, because so long as I believe she walked uphill in the snow both to and from school for the sake of her art--and then succeeded--it's good enough for me.  "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."

I read a lot *points to the right side of the page* and some of what I get my hands on is DAMNED good.  Some of it, of course, is damn rot too.  Then there's everything in between.  I know my writing is good.  How do I know?  The same way I know that I dance and sing well.  People tell me.  No one who's willing to pay me for it, mind you, but no one who was otherwise required to render an opinion either.  I also know my writing is not as good as those "damned good" works I come across on a semi-weekly basis.

It is not, however, as bad as some of the damn rot that has been bound and published for my pleasure.  I have a relatively healthy ego.  Shocking, I know, but there nonetheless.  I have long been detached enough from my writing to stand criticism.  But that was before the prospect of publication.  Now, I want my work to be good.  Really, really good.  Because, like the Internet, once in print, it's gonna be there forever. 

So I don't write.  I don't work on my work.  I fear editing and revisions because, what if I never reach the pinnacle of "damned good"?  What if I am destined to sit in fair-to-middlin land forever?  What if my imagination isn't big enough?  My plots not tight enough?  My characters so shallow I can't even wet my toes in them?  Aaaarrrrrrrggghhh!!!!!

This isn't one of the false stories.  It's true.  I'm not good enough to be great.

Yet.

Every book I pick up is a double-edged sword.  (Triple-edged? Quadruple?)  The first slice is an opportunity for me to learn.  Learn what I like, what I don't, what works, what I believe, what comes off as insincere...  The other side of the blade I take as a chance to castigate myself.  The doubts creep in like mealworms, trying to ruin me ... I tell myself, "I like what she did there.  I would never have thought of that." "Man that's a great idea.  My brain doesn't work that way, I'd have fucked it up if I tried it."  "Check out that plot twist.  I'd have totally gone the other way."

The third edge of that sword reminds me that it's time to put the book down and pick the pen up, and then that fourth cut to the gut is all about "Yeah, but this author is better / luckier / smarter / more ambitious / etc than I am."

How much of it is true?  I'll never know until I submit, will I?





Just Finished: Break 
Just Finished: Unleash the Night 
Currently Reading: Now & Then 
Currently Reading: Wolf Tales VII
Currently Reading: Dark Side Of The Moon 
Currently Reading: Divorced, Desperate & Dating

I'm thinking of adopting again.

In late '08, in a fervor of patriotism, I adopted a military service person though an online website.

I got a snail-mail and e-mail address for this gentleman and proceeded to do my non-American best to send a little friendliness and gratitude his way.  In my head, I was one of those "nice women" who was doing her part to give back to those who were sacrificing for me.

The execution was a bit less than the expectation.  I am unemployed, but my 'contract' with the adoption agency called for a letter a week and a package a month to my service person.  The letter was no problem, the package a bit more so - sending something worthwhile took about $12 in postage.  But filling that damned box seemed to cost upwards of $40 every month.  Little things here and there really add up, and before I knew it I had a $50 hole in my budget.

But, no big.  It was a sacrifice I was willing to make for my service person.  Until I found out my service person was living a lot better than I was.  He lived in Hawaii.  Was already quite high up in his ... ummm, how do you say it?  service?  He was career military, had been in for 15 years or so.  He'd earned his stripes.  He went on two vacations in the first couple of months I was assigned to him.  He didn't need any of the crap that I was sending him. 

He seemed happy for the communication - we soon fell into an e-mail correspondence, which, again, sort of went against the tenets of the adoption agency.  Their big deal was that soldiers get recognized at mail call.  I've lived in boarding school, I know how important mail call can be.  So now, instead of my soldier getting a letter every week in front of all his buddies, he's exchanging e-mails with me in his little office.  And he's getting a package of "Stateside" crap that he doesn't need cuz he's living in the States.

But, somehow, I still think that I'm doing my part for this service man, until I realize that he doesn't even have need for my communication.  He's got a wife at home.  And three - or was it four? - little girls as well. 

So, now my fervor of patriotism has somehow devolved into sending Snickers and socks to someone who makes a very healthy salary and can easily purchase these items for himself at the corner Walmart.  It has become an exercise in communication with someone who has plenty of family to chat with already.  It has, sadly, (and before I knew he was wifed) become a flirtation between myself and this man that makes me uncomfortable because he can't seem to figure out if he's separated on the way to divorce or hanging in to work things out with his wife. 

In other words, my "nice woman" exercise left me feeling like I was bringing ants to a picnic.  I wasn't helping anyone at all.  About five months into my commitment, my grandmother died and the extra bills from trying to get home for her funeral sucked even that extra $50 out of my stretched budget.  Not being able to fulfill that part of the obligation was the last straw for me.  My service person said it didn't matter, but I don't like to welch on my promises - so I put him back in the pool of worthy adoptees and surrendered my "nice woman" position. 

The e-mails fell off almost immediately.  I'm sure I didn't explain myself well enough for him to know that I wasn't dumping HIM, I was merely resigning my commitment.  Further, I was more than willing to continue to chat with this almost friend I had almost made.  But I was unable to continue sending packages and therefore unwilling to "officially" keep him.  We stopped chatting.  The adoption ended, and last June or July I got notice that he is no longer on their rolls and has been sent home from his tour.  (Yes, he did eventually ship out.)

Now it's almost a year since my gran died, and I'm thinking of adopting again.  I've moved from Tucson, picked up a roommate (that's a whole other story) and have a bit of room in my budget again.   But I really don't want to be sending Skittles and scarfs to a service person in SoCal and stepping in to help out where my efforts are unneeded (and possibly destructive). 

On the other hand, I still think it's a worthy effort to make.  I still think there's some lonely, confused kid out there in a war zone who needs to know that there are people who just want to say thank you.  I'd still like to do my part, small though it may be.  I just don't wanna be the one carting in a truckload of insects to mess around at someone else's party. 

What to do?  What to do?



 

Currently Reading: Loyalty In Death 
Currently Reading: Now & Then 
Currently Reading: Undead and Unworthy 
Currently Reading: Sweet Discipline

Seventeen worlds later...

I'm never at a loss for a book to read.  I may not be in the mood for any of the things I have available to me, but I am never looking around wondering what to pick up next.  Why?  Because I read series.

This does not make me the least bit unique among romance readers.  But perhaps what might put me a couple of standard deviations [that's for you, Janiece] above the norm is the number of series I'm reading.  Seventeen at last count.  With a few more to start in my TBR.

That's seventeen sets of characters in seventeen different worlds to keep track of.  It's like following seventeen different TV dramas and being expected to pick up right where the show left off months later and also remember all the names and quirks of every single character.  No TBS marathons to get up-to-date on the past four seasons, just that unreliable thing called "memory."

But it's not just seventeen main characters, because each world comes with its own orbit of stories--each called a book.  Some as few as three stories (Craig, Cohen), some as many as thirty (Robb).

One type of series only have a single couple or main character to follow, and with that, a few supporting characters to add weight and depth complexity to their world.  The series tends to be built around following the individual(s) as they solve a MOTW or kill a MOTW and the joy of reading them is in watching the author reveal layers of the main character(s) as well as see how evil is going to be defeated this time.

In Death (Robb)
Kinsey Milhone (Grafton)
Double Feature Mystery (Cohen)
Sookie Stackhouse (Harris)
Betsy Taylor (Davidson)
Mercy Thompson (Briggs)
Stephanie Plum (Evanovich)

The other series I read are more romance focused.  Each book delivers a new couple with new problems to conquer.  The supporting characters are often set up for new books of their own.  The depth and complexity of the characters lays in knowing how this particular protagonist has acted with the previous couples in series, then goes a bit deeper as this hero and heroine get their own story.  A lot of the satisfaction in these type of series is in watching the deserving side-character get their own HEA while the external conflict (evil) is resolved.

Dark-Hunter (Kenyon)
Midnight Breed (Adrian)
Psy/Changling (Singh)
Wolf Tales (Douglas)
Nauti (Leigh)
Black Dagger Brotherhood (Ward)
Immortals After Dark (Cole)
Dark (Feehan)
Divorced, Desperate (Craig)
 
Then there's a hybrid third that I don't know if I should count since only one book has come out, but it's a seven-book planned series which, if it follows the blueprint laid down by the first book, will follow a main character through the romances of seven different couples.

Fallen Angel (Ward)

I don't know how I wound up following so many series.  Oh! Yes I do.  I wanted to see how successful authors do it.  And do you know how a lot of them make a career out of writing?  By finding a good hook, or world, or character on which to build a series.

Plus what a way to build a readership, hunh?  Even if one or two books in your 15 story arc are sub-standard, people are still going to keep reading (buying) because they've already invested so much time and energy into the series.  They have to know how it ends. 

When I started reading romance (back in the dark ages) I don't remember series being like this.  They had an end, for one.  For another, there were fewer paranormals.  It was a matter of building interest in each side-character individually, and less a matter of populating (or, more accurately, coupling off) the worlds the authors have built. That's not a judgement, just an observation.

Authors back in the olden days mostly built series around families, wealthy families.  There'd be three brothers and a sister, maybe two.  The mom and dad would be loving and benevolent, and the person introduced to the family would be misunderstood and spunky or misunderstood and painfully shy.  She'd be mistrusted and have a big heart, he'd be after her for her money, then insist on signing a pre-nup and keeping his job.  There'd be a big misunderstanding, maybe an almost rape, and then a bit of groveling, followed by a big happy. 

Cue: Epilogue... a baby, maybe two, and unicorns dancing in the fields while fairies flit in the sky.

Ahhh, the good ol' days. 

I suspect the good ol' days are still around in authors that I no longer read.  The genre advanced while they did not, and they are still cranking out their stories in styles I no longer appreciate.  But they have built a very big following on that old-fashioned feeling.

I, however, took a long break from reading fiction (5 years), and when I came back the times had changed and I had changed right along with them.  I was no longer satisfied with sweet.  The tropes I'd cut my teeth on now left me feeling like I had a bad case of "been there, done that."  So I moved on to voices and tropes that are new to me. 

Strangely though, in every book I read, I'm still seeking that old feeling that had me falling in love with the genre in the first place.  That hitch in my heart when the hero says or does just the right thing.  That unexpected tear in my eye when the understanding between H & H is just so deep and you were rooting for those two all along, and now you believe they're gonna make it. 

The reason I get stuck on series is an issue of quality.  I need to read all kinds of books, good and bad, but more than any workshop, I'm going to learn about writing through reading.  I need to know how the successful pros are doing it now, soak it in through my eyeballs via the best kind of osmosis, and then give it back to the world.






Currently Reading: Loyalty In Death
Currently Reading: Now & Then
Currently Reading: Undead and Unworthy

My toes are officially wet

When y'all weren't looking, I polished up the first 14 pages of Never A Bridesmaid and sent it off to a Senior Editor of a smaller publishing company who, in a fit of Christmas magnanimity, offered 15 page critiques to a number of responders on her blog. 

She's all about crime fiction and I'm all about the romance, but she said she'd take whatever we're working on and offer editorial feedback. I'm sure she regrets it now.

It took me 6 days to get back to her after she made the offer because I was spending my Christmas* Vacation** away from home and didn't have the concentration to polish a script and defend my brain from the 24/7 CNN news feed with which my aunt was trying to kill me. Plus, editing scares me.  But that's a story that's been covered before.  I only sent 14 pages because that's where the chapter breaks, but now I think I should have included that 15th page and stopped mid-sentence... just to build up the suspense dontchaknow. 

On Jan 3rd, I emailed my work off to her with a song in my heart and a birdy on my shoulder.  I mean, I know the moment she reads it she'll be blown away by the quality of my prose.  I'm sure she's already schlepped the pages out to all of her editor friends crowing about how well I turn a phrase and how she discovered me first.  In fact, if I'm not mistaken, she's probably talking with others in her publishing house about expanding their line to include romance, based on the strength of my pages alone.  She's checking the budget to see if they can offer me a 7-book deal based on a new series and hoping to preempt any other offers out there.

Ahem.

Ya.  So, I haven't heard back from her yet. 

Here's the pathetic, part.  (Yes, more pathetic than that paragraph above.)  She hoped to have the critiques finished by Jan 9th or 10th.  For those of you keeping score, that's 3 days ago.  I haven't heard back from her yet.  I check my e-mail about 75 times a day looking for that message from her.  When I wake up in the morning the Blackberry is already glued to my palm anyway, but it's not the text messages and regular emails I'm looking for.  It's the Gmail notification in the special icon off on the right side of my screen that I'm hoping to see.

When I'm going to sleep I drop whatever book I'm reading at 5 minute intervals and grab the BB to see if the little red light is flashing at me.  It may be the signal I've been waiting for.  The blessing from an editor.  The cyber nod in my general direction that says, "Yes, one day you will be able to give up your day job."*** 

Now I ask you, how the hell am I going to handle query season?  If three days is enough to put me on tenterhooks, months of waiting is going to drive me batty.  They say it's all part of the process, but Good Lord!  How do normal people survive this?





Currently Reading: Now & Then 
Currently Reading: Blood Bound
Currently Reading: Wolf Tales VI


*** No cracks from the peanut gallery about finding a day job first, please.

Discipline. Thy name is not Venus.*

I love my blog roll.

I love my 67 enthusiastic bloggers who share their world and their writing & publishing & querying tips with me.  I love them so much that when I get on my computer I spend so much time catching up on what they have to say that I never get around to doing the things I need to do... like write.

There's always one more opinion or post to read, one more comment to make.  I'm not very good at saying, "This is not important," and moving on.  Nope, I read it all.  Reviews aren't too helpful to me because I'm anti-spoiler, so I can skim those.  But I always check out the top of the post to see who is talking about which book, and I always check out the bottom to see if they liked the book or not.  I skip most author interviews too.  It's rare for them to catch my attention early enough in the interview for me to want to keep reading small variations in answers to the same questions.

And the agent blogs, they're less helpful now than they used to be.  Lots of reminders about following the rules, followed by lots of posts saying the writing matters more than any rule out there.  Plus, agent blogs usually wind up turning me on to other agent blogs, which, while interesting, don't help me much in the discipline department.

The writer blogs are often overrun with contests and less "run" with helpful writing information.  That probably has more to do with me than them.  The basic things that you can glean from a blog post are things I already know, and the in-depth things about writing that I still need to learn and practice are unsuited for a blog.

Then I have to factor in the 2cents philosophy.  I love adding my 2 to a discussion.  I've discovered that I usually pick up on a different thread or point in a post than many others do.  So I usually comment before I've read what everyone else has to say, and then I get e-mails from the rest of that discussion that I feel compelled to read all the way through as well.

By the time I'm through reading my daily blog roll, I've got a full mailbox, and another couple of books to find and read.  Those with discipline probably don't get it.  If it's wasting your time, you're smart enough to stop doing it.  Apparently, it takes the rest of us a bit longer.  *rolls eyes at self*

Today, I'm going to try an exercise in moderation.  I'm going to delete 23 blogs from my roll.
If you don't make the cut, it isn't because you don't entertain me, it's possible that you entertain me too much, or perhaps I feel like I've already picked your brain clean of useful information.  In some cases it's just that you're so prolific that to keep your blog around would undermine my needs.

Good Lord.  I can't believe I committed to that.  In public no less.

Here's to productivity!  Here's to discipline!  Here's to cheating and deleting blogs that never say much anyway.  hee hee hee...





Just Finished: From Dead To Worse 
Just Finished: Her Colorado Man 
Currently Reading: Wild Card 
Currently Reading: Wolf Tales VI 
Currently Reading: Some Like it Hot-Buttered 
Currently Reading: Sins of the Night

ETA... * My name is not Venus either--just in case anyone out there is confused.  Venus is a pen name and my real name is just for real life people. 

How I spent my Christmas* Vacation**

A week after I returned from Antigua, my aunt emailed me and said she's coming to town.  She has a love affair with the desert that I am happy to indulge.  I signed on as the Official Chauffeur of Tucson '09 and, last week, took myself off to the car rental agency to start my time in her service.

There's a certain mentality to island living.  It's not something you'd really understand unless you've lived through it yourself.  I'm told it's similar to coming from a small town, but I know it's more severe when you're from an island.  Island living requires sacrifice, you get beauty, you get a strong sense of community, you get safety (usually) and you get mega bragging rights.  People are always jealous you're from an island.

In return you give up lots of things too.  Space, for one.  The underlying knowledge of having the ability to get in your car and BE elsewhere is another.  But one of the biggest sacrifices is variety.  In a large manufacturing country like the US, variety is an expected and taken for granted option.  If you can't get a product in one store, you can get it in another.  If you don't like the colour or size or price, you can shop around until you find exactly what you want.  When you're on an island, you don't have that option.

Some inventory manager somewhere decides how many choices of deodorant a person actually needs.  Some international treaty written to protect interests that you've never cared about says that you can only get one choice of apples at your dinner table.  Some lazy customer service manager says, "we don't ship internationally," and you're screwed. The hell of it is, you can't shop around.  There's no going to the CVS because Albertsons costs too much, or hitting up Target because Kohls didn't have the lipstick colour you want.

What does any of this have to do with my vacation?  Shopping, baby!  Taking an islander to a Walgreens is like taking a kid to her first candy store.  You get joy in just watching her eyes light up.  You step back and let her take all the time she wants to poke around and discover new things they've only seen on TV.  You let her wallow in variety.  After 45 mins or so, you remind her that there are many other stores full of stuff where she can spend her money, and you happily escort her out while carrying half the bags.

But that was just the wallet-breaking part of the trip.  There were other parts, like restaurants, and driving.  So much driving...  But the best part was this:

And this:

And this:

Hikes through the scenic Sonoran Desert with a water bottle and camera in hand.  My 67 year old aunt was a trooper, and I tried to immerse her in as much wildness as her ankles would endure.  We sucked in untold gallons of fresh air.  We collected rocks.  We shivered under an indifferent winter sun, and it was wonderful.

I don't often have the chance to marvel at nature with someone who is willing to notice the small things with me.  We hunted baby saguaro, and found dozens of pincushion cacti instead.  We picked flecks of mica off innocent rocks, and, when Nature wasn't looking, we snapped her picture hundreds of times.

My aunt doesn't drive in the States, so I was responsible for every mile we covered, all 688 of them.  Through backroads and mining country, a trip down to Tombstone and dirt roads in the middle of the Saguaro National Park, I consulted the GPS and then happily get us lost knowing we'd always find our way back.

I love the desert.  I'm so blessed to live in it.





Just Finished: Seize The Night 
Just Finished: Hush, Hush 
Just Finished: Letters From Home 
Just Finished: Rock Star 
Just Finished: Moon Called  
Currently Reading: Wild Card 
Currently Reading: Wolf Tales VI


*I don't actually celebrate Christmas.  Neither does my aunt, we had to remind ourselves many times why businesses were closed, or roads were busy.  It's odd being a non-Christian during the holidays.

**Vacation? From what exactly?  I've been chronically unemployed for years.  But anytime I'm living out of a suitcase and sleeping away from my cat, I consider it a vacation from my life.  If only I could engineer a vacation from myself one of these days.

SHUT UP!

Have you read those Sookie Stackhouse novels?  They're by Charlaine Harris.  Fun, light-hearted vampire novels that are the inspiration for the True Blood series on HBO.

In them, Sookie, our heroine, can overhear what people are thinking.  She's not really psychic, she's more like an unwilling eavesdropper.  That's how I felt during travel a couple of weeks ago.  I didn't read anyone's mind.  I didn't have to, people were putting their lives on broadcast everywhere I went. 

Now, I've heard some authors say they love nothing more than to be the unnoticed fly on the wall during a juicy conversation among strangers.  And, you know, I think I might agree with them.  But, the truth of the matter is, like Sookie's overheard mental snippets, most of what people say isn't that interesting.

I travel alone most of the time.  I am quite content with my own company, and aside from general pleasant and polite platitudes, I keep my mouth shut.  I have books, an MP3 player, my Blackberry and an active mind to fill my silences.  When I do engage in conversation (especially in public places) I am not the strident sail, I seek the attention of no one except the person with whom I am in conversation, nor do I share at length the banalities of my day or the privacies of my mind.

Apparently this puts me in the 99th percentile among travelers. 

A philosophy professor of mine once said, "You can't learn anything with your mouth open."  I took it to heart and attuned myself to listening, rather than being the one to spout off my "intelligences" to those who were only waiting for an opportunity to cut in and talk back at me.  The quote has served me well over life, but there are times when there's simply nothing to be learned from someone else's open mouth.

I cannot tell you how many boring, go-nowhere, mean-nothing, fill-the-silence conversations I was party to while a captive audience at the airports and in the airplanes.  It was enough to make me feel faintly homicidal.

Have you ever read a manuscript by a beginning author who feels the need to capture the reality of conversation?  They don't use dialogue as a tool for advancing the story, giving insight into character or expressing a mood.  Instead they put quotes around everyday conversation.

"Hi."
"Hello."
"It is nice to meet you.  What is your name?"
"My name is Sara.  What is your name?"
"I am Jackie."

It's English 101 taught in Herzegovina.  And it's enough to make you slam the book shut and turn the author around for a good ass-kicking.  That's what it was like traveling the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I was stuck in six different airports and on five different flights at one-time or another, and I swear to Joseph, nobody had anything interesting to say at all, and every one of them said it at length. 

My mother tells me I need to be more patient, she's probably right.  But instead I would rather people just shut the hell up.  If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't sit anywhere near me.





Just Finished: Bedded For Passion, Purchased For Pregnancy 
Just Finished: Black Silk 
Just Finished: Elizabeth's Wolf 
Currently Reading: F Is For Fugitive 
Currently Reading: Conspiracy In Death

Fat-Bottomed Girls You Make The Rockin' World Go Round

I am three days back from a 6 day stay in Antigua. 

I hung out with my mum and stuffed my face daily from the all-inclusive restaurant.  We drove, and beached, and met relatives, and got lost and got tanned.  Essentially, we touristed.

I tourist.
You tourist.
He / she / it tourists.

And we slept.  Man, did we sleep.  One day we got up, had breakfast, went to the beach for an hour, took a nap, had lunch, then sat in the back of a cab for three hours being driven around on a tour, took another nap, got up and had dinner, then went to sleep for the night.  Oh yeah, baby.  We slept.

Our room wasn't luxury, but it was completely comfortable.  Here's the view from my bed.

What you can't see is that between that patch of grass and that swathe of ocean is a tidy bit of beach.  It really was just that simple a matter of walking out of the room and wading into the ocean.

The best thing about the room, which my mother didn't seem to appreciate, and I didn't much think about one way or the other until I hit civilization again,  was that there was no TV, and no radio.  Just the sound of the waves hitting the shore.  (Oh, and the AC which mum insisted on having on 24/7)  And Lord, blessed, hallelujah - my Blackberry didn't work there either.  No texts.  No e-mails.  No phone calls. 

We could hear tree frogs every night singing to us.  During the day there was no canned laughter.  No whining about the political motives of this party or that.  No doom and gloom forecasts of how the economy / job market / church / world / you are going to hell.  Just, ocean.

The first TV I heard in the airport on the return trip was CNN talking heads, earning their shekels by predicting all of the above.  I wanted to stick my fingers in my ears and scream LA LA LA LA LA to escape it.  No wonder so many of us are on anti-depressants.  We can't turn around without some expert telling us how bad the world we live in is.

To my regret I only had one pure beach day.  And I got me a little tan.  Here's me on the beach. 

See that big round thang bouncing up and down in the distance?  That's all me.  I know many women who would be mortified of shots of themselves in a swimsuit -- especially shots from the rear.  But this image just makes me smile.

Look at that!  One healthy, working body, out there on the beach.  Hair blowing, knees moving, flesh jiggling.  It's a good thing.  I have known far too many people who would happily trade places with me in order to have all parts of themselves work like God intended, and damn the extra fat.  Hell, I know more than a few people who would love to have the extra pounds too, so I'm gonna celebrate mine and share it with the world.

The shots from the front aren't as enlivened.  Further, they show my face--and since I've been on the net ('93) I've made a conscious effort to keep both my face and real name off the web.  So you won't be seeing any of those shots.  But how could I resist sharing that juicy bodonkadonk with all the other real women out there? 

Here's where we had breakfast and lunch. 

Migrating birds from the States joined us for every meal, but they were tiny little finches, not big bruiser pigeons, so it was very clean.

And here's the view from that spot.  I stood just outside the deck area for exposure purposes. 

I swear, no retouching.  It looked just like that.

I'll stop now.  I know there's very little in the world more boring than other people's vacation photos.  But I had such a pleasant time I couldn't resist.  I hope you all had a wonderful week after Thanksgiving too.


 



Just Finished: The Lovely Bones 
Just Finished: When You Call My Name 
Just Finished: Dead Girls Are Easy 
Just Finished: His Perfect Match 
Just Finished: No Limits 
Just Finished: Hummingbird 
Currently Reading: F is For Fugitive

Quick one

Last week, Friday, I had an unexpected conversation with my mother that resulted in unexpected vacation plans for us both.

By tomorrow I will be here:

 

 Antigua

The image was shamelessly stolen from www.sailing-antigua.com, so if you're ever looking for a sailboat ride in the Leeward islands, please consider them.

I'll be gone for a week.  I'm taking my writing notebook and some books to read with me.  And my blackberry.  The laptop stays at home.

Wish me fun.  :-)

Dance the edge of sanity

I once wrote a college paper on schizophrenia called Dance The Edge of Sanity.  The paper got an A, but the professor tried to edit the title to Dancing The Edge of Sanity.  I guess she didn't appreciate my artistic integrity.  Nor was she a fan of the Indigo Girls.

I've been thinking recently about skill levels.  Those attained in both writing and in dancing.  I'm a West Coast Swing dancer.  I've been at it for about two and a half years.  I have no desire to earn a living at it, but I do know a number of pros who make their living teaching the dance and attending events.  They have a passion for WCS that I will never share.

They eat, live and breathe it.  All of their friends come from the community.  They are constantly sought after partners whenever they hit the dance floor.  I, however, just like to dance.  I've learned enough to enjoy myself, but I still feel like a beginner out there.  Mostly because I compare myself to those pros.  I compare myself to those who spend a lot of money on lessons, or have been practicing for over a decade, or are willing to put in the hours to make sure they become a "success" at this dance (whatever success means to them.)

External measurements of dance skill (aka judging) simply aren't that important to me.  I need it as a creative outlet.  But I don't much care if I'm never foot-perfect or achieve the label "Champion."  I do it because it feels so damned good to groove to the beat.  It's something I do for myself, and recently I've gotten feedback from my dance partners that my joy in dancing brings them joy too.

I tell them I'm a beginner because I still feel like one.  But they tell me, "No.  You're not."  I'm comparing myself to the pros.  They're comparing me to true beginners.

It feels the same with my writing now.  I've attended a number of writer-focused events recently.  And despite being unpublished (and unsubmitted, frankly) I've realized, I'm no longer a true beginner.  Unlike my dancing, I have put in the time in the past year to LEARN the craft of writing.  I have read, and read, and read.

I've read how successful authors do it.  I've read what sought-after agents expect.  I've read about editors' professional expectations, and most importantly, I've read books.  Books that show me how it's done.  Through all of that I have learned my craft, yet I know I still have a lot to learn.  But, when faced with the questions and expectations of a true beginner I wonder "how the hell can you not know that?"  Forgetting there was a time when I was just as clueless. 

Now, when I stand before a master of the craft, I am humbled.  I think I'll never be that skilled, that imaginative, that subtle.  And you know what?  Just like my dancing, I may never be, because just like my dancing, I don't PRACTICE my writing enough.  I know the basics.  Now I have to do them.  With my dancing, I am perfectly satisfied to sit back and let others enjoy the glory.  I have no agenda, and therefore don't feel the least bit compelled to work towards ephemeral "success."  With my writing, I'm going to be published, dammit.  That is my success line, that is the hurdle I will sail over.   I am going to grab that glory for myself.

A speaker I heard this past weekend said that of the 100 people who set out to write a book, only 10 will succeed in finishing it.  And of the 100 people who succeed in finishing a book, only 10 will follow the path to finding an agent or editor and seeking publication.  Of that number, guess how many succeed?  Your guess is as good as mine--I stopped listening and patted myself on the back for being in the 10% who actually finished their novel.  The point is, success can only be achieved by persistence, by practice, by sitting down and DOING IT. 

They say that to want to make a living as an author you have to be insane.  Well guess who's dancing the edge of sanity?

With that written.  I'm going out dancing.
 




Currently Reading: Night Play
Currently Reading: Ty's Temptation 
Currently Reading: F is For Fugitive 
Currently Reading: Genderflex

My secret adult love

I'm a girl.  I'm prone to girly things like pedicures and chocolate addition.  I have way too many hair care products and understand instinctively the need to swing my hips when I feel that tingle between my thighs in the presence of a beautiful man.

But one thing I've never really succumbed to in my girly existence is the movie star crush.  Like most girls out there I've enjoyed a good looking face attached to a well-cared for body.  My biggest teenaged crush was Greg Louganis.  *ahem*  Yeah.  The whole sexuality thing sort of evaded me back then.

I don't know what exactly I thought Greg and I were going to do together.  I was 12, and though not exactly naive, I just knew that if he ever met me, we'd be the best of friends and have lots of babies.  Woe betide anyone who told me he wouldn't be interested in the likes of me.  I think my mother was rather relieved at my taste in men.

Over the years I liked many more TV / movie stars, but no one else made it on to my wall after Greg.  I'd think of these stars with a smile.  I'd admire their looks and physiques as a kind of art.  Beautiful to look at, lovely to hold.  But my mind never took the next step towards assigning inner goodness (and therefore luuuuv) to that outward beauty.

Then came Mr Ewan McGregor.  It was many, many years later.  There was an extra element this time.  He sang.  The physical beauty was matched by something on the inside.  As crushes go, it was short-lived--even for a crush.  I was partly in love with his character from Moulin Rouge, I was partly in love with the packaging.  I knew I was being shallow even as I dreamed and lusted.  And the truth is, I was probably just in a receptive mood when I watched the movie, and all of my need for a hero was transferred on to his beautiful self.

But now, now... I've grown.  I'm an adult.  And now my crush means something.  It has surpassed the physical and reached a transcendent place of admiration.  Now it's about more than the character, it's about the man.  And that man is Mandy Patinkin. 

You've seen him in other places.  You probably remember him from The Princess Bride.  A character so consumed with revenge that he becomes a master swordsman, knowing that when opportunity strikes, he won't have to rely on luck to reach his ultimate goal. 
"Offer me money." 
"Yes." 
"Power too.  Promise me that" 
"All that I have and more. Please." 
"Offer me everything I ask for." 
"Anything you want." 
"I want my father back, you son of a bitch."

But I'm not talking about the young, passionate Mandy.  He was a caricature with clear motivations and goals.  No, I'm talking about the adult Mandy.  The complex, overdeveloped man who can smile at a murderer and befriend him because he knows that what he gains in the exchange, while it may tarnish his soul, is for the greater good of mankind. 

See, in my new place I have extended cable.  For the majority of Americans this is no big deal, but I had been living on Limited basic for many years, and all the things that others take for granted in their daily viewing was lost to me.  Now, however, I have access to daily marathons of Criminal Minds.

Criminal Minds, for the uninitiated, is another one of those FBI crime shows, where a team of good guys gets called in to stop the bad guy.  It's not ground-breaking, it's just well done.  The team of FBI good guys are called Profilers.  It is their job to show up and figure out what kind of person commits this kind of crime, and then help the locals use that information to track down said bad guy.

Mandy is one of the head profilers.  He's often stuck in the position of reasoning with and empathizing with the bad guy so they can find the hostage or bodies or whatever they need from an offender before they cart him off to jail.  Mandy plays it so well.  He is soft-voiced with melting compassionate eyes and the sweetest smile and somehow, he never loses his humanity, even while confronted by the lack of humanity in his interviewees.

His character loves art, and cooking.  He is self-controlled and private, the mythical shaman who, while seeming to remain untouched, absorbs all the negativity around him yet retains his serenity.  And he sings too!  Criminal Minds is one of the darkest of the crime dramas.  They don't hesitate to show the blood.  They call a murder a murder without celebrating the perpetrator.  They show how devastating a toll work like that takes on the people who do it.

Then, he was gone. 

In my investigation as to why the soul of the show and my newest crush abandoned Criminal Minds, I discovered lots of theories.  Primary among them was the idea that he was merely playing his Prima Donna card again, as he'd reputedly done in other projects.  But the theory that I believe, the one that spoke to me, said that the darkness of the show got to him and he couldn't handle it any more.

Something about that resonated in me.  He knew it's just pretend.  He knew he's being well-paid for his efforts.  He knew his reputation would take another hit for walking off the project, but he didn't care.  He had to protect his soul over and above any material gain.  That, to me, was heroic behaviour. 

He had a weight of expectations on him.  A prime-time show on a major network.  He had co-workers counting on him and he stuck it out for as long as he could.  But when it came right down to it, protecting his soul from the damage of exploring and inhabiting the gutters of human experience was more important than anything else.  Many people labeled his actions as selfish.  I see them as the strongest kind of heroics.  After all, character isn't about someone else's opinion, it's about doing what's best - regardless of what other's think. 

How many of us would have the courage to walk away from something that lucrative?  To do what's best for our soul in the face of overwhelming expectations?  Is it more heroic somehow to stick around and be emotionally and mentally filleted day after day when there's an exit door directly behind you?  He faced it as long as he could, then stood up and said Enough.  Effectively saving himself to fight another day. 

Any heroine worth her salt would stand behind her man, er, crush when he makes the grown up choice to walk away from the pain instead of pretending he doesn't care.  This heroine couldn't find a picture from "behind" Mandy, to simulate the experience, so Mr. Patinkin, if you ever want to provide me with an opportunity to support you in real life, just give me a call.






Just Finished:Undead and Uneasy 
Just Finished: Kiss of The Night 
Just Finished (skimmed): Coyote's Mate
Just Finished: Harm's Hunger 
Just Finished: Knightly Dreams 
Just Finished: Mine To Possess 
Currently Reading: Ty's Temptation 
Currently Reading: F is For Fugitive 
Currently Reading: Genderflex 
Currently Reading: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie

I miss Intimate Moments.

Silhouette Intimate Moments that is.

I read a book this morning that struck me in its dedication to character development.

I've been trying to NaNo, and after two days I was stymied by my lack of subplot.  My other books started with a vision.  Like a schizophrenic, I could see my character in front of me, crystal clear, at the beginning of the big changing moment in her life.  I knew who my heroine was, I knew what she was facing in that moment, and though the story wasn't written for me by any means, I had enough there to build a whole world.

In this book I started with a backstory.  She is the sister to my hero of Never A Bridesmaid.  We know what happened to her from the previous book, and though we don't know all of the details, we know enough to help inform her character.  I knew where I wanted to start this book for her.  She had to be in a place where she was ready to receive the love of her hero.  I had to create that crystal-clear, life-changing moment for her.

So even though I didn't have that crystalline image in my head, that picture of her in the exact crossroads where she could slide back into unhappiness or step forward with faith into her future, I still had enough of her to start the book.

But shit.  Okay, I've started the book, now where do I go?  Where's my subplot to go hand in hand with her emotional growth?

A lot of romance books I've read recently are more accurately labeled romantic suspense.  Someone is in jeopardy--usually the heroine--and there's a love story intertwined in there too.  There's a killer, or stalker, or other kind of psychotic out there trying to possess or endanger the heroine.  And the hero, with all his life-skill and badassedness is gonna stop him.  Romantic Suspense makes for a compelling read.  There's a built in page-turn going on there.  Is the bad guy gonna get her?  And if he does, how will the hero save her?

However for me, that's always a bit of a cheat.  It's a romance.  The hero and heroine are never going to die.  The bad guy is always going to be stopped.  It's why I don't actively seek out RS.  There's no real suspense there.  In fact, even the mysteries that I do read, unless they're single title (which they are not) have the same set up.  The lead detective of the series is going to live to solve another mystery, so I can never buy into any scenario where her life is in danger.  (Secondary characters are in a much more precarious situation and I do admit to biting my nails for them from time to time.)  But I'm a romance reader, I'm in it for the happy ending.  I'm not in it for the murder mystery. 

In the development of any romantic mystery something is usually sacrificed (for word count), and that sacrifice is usually in the character development, in the emotional connection.  The sitting down and talking it out, the happy non-adrenaline-infused moments are what really allow the reader to believe in a true HEA.  The couple that can talk out their problems (not just kill them) is the couple that's going to last.

So now I'm looking for a subplot for my NaNo book, and I know without a doubt the emotional growth my heroine needs to experience.  I know what holes in her character need to be shored up by the love of her hero.  But none of this will be served by the traditional life-in-danger trope.  And more than that, how many of us can really relate to that level of stress and fear?  How many of us have been the objects of a serial killer's obsession?  How many of us have been stalked by a psycho who leaves clues in our mailbox, and whose actions have left room and time for police presence?

In comparison the book I read this morning was much more relatable.  The hero had made mistakes in his past that he was working to overcome.  He was also working to overcome things that are a lot closer to home for most of us - familial disapproval, community judgement, personal disappointment in the way he's lead his life.  The heroine is struggling with the same things, but from a different perspective; and recognition of that similar struggle in each other is where they find their connection.  Watching them admit their personal lacerations and how they've been scarred by them is what brings us into a deep understanding of these characters, and also what lets us know that they have enough faith and trust in each other to weather the roughest of life's storms.

In my subplot search I had forgotten that vitality and that page-turning quality can be created from simple emotions.  No one has to be planning a betrayal.  No one has to be behind the door with a glinting knife.  The simplest Will She or Won't She set up of trusting in love is enough to keep the reader glued to the page.  It's something we used to get all the time in Silhouette Intimate Moments, and it's something I miss.





Just Finished: The Road To Adventure 
Just Finished: Rogue's Reform

PSA

Please note; The word KERFUFFLE only has one L in it.  A single L.  Locate it.  Learn it.  Love it.

The second half of today's PSA relates to the sympathetic character.

I started a book at the beginning of the week that I don't think I'll name because I don't think I'm going to finish it.  Why? because I just don't care about the heroine.  Or the hero, even. We're romance readers and writers on this small blog.  We are used to our H & H being larger than life.  We have gotten used to them having transcendent beauty, and, at least in the heroes, we're used to them having slightly more money than God.

As mere mortals, we generally find their lives enviable, but we still wouldn't want to be them because with Mo' Money, Mo Problems.  Even so, we love these guys and gals.  Our soul aches and our heart breaks for them... our eyeballs go dry for the love of them.

Unless we can't stand them.

So, this book I can't bring myself to finish... *sigh*  We have the amazingly, stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful woman who has a vice or two.  Her vices are greed and vanity, oh yeah, and pride.  And then there's that bit about thinking she should get a pass on breaking the law because things haven't gone well for her.  And all men should fall for her, because she's so hot, and she knows it.

And though she's broke as a joke, she won't confide in her loaded family because--even though they've never treated her as less than--she feels like an outsider.  But she's only broke because of making idiotic financial decisions based on greed.  The Feds are after her for insider trading, and she feels persecuted because, you know, she's so hot, and the female investigator is just jealous.  And why isn't the hero wrapped around her finger like she needs him to be - doesn't he know she's hot?

And let's talk about our hero for a second.  He thinks she's hot.  But, you know, he's rich and successful and has had groupies throwing themselves at his hot self for years, so he can resist.  Even so, she's the most beautiful of the beautiful women he's ever known.  Therefore, of course, she is not to be trusted. 

*rolls eyes*  I got about seven chapters in before I just couldn't turn another page.

Beauty is good.  Inner beauty is better.  Vice is fine, TSTHOW (too shallow to hang out with) is not.  Confidence has its place, but humility is more attractive.  Oh yeah, and don't expect your readers to be sympathetic to a character who puts her own security in jeopardy out of greed, breaks the law while doing so, is caught, and thinks she should get off scott free.
 
When you're a new author "they" tell you to read.  Read everything.  Read the good and the bad.  Examine it all.  Learn what makes the good, good, and how to emulate it.  Learn what makes the bad, bad, and though you won't be able to do so entirely, try to avoid it.

I've read craft books, and countless blog posts on writing.  I've read thousands of books, both good and bad.  I have, I daresay, a bit of an instinct about how and why a book isn't working, though I still can't always identify the elusive IT that makes a good piece of writing work.

I know in the past I would have continued to read this book--especially after having invested seven chapters to the cause--but not this time.  There was nothing more to learn from my foray between the pages of her writing effort.  The writing was fine.  Lively even.  The plot, I'm sure would have gone somewhere eventually.  But those damned characters.  I'm sorry, I just can't give a rip for the poor blonde bombshell who broke the law but is still living in style with her rich family and wants a free pass on breaking the law while she's so harassed by the rich, gorgeous hero who hasn't done anything to her except keep his pants zipped.

I have learned all I needed to know from that book.  Keep your characters sympathetic.



In other news, I'm a maroon (deliberate misspelling of "moron" based on my deep and abiding love of Bugs Bunny).

Early this year, I learned that I have a very difficult time writing daily.  I can think about my story daily, mentally plot, learn my characters, etc. ...all of the other internal work that goes along with writing a book.  But sitting down and writing daily is something my mind balks at; the creative well needs time to re-fill.

Two to three good writing sessions a week can provide me with many workable pages.  Trying to force it provides me with a pitiful amount of pages.  I'll be back on the NaNo horse tomorrow after two days off.  I can feel the words bubbling up inside me. 





Just Finished: Shattered Dreams 
Currently reading: Heather's Gift 
Currently reading: Dance With The Devil

So Phoenix doesn't seem to fit my blogging lifestyle...

I wonder what that's all about?

I've done just as little here as I ever used to do in Tucson, I just feel like I'm doing it in a cooler place.  Meanwhile, I haven't said a thing on here in almost a month (aka 3 weeks).

Quite honestly, I expected to be a tad overwhelmed mentally by Phoenix.  I thought the freeways would cow me into submission.  I thought the hustle and bustle of it all would drain my brain and the never-ending city block after city block would leave me longing for some wilderness.  That hasn't happened.

Phoenix uses an irrigation system that keeps it a lot greener than Tucson ever was.  I feel like a wastrel seeing so much green grass and trees in the heart of the desert, but it feeds something inside me that I used to have to leave Tucson to get.  That sense of nature, that connection to the growing and living world.  Of course, it's all artificial here.  It's not like living in a place where it, say, rains... but it's good. 

In Tucson I had a totally different appreciation for nature.  Tucson is the sort of place where you have to appreciate nature or it will kill you.  That's how it is.  The insects will try and kill you, the reptiles, some mammals (two-legged ones too), and yes, even the plants will try and kill you.  As will the sun.  You learn to respect and celebrate life in all its forms there, because surviving is so hard outside of an air-conditioned home and without running water.

Phoenix is much bigger than Tucson geographically but, like most big cities, it's really a collection of smaller cities bound together by common weather and a freeway system.  But it doesn't feel like that.  At least not to me, not yet.  I moved to a kinda ritzy area called Scottsdale.  I'm like, five minutes from downtown, my quiet little condo is halfway between two main drags and I can get most everywhere I need to go just by taking the surface streets.  I've only hit the freeway two or three times since getting here.  I feel like I live in a small town with unlimited access to a big city and all it has to offer.  It's kinda cool - except I'm having a hell of a time finding an all-night grocery store out here.

I'm still looking for a roommate.  It's such a buyer's market it's hard to get a response, but I keep plugging along because 1/ the landlord needs to fill that second room, and 2/ I wanna save on my utility costs.  So we continue looking, but I'm not having much luck.  If you know someone who lives here and wants to move to Old Town Scottsdale and live with a Cool Chick while we trade witticisms and watch Criminal Minds marathons let me know.  (It's a no benefits kind of situation for any eager pervs out there.)

Maybe one of the reasons I haven't been blogging much is because I'm so far behind on my Google Reader.  2 days of No Internet Access while I moved from Tucson up here and waited for Phoenix Chicks to get the hell out of my way.  Followed by 5 more days of No Internet Access while I waited for Phoenix Chicks to cancel their service so Cox would hook up mine.  (Really, Phoenix Chicks? Really??) and then 4 more days of No Laptop after I tripped on my cord and broke it and had to wait for the replacement to come in from Amazon while I prayed that was the only thing broken. 

Add to those hardware interferences the fact that I was unpacking (no, I'm not finished yet, get off my back!), and learning where things are in my new city, and hanging out with my new, cool writer / blogger friend. Hey Gurl!!  And, of course, reading too.  Oh, I also finished crocheting a blanket and started another one too.  All combined, I'm now 488 posts behind on my Reader.

The nice thing is though, I don't totally miss it when I don't have access.  I'm happy to spend time catching up, but I'm able to walk away from the blogs a lot more readily.  This is progress.  I've learned SO MUCH from the writer and reviewer and editor and agent blogs.  Culling new gems of crazy-useful information is becoming a more rare experience, therefore I don't feel as if I'm getting as much return for my time spent.  Instead I can and will spend that time writing now.

So said: I started NaNoWriMo.
Eeps!

Today's progress: 1021 words

If the blogging gods call to me, I'll let you know how it's going.  If they don't, you'll see my NaNoWriMo progress tick up on the counter to the right daily.  If any of y'all wanna join me in supporting each other through this torturous endeavor, drop me a line and we'll get our writer groove on together.





Just Finished: Holiday in Death 
Just Finished: Dark Slayer 
Just Finished: Night Pleasures 
Just Finished: Awaken My Love 
Just Finished: All Together Dead 
Just Finished: Someone To Watch Over Me 
Just Finished: Divorced, Desperate and Delicious 
Just Finished: Torn 
Currently Reading: Night Embrace 
Currently Reading: Heather's Gift